Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @boomzilla said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    I thought I was.

    You were. That's why I quoted @masonwheeler who specifically spoke for "the rest of us", and not you, who spoke for yourself.

    @boomzilla said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    I think you're confusing me with @masonwheeler.

    I was quoting masonwheeler and replying to masonwheeler's post because I was speaking to him. What shoulder aliens are saying I'm talking to you in that post?

    @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    A lot of them simply can't do that

    Because they were taught poorly, or because their brains are physically incapable? I suspect in order to teach programming you have to teach abstract logic first, and a lot of people skate through algebra without understanding abstract logic or proofs really, so it hurts their ability to learn to code in the same way that failing to understand multiplication hurts your ability to learn exponents.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @cartman82 said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    But these things are all made by engineers and programmers. Doctors are just the end users.

    I think "writing tools that are useful for programmers" is a specific discipline of computer engineering, much like "testing software from the perspective of the end user". People who aren't good at writing general-purpose tools and libraries should stick to single-purpose software applications.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @yamikuronue said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    I was quoting masonwheeler and replying to masonwheeler's post because I was speaking to him. What shoulder aliens are saying I'm talking to you in that post?

    Oops. I saw my name in his quote of my post. Maybe we need pictures for those, too? :-P


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    It was one of those early signs that "oh hey guyz, Roddenberry's rules? OUT THE FUCKING WINDOW NOW."

    ...and they ended up producing the best Star Trek series to date. (Yes, I just went there, and I'm going to stand by that.)

    Have you read any interviews with the writers on the earlier series? They tend to express incredible levels of frustration with Roddenberry, specifically, because of the way his rules made it difficult to write good TV.

    I heard it summed up at one point as (paraphrasing here) "he wanted a utopian society, free from conflict, so we were expected to create an interesting narrative with no narrative conflict."



  • @cartman82 said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    But these things are all made by engineers and programmers. Doctors are just the end users.

    Doctors are the ones asking the engineers to make this equipment, despite the fact that it could in theory cost their jobs at some point in the future. Why? Doctors take an oath to serve patients, and take it seriously. If the robot does a better job at a basic surgery, they'll pursue the robot even if it costs a thousand doctors their jobs.

    Software developers are nothing like that. Our average software developer's oath was seemingly, "fuck users! And fuck you if you care about users!"



  • @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    I heard it summed up at one point as (paraphrasing here) "he wanted a utopian society, free from conflict, so we were expected to create an interesting narrative with no narrative conflict."

    I think in some ways DS9 took it too far. There's an episode about halfway through the run where Quark needs money so he hooks up with a (human) arms dealer who's selling chemical weapons that killed millions of people.

    I was like, "ok yeah I get it the Roddenberry thing is dead, but did you have to make the evil weapons dealer a human? You couldn't have put some forehead makeup on him or anything?"

    Also later on when O'Brien infiltrates the Space Mafia, we find out most of them are humans too. Again: not even a brief attempt to add any physical attributes to mark them as "alien". (Hell, even Betazoids get the black-on-black contact lenses.) Anyway.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @cartman82 said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    But these things are all made by engineers and programmers. Doctors are just the end users.

    Doctors are the ones asking the engineers to make this equipment, despite the fact that it could in theory cost their jobs at some point in the future. Why? Doctors take an oath to serve patients, and take it seriously. If the robot does a better job at a basic surgery, they'll pursue the robot even if it costs a thousand doctors their jobs.

    Software developers are nothing like that. Our average software developer's oath was seemingly, "fuck users! And fuck you if you care about users!"

    Speak for yourself, fucker.



  • @boomzilla said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Speak for yourself, fucker.

    Maybe that's extreme, but as long as one of the basic tools of our industry is something as shitty as Git, what do you expect me to say? We (as an industry) have picked literally the shittiest possible option.



  • TIL @boomzilla enjoys screwing wood :o



  • @magus said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Except, in my case, that's literally everything.

    I wouldn’t say I’m literally no good at everything, but I have a very broad and not overly deep skill base/area of knowledge, except for a few fairly specific areas — so I’ll put myself in much the same camp as you.

    If someone would not have the opportunity to enter this field because all of the tutorials and such are stupid and hard for no reason, I call that a tragedy.

    My experience is that most documentation and explanations of things I need when it comes to coding, are written for people who, well, aren’t me. Too often I find myself struggling with explanations because I have a difficult time understanding what they’re doing and how it pertains to what I’m trying to accomplish — probably because both the writer and I are cutting corners, but not the same ones. From where I’m sitting, this frequently makes programming much harder than it needs to be.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @yamikuronue said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @boomzilla said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    I haven't noticed this.

    Neither have the rest of us. I think @shoulder-alien has been hanging around Blakey again.

    Speak for yourself. You're the one whose literal first reaction to "we found a better way to teach kids programming" is "Yeah but very few people should be making software in the first place because only the super special 10% are worth anything"

    Cool strawman, sis.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @boomzilla said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Speak for yourself, fucker.

    Maybe that's extreme, but as long as one of the basic tools of our industry is something as shitty as Git, what do you expect me to say? We (as an industry) have picked literally the shittiest possible option.

    Network effect is a helluva thing. But I don't actually mind drinking Budweiser, so what do I know?

    I've also chosen something other than git every time I've had a choice.



  • @boomzilla said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    I've also chosen something other than git every time I've had a choice.

    Good for you, but the only way to get a choice is to be unemployed.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @boomzilla said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @boomzilla said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Speak for yourself, fucker.

    Maybe that's extreme, but as long as one of the basic tools of our industry is something as shitty as Git, what do you expect me to say? We (as an industry) have picked literally the shittiest possible option.

    Network effect is a helluva thing. But I don't actually mind drinking Budweiser, so what do I know?

    I've also chosen something other than git every time I've had a choice.

    I've never had problems with it. Then again, I've only checked out code from git to compile it, so my experience is a bit limited.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Good for you, but the only way to get a choice is to be unemployed.

    No. You could be senior enough to be the chooser. Or at least have some influence with whoever is doing the choosing.


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    I think in some ways DS9 took it too far. There's an episode about halfway through the run where Quark needs money so he hooks up with a (human) arms dealer who's selling chemical weapons that killed millions of people.

    I was like, "ok yeah I get it the Roddenberry thing is dead, but did you have to make the evil weapons dealer a human? You couldn't have put some forehead makeup on him or anything?"

    Also later on when O'Brien infiltrates the Space Mafia, we find out most of them are humans too. Again: not even a brief attempt to add any physical attributes to mark them as "alien". (Hell, even Betazoids get the black-on-black contact lenses.) Anyway.

    Yeah, humans did a lot of horrible things. They also did a lot of really great things.

    On the other hand, we have Gul Dukat, who was essentially Space Hitler. We have In The Pale Moonlight, widely considered one of the best Star Trek episodes of all time, in which the person who does something truly evil is not a human. But Sisko feels all conflicted about it because he should have seen it coming... and also because he recognizes that deep down inside, he was OK with it, because it brought about an outcome that was sorely needed to keep the Federation from being wiped out in the Dominion War. Did we ever see that kind of nuance in an earlier series?


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    I heard it summed up at one point as (paraphrasing here) "he wanted a utopian society, free from conflict, so we were expected to create an interesting narrative with no narrative conflict."

    I think in some ways DS9 took it too far. There's an episode about halfway through the run where Quark needs money so he hooks up with a (human) arms dealer who's selling chemical weapons that killed millions of people.

    I was like, "ok yeah I get it the Roddenberry thing is dead, but did you have to make the evil weapons dealer a human? You couldn't have put some forehead makeup on him or anything?"

    Also later on when O'Brien infiltrates the Space Mafia, we find out most of them are humans too. Again: not even a brief attempt to add any physical attributes to mark them as "alien". (Hell, even Betazoids get the black-on-black contact lenses.) Anyway.

    I think DS9 explored a lot of ethical/social problems. It went much deeper than the other Star Trek shows, and it is one of my favorite Star Trek shows for that reason. (TNG is my favorite, but that is probably because I grew up watching it.)


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @slackerd said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    I've never had problems with it. Then again, I've only checked out code from git to compile it, so my experience is a bit limited.

    Yeah. Checking out isn't problematic in Git; that's basically just a download operation. It's in trying to use it as source control where things get ugly.



  • @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Yeah, humans did a lot of horrible things. They also did a lot of really great things.

    Voyager did a great two-parter where they find another Federation ship trapped, but that ship had been basically torturing aliens to death to power their warp drive. It was far better than the cartoonishly-evil weapon seller in DS9, for one thing, it was actually somewhat subtle.

    If DS9 is doing something to make me praise Voyager, that's a problem. Just sayin'.

    @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Did we ever see that kind of nuance in an earlier series?

    The Original Series has an episode where Kirk gives a primitive race weapons because the Klingons were arming the other side.

    Oh it also has an episode where a Federation Captain goes insane trying to find a immortality cure and ends up killing everybody on his own ship and also using phasers to kill hundreds of natives of that planet. It was the goofy episode that ended up in Kirk reciting the Constitution.

    For some reason, Roddenberry was a lot stricter about enforcing his rules on Next Gen and the films than he was in the original series. (Well the 6th film includes a Federation traitor.) Maybe because he obtained more control over production.


  • sekret PM club

    @slackerd said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    I heard it summed up at one point as (paraphrasing here) "he wanted a utopian society, free from conflict, so we were expected to create an interesting narrative with no narrative conflict."

    I think in some ways DS9 took it too far. There's an episode about halfway through the run where Quark needs money so he hooks up with a (human) arms dealer who's selling chemical weapons that killed millions of people.

    I was like, "ok yeah I get it the Roddenberry thing is dead, but did you have to make the evil weapons dealer a human? You couldn't have put some forehead makeup on him or anything?"

    Also later on when O'Brien infiltrates the Space Mafia, we find out most of them are humans too. Again: not even a brief attempt to add any physical attributes to mark them as "alien". (Hell, even Betazoids get the black-on-black contact lenses.) Anyway.

    I think DS9 explored a lot of ethical/social problems. It went much deeper than the other Star Trek shows, and it is one of my favorite Star Trek shows for that reason. (TNG is my favorite, but that is probably because I grew up watching it.)

    Strangely, that's exactly why I hated it when I was younger, despite enjoying the hell out of it now. Back when I was ~10, I used to watch Star Trek like crazy and always hated most of DS9 because I watched Star Trek to see spaceships shoot lasers at each other, and DS9 didn't have much of that. It was only once I got older that I could appreciate DS9 for what it was and how it did it.



  • @blakeyrat That sounds familiar, and the order I'm watching everything in (which is seriously weird) has me not reaching voyager for a while yet. Are you sure that wasn't TNG? Or maybe that was just something similar...



  • @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Doctors are the ones asking the engineers to make this equipment, despite the fact that it could in theory cost their jobs at some point in the future. Why? Doctors take an oath to serve patients, and take it seriously. If the robot does a better job at a basic surgery, they'll pursue the robot even if it costs a thousand doctors their jobs.

    Software developers are nothing like that. Our average software developer's oath was seemingly, "fuck users! And fuck you if you care about users!"

    Really? Wow. Have you, like, ever met a doctor in your life, ever? They are 99% tech illiterate.

    Some doctors might get hired to work with engineers and programmers in designing these systems, but I don't think that gives them a higher stake in the product being made.

    The reason doctors get this (supposedly) well designed gear made is that someone is willing to finance it to be made. Hospitals, research grants, government, donors, whatever. And no one is willing to pay for the programming tools.

    "Professional integrity" and crap like that don't figure into it.


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    the cartoonishly-evil weapon seller in DS9

    That's the second time you've mentioned the guy. TBH I don't remember him at all. What I do remember is the strong plot, the character arcs, and the way they had to work through real moral dilemmas.

    When you say "cartoonish", I think of Worf from TNG, and so I also remember that DS9 was where Worf transitioned from a cartoon character to a more fleshed-out, realistic (and awesome) Starfleet officer.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Yeah, humans did a lot of horrible things. They also did a lot of really great things.

    Voyager did a great two-parter where they find another Federation ship trapped, but that ship had been basically torturing aliens to death to power their warp drive. It was far better than the cartoonishly-evil weapon seller in DS9, for one thing, it was actually somewhat subtle.

    If DS9 is doing something to make me praise Voyager, that's a problem. Just sayin'.

    @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Did we ever see that kind of nuance in an earlier series?

    The Original Series has an episode where Kirk gives a primitive race weapons because the Klingons were arming the other side.

    Oh it also has an episode where a Federation Captain goes insane trying to find a immortality cure and ends up killing everybody on his own ship and also using phasers to kill hundreds of natives of that planet. It was the goofy episode that ended up in Kirk reciting the Constitution.

    For some reason, Roddenberry was a lot stricter about enforcing his rules on Next Gen and the films than he was in the original series. (Well the 6th film includes a Federation traitor.) Maybe because he obtained more control over production.

    Rules are for losers.



  • @e4tmyl33t said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Strangely, that's exactly why I hated it when I was younger, despite enjoying the hell out of it now. Back when I was ~10, I used to watch Star Trek like crazy and always hated most of DS9 because I watched Star Trek to see spaceships shoot lasers at each other, and DS9 didn't have much of that. It was only once I got older that I could appreciate DS9 for what it was and how it did it.

    Next Gen and DS9 have approximately the same amount of combat pew-pew in them. It's Voyager that gets in a shoot-out almost every episode. (Even Voyager has a decent number of cerebral episodes though.)

    But yeah, as a kid, DS9 doesn't attract. It wasn't until my second watch-through on Netflix that I really began to appreciate it. (Specifically: the episode Duet is the first episode where it really sets itself apart from previous Star Trek series and establishes its own tone.)



  • @cartman82 said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Really? Wow. Have you, like, ever met a doctor in your life, ever? They are 99% tech illiterate.

    Not in the US. You're thinking nurses.

    @cartman82 said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    "Professional integrity" and crap like that don't figure into it.

    Do you really believe this?



  • @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    That's the second time you've mentioned the guy. TBH I don't remember him at all. What I do remember is the strong plot, the character arcs, and the way they had to work through real moral dilemmas.

    Cartoonish Bond villain on the right.

    0_1502733413715_Quark_Gaila_Hagath.jpg

    It was actually a pretty decent episode, other than the cartoonish Bond villain.


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Cartoonish Bond villain on the right.

    ...yeah, still not ringing any bells. Was this one of the Ferengi Episodes? That might be why; I've suppressed the traumatic memories of most of those. :P


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Cartoonish Bond villain on the right.

    ...yeah, still not ringing any bells. Was this one of the Ferengi Episodes? That might be why; I've suppressed the traumatic memories of most of those. :P

    Agreed. The Ferengi episodes were the worst ones.



  • @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    When you say "cartoonish", I think of Worf from TNG, and so I also remember that DS9 was where Worf transitioned from a cartoon character to a more fleshed-out, realistic (and awesome) Starfleet officer.

    Worf actually has a pretty consistent arc throughout both Next Gen and DS9, IMO. And of all the Next Gen characters, he was the best fit for DS9's format, I'd say. Also both Picard and Sisko were something of Klingon aficionados so that helped.



  • @slackerd said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Agreed. The Ferengi episodes were the worst ones.

    Nah. The mirror universe episodes were the worst ones. The Ferengi episodes were gold compared to that. The one where they go back to 1947 Roswell and the one where they parody The Magnificent Seven are both genuinely hilarious.

    The one where Quark gets a sex-change operation, that one is garbage and should be avoided.



  • @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    A lot of them simply can't do that, and they're the ones who find programming difficult and continue to do so no matter how much they're taught.

    But that's not a reason to stop exploring ways of teaching programming better to younger audiences (or others). If there are truly hopeless cases (and that's a big if IMO/E), they will keep failing at the game too, but so what?

    Besides, we're already teaching a load of stuff that most kids will never use once they finish school. Basic knowledge of programming will probably benefit more than e.g. music or latin or somesuch crap will.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Nah. The mirror universe episodes were the worst ones. The Ferengi episodes were gold compared to that. The one where they go back to 1947 Roswell and the one where they parody The Magnificent Seven are both genuinely hilarious.

    The one where Quark gets a sex-change operation, that one is garbage and should be avoided.

    I liked the mirror episodes. Fite me irl. :P


  • sekret PM club

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Next Gen and DS9 have approximately the same amount of combat pew-pew in them.

    Granted, though most of my TNG watching was done via videotapes (since my parents had every episode of TOS and TNG on VHS, I could for the most part pick-and-choose the pew-pew episodes and ignore the rest. Watching DS9 as it was broadcast and not being able to pick up the pew-pew only (especially since it was more weighted towards the latter part of the series due to the Dominion War) made me not like it early on and I avoided it.

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    It's Voyager that gets in a shoot-out almost every episode. (Even Voyager has a decent number of cerebral episodes though.)

    While I appreciate some aspects of Voyager (like the ship's design. I loved the variable-height warp nacelles when it first came out), there was a lot of it I didn't like. It's been so long since I've seen it, though, that I can't recall what exactly it was I didn't like.



  • Shitty episodes:

    Next Gen: Holodeck Episodes
    DS9: Mirror Universe Episodes
    Voyager: Holodeck Episodes Again

    @e4tmyl33t said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    While I appreciate some aspects of Voyager (like the ship's design. I loved the variable-height warp nacelles when it first came out), there was a lot of it I didn't like. It's been so long since I've seen it, though, that I can't recall what exactly it was I didn't like.

    Voyager has some GREAT wheat in a lot of chaff. If you reduce it to like 5-6 episodes a season instead of 22, you get an amazing Star Trek experience. Took bad about all the crappy episodes though.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Shitty episodes:

    Next Gen: Holodeck Episodes
    DS9: Mirror Universe Episodes
    Voyager: Holodeck Episodes Again

    I liked the Holodeck Episodes in TNG and Voyager. Especially the Professor Moriarty ones in TNG.



  • @slackerd said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    I liked the Holodeck Episodes in TNG and Voyager. Especially the Professor Moriarty ones in TNG.

    There's a couple in Voyager (IIRC) I like because they don't pretend that what happens in the holodeck threatens the whole ship. I'd much rather just watch "Data vs. super-intelligent Moriarity" without him magically getting control of the real ship and threatening to ram it into a star or whatever. It'd still be exactly as entertaining, and require much less suspension of disbelief.

    Voyager also does a much better job at figuring out what actual human beings would use an actual holodeck for. Like the little girl's educational children's book episode. Or the Captain Proton stuff. Or Beliana's skydiving program, which also answered the question "what happens if you say 'end program' while falling out of a plane?"

    Next Gen, Crusher goes into a holodeck video game and ends up waiting on a grungy police office bench for like an hour. Gee, so fun.

    I did like the one where Picard wanted to just relax in his detective simulation and he was like "computer stop bringing in people with guns to threaten me!" and the computer was like, "uh, that's all this program has in it."


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @slackerd said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    I liked the Holodeck Episodes in TNG and Voyager. Especially the Professor Moriarty ones in TNG.

    There's a couple in Voyager (IIRC) I like because they don't pretend that what happens in the holodeck threatens the whole ship. I'd much rather just watch "Data vs. super-intelligent Moriarity" without him magically getting control of the real ship and threatening to ram it into a star or whatever. It'd still be exactly as entertaining, and require much less suspension of disbelief.

    He got control of it because someone was dumb enough to give him the actual command codes of the ship.



  • @slackerd In the first one it was magic. Like literal magic. The safety protocols protect you from getting shot by a hologram bullet, but not from the computer creating a villain who can turn off the engines and shields? Waaa?

    In the second, Moriarty legit tricked Picard into giving him the codes. Excellent phishing attack, really.


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @slackerd said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:
    Nah. The mirror universe episodes were the worst ones. The Ferengi episodes were gold compared to that.

    Uhh... are you sure you're not thinking of Enterprise?

    The one where they go back to 1947 Roswell and the one where they parody The Magnificent Seven are both genuinely hilarious.

    Yes. The proverbial "exceptions that prove the rule."

    The one where Quark gets a sex-change operation, that one is garbage and should be avoided.

    Yeah, that one was the worst of all, but overall the Ferengi episodes were mostly awful.



  • @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    "Professional integrity" and crap like that don't figure into it.

    Do you really believe this?

    Not sure.

    In industries that are dealing with peoples lives (eg. medicine, airlines), you can certainly push for higher levels of professionalism and capability through guilds and such. So I see how one industry can on average do things better than other.

    But that's dependent on political and financial pressures put around these branches. People inside are just people. Some good, some bad, some capable, some lazy.

    Programmers don't decide to hate the users. They just try to make a tool for themselves and aren't very good at UX. Doctors aren't messiah that sacrifice themselves so that masses can prosper. They get told there will be a new tool and there's a mandatory training tomorrow. They weren't the ones who organized grants and research and financing around developing it.

    If you put too much emphasis on people instead of systems, you are probably wrong.



  • @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Uhh... are you sure you're not thinking of Enterprise?

    Please. Dominatrix Kira was the worst thing.

    The Enterprise one was kind of cute, if relying too much on fan-wank. I loved that they even created mirror universe show credits for it. But SO MUCH fan-wank. "The story's weak, but here's a Gorn! Remember him! Here's a original series model ship! Remember that! And it's named like the one in Deep Space 9! Remember that! Look at all the references we threw in! Look that crystal alien from the episode where he trapped the Enterprise in a space-net!"



  • @cartman82 said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Programmers don't decide to hate the users. They just try to make a tool for themselves and aren't very good at UX.

    By doing the latter they are implicitly doing the former.


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @e4tmyl33t said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    While I appreciate some aspects of Voyager (like the ship's design. I loved the variable-height warp nacelles when it first came out), there was a lot of it I didn't like. It's been so long since I've seen it, though, that I can't recall what exactly it was I didn't like.

    • Inconsistent limits. (They went through something like twice as many of both shuttlecraft and photon torpedos as what the ship was stated to carry, for example.)
    • Constant mashing of the Reset Button, which is particularly frustrating when DS9 was making such strong use of continuity and season-long and series-long arcs.
    • Bizarre and inconsistent characterization. (Particularly blatant in Janeway's case; the authors could never really pin down her character properly. IIRC Kate Mulgrew said in an interview at one point that she eventually decided the only way to justify it was that Janeway was suffering from severe PTSD after losing half her crew, and started playing her that way deliberately.)
    • Forgetting about stuff they had available that would have solved various problems they were facing, over and over again.
    • Making the Borg a whole lot less formidable.
    • Threshold, full stop.

    As Blakey said, it had its good points. But it also had a lot of problems. We're talking about a series where it's widely agreed that one of the best things the producers ever did was to bring in a blatant fanservice character. (Granted, it wasn't because of the fanservice, but because Jeri Ryan quite unexpectedly turned out to be an amazingly talented actress who really improved the show, but still...)


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @slackerd In the first one it was magic. Like literal magic. The safety protocols protect you from getting shot by a hologram bullet, but not from the computer creating a villain who can turn off the engines and shields? Waaa?

    In the second, Moriarty legit tricked Picard into giving him the codes.

    No. What happened was Commander LaForge disabled them when he asked the computer to make a villain that could out-think Data.



  • @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @jaloopa said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Interesting, but it makes sense especially for a target age where reading isn't necessarily natural yet.

    Seriously? I was reading before the age of 2. Admittedly, that may have been a bit precocious, but by 5, (the age they're talking about in the article,) everyone should be able to in a society that values universal literacy.

    No.

    Education until age 6 - 7 should be play.

    Here in NYC we have universal Pre-K for a full day for all 4 yos. I would have strongly preferred a half-day.

    My daughter is registered but if she feels in anyway pressured and stressed because of it...I am pulling her out.



  • @masonwheeler Badly thought-out villains.

    "Ok so the space-gangbangers are our villains in the first few seasons, they have big powerful ships but no transporters and can only go warp 6. Somehow, 3 years later, we've failed to outrun them and they're still our villains, even though our ship cruises like at least 2 warp levels faster than theirs. Whaaa?"

    @masonwheeler said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    Forgetting about stuff they had available that would have solved various problems they were facing, over and over again.

    The episode where Seven comes up with conspiracy theories drives me batty (it's actually a great episode, just one bit of poor writing) because all of Seven's crazy theories are based on the fact that it's unusual for Voyager to be carrying the high explosive they used in the pilot episode around.

    But... wait. Next Gen had an episode where the ship was stuck in a swirly-thing and they needed a high explosive but didn't have one. So of course Voyager that was launched years later would be equipped with them just in case it even encountered the same swirly-thing Enterprise-D was in, right!?

    Yet none of the characters (or apparently writers) of Voyager pointed that out. That it's perfectly reasonable starships would carry high explosives, since they've proven invaluable just a couple years (in-universe time) ago. Given their own, in-universe, rules.



  • @boomzilla said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    to make fun of Mason regarding his claimed age of literacy.

    I have serious doubts about this too.

    Sounds like my friend about her son who supposedly said mama at 3 weeks.


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @blakeyrat said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    The episode where Seven comes up with conspiracy theories drives me batty (it's actually a great episode, just one bit of poor writing) because all of Seven's crazy theories are based on the fact that it's unusual for Voyager to be carrying the high explosive they used in the pilot episode around.
    But... wait. Next Gen had an episode where the ship was stuck in a swirly-thing and they needed a high explosive but didn't have one. So of course Voyager that was launched years later would be equipped with them just in case it even encountered the same swirly-thing Enterprise-D was in, right!?

    The thing that bugs me about that is that their photon torpedoes are supposed to use antimatter warheads. This is literally the most powerful explosive that can possibly exist, according to our current understanding of physics at least. Why would you need "special high explosives" when your ship (either of them) has photon torpedoes?


  • Impossible Mission - B

    @karla said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    @boomzilla said in Actual... testing!? WITH USERS?!?!?!?:

    to make fun of Mason regarding his claimed age of literacy.

    I have serious doubts about this too.

    Sounds like my friend about her son who supposedly said mama at 3 weeks.

    They were books for very small children, but yeah, I was reading them that early. My mom said I started following along with the baby books she would read to me, and I picked up on the concept that certain shapes on the page stand for words really early on.


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