Tuesday, February 23, 2010

How to make Curling "Look" cooler

Perhaps if they give the contestants wicked brushes?


Tuesday, February 16, 2010

It's ok for Silver (relatively)

Please don't be one of those ppl who insist on being the best. I guess it's a good attribute in certain times. Everything's got their place. But I feel the only place this is true is a live or death situation or good-nature competition. Have humility, be humble (if excellence is coming from an arrogance line of thought and not of celebration). It's similar to seriousness of jobs (the only ppl who should really take their jobs seriously are air-traffic controllers and emergency surgeons): and a lot of exceptions of course (ie. police officers in life n death situations). No joking here.

So, it's ok to be competitive. Close to being the best. It's like the olympic athletes. Imagine crying for .030 seconds. I guess it's ok. But it's also ok to give a good fight and accept this random fate got u; "this time"....

Monday, February 15, 2010

Volumetric Testing Methodologies

Is it possible to test every single combination/permutation out there in a system. The world, no but an isolated system, yes, but is it worth it? I say the answer depends if it's a perfect system. 

How does Amazon ensure the wrong package doesn't go to the right addr? Let's break into 2 components. There's a possible incorrect bind of address to a product on the website end. Then there's a failure in putting the right product into the box. If the shopping site fails 10% to bind the address/prod on the website; amzn would go out of business. So, how's it prevent this: develop solid code and qa it after dev for every possible permutation. But they don't have to do this after the system is perfected. The same probably goes for the packaging side (prob. using RF tech). I can't imagine a crack team ripping up packages randomly to ensure if the right product got into the right box. They could do that for a little while but the monotomy would eventually make this process ineffective. That's why over 55% or more of the time, security experts can sneek past TSA officers a weapon. I will make a guess that Custom agents at ports differentiate by making a plot of what's coming in as that's not totally random (like we'll expecting a large shipment from Yemen at this time). The same probably can't be said of Amazon. So, what's common theme here: the need for a narrative. W.o this, complacency happens, as also security experts are also able to infritrate military bases and practically steal submarines.

How about the argument that ppl should at least test what we send out. Let's at amazon again: True Amazon doesn't test every single product in their inventory. Now, what about every single product they send out. They don't because they know their website binding system is "perfect" and the packaging side is probably "near-perfect". I would introduce tests that promote fundamental queries on the groundings of the system (like slight nuances that would cause the perfect system to stop working; like process-additions, etc). I would NOT test what the perfect system tests; I would test the perfect system itself. This would probably be done by pattern recognition. The other test is for the imperfect parts; like the creative part and that would be served best by peer review as it's mostly a publishing system.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

EHarmony is superficial

So I took the test (a few years ago) and they refused my business because they didn't "understand" me.Well, I say, it's a stupid psych test anyway since if the guarantee is for only 3 months then the relationship is superficial since you have to surpass the 3month mark before it's considered a steady (maybe LT) relationship.

EGO

I think my blog is better than Alec Baldwin's.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin

Consider this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/put-a-major-oil-company-o_b_421021.html

with

http://ilupper.blogspot.com/2009/10/energy-4-pillars-of-good.html

Not enough levels.
I'm just kidding.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Baseball for Left-Handers

Maybe 1 out of 9 innings; we can have the runners run in the other direction. Then the left-handers can throw out runners instead of just catching. And the right-handed pitchers can have easier pick-off moves. 1 in 9 is close to 1 in 10 of the population of left-handers.

Monday, February 8, 2010

4 digit Ids

All ids should be segregated into 2 digit chunks so it's easy to recite/recall. With respect to IT systems, when the unique id surpasses the 4 digit mark, the current set should be migrated to a archive branch and the main active set/trunk should be truncated for a new id namespace. Of course, this can't be done for a customer id base (assuming your company has millions of names), so 2 digit chunks should be the format.

I need a doctor for this one

So I'm assuming you read my post in Dec 2009 on why we have 2 kidneys? The real question is why certain organs are oriented on 1 side? Like why is the gall bladder on the left or right side and why is the heart mainly on the left side? And why do the left hemisphere of the brain handle certain functions?

Link: why-we-have-2-kidneys (or 1 windpipe & 2 lungs)

Friday, February 5, 2010

Please use the ALT attribute for the IMG tag for the visually-impaired

I care about other ppl's experience throughout life. So, even if it will affect ~3% of the population, please do this. I think the Alt attr in html is good only for 2 reasons: a) long-thoughtful (something to say in adjunct to the picture (like a museum curator) & b) ppl who have terrible contrast in their eyes (so, if there is txt or hard to discern img). Both requirements nearly call for the same thing: a good narrative. This creative also gets pass the reluctance of developers to do is as "unnecessary" redundancy (which creates a maintenance/creative hassle). If we are "more" creative than not, it puts the brain to be able to do it (since it's for higher intellectual goals or empathic causes).

I don't believe that it's good for having something there if the img is missing excuse. It depends on the browser, firefox won't show a missing img so it may be better just to leave it alone. For ie, it's a box of where the img will be, but having non-descript txt there doesn't help. It does the user no good to know that "Limited Time: Hurry" imagery is supposed to be there (I can see it from the plain html txt).

And if the excuse is some browsers are only txt, then a txt-only version should be made available. And if are a user who doesn't want to download imgs, I can't help u; please upgrade to broadband (or it's the developers fault for a weightly img if broadband not avail). If u are a writer and don't want to download imgs, imagine reading a novel with inter-spaced imgs with non-descriptive img boxes floating around everywhere. It's not possibly. They probably like websites with mostly decorative txt and an artistic picture of some idyllic scenary on the periphery so then it comes back to a creative narrative to the pic.

Do alt for the visually-impaired and to be creative! Don't do it for the bureaucracy.

The QA Mafia

Marina is the ring leader but Gavin Maisel is the enforcer. Bejoy is a young lieutenant. In their dirty back office deals, developers have to pay a fee aka "protection money" to get any thing done around here. So, we know who's really running the show at Nxj.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

What Sleep is for? Theoretically

This is theoretical.. One common answer is that it's a time to rebuild body cells. That's practical but not fundamental enough to form a true basis. I can contrast with the question of why we can't just have bodies that rebuild instantly with the food we input to our bodies; much like an engine (perpetually running for thousands of hours given fuel).I think the answer lies in the mind. Sleep's fundamental cause is to allow a "resolution" of mental input to resolve against an adjacent plane of existence (quantum physics if u will). Much like the human body needs a break from eating to do other business.So theoretically, if you have nothing to resolve, you can work forever if given enough food.

Imagine talking to someone who has shut off part of their brain, while still accepting stimuli. It's like dual-personality. "Hey Jeff, wasn't that kayaking cool? Jeff: What kayaking???"

OT: Also to complement, maybe some ppl work better with insomnia?

Car Audio System Idea

Wouldn't it be cool to have an option to leave your stereo on for 1 minute after the engine is turned off (and a gradual lowering of volume) so that ppl can keep their good feelings and avoid the dreaded abrupt transition from muse to silence?