Things that got hit by lightning last night: Transamerica Pyramid, towers on both GG and Bay Bridges, Cranes building the new bridge.
'Jaynestown'
Natter 70: Hookers and Blow
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
JOIN ME IN SMALL REWARDS TO GET THROUGH THE DAY!
I endorse this plan! I just realized I have a rewards card to the froyo place down the street that I completed the last time I was there, so I can go get free froyo this afternoon. Woo! This will make up for the fact that I decided I couldn't skip work this afternoon to join M for the baby shower his department is throwing for us. Ah well.
On one development project years ago we included an alpha test, post QA, and pre-beta. We put the QAd system up and encouraged future users to try and break it. But we wanted to emphasize than problems were expected at this stage and their finding them was a good thing. A problem did not make us bad programmers or them bad users, but simply were something that at this stage were bound to exist and needed to be found by them and fixed by us. So we put big baskets of cookies in the test rooms and encouraged users to take a cookie every time they logged a problem. No there were no consequences for taking a cooking if you did not find a problem.
It worked! People actually came in and tested. And the cookies communicated that there were supposed to be problems and nobody badmouthed us when they found them.
I suspect there's a ton of pushback in the comments, but I got a kick out of professional troublemaker Nick Mamatas' post titled Let Us Put an End to Geek Pride. Such a shit-stirrer, Nick is.
I was with him right up until he said font choice doesn't matter. THEM'S FIGHTIN' WORDS.
Weird animal sex, as illustrated by human cartoons.
THAT IS AWESOME!
Ever wonder how the Eastland compares to the Titanic? [link]
What are people doing this weekend?