I've knows some programmers who are awesome guitarists. They know the lingo, have awesome memory, both for syntax and the workings of their own code, and can type really fast and pound out working code quickly.

But the songs they write are mediocre. That is, they do things the hard way, they create functional but unintuitive interfaces (and APIs), they make organizations dependent on fly-by-night technologies, they meet stated objectives but can't fill in the blanks where users don't know what to ask for, and nothing they create is every attractive or compelling to users.

To be a rock star, somebody in the band has to compose awesome music. That is, somebody on the team has to know how to solve the right problems.

...what's considered normal in your social circles is contagious. Just like fat friends can make you fat. If your friends are poor managers of their money then you don't feel so bad about being a poor manager of your own money.

They watch youtube videos while the boss isn't at his desk, which is often, so the sound is on. I didn't even know youtube had video ads.

Anyway, I'm hoping the facebook ads are unexpected, full-screen and loud, so they'll be caught with the sound still on and be embarrassed to be on facebook all day.

It'd be even better if they were adult enough to recognize that the company can not dedicate the entire room as an all-day nattering zone, but that's just crazy-talk.

This will serve as an announcement for when my co-workers are screwing off on facebook rather than doing their work. Maybe if they can't read facebook all day they'll also not find a constant stream of shit to chat about.

I like this video ad idea. Make it nice and loud, please. Full-screen and flashing.

Awesome.

Yes, because computer skills are the measure of human intelligence. Fuck everyone who doesn't know what I know; they're stupid.

Way OT but I'm really sick of this...

A script on the fsdn domain is causing command-click on links to load both the new tab and the original tab with the destination URL. Both firefox and safari.

Every single google image search result shows the display part in front of the eye, or so close above it you can't fail to focus on it when you look at someone wearing it, and the opaque part is close enough it will be an obstruction until you have the person's attention and they are looking right at you.

This new project puts the HUD projector behind the glass, to the right of the face. It will hopefully be less intrusive to the way humans normally interact face-to-face.

A human-factors thing that Google apparently didn't consider is that when you look someone in the eye you are almost always looking at them in the right eye. Even dogs know to look humans in the right eye (see PBS Nova episode "Dogs Decoded"). With Google Glass, the right eye is partially obscured by a camera/display, which is impossible to ignore.

These things look like the camera/display is more out-of-the-way. It may still be impossible to ignore if it's visible behind the glass, but it's got to be better than Google Glass.

It is, but every time I see a geeky community define who is and is not welcome by openly ridiculing conservatives, theists and everyone who enjoys mainstream things (the combination excludes most of their own culture), I, too, see "people working to make things worse." I do think you should spend your money on things that you value and not spend money on things that work against your values, but when you get upset with (or ridicule) people who don't share your values you have injured both yourself, by limiting your options and your appeal to most of your own society, and your cause, by making it unpalatable to people you'd like to convince.

People who shouldn't quit their day job don't generally get published. They don't reject all the shite, but agents and publishers currently do the vetting. Without them, someone else will have to do it, because there will be no market at all for books if only people with too much time on their hands can afford the time to find good books among the self-published.

My prediction is that if publishers disappear, Amazon will start "featuring" things they think won't frustrate their customers, and it will be as good a vetting as will be available so people will rely on it, and the idealistic will still bemoan the unfairness and cost of it. And we'll all be worse off because they won't be as good at it as publishers are.

...and it's impossible to know if a "book" is total shite, hyped by phony reviews. The cost of a book will be not an hour's wage, but multiple hours trial and error.

Yeah, can't wait.

How often do you actually do that?

But someone else does that for you. And with Calibre, you can do it yourself.

But you usually get it for less than the cost of the physical book, so you already took the price break of selling it later, up front.

Except a phone or a tablet or a computer.

And here are some things you can do with a Kindle eBook that you can't do with a physical book:

Own 4700 of them without taking up any shelf space or having to move heavy boxes.
Take 4700 of them with you on vacation.
Carry 4700 of them with you in your backpack.
Have one delivered to you a minute after deciding you want it.
Gain immediate access to a book you forgot to bring with you. Even if you didn't bring your Kindle.
Have it delivered without a gas-guzzling truck pulling up to your door and a package to dispose of.
Do a word search.
Make highlights and have electronic access to the parts you've highlighted.

I, too, would like them to be cheaper, but they aren't directly comparable to physical books. Things change. Progress is made.

Programmers fear incompetence because they see it everywhere, even where it is not. They just don't recognize the value of thinking that isn't exactly like their own, or skills they don't have. So, this one applies to many, but to programmers more than anyone.

Programmers fear screwing up because they are in the business of automation. They can screw up many things all at once. Complete failure over a trivial error, because computers don't have common sense to ask, "are you sure you meant to do that?", or, "what does this mean?". This one also applies to anyone building something that can injure people, but not to most other people. Most people can only screw up one thing at a time, or have people receiving the product of their work, who can sanity check it.

You didn't mention engineering software licenses. Those can be ridiculously expensive.

But if you are spending the bulk of 8% of your *engineering* budget on computing hardware, then yes, you probably are spending too much.

Agreed. Detroit area and it rarely happens. I think the problem is over-blown by people who so can't stand to be inconvenienced by the presence of other people that they lose perspective.