Hugh Macleod at Gapingvoid drew a cartoon that I’m considering getting tattooed on my forehead:
And then the comments led me to Bokardo and UIE Brain Sparks, and now I need to find another few hours to read and think about user interface design…
doesn’t sound anything at all like what it describes.
I’m just sayin’.
From After Downing Street, via Brad DeLong, describing a radio call-in show discussing public accountability for the Iraq war:
The first caller who was put on the air demanded an investigation of the lies that launched the war, and asked for accountability “all the way up.” In response to Adelman’s claims that history would hold people accountable, the caller said “I would love to have a job where, worst case scenario, my historical record is flawed.”
When I first heard the expression “Controlled flight into terrain” I added it to my euphemism collection as a fun way of saying “Somebody screwed up.” As I’ve read and thought more about CFIT accidents, I’ve noticed a common thread: They are not usually the result of simple “pilot error”. The typical incident involves a series of failures in policies, procedures, training, and human factors design that turn a pilot error into a tragedy.
Which brings me, in my usual roundabout way, to the closest thing to a running theme you can expect to find at this blog. I’ve been working in the software industry for quite a while now, and I’ve always felt that software should be well crafted. Lately, however, I’ve come to feel it is at least as important that software be well used. What that means is that you can expect to read me ranting about both how software gets built and what we build it for.
Of course, to make sure the bar isn’t set too high, you can also expect frivolity, family, kite flying, curling, bicycling, and whatever random shiny things catch my attention.
