tekHedd – the blog

I am pleased to see that the new SOPA legislation sets the precedent for silencing speech without due process. Combined with the new “extended detention” laws, this should make it much easier for me to control dissent when I am made emperor of the world.

Relax and enjoy your new rules, or be disappeared and silenced. It’s for your own good. I said so.

Once I am appointed, these sites in particular will be silenced immediately. (And any sites that link to them, of course):

• Google’s petition that everybody seems to be signing will force me to shut down Google entirely
• SOPA explained. With profanity. While funny and educational, I will regrettably have to silence it.
• Wikipedia’s anti-SOPA drivel is as bad as their rabble-rousing blackout.
• Get Your Censor On
• Uncyclopedia seems to be on my side. Too bad. Under my reign there will be no exceptions for parody, comedy, or other frivolous reasons!

And, of course, those responsible for these sites will be imprisoned. Sometimes a little censorship and imprisonment are necessary for the good of all. Due process only gets in the way. Perhaps you only say that you agree because you’re afraid of disappearing, but that’s fine with me.

You might think that because I am linking to these sites, this site will also be shut down, and I will have to detain myself. I will not. Selective enforcement is what makes laws like SOPA and “indefinite detention” useful.

Sometimes, the word stupid is not enough. Today I learned some of the terminology used to describe parts of Agile software development. Agile is a popular “methodology” adopted by software companies as an alternative to admitting that they are incapable of putting together a development process that works. It is essentially the same as having no process whatsoever, but with the subtle difference that your CEO can tell investors and large customers that you “have a process.” And he’ll be taken seriously.

Agile: a flowery way to say Out Of Control

Agile allows developers to maintain the illusion of software process, while allowing developers to do whatever they want with no process or plan. How? Agile accomplishes this through the use of Flowery Terms. Each step in software development at a company with no process is documented and given a Flowery Name.

For example, when collecting product requirements, a developer who follows a process would normally document Use Cases. Agile’s Flowery Name for this is  “User Stories.” I am not making this up! And the important difference between Use Cases and User Stories is that with Agile you are encouraged to be half-assed and never finish them. Well, officially, you are encouraged to do “just enough” and come back and “finish them later,” but we all know that this never happens. With Agile, we do things just like we always have in the past, except that now it’s our process, and it has an investor-friendly name.

So I guess I’ve always been Agile. And here I thought that we were “winging it” at some of those companies!

Surely there is a better way to say this

But enough about Agile. Where I work, we have processes and we follow them. They are not overly burdensome and we get a lot of work done. I’ll be damned before I use the name “User Stories” to describe how we define requirements. That term is completely, it’s totally… something.

I can only describe “User Stories” in one way: that name is Totally Gay. And now I have a problem. Because I’m not a homophobe–but I feel about “User Stories” the same way a homophobe feels about gays. Isn’t there a non-bigoted word that means the same thing? “Stupid” is not a good substitute–it isn’t even part of my definition. Another word that implies all these things at once:

• lame
• laughable
• contemptible, even
• slightly offensive

The phrase “laughably lame” works, but “laughably” is intellectual and “lame” is anti-intellectual, resulting in a phrase that nobody will use and is hard to say.

I want a simple phrase that means the same thing as “totally gay”, but which doesn’t imply that I’m a complete douche. (If you use the phrase “totally gay” without apologizing, you are a douche.) Google turns up nothing.

I’m wasting your time

This should all be unnecessary. This whole blog post would fit in one Tweet if I could just say “Agile software development is totally gay” in a way that wasn’t, you know, totally gay…or something.

There’s a guy you know who used to use Twitter. Or maybe it’s a girl. This guy (or girl) would tweet about how nice his morning shower is, how much he hates his work commute, and how clean the bar bathroom stall door is. This guy no longer uses Twitter, because he bought a smart phone and now uses Facebook.

Is this better? It seems like Facebook adds lots of value over Twitter: there’s the option to embed video, a discussion thread for each status update, and a “Like” button. But this advantage is really a dis-advantage, because it encourages the poster to add a video of the bar bathroom door, and it encourages his friends to discuss the bar bathroom door and “Like” the video of the bar bathroom door. The “clean bar bathroom stall door” video and photo album is now a favorite status update and displayed at the top of your Facebook page. Maybe it will even go viral! Augh!

Compare this to twitter. Your friend can, at best, post a tweet “This stall door is commendably clean! http://example.com/dr2345”. It doesn’t automatically expand into a sexy video box. Responses by his insipid friends will go into their separate Twitter feeds, only visible if you subscribe to them too, or deliberately search for related responses.  And there will be fewer insipid responses, because you have to first consider whether you want your response appearing in your own personal twitter flow. Will it be boring? If so, you risk getting un-followed. Oh noes! On Facebook, comments stay with the original updates, so there’s always a chorus of “yeah” and “me too” and “you go girl” responses to your friends’ insipid status updates.

It seems like I use the word “insipid” a lot when discussing social media. I wonder why that is?

And, of course, twitter has the advantage that new tweets appear at the top of the list. This contrasts with Facebook, which sorts new updates according to a wild randomization algorithm with no clear underlying logic. At least, that’s how it works this month. I fully expect Facebook to replace this system with a different irrational system next month.

Twitter is just IRC

So Twitter is great, right? I will admit that with the right friends it can be a pleasant addition to your lifestyle. But that’s all it is; Twitter is a lifestyle service. It is mostly a time waster, and can easily become a pointless flow of stuff you don’t need. My point is that Facebook is the same pointless flow of uselessness; it just has more features. Think about it: more ‘pointless stuff I don’t need’ is not an improvement.

If you’ve ever been in a chat room, you quickly realize that Twitter is exactly like an IRC (1988) chat room where everybody in the room is ignored by default. Complete with chat bots and everything. The only thing different is that you can’t run your own twitter site, the client software sucks, and the server is unreliable. Oh, and with IRC you can have multiple channels.

As an added bonus, nobody expects you to take Twitter seriously. Anyone who gets angry when un-followed needs to reevaluate priorities.

Facebook is the worst web forum ever

If Twitter is a feature-poor chat room, Facebook is a nearly featureless web forum.

Facebook started out as a sort of MySpace wannabe, but over time it has restructured itself to be a giant web forum (1994). It’s not a good web forum, though. It is a forum where there is only one giant topic section. All of the different topics are jumbled together. And, the forum rules are undefined, making it easy to get into a flame war. Whatever its original goals, Facebook’s feed has become just the “Active Topics” page of a forum with no particular focus or organization.

But, Facebook still has a lot in common with MySpace. Its web site is ugly and using the word “unintuitive” to describe its operation would be an “understatement.” The best thing about Facebook is now band web sites. So, just like MySpace, then.

But the two worst things about Facebook are even worse in combination:

1. real names
2. your mom uses it.

Combine these two, and honestly, the party really is over. It’s not just that Facebook is the mainstream, last-decade, favorite hangout of people who still use AOL, your mom has friended you on Facebook. Say it out loud a few times. Oh yeah, that’s real cool. And it’s not just you. “Real Name” has introduced your mother to your circle of friends, and your mother sees which videos you Like, and what yahoo articles you read. It’s not just mom, it’s your entire family–so even if she doesn’t check the status updates, she still hears the gossip. With the magic of Real Names, Facebook makes sure that you never do or say anything you wouldn’t do with your entire family watching. Woo hoo! Here’s another picture of the kids! Look at the funny thing our cat did today! Please kill me!

And that’s enough

My flirtation with Facebook started as a sort of personal joke. Facebook matured a bit, became “relevant,” and then mainstream. I was starting to kind of like it, but then I got a bunch of “Friends.” Now I only go there to check for personal messages from the sort of people who are determined to use anything but email. (You know, the kind of people who will text you and send facebook messages and PMs but never check email.)

And so, back to Twitter. Those who know me will be thinking “but you hate twitter!” Well, maybe I do, sort of. But I hate it less than Facebook, because it does less. Less is better. The text-only 140 character limit forces people to be concise in their insipid babbling.

No really, you do like twitter

My short guide to making Twitter something you enjoy:

1. If you have something to say that won’t fit into 140 characters, start a blog.
2. If you think you hate twitter, unfollow some people!