Year: 2008
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Working at cross purposes
In the real world, it’s actually cheaper for businesses to accept ACH transactions than it is to accept paper checks. At the Western Independent Bankers Association 2006 Technology Summit it was estimated that it cost a merchant $.05 to process an ACH transaction versus $.12 to process a paper check transaction. And even if you…
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Out of touch… again…
Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done.Andy Rooney
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Mistakes were made
I was listening to This American Life episode #354 about apologies that aren’t really sincere and at the end of the show, they talked about a poem by William Carlos Williams called, “This is Just to Say,” which they indicated could be considered the touchstone for the insincere apology. They had David Rackoff, Sarah Vowell,…
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Speedcabling
In a 2-2-2 Speed Cabling competition, see how fast you can untangle six Category 5 Ethernet cables (2 x 7′, 2 x 14′, 2 x 21′) which have been tumbled in the clothes dryer on high for three minutes. See Maybe I should schedule a competition for an IEEE Computer Society picnic meeting this summer.From…
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Error prevention
For all systems, we must, as computer professionals, protect users from their own errors, intercept all detectable errors, and give informative warnings when we believe the user might have made an error. The “she made and error and must take responsibility” defense is too simple. We need systems that work in collaboration with the user…