I hope that the author was taking liberties with technical details to make it read like a detective story.
If that is how computer forensics really work, then the field is snake oil of the worst sort. I can understand how foolishness like the SCO and Oracle copy claims would arise from this sort of... I'm not even sure what to call it, it doesn't have the rigor of astrology.
> Programming is an information technology, and being a technology facilitates greater efficiency.
Which is not always a good thing. Sometimes the fact that a task is tedious or confusing should cause us to re-think the necessity of doing the task. Thanks to IT we can wind up doing something stupid really well, rather than realizing that maybe we shouldn't do it in the first place.
(I love programming, but I sometimes despair at how useless most of what I do really is)
I tried it several times, but IMO it is barely functional and ridiculous to configure. I know the developer does what they can, but Chrome seems to intentionally make it difficult for extensions to block ads.
I recently switched back to FF after a year or more using Chrome. I don't care all that much about performance, what drove me back to firefox was intolerable levels of ads.
> And it isn't hard to see the author's torment at being forced to do this to her father.
That guilt, torment, and second guessing of yourself is one of the terrible things that result when trying to take care of a mentally ill person. Unless you've actually been there, and been there, and been there, and been there again you can't understand how the experience wears you down.
I'm a empathetic and patient person, and I have had to make the same sorts of decisions the author describes. There are no good answers - only less terrible ones, and even those you are not sure of.
> Oh, and she refuses to take her medication because she’s convinced that they will ruin her liver.
Until fairly recently doctors had no idea how to measure minimum effective doses of lithium, so many older people with bipolar disorder are suffering damage to their liver, kidneys, and thyroid. Mental health practitioners also used haldol and thorazine with a pretty loose hand - without worrying about side effects or toxicity.
So realize that she has a reason to believe that her meds are bad for her - because they are, they are just better for her than going un-medicated. Her doctor or social worker should probably be the one to explain to her the kind of testing and monitoring they do to make sure that they do as little damage as possible.
Treat cygwin as just another unix variant and it will go pretty far. Windows native apps and virtualbox are guaranteed to cover any missed requirements.
There was a short window about 10 years ago where OSX was the best unix workstation, no contest. But cygwin is really good these days, so good that the Apple premium cost and batshit insane vendor make it a non-starter.
I dislike advertising itself as much as the next engineer. I won't even attempt to defend that position with logic, it's a visceral preference.
But I especially wouldn't want to work for advertisers. It seems natural that such companies would be structured to have engineering work for sales and marketing, with management acting as a funnel rather than an umbrella.
No support. You NEED to be able to reach a human being to clear up problems with credit cards.
I used google wallet to pay for a google apps yearly account. I also used a different card to pay for a couple games from the android market.
I dutifully checked all the options to make sure that the card I used to pay for those games could never ever be used to pay the renewal fee on the the apps account. Then one day I found that the wrong card had been charged for the apps renewal. I couldn't get ahold of anyone at google. I couldn't find any help online. I couldn't even find a phone number to call.
So I removed the cards from my wallet account. Cancelled the wallet account, and snarl "no" anytime google tries to get a credit card from me.
> We need a structured approach to the serious acquisition of relevant skills, not tinkering
Because if anything is proven to get kids enthused about learning, it's a structured approach to learning serious skills. We can teach the kids CMMI, financial management, and marketing, so they can manage their outsourced programmers, or whatever it is we're all supposed to do.
I was annoyed by the page turn buttons the first time I used them. But the button placement works really well for reading while lolling around, it's actually one of the ways in which reading a kindle is more pleasant than reading a paperback novel.
I think we can safely say Apple has dropped their party manners and shown the knives.
Unfortunately android is the only possible competitor I see, and the carriers have pretty much guaranteed that android won't be any freer for users or developers.
> "far too many people are confident in their ability to die gallantly"
Ain't you heard? Dying is easy, comedy is hard. :D
But overconfidence aside, I have a harder time gauging acceptable competence levels in a test like this. Anyone who is not physically disabled is capable of shoveling manure. But if you don't know what you are doing you are gonna work way harder than you need to, take forever and wind up making a mess. Same with building a wall, just pile stuff up and brace as necessary, but the first rain or wind will probably knock it over.
I often try the trendy languages and tools, just to see what the fuss is about. It's astonishing how fast these things seem to flame out and cycle. Like "people" magazine for technology or something.
Programming fads do occasionally provide something new for my toolkit - the functional programming craze led me to "High Order Perl", and git wound up making more sense to me than cvs or svn ever did.
You can treat it like an anthropological exercise, and try to really figure out the values, interests, and motivations of someone who bores you to tears.
Just don't do it with a sneer on your face or contempt in your voice.
If that is how computer forensics really work, then the field is snake oil of the worst sort. I can understand how foolishness like the SCO and Oracle copy claims would arise from this sort of... I'm not even sure what to call it, it doesn't have the rigor of astrology.