Why are we still seeing mispellings (<-) in written works?
I just finished reading an awesome book entitled "Implementing Lean Software Development" by Mary and Tom Poppendieck. They preach some of the best practices in lean agile development for eliminating wasteful processes and eliminating mistakes. Yet on page 231 the word "manager" is spelled "manger". Manger is a word for a box that a horse or cow eats out of. I just wonder in this day and age how a publisher let this mistake go to print? Are they not using spelling and grammar checking tools? If they are, the software needs to be refactored to produce correct results. Maybe the publishers should read and incorporate the lessons from there own book!
Monday, September 28, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Bike Stealing by Victims of Stolen Bikes
I've lived in Marina Del Rey for about 10 years and have had 3 bikes stolen to date. My neighbors have had their bikes stolen at one time. In the local newspaper there are always reports of bikes stolen. Who's stealing our bikes?
I was talking with a colleague about this yesterday and she told me about a study/sting operation (still confirming) conducted by the University of Santa Barbara (USB). According to her, they setup cameras where bikes tend to get stolen.
The big surprise was that the bikes were not being stolen by one or two individuals but by several people who've had their own bikes stolen. Somehow they had justified in their heads that it was alright to steal a bike because they were also victims of bike thievery.
Mind boggling if true.
What if the very first person "thought" they had their bike stolen and had actually misplaced it. Thinking they were a victim, they decided to steal someone else's bike and thus bike thievery was born.
Assuming the USB story is true, can an individual start a mental process today that will cause the next person to do the same and the next and so on? What subprocesses are in play now in our heads that are the result of someone else's actions.
Very interesting.
I've lived in Marina Del Rey for about 10 years and have had 3 bikes stolen to date. My neighbors have had their bikes stolen at one time. In the local newspaper there are always reports of bikes stolen. Who's stealing our bikes?
I was talking with a colleague about this yesterday and she told me about a study/sting operation (still confirming) conducted by the University of Santa Barbara (USB). According to her, they setup cameras where bikes tend to get stolen.
The big surprise was that the bikes were not being stolen by one or two individuals but by several people who've had their own bikes stolen. Somehow they had justified in their heads that it was alright to steal a bike because they were also victims of bike thievery.
Mind boggling if true.
What if the very first person "thought" they had their bike stolen and had actually misplaced it. Thinking they were a victim, they decided to steal someone else's bike and thus bike thievery was born.
Assuming the USB story is true, can an individual start a mental process today that will cause the next person to do the same and the next and so on? What subprocesses are in play now in our heads that are the result of someone else's actions.
Very interesting.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
That's the number 1 and not the letter l
The confusion is everywhere.
Its in passwords, serial #s and unfortunately in software.
I'm talking about the confusion between the letter O and the number 0 as well as the letter l and the number 1.
Time and time again I think we all run into this.
So whenever i'm helping someone setup an account with passwords i'll tell them to stay away from these alphanumerics, or else i'll let them know to annotate with something like (<- that's the number 1 and not the letter l) .
Lets just standardize the number 0 to the slashed version, ∅ .
If you are a coder i'm sure you've wasted lots of hours deciphering programs only to discover the problem was with the confusion between these two numbers and letters.
In code, just write explicit variable names like origin = 200 instead of o0 = 200.
This may seem trivial, but google on this matter and you'll be surprised how often this comes up.
s
The confusion is everywhere.
Its in passwords, serial #s and unfortunately in software.
I'm talking about the confusion between the letter O and the number 0 as well as the letter l and the number 1.
Time and time again I think we all run into this.
So whenever i'm helping someone setup an account with passwords i'll tell them to stay away from these alphanumerics, or else i'll let them know to annotate with something like (<- that's the number 1 and not the letter l) .
Lets just standardize the number 0 to the slashed version, ∅ .
If you are a coder i'm sure you've wasted lots of hours deciphering programs only to discover the problem was with the confusion between these two numbers and letters.
In code, just write explicit variable names like origin = 200 instead of o0 = 200.
This may seem trivial, but google on this matter and you'll be surprised how often this comes up.
s
Monday, January 26, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
I am a big fan of the show Ugly Betty. In the last episode Betty is given tips on networking at a club.
Steps
1. Forge your bond. Your name, where you work and one memorable fact.
2. Gathering information. In order to get info you're going to have to give info. Trick is to make it sound juicy but really mean nothing.
3. Exit Strategy. Get in. Get info. Get out.
Fortunately for me, this episode aired the day before the 2008 Crunchies Award Ceremony in San Francisco, which is considered the Academy Awards for internet technologies.
My goal was to meet some of the top players in the industry and the first person on my list was Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Product and User Experience. I'll admit I was nervous. She was there with her fiance talking with another bloke. I tried not to seem like i was hovering, glancing occasionally to see if she would look over to invite me over. After 5 minutes, which seemed alot longer my friend went up to her and told her that i wanted to talk with her. I was pissed. I'm CTO of a company, went to MIT, served in the Air Force and yet my friend and I were acting like high school buddies. Anyway, it popped into my head what she and i had in common which is virtual worlds. I introduced myself and asked her why they had shut their LIVELY virtual world down. She told me it was a combination of things including porn. I told her we try to mitigate the porn in the chat rooms thru whitelisting, etc. I asked her if i could talk to the lead developer and she stated Niniane Wang was no longer with Google. Marissa then gave me her business card and asked me to email her for Niniane's contact info. With that we shook hands and parted.
The second person on my list was Mark Zuckerburg, the ceo of Facebook. There he was, surrounded by several people that wanted to talk with him. Feeling empowered by Marissa, I nudged my way into the crowd and just as i was about to introduce myself an elder gentleman with einstein hair grabbed him for a conversation. I waited another 5 minutes before Mark turned towards me and i blurted out "You ever hire MIT people?". His eyes got big and he looked intrigued. I said I was just kidding and gave him my card. I asked him if there was any interest in his part about developing virtual worlds and he said no. But that we should consider building our own on top of his platform. He then said it was nice meeting me and we shook hands. I was so awestruck i forgot to ask for his card.
Third person on my list was Evan Williams, founder of Blogger & Twitter. I looked for him but couldn't find him. After meeting some more folks, my friend and i decided to leave the venue. As we were walking I saw Evan and I approached him stating it was an honor to meet him and thanked him for twitter. I gave him my card and we briefly discussed how we can incorporate twitter into our virtual worlds. He didn't give me a card but shook my hand.
Marissa, Mark and Evan were so nice and approachable, which really capped the awesome evening nicely!
Steps
1. Forge your bond. Your name, where you work and one memorable fact.
2. Gathering information. In order to get info you're going to have to give info. Trick is to make it sound juicy but really mean nothing.
3. Exit Strategy. Get in. Get info. Get out.
Fortunately for me, this episode aired the day before the 2008 Crunchies Award Ceremony in San Francisco, which is considered the Academy Awards for internet technologies.
My goal was to meet some of the top players in the industry and the first person on my list was Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Product and User Experience. I'll admit I was nervous. She was there with her fiance talking with another bloke. I tried not to seem like i was hovering, glancing occasionally to see if she would look over to invite me over. After 5 minutes, which seemed alot longer my friend went up to her and told her that i wanted to talk with her. I was pissed. I'm CTO of a company, went to MIT, served in the Air Force and yet my friend and I were acting like high school buddies. Anyway, it popped into my head what she and i had in common which is virtual worlds. I introduced myself and asked her why they had shut their LIVELY virtual world down. She told me it was a combination of things including porn. I told her we try to mitigate the porn in the chat rooms thru whitelisting, etc. I asked her if i could talk to the lead developer and she stated Niniane Wang was no longer with Google. Marissa then gave me her business card and asked me to email her for Niniane's contact info. With that we shook hands and parted.
The second person on my list was Mark Zuckerburg, the ceo of Facebook. There he was, surrounded by several people that wanted to talk with him. Feeling empowered by Marissa, I nudged my way into the crowd and just as i was about to introduce myself an elder gentleman with einstein hair grabbed him for a conversation. I waited another 5 minutes before Mark turned towards me and i blurted out "You ever hire MIT people?". His eyes got big and he looked intrigued. I said I was just kidding and gave him my card. I asked him if there was any interest in his part about developing virtual worlds and he said no. But that we should consider building our own on top of his platform. He then said it was nice meeting me and we shook hands. I was so awestruck i forgot to ask for his card.
Third person on my list was Evan Williams, founder of Blogger & Twitter. I looked for him but couldn't find him. After meeting some more folks, my friend and i decided to leave the venue. As we were walking I saw Evan and I approached him stating it was an honor to meet him and thanked him for twitter. I gave him my card and we briefly discussed how we can incorporate twitter into our virtual worlds. He didn't give me a card but shook my hand.
Marissa, Mark and Evan were so nice and approachable, which really capped the awesome evening nicely!
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