And you are here why?

Tyler Blain has an excellent article out on how to write user stories.  The key takeaways are Don’t confuse action with intent Don’t use user stories to explain how the problem should be solved.  Use them to explain why the problem should be solved Note: Action - How (the specific steps you take) to do something Intent - What it is that you are actually trying to accomplish The case being considered is an SMS group chat, where one of the participants is just a phone number (i.e., not in your contacts list) Simple (and wrong) user story - As a participant in an SMS conversation, I want to be able to add unidentified people to my contact list .  <--- This is classic "how to solve the problem" thinking. Better (and still wrong) - As a participant in an SMS conversation, I want to be able to add unidentified people to my contact list so that I can keep my contact list current. <--- This is better, but still “how to solve the problem”  thinking Good use

So, the above is the home page for Fox News right about now (10:13 pm, on Oct 7th, 2016).   And, for the sake of posterity, this is a few hours after the Washington Post released the Trump Recordings On Women . Notice anything? And nope, I'm not talking about how the lede is (kinda) buried in small print on the home page. Here, i'll help Yup.   BigFoot has equal billing with the Trump Tape on the page. "News" it is....

Do  not  accept “Just Joking” as an excuse for racist bulls**t disguised as “humor” - it is a tool used to assimilate the idea of racism, and to send the message - to your in-group - that racism is acceptable, it's OK. And no, this isn’t being Politically Correct, it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of humor, viz. it being part and parcel of how we interact with each other, and form groups. Jason Steed breaks it down explicitly in tweets  (that i’ve condensed below). The next time you feel compelled to make a sexist “joke”, do recall this article, and consider what in-group you are about to become a part of. 1. I wrote my PhD dissertation on the social function of humor (in literature & film) and here’s the thing about “just joking.” 2. You’re never “just joking.” Nobody is ever “just joking.” Humor is a social act that performs a social function (always). 3. To say humor is social act is to say it is always in social context; we don’t joke alone.