The Vent and Rant Thread

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by wodin

We had a meeting at the local Veteran's Center Saturday night and came across a cardboard box containing a dish of Cheerios and THIS:
Attachment 145818Attachment 145819

I guess I need to give whoever abandoned them a little credit, at least they tried, but CHEERIOS?

At any rate, we took them home.

We stopped a Walmart for kitten formula, and were able to get a little into them. They're about ready to wean so we also got some Salmon pate, which when mixed with some milk they scoffed down; the grey and white more so than the tabby.

After a $170 trip to the Vet yesterday they were declared moderately healthy except for the tabby having a cold and a lacerated eyelid and cornea.

ARRRGH! We already have three cats and two dogs, so far their names are four and five, but we don't know which is which. Anybody want a kitty?

Bless you for it. I know what you mean--we've had housefuls, our own selves, come by in similar (although: CHEERIOS, for the love of God?) circumstances. You are earning brownie points with the cosmos--and with your friends here at MR.

Hitch

[Katsunami]

"You don't need to study that. Everything can be found on the internet."
"You can just download a plugin or copy paste some code."
"There can't be any bugs. This is an official library."
"Oh, but this is very simple. You just use..."

As discussed before, people who have no knowledge of software engineering assume everything ever needed can be found on, or copy/pasted from the internet, and all software ever written by a big company is without bugs.

Sometimes I think I should have studied archaeology. At least dead things don't change, they don't argue, and I *know* there will be bugs in them.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

"You don't need to study that. Everything can be found on the internet."
"You can just download a plugin or copy paste some code."
"There can't be any bugs. This is an official library."
"Oh, but this is very simple. You just use..."

As discussed before, people who have no knowledge of software engineering assume everything ever needed can be found on, or copy/pasted from the internet, and all software ever written by a big company is without bugs.

Sometimes I think I should have studied archaeology. At least dead things don't change, they don't argue, and I *know* there will be bugs in them.

Programming is like flying the Blackbird...

The better you are, the less people notice you...

[cromag]

My wife's car is now about halfway shoveled out of the snowbank.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I'm sorry for your loss, Dennis, I truly am.

Dave reminds me a bit of the late Harry Stubbs, better known to the SF field as Hal Clement (a Grandmaster of SFWA). Harry was taken from us a few years back, by complications of diabetes. (The last time I saw him, he was walking with a cane, because he'd broken a foot and due to the neuropathy that's a diabetes symptom, wasn't aware he had till after the fact.) Harry described himself as an SF fan who happened to write the stuff, and used the money from his writing to pay for attending SF conventions. (He was a private school science teacher for a living.) I think I first met Harry at the first SF con I attended in 1968, and I can count the ones where I didn't see him far more easily than those where I did. The idea of going to a con and not seeing Harry is something I still haven't quite internalized.

Dave is in the same company. He loved attending SF gatherings, sometimes representing his employer and sometimes just on his own. He was always a pleasure to see and speak to, and I was honored to call him a friend. I'm still struggling with the notion I won't see him at the next con I attend, and so is everyone else we knew in common.

Someone elsewhere commented that he help dozens of authors, knew everyone in the field, and had the history of the field in his head or his collection. That's accurate. An era is passing with him.

The funeral is in MA, but Tor plans a memorial in NYC I plan to attend.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

"You don't need to study that. Everything can be found on the internet."
"You can just download a plugin or copy paste some code."
"There can't be any bugs. This is an official library."
"Oh, but this is very simple. You just use..."

As discussed before, people who have no knowledge of software engineering assume everything ever needed can be found on, or copy/pasted from the internet, and all software ever written by a big company is without bugs.

You need to relax with the Bastard Operator from Hell: http://bofh.ntk.net/BOFH/

Sometimes I think I should have studied archaeology. At least dead things don't change, they don't argue, and I *know* there will be bugs in them.

An old friend is a QA engineer. He once said "You know what the difference is between a software developer and a QA Engineer? The developer assumes the code will work. The QA Engineer assumes it will fail!" He was right in his definition, and his assumption.

(Of course, making it fail, and documenting how and why it did is what he got paid for, so he could cite lots of supporting evidence.)
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I have family in western central Jersey (think about 15 mins. east of New Hope, PA). They just called, and the snow in their driveway, and in the shared community parking (townhouse development) is up over the door handles on their cars. They are in a cul-de-sac, too, about...2 miles off the nearest highway/avenue/possible road that will get plowed anytime soon.

Gadzooks!

I'm in NYC. We got two to three feet, depending upon exactly what area you are in.

The MTA shut down bus service at 4PM on the day of the blizzard, and private, non-emergency traffic was banned not long after. I believe subways were still running in Manhattan where they run underground, though with significant delays, but I don't believe that were running in the other boroughs where they run above ground.

At one point that night, I stepped outside. People outside were walking in the streets (which the City was trying to keep plowed) instead of on the sidewalks out of necessity. I encountered a pair of young women, who were obviously several sheets to the wind. "Where are we?" I told them. "No way!". "Yes, you are. See the street sign?" "We're trying to get home!" "Where's home?" They told me, and I pointed North. "It's about 60 blocks that way, and to the West. Good luck!" I recommended the subway, which was still running, as the best way to get there. I pointed in the direction of the nearest stop, and of course, they went the opposite way. I probably should have taken each by a hand and dragged (er, led) them to the entrance, but I needed to get back inside.

Some folks obviously celebrated a little too enthusiastically at snow parties...
______
Dennis

[Rumpelteazer]

Getting annoying with my cold; it's the twelfth day since it started and I'm feeling well again, except for the annoying little cough. It feels like there's a bit of water/fluid at the back of my throat, but I can't cough it away. I can not not cough. At the end of the afternoon I start getting a headache and sore rib from coughing/trying not to cough.

[Hitch]

Hi, Gang:

We have this client, for whom we've done a few books. A few years back, we did a book for him about a "journey" he made with his dog, who became ill, and, of course, passed. It was a sweet book; probably not Pulitzer material, but, hey. Anyway, I got this email from him today:

Just a quick note to tell you something I found interesting just now. The past two days I've been doing updates to my blogs as I finally have some time between tech writing assignments. In any event, while working on [his website] just now, the site for my book [NAME OF BOOK], I found that the link to the page for the book on the Apple iBookstore was broken, so I went out to that site (and to iTunes) to search on the title, figuring perhaps they make a page change. Uh, no, they didn't do that, they just removed the book from their site, but without any notice whatsoever. Yeah, I know the book hardly sold on that site, but geez, what jerks they are. If I knew what I know today, I would have never spent the time and money to get "accepted" into the iBookstore. What a-holes.

I mean...really??? They're kidding, right? They take EVERY SORT of imaginable dreck, from Smashwords, not to mention direct uploads, and they remove THIS guy's book? Sure, it wasn't the next Great American Novel. He's not Tom Wolfe. But he's not dreadful, either. (And brothers and sisters, I know dreadful, trust me.) It's a sweet little story. It's not like some of the self-pubbed garbage we see. It's not rife with horrible grammar, incoherent sentences and the like. It's not one of those books that will get the Amazon Scarlet Letter assigned to it. It's a nice, little self-pubbed book, on a topic that a lot of people like to read about, at least on Amazon.

He's right. What A$$HOLES they are. It's so typically Apple--they don't even notify him. They don't tell him why; they just DO it, and tough if you don't like it, publisher.

I told him to Google and it and ask around; if they're doing this, it won't be in a vacuum. JERKS. On my client's behalf,

Hitch

[cromag]

The plow made its long awaited second pass last night. Now the plowed path is wide enough for two cars to pass ... carefully.

But all that dense, heavy, ice slush had to go somewhere and the plow driver apparently decided that a good place to put it would be directly in front of my mailbox. The pile is more than 4 feet high, extends ten feet into the street, and is frozen solid.

I don't remember ever doing anything to p*ss him off!

[CRussel]

I couldn't agree more, Hitch. One of many reasons I won't buy books (or anything else) from the Apple store. Yes, I have an iPhone. Legacy from when they were the best out there, especially how well they worked with Exchange. But I'm about due for a new phone, and I seriously doubt it will be another iPhone. I really don't like dealing with Apple at all.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I couldn't agree more, Hitch. One of many reasons I won't buy books (or anything else) from the Apple store. Yes, I have an iPhone. Legacy from when they were the best out there, especially how well they worked with Exchange. But I'm about due for a new phone, and I seriously doubt it will be another iPhone. I really don't like dealing with Apple at all.

Well, I haven't been an Apple fan, well...ever. Of course, I don't really like cars that are enormously popular, either. I just have never liked "me, too-ing." But once I was made aware of their cavalier attitude toward their customers, regarding hardware and software, they definitely went on my "do not fly" list. But this? This is just...beyond rude. It's unprofessional.

@cromag:

Yowza! Somebody definitely doesn't want you getting to your mail, boyo!

Also, sweetie, I should say, in public, that not EVERYTHING published on Smashwords is dreck. It isn't. I should have clarified that in my previous rant-y post about my poor client.

I just lost my mind and behaved like a . (Whatever that is. I've always wanted to use it in a post, <snort>). So, for those of you Smashworders, my SINCERE apologies. I trust you all knew what I meant, but, nonetheless, I should have been clearer.


Hitch

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Programming is like flying the Blackbird...

The better you are, the less people notice you...

Indeed. If I do what I should be doing, I write software no-one ever sees. I often even say: "If you start noticing my work, it wasn't done right." It's embedded stuff inside machinery, or embedded software running on Linux. It's quite complex sometimes, but the user interfaces are mostly simple, thus people think the software is simple as well.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

You need to relax with the Bastard Operator from Hell: http://bofh.ntk.net/BOFH/

I've read that stuff a long time ago. Non-IT people are lusers

The one thing that always stuck to me was:

*Luser nagging for more space on the network drive*

"There. You now have 4 MB of space."
- "Cool, so you upgraded my account to 8 MB?"
"I said: You now have 4 MB of space."
- "Huh? I don't underst..."

*hangs up phone*

"It'll come to him." (*hear evil laughter*)

An old friend is a QA engineer. He once said "You know what the difference is between a software developer and a QA Engineer? The developer assumes the code will work. The QA Engineer assumes it will fail!" He was right in his definition, and his assumption.

(Of course, making it fail, and documenting how and why it did is what he got paid for, so he could cite lots of supporting evidence.)
______
Dennis

I'm my own QA. If you assume your code works, you're a bad developer; IMHO. I *always* assume my code doesn't work. That's the reason why implementing error handling and testing everything is easily 50-60% of the work I do.

I just get irked when people seeom to think that writing a new function within a program is the same as swapping a tire on a car. "Why would you need to test that? If you do everything correctly it should just work."

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Indeed. If I do what I should be doing, I write software no-one ever sees. I often even say: "If you start noticing my work, it wasn't done right." It's embedded stuff inside machinery, or embedded software running on Linux. It's quite complex sometimes, but the user interfaces are mostly simple, thus people think the software is simple as well.

The simpler the UI, the more complex the back end. Period.

Hitch