The minor rants thread.
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I love living
there.Implies you are currently not here, but are still living there, so therefore you must be on vacation, which information can be used maliciously to rob your house while you aren't there, but instead here, and could likely end with you tearing up anywhere.
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'here' would've invited the question where 'here' is. Making that sentence clear would've made it thrice as long.
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From conversation context, we were talking about:
@Lorne_Kates said:
Dutchville
Therefore, "here" should be assumed asDutchville, having no other supportive clauses changing the setting to anything else. Perhaps the only real thing that could make it more clear (in addition to making ithereinstead ofthere) would be to restate the location like so:Ah, so that's why I love living here in Dutchville.
Filed under: Then again, I'm no grammar expert.
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T-Mobile’s network extender lets anyone use your Internet bandwidth
Like Comcast, T-Mobile boosts its network by borrowing your bandwidth.
Even though it's using your home broadband connection, any data you use while connected to the CellSpot counts against your T-Mobile plan's data limits. Customers must use Wi-Fi to avoid using up cellular data allotments—so you're better off using Wi-Fi to begin with, especially if your phone supports Wi-Fi calling. The CellSpot could also use up any data allotment you have for home Internet, if you're on a capped plan.
So, why should anyone use this again? It lets others leech your bandwidth, it may not make your ISP happy and you don't even get free data traffic over the hotspot you yourself provide.
I fail to see any advantage for me.
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It's a money trap. Pure and simple. Meant only for the gullible consumers that use their phones to call people, but also don't know how to connect to their own WiFi and therefore doubling counting your data usage (one on the cell carrier, and one in your ISP).
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America - land of the free market and home of the brave monpoly
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Speaking as an ex-employee of an ISP, I can say that the business model of "unlimited data" in any ISP land in rural America is pretty much "screw the little old ladies who only use e-mail and Pintrest on behalf of the video gamers, VoIPers, and cord cutters (Netflixers)". And said model isn't really working any more, because the ratio of high volume to low volume users is skewing heavily toward high volume (kind of like why Social Security is going broke!), and because low volume users have kind of started to realize that they're getting screwed when they're paying the same rate as the guy who streams hundreds of hours of movies every month.
Really, Internet as a whole should have remained a usage-based-billing model, like it was in the original days of dialup. But The Free Market(TM) did the whole "unlimited" thing as a marketing
scamgimmick, and it's been all downhill from there.
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Vodafone in the UK give you unlimited data for three months when you start a contract, then show you your usage and suggest a package for you. I think the same model would work well for broadband.
I don't mind paying extra for unlimited or a cap that's beyond my usual habits, and it makes sense that my Grandma who goes on Facebook and email can get a limited tariff for less money, but she doesn't know how many gigabytes she uses each month (I don't know what I use either, I have a genuine unlimited data allowance so don't bother to check)
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still do
Never stopped indeed. For example, My service level (second from the top) allowed me 300 GB data per month, which I regularly approached and often exceeded. They've doubled it (I guess they got tired of sending us emails about "potentially disconnecting services") a few months back, but yes, it's still there.
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Really, Internet as a whole should have remained a usage-based-billing model, like it was in the original days of dialup. But The Free Market(TM) did the whole "unlimited" thing as a marketing scam gimmick, and it's been all downhill from there.
AOL (a dial-up provider) started that.
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Internet as a whole should have remained a usage-based-billing model
Meh. That's really not going to fly. But then I'm in suburban UK, and have access to plans that are bandwidth based as the hardware investment was actually done in this area. I know my ISP does some bandwidth shaping, but that mostly doesn't matter as I'm not actually interested in using peak capacity flat out for days at a time. I'm (stochastically) Doing Just Fine. ;)
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Mine only uses traffic management on upload, not download.
I think I only hit traffic management once when they did still use it on download anyway.
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So, why should anyone use this again? It lets others leech your bandwidth, it may not make your ISP happy and you don't even get free data traffic over the hotspot you yourself provide.
I think this might be a misreading of their statement. Yes, if I use the extender, the data I use counts against my cell plan, but if someone else connects to it with their cellphone, I would expect the data they use to count against their cell plan. I.e., data against whoever owns the phone plan.
The real kicker, though, is that if someone uses the extender, your ISP will charge you for the WiFi use.
Personally, I just use my WiFi connection.
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Got 7 notifications this morning, so I thought "ooo, I'm popular today" and clicked. I got:
A bit deflated, I tried to see the 7 posts that earned these badges (be cause I am a bit narcissistic about stuff like that). I could not find them. Mainly because of the prospect of having to wade through all 57,000 of them. I think I may have mentioned this before. Anyway: Could there not be a better way - probably in my "Profile" that links to my badges and not all badges?
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Mine only uses traffic management on upload, not download.
I think I only hit traffic management once when they did still use it on download anyway.I've hit it a few times on download back when I had cheaper plans, mostly when downloading games.
Haven't hit it for ages now.
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The real kicker, though, is that if someone uses the extender, your ISP will charge you for the WiFi use.
So… what minnellium is this?
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@CoyneTheDup said:
The real kicker, though, is that if someone uses the extender, your ISP will charge you for the WiFi use.
So… what minnellium is this?
Huh? I think you left something out.
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Brute forcing my way into a possible explanation:
echo "minnellium" |sed 's/\(.*\)\(nn\)\(.*\)\(ll\)\(.*$\)/\1\4\3\2\5/g'Filed under: There's got to be a simpler way
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I think you left something out.
I don't know what you think I missed out. I think you missed out telling me what I am supposed to have missed out.
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Okey dokey, I will try again.
So… what minnellium is this?
I got that the word is "millenium"...or at least I assumed it was...but
are you talking about? I don't get the reference. Is this a joke? Slam? On a completely different topic? How does it relate to my original post?
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How does it relate
Apparently the millennials use data differently?
Dunno, it's pretty short.@dkf : Error: Please be more descriptive.
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I got that the word is "millenium"...or at least I assumed it was
You assumed wrong. A case can be made for allowing the spelling with one L, but etymology absolutely requires a double N.
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Got 7 notifications this morning
Hah, I woke up to over 1000. I'd kind of like to find out if there were any interesting replies or mentions prior to the "Good Post" storm, but "view older notifications..." just results in nginx timing-out trying to fetch the notifications page.
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@dkf : Error: Please be more descriptive.
It was a more extreme version of “what year is this?” in relation to a practice that I thought belonged to the distant past.
It included a side-reference to this show for fun raisins:
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It sticks that in the validation attached property through some static nonsense? And somehow finds the correct binding?
At least with
INotifyDataErrorInfo, the binding just calls it automatically.Okay, did some more digging. I solved the problem of the data annotation in combination with localization through a tool which automatically creates a helper class out of the .ResW file while using the editor (and not merely upon compilation). Now I do not run into
Resources is inaccessible due to its protection levelanymore (I guess the .ResW was set toprotectedor something)This in turn allows me to use data annotations and I also found how to implement class wide validations with those annotations. That makes it possible to do something like this:
Model:
[Required(ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof(LocalizedResources.Resources), ErrorMessageResourceName = "FirstNameIsRequired")] public string Firstname { get { return _firstname; } set { SetProperty(ref _firstname, value); } }ViewModel:
SubmitPerson = new DelegateCommand(() => { Person.ValidateProperties(); // Rest of command snipped }View:
<TextBox x:Uid="Firstname" PlaceholderText="Firstname" Header="Firstname" Text="{Binding Person.Firstname,Mode=TwoWay}" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Person.Errors[Firstname][0]}" Foreground="Red"/>
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Minor rant: I remember playing the hell out of Shadowgate as a kid. I sucked hard at it, so I never got to the end. So when I saw Shadowgate 2014 in the Humble Bundle, I thought, sure, why not, $3 is reasonable :)
So I boot up the game, and it launches into some Darkest Dungeon-esque intro speech. Blah blah, destiny, save the world, blah blah-- living castle? Wait, the point of this game is to rescue the castle? I don't remember that from being a kid. Blah blah, oh yay, I'm at the first screen. The new interface is crap, but whatever, it's Shadowgate! ....And it gives me a talking hint skull. What. Whatever, I'll just ignore him. Grab key, unlock door, walk in, spooky eyes and menacing speech (a little longer, but mostly the same). Find key, unlock next door -- hey, I remember this hallway! I wonder if the death traps are all in the same spot? So I grab the candle beside the book and...
What. I "feel a rumbling in warning" and let go. The game just rescued me from its own deathtrap. Nope. I'm out.
Booted up the mac classic version that came with it instead >.>
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They just don't make them like they used to!
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You know what really fucks with my brain? When I find some concept with a complicated name like "the Riemann-Mendeleev graph hypercompleteness theorem" or "The dispenser pattern" and then it's basically a common-sense rule you already knew.
I spend weeks worrying if I'm missing something or if it's really just a simple concept that doesn't even deserve a name.
Seems to happen a lot with object-oriented stuff, it's like every basic idea requires some funny name.
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like all relevant "design patterns"
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There's a Design Patterns book that people of a certain age who went through Computer Science know by heart, and so they just spout out the name of a design pattern whenever you ask a question.
Usually these design patterns are fucking obvious and stuff you've been doing for decades without realizing the fucking obvious thing had a name.
Usually the name is really fucking stupid and frequently involve anthropomorphizing code, like "inversion of control".
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Usually these design patterns are fucking obvious and stuff you've been doing for decades without realizing the fucking obvious thing had a name.
Giving the obvious thing a name allows you to talk about it. It also lets you think more clearly about when to use it, when to not use it, and what the consequences are. Most of the pattern blatherers have NO CLUE AT ALL about when to not use a pattern or what its downstream impact is; they're usually the sorts of people who wonder why the world doesn't give them the extra point of GPA that they think they deserve…
The best programmers don't need patterns at all. Yet we can't wait until we we can staff our projects with just the best programmers…
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inversion of control
How's that anthropomorphising? Software modules control other modules, and the hierarchy has an effect
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It's the Soviet Russia joke of library/client-code call graphs.
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It's fucking everywhere!
Model: What? I've never seen any software walking down the runway!
Code smell: Yeah, when was the last time you saw a nose coming out of your IDE?
View: If you thought noses were rare, how about eyes?
Object oriented: Oh, now you think the software wants to have sex with inanimate objects?
Functional: This is just all kinds of problematic. I can't even.
Relational Database: I've got news for you, software doesn't want to be your friend.I tell you, this profession is all about gibberish.
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Take my get, take my set
Take me where I cannot run
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take control from me.
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You might have come across the fact that I'm a teacher. Now, the town I'm working in has gone all-in on the electronic whiteboard front and pretty much any school now has a sizable percentage of class rooms with boards from SMART Technologies.
As I am somewhat technology affluent I have been asked to do a training course on how to use the bloody things. Also, I seem to be one of two teachers to go beyond the basic "write on it" capabilites - at least, that's what the pupils told my principal. Oh well.
Naturally, such a course requires that I take a look at the provided tools and have a deeper look at what you could do with that. And let me tell you: It's no wonder my colleagues are so reluctant to use them.
Some of the WTFs I discovered:
a) Every year our city has to do a call for tenders who gets to install new boards. Thus the companies involved change on a regular basis. Here's the thing: You might think that the hardware, since it comes from a single company (above mentioned not-quite-so-SMART), should be somewhat standardized.
Nope. Yes, the board and projector itself are always the same. The mount and connectors - not.
Some have connectors in front. Some have connectors in the back. Some have both. Some have them at the side. Some have HDMI and VGA. Some have VGA and Component (and S-VHS). Some have an extra on-switch to the side with the "smart" functionality-switch in front. With some there's a single switch. And with others you need a remote to power on the projector. Not much of a problem for me.b) Did I mention that some have HDMI and VGA connectors? Well, with some boards somebody done goofed because even when you have a toggle button which switches between the inputs, both get recognized at the same time. Coupled with a genius who decided to connect both inputs to the outputs of a PC and you get a Windows PC who proudly proclaims that there are 3 connected screens - the screen on the desk, the board via HDMI and the board via VGA...
c) That's the hardware. The software is way worse. Basically, I began my career at major version 11. They're now at major version 15. And I couldn't tell you for the life of me what has been changed. There are no new features. None. The UI looks the same. Everything is the same.
d) If you want to use their notebook software to display a short movie, you have to use Flash.
e) If you want interactivity, you have to use Flash.
f) You can write on this board using a special pen. There are four buttons on a panel so you can easily switch between the colors black, red, green and blue. The UI also offers that you can choose other colors, change thickness, styles and so on. Those changes only work reliably when you use your fingers to paint. The pen? Maybe 10% of the times I tried it actually changed to the UI-selected settings, defaulting to the panel buttons.
g) They also offer "special pens". One is an OCR pen of sorts - you write something (using your finger, see above) and it gets converted to ASCII text. Yes, ASCII. In La-La-SMARTland special characters like the German Umlaute don't exist.
If you try to write an Ä you get 'A'. The ß is recognized as a "b".h) There's also a optional radial display of sorts which offers you quick access to your favorite features. That one crashes hard when you select the color for certain pens.
i) The icons are tiny on a 1920*960 display.
j) Gah!
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SMART Technologies
It has “SMART” in the name of the
productcompany. That's the first DANGER signal.
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We have an in-house product named SMART.
A few weeks ago, we finally made one smartass happy and launched another one called DUM.
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SMART
Superior Masticating and Retroactive Turntable?
DUM
Detection Under Mortification?
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Sales Marketing And.... Reporting Tool? I think?
And D[redacted] User Management.
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Darn, why do you have to make so much more sense!
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And I couldn't tell you for the life of me what has been changed.
oh oh I can answer that! Pick me Mr. Rhywden{stands up}
The correct answer is "Yearly licensing fees that can be massively increased by being justified by 'new version'".
{takes a bow}
My wife's a teacher, too. A few years ago some brown-nosed keener started a "digital literacy" bullshit push. The company that gave them the best blowjob was SMART, so this ladder-monkey somehow got them a big juicy contract with the schoolboard. SMART boards were THE FUTURE! They would revolutionize the classroom. Kids speak Teh D1gital, we need to speak their language too! :barf:
So highly paid consultants were highly paid to come in and give Corporate Presentations to show teachers that they'll ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS PROJECT! Because if there's one things teachers love doing on Professional Development days is having their time wasted with corporate brainwashing sessions. Fuck getting useful work done, like photocopying, or intra-departmental discussions, or marking.
So a poopload of money is shoveled to SMART. Teachers were heavily "encouraged" to tailor their lessons to the board. Most basically said "fuck you, we barely have working computers, I'm not going to start every lesson with waiting 15 minutes for the computer to boot then PRAYING everything works". The boards were installed and promptly ignored. Their main function was collecting dust.
Except for a small core group of tech teachers who actually did try to use them. They spent semester after semester battling the fucking things, trying to get them to work. After enough time, they finally did get some lessons running on them. Just barely.
And then comes this year. The SMART project ends. The cocksucker who started it got the ticks on their resume and fucked off to some administrative position. And the next person who had a different pet project said "oh we don't need to spend money on THOSE". The license wasn't paid for the software, and the (massively fucking competent but that's another rant) IT department went around and uninstalled the software. They left the boards up, of course (hardware is a different department). Of course they didn't TELL anyone, so a bunch of teachers came in to find their lessons wouldn't work any more, and all the time they'd invested over the past few years was literally wasted.
The IT department refused to re-install the software, and when asked for any solution, responded with "no my problem".
So given the choice of wasting a bunch of time, or actually getting work done-- the tech teachers "accidentally" installed "completely licensed" versions of the SMART software off "totally legitimate" websites.
In summary: fuck SMART and fuck anyone who bought into their bullshit.
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@Lorne_Kates said:
massively fucking competent but that's another rant
Ranting about people being competent?
@Lorne_Kates said:
fuck SMART and fuck anyone who bought into their bullshit.
We had SMART boards starting with a slow rollout when I was in middle school all the way through complete integration into all high school classrooms. They weren't too bad when the teachers used them, which was maybe 1 or 2 times a week. They found the most use in math classrooms, followed by science. We occasionally used them for class participation in English, i.e. "come up and write your answer on the board" and "correct the grammar in this sentence."
They were okay. But I can see how they could be done horribly wrong.
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Now we have to deal with people that want to apply all the patterns from this book in the same code. People that use patterns/standards without understanding why these standards exists, in ways that defeat their purposes. Code that is so modular and sliced in small fragments that you read to read a thousand files and classes to follow a simple hello world CRUD. Software where all fucking classes have an interface, and are referenced by this interface, even when there is no reasonable expectation of that interface ever having more than one implementation.
I learned more reading about anti-patterns. TDWTF favorite bike-shedding is one of them. One that annoys me a lot is the cargo cult.
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We have an in-house product named SMART.
Sales Marketing And.... Reporting Tool? I think?
I think ours is "Strategic Marketing and Retention Tool". Marketing people do love coming up with cute names...
