Stevey's Blog Rants: Execution in the Kingdom of Nouns

In Javaland, by King Java’s royal decree, Verbs are owned by Nouns… Verbs in Javaland are responsible for all the work, but as they are held in contempt by all, no Verb is ever permitted to wander about freely. If a Verb is to be seen in public at all, it must be escorted at all times by a Noun. Of course “escort”, being a Verb itself, is hardly allowed to run around naked; one must procure a VerbEscorter to facilitate the escorting…

how not to write technical literature

From MSDN, the definition of _bstr_t Class is:

A _bstr_t object encapsulates the BSTR data type. The class manages resource allocation and deallocation through function calls to SysAllocString and SysFreeString and other BSTR APIs when appropriate. The _bstr_t class uses reference counting to avoid excessive overhead.

—————————

Excellent work, MSDN camp. 

This is what happens when a technical writer clearly has no clue about what he is dealing with, but a deadline’s approaching fast. Sort of reminds me of third graders reading their book report about a book they haven’t read. 

It’s like asking Microsoft what a monkey is. They’ll go:

A monkey eats bananas. A monkey does not eat mud. A monkey can have monkey babies. A monkey will free up its resources automatically via system function calls. 

Thanks. That’s what a monkey does. But what the hell is it?

Luckily, a Google search on “what the fuck is a _bstr_t” still works. 

PS: It’s a C++ class wrapper to wrap VB style strings. Works like a smart pointer to (binary) strings.

Most Web pages can be connected in 19 clicks or less, thanks to search engines, large aggregators and social networking sites, according to a paper on network science by Hungarian physicist Albert-László Barabási. As the Smithsonian magazine reported, these sites act as hubs for the Web at large — or, as Smithsonian’s Joseph Stromberg puts it, the “Kevin Bacons” of the Web.
Most Web pages can be connected in 19 clicks, study says (via courtenaybird)

(via notational)

Source: Washington Post

Your Data should be Yours. It belongs to you and you should have control over it.

staff:

An upgrade, years in the making…

When we imagined Tumblr more than seven years ago, we dreamed of offering creators a new canvas. Every post would be a raw look through the author’s eyes and mind. We imagined the interface disappearing as these subjects came to life.

For years, this vision was challenged by limits in browser technology and an increasingly daunting set of Tumblr features to support. But today, we take a huge step.

After months of careful crafting, we’ve reduced creation on Tumblr to its essence, while carrying over every single feature and making room for some BIG new ones (like completely customizable drag-and-drop photoset creation, faster uploads, and inline reblogging!). We can’t wait for you to try it.

The upgrades have started rolling out and will be available for everyone by the end of the weekend. Most of the bugs and omissions you’ve reported have already been fixed, but please let us know if you run in to any other issues!

The programmer, who needs clarity, who must talk all day to a machine that demands declarations, hunkers down into a low-grade annoyance. It is here that the stereotype of the programmer, sitting in a dim room, growling from behind Coke cans, has its origins. The disorder of the desk, the floor; the yellow Post-it notes everywhere; the whiteboards covered with scrawl: all this is the outward manifestation of the messiness of human thought. The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer.
Highlighted by Martin McClellan in Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents by Ullman, Ellen

(via simloovoo)

Source: hellbox

Formalisms can also be used for predictions. Given a description of a situation in some formalism, the same rules that govern transformations in proofs can be used to make predictions. … Formal prediction and explanation allow us to evaluate when a model is applicable. Furthermore, the formalism allows that evaluation to be independent of the listener… Formal modeling therefore has a very different social dynamic than informal modeling; because there is an objective reference to the model (the formalism), there is no need for the layers of interpretation that results in Talmudic modeling. Instead of layers and layers of interpretation, the buck stops at the formalism.
Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist

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