Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

But why stop at fake funny when you can stop at real funny? No good reason if you ask me. This one is a two parter thanks to YouTube shenanigans and the fact that its awesomeness couldn’t be contained in a single video.

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Anyhow I hope his buddy wins.

And I hope I can get the song out of my head.

Click to see:

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“Yes I know that I should focus more on software quality but have you ever tasted bacon? It’s freaking awesome.”

Anyhow, did you know that 80% of the people that have taken the assessment so far use some kind of SCM tool? Of course you didn’t I just told you that, but that’s like 4 out of every 5 respondant. Wait, that’s exactly 4 out of every 5. What do you know, 5th grade math did come in useful.

Note to self: Send thank you/apology card to fifth grade teacher.

Anyway, lots of interesting patterns can be found by looking at the data. For example:

“It looks like most shops use an SCM tool now, but a large percentage of the time it is a stand alone system.”

“Companies in the financial services industry sure like integrated toolsets.”

“Companies in the greasy spoon breakfast diner industry don’t seem to care much at all.”

Going back to the first stat though, that means that 20% do NOT use an SCM system. This got me curious about the overall quality practice level of shops that use SCM vs. those that do not. Since I happen to know people who know people I was able to get that comparison report created. The numbers are enlightening:

In the Track metric SCM users scored 62% higher than non-SCM users.

In the Test metric SCM users scored 47% higher than non-SCM users.

In the Automated metric SCM users scored 70% higher than non-SCM users.

In the Change metric SCM users score a whopping 120% higher than non-SCM users.

I don’t need my 5th grade math to tell me that is a huge difference. It also highlights just how fundamental a SCM system is to software development and how its usage indicates a higher level of overall skill. I have to admit though, I never expected the numbers to be so big. Moral of the story, use SCM. It will absolutely help you ship a quality product. Oh and try to cut back on the bacon, it’s all about moderation people.

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Well, perhaps not always good. And to think, I thought she had it all together. It just goes to show that sometimes you just can’t tell.

Speaking of announcements it is possible that you heard the recent product news out of Macworld. More accurately you’ve probably been beaten over the head (repeatedly) with the news out of Macworld. I guess that Apple is coming out with a super-phone that will do everything possible in the computing world short of letting independent developers write apps for it.

At first glance, as an independent developer, I am filled with an urge to look toward the heavens, shake my fist vigorously and cry, “Oh cruel fate, why do you mock me?” At second glance I think, “Would I really sit down and do something for this?” and am forced to sheepishly answer, “Ha, fat chance. Just look at the dozen half-started/half-finished side projects on your hard drive right now bub.”

That all being said, I definitely want one. My wife likes to point out though that I never use my current cell phone. She even contends that half the time I don’t even know where it is. I’m going to need to cook up a good response to that before June. Too bad those statements are true.

To bring this announcements theme full circle I have one of my own, a major one really that is having a profound impact on how I view the world.

I have recent discovered that I don’t like hamburger.

(Alright, so it’s not like I’m announcing an iPhone or an award nomination or even checking into rehab, but its all I got.)

While cooking the other night it was suggested that we put some leftover hamburger in spaghetti sauce, which isn’t an unreasonable suggestion, but not something I particularly like. That started a big conversation that went kind of like this:

Jill: That’s weird, you like hamburger in everything else.

Me: Well, I don’t like it as a pizza topping.

Jill: Really?

Me: Yeah. Or as meatballs. Or particularly thick hamburgers.

Jill: And I know you don’t like meatloaf.

Me: Oh dear god no.

Me: Actually, now that you mention it, I pretty much only like eating it as part of a hamburger buried in cheese, bun, ketchup, and hopefully bacon. I like it in Mexican food too but it typically doesn’t taste like itself given all the spices.

Jill: Have you ever considered that you don’t actually like hamburger?

Me: You know you might be right. How strange is that? I wonder what else I think I like but I don’t really like? My whole world is turned upside down. Now I know exactly what Keenau Reeves felt like in the Matrix, except without all the kung-fu stuff.

Jill: Glad to see you thought hard about that analogy there. So does this mean that you really don’t like me with all your revelations?

Me (to self): Danger! Danger! Big huge trap directly ahead! Un-dig-outable trap, stay the heck away from this if you have sense left at all.

Me: Of course not, don’t be silly. How about we get an iPhone for you to have…

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Anyhow, being two years old means that formalized communication is a bit of a mixed bag. There are of ton of individual words that are oftentimes oddly annunciated, sometimes strung together as sentences and nearly always mixed together with pieces of American Sign Language. (When she was little we started using sign language with her as a bit of an experiment, it turns out she took to it like a fish to water. In fact, her sign vocabulary has eclipsed mine and she’s giving my wife a run for her money.)

The other day we were sitting on the couch and she turned to me and “said”:

“Ice cream” in sign language
“Me” in sign language
“Farm” in sign language
“Brown” in sign language
“Nana Papa” in spoken English
“Papa” in spoken English
“Num” in spoken English

To translate, that means she wanted to go for ice cream at a place called Farmer Brown’s with my mom and dad while having my dad pay for it. Oh, and that it tastes good.

All right, so that’s back-story #1, which is her giving a recap of back-story #2. What happened was that we went to visit my parents for an early Christmas since my brother was going to be in town from New York. Now, my parents live in the middle of nowhere. They don’t even live in a small town, it is just a normal house that sits on a few acres that is surrounded by farmland. Not far away though is a farm that is owned, as you might guess, by a guy named Brown. Now, apparently during fair season he would supplement his income by making a special sandwich, called self-promotingly a “Farmer Brown,” and sell it at a fair booth.

For the curious a “Farmer Brown” sandwich is beef with mushrooms, a special secret mayonnaise like sauce and probably some other stuff. It is fairly messy but super crazy fantastically tasty.

I guess that the sandwich was so popular that he ended up building a restaurant on his farm, again called Farmer Brown, specifically to sell these things. It was here that we went for lunch and my daughter talked my dad into buying her ice cream as a treat because he’s a complete pushover when it comes to the cute, little granddaughter.

See, back-story #2 done and you’re still with me. Take a moment to congratulate yourself, really, I’m proud of you. You just slogged through 500 words that could have been summed up like this:

My dad is a pushover for his granddaughter.

But, brevity isn’t too interesting and I don’t have an editor watching my word count so we’ll march on.

At dad’s house in the middle of nowhere the way he gets high-speed internet is through this wireless thingamajig that is installed in his attic that runs an Ethernet cable down to his computer. What this allows him to do is stream flash games from the Sesame Street website, a fact not lost on the granddaughter. This last time we were there he had also invested in a wireless router so that my brother and I could connect via our laptops, which I suspect is less of a gesture for our comfort but more of a strategic move to make sure his computer is always free in case the urge to play Elmo’s Keyboard-a-rama hits.

The problem we ran into was that my brother’s Windows XP notebook wasn’t routing traffic correctly to the internet while my Mac was cruising along just fine. It turns out that we tracked down the issue to him having an IP address populated in his wireless card’s gateway field, EVEN THOUGH THE FIELD DISABLED. So while DHCP was working fine and giving him the correct IP address the gateway was being overwritten by an old value that was in a disabled field. Once we cleared that out, after about twenty minutes of head scratching, things worked fine.

My dad and brother both asked why a disabled field like that would still work and I admitted that I had no earthly idea. I probably said something about a troll living inside his computer.

In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a troll. I’ll bet it was a Grouch.

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