Using Android and Google Maps as a trip planner for an 1,100-mile (2,200 round-trip) road trip left a bit to be desired.
Read on, to find out why…
Some things are designed well, and others aren’t. Posts in this category are meant to call out both, and in the case of bad designs, provide comparison or contrast to the same function designed properly.
Using Android and Google Maps as a trip planner for an 1,100-mile (2,200 round-trip) road trip left a bit to be desired.
Read on, to find out why…
There is a special place in hell for whomever designs the packaging for children’s toys.
From time to time, I run across a vendor who says:
We have over 40 years of combined experience…
What does that really mean?
The intended meaning is that, if there are 4 people in the room, they each have about 10 years of experience.
But, it could also mean that one of them has 39 years of experience, and the other three have been in the business for only 4 months!
Further, let’s say that this particular vendor is an AI (Artificial Intelligence) consultant – why would I want 40-year-old advice from the mid 1970’s, when the largest computers of that era didn’t have as much computing power as my smart phone?
Essentially, we have a set of scalars that are supposed to represent the respective sizes of each individual’s experience base within the group.
Let’s say we have 4 people:
This gives us a set of 4 scalars: {12, 15, 8, 10}
Although there are many valid ways to compare and combine these numbers, there are also very many ways to combine them, that don’t make sense.
At the end of the meeting, Stacy proudly proclaims, “we have 45 years of combined experience“, because she added all of these scalars, but what does that really mean?
It’s not like the team are simply ONE person who becomes eminently more qualified with combined magnitude. Take the case of our most junior member – in theory, if we give Johnny another year of experience, he still sits within the footprints of all three of his other team members. The team’s range of experience is really based on it’s most senior member (Stacy).
It’s not like there is some kind of historical significance, as if getting to some magic number of combined experience qualifies the team for an historical marker. If they make it to 100 years of combined experience, they can’t proclaim “experience since 1917!”.
Talking about a set of numbers that each represents a constant value is just like combining height: Unless you plan to have them stand on each others’ shoulders, or make them lay on the ground end-to-end, the “combined height” would be completely pointless. The statement, “we have 22 feet of consultants visiting us today…” just doesn’t make any sense. Nor would it make sense to say, “it took 600 pounds of consultants to fix this problem”.
Instead, if we understand that we have a set of 4 people, and each scalar in the set represents ONE of the four people, we can come up with some meaningful metrics by comparing rather than combining:
Likewise, if we’re talking about numbers that reflect a rate, such as salary or billable rate, it might make sense to say, we had four consultants come in for a meeting. Their combined billable rate was $800/hr, and the meeting lasted two hours, so the cost of the meeting was $1,600.
When you use math to compare or combine a set of numbers, ultimately, you have to maintain perspective about what those numbers really mean.
If you combine numbers in ways that don’t make sense, you might create a meaningless metric.
Problem: You’ve got some 10-year-old code running on a 12-year-old platform that only supports TLS 1.0, and other “insecure” protocols that are deprecated or soon will be.
Solution: Reverse Proxy
Some of my favorite quotes…
Please note: This has NOTHING to do with pizza coupons nor discount codes. If you want pizza coupons, click here.
Every now and then, I run across the Geek Code, a compact notation for sharing basic profile and personality information.
I recently ran across this again, while looking for something else, and it inspired me to answer these questions:
Let’s find out…
“I know that you have selected several items colored red when buying things online. Therefore, I assume that your favorite color is red, and I automatically selected the color red when you asked me to purchase new curtains”
“I know that you have selected several items colored red when buying things online. Therefore, I murdered 200 people because blood is also red.”
In any major software development project, a broker tier is a critical element.
We’ll examine what a broker tier is, what it does, and several advantages to having one.
Note: This post was written PRIOR to Android 6.0 “Marshmallow” – please see the updates below for more details. “Marshmallow”, by and large CORRECTLY handles app permissions.
When you download an Android app, you are presented with a list of permissions that the application requires in order to run.
You can either accept all of the permissions as stated, or cancel the installation – there is no middle ground.
This approach makes Android generally untrustworthy, but there is a simple way to fix it.