Born 10/2/2011 @ 1:15 p.m.

Luna Hope on YouTube

Duty Calls

You don’t normally see flamewars in real life except in special-interest forums: politics, academia,[1] sports,cosmology.

Then there are those special people, the polyflamers who will argue on any topic. No, not lawyers. Geeks.

Something in the geek psyche makes them — okay, us — prone to obsess over pedantic distinctions that ordinary people just don’t care about. If you think about flaming in geek terms, though, you see a way out.

Compiled language

When writing code, a programmer usually writes instructions that are in (somewhat) human-readable form. These instructions are then “compiled” into commands that a computer can interpret and execute. If the output from the computer is wrong, either the commands the programmer entered were wrong, or the compiler didn’t work correctly.

Experienced programmers quickly learn that it’s very unlikely they’ve found a new compiler bug. If there’s a problem, it’s almost always the code they wrote. Sometimes, though, there really is a bug in the compiler. Compilers can get fixed, but not quickly, and not often. The changes have to be small enough that they don’t introduce new problems. And they will potentially break any code that was designed to work around the bugs. Which is exactly what programmers do: They work around the bugs.

Debugging politics

Now think about a political campaign as a computer program. The campaign staff is writing instructions (commercials) that they hope will cause the public to exhibit specific behavior. But the target platform is the brain of each individual voter. Each one has its own rules, so every compiler works differently. But here’s the important part: You can’t fix the compiler. No matter how broken you think someone’s thinking is you can’t change the basic rules.

What you can do is figure out what rules they’re using. Which means stereotyping people. pigeonholing them based on a few characteristics you’re sure of, and assuming that a whole bunch of other things are probably also true. The sad fact about humanity — sad if you’re a fan of individuality, that is — is that this tends to work pretty well.

These are not the earmarks you were looking for

So now that you know each brain is wired differently, and you don’t have much chance to “fix” it, what are you supposed to do about it? Stop using arguments that work on you, and start using ones that work on them. Whoever “them” happens to be at the moment.

All the talk of people pirating music — and movies, and software — is enough to make you think it’s a hard problem to solve. But it’s not, really. All you have to do is disincentivise copying. (That’s sarcasm, for those who missed it.)

The MPAA and RIAA have tried licensing, lawsuits, lobbying (I didn’t do that on purpose, I swear) but the copying doesn’t stop. People are amoral thieves!

Or … maybe people remember that when the compact disc format came out, it was supposed to be cheaper than cassettes. They cost less to produce, so as soon as the studios recouped the cost of building the new technology we’d see prices drop. It’s been over 27 years now, have they recouped that investment yet?

Apple to the Rescue

Leave it to Apple, a company not making their money stamping out CDs, to finally break the logjam. They made it cheap and easy to buy individual songs, something the RIAA members had been fighting for years.

The RIAA wanted people to pay for whole albums. People didn’t want to pay $18 for two good songs. Since they couldn’t buy singles, they used Napster. As soon as someone made singles available, people started buying them. And Apple has made a fortune selling what the RIAA didn’t want to sell.

People Pay for the Good Part

I don’t go to many first-run movies. Too expensive. But the local theater that shows them a few months later for $1.50, or $1 for a matinée? I’m there all the time. So I don’t get to talk about it with people around the water cooler. I survive. Other people will camp out to see the first showing. Would they pay more to pre-order that ticket if they didn’t have to wait in line? Probably.

Point is, “find another business model” and “disincentivize copying” end up meaning the same thing. Anyone who wants to make money has to figure out what is rare about what they do and charge for that. First is rare. Convenience is rare. Taste is rare. Complex physical objects are rare. Copying data, that’s easy.

The iTunes store combines convenience and, through recommendations, taste. That’s what people are paying for.

What Do You Do That’s Good?

If you want to make money creating something that can be easily copied, then you need to come up with a business model where you can get paid for it.

I’m really good at sitting on the couch watching TV. I’d like to get paid for it. Some people have cracked that nut. They’re critics, and they get paid to watch TV. No one set out to decide, “Gosh, how can we pay these people to watch TV?”

Copyright worked for a long time, when large-scale copying was as rare and expensive as what was being copied. That’s no longer true. We don’t need to pay for copying any more.

This is the exact problem being faced by newspapers. Their business model was based on printing. They focused on the “paper” instead of the “news”. Take away the printing and suddenly they don’t know how to charge for anything. They need a new business model.

Blaming people for not wanting to pay for something is stupid. First, because people want what they want. Second, because it’s not true. They do want to pay for things. They’ll pay $1 for a 15-second snippet of a song as a ringtone. Because someone saw an opportunity for a new business model and jumped on it, instead of trying to coerce people into paying for what they wanted to sell.

She’s Black Lab and German Shepherd. Hmm … lab … shepherd … Leperd?

Oh no, she can already do stairs.

Most of the pictures I have are her butt, because every time she sees the camera she runs right at it.

She still likes to chew on shoes just a little too much.

See, keeps running toward the camera.

Until she discovered squeaky toys.

A lot of decisions should NOT be left to developers to make. imho, the time to think out of the box is gone by the time it is TIME TO CODE. It’s not time to think about alternatives to what to do.

That is absolutely right. You never want developers talking to end users. They might suggest some other plan than what was painstakingly shepherded through four levels of approvals.

And let’s just squash the notion right now that sometimes there are trade offs to consider. Just because the analyst’s solution will take three weeks of coding effort and a new application server, while the programmer knows of a reusable component that will take one hour and no increased hardware, is no reason to institute the Change Control Process.

Alternatives should always be considered in isolation from the impact they cause. Implementation issues should never be allowed to intrude into the world of business decisions.

Next thing you know someone’s going to suggest that maybe mere programmers could have a meaningful contribution to make to the business process. What rubbish.

BOSTON – The Free Software Foundation is reviewing Novell Inc.’s right to sell new versions of Linux operating system software after the open-source community criticized Novell for teaming up with Microsoft Corp.

The problem is that the FSF wants all code to be free. Period.

That’s their preference, yes.

They want to make the GPL so darned viral that no one can include any copyrighted or patented components Period.

No, they want all the components on which they hold the copyrights to be protected by those copyrights. And they want those components to be freely available to anyone who agrees to make their modifications available under the same terms.

 
How is GPL viral while Microsoft is business?

How can the FSF “ban” Novel from selling “Linux” when Linux itself is not wholely licensed under the GPL and not wholely owned by FSF? Sure, there are many GPL components within the typical Linux distro, but not all of them have to be.

According to Answers.com:

More Than a Gigabuck: Estimating GNU/Linux’s Size, a 2001 study of Red Hat Linux 7.1, found that this distribution contained 30 million source lines of code. … Slightly over half of all lines of code were licensed under the GPL. The Linux kernel was 2.4 million lines of code, or 8% of the total.

So the first point is that no, the FSF can not ban Novell from selling a GNU/Linux-based distribution, as long as all the current license terms are followed.

However, the holder of the Linux trademark, Linux Torvalds, could choose to prohibit them from using that mark to describe what they’re selling. (See Micosoft / Sun / Java™) Though I haven’t seen anything suggesting he plans to do so.

Next, the Linux kernel is covered under the GPL, so even if the the FSF doesn’t hold the copyright it’s entirely possible the kernel authors could ask the FSF to pursue any violations on their behalf. And I suspect Stallman and Moglen would be more than happy to do so.

The bottom line, I think, is that business people who don’t understand the technicalities will either see a deal with Microsoft as a reason to choose Novell for any Linux plans, or they will see the controversy as a reason to avoid Linux plans altogether. Either conclusion benefits Microsoft.

People who do understand the details will see that Novell offers them a conditional, time-limited right to use a specific version of Linux, which may or may not interoperate better with Windows systems, which can be effectively “end-of-lifed” at any time by Microsoft.

You might think that checking Netcraft would be a good idea. You can see if your current platform is gaining or losing market share, and who doesn’t like market share? If you look at the latest chart you’ll see that Microsoft is gaining on Apache.

But keep in mind that while Apache’s market share has gone down marginally, the total number of sites has still gone up. Most of Microsoft’s gain is from new sites, not from existing sites switching. (The exception being large site-parking operations switching to IIS.)

But really the important question is whether your preferred platform faces a reasonable possibility of becoming obsolete/unsupported. This is actually one place where the Unix world’s slower upgrade cycles help. You rarely have applications “sunsetted” by the manufacturer.

Am I arguing in favor of dropping .NET? Not at all. I think you should use what works for you. What I’m saying is unless your chosen platform is in danger of becoming unsupported, and that causes a problem for you, then looking at market share charts should never get you to switch.

Now if you hadn’t already chosen a platform, and you wanted to know what platform had a larger market, then you’d care about market share. But that’s a subject for another post.

No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

The market quickly decided they didn’t care about wireless and bought the things in droves. And current versions have more space than the nomad did when the iPod came out. Now that the iPhone has been shown, geeks are again claiming that it’s going to fail. This time because it’s not going to be open to third-party applications.

Apple doesn’t care if you can extend it because they believe their target customer doesn’t want it extended. They want something that works well, the same way, every time. The iPod wins because it does pretty much what people want, close enough to how they want, without making them think about how to do it.

The iPhone may not be open to developers, but it’s upgradable. When Apple finishes writing software to make the Wi-Fi automatically pick up a hotspot and act as a VoIP phone, that functionality can be rolled out transparently. First-gen iPhones will become second-gen iPhones without the users having to do anything.

The upgrade path will be to higher HD capacity, so people can carry more movies with them. I see these things as hugely popular for people who take trains to work. If I could take a train where I work now, I’d already be on a waiting list for an iPhone.

Here’s the thing a lot of people are missing, though: Breaking the law does not count as civil disobedience unless you go out of your way to do it publicly. Obviously I’m referring to people who upload and download music, movies or software without permission from the copyright holders. Some of them are just in it for the free tunes. Some of them think the law is wrong. But the ones who believe copyright laws have gone too far damage their case when they quietly violate the law, expecting to protest the law if — and only if — they are caught.

Think the law has tilted too far in favor of the copyright industry? Great, so do I. Have you written to your congressman? If not, then don’t complain about the law when you get busted. It makes it look like you’re just trying to stay out of jail — which you are — and supports the MPAA and RIAA next time they try to get copyright extended.

Before you end up in a jury box, you should really try the ballot box. Time for me to get off my soapbox.

It’s probably not surprising, then, that we tend to be DIY-ers. Never changed a light fixture? No problem. Give me a few minutes with a book and I’ll know enough to do it. House needs painting? Heck, I’ve always wanted an excuse to go get one of those power sprayers, I’m on it! That’s why we’re shocked to hear how much people pay to have someone do work that, after all, we could do ourselves with little or no training.

That was my frame of mind when I had to replace the shower door. The frame was mounted on tiled walls. I only cracked two of the tiles a little bit trying to get the old frame off, and lifted about a dozen away from the wall. No problem, just ran to the hardware store for some tile adhesive. And I only put the adhesive on a little too thick, so two of the tiles fell off the next day when I started mounting the frame. And I only cracked one more because I was unfamiliar with the mounting hardware.

I had to remove all the tiles and start over because the adhesive was actually nowhere near dry. I wanted to make sure it dried all the way, because I wasn’t completely sure I did it right this time. When I tried again three days later, there was only one tile that fell off because I had gone too thin with the adhesive. But after waiting a day for the grout on the rest to dry, I was able to scrape that space out and get the last tile up and grout it. The caulk and grout I used to patch the cracks looks mostly okay … for now … while it’s still white

All in all, it only took me a week and a half to hang that door. And the cracked and patched tiles will probably still look good when I go to sell the house. (At least I hope they will; the color was discontinued years ago, so I’d have to re-tile the whole damn bathroom otherwise.) I’m so glad I didn’t pay a hundred bucks to some barely-trained tradesman to do it for me.