These are sort of ancient (two and a half years old), but I just ran across them today and found them to be emblematic of a cultural defect that plagues many open source projects. These are a couple of feature requests (for the same feature) filed against the file-transfer utility FileZilla:
#2648: Feature request: Support Amazon [...]
Entries Tagged as 'That's Pretty Messed Up Right There'
Nobody Said That Open Source Projects Were All About Customer Service
January 9th, 2010 · 3 Comments · Open Source, School of Customer Service, That's Pretty Messed Up Right There, Web/Tech
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Web Developers: Don’t Do This
July 15th, 2009 · No Comments · That's Pretty Messed Up Right There, Web/Tech
I’m not including the URL of this page in case somebody figures out how to turn this into an exploit, but in a way I almost wish somebody would, because after filling out these guys’ survey and getting this horrifically amateurish error message on the final page, my first impulse was to figure out a [...]
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Helmet fire – Wikipedia
April 14th, 2007 · No Comments · That's Pretty Messed Up Right There
Link: Helmet fire – Wikipedia
"Helmet fire" is an expression for a mental state characterized by unnaturally high stress and task saturation and loss of situational awareness. The term originates in the military pilot community: military pilots are trained in high-performance aircraft and wear helmets to protect their cranium and muffle out engine and wind noise. [...]
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A Little Security Theater To Conclude Our Vacation
April 9th, 2007 · 4 Comments · That's Pretty Messed Up Right There
Coming through the Honolulu airport on the way home from vacation today I objected when they insisted on making me dig out my boarding pass and ID for a second time while going through the metal detector. I hate to be a dick about this since these droids are obviously just doing their jobs. But [...]
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Dear PayPal,
March 15th, 2007 · 1 Comment · That's Pretty Messed Up Right There
If you are going to have a feature called "Instant Payment Notification" it would be nice if the notification happened, you know, instantly, instead of 14 minutes and 59 seconds later.
How do you expect people to debug their applications if it takes this long for your sandbox to respond?
Also! It would be neat if there [...]
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Let’s Have A Discusssion Around Around
March 9th, 2007 · No Comments · That's Pretty Messed Up Right There
Here’s the latest in a long series of peeved posts on the way that people in technology talk wrong, probably because they don’t get out enough. I’ve actually noticed this one for a few years now, but it’s just now starting to drive me completely insane: saying "around" when you mean "about". As in, "On [...]
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The Christmas Present That’s Gathering Dust
February 10th, 2007 · 1 Comment · That's Pretty Messed Up Right There
Over Christmas, I wanted to get the kid a cheap little portable video player so she could keep herself occupied on road trips. The Disney Mix Max player seemed like a good choice, and the $99 price made it sort of a no-brainer, so I picked one up for her.
Since Christmas morning, the device has [...]
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San Franciscans Hurl Their Rage at Parking Patrol
January 5th, 2007 · 2 Comments · That's Pretty Messed Up Right There, The NY Times Spins Another Cliche About The West, Transportation
Link: San Franciscans Hurl Their Rage at Parking Patrol
"They think they can take out their frustration on government in general" by abusing the [parking control] officers, who work 40-hour weeks for about $40,000 a year," she said, adding, "They say, ‘I’m tired of the city taking my money.’ "
There certainly is money in parking tickets. [...]
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Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm
January 3rd, 2007 · No Comments · That's Pretty Messed Up Right There
Link: Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm – New York Times.
Unfortunately, most of the academic research suggests that the factors Google has put the most weight on — grades and interviews — are not an especially reliable way of hiring good people.
“Interviews are a terrible predictor of performance,” Mr. Bock said.
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From the Lips of Children, Tips to the Ears of Investors
December 16th, 2006 · No Comments · That's Pretty Messed Up Right There
Link: From the Lips of Children, Tips to the Ears of Investors – New York Times.
“Children are a secret weapon in my arsenal for making investment decisions,” said Heidi Roizen, a managing director at Mobius Venture Capital, a Silicon Valley firm.
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