Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

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  • Duplicate Selective Release

    June 22, 2011
    Blackboard Vista

    Analyst asked me to look at the server logs for a case where students were getting system exceptions. Armed with the JSESSIONID, I found many cases in the webct.log of an error called: “Stack size too large”. In my old email, I found a September 2010 discussion with Rajini Prabhu and Mike Cooling about thread-dump analyzers. In it Rajini…

  • Recommendations

    June 18, 2011
    Books / Novels / Writing

    There seem to be two ways to recommend something to others… Because the person making the recommendation likes it. Because the person making the recommendation knows the one receiving it and thinks that person will like it. The last time I looked, I am not anyone else. I like things others do not. Others like…

  • Open Letter Re: Behind the Blackboard

    June 9, 2011
    Blackboard Vista

    Hi Blackboard Support, Today, without warning, you changed Behind the Blackboard. Clients dislike surprises. We like knowing how things work. Give us access to the new thing before we have to deal with it. That way we become familiar with it. Even if you do not give advance viewing of the service, then advance warning…

  • Complex Policy => Confusion

    June 8, 2011
    Corporations

    There is a video of soldiers returning from Afghanistan irritated about having to pay out of pocket for bags they thought were allowed under the government contract with Delta Airlines. At the time, Delta’s understanding of the contract was First or Business class could carry four bags. Economy class could carry three. Because of this,…

  • All Software Has Bugs

    June 3, 2011
    Usability / Accessibility

    Humans are fallible. Humans write the code. Therefore, there will be bugs in the code. But that is okay. Humans are smart. Humans can try new ways of working with the software until they find the way the programmer intended it to work. … Or they hire people like me to help them. So it…

  • Odd Mozilla Spellcheck

    June 2, 2011
    Usability / Accessibility

    We maintain a wiki page with which DBA will do which maintenance. By convention, the months are the first three characters of the month’s name. In doing updates, I noticed only month marked as misspelled was Sep for September. So Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Oct, Nov, Dec were all okay spellings but Sep was not? Changing it to Sept made it…

  • Feynman Flower

    June 1, 2011
    Photography, Science

    There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts. Richard Feynman, What Do You Care What Other People Think?

  • Terra Nova

    May 30, 2011
    Movies / Films / TV

    I saw a version of this commercial without the sneaking through the gate and most chase stuff. My first impression was, does humanity get so ignorant of the past that they are unaware of what populated the Earth 85 million years ago? After watching this version, it answered my question: yes. Anyone who read or…

  • Guard Dead Paper?

    May 26, 2011
    Library

    Seth said, “What we don’t need are mere clerks who guard dead paper.” Whenever, I read “mere”, “only”, or “just” as a descriptor, it makes me sad someone (even me) relies on obvious straw men. Librarians already do more than guard dead paper. It just makes it easier to knock them down and kick them while…

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Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

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