Wednesday, October 30, 2013
There's this thing I'm seeing more and more of, where someone is keeping track of everything you look at online, and then selling that information to advertisers, who then focus on your "interests" for those ads over there on the margins. Targeted advertising.
Hey, folks, you're doing it wrong!
Like Amazon keeps track of what I've looked at or bought, and then makes suggestions, "just for me". Only what they show me are things I've already looked at or already bought! That makes no sense. I already have it, or I've already rejected it.
When I buy something on eBay, I get a message that "People who bought [what I just bought] also bought [pictures of of similar items]". Well, a couple of problems there:
1. There are NO other people who bought what I just bought. I bought the only one. You lie!
2. If other people bought these other things, they're already sold. What help is that to me?
If I search for toy ovens, for days afterward I am inundated with ads for toy ovens. Hey, I just bought one!
I have to draw on my eyebrows, and they frequently disappear within an hour, so the other day I searched for and bought a blond eyebrow pencil (actually a liquid with a fine brush to draw "hairs" with) that is guaranteed to last all day. I bought it from a particular beauty supply outlet. Now my margins are filled with ads from that outlet, not ads for any of their other products, but ads for the very same pencil I already bought. Duh?
Targeted advertising is crap. It's been poorly implemented by people who don't have enough brains to understand that people don't want to look at things they've already looked at. It's being signed up for and paid for by retailers who are no smarter.
Maybe people might be interested in things related to things they've looked at?
Like after I had looked at covers for the a/c units, maybe instead of throwing more a/c covers at me, you should suggest patio furniture or grill covers. After I bought one John Smith book, instead of suggesting I buy that book again, maybe you could suggest other books by the same author, or a different author in the same genre. After I bought the toy oven, maybe you could suggest other toys in the same age range.
I am especially disturbed by Gmail's scanning my emails for keywords. I mentioned to a friend recently that I had gotten chubby since last we met (Yeah, I've gone from the size 6 and S I wore three years ago to 10 and 12 and M, and at my height, that's really chubby), just that one line, and suddenly my sidebar on Gmail is full of ads for shops specializing in foundations and those sizes with the Xs in them (which I can't wear no matter how big I get because the proportions are off for my height, the shoulder seams reach to my elbows).
One of these days I'd love to write an email full of exciting keywords just to see what happens - but I don't want to draw the attention of the NSA.
.
Showing posts with label quality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quality. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Saturday, October 13, 2012
3640 Quality in code and sex bunnies
Saturday, October 13, 2012
If you're a masochist who is curious about the budget proposed by Paul Ryan, you can find all 98 pages of it at http://budget.house.gov/uploadedfiles/pathtoprosperity2013.pdf.
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When I worked for IBM, there was a lot of blather from management about "quality", but that's just what it was - blather. We put out code that we knew was full of bugs, but we sent it out ON TIME, by damn! We techies hated it. Everybody said the word "quality" with a snort. Yeah, sure. What it came down to was that we had to beat the competition to market, Period. As far as sales and executives were concerned - "get it out first and fix it later", which eventually devolved to "get it out, and fix the bugs only if customers complain about them".
Well, judging by what I received the other day, that hasn't improved. What really gets me is that there isn't even any competition in this instance - just maybe a due date to be met.
There's a website for employees. I got an email saying that I should register for it. This is how:
---------------------------------
Well, ladies, it looks like all the advances of the libbers in the '70s have not penetrated some areas. The above photo accompanies one of those Yahoo sidebar ads, versions with captions like "One simple trick to beat the recession and make a fortune" or "One simple way to make a million dollars".
Take a good look.
Now, who is that ad addressed to?
And what does it say about women?
Apparently, a woman is still a thing to be owned, a reward for good work, good for one thing only, and we don't mind if she's a golddigger if she's got a chest full of silicone.
They could have shown him with a fancy car. Car = woman, woman = car, same thing, same amount of respect.
Bah!
A good deal of tyranny goes by the name of protection.
-- Crystal Eastman --
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If you're a masochist who is curious about the budget proposed by Paul Ryan, you can find all 98 pages of it at http://budget.house.gov/uploadedfiles/pathtoprosperity2013.pdf.
------------------------------
When I worked for IBM, there was a lot of blather from management about "quality", but that's just what it was - blather. We put out code that we knew was full of bugs, but we sent it out ON TIME, by damn! We techies hated it. Everybody said the word "quality" with a snort. Yeah, sure. What it came down to was that we had to beat the competition to market, Period. As far as sales and executives were concerned - "get it out first and fix it later", which eventually devolved to "get it out, and fix the bugs only if customers complain about them".
Well, judging by what I received the other day, that hasn't improved. What really gets me is that there isn't even any competition in this instance - just maybe a due date to be met.
There's a website for employees. I got an email saying that I should register for it. This is how:
Your IBM ID must have the format of a valid email address. It is uneditable and
[...later in the instructions, after the part about creating a password ...]
- must be no longer than 80 characters
- must contain an '@' character that separates the user and domain values (example: yourid@ipsname.com)
They have GOT to be kidding! How could anyone send that crap out with a straight face?
If your IBM ID is over 32 characters or contains an "@" symbol, it may not give you access to certain password-protected parts of [the site]. This is a known, temporary condition, where a shorter, simpler IBM ID is required to access those areas properly. If you haven't already created a secondary IBM ID, return to the area where you had trouble signing in, and follow the 'Register' link from there to create one.
---------------------------------
Well, ladies, it looks like all the advances of the libbers in the '70s have not penetrated some areas. The above photo accompanies one of those Yahoo sidebar ads, versions with captions like "One simple trick to beat the recession and make a fortune" or "One simple way to make a million dollars".Take a good look.
Now, who is that ad addressed to?
And what does it say about women?
Apparently, a woman is still a thing to be owned, a reward for good work, good for one thing only, and we don't mind if she's a golddigger if she's got a chest full of silicone.
They could have shown him with a fancy car. Car = woman, woman = car, same thing, same amount of respect.
Bah!
Saturday, August 23, 2008
1968 Visibility, Part 5 - compatibility testing
Saturday, August 23, 2008
So, the line item to change all the externals to make them compatible (previous posts) between the two systems began. Although I was in a design and usability department, because I owned the externals and everyone knew about the test generator I had written, I was asked to do the testing.
(By the way, testers don't get the credit they should. That'll be another post someday.)
There were many line items being added, functions in the old system being ported to the new system and hardware. I would be ensuring not only that all the old externals were compatible, but that all externals for the new would also match. That's every variation and combination of every option on every old and new command, error condition, and operator info situation under every possible condition.
It will mean nothing to anyone but another tester, but in one year, I wrote, ran, verified, and compared results on over 350,000 variations on TWO operating systems.
As new code for new functions was added to the system, I waited until it had been fully functionally tested, and then I ran the compatibility tests for that function.
If I found incompatibilities, I wrote them up and passed them to Peter's group, who then decided whether it had to be changed to be compatible, or whether there were compelling reasons to allow an incompatibility. We had to keep track of those to warn the customer later that if their application depended on this message or return, they'd have to change it.
If I found an actual bug in new code, I'd write a PTM (Program Trouble Memo) which would go to the development group responsible for coding of that function.
If I found a bug in old code, code that had been in the system for ages, I'd write an APAR, which would go to the design group owning that function. (One of these days, I'll do a post on the origin of APARs.)
For that release of the operating system, there were 30-some testers testing new function, and 10 testing old function. Keep in mind that I didn't get the code to do my tests until it had been thoroughly tested and approved by those 40-odd people, and by then the programmers in the development groups had figured their work was done, passed test, and had moved on to other things.
I found bug after bug. Old code, new code. During development and testing of that release, something like 1800 PTMs were written, and of those, over 1,000 were written by ME! After the programmers thought they were finished. Some functions looked like they hadn't been tested at all!
So besides all the testing, simply processing PTMs was a full time job. Plus I wrote about 100 APARs.
By the time I was finished, that system was CLEAN! It had been a superhuman effort.
You'd think I ought to get some kind of recognition. I kinda thought so.
Nope.
By finding so many bugs so late in the cycle, I pissed off the programming groups by messing up their schedules, making them redo what they thought was finished.
By finding so many missed bugs after they had "thoroughly" tested and approved the new code, I pissed off the testing departments. I made them look like crap - and from what I saw, what they'd handed me, they DID do a crappy job.
Everybody hated me. Because I was right? Because I made them do things right? Because I exposed their inadequacies? Whatever. The release slipped schedule, and it was all my fault.
All my fault? Because I did my job well? Because I found a lot of bugs? You didn't have to fix them all, you know. Oh, I forgot, you did have to fix them to keep up the pretense that quality matters.
Yeah, I forgot Quality Rule 1. Schedules are always more important than quality.
Minor "quality" awards had always been given to the tester who found the most bugs. They skipped the award for that release. After all, I wasn't a tester. I was in design.
Lots of visibility, but all the wrong kind.
.
So, the line item to change all the externals to make them compatible (previous posts) between the two systems began. Although I was in a design and usability department, because I owned the externals and everyone knew about the test generator I had written, I was asked to do the testing.
(By the way, testers don't get the credit they should. That'll be another post someday.)
There were many line items being added, functions in the old system being ported to the new system and hardware. I would be ensuring not only that all the old externals were compatible, but that all externals for the new would also match. That's every variation and combination of every option on every old and new command, error condition, and operator info situation under every possible condition.
It will mean nothing to anyone but another tester, but in one year, I wrote, ran, verified, and compared results on over 350,000 variations on TWO operating systems.
As new code for new functions was added to the system, I waited until it had been fully functionally tested, and then I ran the compatibility tests for that function.
If I found incompatibilities, I wrote them up and passed them to Peter's group, who then decided whether it had to be changed to be compatible, or whether there were compelling reasons to allow an incompatibility. We had to keep track of those to warn the customer later that if their application depended on this message or return, they'd have to change it.
If I found an actual bug in new code, I'd write a PTM (Program Trouble Memo) which would go to the development group responsible for coding of that function.
If I found a bug in old code, code that had been in the system for ages, I'd write an APAR, which would go to the design group owning that function. (One of these days, I'll do a post on the origin of APARs.)
For that release of the operating system, there were 30-some testers testing new function, and 10 testing old function. Keep in mind that I didn't get the code to do my tests until it had been thoroughly tested and approved by those 40-odd people, and by then the programmers in the development groups had figured their work was done, passed test, and had moved on to other things.
I found bug after bug. Old code, new code. During development and testing of that release, something like 1800 PTMs were written, and of those, over 1,000 were written by ME! After the programmers thought they were finished. Some functions looked like they hadn't been tested at all!
So besides all the testing, simply processing PTMs was a full time job. Plus I wrote about 100 APARs.
By the time I was finished, that system was CLEAN! It had been a superhuman effort.
You'd think I ought to get some kind of recognition. I kinda thought so.
Nope.
By finding so many bugs so late in the cycle, I pissed off the programming groups by messing up their schedules, making them redo what they thought was finished.
By finding so many missed bugs after they had "thoroughly" tested and approved the new code, I pissed off the testing departments. I made them look like crap - and from what I saw, what they'd handed me, they DID do a crappy job.
Everybody hated me. Because I was right? Because I made them do things right? Because I exposed their inadequacies? Whatever. The release slipped schedule, and it was all my fault.
All my fault? Because I did my job well? Because I found a lot of bugs? You didn't have to fix them all, you know. Oh, I forgot, you did have to fix them to keep up the pretense that quality matters.
Yeah, I forgot Quality Rule 1. Schedules are always more important than quality.
Minor "quality" awards had always been given to the tester who found the most bugs. They skipped the award for that release. After all, I wasn't a tester. I was in design.
Lots of visibility, but all the wrong kind.
.
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