The FuzzyBlog!
Marketing 101. Consulting 101. PHP Consulting. Random geeky stuff. I Blog Therefore I Am.

Wednesday, August 14, 2002

It's Just a Paraphrase Dylan Thomas Kind of Day How very, very, very strange.  On the exact same day I paraphrase Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night, so does a writer for CBS MarketWatch talking about how poorly U.S. business treats its workers.  Bizarre. CBS MarketWatch As Midwestern songwriter Dirk Hamilton wrote, borrowing from Dylan Thomas: "Do not go gentle, gentleman, down into that good night, for here is a struggle, and it is your turn to fight." Worth reading.  A lot of interesting facts and numbers here like: Most dental plans haven't raised their $1,000 to $1,500 annual coverage cap for 25 years, even though dental costs have risen more than 400 percent over that period. Americans are losing ground even on the scant time off we get -- we receive one less vacation day a year on average than in 1979, said Heather Boushey, an economist with the union-supported Economic Policy Institute in Washington and author of the forthcoming book, "The State of Working America." "Americans work more hours than people in any other developed country." I wonder if he's a blog reader ... Nah.  Couldn't be.  Still the timing bears it out.  I did post before he did.  *Teasing* 2:23:35 PM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

People are Just Plain Nice All Over the World! Thank You Libby the Photographer! And Thank You iPhoto! It always astonishes me just how nice, how caring and how giving people can be.  This one really surprised me.  I recently got an email from a woman, Libby, asking for some php help on one of my PHP Beginner articles.  I know there are some mistakes in that article and I've been meaning to address them for some time.  ==> Read Story <== Note: I know that is a lousy introduction but this isn't a story that lends itself well to a short, blogged introduction.  It just needs to be read and isn't all that long.  It is a nice story and illustrates not only how nice someone can be but also a fantastic use for an iBook and iPhoto. 12:22:33 PM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

About 8 Million [American] job seekers are vying for 3.5 million jobs I rarely touch politics in my blog since I am so politically disinterested but the all to obvious farce that was President Bush's economic summit yesterday inspired me to post this: About 8 Million [American] job seekers are vying for 3.5 million jobs Wall Street Journal August 14, 2002, Page B10 And we wonder why we can't find a job.  NOTE: The professional economists apparently lack all the historical data needed to confirm this number definitively.  It's from the new "Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey" or Jolts.  Still there seems to be validity to it and even if it's off by 50% then there are people who simply aren't going to get jobs.  Period.  Do the math.   Here's another interesting quote: "This time the data suggests that millions couldn't get a job even if they moved, upgraded their skills or took a job they once thought beneath them, says Jeffrey Wenger, an economist with with the labor backed Economic Policy Institute." Scary.  Just plain scary.  But given the empirical data I have, based on people all over the country that talk to me online, all well skilled, talented people, I'd believe it. 11:23:34 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Marketing 101: Anti Customer Technology = Anti Marketing I just migrated to a new cell phone, the Nextel i80s, a Motorola cell phone that can even run Java apps (the first computer game I have played in years is on this phone) and I generally like it.  Here's the phone: [ We are unable to process your request at this time due to technical difficulties. Please try again later or contact us at 1-800-639-6111 for assistance. ] Well that would have been a picture of the phone but the website was broken.  Sigh.  Things like that I can deal with.  Other things I find harder to accept.  And I'm not referencing the less than stellar battery life.  I bought the phone, I'm in the plan, I'm here for a year.  No, what I am referring to are is blatantly anti-customer technology that I can only thing is designed is to maximize phone and plan usage.  Yes I know they are a business.  Yes I understand that they have a clear goal for this.  Still I'm talking about simple, basic things that other vendors put on their phones. And, for me, anti-customer technology is basically anti-marketing.  It turns me from being a company advocate to being either just plain neutral or, more likely, an anti advocate.  I mean look at this essay for example -- I actually really like the phone a lot and it's probably my favorite phone to date.  But what I feel is anti-customer technology turns me from being an advocate to an anti-advocate.  In an era where people can disseminate their opinions far and wide, this type of behavior just doesn't work anymore. ==> Read Story <== 10:26:49 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Comment of the Day When I told Paolo of Evectors that I had installed Windows XP for testing purposes, he asked me: Does it still have that Toys 'R Us look and feel ? ROFLLAL and then ROFLOL (roll on floor laughing like a loon) and then (roll on floor laughing out loud) 7:40:17 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Another Reason People Create Open Source Applications: Rage Note: Been programming since 3 am; may be incoherent and rambling -- but how many of my blog entries quote poems? Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. -- Dylan Thomas I've think mentioned this before, but at the risk of being pedantic, I wanted to make this point again.  I was stuck in traffic yesterday and thinking a lot about Open Source and why people do it.  For some it's: a desire for recognition scratching their own niche boredom in a job need intellectual curiousity altruism I think another whole motivation is very simple: Rage.  I mean let's be honest -- if you are a developer and you hit a bug or a crash in something, how often do you think "Damn It!  I could do this better" (even when you honestly can't).  It goes through all our heads.  Every time I'm in Outlook and the search engine (which strongly sucks little green toads) fails to find something that I know is in the folder, I get mad.  And every time it happens again, I get even madder.  And then, sometimes, the dam breaks.  And look at that!  It's an open source project for X where X = the current subject of the rage.  Here's what tipped me over into the Linux world: Microsoft Site Server.  This product, which is actually conceptually fairly nice, had, at least in 1999, the annoying habit of eating it's own data files.  You'd set up an index run and it would work for a while and then just die.  And you'd have to rebuild it.  After enough times, I finally said "Enough!" (actually my words were more like this "Damn MS **$&*($#@@_)@#" -- use your imagination).  That took me into Linux as a user and now other frustrations have brought me to the "Screw it all.  Time to launch my own project".  Now if you think about this from an industry wide, economic perspective, here are some interesting questions: What would Microsoft's revenues have been last year if Linux/FreeBSD didn't exist and every 1U box in a data center was running NT / 2000 / IIS? What would Sun's revenues have been last year if Linux/FreeBSD didn't exist and every 1U box in a data center was running Solaris? How many more programmers / support engineers / sales engineers / field staff would have been employed if Linux / FreeBSD didn't exist? Looking at it this way, you can see how Microsoft argues that Linux is bad for the overall economy (one of their very spurious arguments from a few months back).  Of course you also have to realize that the Internet as it is today simply wouldn't exist without Linux / FreeBSD.  Why?  Simple -- we couldn't afford all the license fees needed.  And server OS pricing would be higher without Linux / FreeBSD to put downward price pressure on them.  And I think everyone would argue that, despite the dot commage, the Internet has been hugely good for the overall economy.  So if you accept the premise that Linux has cut into OS revenues then the corollary is that Open Source will (and has) cut into commercial software revenues.  And, while we could argue that this is bad for the economy, just as we all say about the MP3 issues: Business Models Change.  It's just that simple.  For all too many years now, the high tech industry, software and hardware, has been terribly arrogant and basically getting away with poor quality.  If much of the open source movement is tied to rage, as is my premise, then they really have no one to blame but themselves.    Amazing what a little rage and a lot of smart people can do, huh?  Do not go gentle into that commercial world, Poor quality and bugs should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage and create something anew; Make it free; give it away. -- Poorly Done Mock Dylan Thomas (if there's a good poet out there, email me your version of Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night cast as a pro or con Open Source poem and I'll publish it here and link to you) 6:27:50 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This