Software Engineering ≠ Computer Science

Finally a reasoning that makes sense to me about the question about software as an art or science.

http://www.ddj.com/architect/217701907 [Doctor Dobb's Journal]

Mental plaque

When I tried to get to gmail.com, and Safari wouldn't go there, I blamed Safari!

I did what every self respecting person would do when faced with evidence contrary to everything they believe in. I believed that Gmail's was a rock, and Safari was a bit mushier.

I actually lodged a bug report with Apple. How embarrassing.

Then when I read about it in the news today, I had a chuckle and did what every self respecting geek would do - talk about their mistake.

Phew, I do have hope.

I'm a salesman

So here's how it happened:

While waiting for my turn with the bank teller I started googling define:teller. Why are they called Tell-ers I pondered.

A frail voice from the right asked: What's that?

me: An iPhone

I looked at the voice, and it came from an old woman - no younger than 70.

frail voice: What does it do?

me: ummm… I’m browsing the Internet. It has the Internet.

frail voice: Hmmmm… You’re on the Internet? Over here?

me: Yes, it has the Internet. This is a web browser, but there are other things it can do too.

frail voice: Is it a phone? Can you make calls on it?

me: Yes, it’s a phone too. You can make calls.

And so we went. Her eyes lit up every time I did something unexpected like scrolling or zooming with my fingers. She liked the way my fingers glided all over the pretty screen.

When I told her how much I was paying for it every month her eyes lit up even more. Apparently she was paying $50 for her home phone, and about the same for the Internet… and it was all stuck at home!

Her partner sitting next to her grumbled something to her. My time with my teller had come. I smiled at her confident that she was going to get an iPhone soon.

I should go into sales. I'll find out about tellers some other day :-)

Casino race condition

This looks like an expensive race condition at a casino.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/03/03/Elderly_widow_accuses_casino_of_fraud/UPI-43401236104040/

The jackpot machine didn't reset its jackpot amount fast enough, and two people won the same jackpot. One's now suing the casino :-)

"Onward into the 2nd dimension!"

Something moved my cheese.

A mystery

Hello, I am your super expensive database. Bow before me. Today I will reprimand you for doing something stupid. I know you didn't mean it, but I'm going to be rude anyhow cause I have an attitude. All I'm going to tell you is 'ORA-00942: table or view does not exist'. Don't bother asking me anything else. Good bye.

Oracle is currently at version 11. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I'm willing to bet that this error message and others like it are not going to have any context in them for generations to come.

Kids play at office politics

I've always thought that office politics was very similar to kindergarten politics. The entire spectrum of human deceit can be observed in both places. That sounds very bleak I suppose, but the common theme is human behaviour. Kids are just little humans remember?

Through the interlinkedness of the interweb, here's an interesting validation: Why We Banned Legos