Hopefully Franklin's takeway from this is that one should never make suggestions ironically because some incompetent twit will think it's a good idea and implement it.

Your solution doesn't go far enough! We should all switch to UNIX epoch time and refer to time in seconds from Midnight, Jan 1, 1970, GMT. I know POSIX specifies UTC, but they don't track leap seconds so they're just confusing everyone and can therefore fuck right off. Then at last there will be no relationship to the celestial spheres that drove the creation of Time to begin with! If you really need your antique ("Wahh how do I know when lunch time is?") you can just modulo the time by 86400 to get the number of seconds since midnight, divide your longitude by 15, multiply that by 3600 and add the result to the number of seconds since midnight and if you're somewhere close to 43200, you're getting close to lunch time. Or ask Apple to put that number under the main time display on your smart watch. Der!

I actually ran across a story about it on Google news that tied the mailing to the Democratic party. They're apparently targeting registered Democrats that they consider to be reliably Democratic voters who are not so reliable about getting out to vote. I reckon they're probably desperate to get out the vote, which is key to them holding the Senate this year. There was some concern the tactic could backfire. This is clearly a far too simplistic tactic for the Republicans. They would have just sent out a vaguely threatening letter, and then blamed the Democrats (heh heh heh.)

Of course, now we know how Timothy*cough* I mean... An "Anonymous Reader" leans in the elections, don't we?

I've never balanced taxes. Is this a new thing?

Oh, you mean balance checkbooks and pay taxes. There's much better software to do that these days.

And there are much better ways to teach programming. For a very long time there has been a movement to bring programming to the masses, as if, somehow, everyone would be able to write beautiful, intricate code to solve their most complex problems. Most people can barely match their clothing (note to the reading-impaired: that was hyperbole); why should we expect them to be able to write code?

Writing programs requires clear, linear thought. It requires thinking in terms of structures and systems. The push in the greater population has been toward valuing non-linear thought (although that baffles me), so there's a big mismatch to overcome. Yes, there are plenty of graphical programming languages that reduce the need for precise syntax, but they only REDUCE it, not eliminate it, and they still require procedural thinking which, ultimately, presents an insurmountable difficulty for many people.

Not everyone can or should be a programmer: Not everyone is a writer, Not everyone is a photographer, Not everyone is a painter. Sure, everyone should be given basic skills in writing, and perhaps in drawing or painting as a child, and so perhaps everyone should be given basic skills in programming, but beyond that, why? Not everyone is able to understand calculus; why should we automatically expect that everyone should be able to write Java, Python, or whathaveyou?

I worked on testing with Jmeter a while back and Hypercard sounds pretty similar to it. It basically just holds a tree of mementos, which it serializes to XML for storage. They've more or less implemented an entire visual programming language with branching and looping, database and web page access. It's also easy enough to add new functionality to it by implementing a new java class.

The problems are that all variables are global and there's not a good way to create a function for it. It's not designed as a visual programming language but as a simple way to put together a bunch of simple tests that don't need to reuse a lot between them. If you want to share the code that logs into your web page every time, the easiest way to do that is cut and paste. Then you have to change 80 copies of it if you ever update that code. They were working on improving that situation last time I looked at it. You wouldn't ever want to use it to accomplish work in a production environment, but you probably would never want to use Hypercard to accomplish work in a production environment. Some people probably DID do that, but you wouldn't want to.

The problem with creating something like Hypercard is that it's very hard to hit that sweet spot where it's easy enough for non-programmers to use while being powerful (and secure) enough to be useful. Whenever people get their hands on something like that, they tend to start working around its deficiencies to accomplish their goals. You end up spending more time working around the deficiencies in the environment than you would have if you'd just written the application in a real programming language to begin with. There was quite a lot of THAT going on in the late 80s early 90s, too.

You can do it only in the neighborhoods that lean in your direction, or to voters who are affiliated with the party you want to see win. Naturally you wouldn't harass the other side to vote. If you register as an independent, no one's likely to bother you, since they're not sure which way you'll go.

Rocket science is hard. We've kind of been taking it for granted that it's not so hard to get your ass into orbit, lately. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.

Is it generating any buzz over at r/bezels?

Lick every doorknob in the building.

I always have my appointment book with me in my briefcase, right next to my laptop and phone. When I'm in my office, it's open in front of me. The only time that it isn't nearby is when I've intentionally left it aside.

My scheduling isn't as interdependent as yours. Meeting times are negotiated via email. My schedule has only 2-3 meetings per week, and most of the entries in my book are for allocation of time to work on one project or another. Perhaps it also helps that I'm the boss.

Use the right tool for the job -- for your application, the best tool appears to be electronic. Not so for mine.

Pen and paper have some very serious advantages that should not be overlooked when distracted by the new and shiny. Use the right tool for the job.

Personally, I keep my appointment book with paper and pencil. I can access it anywhere, at any time, whether or not I remembered to bring a charger, whether I'm on a plane or in a meeting (and in a meeting, no one can accuse me of playing with my phone instead of paying attention). I also keep a personal journal in acid-free paper and fade-resistant ink so that my grandchildren can enjoy learning about me when I'm long dead and hold a cherished physical object that I held, just as I have enjoyed learning about my grandmother decades after she passed away, and cherish being able to touch something she touched.

But, the right tool for the job also means that I do most of my writing electronically, often switching between multiple virtual desktops. I keep my phone book electronically (although I do periodically dump to printed paper for disaster recovery). My most recent publication will only be made available in an electronic version.

New does not automatically mean better. Use the right tool for the job.

Someone's gonna wake up tomorrow with a computer monitor in their bed :-P

Those guys are still around? I thought they were all eaten by dinosaurs. How many times have they gone bankrupt now?

Higher quality here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Seems to explain the effect where a little knowledge in a field appears to make one reckless and dangerous, whereas deeper knowledge makes one cautious.