Dan McKinley
Math, Programming, and Minority Reports

DivX Sux
August 27th, 2005

Look —

I am an end user of DivX. I could not possibly care less about how great the DivX codec is. To be honest, my discerning eye cannot tell the difference between a DivX-encoded movie and an animated GIF. I do not encode my own movies.

So given all of that, explain to me why in the hell I would want this notification icon.

DivX Sux

Even if you MUST create a notification icon, I still expect it to hide correctly. Instead, for some reason, it shows and hides itself about once a second while I am watching, say, a Channel 9 video.

This resizes everything on my taskbar. It is absurdly distracting, and makes it more difficult to concentrate on the video. If for no other reason, this makes DivX automatically the worst possible codec with which to record a movie.

DivX, you are not the coolest most amazing program ever written in the history of mankind. You are a stupid video format and you should operate behind the scenes where you belong.

A pox on you and your family.

I Might Have Weird, Mystical Powers
August 26th, 2005

To wit:

  • I just guessed that “Mind of Mencia” was the worst show on television without having seen it. Turns out I was right.
  • A colleague was having a strange problem with an application; I told him to delete an obscure, remnant .dll twelve directories deep that had been removed from the build process eight months prior, instantly fixing the problem.
  • I always suspected Pat Robertson was a diseased shitbag.

The End-of-Release-Cycle Motivational Email
August 20th, 2005

Feel free to use this with your colleagues and/or subordinates.

From: Dan McKinley

Comrades,

As you slave away at your desks today, putting the finishing touches on another outstanding release, you can know it was all worth it. You have made it. You are now #3 on an arbitrary list somewhere:

http://biz.yahoo.com/special/bestjobs05.html

I know what you’re thinking — Dan, many of the jobs beaten by ‘computer software engineer’ on that list are not, in fact, real or respectable professions. ‘Chiropractor’ and ‘advertising manager,’ for instance.” I know, I know, this looks suspiciously like a plot by management to squeeze more work out of you. But it isn’t. Probably, anyway. I don’t have any conclusive evidence that that’s what it is.

But while you’re thinking about that think about this: god gave us the data and it’s up to us to make it dance.

Dancing’s something that can be a wonderful end in itself! Even if you are just dancing because someone is firing a revolver at your feet, for the amusement of a legion of dumbass pretty-boys who work in nice offices and go home at 5:00. You can still derive pleasure from the act of dancing. If you’re the kind of person that likes dancing, I guess, which most of us probably aren’t. But I digress.

Looking at the end of this thing, I am astonished at how much we have accomplished. I always knew I would be laughing all the way to the bank. Even if I had no business there.

“Do you have an account here, sir?” They’d say.

“No,” I’d say.

But I would be laughing, laughing, because I am beautiful. What was I talking about? I lost my train of thought there.

Your buddy, Dan McKinley