The new hotness in software development is Kanban. Kanban’s like an assembly line. As soon as one person’s done working on a thing, they shove it along the conveyor belt to the next, like manufacturing a car. But sometimes things bottle neck at one station or another. So when that happens, you take the people who have free time and put them on something else. They don’t do as good a job as the worker dedicated to that station, but it’s better than nothing. In the software engineering world, that means Business Analysts can do QA and development. QA does development and software analysis. Developers do QA and build business…
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Update
I got a new job, so working the transition means I have to concentrate on being a good “employee” at the current time. Switching jobs always sucks. You have nothing to do at your old one and nothing to do at your new one. But at least at your old one, you had all your stuff. I am now programming on a laptop, and while it’s beefy enough, I don’t have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, or phone yet. So my back is getting sore from all the leaning over. It also means I have to find a new place to write. My old place had a nice couchy lounge area…
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Good Writers Don’t Use the Internet
I would apologize for not writing much on the blog lately, but I don’t want to be one of those bloggers who acts as if they care, as if they have a large audience hanging on their every word, who goes on an extended absence, says they’re sorry, and then continue their extended absence. There are plenty of more interesting sites out there, and you should be using an RSS aggregator, like Google Reader, to tell when there’s an update anyway. It’s better than visiting it once a day, then being disappointed that you see the same post you saw the day before, and the day before, and the day…
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My Writing Tools
Hey, why not a writing post? Every artist needs a medium to present their art. And they need tools and resources to make that art. In my first post, I’ll talk about what tools I use. In the second, I’ll talk about my writing process. In the third, I’ll talk about my useful writing bookmarks. The Computer I use a Lenovo ThinkPad with an AMD Athlon II. It has a 6-cell battery (lasts about 2-2.5 hours), 15.6″ widescreen, 4GB of RAM, and Windows 7. It’s nowhere near a top-of-the-line laptop, but I don’t need one. In fact, I shouldn’t have one. The last thing I need is the ability to…
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Give Google+ Some Time
I was fortunate to be invited to Google+, the new social media dealy-bobber that everyone’s talking about. Why is everyone talking about it? No idea. I haven’t seen one article that says why the big deal, besides that it’s Google. But it doesn’t matter, I know the reason: everyone’s wondering if it’s going to be a Facebook killer. People are wondering if the Facebook king can be toppled. Facebook permeates everyone’s lives these days. It’s a genius app and it’s making Markie Z a ton of money. (Can you imagine what a kid with that much money now is going to be like in twenty years?) Anyway, the big debate…
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Alphie
This is an Alphie. This is the toy my daughter got for Christmas. It is an educational robot toy that uses cards to teach numbers, letters, matching, and all sorts of things, through the use of universal buttons that mean different things depending on what card you put in. I believe this is my daughter’s favorite toy she got for Christmas. She even went to sleep with it that night. This is my old Alphie, which I had when I was about my daughter’s age (or slightly older). I loved the damn thing, but all he did was light up his face and beep and boop. My daughter’s new Alphie…
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I Got a New Lappy
Yes, my new writing tool arrived. It’s got Windows 7 and a 15″ screen. It feels lighter, but it’s wider, more blade-like, than Old Clunky. I didn’t plan to get a new laptop until after I sold my first novel. I didn’t feel it would be right to spend my own money, rather than my “writing money”, on a tool for writing. But my old laptop’s battery was dying–it wouldn’t last 45 minutes on a single charge, which is the minimum time I need it to last for because thats’ the expanse of time I write at lunch. When that happened, I could no longer write on my comfy couch.…
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Code =/= A Story
Computer code is not a story. When it comes to written text in the King’s English (or other spoken language) there are certain rules about plagiarizing. These are set in place to make sure that creative works are not claimed by someone else or using them for some reason that was not given permission. But computer code is not a creative work. They are not the same thing. Sure, there are issues regarding copyright and piracy, but that’s really only for software packages. Generally, you pay for those, and by claiming them as your own or pirating them, you are depriving someone of funds they would have otherwise received for…
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An Allegory for Sex Education
Well, a good chunk of my page views are coming from my editorial on Shadow of the Colossus. So, in a shameless effort to stir up the controversy stew, let me show off an allegory (one of my favorite literary devices) on sex education, in case you’re bored with my whining about writing five hundred words. This post may contain naughty things. You want to know why we should teach sex education? You need look no further than file-sharing. File sharing/pirate downloading is technically illegal. There’s no two ways about it. (Proponents of file-sharing don’t want to legalize it, but they don’t want ridiculous and broken techniques like DRM and…
