There’s not quite an hour left in the 52nd anniversary of Hawaii becoming a state (in this timezone, anyway). Time to clear out the browser tabs.
Andy Firth believes that people who code for a living aren’t learning enough about the abstractions they use and what those abstractions are hiding. I happen to agree with that. My list of things that coders should study/know would be somewhat different than his, but that is likely to be just because of our differing backgrounds.
The economy is going to hell in a handbasket. My company isn’t exempt from problems; our customers have taken to using us as a bank that provides no-interest loans – customers on net 30 terms have been taking 90 days or more to pay. Here’s a good roundup of poll results with respect to the economy and the government’s handling of it.
Perhaps this chart explains some of the problem. Pay particular attention to the last two lines.
Accounting rules have, of course, contributed to where we are today with respect to manufacturing.
Oh, for the days when farming was fun!
While we’re on the subject of dynamite, I’d like to suggest this as a problem that can be solved with a suitable application of high explosives.
I don’t agree with Fred all the time, but he’s almost always worth reading. He’s got a sobering take on the London riots.
The closest I can come to matching this customer service story is to note that I used to be a regular-enough customer at a local Mexican restaurant that the staff knew my usual order. Nowhere near the same thing. I’ll have to get to a Morton’s sometime when I feel as though I can afford it; such service deserves reward.
I need to find out more about this. There may be nothing there, but, if there is …
Free online classes in AI. Might be fun. Here’s more information about other online education sources.
I saw an interesting documentary on burlesque a couple of weeks ago. This song was in part of it, but never sung in its entirety. I looked it up because it sounded fun. Note: the page automatically plays a MIDI file of it.