Friday Posts
Off-topic posts that typically appear on Fridays
The BabyNameWizard site has a very cool Java-based interface. I like the interactive graphing.
I read an interesting article on CNet today about the designer of the Commodore 64 Joystick game sold on QVC - Jeri Ellsworth. It turns out Jeri started with the Commodore 64 back in the 80s and the story follows how she dropped out of high school and became a self-taught circuit designer. It's a pretty fascinating story. She's been signed on for a series of projects with the same toymaker that pulled together the C-64 Joystick project - good for her!
I was reading Mike Hall's blog over lunch and found his link to a “Which O/S are you?“ survey. I took the survey and the site say's I'm HP-UX...
Well, could be worse. I could have been Windows ME.
I wonder what the caption reads for AmigaDOS?
I was reading Steve Eichert's blog entry titled “Way to go Sun” where sun is aggressively taking down websites that are supporting the java community.
It seems that some companies hit a phase where they have more lawyers than engineers and they aggressively try to protect old revenue streams or product uniqueness within the market. Companies need to protect their products, but certain companies seem to start going over the top. Take Apple in the late 80's in their scorched-earth “look-and-feel” compaign to protect the mac. The industry might look very different today had they put that money into developing their platform instead of lining the pockets of lawyers.
I worked with an embedded device communication protocol in '98 and '99 and the company that established the protocol had to have a 100:1 L/E ratio. They published a management protocol and charged everybody $50,000 for the toolkit and tried to charge additional licensing fees for each device you talked to. Nothing worked - their base tool, the protocol, everything. We wrote an open protocol based on COM and put it through an independent standards organization. Needless to say, they tried suing everybody and their uncle. I was contracting at the time and even the CEO of that company asked who I was. It definitely helps having an obscurely pronounced last name because they kept asking my name and never made contact when the lawsuits got handed out. All suits were summarily dismissed by a judge who told them “I don't want to see these kind of lawsuits out of you ever again”. The company was a “bubble” company in the market and their shares trade for far less than a 10th of what they traded for in '99. I don't mention the company name because I wouldn't be surprised if they would throw lawsuits out as a reflexive action.
If an L/E ratio existed, you could get an idea when a company is agressively innovating or when their sacred revenue streams are dying on the vine and they are consumed by fighting to protect them. I doubt the ratio would be possible to enforce (just outsource the lawyers). But that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing - maybe it would drive the lawyer employment market out of the country!
I read about a company building a commodore 64 in a joystick with ~30 games back in June. It turns out - according to slashdot - that QVC has bought up some 250,000 of these units to exclusively sell them. I think I just added an item to my Christmas wish list.
Here's an interesting thought on healthcare reform in light of the upcoming election - make the insurance actuarial business a public institution. Publish and mandate the actuarial tables used by insurance companies - that way all insurance companies must compete on the same basis. No more of this “ignore the man behind the curtain“ business. Whether you're buying insurance for one person or a group of people, all actuarial rates are the same. Any categorical divisions (smokers, skydivers, pre-existing conditions) must be approved and supported outside of the insurance industry.
back to Nant...
I was talking to some friends who are programmers the other day and astounded at the number who subscribe to one of the two primary local newpapers in our area. I personally haven't had a print subscription to a local newspaper in over 8 years. I have a couple of reasons for this:
- Newspapers are a waste of natural resources. The only counter-argument comes from the print organizations themselves effectively saying “it isn't that bad“ and “we only use recycled paper“. Demand is demand no matter which way you slice it!
- I don't enjoy hauling out the newspapers I don't read for recycling. And these papers take up space and resources in the recycling operations.
- Newspapers are written for morons. Their target audience is a 6th grade reading level (on ambitious days).
- Newspaper reporters and their bosses have abandoned all attempts to be non-biased, instead all articles are written more like editorials today.
Being in the tech industry, I think it's part of our obligation to try out the electronic delivery mediums (web, rss, pocketpc/palm) and make them work in our lives. This doesn't mean dropping subscriptions, in fact the number of subscriptions I receive has skyrocketed since casting off the paper-wasters.
Don't confuse my intent here, it's not to ridicule people who receive newspapers. But if you have the means to do so, isn't it worth a try?
Update: Just found this article. The president of ABC News says that “too much commentary can hinder the distribution of useful information.” Pretty good analysis for junk journalists.