Facepalm

i posted quite emotional piece some time ago - on real world warriors that really don’t need to do anything more than they already did. despite that, they want more. publicity, fame and to achieve that - they use lies. it seems even poster hero of US - killed sniper Chris Kyle did a bit of lying himself. and it seems he was even warned specifically against it by his superior - that he can’t make false claims about number of medals he received. despite that, and despite that America is quite open in areas where they shouldn’t probably be so (well, i’m from Poland, and pre-1989 nobody would even thought on getting documentation about discharged soldiers so easily) so checking such claims can be very easy. Chris DD-214 document differs a bit from his book story and obviously, the story Hollywood wants you to believe. ...

how David defeated Goliath this story started in June of this year. one of Apple AppStore employees made an “error” while reviewing revision of Basecamp authors new app - Hey. David Heinemeier Hansson, one of the Basecamp founders, took it to Twitter David is not only Basecamp CEO, he’s author of series of great books on running teams and companies. he started to relay live on Twitter emails he and his employees exchanged with Apple Application Store team. as Apple takes anything between 15 to 30% of sales cut out of every in-app transaction, they suddenly asked him to include payment option in Hey. David argued, that the app never had and doesn’t plan to have option to buy anything. ...

WD was recently caught red-handed on trying to sell HDDs to NAS duties that use SMR technology without informing about it (and, actually, by actively trying to misled customers and then silence the whole situation). that ended up in lawsuit. while others were also caught trying to do similar things, they backed up immediately, while WD still tried to say that “white is black, you know, really”. ...

…and in particular, often goes very badly. not only in life in general, but also in the IT world :) you probably have dozens of stories to tell, if not hundreds. someone configured the port badly, everything worked until it stopped … and when it stopped, it dragged the whole network behind. big time. whole data center. why do we make the same mistakes all the time? automation slightly improves the situation, but sometimes it may dramatically speed up things going bad. I have already written about the ‘black box’ method - we do not use it in IT. yes, we met during various ‘fuckup nights’ type of events (kudos) for Bartek Górczyński, who, using his extensive experience of many drama cases in IT, spoke bluntly and openly), but for ‘hard’ infrastructure - there is not much, and if it is, is treated rather, as an example, rather than a ready recipe for what conclusions to draw. Andrzej Gab and Robert Woźny started such a cycle to organize at PLNOG. ...

I bought it, so you won’t have to. ‘blood, sweat and pixels’ is book of Jason Schreier - kotaku fame. and to set record straight - it’s very, very bad book. to further add to insult, one of the chapters is focused on our very own ‘witcher 3’. let me shorten your torment, and save 30 PLNs by summarizing the diagram that Jason uses to describe the process of creating each of the games: ...

for the first time in a few years I took three weeks of vacation. …and this is starting to catch up with me :) i took few books with myself, but only some of them are worth mentioning - like ‘Hit refresh’ by Satya Nadella (though I have not read it yet) and ‘Now. The physics of time’ - I am in the process and it is fascinating to read. the remaining two positions will remain in the shadow of oblivion. ...

how bad our current patent system needs to be broken, to allow building companies just to do business on patent trolling? we see more articles about it but capitalsm doesn’t care. even when law enters the game, there’s often nothing that can be done having SDN in mind, and developers influence on how todays internet works, i’m thinking what we’ll be doing in couple of years (and how pitfully unprepared are companies today to defend any sensitive data - financial, biological - in “web 17.0” world). will we be able to sustain development as a society, or it will be reserved only for those rich, at the helm of big corporations? ...

…discussions were already covered on my blog. arstechnica just published A/B/X test of Ethernet cables capable of suspiciously “enriching” sound and as you can imagine… there’s no difference in those priced at 340$ vs those priced at 2.5$. it’s good laughing experience to compare this review and the one provided by this fraud, that’s trying to say over his fake so called ’test’. please read comments as well - there’s interesting one, where one of the commenters mentions that 0=0 and 1=1 in digital processing, while the author (again, fraud) still claims there’s a big difference. ...

…are of course one of the worst and evil habitats in this world. treating passengers like cattle during the entire process of boarding and exiting the plane (let’s not skip the “joyful” stage of buying a ticket, let alone attempting to modify it later) has become - generally - a new standard today. a few months ago I had the opportunity to fly back and forth in Poland on two different days - Monday and Wednesday. on Monday, security screening team couldn’t handle the onslaught of people coming in, so my hand baggage was scanned VERY briefly and team was actually urging me to stop blocking the doorway. there were many people whose baggage was even checked even more superficially - or not at all (despite the lack of cards confirming their air crew status they were allowed to skip the gates totally). On Wednesday, on the other hand, my backpack was completely undressed, including all the individual cables being pulled out. then finally gate securty agent asked me to start the computer and iPad. to my questions about the difference from Monday behavior, he could not give any meaningful answer except that “it is all through the European Union” and that “I am not interested, I have my duties”. I immediately felt better and safer as a passenger… ...

you stumble on audiophile-driven discussions, related to exploiting their customer base. I found today, completely at random, category 6 ethernet patchcord that… provides directional audio optimization support: DIRECTIONALITY All audio cables are directional. The correct direction is determined by listening to every batch of metal conductors used in every AudioQuest audio cable. Arrows are clearly marked on the connectors to ensure superior sound quality. For best results have the arrow pointing in the direction of the flow of music. For example, NAS to Router, Router to Network Player. ...