Posts by mwcer

RIP John Walker, software and hardware hacker extraordinaire

Re: The AutoDesk File

Thanks for the link to the online version.

Logitech's Wave Keys tries to bend ergonomics without breaking tradition

goldtouch keyboards

The keys and spacing are too small/close together for me. I'm a fan of goldtouch keyboards -- they don't aggravate my RSI. The goldtouch Go!2 keyboard looks like a better product than this logitech model.

NASA's 161-second helicopter tour of Martian terrain

One wonders why the solar panels were mounted above the rotors rather than below. If it had them below, the rotor blast would take care of clearing the panels of dust.

The splitting image: Sufferer of hurty wrist pain? Logitech's K860 a potential answer

Don't forget about goldtouch.com

The wife (mac user) and I (linux user) have used these keyboards for years -- they work wonders on relieving RSI conditions like carpal and cubital tunnel syndromes (result of lifetime of keyboard driving).

Cheers.

Fairphone thinks its fair to offer a not-very-major and slightly-more-recycled new model

Waiting for USA availability...

Looks great, would love to have one -- unfortunately, only available in the EU.

Aviation regulator outlines fixes that will get the 737 MAX flying again

Re: All test flights

Should be *all* Boeing board members (and their families).

Want an ethical smartphone? Fairphone 3 is on the way – but tiny market share suggests few care

Exactly what I'm looking for...

The fairphone 3 sounds great -- I'm tired of replacing phones just because the battery is worn out. The fact that one can replace the display, cameras, speakers, and microphone by oneself is great news. Too bad it won't work on most networks in the U.S.A.

Suggestion for fairphone 4: move radios to a single module, then offer different modules for EU, UK, USA, etc.

Agile development exposed as techie superstition

Ahh, Agile -- process fad du jour...

I'm certainly showing my age/experience here -- over my career in software development I've endured iso9000 certification, six sigma, total quality management, and a few others that escape me at the moment. Somebody is always writing a dissertation, gets their degree, writes a magazine article/book, and bingo, the management types see something they can implement to discuss in their annual review -> get raise for. Unfortunately, for us, this results in yet more silly process stuff and buzzwords to learn and slow down development.

Agile is just the latest fad iteration, which I'm seeing fail regularly today -- much to the chagrin of management. IMHO, Agile seems fine for small, relatively straight-forward projects without many dependencies. It fails for large, complicated projects with many dependencies / stakeholders. I've seen it over and over again. For such large projects, we're back to using the waterfall process -- which provide the schedule / resource information managers need, and we meet the schedule we've produced, so management has learned (again) to trust us.

I remember the day management first sprang Agile on us -- all of us experienced folks had the same look on our faces -- time for a blanket party for the Agile advocates -- using our copies of "The Mythical Man-Month" book by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. to beat them with. But, of course, experience has show us that sometimes trying to reason with management doesn't work and you have to go through the motions and let them see the folly of their ways themselves. First large project using Agile was a disaster. Testing folks didn't get what they needed when they needed it, Documentation folks couldn't get people's attention, components didn't work well together, quality greatly suffered, and we had no idea when we'd be "done". Senior folks performed triage, rescued the project. So -- now we do Agile for small projects, waterfall for larger ones.

Equifax mega-breach: Security bod flags header config conflict

experian and transunion are even worse, as are many financial sites

Not sure if Scott Helme's site is that useful. Experian rates a "E", and transunion a "F". Many major banks are "F".

US Navy runs into snags with aircraft carrier's electric plane-slingshot

Could the Royal Navy win the Falklands war if it happened today?

Seems like the RN is less capable today than it was in 1982, or do I have this wrong?

Facebook devs HACKED in 'sophisticated' Java zero-day attack

mobile-developer web site?

Why didn't Facebook identify the site they claim they picked up the malware from? Unless of course "mobile-developer" is a cover name for something else...

Facebook reports revenues up 40% but Wall Street says 'meh'

618 billion daily users?

2 orders of magnitude more users than the total population of the earth? I didn't realize the fake facebook account problem had grown to such proportions.