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Comment: Re:Why do I have to register just to get informati (Score 1) 267

by DeadlyBattleRobot (#45046785) Attached to: What Developers Can Learn From

So why should I have to go through all that just to get prices and find out which doctors are in their plan? On Ebay, Amazon, or just about any ecommerce site I can get the product description and price straight from a Google search. I only have to go through the registration/login hassle if I actually want to buy something. If they would just provide the plan information with a simple static html page I could get the information I want, stop hammering on their servers, decide what to do, and come back next month if I decide I want to buy.

This is exactly what I have been telling my friends. The site is ridiculous. You should be able to select your state, and go immediately to a static page with a table the plans sorted by age, etc., with a phone number to call to sign up. No registration nonsense. I've heard there are about 160 plans from 3 companies in my state. Who knows when I will get to see them? I still can't log into the site, even though I made it through the registration process.

Comment: Re:How is it even still up? (Score 1) 267

by DeadlyBattleRobot (#45046703) Attached to: What Developers Can Learn From

NPR is a different kind of propaganda news source. About three weeks ago, I think it was a Saturday, they actually ran a hit piece segment criticizing Syria intervention skeptics and satirists like John Stewart, as naive and destructive. Their reports ran day after day with pro war on Syria for weeks before.

Comment: Re:Why it wasn't easy to handle the number of user (Score 1) 267

by DeadlyBattleRobot (#45046645) Attached to: What Developers Can Learn From

I signed up again with a different username. This time I received the email verification, and clicking it did say I was confirmed to be a user. I still can't get in. It says my user:pass is wrong. Is there something really wrong, or is it still totally broken? I don't know.

Exactly this. The site may be overloaded, but when it does come up there are software bugs. I apparently have created an account but it won't let me log in. How do I know I created an account? When I can't log in I use the lost password affordance with my username, receive the lost password email, but the link back to the site throws an error page. I could not release a broken project to a customer in this state.

Comment: Re:Farmers don't need iPads (Score 1) 62

by DeadlyBattleRobot (#41375903) Attached to: How Sensors and Software Turn Farms Into Data Mines

There is research into using iPad controlled quadcopters and image processing to monitor crop conditions - I saw a demonstration of a quadcopter system at a research station in Idaho last week. You can quickly find areas of a field that need more water, etc. You can't say iPads (or equivalent) will _never_ help.

Comment: Re:oh, not true!||| Me Too (Score 4, Interesting) 328

by DeadlyBattleRobot (#38482294) Attached to: Why the Occupy Movement Skipped Silicon Valley

I'm over 60 and still working in software. My trick is to never leave home, never let them meet me face to face - the opposite of what you did. I work as a contractor by telecommute, etc. Never bring up the issue of your age. Find an excellent sales person with an existing customer base to come up with ideas and projects, that's been a very good way to go. This is a very interesting time to be in software.

Comment: Re:Valued by Results (Score 5, Informative) 328

by DeadlyBattleRobot (#38481844) Attached to: Why the Occupy Movement Skipped Silicon Valley

This is a quote out of




        When I saw this list â" and especially the last agenda item â" the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.

Comment: Re:Who Cares (Score 1) 306

by DeadlyBattleRobot (#31932862) Attached to: Cox Discontinues Usenet, Starting In June

Google Groups is horrible. They totally ruined DejaNews. They couldn't and can't monetize it so they just fuck with it -- but they will still copyright it to within an inch of it's life. They had no respect for the value of usenet. It was the #1 source for programming information during the 90's and I still miss it. We are living in Orwellian times, and "He who controls the present, controls the past". I would vote you up a million times.

Comment: Re:How to turn your skilled employees into cogs (Score 1) 193

by DeadlyBattleRobot (#30120594) Attached to: Becoming Agile

Agile's appeal to the corporate world is understandable. Turn an anarchic, creative, random process into a measurable machine operation. Developers now become robots in the clone army. And there is buy in at many levels. Now imagine your group's most obnoxious administrative assistant becoming your scrum supervisor. It's a way for the non technical to make themselves relevant.

Comment: Re:There are tools that can help (Score 1) 451

by DeadlyBattleRobot (#29929225) Attached to: Federal Judge Says E-mail Not Protected By 4th Amendment

I'm sure someone has thought of this: use the same email client framework at sender and receiver. The first time an email is sent to someone using this system, there is a handshake between the 2 clients before the real payload is encrypted and sent. The handshake, using ordinary email, establishes the identity and provides the public keys. No 3rd party services are required other than typical email transport through the tubes. There would be a delay for the first email to go through, but none after that. The main thing I want to thwart is the data mining of all my emails that can be intercepted en route or stored on servers.

Comment: Re:Responsive (Score 1) 519

by DeadlyBattleRobot (#27353289) Attached to: Old-School Keyboard Makes Comeback of Sorts

I only use the model M keyboards. They were the most reasonable approximation to the selectric typewriter that I own. IBM knew how to make a good keyboard.

Another thing I liked about the model M was that it had very low radiated EMI -- they thought about what they were doing. Test a cheapo plastic keyboard vs. a real IBM model M. If you are using a radio or sensitive equipment it's a big deal..

I found by accident years ago that my WPM goes UP if I use earplugs or headphones. For some reason, if there is no sound, I can fly. I would like some feedback on this. I had a product design psychologist comment on this and he thought there was something to it.
