And if you buy them from Amazon, they might also automatically order ink, whether you want to do so or not…
But yeah… I agree.
6 Likes
When I went to Amazon to look up the Henrietta Lacks book, I noticed a lot of one star reviews, but for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (or it’s sequel, possibly)! WTF? I sent Amazon a notice that they’d mixed up reviews.
I also told them their counterfeiting problem is so bad that I’ve switched to CVS for most of my health-related stuff.
10 Likes
One of the North American covers for second of the books in the Millennium Trilogy is orange, as is the cover of the Henrietta Lacks book. I could see someone making the mistake if they were in a hurry.
And since both books could get tagged “feminism”, they would show up on people’s screens at the same time.
No excuse to leave it that way, of course.
(Personally I liked the UK paperback editions of the Millennium Trilogy better. They had strong but less garish colours, and they didn’t have a freaking grammar error on “hornets’ nest”, unlike the North American version, whose “hornet’s nest” indicated Lisbeth hadn’t cause much of a stir at all, since it was just one hornet on its lonesome.)
7 Likes
Why do people pull this shit?
I have a new colleague I’ve been working with a lot. Being new, she’s noticing a lot of stuff we need to fix. So far it’s nothing we didn’t know about already, but it’s good to get re-validated.
That part is good.
Except today, she wanted me to recreate an entire web site’s prototype in my nonexistent spare time, while we’re making changes to it. We don’t have the original because a vendor made it. Oh, and she wants it to be completely high-fidelity to the last mouse click, and just acts like I didn’t say anything when I try to explain some of the stuff in the app isn’t possible in our prototyping tool.
Right now when I prototype changes, I only make the actual changed bits interactive. The rest is just a stand-in screen shot. It saves time (and all these changes are always pants-on-fire rush jobs), and focuses the scope.
To make a full prototype of all the screen with all the interactions would take weeks, assuming I could work on it 100%, which I can’t because I have other projects. But she’s acting like I’m the unprofessional one for not immediately agreeing to drop everything and do it.
I’m just feeling scalded because it’s obvious my time isn’t respected at all by her, yet I’ve been supporting her as long as she’s been here, helping her network, sharing research, and on. And all I get back is how nothing I do is good enough.
19 Likes
Is she on the same level as you, or higher?
7 Likes
On an org chat the same, but she’s an approver, so higher that way.
Understand I’m not against having a comprehensive prototype, within technical constraints. I’m just against being pressured into this huge task without so much as a “what’s your estimate?”, or checking for resource availability.
Sadly, I have no way to manipulate spacetime.
9 Likes
Can you give her a list of the things you’d need to make that happen, no snark, but like your hours estimate, resource shortage (since you have other work), a brief rundown of the risks/issues and a firm offer to talk about what possible changes could be prioritized so that you can have a realistic workload? I find just forcing the estimate on people is usually the way I end up going.
10 Likes
I go see a dermatologist regularly due to too much sun as a kid. Recently he sold out to a huge, multi-office practice (as have most of the physicians I see, it seems). So now I get emails offering DEALS! for botox, face peals, and so on.
I mean, really? Coupons for lip injections? From a dermatologist? For Valentine’s Day?
10 Likes
I suspect that is exactly what’s going to happen here.
7 Likes
Maybe try to explain the difference between a prototype and an alpha/beta site? Some people just don’t get the basic concepts of things like prototypes, spikes, mockups, etc.
That’s why so many design mockup tools intentionally use plain black-on-white, slightly-scribbled looking lines with comic sans or handwriting-style fonts that intentionally do not look like an end-design. They could just as easily produce something that looks more realistic, but then the stakeholders inevitably tend to get distracted and go off on irrelevant tangents adding unnecessary work.
10 Likes
I know what you mean, but in this case that would be an absolute disaster. This person is an Expert who Likes Things Done Properly, where “properly” means “hi-res”.
My next card to play is Standard Process, and that’s where I can reintroduce sketches.
9 Likes
I already knew that Wikipedia articles about pop-culture subjects were trash, but it’s always nice to be reminded again 
especially when there’s a list or something, and at the top of the list it says “this list is taken from the following sources and discrepancies between them are noted,” with enumerated sources, but then the actual list is made of the personal opinions of last guy who looked at it, years later.
9 Likes
Only a minor annoyance, but…
I just got a text message warning me that I’ve used half of my cell phone data allotment for the month, with about two days left in the billing cycle.
To contrast, in December, I got the same message after a week when I forgot that I had the Wi-Fi on my phone turned off.
The latter warning, while appreciated, was a bit late to keep me from running out of data for the month, where the former warning is pretty much useless, as I doubt I’ll use up all my data in two days.
Rather than a fixed notice, I’d appreciate it if they did it proportional to how much of the month has passed. If I use up over 10% of my allotment in the first few days of the month, tell me. If I use over 25% in the first week, tell me. If I use over 50% in the first half of the month, etc., etc…
Always giving me my first warning at 50%, whether the other 50% has to last 48 hours or three weeks, is just not that useful, especially when the “48 hours” scenario is more often the case.
13 Likes
I wonder if there’s an app to monitor that.
5 Likes
There’s something built into Android, but it’s not much more useful than the text messages. You’re right that there’s probably a separate app, though; that’s a great idea. Thanks!
7 Likes
I made a spreadsheet, with the number of days between billing cycles calculated. It tells me how many MB I get per day for a given month (the amount changes a bit since not all months have the same number of days).
6 Likes
This whole “extreme weather” fallout has been drenching San Diego/Tijuana for weeks. Come on, give it a break.
10 Likes
Warehouse Management Systems.
We have a cut-over taking place at one of the company warehouses this weekend. Cutting over from the old Software to the New.
Why does that matter to me? Well, under my wheelhouse falls the VMUs. Vehicular Mounted Units. Think really rugged PCs running old Windows CE software of various versions. (The next gen will be Android though)
So, my guy who would do this is on vacation and I’m the only one else on the team with knowledge of the stuff, so I’m up at 7:00 AM on a Saturday to get ready to flip some switches.
Check in with th lead onsite…delaying for an hour.
Great. Time for Coffee and conversation.
8:00 AM.
Nope, still waiting, but stay close. Should be ready soon.
At 9:00 (after cleaning off my desk waiting for the GO!) I finally ask the lead to just call me. I’ll be nearby, but AFK.
Finally, Just now, I hear that 11:00 is when we cut it over.
Nope. Nothing else I could have done with 4 hours of my Saturday.
7 Likes
9 Likes
This is a ‘news’ article by a supposedly reputable news service:
Turns out, a total of 12 Bibles were not completely burned, perhaps having to do with where they were in relation to the fire. But the CNN headline proclaims “not a single Bible was touched…”. Really? I’ve never seen a church that only had 12 Bibles in it. Hmmm…
16 Likes