Hats?

From a comment on Coding Horror blogpost on Egoless Programming:

A woman goes into a shop to buy a hat. The hat maker takes a length of ribbon, and deftly folds and twists it into a beautiful hat. "How much?" she asks. "Two hundred dollars," he replies. "For a length of ribbon!?" she exclaims. He smiles and just as deftly disassembles the hat, and hands the ribbon to her. "For the hat, two hundred dollars. The ribbon is yours for nothing."

And the followup:

To use this analogy, I think programmers are like the hat maker. In the olden days of programming, it was the art of creating the hat that excited and impressed people. These days, it is the collection of hats they have created.

I like this way of thinking.

My Last Word on the Subject

I hope this will be the last time I feel I have to comment on the Stepney/Coughlan/McLaren/Ferrari industrial espionage 'case'. The FIA have now released the transcript of their recent hearings, and the BBC have their take on it. It's much more readable than anything I can put together just now, but it does take a similar tone to my thoughts on the subject that the penalties dolled out by the FIA are simply dis-proportionate and mis-guided.

They're all at it, it's just that the FIA wanted to make an example of their favourite whipping boy: McLaren.

The FIA WMSC

The FIA (Federation Internationale de l'Automobile) has a WMSC (World Motor Sports Council). It is their main court for handling disputes within motorsports. It has just handed down one of the most extraordinarily punitive punishments in its history to McLaren (the F1 team previously leading this year's excellent F1 Constructors World Championship). They've removed all the points so far scored this year, excluded the team (but not the drivers, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton) from the remainder of the Championship, and hit them with a $100 million fine. The impact of this will be that McLaren will start next year right at the bottom of the pit lane, with limited garage space, and little help with transportation costs - just as if they were the old Minardi team!

The crime? Gaining competitive advantage from having proprietary Ferrari design and performance data. Now, bearing in mind that F1 teams are always monitoring the competition - at tests, at races, and so on, and that staff move between companies quite frequently, definitely taking knowledge, if not actual documentation, with them, and bearing in mind that McLaren & Ferrari cars are designed by different people with different design philosophies and theories, I find it remarkable that the FIA should be so remarkably punitive.

Not only that, there are numerous precedents of industrial espionage cases between F1 teams that have never, ever, resulted in such extreme measures.

Worse, Max Mosley, President of the FIA, said, "But that they had an advantage is almost beyond dispute." (my emphasis)

What is a regulatory committee doing issuing such commercially damaging punishment for a relatively common-place, but not often publicised slightly dirty side to F1 racing (and probably every other competitive motor-sport).

I hope McLaren take them to the cleaners in the real civil courts, and put the frighteners on the kangaroo court that is the WMSC.

Two Worlds ... wrong location

I live in Europe, and I've just received a copy of the PC version of Two Worlds as a gift from a friend in the US. It installed just fine, but when I run it, I get the following message:

This version of the game cannot be run in your location.
Please email legal@zuxxez.com for help.

Not only is this classic 'annoy the legitimate end user in some misguided effort to stop piracy', but the work around suggests I should re-configure my operating environment to 'trick' the game into believing I live in the US, and confusing all the other programs on my system that need to have accurate time stamps - such as my virus checker!

This is unacceptable. If it weren't for the fact that this was a gift, I would be taking the game back to the shop, forthwith!

All the companies involved in this product: Reality Pump (warning: Flash site. Ugh!), Zuxxez Entertainment, TopWare Interactive, and SouthPeak Games should all take a long hard look at their strategies for (avoiding) annoying legitimate customers.

UPDATE: What's worse is that I've now had time to try the workaround, and it simply doesn't work around anything. So now I've mailed the 'support' email, instead of the 'legal' email.

FURTHER UPDATE: It works now. However, I have to keep my PC in the EST timezone (in which it clearly does not belong), and I've created a user specifically for use with Two Worlds so that I don't have to put up with US locale on everything else.

FINAL UPDATE: This post of mine seems to be the most popular (via Google Analytics) to date, especially coming via Google searches, so I'll say 'Hi!' to everyone coming in via this post in particular, then point out that, if you're having this problem, and want to know more about how to configure your PC with my solution, check out the comments (there's only 2 atm). Finally, I must say that I've really enjoyed playing Two Worlds after all the grief I had, so it was all worth it in the end. It plays quite like Oblivion, but without all the Blue Screens of Death! Have fun!

My Better Half is Wonderful

First, a little background. Now that the children are back at school, I thought this week would be a nice quiet time to take a short holiday. It is, however, last night I had a meeting to go to, and came back from a long night that ended in an unfortunate upset. I'll say no more about that, apart from to indicate I wasn't involved personally, I was just there at the time.

So, I came home very tired, annoyed, and quite disappointed in some people. At which point My Better Half came into the picture, and rather than just avoid it, or tell me to ignore it and go to sleep, she said, 'go get a cup of coffee and stay up 'til 3AM playing computer games.' She knows I occasionally do this - mostly by accident, and never before with the accompanying cup of coffee!

So I did.

But wait, it gets better.

This morning, rather than expect me to get up and help with getting the children out to school as I normally do (come rain, shine, feast or famine), she said, 'would you like to lie in.' What normal person would say no? I certainly didn't say no!

Three hours later, already relaxed from a decent rest, I wandered up to my study to read Slashdot, etc., and 10 minutes later there's a call up the stairs. I went down to see what my dear wife wanted, and she handed me a plateful of scrambled eggs and bacon on toast, plus a cup of coffee.

Now I'm sitting here, relaxed, happy, on holiday, and with a tummy full of goodness. What more could a man want in the morning?

'Microsoft' and 'credibillity' ...

... should not appear in any sentence that suggests Microsoft has any! (Mind you, did it ever have any to lose in the first place?)

Once more Microsoft's FUD engine has swung into action with specially crafted press release regarding their failure to win fast-track approval for OOXML (their proprietary document format that they claim to be open) from the ISO. As reported by Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet, amongst others.

So, as if ballot stuffing (in Sweden) and dodgy lobbying practices weren't enough, they go for spin, suggesting that a 74% vote is better than a unanimous vote (for ODF), simply by counting the constituencies differently.

Now it's time for all ISO voting members to fully reject OOXML not only on the grounds of it's serious technical and licensing weaknesses, it's proprietary nature (being controlled by a single organization with no interest in interoperability), but on the grounds that the sponsor of OOXML is deliberately and maliciously mis-representing the outcome of ISO processes, in order to further their own interests.

This kind of behaviour should simply not be tolerated.

Dedicated to...

anyone who's spent too long alone with a Windows PC:

Is this funny or just seriously hypocritical?

Three posts in one day? What is going on?

This one made me laugh: the atheist Chinese government wants to regulate reincarnation in Tibet!

Let's, for a moment, allow that reincarnation works. Now post the anti-religious, atheist dogma of the Chinese government. Are they now admitting that reincarnation works? Or are they just seriously trying to damage the political structures in Tibet? Or perhaps they just want to give the Dalai Lama (and many others) yet another excuse to lambast the Chinese government.

I roll my eyes, whilst ROTFLMAO!

Microsoft buys Swedish standards process for $30,000

Once again from Chris Samuel's blog, it appears that Microsoft is making unfair and unethical use of it's massive financial muscle and influence to buy approval for their OOXML standard in Sweden.

If there was any doubt in the past, now there really isn't, that it is time to start actively campaigning against Microsoft and their complete dis-regard for anything but their own bottom-line interests. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is no more than a sugar frosting on a deeply cynical and manipulative mega-corporation.

Russian territorial excesses

Over the last few weeks there have been a number of news reports concerning the expedition into the Arctic by Russian scientists. Their stated aim is to prove that additional territory beneath the Arctic Sea is part of the continental shelf of Northern Russia. If they are able to prove this, then, under International Law, they will claim the right to begin mineral extractions (read: oil & natural gas) from beneath the Arctic Sea.

At the moment, no single nation has these rights, as the bed of the Arctic Sea is oceanic crust, and not continental. The BBC has the following diagram as part of their article on the subject.


In that you can see the structure the Russian are claiming to be theirs. Now take a look at the following composite satellite image from Wikipedia's article on the Arctic:


Again you can see the Lomonosov Ridge running across the center of the image, from upper right to lower left. Now take a close look (you might have to load up the original image) at the top right end of the ridge. It clearly becomes less distinct as it approaches the continental shelf of Russia, indicating that the ridge falls away to the sea-bed there. In fact the ridge stops distinctly short of the Russian continental shelf.

Hopefully, if this situation isn't clear enough from a simple shot like this, then any geological evidence from the Arctic sea-floor is going to similarly demonstrate that the only nation having even a vaguely legitimate claim upon the Arctic Sea is Denmark, via Greenland. And even that claim would be of dubious strength as it's not completely clear that the Lomonosov Ridge actually reaches the Greenland continental shelf either!

It is time that Russian stopped messing around in boats and submarines trying to claim a right to pollute the Arctic Sea, and get around to sorting out their internal problems with a premiere who's nature seems more Tzar-like by the minute. The United Nations and the international courts should be protecting the Arctic from exploitation in the same manner as the Antarctic continent is protected. These environments are far too fragile to support oil and gas extraction industries.

More on the Frozen Hell event

Now the BBC has gotten in on the event too.

Hell has officially frozen over!

Marillion (the band that was the sound of my teenage years) have actually appeared and performed live on stage with Fish once again, after many years of saying it could never, ever happen. And thanks to the (dubious) miracle that is handy video-recorders, here is the footage from last night's Hobble on the Cobbles music festival in Aylesbury (UK).

Given the origins of Marillion in Aylesbury back in the early 80s, and their first single being Market Square Heroes, what could have been more appropriate for a gig in the Market Square at Aylesbury but that very same song!

Well done Mark, Steve, Ian, Pete and Fish for putting the past where it belongs; behind us!

Wow! Dick Cheney once knew how to talk sense!

I can't believe I'm going to write this but, boy, Dick Cheney was actually right about Iraq.... in 1994!

Courtesy of Chris Samuel, this absolute nugget of truth has come to light.

Such prophetic words as these should be carved in the tombstone of George Bush, Jnr., and every other member of his corrupt, sycophantic and self-serving regime.

Rip-off Shareware Experiment

Andy Brice has spent a little time and enlisted the aid of submit-everywhere.com to investigate the scam that is bogus star-rating of shareware software on various download sites. He has managed to demonstrate that a small sub-section of shareware sites give 5-star ratings (or equivalent) to any piece of crap submitted to them, in order to drive advertising revenue.

The psychology goes something like this: I write a piece of software, of whatever quality, and submit it to the shareware sites to be published. They give it a five-star rating, and send me a congratulatory email, with a badge and snippet of cukoo-like HTML code to include on my own website. In a fit of self-congratulatory naivety I install their parasitical image and link in a prominent position on my homepage - I'm proud of my software & the rave review they gave it.

Next thing you know, people who find my software go to the shareware site generating ad impressions for them for no good reason.

Like some of the commenters on Andy's blog, I'd love to see someone repeat this experiment with a piece of virus-laden software... with the EICAR test virus, of course! I wonder how many of the bad sites (and the 'good' ones) actually bother to scan submissions?

Why I play games

I write Java code for a living.

I write computer game reviews as a hobby.

I just wish I could write even half-way as eloquently as Margaret Robertson in this piece for the BBC. She has nailed so completely the reason that I play computer games: it's about testing yourself, optimising your approach, leveling up again, getting a better line through that bend, surviving one more Tetris level, and hopefully... eventually... beating the game. But even if you end up the loser more often than not, it's the buzz of trying to get there anyway!

Wikipedia Whitewashing Writers

Wired (and a number of other sources) are talking about the brilliant work by Virgil Griffith to map the editors of Wikipedia articles to the IP address of the editor, in order to find out which people, organisations and companies are white-washing wikipedia entries about themselves.

For example:

Disney User Deletes Reference to DRM Critic Doctorow

by Anonymous

On Christmas Eve 2004, a Disney user deleted a citation on the "digital rights management" page to DRM critic Cory Doctorow along with a link to a speech he gave to Microsoft's Research Group on the subject. Later, a Disney user altered the "opponents" discussion of the entry, arguing that consumers embrace DRM: "In general, consumers knowingly enter into the arrangement where they are granted limited use of the content." 2nd diff: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=14809929

or:

BBC: George "Wanker" Bush

by smb1971

The BBC labels President Bush a "wanker"

Amazing! As if these naive editors thought we'd never find out.

UPDATE: Now the BBC has an article on this, but conveniently fails to mention the above case, and similar edits emerging from their own network. Hypocrites!

Shocking, or just what we've always suspected?

From CNN this morning, just putting food in a MacDonald's wrapper makes children think it tastes better!

So all those advertisers can be so proud of themselves for brainwashing a generation of children into believing their marketing. Not.

Switch-over time

Right, we really are nearly there with Ubuntu now!

I have a new Ubuntu-compatible HP printer on it's way shortly, so the switch over is imminent.

As a side note, I'm not the only one. CIO has an article about John Halamka's evaluation of Windows XP, Mac OSX, SUSE Linux, Redhat/Fedora Linux, and Ubuntu Linux for Intel-based hardware - specifically mobile laptops. Actually, it's a series of three articles, but they're well worth a complete read. Most telling is that, despite a few glitches and workarounds, he's ditched XP and sticking with MacOSX for home (read: 'fun') use, and Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) for work.

Loonies strike again

Chris Samuel has pointed out that, yet again, the Monster Raving Loony Party got their election manifesto absolutely right in 2001 with regard to flood defenses and building on floodplains. There have been many occasions when, many years after the event, their manifesto has been shown to contain considerable good sense (such as the now-in-force Pet Passports in the UK).

Other examples can be found at the bottom of their history page.

Captcha to distinguish 'Bots and Human from 'Humans Smart Enough to use this Service'

I have seen plenty of Capcha's around the 'net over the last few years, but this one (in the 'Qualifying question' section) is definitely the best anti-automated subscriber trap I've ever seen. The neat thing about it is that it also distinguishes between normal humans, and 'humans that are smart enough to use the site'! In this case, it's the Quantum Random Bit Generator Service from the Rudjer Boskovic Institute in Croatia.

For some reason, they think that only people with a university degree level maths education should be able to use their random number generator. An interesting criteria in the Web 2.0 world of interacting services. Mind you, they don't even have a Java API, now or in their 'Coming soon...'. Unless that's what's meant by their cryptic 'Web Service Access' line at the bottom of the list.

And what kind of serious 21st Century, third party library expects this requirement: ' You must edit the code and change logon credentials (username, password) to be able to access the Service.' Whatever happened to property files, XML config files, environment variables and command line parameters?

Come on guys, get with the program!