Interesting Links for 08-12-2016

[andrewducker]

Göbekli Tepe (an archeological find dating further back than was believed possible) (tags: archeology prehistory turkey ) "Burned house horizon" (more things about prehistory that I didn't know) (tags: prehistory ) Why the appointment of Ian Cathro at Hearts has inadvertently condemned all humans to extinction (Hilarious even if you don't care

Comments

New low in [what I assume is] the competition for the most inappropriate use of a Gandhi quote

[crazymeandave]

Thought you might find the Army Cadet Force's recruitment campaign for Adult Volunteers amusing...
If you'd not already seen it, I reckon it's a sure fire contender for your OhForFucksSake tag.

RE: New low in [what I assume is] the competition for the most inappropriate use of a Gandhi quote

[skington]

Maybe they're thinking of the Civilisation version of Gandhi, who is really, really trigger-happy with nukes?

(Historically because of a bug: Gandhi starts out as the most peaceful leader there is, with a war-mongerer value of (say) 0. Then when you get Democracy and it makes you less likely to declare war, the lack of bounds-checking of this unsigned value makes 0 -1 => the largest value that there can possibly be. So Gandhi goes-a-nuking!)

RE: New low in [what I assume is] the competition for the most inappropriate use of a Gandhi quote

[andrewducker]

Good Lord.

Yes, the chances of Gandhi approving of anything the British Army does is...slim.

RE: New low in [what I assume is] the competition for the most inappropriate use of a Gandhi quote

[drdoug]

Absolutely, in the later life we know about.

But not always. While he was a great soul he was not a pure, consistent and unblemished one. He recruited and commanded Indians as stretcher-bearers for the British Army fighting the Zulus in South Africa in the 1900s, and then did similar stuff recruiting noncombatant Indian troops from India for the British Army in WW1 - and by the end of the war was trying to recruit combatants. His argument was that this would bolster the case for full citizenship status for Indians.

[fub]

In my work as (software) product manager I experience a slimmed-down version of what OS project maintainer describes in his article. Any change is bad, but stagnation is worse, why isn't this feature in the new release because this customer-du-jour needs it, why did you spend time on A when I've been asking for B for two years now, etc.
I have gotten better at disappointing people and I frequently remind them that the list of things we do not fix in the new release is much shorter than the list of things we do fix. As long as our product does not bring about world peace, it's not finished.
I have a model of the Great Buddha of Kamakura on my desk, facing the door to my office -- this is to remind visitors who come to me to complain that it is human desire that leads to suffering. If they desire something from the product, their suffering is their own -- not mine.