Shorter Comments Section

Shorter Comments Section: Apple is Evil! Micro$oft is Evil! iPads suck! No they don’t! Microsoft did it first! Stick that stylus where the sun don’t shine! Hey look a Linux guy hiding behind the drapes, lets beat him up, too!

Meanwhile, half a continent away, Bill Gates withholds the retrovirus treatment that could cure Steve Jobs’ cancer, thus forcing Jobs to consume ever greater numbers of kidnapped Tonganese babies.

Disturbing Use of Spreadsheets

One of the Champions Online programmers posted this tidbit on their forums:

...Bugs are fixed and incremental patches are applied to the baseline. At some point the build producer (who is ridiculously awesome, organized and hard working, you should see the spreadsheet she makes for every single build that goes through PTS [Public Test Server] tracking everything that people say they are putting in, and tracking down the checkins where folks didn't say what they were attempting to put in) starts getting really antsy about incrementals that are lots of files, because the more files that are being patched incrementally, the more complex the build process is, and she starts getting really antsy about ones that don't fix something utterly critical, because despite being very very careful, every single incremental will have a bug rate, and at some point adding them is delaying the ability to got the patch tested and able to be launched...

So they are using a spreadsheet to track builds? Did they learn that from the O'Reilly book, Excel as a Development Environment? Are they using R1C1-Not-So-Agile development techniques?

Scary and sad.

Like the Visions of a Trivial Psychic - Except Much Better

Christopher Walken's Twitter feed is awesome period:

She said I should talk more about my cat; that people like that sort of thing here. I didn't know I still had a cat. Explains a few things. 8:53 AM Mar 20th from web

There's a kid on a Pogo stick in front of my house. It's nearly midnight so let's assume he's been drinking. This should end well for him. 7:41 PM Mar 18th from web

Our driver told the story of his childhood spirit animal - which was apparently a civet cat or seasoned marmot. I'm hungry for a pickle now. 10:06 AM Mar 13th from web

The Resurrection of Macintalk!

Talking Moose and crappy speech synthesis fans rejoice! Through some kind of divine intervention Apple has managed to stuff our beloved Macintalk into the new iPod Shuffle! Now if we could only get the Talking Moose in there too. That would make some k-k-k-krazy playlist action:

My milkshake - it's better than yours
The cat gets flat when run over cars
Yes I am - and I'm your dish
I need some antler polish

Some Banks, Citing Strings, Want to Return Aid

Some bankers say the conditions have become so onerous that they want to return the bailout money. The list includes small banks like the TCF Financial Corporation of Wayzata, Minn., and Iberia Bank of Lafayette, La., as well as giants like Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo.

Please, please do give us back our money Mr. Greedy Banker. One of the new "stings" that need to be "attached" is if a bank returns the money then they are ineligible for future handouts.

From the Journal of Angela Bowie

Just flown back to London from New York. At home Daniella told me, "I think Mick, David, and Adrian are asleep upstairs." I said, "Oh, okay," and went and opened the bedroom door, and there indeed they were, asleep in our bed. I asked them if they wanted coffee, and they said yes.

When I walked into that room I knew that they'd been screwing. It was so obvious, in fact, that I couldn't even consider the possibility that they hadn't been screwing. The way they'd been running around together and the way David made a virtual religion of slipping the Lance of Love into almost everyone around him, and then the fact that Mick had a perfectly good bed of his own just three hundred yards away from where he was passed out naked across Adrian - it all added up inescapably in my head as well as my gut. I didn't have to look around for open jars of V-I [Veidt Industries] jelly.