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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
