We've had unseasonably cool weather for the past few weeks, but that ended quite abruptly yesterday. When I got home from work, the house was at 88°F – and we had to resort to turning on the air conditioner for the first time this year.
Last year we turned it on in May.
The forecast for the next few days is for temperatures approaching 100°F. The chaparral summer has officially arrived...
Thursday, July 15, 2010
End of the Road for Telecomms?
Eric thinks this invention, coupled with Google's support, just might do it...
Warrior Song: U.S. Marines Version...
I read recently of a study that asked the leaders of military and paramilitary organizations worldwide what force they would least like to oppose. Over 80% of the respondents put the U.S. Marines at the top of that list.
Hooah!
Operator Error...
Those of us in the software business are very aware of the “operator error” problem – some behavior the user didn't expect, but which was actually caused by something the user unwittingly did. With software, most of the time the real problem turns out to be a misleading or unobvious user interface design. Some fraction of operator errors, though, are things you're never going to be able to fix by redesigning the user interface. For example, if someone insists on putting their name into a field labeled “street address”, there's probably nothing you can do about it.
Toyota's notorious “sudden acceleration” problems turn out to be a case of operator error – users (overwhelmingly senior citizens) were stomping on the accelerator instead of the brake. It's not obvious to me what one can do about such a thing...
Toyota's notorious “sudden acceleration” problems turn out to be a case of operator error – users (overwhelmingly senior citizens) were stomping on the accelerator instead of the brake. It's not obvious to me what one can do about such a thing...