(Contributed image - by FourONine)
Friday 13 June 2008
Thursday 12 June 2008
Suing Microsoft for loss of earnings
Average % time wasted working round the red-headed, retarded step-child of the browser world, the one that get's all of the attention because it's "special" (as in needs):
20%
Yeah, that's a finger in the air guess-timation, but I think that it's pretty damn close. All the random CSS tweaking and hacks, all the hair pulled out over JScript (like normal Javascript, but more broken) and all the completely f*cked up errors, like IE6 not downloading PDFs properly without the server saying some magic words.
So, what's 20% of the wages you are paid or that you pay your development team? Coz I think there is a company that owes us big.
20%
Yeah, that's a finger in the air guess-timation, but I think that it's pretty damn close. All the random CSS tweaking and hacks, all the hair pulled out over JScript (like normal Javascript, but more broken) and all the completely f*cked up errors, like IE6 not downloading PDFs properly without the server saying some magic words.
So, what's 20% of the wages you are paid or that you pay your development team? Coz I think there is a company that owes us big.
Tuesday 10 June 2008
Friends don't let friends do OAIS
Packaging up stuff...
Just stop it - seriously... stop it. It's not big and it's not clever and doesn't help anyone.
Just stop it - seriously... stop it. It's not big and it's not clever and doesn't help anyone.
Monday 9 June 2008
xkcd's "Duty Calls" and why repositories are broken
http://xkcd.com/386/
Funny as hell, and you know why? Because it hits so close to home; we've all been tempted to feed a troll in our time, just to make sure that the world knew that they were f*cking wrong. F*ckers.
"Oh, no, I'm not like that" - wrong, you just haven't been pissed off enough yet to stay up until 2am to make sure that fecking 12 year old gets the virtual crap flamed out of him for being so goddamn dumb.
The sour truth of it is that this type of obsession built all the things online that we love. Wikipedia kicks ass and why? Wikipedia is built round the idea of people editing resources, and it's so simple to get stuck into - you open a thing, you edit a thing, job done.
Then it's the turn of the swarms of annoying, pedantic b*stards, who pick apart any entry for copyright, grammar and style - it's win-win, the content gets cleaned up, copyright issues get spotted and the pedants get their sexual thrill.
You want to preserve it? Just lock it. Again, job done.
And why can Wikipedia do this? Because it never makes the totally stupid claim that it is 100% correct all the time.
We - as a repo community - have got to start living in the real world when it comes down to copyright and fidelity. Institutional repositories need to start taking seriously the wealth of pedantic b*stards out there, and for f*ck's sake, make use of them. Add anonymous logged commenting, add problem flagging straight on the interface itself. Have people see that there is a problem with an item, rather than trying to hide it all away.
And we need to start turning down stuff for copyright reasons - "Sorry, your work doesn't count in the eyes of the University, because you signed your soul away to the devil and your copyright to Elsivier. Come back when you've got some work of your own to submit."
And you wanna know how to really get the party started? Keep a top score of real issues spotted per pedant and update it daily online, for all the world to see. Make up pointless heirarchies, based on levels of submissions. Just see how World of Warcrack-cocaine manages to make mundane tasks seem appealing.
Funny as hell, and you know why? Because it hits so close to home; we've all been tempted to feed a troll in our time, just to make sure that the world knew that they were f*cking wrong. F*ckers.
"Oh, no, I'm not like that" - wrong, you just haven't been pissed off enough yet to stay up until 2am to make sure that fecking 12 year old gets the virtual crap flamed out of him for being so goddamn dumb.
The sour truth of it is that this type of obsession built all the things online that we love. Wikipedia kicks ass and why? Wikipedia is built round the idea of people editing resources, and it's so simple to get stuck into - you open a thing, you edit a thing, job done.
Then it's the turn of the swarms of annoying, pedantic b*stards, who pick apart any entry for copyright, grammar and style - it's win-win, the content gets cleaned up, copyright issues get spotted and the pedants get their sexual thrill.
You want to preserve it? Just lock it. Again, job done.
And why can Wikipedia do this? Because it never makes the totally stupid claim that it is 100% correct all the time.
We - as a repo community - have got to start living in the real world when it comes down to copyright and fidelity. Institutional repositories need to start taking seriously the wealth of pedantic b*stards out there, and for f*ck's sake, make use of them. Add anonymous logged commenting, add problem flagging straight on the interface itself. Have people see that there is a problem with an item, rather than trying to hide it all away.
And we need to start turning down stuff for copyright reasons - "Sorry, your work doesn't count in the eyes of the University, because you signed your soul away to the devil and your copyright to Elsivier. Come back when you've got some work of your own to submit."
And you wanna know how to really get the party started? Keep a top score of real issues spotted per pedant and update it daily online, for all the world to see. Make up pointless heirarchies, based on levels of submissions. Just see how World of Warcrack-cocaine manages to make mundane tasks seem appealing.
Introduction
Why?
Too few people are willing to write about the bad side of repositories - most of the people in the field are struggling to get by with what we have and tend to vent over a pint amongst fellow repo sufferers.
What are the rules for posting?
Basically, this is an avenue to vent, to point out the folly of all our ways, and to make a mockery of the shortcomings of repository systems. The wittier, the more profound, the better.
Failing that, if you can make me laugh out loud in a quiet office, you win. Also, the shorter it is, the less likely you will trip over a 'tl;dr' [tooo long -> didn't read.]
Oh and don't worry about anonymising stuff - I'll be gatekeeper to that, your dirty little secrets are safe with me. (Just pick a funny codename to go by)
Any Topic then?
Just about anything that I think is vaguely relevant will be looked at - think of it as a game, "What does the Anonymous Hater want to read?". My topic suggestions are eprints, fedora, dspace, xkcd, vendor-pain, last-century-legalese, xml==wrong, code-comments, typewriters-are-cool, error-codes-in-real-life, or there's-a-monkey-in-the-serverroom-and-it's-pissing-on-my-services.
Will I be rick/sh1t/spock-rolled by a link?
No... well... maybe. Only if it'll be really funny.
Too few people are willing to write about the bad side of repositories - most of the people in the field are struggling to get by with what we have and tend to vent over a pint amongst fellow repo sufferers.
What are the rules for posting?
The #1 rule of repohate club is, that you must blog about repohate.
The #2 rule of repohate club is, code 303 #1
Basically, this is an avenue to vent, to point out the folly of all our ways, and to make a mockery of the shortcomings of repository systems. The wittier, the more profound, the better.
Failing that, if you can make me laugh out loud in a quiet office, you win. Also, the shorter it is, the less likely you will trip over a 'tl;dr' [tooo long -> didn't read.]
Oh and don't worry about anonymising stuff - I'll be gatekeeper to that, your dirty little secrets are safe with me. (Just pick a funny codename to go by)
Any Topic then?
Just about anything that I think is vaguely relevant will be looked at - think of it as a game, "What does the Anonymous Hater want to read?". My topic suggestions are eprints, fedora, dspace, xkcd, vendor-pain, last-century-legalese, xml==wrong, code-comments, typewriters-are-cool, error-codes-in-real-life, or there's-a-monkey-in-the-serverroom-and-it's-pissing-on-my-services.
Will I be rick/sh1t/spock-rolled by a link?
No... well... maybe. Only if it'll be really funny.
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