megaman22 (u/megaman22)

megaman22 commented on Inside the Business of Dog Cloning vanityfair.com/style/2018... · Posted by u/pseudolus

megaman22 · 7 years ago

I love my dog, but a clone would not be the same dog, with the experiences that make her the way she is.

I cannot think about dog cloning without remembering Fry's speech upon throwing the fossilized remains of his faithful Seymour into the lava beneath Planet Express, and it tears me up everytime.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Bark

megaman22 commented on Baltimore police will pay consultant $176k to maintain Lotus Notes system baltimoresun.com/news/mar... · Posted by u/linkmotif

rhizome · 7 years ago

They don't need to, they're paying a third-party for support. I wouldn't be surprised if the contractor has an IBM support account.

megaman22 · 7 years ago

IBM really, really does not want anything to do with further developing or supporting Lotus software products. I believe that they gave that whole business over to HCL not long ago.

megaman22 commented on Baltimore police will pay consultant $176k to maintain Lotus Notes system baltimoresun.com/news/mar... · Posted by u/linkmotif

ekovarski · 7 years ago

... but then the next paragraph paints a different pictuere,

""" It found that the “siloed nature” of the Lotus Notes databases made it difficult for officers to match, verify or search for information. It also found that various systems may contain conflicting information about the same case, or may not reflect the most complete information. Downloading or querying data is made “difficult, if not impossible” because it isn’t inputted in a standard way across databases. """

The contract was awarded to the initial company that built out the holistic platform in 1996 so you've got to wonder how much it has cost them over the last 22yrs.

megaman22 · 7 years ago

Calling this a "system" or "platform" is probably being very generous. It sounds like a very loosely related glom of Domino databases that grew up organically, probably with a little custom UI sprinkled on top. Notes can be infamous for that kind of thing, worse than Excel even, since it is more powerful...

megaman22 commented on Engineering whiteboard interviews: yay or nay? keyvalues.com/blog/engine... · Posted by u/lynnetye

megaman22 · 7 years ago

Nay. I do not understand the obsession with whiteboards. I've had coworkers that went gaga when they discovered that whiteboard paint was a thing, and they could cover their office in whiteboard surface. Doodles and doodles and doodles all over the place, but not very much working code ever makes its way into production from those offices. Lots and lots of movement and noise and grandiose planning, signifying nothing, too often.

Lock me in a dark closet under the stairs with just the glow from a couple LCDs and throw pizza and requirements documents through the slot, like you're feeding the Rancor. /s

megaman22 commented on Baltimore police will pay consultant $176k to maintain Lotus Notes system baltimoresun.com/news/mar... · Posted by u/linkmotif

kodablah · 7 years ago

That makes me think it's even more likely not his full time job.

megaman22 · 7 years ago

If it's running well, he might never have to touch it. We sell some Notes-based products with some considerable customers (still!) and only get a couple emails a week or month. Annual support and maintenance fees just keep rolling in.

megaman22 commented on California teacher pension debt overwhelms school budgets calmatters.org/articles/c... · Posted by u/lxm

um_ya · 7 years ago

I personally like the school voucher idea Trump was proposing during his campaign... Each student is given a voucher, as good as cash, and schools compete for students, leaving the decision to families on which school to go to. This also brings students that live in poor neighborhoods the opportunity to travel to a better school perhaps outside their district. Schools might even buy new buses and pick up students further away if it means getting their voucher money.

megaman22 · 7 years ago

Man, if you could cash that voucher in for other educational materials, that would be an idea. What a library I could have had... Even in the broke, rural, low-cost-of-living area I came out of, the last school budget works out to more than $14k/year per student, mostly funded by local taxes.