Four Random Things

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. Answers to broad questions like "Should people be fired for big, public mistakes?" are frequently some variant of It depends, but that doesn't mean they can't contain interesting lessons:

... In fact, if the person is generally conscientious, there's a good chance that they're now more valuable to you than they were a month ago because they just learned a massive lesson that's likely to stick with them and be incorporated into their work going forward.

Also, with this kind of mistake, there were presumably many people who signed off on the design and should have caught it before it was finalized. It points to a need to change their processes so it can't happen again, not to firing a dozen people for missing it.

The debacle in question concerns a collector's item the Texas Rangers recently created that nobody's going to be giving to their kids any time soon.

2. The The Passive Aggressive Password Machine helps you create secure passwords by insulting you based on the strength of your proposed password.

3. Science Fiction writer John Scalzi has posted an FAQ on why he owns a church building:

Isn't it a little ... quirky to own a church?

I mean, yes. I've noted before that now I've become a bit of a cliche, that cliche being the eccentric writer who owns a folly. Some own theaters and railways, some own Masonic temples, some own islands. I own a church. In my defense, I had a functional reason to own it, noted above, and I didn't spend a genuinely silly amount of money for it, also noted above. As a folly, it is both practical and affordable.

The odd title drew me in, and it proved more interesting than I expected.

For those pressed for time, Scalzi does state for the record that he isn't starting a cult.

4. The UK Data Explorer site hosts a Google Translate-powered European Word Translator, which displays a map of Europe overlaid with translations of any given English word.

-- CAV