In the 30s, serious intellectuals traveled to the Soviet Union to hail it as the future of humanity. In the 60s and 70s, writers, actors & other assorted glitterati went to Cuba to be schmoozed by El Jefe. And now North Korea has hauled in…a retired basketball player with a penchant for shock publicity. The quality of useful idiots is on a definite downward trajectory.
Tag: Decline and fall
The iron laws of software documentation
1. Those who understand software don’t know how to write.
2. The usefulness of a manual is inversely proportional to its length.
Corollary: a manual is only as good as its index.
3. Most computer users are neither software engineers nor dummies. Publishers of computer literature have yet to realize that.
Fun with Google
What’s the secret word?
(Via Peeve Farm.)
Update: I’ve amused myself these past few days by guessing whether “climategate” will appear in the autosuggestions as I type it in the search box. Sometimes it will appear as soon as I type “clim;” a few hours later, we’re back to “climate guatemala.” Perhaps it really is just a flaky algorithm, but I can’t help being skeptical.
