Recent submissions

Comment · 3 years ago
They were done the minute mods broke their habit of moderating their subreddits. Some dedicated mods might come back, but it is really hard to return to a lost habits so the damage is done already.
Comment · 3 years ago
I suggested them to put:

- A random video from the ones uploaded in the last minute.

- Another random video, uploaded anytime

In both cases, these videos should be shown regardless of language, view count, etc.

In most cases these random videos will be junk, but I bet there will be gems which would die unwatched otherwise.

Comment · 5 years ago
Probably blankets embedded with a conductive metal mesh in a pattern designed to block microwaves could be issued to all US personnel in foreign countries.
Comment · 5 years ago
I remember on my first year here in Texas, driving by Arlington's city hall and there were a bunch of second amendment rights guys protesting outside, armed to the teeth with assault rifles and camo pants.

The police in their HQ right across the street didn't seem bothered by it so I assumed it must be legal.

Comment · 5 years ago
Just want to point out the law allows unlicensed carrying of a concealed firearm, keyword here is concealed.

It is my understanding you already can walk around with a firearm anywhere in most US states that don't ban firearms as long as is not hidden from view, all this law changes is the requirement to get a license if you intend to walk around with a firearm concealed.

Comment · 6 years ago
> If so many people have trouble implementing agile maybe it just doesn't work?

The problem with agile and other empirical processes of project control is that it goes against the OCD tendencies of scientifically minded people. They assume that, since programming is all math and logic, software development projects should be as well.

They add micromanaging processes in a futile effort to control what they perceive as chaos and end up trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Comment · 6 years ago
> However, after seeing how badly it can be weaponized against developers, I'm certainly ready to throw out the bathwater, and I think this is what they're talking about.

Poor management is a separate issue from agile. Even so, I would rather stay on a poorly managed agile shop than go back to a waterfall shop.

As far as the "values on the left", I like to explain them as a 55/45 split (and adjustable depending on your reality): we still deal with processes and tools, we just take a second to think whether a process is actually needed when we can just talk to someone instead.

Example: on a small team, you might just ask "can someone please approve my changes?" instead of having a whole jira workflow with code reviews and approvals.

Comment · 6 years ago
> Also I think the comparison to lean manufacturing has always been very shallow. I get the metaphor, I just don't think that human resources in engineering can be optimized like manufacturing processes.

Agile and Lean are empirical process controls, they are based on the same concepts. Ken Schwaber explains all this on the first chapter of his book "Agile Software Development with SCRUM":

Defined process control: same inputs always result in same output (manufacturing widgets on a production line).

Empirical process control: same inputs not always result in same output.

Schwaber conceived SCRUM (and was among the founders of Agile) after realizing software development required an empirical process control: give 2 dev teams same specs, 2 different apps will come out (they might do the same thing, but in different ways)

Comment · 6 years ago
This 100%. One of the reasons people hate Agile is because they miss this point and keep micro-managing.
Comment · 6 years ago
Every time I see an "agile sucks" post, I take the time to read it and every time (so far) I have found they blame the process for some key part of agile they missed. Quote from the article:

“Way too much of Agile has been not about technology, but about people and about managing things and about getting stuff done — not necessarily getting the right stuff done.”

This is the whole point of agile: progress on iterations, inspect and adapt at the end of each iteration.

Your team might build the "wrong stuff" for an iteration, realize it (inspect), then make a course correction (adapt). If you end up delivering the "wrong stuff" is because you didn't follow this very core principle of agile.

I find it hard to believe these so called "Agile Early Evangelists" can make such a statement. Their background in lean development should have made the familiar with empirical process controls, from where lean and agile come from.

My guess the author quoted them selectively to fit the "agile sucks" narrative of the article.

Edit: expanded last 2 paragraphs.

Comment · 7 years ago
In agile, or any other project management process, the "customer" is not necessarily just the final user but any stakeholder.

As a rule of thumb: anybody who needs regular progress updates on a project is a "customer".

The difference in agile vs other development processes is progress reports are partial releases of working code instead of a percentage increase on a gantt chart.

Comment · 8 years ago
I can confirm, I have grid-tied solar panels and have gotten outages in the middle of sunny days which is usually the time my panels are actually supplying surplus power to the grid.

Only way to have juice during power outages in my configuration is to add something like the 7K Tesla battery.

Comment · 8 years ago
This is a good idea, but i think it could go even further.

Somewhat unrelated but if you really want to see how horrendously unfriendly the typical smartphone UX is, hand one to a technology-challenged grandparent (who can probably use a legacy cellphone/flip phone just fine) and ask them to call you.

They are more likely to accidentally take selfies than figure out how to call you, even if they have your phone number memorized.

It would be nice to have an android "main menu" which is just simply the dialpad when you turn on or unlock the phone. Add a button for "smartphone things" like search contact list or open other apps but keep it most elemental function (making phone calls) up front and and easy.

Comment · 8 years ago
Rolling their own health care company might solve only part of the issue. I think the largest driver of healthcare costs right now is price gouging by providers with their charge masters, needless exams and procedures.
Comment · 9 years ago
I have been thinking on a "simple rule" that could mitigate gerrymandering:

1. No congressional district can span more than 1 partial city and/or county.

This will force districts to be drawn to cover whole cities/counties and would stop ridiculous districts such as the Texas 34th which covers parts of at least 8 counties from the gulf coast up to San Antonio

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