There is nothing funnier than companies that try to use Access as the database for 150,000-pageview-a-day websites. Middle management at its most entertaining.
It's funny until you're the poor SOB who has to maintain it. I had to maintain something much like this - it actually did better than I expected, but still . ..
To hear democracy relies on Access doesn't make me thrilled.
Looking over the latest, which appears to be the usual SCO Linguistic Acrobatics ("We can say anything we want, it's free speech . . . for the corporation!"), I was wondering about the mentality inside SCO. Far inside, since they seem to be in their own world.
I think expecting logic, decency, concern for the rule of law, etc. from SCO is doomed to fail. Of course, we pretty much knew that.
Looking at their behaviors, its purely marketing behaviors. There's not a single connection to reality (except hopes to get $$$ by getting bought, stock manipulation, etc.). It's a marketing campaign, period, and like any campaign of its kind it'll morph, change, alter, play to whomever they can play with, and so-on.
On the other hand, I don't think the SCOites truly realize what they're doing in their little world. They're annoying a huge amount of people and making themselves legal targets. I think they only see this great new ploy that's sure to work - it's marketing, and marketing is always to gullible schlubs anyway, right?
That is perpahs their greatest personal weakness. They're running a marketing campaign in a legal arena. They're assuming people will roll over in the face of their brilliance and threats. They don't realize they're in a different arena.
Is one I have mixed feelings on. Do I think it's right or wrong? Sadly, I'm not sure, so I toss this out for discussion.
First, I feel bad for the average employee in the trenches. Imagine SCO collapsing and someone looking for work having had nothing to do with this.
At the same time, if they want to work for a company doing something so reprehensible, they also made a choice. They can live with the results. Yes, the economy is tough, but life's not a series of easy choices.
There is of course the concern that SCO employees are "poison" now, which I have to admit seems completely rational. Gods only know what legal issues they may (innocently) drag in with them.
So, largely in the end I see an anti-SCO policy being rational as a cover-my-legal-rear action. It's not fair, sadly, but it is one involving survival.
I wonder if this could also be the beginning of a trend, as we seem to see more and more legal acrobatics in software and IT.
A blanket lawsuit approach like this is inevitably going to involve an incident like this. If the RIAA and their cronies express any surprise, they're either lying or idiots.
There's all this unsubstantiated talk. If SCO wants the Open Source community to take them seriously, they should publicly release the code which they claim to be in Linux, and furthermore, provide proof that that code did not exist legally before SCO made it "theirs."
I don't think SCO cares to be taken seriously by the Open Source community. They'd never have taken this course of action if they'd desired that.
They presented themselves to the security desk as technicians sent by Electronic Data Systems, the outsourced customs computer services provider which regularly sends people to work on computers after normal office hours.
Another reason you should be damn careful about how you outsource, who you outsource with, and the security involved. People need to know who they're really dealing with and how to check.
My guess is this is a testing-of-the-water here, see how things go over, probably mixed with wanting to take the easiest route. So, they toss out a machine, note they'll have everything certified, and see how it goes in the commercial market.
On a related note, how long is it going to be until SCO is mentioned in these comments . ..
And, at the end of the day, if you simply force people to take off their hats and sunglasses, so that the camera can get a nice, long look at them in closeup, I wonder how much greater the success rate for facial recognition would be?
That'd probably make recognition work better, but I'm not sure people will wait in endless lines on top of the metal detectors and other security procedures to be asked to remove any offending headgear, jewelry, etc. to stare into a camera.
Now for certain questions, suspicious individuals, etc. it may be far more feasible.
The amount of false positives (as just about every other poster mentioned.
If the people scanned made ANY attempts to alter their appearance. If you get a 61% matching rate with no one attempting to be in disguise, it says very little.
That being said, the test itself doesn't sound very good. It's quite easy to fake tests of software, especially if you have a limited pool of data, or know what you're looking for ahead of time. It's possible the result would be even worse in actual usage.
I'm wondering how you debug something meant to act human (who are unpredictable).
And just because you debug it with a crowd of number "X" using it, will that be relevant to a larger population?
I wonder if it'd be possible to do some TiVO-like exchange of data here as a voluntary option. Try to train the applications with larger data stories, at least for a time.
McBride obviously seems to believe that the Open Source community isn't capable of refuting their bullshit without the backing of a large company.
I've been wondering more and more about the psychology of Daryl and company.
I think he and his cohorts may be so insulated, out-of-touch, and unaware of how OS and its community works that they may honestly NOT believe it is capable of organizing without some mysterious backer. Their actions certainly show ignorance, willing or otherwise, of many things, from the origin of code to human nature.
Maybe its a bit of projection. They've got their little personal conspiracy to attack Linux to boost stock prices and make money, they may assume that any counteraction is also less than honest.
The lawyer makes this quote: Let's say you have a hundred files, and you put one of your hundred files under the GPL. That doesn't mean you've lost the rights to your other 99 files.
But from what I can tell, SCO argues if one of THEIR files (or some of their files) touches Linux, then Linux is essentially theirs, especially because Linux apparently benefitted from the code they "own."
Maybe its just me, but there appears to be some hypocracy here (OK, it's SCO, expecting hypocracy is a default setting). Maybe it relates to their twisted take on GPL and Copyright, but I think the lawyer's statement really makes them look worse.
Regarding the interview with the lawyer, I got the impression he was largely spouting the party line for his client. It did feel rather incoherent and he honestly didn't seem to believe what he was saying.
Meanwhile back at SCO, apparently they're not buying crazy because they've got a stock of it. Claiming IBM is orchestrating some conspiracy to attack them is just another one of the bizarre psychological acrobatic displays we've seen from SCO, admittedly one of the more impressively stupid ones since this started.
Looking at the articles, I'm feeling SCO is stuck in a "ratchet it up until they give in" mentality, where they'll keep making attacks and outrageous claims until someone gives in and buys them or gives them lots of money. However, they have to count on people backing down - which isn't really happening. Since they have no other options, I think they're going to keep at it.
I actually do wonder just how in touch with reality some of the SCO execs are. Now that they've committed to a business path based on lawsuits and dubious legal claims, they can't really back out, so it seems they're becoming wrapped up in the worlds they created to justify their claims.
The inevitable "Rojin Z" jokes, referencing the anime about a super-robotic caregiver that goes on a rampage.
In all seriousness, if this is commonplace, it changes the place of technology in many lives and the lives people lead. What will happen when the infirm are freed from wheelchairs, yet what maintenance issues will arise?
Watching the recent virii, email and network slowdowns, this is a pretty good example of why one person or one company should never rely on one method of communication.
It sounds like a simple lesson, but for those of us in IT, it's an important one to relay. DON'T just count on email. Count on phone, pager, etc. Occasionally you may look dumb calling someone to see if they got a vital email, or calling up someone who is just finishing an email to you, but its worth the risk, especially iwhen one is unsure of technical reliability.
I've always tried to cultivate the habit of dropping by and seeing people I work with face-to-face if I need to talk to them. It keeps me from being overly reliant on phone messages and email and keeps lines of communication open. Having seen people overly dependent on email, etc., I figure it's a good habit to maintain . ..
I really have to wonder what is going on at SCO. It's like they're comitted to undermine themselves. I've heard of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, but in this case it seems every part of the body is pretty confused.
So, they blast GPL while using GPLed code. They make outrageous claims they don't back up. They show source code comments (with some scrambled) and then a chunk of relatively un-unique code that's been out and about in the world for decades.
I've started developing a theory here:
Essentially, at some point, they got the idea to take on IBM or Open Source. Maybe it was the result of seeing some similar code. Maybe it was a moment of inspiration. I'm not sure.
But once they comitted to that strategy, they stuck with it. They had people look for similar code, without checking its origins. They looked for ways to re-intepret the GPL and copyright law no matter how ridiculous they sounded.
In short, this is what we want/assume to be true, lets look for evidence for it.
Of course from the outside they look like greedy, unethical dimwits. But by now, comitted to their strategy, they not only don't want to back down, they probably can't . ..
Which, is ironic, because at this rate they're being so outrageously stupid that I feel they'll end very badly - as in lost lawsuits, being sued, perhaps even an SEC investigation.
From this link on the SCO Forum, on a slide show regarding the copied code
Much of the Unix code in the slides was obscured, because the company wants to keep its intellectual property under wraps, but SCO is allowing people who want to see a more extensive side-by-side comparison during the conference to do so if they sign a nondisclosure agreement.
So, here's a vaguely blurry picture of the code that proves we're right . ..
This is the equivalent of blurry pictures of the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, except I give them MUCH more credibility.
. . . how will we know wether the error is software or user?
If your machine starts arguing with you, how do you determine the flaw? When it keeps making consistently wrong decisions, who is to blame.
I'm seeing a WHOLE new way around tech support here. Just keep telling the users that the machine is right and they're wrong. How will the average user know?
All jokes aside, as we humanize software, we need to develop ways to evaluate it and debug it that will require whole new ways of thinking.
Ten years? I'm not so sure it'll be that quick . ..
I think you hit an important thing on the head - a LOT of people want to do more, be more, etc. What tends to hold us back is the system and our mindsets.
So, wether we be programmers, marketers, etc. it is up to US to change it. It's what we make, what we build.
We can talk about how it should be done. We may well be right (many programmers have far more business sense than they're given credit for). But we have to DO it.
In fact, this is where the non-coding techniques come in. Communications. Business sense. Planning. Budgeting. Projection. Research.
THOSE let you really do something. But to do coding, to do what you love well, you may need to change and influence your environment.
In the words of Peter Puppy "Better 'n Pro Wrestling!"
And folks think IT is dull . . .
A lot of Programming isn't programming
on
The Career Programmer
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I'm probably going to pick this book up because I'm not only curious as to what I'll learn, but curious as to what similar and dissimilar lessions the author and I may have had.
The hardest lesson for me was that a lot of being a Programmer (job) has NOTHING to do with being a Programmer (activity). Once you realize it and even embrace it, you can do quite well, perhaps even better than you expected. But the hard fact is that all the coding and programming ability in the world won't save you from non-programming issues.
Calling this thing MATRIX *DOES* show a particular level of incompetence behind it.
Seriously. They chose a name guaranteed to provoke the most adverse reactions in many people, especially geeks. This indicates either a level of insensitivity or ignorance of popular culture that isn't reassuring.
Slashdot Mirror
There is nothing funnier than companies that try to use Access as the database for 150,000-pageview-a-day websites. Middle management at its most entertaining.
.
It's funny until you're the poor SOB who has to maintain it. I had to maintain something much like this - it actually did better than I expected, but still . .
To hear democracy relies on Access doesn't make me thrilled.
Looking over the latest, which appears to be the usual SCO Linguistic Acrobatics ("We can say anything we want, it's free speech . . . for the corporation!"), I was wondering about the mentality inside SCO. Far inside, since they seem to be in their own world.
I think expecting logic, decency, concern for the rule of law, etc. from SCO is doomed to fail. Of course, we pretty much knew that.
Looking at their behaviors, its purely marketing behaviors. There's not a single connection to reality (except hopes to get $$$ by getting bought, stock manipulation, etc.). It's a marketing campaign, period, and like any campaign of its kind it'll morph, change, alter, play to whomever they can play with, and so-on.
On the other hand, I don't think the SCOites truly realize what they're doing in their little world. They're annoying a huge amount of people and making themselves legal targets. I think they only see this great new ploy that's sure to work - it's marketing, and marketing is always to gullible schlubs anyway, right?
That is perpahs their greatest personal weakness. They're running a marketing campaign in a legal arena. They're assuming people will roll over in the face of their brilliance and threats. They don't realize they're in a different arena.
People with too much time on their hands invent incredibly impractical device for easily distracted people who probably will never use it anyway.
Is one I have mixed feelings on. Do I think it's right or wrong? Sadly, I'm not sure, so I toss this out for discussion.
First, I feel bad for the average employee in the trenches. Imagine SCO collapsing and someone looking for work having had nothing to do with this.
At the same time, if they want to work for a company doing something so reprehensible, they also made a choice. They can live with the results. Yes, the economy is tough, but life's not a series of easy choices.
There is of course the concern that SCO employees are "poison" now, which I have to admit seems completely rational. Gods only know what legal issues they may (innocently) drag in with them.
So, largely in the end I see an anti-SCO policy being rational as a cover-my-legal-rear action. It's not fair, sadly, but it is one involving survival.
I wonder if this could also be the beginning of a trend, as we seem to see more and more legal acrobatics in software and IT.
Any thoughts?
. . . is that ANYONE is surprised.
A blanket lawsuit approach like this is inevitably going to involve an incident like this. If the RIAA and their cronies express any surprise, they're either lying or idiots.
OK, possibly both.
There's all this unsubstantiated talk. If SCO wants the Open Source community to take them seriously, they should publicly release the code which they claim to be in Linux, and furthermore, provide proof that that code did not exist legally before SCO made it "theirs."
I don't think SCO cares to be taken seriously by the Open Source community. They'd never have taken this course of action if they'd desired that.
They presented themselves to the security desk as technicians sent by Electronic Data Systems, the outsourced customs computer services provider which regularly sends people to work on computers after normal office hours.
Another reason you should be damn careful about how you outsource, who you outsource with, and the security involved. People need to know who they're really dealing with and how to check.
My guess is this is a testing-of-the-water here, see how things go over, probably mixed with wanting to take the easiest route. So, they toss out a machine, note they'll have everything certified, and see how it goes in the commercial market.
.
On a related note, how long is it going to be until SCO is mentioned in these comments . .
And, at the end of the day, if you simply force people to take off their hats and sunglasses, so that the camera can get a nice, long look at them in closeup, I wonder how much greater the success rate for facial recognition would be?
That'd probably make recognition work better, but I'm not sure people will wait in endless lines on top of the metal detectors and other security procedures to be asked to remove any offending headgear, jewelry, etc. to stare into a camera.
Now for certain questions, suspicious individuals, etc. it may be far more feasible.
That being said, the test itself doesn't sound very good. It's quite easy to fake tests of software, especially if you have a limited pool of data, or know what you're looking for ahead of time. It's possible the result would be even worse in actual usage.
I'm wondering how you debug something meant to act human (who are unpredictable).
And just because you debug it with a crowd of number "X" using it, will that be relevant to a larger population?
I wonder if it'd be possible to do some TiVO-like exchange of data here as a voluntary option. Try to train the applications with larger data stories, at least for a time.
McBride obviously seems to believe that the Open Source community isn't capable of refuting their bullshit without the backing of a large company.
I've been wondering more and more about the psychology of Daryl and company.
I think he and his cohorts may be so insulated, out-of-touch, and unaware of how OS and its community works that they may honestly NOT believe it is capable of organizing without some mysterious backer. Their actions certainly show ignorance, willing or otherwise, of many things, from the origin of code to human nature.
Maybe its a bit of projection. They've got their little personal conspiracy to attack Linux to boost stock prices and make money, they may assume that any counteraction is also less than honest.
Just a thought.
The lawyer makes this quote: Let's say you have a hundred files, and you put one of your hundred files under the GPL. That doesn't mean you've lost the rights to your other 99 files.
But from what I can tell, SCO argues if one of THEIR files (or some of their files) touches Linux, then Linux is essentially theirs, especially because Linux apparently benefitted from the code they "own."
Maybe its just me, but there appears to be some hypocracy here (OK, it's SCO, expecting hypocracy is a default setting). Maybe it relates to their twisted take on GPL and Copyright, but I think the lawyer's statement really makes them look worse.
Thoughts on this?
Regarding the interview with the lawyer, I got the impression he was largely spouting the party line for his client. It did feel rather incoherent and he honestly didn't seem to believe what he was saying.
Meanwhile back at SCO, apparently they're not buying crazy because they've got a stock of it. Claiming IBM is orchestrating some conspiracy to attack them is just another one of the bizarre psychological acrobatic displays we've seen from SCO, admittedly one of the more impressively stupid ones since this started.
Looking at the articles, I'm feeling SCO is stuck in a "ratchet it up until they give in" mentality, where they'll keep making attacks and outrageous claims until someone gives in and buys them or gives them lots of money. However, they have to count on people backing down - which isn't really happening. Since they have no other options, I think they're going to keep at it.
I actually do wonder just how in touch with reality some of the SCO execs are. Now that they've committed to a business path based on lawsuits and dubious legal claims, they can't really back out, so it seems they're becoming wrapped up in the worlds they created to justify their claims.
Expect it to get even more insane.
Get your popcorn out.
The inevitable "Rojin Z" jokes, referencing the anime about a super-robotic caregiver that goes on a rampage.
In all seriousness, if this is commonplace, it changes the place of technology in many lives and the lives people lead. What will happen when the infirm are freed from wheelchairs, yet what maintenance issues will arise?
I get more autoreplys in my mailbox BY FAR than actual Sobig viruses, about a 7-to-1 ratio easily. It's ridiculous.
.
Makes me wonder what other brain-dead scripting ideas are waiting to go wrong . .
Watching the recent virii, email and network slowdowns, this is a pretty good example of why one person or one company should never rely on one method of communication.
.
It sounds like a simple lesson, but for those of us in IT, it's an important one to relay. DON'T just count on email. Count on phone, pager, etc. Occasionally you may look dumb calling someone to see if they got a vital email, or calling up someone who is just finishing an email to you, but its worth the risk, especially iwhen one is unsure of technical reliability.
I've always tried to cultivate the habit of dropping by and seeing people I work with face-to-face if I need to talk to them. It keeps me from being overly reliant on phone messages and email and keeps lines of communication open. Having seen people overly dependent on email, etc., I figure it's a good habit to maintain . .
I really have to wonder what is going on at SCO. It's like they're comitted to undermine themselves. I've heard of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, but in this case it seems every part of the body is pretty confused.
.
So, they blast GPL while using GPLed code. They make outrageous claims they don't back up. They show source code comments (with some scrambled) and then a chunk of relatively un-unique code that's been out and about in the world for decades.
I've started developing a theory here:
Essentially, at some point, they got the idea to take on IBM or Open Source. Maybe it was the result of seeing some similar code. Maybe it was a moment of inspiration. I'm not sure.
But once they comitted to that strategy, they stuck with it. They had people look for similar code, without checking its origins. They looked for ways to re-intepret the GPL and copyright law no matter how ridiculous they sounded.
In short, this is what we want/assume to be true, lets look for evidence for it.
Of course from the outside they look like greedy, unethical dimwits. But by now, comitted to their strategy, they not only don't want to back down, they probably can't . .
Which, is ironic, because at this rate they're being so outrageously stupid that I feel they'll end very badly - as in lost lawsuits, being sued, perhaps even an SEC investigation.
Just thoughts and a theory.
Yeah, makes me REALLY trust them . . .
From this link on the SCO Forum, on a slide show regarding the copied code
.
Much of the Unix code in the slides was obscured, because the company wants to keep its intellectual property under wraps, but SCO is allowing people who want to see a more extensive side-by-side comparison during the conference to do so if they sign a nondisclosure agreement.
So, here's a vaguely blurry picture of the code that proves we're right . .
This is the equivalent of blurry pictures of the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, except I give them MUCH more credibility.
. . . how will we know wether the error is software or user?
.
If your machine starts arguing with you, how do you determine the flaw? When it keeps making consistently wrong decisions, who is to blame.
I'm seeing a WHOLE new way around tech support here. Just keep telling the users that the machine is right and they're wrong. How will the average user know?
All jokes aside, as we humanize software, we need to develop ways to evaluate it and debug it that will require whole new ways of thinking.
Ten years? I'm not so sure it'll be that quick . .
I think you hit an important thing on the head - a LOT of people want to do more, be more, etc. What tends to hold us back is the system and our mindsets.
So, wether we be programmers, marketers, etc. it is up to US to change it. It's what we make, what we build.
We can talk about how it should be done. We may well be right (many programmers have far more business sense than they're given credit for). But we have to DO it.
In fact, this is where the non-coding techniques come in. Communications. Business sense. Planning. Budgeting. Projection. Research.
THOSE let you really do something. But to do coding, to do what you love well, you may need to change and influence your environment.
In the words of Peter Puppy "Better 'n Pro Wrestling!"
And folks think IT is dull . . .
I'm probably going to pick this book up because I'm not only curious as to what I'll learn, but curious as to what similar and dissimilar lessions the author and I may have had.
The hardest lesson for me was that a lot of being a Programmer (job) has NOTHING to do with being a Programmer (activity). Once you realize it and even embrace it, you can do quite well, perhaps even better than you expected. But the hard fact is that all the coding and programming ability in the world won't save you from non-programming issues.
Calling this thing MATRIX *DOES* show a particular level of incompetence behind it.
Seriously. They chose a name guaranteed to provoke the most adverse reactions in many people, especially geeks. This indicates either a level of insensitivity or ignorance of popular culture that isn't reassuring.