I am a useless nerd.

You see, instead of waiting in line for iPhone, I have to write a bunch of code, rack up some machines, and GET WORK DONE YOU WORTHLESS BASTARDS.

There, I said it. I feel better. You can go back to ignoring me now; tomorrow you’ll have an iPhone and I won’t.

Nerd Hate, Deux

This gem from the Slashdot story on ZFS and Leo-tard:
“Users of the future operating system will have to keep working with HFS+, a filesystem that is almost ten years old now.”

Yes. Yes, you hit the nail exactly on the head. The first thing my Dad asked me with respect to switching to the Mac is, “How old’s the filesystem, Gregg? You know damn good and well I simply cannot switch to any OS whose filesystem is more than 3 years old and that limits me to 2^31 files per folder. I mean, seriously, that’s bullshit.”

There are probably hundreds of reasons to dislike HFS+, in a wide array of technical contexts. But really, “email, web browsing, iPhoto” are 3 BIG USE CASES that THE FILESYSTEM ISN’T ALL THAT GODDAMN IMPORTANT, but that’s OK: keep on stroking your nerd dick, it’ll get bigger the louder you complain about the totally bullshit allocation block values in HFS+.

Nerds piss me off

The blogosphere is one endless ring of jackoffs spouting forth on font rendering and saying “heh”.

If you go out on the street, and start asking people, “Do you prefer the font rendering in Windows?” they’ll probably reply “font wha?”.

Likewise, as a Mac user, I tend to look at fonts in Windows as “weird”. They don’t look right. I like Mac fonts because my eye is used to them.

Talk ALL DAY about HOW FAR SUPERIOR you sub-pixel RGB nano-bot rendering hocus-pocus is, whatever it takes to get page rank, man. I, like most people, could give a fuck.

You are an authority on exactly one thing - you. Or, to put it another way, “Opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one”. Stop talking about subjective things as if you’re an authority.

For example, I’m only an authority on my own awesomeness, so I had to poll the dozen supermodels who were in the hot tub with me, on how awesome I was in their view. Turns out? Awesome.

A concise summary of how I spent the last half hour

Customer: “I want to edit this file, something.php, but it’s all weird, and FrontPage doesn’t understand it. It’s not HTM, although it is when I look at it in the browser. Can I convert it?”
Me: (stabs fork into eye) No. You cannot edit any of the files that end in .php. That’s code, that’s stuff we write. You can edit the files that end in .htm.
Customer: (long pause, sound of clicking) OK. How about this, somethingelse.php, can I edit that one? (describes changes desired)
Me: Yeah, that’s also one that ends in .php, so, no. Those changes are actually in the template in another file, and they’re all covered by the estimate for the new work.
Customer: (long pause, sound of clicking) Is thisfile.php editable? It looks like more code.
Me: None of the files that end in .php are editable by you. It’s all our code. You can’t edit any of them. Any. None.
Customer: (furious clicking) I want to make a change to static.htm, that’s ok, right?
Me: Yeah. Anything .htm is fine.
Customer: OK. That’ll work. Now where’s the table tag in foobar.php? I can’t find it, it’s all code.
Me: Do not edit php files. Anything you break, we’ll charge you for.
Customer: But I need to edit it, the table’s all wrong.
Me: Yeah, that’s line item whatever in the estimate, you have a bunch of changes to layout. Please do not edit the php files.
Customer: I’ll just make this one change, and call you back. click

On the plus side, we’re gearing up to hire someone full time to handle this sort of bullshit, so at least, maybe I’ll not have to listen to it for a while.

Stop calling it a “revolt”

The most recent self-aggrandizing Digg HD Key story on the front page continues to push the storyline that it’s somehow a “revolt” by Digg users, against The Man or something.

Seriously, explain to me how they’re revolting. (”The peasants are revolting.” “Oh, I know.” bah-dum bum psh)

I’d like to know, as part of your answer, a few actual facts. For example, what percentage of Digg users have HD-aware devices (tvs, etc)? How many without HD gear are planning on a purchase in the next 3-6 months? And finally, what percentage have been egregiously hindered by the lack of access to the key, for purposes of ad-hoc decryption of content?

I’m guessing here, but if you frame the “revolt” in terms of real numbers, you’re going to see the entire thing as a lot of me-too, bandwagon wankery.

I’m no stranger to odd geek habits: I have a convoluted “workflow” around dealing with getting content (that, you know, fell off the back of a truck) onto my Apple TV. I’m sure there’s some percentage of Digg users who really needed access to the key, to support their convoluted workflow.

But c’mon. You’re not a fucking hero for risking a DMCA takedown. You’re not innovative, or part of a movement, or anything else. You’re just some guy. It takes a lot more to rise above.

At long last, my plan to eliminate emo kids is coming to fruition

FDA expands antidepressant warning to young adults:

Young adults beginning treatment with any antidepressant should be warned about an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior associated with the drugs, health officials said Wednesday.

So to recap:

1. “Wow, the new My Chemical Romance record is so awesome. I’m gonna go cut myself.”
2. “Brandon, take your medicine, you’re crying again.”
3.  Profit! The problem just solves itself.

Underpromise, overdeliver

Scoble made a quick comment about AppleTV, that Apple in general tries to underpromise and overdeliver.

It occurred to me that one of the chief sources of frustration I have in helping our customers is, I am rarely (if ever) even given the opportunity to underpromise/overdeliver. We have a common cycle: rather than shoot for simple, defined milestones along a critical path, they want the world out of the gate.

“We’re competing against thousands of other sites!” they say as rationale for why. “20 different competitors so something similar, so we must as well!”

My latest project is a perfect example. We have so many requirements, that when we cut-and-pasted his requirements document into the estimate, we got reamed out that we “left out a bunch of things”. Um, dude … that was your text.

I never get a chance to overdeliver, throw in extras, show off.  It’s all I can do to get it done, only a little late, and only a little over budget. It’s a perpetual death march. (See also)

Test-Last development method

Yesterday:  Customer makes request as to when I can take app live. “Oh, probably as soon as you give me some feedback on the 86 changes I made. You know, test them some. Make sure it works, make sure I haven’t inadvertently left debugging anywhere, stuff like that. But mostly to make sure it works.”

“OK”, customer says. “I’ll start doing some testing. We’ll shoot on live by Friday. Is that reasonable?”

“Sure”, I say. “We will plan on shaking all the bugs out tomorrow, and we’ll flip the switch Friday.”

This morning I get a phone call about how one of the forms in the app isn’t working. “That’s because I haven’t taken it live yet, since you never got back to me if it worked or not. Remember when we talked yesterday, about you testing things?”

“Oh.” He sounds sullen and dejected. “I’ve already started giving out the URL to people to start using it.”

So this is his way-new paradigm: Take the app live without telling the developer, then start testing things. It’s the time-honored test-last development method.

At least we’re testing at all, I suppose, but bear in mind that I can’t change anything because now the database is “production”.