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The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business
An anonymous reader writes "Business 2.0's fourth annual review of the most shameful, dishonest, and just plain stupid moments of the past year. Yes, SCO is represented..."
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SCO is in the 81-90 section? Number 83. Seems to be a little low on the list... but then I would've put it at #1.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson
for those of you who can't be bothered to RTFA.
michael, you think we're psychic or what? Try using a link maybe when you talk about SCO's position.
Nobody cares about anything except maybe SCO and the RIAA (at No 82, on the same page).
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
For those who don't want to hunt and find the SCO reference on the slow server
83 How to win friends and influence software sales.
"Terrorists do things designed to intimidate people, and we see a lot of that going on all the time--people trying to attack us or people that we're associated with."--SCO Group CEO Darl McBride, complaining about the backlash from hundreds of thousands of Linux users after the former Linux software vendor sued IBM, a major Linux proponent, for allegedly violating its intellectual-property rights.
Darl really did say that! - i know it is hard to believe.
Talk about the kettle calling the pot...
I remember one too.
Coke announcing machines that would raise prices in summer (instead of saying that the machines would reduce prices in winter). Its a marketing classic!
Free XBox, PS2
8 Just to be on the safe side, let's also lose the jack, the fuel pump, and the four-stroke engine.
In Canada, General Motors is forced to come up with a new name for its Buick LaCrosse sedan after discovering that crosse is a slang term for masturbation in Quebec.
Its also a slang term for "a rip-off".
I never heard it used to mean masturbation when used as a noun, its masturnbatory meaning is only applied when used as a verb. So To me that GM car sounds more like a rip-off than a jerk-off. Also note that GM laid off a lot of people in Quebec recently by closing down a plant...
Ah, fond memories of the sign "do not cross the track" at the amusement park with my friends when I was 14... : )
You can't take the sky from me...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"At an investment conference in January, Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson explains his company's recent layoffs: "There are 15 to 20 percent of the people that really add 80 percent of the value. Although we have a lot of good people, you can cut a fair amount ... and still be well positioned for the upturn." Paulson later apologizes in a voice-mail message sent to every Goldman employee."
Y'know, this is no different than just about any CEO speech I've heard in any of a dozen companies in the last five years. How STUPID do you need to get a job that pays millions like this?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Interesting to note re: SCO the dumb moment is the quote. I can agree with that. Using terrorism or war related analogies just doesn't fly. Ask Kellen "I'm a soldier" Winslow Jr.
/.'rs but aren't necessarily dumb. They've been on life-support for awhile and if you were a good CEO you'd probably take a stab at IBM's deep pockets too. Their moves appear to have already extended their life.
But, how many replies to this article will rave about SCO being dumb and that they should be rated higher? Probably too many due to a little myopia. What does SCO care if they piss of linux advocates? It's not like they have to worry about the opinions of most techies. They can't lose market share they didn't have. And what do they care if people are driven away from Linux to truly other systems if they succeed in forcing companies to pony up licensing fees? If they win they make money they wouldn't have. If they lose they die but they've survived longer than if they'd never tried.
Their moves may be detestable to
A corporation's chief mission is to survive. That comes long before societal and ethical concerns.
Uhh, I think that's why the bottom of the soda can is concave, rather than convex. If it gets too much pressure, it can pop out. They do similar things with milk jugs, for example.
You might want to look at what the geek chick did ;)
Free XBox, PS2
Lingerie Bowl 2004
Thats an urban legend.
Never happened.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Yup. However, as the cans are dented in transport, weak spots can be created in the aluminum. These weak spots require less force than the concave safety portion of the can to expand, and they will break first. Also, the concave portion can bend out so far that it will come lower than the normal bottom of the can. For this to happen while the can is normally upright, the whole container must be able to maintain a pressure sufficient enough to both expand the concave portion of the can and lift the can up.
Snopes has a better picture, along with links to video here.
"Ford," he said, "you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."
Actually, another one would be the Japanese calculator firm Busicom hiring some semiconductor memory company named Intel to make a calculator chipset, getting a general purpose computer on a chip, and then renegotiating for a lower price while allowing Intel to sell it.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
actually the reason that it explodes is more due to the disolved CO2, which, while it disolves just fine is liquid water, can't disolve in ice. As it freezes, all of the CO2 comes out of solution, and that is what pops the pop. (the expanding water helps some I am sure)
Now, imagine breaking up this structure. Take the top molecule and rotate it by approximately 120 degrees, so that the H atom in the upper left of the image is now positioned between the H atoms bonded to the O second from the top. This is what happens when the ice melts... the molecules get closer together, causing the density to increase slightly upon melting.
If you have access to the Feynman lectures on physics, there is much better explanation with more pictures explaining this phenomenon.
Carpets cause static electricity. If you need to do hardware work, better make sure to take them out first. And its unlikely a janitor's closet wouldn't have heat issues.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I'll add a data point to that: regular (non-diet) Coke takes a lot lower temperature to freeze and explode than does Diet Coke. The sugar in Coke depresses the freezing point way more than does the tiny amount of artifical sweetener in Diet Coke. That said, the Diet Coke is a heck of a lot easier to clean up.
(Leaving unopened cans in the car overnight in winter also demonstrates this principle.)
-- Alastair
Nope. I've seen the bottoms get popped out, but I've also seen cold cans explode. We had a very sticky front seat of a car after leaving a can in it for a cold week.
I was more raising the issue since I think it odd that they built in these protections, but apparently they don't always (or even usually) work.
It depends. :)
One of the cans had the bottom pop out like several people expect to happen. Most of the cans showed signs of the bottom starting to be pushed out, some were just fine though. Since I could no longer put the can with the bottom inverted down, I had to open and drain it and I can tell you that the pressure is indeed increased - soda spilled everywhere from that one.
The picture of the can lieing on the floor was my AIM buddy icon for a while...
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
1. Static electricity is a potential problem. However, static electricity is caused by friction between two non-conductive surfaces. Most servers I've worked with have unpainted chassis
Every tower server I own is painted, and the point is when you do upgrades or maintenance you risk the problem of static. Any fool knows you don't carpet a server room, this isn't even a point worth discussing. Plus, I stated flatly, its a minor but real point.
the carpet will lead to premature failure, which is certainly possible, it would have done so already. The original post was talking about being shown this system installed and running, not about having it done recently.
Um, like I said, that is why the IT guy installed them upside down. If it vented at the bottom and they were placed right side up, they would already be dead.
The heat produced by a system does not increase over age
Um, wrong. If you don't do regular maintenance (which obviously wasn't getting done) then yes, it WILL get hotter over time. Common sense if think about it. Air vents get clogged. Fans get weighed down when coated with dust. Everything gets coated with dust, which acts as an insulator. My guess is a server room that is actually a janitors closet didn't have filtered air.
I'm sorry if I came across as trollish, but there seems to be an obsession these days with following the rules for everything and making it pretty.
Not my problem, I have an ugly ass server room, full of racks and empty boxes and steel shelving full of towers, no carpet, etc. I don't care about pretty, but common sense says you don't do things that will compromise the systems. Hard floors, cold as hell, nothing to cause static, basic filtered air.
Yea, no big deal, until you get random errors and crashes, or worse yet, intermittant data corruption that you can't track down. If you are talking about a game server for your buds, well, fine. But if you are talking about a real server then these simple "rules" are common sense. Hate to be so short, but you didn't read the post you replied to very well.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
What if they showed Raised by Wolves guy remembering his first date?
* * *
There's an SUV commercial featuring a suburban dad Raised By Wolves. He's shown chasing deer, fetching sticks, and cavorting with timber wolves.
My question: Which came first, the car commercial or Quiznos's?
Stefan
Surprisingly, buttermilk is actually somewhat lower in fat than 1% milk. It got its name from being the liquid that was left over after butter was churned out of it. (The stuff you can buy today is made quite differently, but has similar properties.)