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dockd

119 karma · joined December 9, 2008

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dockd··on Why isn’t new technology making us more productive?
How about money?

In 1960, you either had to have cash or find a place that took a check to make purchases. Maybe some places took a credit card. Ever have to wait in line behind someone that is writing a check? "Productive" won't come to mind.

To get that cash you had to walk into a bank during banking hours. Then we got ATMs and could get our money any time of day. No more cutting out of work to deposit that royalty check.

More places started taking cards as well as cash. I distinctly remember asking businesses if they took cards _before_ making a purchase. We still had holdouts like restaurants that didn't split the check.

Now look at 2010. Pay with cash/check/card. Wait a few more years and you can do this with your phone. Get your meal tab split however you like. Owe someone money? No more writing checks, going to the ATM, just hit up Venmo.

Now, what's the productivity measure in that? I have no idea.

dockd··on 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home
I can't speak for the OP and everyone has their own reasons but - Do you have a roommate? Children? Now your house/apartment is looking like a mini-office with shared space. - Your house has one office. Where will your spouse/partner work? Most houses don't have two offices. - Maybe living in a small apartment is OK for people because they can get out to larger spaces. Want to live in a studio apartment and work there too? - Offices can have cafeterias and tend to have restaurants nearby. - habit
dockd··on How much do construction costs matter to the price of housing?
Did the 1914 house have electricity? With "acetylene lighting plant" being extra, I think not.

Did the 1914 house have more than one toilet? Cost per square foot doesn't cover what goes into the square foot, and fixtures cost a lot more than an empty room.

dockd··on One way a builder culture can fail
* Someone who left before the project finished, or immediately after.

In my experience, people leave just after the big project ships. They've been focused on a task, working hard and are usually left with "now what?". It's interesting psychology.

dockd··on USS Connecticut (SSN 22) struck an object while submerged on Oct. 2
> coming to and/or operating at periscope depth is dangerous

Silly question: how do you identify a target? Sound only? It seems like you would want something visual.

dockd··on StreetComplete: Easy to use editor of OpenStreetMap data
How did you find your ranking?
dockd··on Why did bar ends go away from mountain bikes?
I think it's a due to a combination of things. First MTBs went from flat bars to riser bars as front and then rear suspension appeared. Then the bars got wider.

I have memories of the bike magazines (Mountain Bike Action) declaring the bar end on a riser bar a style no-no. MTB takes style direction from motorcross and you don't see bar ends on motors.

I've hooked my new 760mm bars on far more trees than my old narrow ones. While the idea of catching a bar end sounds frightening, think about what would happen without a bar end: the same thing. You'd hit the bars or your knuckles and get the same result.

I do miss the extra hand position sometimes. I installed a pair of Togs (https://togs.com) to help with "thumbs resting over the bar".

dockd··on Why did bar ends go away from mountain bikes?
In all fairness, the mountain bike was invented to go downhill on Mount Tamalpais in California.

Also, in my opinion, the tailgate pad has made it practical to run [downhill] shuttles using pickups. Prior to that, you had to get a roof rack + 4 trays = $600+. A Dakine pad is $125. Without the shuttle, you have to climb.

dockd··on What’s wrong with Git? A conceptual design analysis (2016)
Which is ironic since source control is supposed to prevent the need for manually making backup copies.
dockd··on Book Review: "This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends"
If we make the software vendor responsible, who pays for open source vulnerabilities?
dockd··on Uber discovered they’d been defrauded out of 2/3 of their ad spend
Start typing "calculator" after pressing WIN.
dockd··on Forcing Functions in Software Development
This is just pushing testing to the customer. Why would the customer report a bug instead of switching to a less buggy product?

Why do you think the customers are going to report bugs? I can't say that I've ever attempted to report a bug on an iPhone app, Windows, etc. It's like yelling at the wind.

dockd··on Apps for Bicycle Directions
There's also a huge variation in what roads cyclists consider acceptable.

For example, one of our local highways has a speed limit of 55mph and a shoulder that is maybe 10 feet wide with a rumble strip near the cars. Is that a good road for bicycles or not? I'm OK with it but some of my riding friends are not. A bike path can be perfect for a family yet dangerous for practicing time trials.

I've also been surprised at how narrow some of my favorite roads are for driving. Just about any road is great if it doesn't have traffic. So a good road at lunch time is no good during rush hour.

So maybe the ultimate bicycle router would a) Offer a bunch of preferences just like you see for cars, e.g. "avoid freeways", "avoid tolls". b) Flag roads as "avoid", e.g. that four lane road with no shoulder next to the sidewalk. c) Specify roads with gravel. (OSM data can have this; not sure about Google.)

dockd··on TheForger's Win32 API Programming Tutorial
Maybe they meant Microsoft didn't really stick to the C standard library. _strdup vs strdup. malloc vs HeapAlloc. assert, fopen, etc. The functions mostly exist but really aren't the way to program Windows.
dockd··on Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
And let's not forget the pneumatic tire; Wikipedia suggests they were invented 1847-1888. (It says they were invented to help make bicycles/tricycles comfortable.)

If anyone thinks these tires aren't important, then why are almost all vehicle tires still pneumatic?

dockd··on Dear Bureaucrat, my job wants me to lie
The last time I went to Rite Aid to pick up a prescription, their point of sale system asked me to acknowledge whether I spoke with/declined to speak with the pharmacist, before I got to speak with the pharmacist.
dockd··on With His Job Gone, an Autoworker Wonders, ‘What Am I as a Man?’
From my experience, I was much more defined by having a job than I realized. I quit a contracting job. It lead to awkward conversations with people ("What do you do for a living?") and some odd soul searching (what is my place in society?).
dockd··on What Happened with Supermicro?
> But, you know, it's one of those things where after a newspaper writes about something in your field, you start wondering if they are that ridiculously uninformed about the things that aren't in your field.

Or maybe you keep reading because you believe the other things, see the Gell-Mann amnesia effect, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect

dockd··on Uber S-1
Aren't most index funds, almost by definition, required to buy their shares? If Vanguard owns a piece of every listed company, they're going to buy Uber at pretty much any price, right?
dockd··on People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day
In "The 4-Hour Body" Tim Ferriss recommends eating the same meal [from Chipolte!] every day as part of his "slow carb" diet.

I have no idea how long he sticks to his own advice though.

dockd··on All of Oculus’s Rift headsets have stopped working due to an expired certificate
The Windows signature tool, signtool.exe, makes the timestamp an optional parameter. There are no warnings if you don't supply it. I'd suggest this is a poor design--do most signatures not want the timestamp by default?
dockd··on End of the road for independent bike distributors?
As bicycles prices start moving toward motorcycles and cars, I don't understand why the shops still feel like the margins can't/won't change. They say 20-30% profit is small, but compare that to buying a new car: 2-3% profit.

And to keep the car comparison going: during the summer, bike shops routinely book two weeks out, which is almost unheard of with car service.

I'm both surprised and not surprised to hear that clothing is not a big seller--I've never been a fan of getting clothing without trying it on. However, once I know how a brand fits, that's not as much of an issue. It is surprising to walk into a bike shop and want some shorts only to find they don't stock anything under $80--you really have to work hard to find $80 shorts at the mall. So maybe the problem is they need to do better at picking what their customers want.

Unfortunately, I don't have good ideas at what they should sell in addition to labor. Need it now items are great (tires) but it's hard to make all of your money just on mechanics.

dockd··on Are we underestimating the vulnerability of bridges?
What exactly are "modern design standards" required by bridges? When did the modern era start? Is there really a major moment in bridge design where the standards changed? Is there even broad agreement on what these standards are?

(Side note: the bridge pictured in the article is the Bridge of the Gods, just upstream of Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. There's going to be more than bridge problems if the flow of the river takes out that bridge.)

dockd··on Researchers are beginning to disentangle pain relief from addiction and overdose
I'm not totally sure why that's any better than throwing them into the trash. Are people really digging through garbage just hoping to find opiates?

However, presuming you're not on a septic system, they end up in the river, just like any other form of pollution.

Lots of police departments are taking them no questions asked. The city where I work's police/public affairs building has a big metal box with a one-way lid for unused drugs.

dockd··on What Test Engineers Do at Google: Building Test Infrastructure
The book "Working Effectively with Legacy Code" by Michael Feathers.
dockd··on ‘How Much Suffering Can You Take?’
> Why do we do these things?

This sounds terrible, but quite often, it's to say you did.

A joke posted in my gym: Q: How do you know someone has run a marathon? A: They'll tell you.

dockd··on Why does software development take so long?
I suspect it has something to do with a) The programmer not actually using the software they create. They end up spending time trying to understand the domain. b) The programmer uses the software they create and wants it to do everything (see also Second System Effect, Zawinski's Law/Law of Software Envelopment). c) The programmer expects components to work as documented.
dockd··on Terrapattern: a visual search tool for satellite imagery
In my experience in the USA, OpenStreetMap data that comes from TIGER (?) imports, like heliports, are close but wrong. Playgrounds and watertowers are usually accurate because someone added them by hand. Churches are mixed. Other items are confusing; a hospital is typically a single point, but they tend to be some of the largest buildings in small towns.

Any thoughts on how that affects your model?

dockd··on America's High School Graduates Look Like Other Countries' High School Dropouts
My observation of kids with good jobs in high school was they would give up school for the money. (See also: college.) Why would your child want to be in boring old school when they can make $60/hour?
dockd··on The 40% Rule: A Navy SEAL’s Secret to Mental Toughness
Absolutely on the first point. I believe the #1 thing the Navy wants from SEALs is people who just won't quit. The Nave doesn't train them not to quit, it just creates tests that search for this quality.

I'm unconvinced that the SEAL in question suddenly realized one day there was a "secret" to not quitting; it's just how he's hardwired.

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