Posts by dcline1701

Open source versus Microsoft: The new rebellion begins

I want to hear how they plan to deal with the edge cases:

The 3 people who live in Excel all day for whom replacing it would be a stupid waste of time and money.

The 3 assistants with fantastic people skills who effing hate computers. They (and others) will need hourly handholding and can't be replaced as they are backstopping their managers uncanny lack of people skills.

Feel free to add your own.

Windows on Wheels is back, though the truck has come to a standstill, much like the OS

Re: It's an Apple ad

Nice. About on par with Windows 8.1 telling me that it can't use my bluetooth headphones because they're not plugged in.

You're testing them wrong: Whiteboard coding interviews are 'anti-women psychological stress examinations'

Re: but this can't be true

Imagine if the article was about tests that involve conversations with the customer to get the requirements to build what they really want. One wonders if Cedric would've posted the same complaint if the article said 100 percent of men had failed.

The delights of on-site working – sun, sea and... WordPad wrangling?

EOF

If I recall correctly, wordpad still considered ctrl-z the end of the file. Good way to turn a 500k program into a 2k one. He got lucky.

Remember the 1980s? Oversized shoulder pads, Metal Mickey and... sticky keyboards?

Re: Tobacco smoke

Bought a computer from my neighbor on disability. He basically sat and smoked in front of it all day. I pulled all the keys off the keyboard and soaked them in dish soap for hours. When I came back the water was piss yellow. I dumped it on the lawn and then soaked them again (this time being quite generous with the dish soap). I took the monitor outside and sprayed it with Windex which, at the time, was slightly blue. What come running off was (again) piss yellow. The tower I just used an abrasive cleaner on. It's the only thing that came out looking remotely white.

On the plus side, he'd bought Visual Basic 3 for a project. I'm still writing vbscript at work today.

Science fiction legend Harlan Ellison ends his short time on Earth

I saw Mr. Ellison at a con in Columbus. He threatened to tell the sickest joke he'd ever heard if we (the panel attendees) petered out during the Q & A. Then he made good on the threat.

He signed my Babylon 5 TCG card, "Reprogrammer", in fountain pen. Apparently that's all he brought to a signing.

Before he signed my Again, Dangerous Visions he called back to his wife to ask if he'd received his royalties on ADV. She said yes. Perhaps the original poster would like to expound on how telling a fan you won't sign his or her book at a convention relates to protecting ones IP.

Aside from B5, this is the work that sticks with me:

http://www.harlanellison.com/iwrite/mostimp.htm

This job Win-blows! Microsoft made me pull '75-hour weeks' in a shopping mall kiosk

Re: My own (UK) experience

The difference is:

If you fall and break your leg on the way back from telling your boss to shove it up his arse in the UK, you go to hospital and NHS pays most of it.

If you fall and break your leg on the way back from telling your boss to shove it up his ass in the US. You have no job and no insurance and are now ruinously in debt for at least the next 10 years.

I welcome replies detailing how to incentivize US voters to get a health care system like the (rest of the) civilized world. Bonus points if you know how to get this country to just use the f*cking metric system.