Jason's Notes About Stuff

Did you know that nearly 100% of drivers involved in accidents don't think it was their fault? This is perhaps not shocking, but what might surprise you more is that nearly 100% of them are wrong! Most accidents are completely preventable , if you just follow advice from a good driver training program. The "T-bone" Primary Fault: "T-bone-ee" mis-judges distance of (or doesn't even notice) oncoming car and turns left in front of them Common Excuses: "They came out of nowhere!" Cars do not randomly appear from spatial vortexes.  It was barreling towards you the entire time. "They were speeding!" If you could tell they were speeding, you sure as hell should not have turned in front of them. Primary Prevention: Don't turn in front of cars unless you damn well know you're going to make it! (duh) Secondary Fault: "T-bone-er" ran head on into a car that turned right in front of them!  Never a good idea. Secondary Prevent...

Here's an idea for word processors and spell checkers. They already underline words in red that they don't find in their dictionary. How about if obscure words were underlined in yellow ? For instance, I have a habit of typing "manger" instead of "manager" when I'm typing too fast. The word "manger" is probably not used much except around Christmas. It'd be nice if it were flagged in yellow and I could right-click to get a list of more common words with a similar spelling. Have any spell checkers already implemented something like this? Let me know if you've seen it anywhere.

Since I work from home, I'd say my car is generally parked at my apartment building an average of about 23 hours / day (95.8% of the time). Normally my car would have been nestled right back in the corner of the right-hand spot in the picture below. It just so happened that yesterday when the lightning storm hit, I was out at a networking event that ran late. Looks like that event saved me from a significant insurance claim!

Estimating software development time is hard. There are so many variables, unknowns, "unknown unknowns", and the specification always changes. Besides that, developers tend to be optimistic by nature. Here's a handy little way to come up with a quick, yet accurate estimate: Come up with your best, overall estimate that you feel is realistic using your favorite technique, or pure "gut feeling" if you are a very experienced developer and you know the problem domain well. Ok, you have your absolutely realistic number now, right? It's not realistic. I guarantee you there are aspects you haven't thought of. Double the number. This is your best case scenario estimate. This is how long it will take assuming everything goes well and there are no snags or major changes along the way. Now double it again. This is your most likely estimate. This is how long the project will probably take, when all is said and done. Now double it a final time. T...