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“Just remove the duck” (2013)

rachelbythebay.com

341–347 of 347 posts

Re: “Just remove the duck” (2013)

#341
post #79

I worked at a deli during college, and people did this same type of thing on slices. By default, I'd always pick a pretty thin slice. Most people really like thinly sliced meats. The first thing you do is slice once and show them the slice, making sure it fits what they wanted. 99% of the time, people would say "thinner," I would pretend to fiddle with the knob, slice the same thickness, and they'd say "perfect!" I t…

Yeah, I always only ask once, even if it isn't good enough.

That's another thing I forgot to mention, many people just don't want the first slice because it's been sitting out for a while. I don't fault them for that.

Re: “Just remove the duck” (2013)

#342
post #271
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Our son always "decides" what he's having for dinner and what to do during the weekends, for example. Only he decides by choosing between 2-3 options we've selected in advance to match what we want the outcome to be. Similarly it's always bedtime before his actual intended bedtime so he can negotiate some extra time. It avoids so many conflicts when he smugly believes he has gotten exactly what he wanted out…

I like giving him different veggie options for the illusion of choice. I don't like letting him "get one over" on bedtime. When he's old enough to know the difference, then what? You'll have to take away those wins. Same goes for basically everything else he'll want from you. At least he'll (hopefully) negotiate well!

I figure when he's starting to realise that the wins are not really wins, he will also realise he's not been "getting one over" on us.

At the same time, there are always things you can negotiate on. E.g. I don't care if he's up until 10pm if he can prove to me that he will consistently get up on time and do well at school despite staying up late.

We're already playing that with him: We point out in the mornings if we notice he's tired that he seemed to have gone to bed too late, and we "trade" going to bed earlier on school nights against staying up later during the weekend. As a result he sometimes tells us he wants to go to be before the agreed bedtime.

And I'm willing to be flexible about all kinds of things as long as he's giving us something reasonable in return. E.g. he gets weekly home work, and so I'm willing to skip on doing it one evening if I can trust that he will stick to an agreement of more than making up for it the following evening (and if he doesn't, he knows the consequence is much less freedom for a long time).

I've no doubt I'll still have plenty of challenges down the road.... And he is already a master negotiator, though sometimes he's trying to be too wily for his own good and sometimes ends up talking himself out of a good deal because he doesn't yet understand all the options well enough. So he gets maths lessons this way too...

Re: “Just remove the duck” (2013)

#343
post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When will Chrome offer the option of switching to a new tab when its link is clicked on? Firefox has had it forever. When will the big browsers be programmable? I'm currently running uzbl[0] because I want to set my own hotkeys in my browser. I tried 4 different 'emacs bindings' extensions for other browsers until I just figured out that none of these is gonna get it completely right. The good thing in all of this…

If you tried pentadactyl / vimperator extensions for Firefox I'd be surprised if you found anything you couldn't program that you can acheve in uzbl.

With uzbl I can interface with literally any program on my computer capable of text input/output, so I am hard pressed to see how this claim holds up. This means, obviously, that it's mostly trivial to write bash/perl/whatever scripts/programs for useful browser features.

Like I said, I had to turn away from everything that tried to be a modern browser to realize that most modern browsers are shit, FF/Chrome with these extensions included. Browsers have not evolved well and are mostly designed to be huge monoliths with little to no transparency and programmability. Vimperator and pentadactyl don't remedy this.

Re: “Just remove the duck” (2013)

#344
Doesn't this become self reinforcing? As long as the developer keeps adding silly things to his work the PM will be forced to ask for them to be removed, thereby reinforcing the developer's mindset that the PM always asks for changes. The PM is put in a position where he has to okay something unusual in order to stop the Dev from adding little unusual things.

Re: “Just remove the duck” (2013)

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it's a move which works when people demand changes in order to leave their mark or to be seen as "doing something"[0], it doesn't work in the case of people demanding changes because they actually want these changes. [0] an attitude I find myself unthinkingly adopting when doing reviews.

i have the guilts reviewing work of non native english speakers and asking them to rename functions after review. hard to ask for it without it seeming completely petty, particularly when everything else is perfect. it does represent a minor improvement.

I believe that the best way is to practice english with native speakers. There are now sites like http://preply.com/en/skype/english-native-speakers that offers tutorials or you can just find a native speaker in person and try to casually converse from time to time.

Re: “Just remove the duck” (2013)

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it's a move which works when people demand changes in order to leave their mark or to be seen as "doing something"[0], it doesn't work in the case of people demanding changes because they actually want these changes. [0] an attitude I find myself unthinkingly adopting when doing reviews.

i have the guilts reviewing work of non native english speakers and asking them to rename functions after review. hard to ask for it without it seeming completely petty, particularly when everything else is perfect. it does represent a minor improvement.

[deleted]

Re: “Just remove the duck” (2013)

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it's a move which works when people demand changes in order to leave their mark or to be seen as "doing something"[0], it doesn't work in the case of people demanding changes because they actually want these changes. [0] an attitude I find myself unthinkingly adopting when doing reviews.

i have the guilts reviewing work of non native english speakers and asking them to rename functions after review. hard to ask for it without it seeming completely petty, particularly when everything else is perfect. it does represent a minor improvement.

[deleted]
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