Dr Wingnut

Category: Computer

  • Error prevention

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    Dr Wingnut
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    For all systems, we must, as computer professionals, protect users from their own errors, intercept all detectable errors, and give informative warnings when we believe the user might have made an error.  The “she made and error and must take responsibility” defense is too simple.  We need systems that work in collaboration with the user…

  • Off the Record: How to keep servers moist

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    Servers and water do not a good pair make, but not all CFOs know that.  This one in particular downgraded the server room with good old standard sprinklers. Read on: Off the recordvia email from InfoWorld Daily

  • Error message

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    Dr Wingnut
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    Shut ‘Er Down Clancy, She’s Pumping Mud!Stu Barrett of the Texas Instruments 990 development teamReminds me of the time during a development in 2000-2001 that we named an exception level “Janice” — in homage to the Friends character Janice Litman — who used to always say, “Oh!  My!  God!”, whenever she entered a room.  It…

  • Full of features

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    Dr Wingnut
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    On the Fifth of February I overheard one of the the other project managers, Craig, say the following, “That’s not a bug, that’s a feature.”A ripple of laughter cascaded through the cubical farm.I went to Doug, a developer working on my project and said, “If that’s true, then CLiCS is riddled with more features than…

  • Sierra Bravo’s F1 Overnight Website Challenge

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    Turning it up to eleven!  The Sierra-Bravo website challenge to construct sites for non-profits in the Twin-Cities started today.  I plan to go check it out, and to go to the presentations of the sites tomorrow afternoon.This is a really great idea, and I love the graphic they added when they went from ten to…

  • I’ve been beta-maxxed

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    Dr Wingnut
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    This week my new HD-DVD player from Toshiba, that I bought earlier this month, was dropped from many retailers, effectively killing the format.  Today InformationWeek daily had this quote:Most people are happy just buying a better DVD player, instead of spending $350 or $400 for Blu-ray.Mike AbtIt’s too bad, because that’s exactly why I bought…

  • Code monkeys throwing their turds around

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    Dr Wingnut
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    There never has been, nor will there ever be, any language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad code.Donald Knuth