Profit
Every so often I hear someone bash on a company for making money. It can be any company in any industry. There are some people out there that think that it’s evil that a company’s motivation are to turn a buck.
This infuriates me to no end.
Companies have a moral and ethical obligation to make money. There are many different stakeholders in a company. These include the owners, share holders, consumers, employees, and the surrounding economy that relies on the people that make money from the company to turn around and spend most of that money in the area.
As much as I dislike Microsoft’s software for its lack of technical prowess and security, I do not dislike the business. They provide thousands of jobs and allow millions (billions?) of people to be more productive in their day-to-day lives. Microsoft has an obligation to the entire world to continue to stay in business. The only way they can do that is by making a profit. If they stopped making a profit, they would go under and vanish (barring a government step in.) If this were to happen, then the technology world as we know it would be severely damaged!
The same thing applies to pharmaceutical companies (which actually spawned this post.) They make medicine and do research into curing disease. Why? It’s big money. The individuals that work towards these goals are most likely driven to do something that will benefit humanity. The company, as a large faceless entity, is there to make money. Good. Let them. If they stopped making money, then all of the funding that they provide to the altruistic individuals that work for them will dry up. This means that tons of research that is put towards saving lives will come to an end, and that can’t be a good thing.
Money is a huge motivator, and it drives people to start companies that will make them money. This, in turn, drives those companies to excel if they can. I don’t see a problem with this at all. What’s the harm in making a buck?
Well, I have an answer for that. When the motivation of the company shifts from excelling in their field of business to making a profit at all costs, then things go wrong. Companies, like individuals, should be rewarded for their efforts. A reward to a company is profit. When the company starts to desire that reward to the point where they make decisions that harm people, customers, the environment, the government, or the world at large, then things should change.
I know that a pure capitalistic society is a bad thing. Heck, anything in its pure form is a bad thing. It leads to poor decisions and drastic inequity in the world. Note the use of the word drastic. I’m all in favor if inequity. If everything were equal, then no one would win races, all sports would end in a tie, and there would be nothing that made you more important than the next guy in your own unique way.
There are checks and balances in our laws that prevent most companies from going haywire and destroying themselves or damaging society. Yes, companies can cheat (Enron), or buy their way out of things (almost any lobbyist can tell you this.) If we were to remove campaign donations from the hands of corporations, then maybe there would be more laws and monitoring put in place to prevent abuses of power, but that’s not really the point of this blog.
What I’m saying is that turning a profit is not an evil thing. Heck, quite a few Americans (not all, unfortunately) have a savings account. Guess what? That’s money left over after expenses. If you were a business that would be called profit. It’s wise to having savings, and the same thing goes for companies. It’s wise for them to make a profit and build up a fund to help out during hard times.
If a company making a profit and saving for a rainy day is evil, then every American with a savings account is equally as evil.
Princess Rant
No. I’m not claiming to be a princess. Yes. I’m going to rant.
For the past 2-3 weeks I’ve been seeing Princess Diana crap all over the place. She’s on all these magazine covers, there are “Special Diana Issues” on the shelves, her picture is all over the place, and she’s popped up in TV ads here and there. I’m tired of her. She’s been dead for almost a full decade now! Let it go. She wasn’t even an American!!!! If we were in England, I’d suck it up because she was very beloved there.
It just upsets me that we have to commemorate/celebrate/look-back-on/ponder/mourn every little event of her life. It’s like the following days are official PD days:
- Her birthday
- Her death day
- Her marriage day
- Her divorce day
- The birth of her first son
- The birth of her second son
- The birth of her third son
- The day she stubbed her toe on the throne
- The day she was abducted by aliens and replaced with a lizard overlord
- The day it was discovered that she was a lizard overlord, and was subsequently put back into place.
Haven’t we had enough of her? Don’t we Americans have our own celebrities? Aren’t most of them still alive? Isn’t it more interesting to read about a person that is still breathing rather than a person that is probably mostly parchment and bone by now?
We really need to start putting more important people on the cover of our magazines.
Ok. I’m running out of breath, so I’ll stop my rant now…. But I hope you see my point.
Religious Conversion
I got into Portland yesterday for OSCon, and I had about an hour to kill before registration started. I unpacked my bags, got things organized, and got settled in. It was about time to get registered, so I hit the conference building which was right across the street from my hotel (yay!) The lines were very short, and they were very organized, so I didn’t spend long getting my badge, books, bag, and starter freebie stuff.
I decided that it was time to eat since it was a little after 5:00, and I hadn’t eaten since 9:30 in the morning (these times are all PST.) I had seen signs in my hotel inviting OSCon guests to hit the Window View room (or something like that) in the top floor (6th floor, not very tall) of the hotel. I decided to hit that since I figured it was a restaurant or something of the kind. Nope. Turned out to be a bar, and I was the first person to show up. I had interrupted the bartender’s reading of the latest Harry Potter book, and I didn’t feel like an ass enough to walk away. I had a few drinks at the bar, and the alcohol started to hit me harder than it should because of the empty stomach. After the second drink, I decided to break off my genuinely engaging conversation with the bartender in search of food.
I hit a burger joint that was across the street, and while waiting for my food a fellow OSCon attendee (I could tell because he had the bag over his shoulder that all attendees were given) walked up and asked if he could join me. I figured that we would talk about geek things and have a good time while eating some burgers. I was never so wrong in my life!
The guy’s sole mission in life seemed to be the conversion of every living being on the planet to the Church of the Latter Day Saints. As most of you know, when I’m drunk (which I was right on the verge of being so) I talk too much. I ended up talking to this guy for about two hours, and he never let up on trying to convert me right there in the middle of the burger joint. Normally, this pisses me off to no end, but I was relaxed and happy and willing to give this guy the time that he wanted. We waxed philosophical about religion for a long while. Now, I can handle myself in most debates, but religion is one of my weak spots. However, I can take almost every religious tenant and boil it down to a philosophical standpoint. I’m pretty damn good at philosophy, so I held my own against this guy. In the end he didn’t want to give up, but was tired of the verbal fencing, so he changed the topic…..
….. to which editor I used: vi or emacs.
He stated up front that he thought that emacs was a superior product. I wasn’t listening closely, and I stated that I prefer vi to emacs. I explained to him that I did give emacs two weeks of solid us, and then vi two weeks of solid use when deciding between the two. I told him that I prefer vi (actually vim) over emacs as a “text editor.” He countered that emacs was a better product because it offered seamless remote mounting, built-in diff mode, lisp mode, a wrapper around the bash shell to capture output, etc.
My counter to that was that emacs may have all of those features, but I just want a text editor that is superior at editing text. If I wanted those other things, then I would get products that do those other things. He started talking about a variety of features that it has, and I countered with Perl for all of them. There is nothing that emacs can do that Perl can’t do better, faster, and with more flexibility. He stated that emacs can do all of these things and create new files with all of these new features. I explained to him that I have yet to find a Unix shell that can’t redirect the output of a command to a text file. As a matter of fact, I prefer the ability to use multiple pipes to get what I want before redirecting it to a text file… and then editing it in vi which has superior text editing capabilities.
In the end, he tired of being unable to convince me of either of his religions (LDS or emacs) and begged off saying that it was late. I was glad when he broke off our long conversation because I was getting tired of him (even though he was a really nice guy) and I really had to pee.
Oddly enough, the “conversion attempt” that upset me the most was not him trying to get me to join LDS, but his attempt to convince me that emacs was superior to vi. I guess that’s because my religious faith and his are rooted in the same principles (with, perhaps, some different execution), but emacs and vi are horrible different and never the twain shall meet.
High School Memories
I got this from Jhianna who got it from someone else. Looked like fun to answer, so here it is….
1. Who was your best friend?
My freshman year was Curtis. His dad got transferred to somewhere in Oklahoma. I really miss Curtis. I wish I could track him down someday. My sophomore year, I was pretty much in self-exile and avoided as many people as I could. My junior year, it was very, very few people that I could deal with (or that could deal with me.) However, Katie and Heather were there for me through it all. They cared for me like no one had ever cared for me before. If it wasn’t for their love, I’m not sure I would have survived. My senior year, I finally came out of my shell (actually, Heather broke me out of it during the summer between Jr. and Sr. years.) I had so many friends (and we were all outcasts together) that I really can’t pin one of them as a “best” friend, but J.J. ended up being my best friend for several years until the lure of drug abuse sucked him back in. I had to cut ties with him, and that was a very painful thing to do.
2. What sports did you play?
I played tennis until just before my freshman year, and I was pretty good at it. I was as good as the guys that were rich enough to have their own private coaches. I often wonder where I would have gone with that had I had the proper training, and not had my arm mangled in a car wreck right before my freshman year. During the rest of high school, I skateboarded, but there was no “team” or anything like that.
3. What kind of car did you drive?
For most of my high school days, I drove a ’67 Chevy step-side, short bed truck with a rotted wooden bed, off-road tires, and a top speed of 57 miles an hour if I was going downhill. Part way through my senior year, it died a horrible death (transmission), and it was replaced with an ’81 Chevy Citation that lasted me through the rest of high school.
4. It’s Friday night, where were you?
Usually at home doing homework, programming on my computer, reading a book, or planning the next day’s gaming session at Bases Loaded. We’d play Warhammer 40k, AD&D, Paranoia, Champions, or Battletech all day on Saturday. To arrange this, I had to work 5 AM to 10 AM at Albertsons on Saturdays, so I was usually in bed pretty early.
5. Were you a party animal?
Nope. In my senior year, I would go to Larry’s apartment or house, and hang out where there was drinking and the occasional drug use. I would drink a beer or two, but not touch the drugs. I didn’t like most of the people there, and I didn’t want to lose control of my senses around them.
6. Were you considered a flirt?
Hah! Not at all. I’ve never learned the art of flirting. It’s just not in my DNA to be able to woo women in any form. I’m still not sure why Kiara chose to shack up with me. I was too embarrassed to even TALK to girls, let alone flirt with them.
7. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
I tried orchestra (violin) for a few years in elementary school, and I was smart enough back then to realize that I had no talent at all for anything musical. I never tried again, but I do tinker on my guitar at home from time-to-time. I’m not any good, and I don’t think that I ever will be. Maybe someday I’ll actually be able to play a whole song.
8. Were you a nerd?
I wasn’t a nerd. I was the nerd of the school. No one was more nerdy than I was. Chess team, Academic Decathlon, Physics club, French club, journalism (which was actually kind of a cool kid thing), yearbook, electronics club. Oddly enough, there was no computer club. It was founded a year or three after I graduated, but I would have been the uber-leader of the computer club had it been around.
9. Did you get suspended/expelled?
Nope. Got sent to the principal’s office once for walking out on a class 10 minutes early because the teacher was being a total bitch. I even called her a bitch to her face. My only punishment was to sit in the office after school for 10 minutes to make up for the missed time. I showed up on time, and the principal (who we called “Coach J” for some reason) made me sit there a whole three minutes before he told me to go home.
10. Can you sing the fight song?
Nope. They did that at the prep pep rallies. I didn’t go to those. Until my senior year, we were allowed to skip them and go to the library instead. I did that. My senior year they banished that practice for some reason unknown to me. That’s when I started leaving the campus instead of going to them. I could have gotten in trouble, but any punishment would be better than sitting with the preps and listening to them talk good about themselves.
11. Who was your favorite teacher?
I had quite a few good ones. Here’s the list:
- Mr. Vetter — Freshman — United States History — Chess Coach
- Mrs. Setzer — Sophomore and Junior — French — Her and her daughter (Katie, see above) really helped me through my dark times on a personal level. She could have sent me to the counselor, but she showed me love and kindness herself. She cared. I knew she cared. I didn’t want to disappoint her, and that is one for the reasons that I didn’t take my life my junior year of school.
- Mr. Landrum — Junior and Senior — Computer Science — This man taught me more than I can ever categorize about how to think logically, how to program, and how to be a GOOD programmer. I would not be doing what I’m doing now without him. I would not be nearly as good at it today as I am without him. Last time I went home, I tracked him down and we had a nice meal together (my treat) to talk about random things. Sure, it was mostly computers, but we talked about school, and teaching, and all sorts of stuff. It was one of the best hours that I had while I was in Texas.
- Mr. Franks — Senior — Economics and Academic Decathlon Coach — Mr. Franks was one of my few teachers that, by default, treated everyone as an adult. We had responsibilities, and we had to meet them. Because of the respect that he showed me up front, I always gave him my best effort. He earned my respect by showing me respect, and doing anything less would be a huge sign of disrespect. He was also very open and friendly. He’s the kind of teacher that I would love to become.
- Mrs. Armstrong — Junior — English — Again, this was the darkest days of my life, and we always did free-associative, creative writing during the first 10 minutes of class. This gave me the bug for creative writing. It also gave me an outlet for my darkest thoughts, and that helped a bit. It also meant that she sent me to the guidance counselor at least once a week for fears that I may hurt myself. She was right. At the time, I resented the fact that she was right and was “intruding” on my life. Looking back, I’m glad she did what she did.
12. School mascot?
Bulldog. English Bulldog if I remember correctly.
13. Did you go to prom?
Hahahahahahahaahhaa…. Fuck no. Not at all. I had no desire to go. No one had a desire to go with me. Most people had a desire to make sure that I didn’t go. That’s probably a good thing. If I had shown up, I would have brought eggs.
14. If you could go back and do it over, would you?
no. No. NO. NO I can think of pretty much any kind of action in the world that I would rather do than suffer through that crap again.
15. What do you remember most about graduation?
I remember getting my diploma, walking halfway across stage, and the crowd applauding… then I remember hearing my mom screaming her head off. There were about 8,000 people in the stands, and I could hear her over everything else. Then I whipped off my cap, and headbanged for a few moments until I heard the principal clear his throat. I knew that was my cue to move on.
16. Where were you on senior skip day?
I was out with John SomethingOrTheOther, and Eric in John’s brand new Mustang 5.0. Yeah. He almost killed us approximately 9.7 times during that day. I’m not sure where we went, but we made a point to be anywhere else but school. One thing that I do remember is that I made it back to school for my computer science class with Mr. Landrum. Yeah. I know. I’m a nerd. I’ve accepted it, now you need to.
17. Did you have a job your senior year?
Not my senior year. I worked from my freshman year right until the start of my senior year. My grandfather wanted me to relax, enjoy my last year of high school, and improve my grades. I did all of that, and the first step was walking away from Albertsons.
18. Where did you go most often for lunch?
Freshman year was on its own campus, and it was a closed campus. My sophomore year, I wanted to be away from everyone else, so I walked (open campus by this time) about four miles (one way) to a 7-11 to buy a nuked burritto and a Big Gulp that I would eat on the way back. There was a 7-11 about 5 blocks from the high school, but that’s where everyone else went, and I wanted to avoid them. I remember a guy that tried to befriend me (I’m really not sure why,) and to get rid of him, I walked faster on the day he wanted to go to lunch with me in order to leave him behind. It worked. My junior year, I had a vehicle, so I would drive as fast as I could to Burger King, eat as fast as I could, and get out as fast as I could. I was usually leaving about the time all the rest of the high school kids were arriving. I timed it perfectly. I’d then drive to a park and sit and read. My senior year, my friends and I would go to the youth center across the street for cheap food. On Wednesdays, we’d pile 10 people into my Chevy Citation and drive to Little Ceasar’s. They’d always ask for a name for the order and all 10 of us would yell out our names. It would confuse the poor people, so Vince started giving “Sid” as the name. When they would ask for a last initial, we’d always give “V.” I still use that sometimes.
19. Have you gained weight since then?
Oh yeah. I was 120 lbs. when I graduated high school. At the end of last year, I was up to 245 lbs. I’m down to 205 now. I never thought I would near 200. Ever.
20. What did you do after graduation?
I tried college, but that didn’t work. I had no motivation. No reason. I should have stuck with it, but I was 18, and wanted to live life, not sit in class. I ended up living life on my own by delivering pizzas. Yeah. I should have sucked it up and stayed in school. Ah well….
21. When did you graduate?
1991
22. Who was your Senior prom date?
Hahahahahahahahahaa…..
23. Are you going / did you go to your 10 year reunion?
I’ve already missed it. I didn’t even get an invite. Stuck up bastards. They’re probably afraid that I’m going to bring eggs. If I don’t get an invite to the 20 year reunion, I’m crashing the party.
24. Who was your home room teacher?
No such critter in my high school.
25. Who will repost this after you?
Don’t know. Probably no one.
iPhone
iPhones have only been on the market for 4 days, and I’m already tired of hearing about them. They’re neat. They’re flashy. They’re by Apple, which has a cult following. I won’t be getting one because I feel that a phone should be a phone and nothing more. If I’m going to browse the web, I’m going to use my laptop. If I’m going to listen to mp3s, I’ll use my iPod. If I’m going to make phone calls, I’ll use my phone.
My news reader has found 90 news articles written with the phrase “iPhone” in the news article since June 4th, and I’m sure are more to come. That’s 3 articles a day about this device.
I just hope for those people that have shelled out more than $500 for a gadget that the iPhone lives up to its hype.
Best Graphics In The World
I’m going to get on my mud soapbox again just a short period of time. I hope you don’t mind. Today’s User Friendly comic really struck a cord with me, and reminded me of better times… The times when people actually had to read, pay attention, and concentrate on what they were doing while playing a game in order to merely survive. To excel in the games, you had to think about what you were reading, and how it might affect you. There were even tiny hints as to what things (that were usually not readily visible) needed to be pulled, pushed, turned, twisted, poked, or looked at. It was an amazing time of gaming.
Sure, World of Warcraft has pretty good graphics, but they just can’t compare to something like this:
Something Wicked The cave reeks of old, decaying bodies. The smell of fresh blood also mixes, and any who enter are almost immediately overcome with a strong desire to vomit. The strange writings are all over the walls and ceiling and even parts of the floor, but there have been so many messages written over the tops of others, nothing is discernable any longer. The only way out is south, to somewhat fresher air. [ Exits: Unknown! ] Some strange deformity of a man cackles, and draws on the wall.
$ look man
Drool dribbles out of his mouth, and there is definitely an insanity in his eyes - deep and forever insane. He looks around, but doesn't see anything but the dreams constantly in his head. He grabs his knife, cuts his finger again, and as the blood oozes out, writes his messages. This poor remnant of a man has no worthwhile reason to live.
This is just one example of a wonderful creation done by Syra D’Hornan on my mud. I could probably find and post even more wonderful creations, but I don’t have the time to track more down. There is a great and simple elegance in the written word, and I fear that we are rapidly losing the appreciation of such a thing.
I’m no different. If I need to research something, I hit the Internet. In the past, I would go to the library and spend hours there. At one point, I wanted to know more about feudal Japanese society, the Huns, Celtic warriors, and all sorts of ancient cultures for a world that I was creating for D&D. I spent every day at the library (except Sunday because it was closed) for close to two weeks doing research. It was one of the most enlightening times of my life.
Sure, modern technology lets me get to the heart of the matter faster, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s a bad thing. Knowledge is no longer hard earned. It is practically given to a person, and this gives them little appreciation for the difficulties that it took to accumulate that knowledge.
Ok. I’m getting off track, but I think I’ve pretty much said what I wanted to say. I’ll pack it in before I ramble even more than I already have. I could on and on and on about this topic. I’ll stop here before I bore you even more than I already have.
Ding Dong…
… the witch is dead!
I’ve been waiting for this moment in Order of the Stick for a long time. Ever since Miko was introduced, I’ve wanted the vile bitch to die. I had always hoped that it would be at Roy’s hand, but since he died first, I lost hope of that happening.
After Miko lost per paladin-hood, I kind of hoped that she would live the life of a fallen paladin, but in the back of my mind I still hoped that she would die. She didn’t get to suffer enough in the real world without her paladin abilities, which makes me a little sad. However, in the end, she was not redeemed, and had to die the death of a common fighter. That makes me a little happy.
I know. I know. It’s just a comic, but it’s a damn good comic! I just hope that the author brings Roy back to lead the Order of the Stick to greater heights…. now if the rest of the group would just find his corpse.
Nice Day
“It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”
“It’s so nice, I don’t want to go back inside.”
“I can’t wait to get home because it’s such a nice day.”
“It’s just too nice outside to be at my desk today.”
“I have no motivation today because it’s so nice outside.”
ENOUGH ALREADY!!!
I get it! OK?!? It’s nice outside. Quit bitching, grab your golf clubs, take the afternoon off, and go fuck off for a few hours.
I’m tired of listening to this crap. I know that we’ve had a really harsh winter and all these people that think you need sunlight to survive have finally come out of their darkness-induced comas, but I’m tired of hearing it. I think I’m going to start responding with things like:
“Damn. It’s bright. I’m going inside where I can take off my sunglasses.”
“Bah. It’s skin cancer season again.”
“Crap. That bright orb in the sky is out again. I gotta go inside.”
“Good thing my desk is inside. It’s too breezy out here to concentrate.”
DoS
DoS = Denial of Service
The network that my server is on suffered from it today. One of my “network neighbors” came under attack from an IP from a Japanese university. That pretty killed the network, so my server was inaccessible. That happens from time-to-time, but it still pisses me off. I hope that the attacker wasn’t just going after a random someone. If you’re going to be malicious have some point behind it.
There’s no guarantee that this won’t happen again, so if my server vanishes, just be patient. It’ll come back soon enough.
Renaissance Geek
To say that I wear many technological hats is an understatement. I’ve always known that to succeed in a company, you have to be willing to do anything that comes along. As I’ve been with my current employer more and more, I’ve come to inherit more hats than anyone else (other than, maybe, my boss.)
Last week (and continuing into this week) I’ve performed tasks that should be performed by:
- a software engineer (which is my title)
- a software architect
- a Linux system administrator/engineer
- a network engineer
- a web developer
- a multi-media artist
- a database administrator
- Windows technical support
- Linux technical support
- a technical writer
I’m not doing this because I’m the only person to do the job. There are plenty of other people on my team. However, I am most often the best choice for the job. I do it better than anyone else on my team. It takes me less time to do the actions, and they are (often) done right on the first attempt. There are even times when I am the only person that knows how to do the job, so I do it. When I realize that I’m the only person that knows how to do the job, I try to educate other members of my team, but their eyes glaze over when I get to step 3 of 22. They can’t grasp the level of technical detail necessary to do my job. They also don’t care enough about it to learn it, even if they had the capabilities.
Am I upset that I am the “go to guy” for all of these various and sundry activities? Nope. It’s job security. I know that if my company falls on economic hard times that I will probably be one of the people labeled as “indisposable”, and I’ll keep my job. I also offer much more expertise to my company than what they are paying me for. My boss is aware of this, and appreciates it. So long as he’s kept around, I’m sure to have a job.
Now, in the past, I’ve made myself indisposable, and it’s bitten me in the ass. It’s meant that I could not get promotions to other departments, transfers to other sections, and I’ve pretty much dug myself in a hole at a job. I won’t mind if that’s the case here. I really love what I’m doing. I like the people that I work with, and, above all else, I really love working for my boss. He’s a great guy! He knows how to do my job, and he understands when things go wrong and take a little longer than they might originally. I just have to up-front and honest with him when things go wrong, and I tell him how I’m going to correct the problem. He’s also very open, friendly, and personable. One of the best bosses that I’ve ever had. If he ever leaves the company, I’m not sure what I’ll do. Maybe stalk him until he hires me at his new job?
I know that a “Renaissance Man” is supposed to be equally versed in art and science, and that computers are mostly science. If you’ve ever worked for extensive periods in the technology business, you’ll understand that there is an art to the way things are done if they are done properly.
