Xmas Pics - My New House Edition

I just put up a Flickr album of a few pictures of my new house, decked out for Christmas. Pics later of the big celebration at my folks' house.

Government Logic

Government steps in to ease flight delays

Fewer flights will be allowed in and out of New York's airports at the busiest times as part of a Bush administration plan to help reduce delays at airports across the United States.

So their plan to reduce inconvenient travel delays is to allow fewer flights? Do they not understand what the word "delay" means?

Delta's senior vice president of network and planning, Bob Cortelyou, said the caps in New York will "be great for our customers" because they will almost certainly ease delays at JFK, and thus lead to fewer disgruntled passengers, and fewer missed connections.

So they won't be disgruntled by not being able to book a flight at all? Or is it just that they'll be pissed off at the government for limiting flights, instead of being pissed off at Delta for being unable to accurately predict arrival times? Not really "fewer disgruntled passengers" so much as just shifting the source of the disgruntlement.

Look on my stapler, ye mighty, and despair!

My birthday present this year:

Milton Waddams: [talking on the phone] "And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were married, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire..."

Oh, good

This is exactly what I was hoping would happen. Not all punishments need to be government-imposed.

I'm Glad I'm Not On Their QC Team

A new patch for the online game "EVE Online" makes it impossible to boot Windows XP. Apparently, an extra backslash in the installer causes it to delete an essential system configuration file.

That QC team must be feeling embarrassed. I know I always hate it when I miss a subtle little bug like hosing the operating system.

I suspect that what happened here is that they tested the patch itself, but neglected to test the installer. And that probably happens more often than it should - perceptually, the installer isn't part of the "real" software you’re testing, so it's easy to overlook. The moral of the story: Don't forget to test installation scenarios.

Catching Up

As predicted, here's a pic of my Halloween costume from this year:


Also: Our pumpkin carving: