10:51 – There seems to be a great deal of surprise that Cyprus has stopped asset transfers in preparation for stealing up to 9.9% of bank depositors’ account balances. I’m not sure why anyone is surprised. That’s what governments do. They call it a “tax”, and they can do it anytime they want and in any amount they want. That kind of thing happens in the US and other first-world countries as well. It just happened with ObamaCare. And it’s even more likely to occur in places with undemocratic, dictatorial, autocratic, unelected governments, like the EU. Cypriot bank account holders should be thankful that their government, at the insistence of the Troika, stole only 9.9% or less of their account balances. They could have stolen it all.
So, Cyprus becomes the fifth eurozone nation to be bailed out, following Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. Italy can’t be far behind, and France not far behind Italy. When those two go, it’s game over for the euro. Meanwhile, the Protestant northern-tier nations look on, dreading the day when those bills come due, while the Catholic southern-tier nations continue to run up huge bills they have no hope of ever paying. Merkel is mortgaging Germany’s future solely to improve her chances of being re-elected this autumn, which looks increasingly unlikely to happen. And the downward slide of Greece has already passed the “developing nation” third-world level, and is quickly headed for whatever’s worse than third-world. And, as much as I’m glad not to be European and particularly not on the euro, I keep thinking that it can happen here. In fact, if we don’t soon start taking a meat-axe to spending, it will happen here.
So Bob, do you seriously think for a single nanosecond that our overlords and masters will ever take a meat-ax to spending here?
What do you think our odds are and the timetable for the Great Default?
How long will they be able to pay the troops and police?
As I’ve said, I don’t think we’ll have a Great Default. We may default on bonds held by foreigners, and we’ll certainly default in the sense of paying off our debts with greatly inflated dollars. There’s no alternative to that.
But I don’t think historians will ever be able to look back and talk about the Day of the Great Default. As I’ve said, I think the decline will be gradual. Or perhaps I should say the visible decline. We’ve already had our savings and retirement funds, government and private, looted. I don’t doubt that people our age will receive social security checks and medicare benefits when we retire in five or ten years. But those benefits will increasingly be in severely inflated dollars. Most of us, retired or not, will experience gradually worsening poverty.
Right now, we older folks are in charge. We vote in disproportionate numbers, and we control most of what wealth remains. But young people are even now starting to realize that they’re on the hook for supporting us. Fewer and fewer young people supporting more and more older people. At some point, they’ll balk. That’s when things are going to get really bad.
Our son used to threaten us years ago when still a young kid to put his grandma and us into nursing homes ASAP. So we’re already screwed. And our daughter would probably have us shot out of hand.
I think you’re *probably* right about the Timeline to Poverty, but things could swing really bad really fast depending on circumstances we haven’t seen yet.
This just in from Archbishop North, on Cyprus, Europe and us:
http://teapartyeconomist.com/2013/03/18/believe-a-politician-and-you-will-lose-your-money/
“This indicates just how desperate the Eurozone leaders are. They pretend that there is calm. They pretend the system is not coming apart. Then they make an announcement that is rational only on the assumption that the euro experiment is coming apart.”
http://teapartyeconomist.com/2013/03/18/gold-rises-dollar-rises-stocks-fall-the-cyprus-disaster-begins/
I think North (and just about every other article I’ve read) gets it slightly wrong. The original proposal was for a 6.75% bite on accounts that contained €100,000 or less and 9.9% on accounts over €100,000. It was never entirely clear to me whether an account with > €100,000 pays the 9.9% rate on the entire amount or just the amount over €100,000.
Amounts over €100,000 were never guaranteed (“sacrosanct”), any more than US accounts over the FDIC limits are guaranteed. And now it seems that Cyprus may reduce the percentage they steal from accounts < €100,000. I've heard 3% and even 0%, with the amount not stolen from those accounts being made up for by a higher percentage on accounts > €100,000, possibly 40% or more.
Politically, 0% on accounts < €100,000 would cut down the firestorm considerably. Most of those accounts > €100,000 are held by foreigners, mostly Russian, including Putin. The EU wanted to penalize money launderers (i.e., the Russians) with this action, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see the final decision be to steal 0% of small accounts and anything up to 100% on balances over €100,000. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them steal 100% of the entire account balance on accounts > €100,000.
Why would anyone foreign depositor not have moved their Euro denominated account to Germany a long time ago? Stricter banking laws?
Because people are stupid and act as though what they want to happen is what’s really going to happen.
“Why would anyone foreign depositor not have moved their Euro denominated account to Germany a long time ago? Stricter banking laws?”
In a word: yes. If the money has any sort of questionable source, reputable banks won’t touch it. I was talking with an acquaintance a couple of weeks ago who works for a Swiss bank. This guy from Spain wanted to open an account and deposit several hundred thousand Euros. Since the guy had no ties to Switzerland, and didn’t want to prove where/how he managed to wind up with the money, the answer was “no thanks, bye bye”.
Now, probably he just wanted his money out of Spain, because he doesn’t terribly trust the banks there. Understandable. But anything that looks even remotely like money laundering will be turned down by banks here, in Germany, and most other Western European countries. Maybe a few private banks would risk it, but they charge pretty incredible fees…
If the Devil had a son and he wore a hoodie, would he look like Barrack Hussein Obama?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2295082/Why-does-devil-The-Bible-look-exactly-like-President-Obama.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
The curious thing about Cyprus is that in their case it wasn’t overspending that pushed them into bankruptcy; instead it was buying Greek government bonds at the worst possible time. Cyprus’s EU membership only dates from 2004; they didn’t have time to get as thoroughly corrupt and dependent as the Greeks have.
Our son used to threaten us years ago when still a young kid to put his grandma and us into nursing homes ASAP.
I wonder if he understands the cost of nursing homes yet? Far cheaper to let your parents live in their home until the end or near the end. The problem is if they need around the clock nursing which appears to be cheaper in a nursing home. Maybe.
And our daughter would probably have us shot out of hand.
I hope that you are kidding. I just do not know what to say about that.
I think that we are on the route to Bruce Sterling’s book, “Distraction”, ( http://www.amazon.com/Distraction-Bruce-Sterling/dp/0553576399/ ). It’s 2044 and the Federal debt is $45T (but we may get there sooner rather than later):
“It’s 2044 A.D. and America has gone to the dogs. The federal government is broke and, with 16 political parties fighting for power, things aren’t likely to improve soon. The Air Force, short on funding, is setting up roadblocks to shake down citizens and disguising its tactics as a bake sale. The governor of Louisiana, Green Huey, is engaging in illegal genetic research and has set up his own private biker army. The newly elected president of the U.S., Leonard Two Feathers, is considering a declaration of war against the Netherlands, a country that finds itself half under water due to global warming. Trying desperately to hold things together is Oscar Valparaiso, political consultant and spin doctor extraordinaire, who has just engineered the election of a new liberal senator for the state of Massachusetts, only to discover that his boss suffers from severe bipolar disorder. ”
I suspect that we are going to go back to several generations living under one roof. How do you feel about attics? Basements? Just kidding, I hope.
[snip] We may default on bonds held by foreigners, [snip]
Providing an opportunity for Americans to profit from a reverse auction, giving declining cents on the dollar for bonds held by foreigners.
“I wonder if he understands the cost of nursing homes yet?”
I should have made it clearer that he used to threaten us all with this in a semi-jocular manner when he was an adolescent, circa 12-14. He hasn’t mentioned it lately, however. (maybe he’s greasing the paperwork skids behind our backs all along…) And daughter was educated in a hardcore leftist skool system and now goes to university in Montreal where she’s in the humanities departments and no doubt getting a thorough Marxist-Leninist-Maoist indoctrination across the board daily. Probably been advised long since about her fascist roader parents who need to be stood up against a wall soonest so that the Revolution may continue forthwith. Probably has not been advised that the revolutions eat their young and the first radical mofos are the first ones stood against various walls, to wit, see Robespierre and Lev Bronstein. Paradoxically or not, the revolutionary cadres tend to hang onto certain categories of fascist roaders, though, like cops, troops, secret police, torturers and the like.
As for Sterling and other science fiction and fantasy stuff, I suspect that Real Life will turn out fah stranger in both the short run and the long.
OFD wrote:
“Our son used to threaten us years ago when still a young kid to put his grandma and us into nursing homes ASAP. So we’re already screwed.”
There’s a saying along the lines of “The ideal revenge is to live long enough to be a burden to your kids.” Looks like the kids are waking up.
“And our daughter would probably have us shot out of hand.”
Sweet Princess? Surely not.
And our daughter would probably have us shot out of hand.
To be honest, at a certain point, I think that’s what I’d prefer to happen to me.
Same here, eristicist. So long as the buggers shoot straight. As Breaker Morant admonished his own firing squad. Another flick I watch once a year, along with “The Man Who Would Be King,” and “Barry Lyndon.” Also, “The Friends of Eddie Coyle;” you ever catch that, Chuck in Tiny Town? Neat 70s Boston-area scenery and the music of Dave Grusin. Outstanding dialogue from the late George V. Higgins, who wrote the book along with a series of others covering that era’s crime and cops world.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070077/
And our daughter would probably have us shot out of hand.
To be honest, at a certain point, I think that’s what I’d prefer to happen to me.
Please no. I’ll take morphine. The last time I had some (about 400 cc ??? in two doses over two hours), it took all my pain away (I was having a heart attack). And my cares too. The downside was the restarting of my bowels three days later. And the subsequent hemorrhoids (probably way, way, way TMI). Given enough morphine, I doubt that one would breath very long.
A work colleague had pancreatitis (inflamed pancreas), which kicked off diabetes, he lost a heap of weight, had a heart attack whilst in the hospital and nearly died. They gave him morphine, to which he turned out to be allergic. I think his heart kept beating but blood didn’t get to his brain for about eight minutes. We thought he’d die or be a vegetable (and he had a wife and two tween daughters to look after) and I was dusting off my suit to go to his funeral but he came out of it all right. He should have bought lottery tickets.
FD wrote:
“And our daughter would probably have us shot out of hand.”
I’d rather be chased off the cliff as in The Meaning of Life.
Have not seen “The Friends of Eddie Coyle”, but will put it on my list. I watch an average of about one movie a month, and sometimes none, so it will not likely be soon that I see it.
One day off before early morning video jobs for the rest of the week. Here I am approaching retirement, and life is busier than ever. I had more time to myself when I commuted 90 minutes each way to work every day. Maybe that 90 minutes respite on the transit was a plus.
Spent the entire day Monday working on maintenance problems at the radio project. Replaced an op-amp on the main audio board. Things still did not work, so we called the factory who had recommended replacing the op-amp. Turns out the problem was an input source switch in the wrong position, and not a dead op-amp. Wasted about an hour on that job.
Then the boss wanted a webcam in the secondary studio, which is in an office building about a mile away from the main studio. %&^#@!* I HATE Logitech products. I did not buy nor recommend that product. The camera worked out of the box, but the zoom and pan controls that the Logitech software provides did not work, and the boss insisted that be working. Downloaded and executed the executable installation file. Took a good 20 minutes to install, which seemed excessive overkill for such a product on a 2ghz computer. All the bells and whistles on the camera started working, but the second hard drive in the computer had suddenly failed.
At that point, I had to take a bathroom break, and when I returned, the boss had uninstalled the webcam software. After that, nothing on the computer worked and error messages abounded. Avast was disabled, the remote desktop was somehow uninstalled, and the second drive, a SATA unit, was not accessible, although it was spinning. Turned off comptuer and pulled the plug. Disconnected the drive. Rebooted the computer. Shut down. Repeat after reconnecting the drive. Windows took about 20 minutes doing chkdsk on the drive. Still not visible to Disk Management. Pulled the plug. Went to lunch. Returned 90 minutes later. Rebooted. More chkdsk and the drive worked. End of the workday arrived, and we left. Around 20:00, the second drive disappeared from WinExplorer and Disk Management. That computer is in a useless state at the moment. And a new show starts originating live from that studio this weekend, with no one having time to fix it before then. And you think the economy is the world’s only problem. In the Wndows world, I never use hardware that does not work with Windows straight out-of-the-box. If it won’t work without additional software installation, I return it. I never have problems. But everybody thinks that every computer product on the market is designed perfectly and works flawlessly.
Got the water bill yesterday. After 90 years of the water meter being in the basement, and me phoning in the reading every month that I have lived here in Tiny House, they moved the meter outside so THEY could read it, then proceeded to estimate for the last 3 months. This month’s bill says 1 unit used, but for the last 3 months, they have estimated 3 units on the bill. Ordinarily, I use 1—sometimes 2—units, never more. They now have me 6 units ahead of what the meter actually reads, but yet, they bill me for one unit used, and report the reading as being 6 units more than what the meter actually reads. It is going to be a long time before my usage catches up with their dishonest ways.
Last month, I wwitched to AT&T Uverse (which is actually ADSL-2) for Internet, after they offered a ‘no installation charges’ deal for less monthly charge than they would give me on the plain old DSL line. I just got a bill for Uverse with incredible installation charges on it, and also got a bill for another month of plain DSL, which was supposed to have been turned off at the switchover to DSL-2. Under no circumstances is it possible for me to get both services at the same time. Only one wire comes into the house and it is either DSL or Uverse, not both. What’s more, the speed I bought with Uverse was to be 12 down and 1 up. I am actually getting worse speeds now than with standard DSL—less than 3 down and about 0.20 up.
Forty years ago, when AT&T was Ma Bell, if something like this happened, I just called the regulatory agency, and someone from Ma Bell was at my door within 20 minutes, apologizing and fixing any problem. So far, I have been on hold for 25 minutes twice and finally had other commitments to attend to, so I cannot reach anyone at AT&T so far. But yet, everyone here on this board says less regulation is what we need in life. We have that now in Indiana, and as you can see, it’s working out just fine.
Perhaps your rosy-colored specs are glossing over the bad things about the Ma Bell monopoly, Chuck: monstrous mechanical answering machines because you weren’t allowed to put non-Ma Bell hardware on their wires. Extremely expensive long distance phone calls. Plenty more, but there’s no point in detailing them.
Wow, can you imagine what cell phones would look like if Ma Bell was still in charge of all the landlines? I’ll bet that you would not be allowed to call a land line from a cell phone and vice versa. I remember the old acoustic couplers, those were junk indeed.
My new AT&T Uverse DSL line came right up this morning after the dude went back to the fiber point and hooked up the right house to the fiber switch (his first connection was wrong). I went to http://www.speedtest.net and got 18 Mb/s down and 1.4 Mb/s up. Works well and the modem has both wifi and cat5 four port hub, of which I am using both. The price is $50/month with a $199 install/modem charge.
Hard to say, but methinks Chuck’s worse problem was his boss and not AT&T. Jeez.
And also the water company sucks.
Pretty lousy day. And I thought mine sucked. Pointless to even mention it.
Chuck wrote:
“…and when I returned, the boss had uninstalled the webcam software.”
Did he explain why he did that? Did he fix it?
I’m also wary of Logitech. My first product with them was a cordless mouse that chewed batteries like you wouldn’t believe.
Hey, long before deregulation Ma Bell allowed anything on their lines (well, technically it was supposed to be type-approved, but did they ever check?). Profit margins on calls and service are still in the thousands of percent—maybe more now than back then, although I have neither the time nor inclination to check that out. If you aren’t reckless, like Sprint/Clearwire (formerly GTE of olden days) has been, there is a ton of money to be made in the telecom business. Maybe with new foreign, Japanese owners, things at Sprint will improve. Not all foreigners are as greedy as Americans, whose motto is ‘the customer is the enemy’.
Profit margins on calls and service are still in the thousands of percent—maybe more
Ever checked out the profit margins on text messages?
Yeah, he thought that uninstalling would somehow magically undo whatever the Logitech software had done to that system. I had to use a Logitech mouse at one contract job I had. It was a super-cheap. The plastic housing was so thin that every time I took hold of the mouse to move it, the housing flexed, making it feel like it was going to drop out of my hand. Very disconcerting. I finally brought in my own M$ mouse and used it.
I learned long ago that if you are going to use Windows, best to use M$ products, as they are rugged, reasonably-priced (usually cheaper than the knock-offs) and just work with no software ‘installation’ necessary.
Well, since text messages are sent via a channel that was supposed to be used by the phone companies for internal operating purposes, and so that infrastructure exists at essentially no additional cost to them, every penny they make on a text message could be considered pure profit. Although I’m sure for tax purposes they don’t present it that way.
” The price is $50/month with a $199 install/modem charge.”
So much for those claims back early in the century that the Internet was going to be virtually free.
I never did believe that. When cable first became available, we bit. It was $1.50/mo and the biggest selling point was that cable channels would not have any advertising. That was in Chicago, and when we left there, we were paying over $50/mo and every cable channel had commercials.
Same here, I remember that by 2000 international phone calls were going to be free. They’d make money by a reasonable monthly fee. I never did believe that.
The reason I’ve given up watching TV is the saturation advertising. Unlike our host I think some commercials are a good thing. Back in the Sixties we had four blocks of commercials per hour, 4 commercials per block, two minutes per block. It was great for getting a snack or letting the coffee out. And some of those ads were genuinely amusing or likable. Now their loud, repeated too often, annoying. Cable offered commercial free at first, but they’ve snuck in now.
I’m a member of Hawthorn Football Club, and Telstra, the 800 pound gorilla of the Australian telecommunications market, just sent me a flyer asking for $800 for a year’s cable access to watch my team – it used to be free on free to air. I’d get a remote control in my team’s colours and they’d make a donation to the club. No thanks.
I’m a member of Hawthorn Football Club, and Telstra, the 800 pound gorilla of the Australian telecommunications market, just sent me a flyer asking for $800 for a year’s cable access to watch my team – it used to be free on free to air. I’d get a remote control in my team’s colours and they’d make a donation to the club. No thanks.
I’m not sure that I would pay $80 per year to watch my beloved Aggies take number one in college football next fall with Johnny Football in charge.
If it was $14 per month I might consider it, but they want $14 per week. No way will I pay that.
At the moment I am simply don’t know any manufacturer of keyboards and mice that I like. Wireless is essential, as I hate having cables all over the desk. I’ve used Logitech with some success, but the set did eat batteries. So I moved to my current MS keyboard and mouse set: the keyboard is great, but the mouse eats batteries; also, I sometimes have to physically unplug the wireless dongle when rebooting, else the mouse does not initialize correctly.
More recently, I thought “Cherry, they have a good reputation”, so I bought a Cherry wireless set for my wife’s new computer. Wrong, what a disaster, the wireless connection would drop randomly (with the dongle 30cm from the keyboard/mouse), and the only solution was a hard reset of the computer. She’s happier with the crappy $10 keyboard that came for free with the computer.
I don’t understand it. Keyboard and mouse are critical, highly visible part of a computer. Why are they mostly crap?
Because mice and keyboards are easily identifiable places to save money and people are stupid. I use the Microsoft wired usb intellimouse at all of our PCs. Works like a champ and many of them are over 5 years of age. I have a stash and fear for the day that we run out. There are newer variants but they are not as good.
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-D58-00026-Intellimouse-Optical-Mouse/dp/B00005TQ08/
Keyboards are a total disaster. I like mechanical clackers. At home, I use a Focus 2001 keyboard that is slowly dying (I have two and and am substituting keyposts as they break). At the office, I use a 1992? Northgate Omnikey 102 Gold. The pinnacle of the IBM AT keyboards, it has the function keys both on the top and left sides. Awesome for debugging using function keys.
I have bought several Stellar keyboards ( http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t%3DAvant+Stellar+keyboard&i%3D38292,00.asp ) for my programmers but they seem to have gone out of business. Sigh.
I’m not sure that I would pay $80 per year to watch my beloved Aggies take number one in college football next fall with Johnny Football in charge.
The Aggies are now in the SEC. A championship ain’t gonna happen for several years while competing with the likes of Alabama, Florida and LSU. I used to include TN but lately they have become a homecoming team. The one you invite to homecoming because you know you can beat them. UT (University of TN, not Texas) couldn’t PAY ME $80 a year to watch them. And I work on the UT campus.
I have two Kinesis ergo classic keyboards, about 12 and 14 years old. Very highly recommended. The older one is failing, but it got a lot of hard use. Many people can’t get used to the curved wells with the keys, but those who like them really like them.
I also have a new Microsoft “Natural” ergo keyboard. Hate it. The layout is fine and the extra functions are fine and the price was great, but the keys have a dead feel to them. It takes more force, and more steadily applied force, to type, making it tiring and tiresome to knock out pages of text.
I use a Keytronics keyboard at work. Nice feel to the keys, slight curve, quite reliable. Recommended. At home I use a Logitech keyboard with illuminated keys as I minimize the light on my screen and keyboard for photo editing. Only problem with the Logitech keyboard is that my BIOS will not recognize the keyboard when the system is booting. If I need to get into the BIOS I have to substitute a $10.00 keyboard. Seems the lights on the keyboard draw too much power or some such nonsense.
I stick with wires, they always work. My mice are all Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000. I’m not sure I have any more spares in stock but I’ve been able to fix every one that started having problems by a careful disassemble and cleaning. (Dust gets into the toothed disk controls the mouse wheel. My keyboards are Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000, and other than one I spilled some soda on that needs cleaning my only problem is the text on the letters wearing off. I disable most of the special keys and buttons in the software – especially caps lock. I hates caps lock, I hates it I do! I think I would use this keyboard just to get the ability to disable that key.
I converted from AT&T DSL to Uverse. The only problem was that the VOIP function stopped working by late afternoon. The lady on the phone wanted to ship me a replacement to arrive the next week, leaving us without phone service. Eventually I got her to admit they did house calls, and it was fixed the next morning. Both installers were top-notch. I pay for 12 Mbps down and it comes very close to that.
The Aggies are now in the SEC. A championship ain’t gonna happen for several years while competing with the likes of Alabama, Florida and LSU. I used to include TN but lately they have become a homecoming team. The one you invite to homecoming because you know you can beat them. UT (University of TN, not Texas) couldn’t PAY ME $80 a year to watch them. And I work on the UT campus.
You do know that my beloved Aggies beat Alabama last year, right? In Alabama. And their opening game of the season was with Florida with a redshirt quarterback starting his first game. Got outscored by less than a touchdown, 17-20. And the Aggies led LSU until the last 5 minutes.
The Aggies biggest problem this year is to figure which one of their four first string running backs to play. Decisions, decisions, decisions. And pray that Johnny Football, aka Johnny Heisman, stays healthy. And sober.
You do know that my beloved Aggies beat Alabama last year, right?
I had heard rumors, nothing concrete. You see, being in TN we hear very little about other teams unless it involves UT. There could be a comet strike on Birmingham wiping out the city but the lead story on the news would be the UT quarterback spraining his thumb.
I did attend a Texas and Oklahoma game in Austin one year. The upper deck is downright scary when you are descending the steps. I have been to a couple of UT games and did not find it that pleasant. Too crowded and the UT fans are just flat out rude.
UT considers it a winning season if they beat Florida. From my memories when I lived in Texas the other UT considered it a winning season if they beat Oklahoma and TA&M considered it a winning season if they beat Texas.
I’ve got a BIL that lives in Bryan and all four of his kids went to A&M, two being in the military now, one still in school but on a medical discharge with the school still being paid by the military. A&M is an excellent school from what I have seen of my nieces and nephews.
As I have maintained for a very long time, competitive sports outside of phys ed classes, should be completely eliminated in high schools and state-funded higher education. Universities around here pump money into sports and not education. My alma mater, IU is talking about building yet another new basketball arena. They have built three in my lifetime. Stupidly, they put columns all through the most recent one, and now they have alumni complaining about paying big money for tickets, only to be blinded by a column blocking half the playing floor.
All sports should be via private clubs, funded by the participants, like they do it in the UK. And I am including ALL sports—swimming, too.
Lynn wrote:
“Awesome for debugging using function keys.”
You write code with bugs? Tsk tsk tsk.
SteveF wrote:
“I also have a new Microsoft “Natural” ergo keyboard. Hate it. The layout is fine and the extra functions are fine and the price was great, but the keys have a dead feel to them. It takes more force, and more steadily applied force, to type, making it tiring and tiresome to knock out pages of text.”
I have an iPad. Keying anything but very short messages on that drives me nuts. (Well, most people think I’m already nuts.)
Roy wrote about cleaning keyboards and mice.
In a past life when our host wrote hardware books he recommended putting keyboards through the dishwasher. Would that work for mice too?
(I always thought he was kidding about the dishwasher, but then realized O’Reilly would not let him say that unless it was safe, for liability reasons.)
Chuck, you want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think sports in universities over there needs to be reformed, but it still serves a purpose, on a less professional scale. I don’t think there should be sports scholarships, just academic ones.
“Awesome for debugging using function keys.”
You write code with bugs? Tsk tsk tsk.
Yup, been doing it for years. Every time I get all excited about a new feature and get the swelled head thing going, somebody calls in about the new feature not working right because they changed a teeny eansy little thing in the feature and all our presuppositions just got thrown out the window. Or, the new feature broke somebody’s old feature (that has happened a lot). It is very humbling.
My nightmare is when somebody calls in and we cannot duplicate the problem in our shop. Then I either have to ignore them or “road trip!”. Ugh.
Re breaking old features: That’s what regression testing, preferably automated regression testing, is for.
Re “can’t duplicate” problems, can you have them set up a share and you connect in and watch as they work? Even at MS’s pricing, it’s cheaper to buy and install than to fly, isn’t it? Another thing that sometimes works is, have someone set a webcam to watching the user with the problem as he does whatever he does to cause the problem. Sometimes I find he did something an unexpected way; I still need to fix whatever UI hole he tripped over, but there’ll probably be a work-around for what he’s trying to accomplish. (ie, have him follow the workflow I expected and coded.)
Re breaking old features: That’s what regression testing, preferably automated regression testing, is for.
Oh man, I have got deja vu all over again. Can we just agree that regression testing is good and that I do it extensively this time? In fact, I started the 4 day regression testing running when I left work Friday night and had a very nice virtual memory runtime error waiting for me this morning. OK, it was not nice and it sucks big time.
BTW, if your regression testing tests every feature in your code, cool. Mine does not and covers a minimal user set. We have over 150 dialogs in our user interface and I do not even want to talk about our calculation engine.
No shares through corporate firewalls. The corporate IT dudes frown HEAVILY on this. Whips and chains will be involved.
I don’t try to write regression tests for every possible condition. (Especially because I usually come in on a project already in production, with an utter mort of killer issues.) (Yes, that was a pun.) Instead, I make a starter suite and then add tests for everything that’s found to be wrong. A good test suite is a process, not a state.
Yah, corporate security policy and such is a pain. I don’t suppose some of the customers have realistic-but-fake data that demonstrates the problem, and which they could send to you? It might be worth their effort in setting that up, assuming they’re paying for your support trips.
I like nice quiet keyboards. Never did understand why many prefer those old clickety-clackers. Dell has had the quietest, but they are hard to get on the free market (ostensibly they won’t sell you one unless you already have a Dell computer). The newer ones available from M$ are now very quiet, except for the spacebar.
Regarding school sports, there is no way to stop them from taking over the finances of schools. Happens all the way from high schools to universities around here. It also inculcates that hate rage America is famous for. In my parents’ generation, attending a high school basketball game with Muncie Central was taking your safety a step too far. Looking back at newspapers from that era shows dozens of beatings having taken place by Muncie students and fans against New Castle attendees at every single game.
Life will go on if there were no high school or college sports in the US. There is no such thing as “reformation” of sports in America. It is out-of-control even professionally. People in Indiana—and especially in Indianapolis—are still paying a tax to pay off bonds for a stadium that was torn down years ago as not modern enough. There are far better things for people to be paid millions of dollars for, than being sports stars—or movie stars. Movie stars repeatedly show their lack of intelligence by opening their mouths without a script. Same was true for sports stars until the universities started requiring them to take communications courses to learn how to do public speaking well.