This article references this article which asserts that:

• When you copy a directory into a place which already has a directory of this name, Windows 95+ asks you if you want to "replace" the directory. If you say yes, it replaces the individual files, i.e. merges the new directory into the old
• On Mac OS X it also asks you if you want to replace the directory, but this actually deletes the old directory first
• That the Windows behaviour is better as it's less destructive, and other reasons

I have a number of comments about this:

• Independent of if the Windows behaviour is better, the word "replace" implies the Mac behaviour. I have been confused by this before (assuming that if I click "yes" to the "replace" question that it will delete the contents of the destination first, i.e. replace them)
• There are times when you want merge (merging photos from a digital camera) and times when you want replace (replacing one source tree with another)
• Nextstep would ask you if you want to replace the destination, or merge (or cancel)

Surely Nextstep's solution is the best. Maybe asking is annoying, but both Windows and Mac evidently ask a question as well, so Nextstep is not worse in that respect.

Just one more example of how technology gets worse with time. Or at least not better anyway, on average.

This guy living in Somalia, a country without government and thus by definition in anarchy, does his job but has to give half of what he produces to gunman, who "protect" him. He isn't really very up for this situation, but what is one to do.

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4040889.stm#mahamut:

I get about 20 rods a day but I have to give half of them to the gunman who controls the area I work.
…
This hammer is very heavy and if I had a choice, I would do something else.
But if I could not go to school and had to carry on doing this, at least if there were a government, I would not have to give half the rods to the gunman.

Right. This guy has not tried living in a country with a government recently.

On all of my without-VAT income I pay 47% tax (average) to the government. Then there's the 20% VAT charged on top of the without-VAT income.

And now I have just got a bill because I paid some tax late. I've no idea which tax I paid late or why. I pay the tax bills immediately I get them. I am not a fool. (= I am scared of the government.)

This late penalty is €104.47. Which is quite a lot, I think, for paying tax late (which I don't remember paying late anyway). I mean what's this money for? I wish I earned enough, that the interest on my monthly tax, that the government lost because I paid something a few days late, was over a hundred Euros. But alas, unless interest rates went up dramatically and I didn't notice, that's not the case.

Or maybe it was the money they had to pay to process my lateness. In which case I wish I was a computer. Processing some database row, collect €104.47. That's a well-paid computer.

So it doesn't matter where you are, or what the style of leadership is in the country you happen to do your work. There's stuff to be paid and there's little you can do about it. And if they decide you've done something wrong and have to pay even more stuff, there's nothing you can do about that either.

Ah I really hate opening code and seeing the following

/**
* Insert class or interface description here.
*/

This is created by the IDE’s helpful “create new class” (and similar) menu options.

I wish people would actually write documentation. Even a single sentence to describe what the class is modeling would be helpful if it’s not obvious from the name. Or object invariants (e.g. boughtCount <= offeredCount).

To find a class without documentation is annoying. But to see such an IDE-generated phrase is a slap in the face!

We all know that advertisements on websites are annoying; for example those banner ads with bright flashing colours. It makes us want to use the website in question less. We all know that the way Google does its advertisements—”non-intrusively—”is much better for all concerned: the website (users are less annoyed), the users (they are less annoyed) and the advertising customers themselves.

Just now my computer was incredibly slow. I looked at the task manager and saw Firefox was at 70%. I had no idea why, but I looked at all the windows and one tab of one window was a consumer website with a big moving banner advertisement. I wasn't using the tab, but I like to have that website open (as I do many others).

Suspecting that was the reason for Firefox using so much CPU I closed the tax with the task manager open and indeed thereafter the CPU usage of Firefox reduced to 0%.

So that means that website is effectively preventing me from having its window open, as having its window open prevents me from working. So now I have gmail, Facebook, BBC News and a few other websites open, but not that one. I wonder if that's what the people running the website really want?

P.S. Safari reduces the speed of Flash animations on windows which do not have the focus, to save CPU consumption.

P.P.S. In addition to just making my computer slower, it would deplete my laptop battery faster.