There’s been a lot of talk lately about the rise in use of ad-blockers, and the various strategies publishers and the online ad industry are using to try to convince people to turn off their blockers. But almost all of this has been framed as a case of people wanting to be freeloaders, wanting to […]
Tag Archives: complaining
I Feel Like Part of the Problem
Sunday, July 12th, 2015 – 8:00 pm
In San Francisco now, I no longer feel like a useful, contributing member of The City’s social or cultural scene. Merely by virtue of being “a developer”, I feel like I’ve become Part Of the Problem. I sure as hell try not to be. I try to encourage the arts; I try to defend and promote […]
The Place Where Flow Goes to Die
Monday, December 10th, 2012 – 9:58 pm
My employer has multiple offices in different places, so people who I’ve worked “with” for months can still be newcomers to my physical work environment. A visiting co-worker recently said, “From your Twitter feed, I assumed this office would be, like, the loudest place ever.” Am I really that sensitive? I started wondering. I started keeping […]
A Failed Goal
Saturday, December 31st, 2011 – 2:26 pm
Near the beginning of this year, I published a piece called “Ada Lovelace Day Is Not Enough“. In it, I noted that only 8.69% of my 2010 posts had been marked with the “gender” tag, and it would be nice to increase that percentage. (But it was still an improvement over 2009’s 4.76%.) I said: So […]
I’ve Chosen Convenience Over Privacy
Sunday, April 24th, 2011 – 2:13 pm
Back when I got my Palm Prē, I noticed that it wanted to store various of my information on Google’s servers. I thought I’d kept it from doing so; I sure wasn’t using Gmail on a regular basis. I configured the Prē’s email client to check my own account on mactane.org, and I thought everything […]
Developers Are Not QA Testers
Friday, April 8th, 2011 – 8:18 am
When a company says “we can’t afford a QA department”, what they’re really saying is, “we accept that our software will be infested with bugs, and quality is not important to us.” When they compound this basic error by saying, “the developers will just have to do their own QA”, they prove that they have […]
“Unplug From the Net to Connect With People”? Why Not Drive an SUV to Fight Global Warming?
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 – 9:13 pm
Apparently tomorrow will be the “National Day of Unplugging”, when people who are ready to “take the unplug challenge” will obey the call to “put down your cell phone, sign out of email, stop your Facebook and Twitter updates”. But this isn’t just some kind of stunt or willpower exercise; there’s a point to it. […]
OpenOffice Writer UX Warts
Monday, October 19th, 2009 – 10:30 am
The more I play with OpenOffice.org’s Writer, the more confused I am by some of the odd UI/UX warts in it. Here are the ones that are on my mind this morning: When I press F11 to bring up the Style Picker list, why does typing letters not navigate me through that list? Why do […]