BillSaysThis

Just in case you’re looking for a full time WC blog, check out World Cup Blog to Follow the Action, the boys there are doing a fine job. I myself am essentially amazed that France is going home having scored no goals after being THE number one favorite to win the whole thing and that the Argentines are off as well after netting only two balls. Will Portugal join them on the sidelines? What about Italy? They pretty much must defeat Mexico to advance, but our Soouthern neighbors seem to have woken from the slumber this month. And of course, our own boys in red, white, and blue need only a tie against Poland to advance.

It’s a paradox: One of the problems with moving back to Philly – in which Karl finds that quite often, when buying a home, up is down but more is definitely not necessarily less.

Swimming after work with a beer and a buddy is a nice way to end the work day. As long as I have to work.

What if we want what’s under? – Angelina Jolie Offers Shirt for UN Refugee Auction

Yesterday was not a good day to be a New York Yankee and have the last name of Rivera. Ace reliever Mariano Rivera went on the disabled list for only the second time in his major league career with a strained right groin. The other Rivera, outfielder Juan, landed on the DL with what seems like a more serious problem, a fractured right kneecap. The Yankee machine just rolled right on by defeating the Diamondbacks and Randy Johnson with a late home run. The home run came from Marcus Thames playing in his first game up from the minors as Juan’s replacement, one of three HRs the Yanks had in the game. giving them over 100 already this season.

Something new to like – Keith Devens’ new PHP XML-RPC Client/Server

Damn! I’m just finishing up my third day of working for Ev and the Pyra crew handling some customer service issue and let me say I had pretty much completely forgotten how much of a PITA work actually is. And I get to work from home for this job. Then again, I powered through over 500 emails in the Pyra Inbox and hopefully helped a bunch of my fellow Bloggers. Tomorrow I attack the help system! Woohoo!

Shocking development in DC – Politicians: Enthusiasm Ebbs for Tough Reform in Wake of Enron

Some years ago, before the web was the be all and end all, there was a struggling database software company named Sybase, which was struggling with a single digit market share against Oracle and IBM. There was also a very popular corporate application development tool named PowerBuilder, from a company called PowerSoft, which was winning awards and gaining adherents but also attracting the attention of another little company called Microsoft. The executives at Sybase thought they could save their company by expanding into the development tools business, so they bought PowerSoft. Of course what this meant was that not only were they competing with Oracle and IBM, two much larger companies in the database business, but they were also competing with Microsoft, which had once been a partner.

Now, Novell wants to try its hand at the acquisitions game (again). The once ubiquitous networking company has made a deal to acquire SilverStream Software. As if past purchases of vendors of unrelated software (*cough* UNIX, *cough* WordPerfect) worked out so well. And, after all, SilverStream was founded by several of the executives responsible for PowerSoft’s success. So we see a struggling company, losing badly to bigger competitors in a market in which it was once strong, turning to a company founded by David Litwack and friends to change its fortunes.

SilverStream, though, has not been the success that PowerBuilder was; PowerBuilder won award after award and built some serious market share but one can’t same the same for their second effort. Back in the day, when I was writing for Software Development Magazine, the regular reviewers fought over who would get to review the latest version. And I remember when SilverStream emerged from stealth mode, probably back in the spring of 1997, as the newest competitor in the application server market; the news made most of us at NetDynamics more than a little bit nervous. But fortunately for us, lightning didn’t strike twice, with the new company focusing on the wrong part of the package (slick development tools) and not enough on what customers really wanted (fast, robust, powerful server software). SilverStream refocused, then refocused again, and now claim to be a web services company. Which means precisely what?

Now Novell, which has had much more publicity in the past two years due to their merger with consulting firm Cambridge Technology Partners than any software release, think they can leverage SilverStream to get their stock ($3.40 as I write this) back to where it was five years ago (around $8). But what they’re really doing is putting themselves more squarely in the sites of IBM, Sun, Oracle, BEA, and Microsoft, all of which are firmly entrenched in the web services space and all surely happy to finish the job of crunching Novell into the dirt like an old cigarette butt.

Ahn came on as a sub early in the second half and, leading a high pressure Korean offense, evened the match with a sweet header. Too bad he turned things sour with a strange pseudo-speedskating celebration. Friedel was terrific and made several major stops in the half, he has to be the man of the match for the USA. The South Korean team had some solid opportunities in addition but just could not convert. Mathis turned up with a wild Mohawk hairdo but couldn’t get any shots in the second half. Landon Donovan was breaking deep several times but kept getting pulled down and the US couldn’t make anything of the free kicks.

Still, the Americans have to be very happy, sitting at the top of Group D, with four points after two games. From my calculations, a draw against Poland on Friday morning will be enough to get us through to the next round. Even if Portugal beats Poland later this morning and South Korea in the third game, that means the Koreans finish with four points, a draw is five to us and we go through along with Portugal. The weird result would be a Portugal-Poland tie and wins for both Poland and Portugal next time, leaving everyone in the group with four points. With Poland looking like the group’s weak sister, the odds have to be with us.

Go USA!

So it’s 1-0 USA at the half! Clint Mathis took a lovely pass in, damped it with his right foot, and slammed it passed Lee, the Korean keeper, in the 24th minute. Brad Friedel had a positively brilliant save on a penalty shot after Jeff Agoos took down one of the Koreans in the box. The commentators, especially Ty Keough, keep saying that the American team and its fans should not expect many calls to go in its favor given we’re playing the home team. Keough surely has been right, with two fouls in the box by Koreans that probably would have been penalties had it been any other team.

Fingers crossed!

Close doesn’t count – the Nets are making valiant attempts to win against the Lakers but this isn’t horseshoes and close isn’t getting the job done.

Nice portraits of two of the most influential artists, from film and rock, still creating today:

John Woo – Auteur of Action, a Thoughtful Turn

David Bowie – 21st-Century Entrepreneur

Let me join the chorus that has certainly already sprung up: the referees, especially the referee’s assistant on the far side, Jens Larsen, took the game away from Italy. No problem with either of Croatia’s goals, nice touches by both Olic and Rapaic in quick succession, but the two disallowed goals for Italy were both terrible, terrible calls. Especially the diving Vieri header around the 52nd minute, no way was any player from Italy offside. And the strange, dribbling goal well into extra time, disallowed on an alleged foul, when there was no foul to be seen. Italy has every right to be very angry. Hopefully the players will take it out, cleanly, in the game against Mexico Thursday. I have to check some web sites but I wonder if there’s rioting on the streets at home.

Italy is considering an official protest to FIFA but apparently there is no chance that the result on the field will be changed. Mexico plays Ecuador tonight in the other Group G second league game and if Mexico, which is a big favorite, takes a win, Italy will need a win against Mexico in the third match or else become another favorite (Argentina, Portugal, France, are you listening?) going home early.

The NY Times has an interesting article today, Gnat or Parasite? Angst Over Adware, which gives a pretty up to date and reasonable look at the state of spyware/adware. What I find so amusing is the quotes from executives of all the companies shoving this crap down our throats; none of them are doing anything bad or unwanted, it’s always someone else. Of course!

Explaing recent VXGN activity – Dr. Don Francis’ response to a Scientific American article about VaxGen’s AIDS vaccine candidate, AIDSVAX; here’s the misguided original.

I’ve read three of Nick Hornby’s four novels (and I’m looking for a copy of the fourth) and I thought the first film I saw based on one of them was terrific–I thought High Fidelity, starring John Cusak, was one of the best films of the ’90s. But given the flood of summer movies and the pace at which they drop out of the cinemas, I worried that I might miss this one until it arrived on DVD. But a meeting dragged me up to San Francisco and ended just in time for The Sweet One and I to take in a pre-dinner show at the Metreon.

About a Boy is, like High Fidelity, the story of a man (Hugh Grant plays Will) who refuses to grow up but is shown that what he’ll gain by doing so far outweighs any loss. In this instance by 12 year old Marcus. The movie starts with a pair of voiceovers, from Will and Marcus, that give quite different perspectives on the proper path in life. Will says that John Donne, who said “No man is an island,” was full of it. In our modern age, with a little bit of money and just the right attitude, one can live nicely as an island. Marcus figures just the opposite is true but he never had the chance to find out what money can do. His mom (Dad is a long gone doofus who apparently only shows his face at Christmas) is depressed and suicidal and Marcus decides that what people need, him in particular, is backup; that’s why the standard family has two parents. So he attempts to recruit Will off his island and into the nuclear unit. The movie shows how their worlds collide and their orbits change.

Grant is a fine casting choice for Will, just the right age and a suitable world weary face, though one wonders what Will has to be weary of. Nicholas Hoult doesn’t try and give us a slick, 12 year old as short adult performance as Marcus, he gives a very genuine, awkward resonant performance. Toni Collette, who came to our attention in the wonderful Muriel’s Wedding, is Marcus’ mom, who uses her eyes to show the depth of her character’s depression. Rachel Weisz plays the love interest but isn’t given enough to do, outside of one good restaurant scene, to really matter. The Weitz brothers, Paul and Chris, co-wrote and co-directed the film, moving up in class from their American Pie series, showing they can handle adult material too–there isn’t even a flash of skin to be seen–taking just enough from the novel to give us substantial growth for all three main characters and maintain a solid pace for the film’s 100 minutes.

Definitely Recommended

She’s so sweet but is clearly fooled by the truly shallow nature of my understanding of the world’s most popular sport

Winterspeak points us to what he claims is an extremely good article on economics in Slate, Shut City Hall!. I beg to disagree with Zimran and author Steven E. Landsburg. The Supreme Court (in the April Tahoe decision), according to Landsburg, concludes that most government agencies should be out of business. What the Justices wrote in their decision was that compensating property owners for every decision that is less than a complete taking is prohibitively expensive for governments. Since the cost exists whether the government pays it or the property owner does (by losing the amount, since this is a zero sum game), Landsburg says that what’s good for the goose ought to be the same for the gander. If the cost is too much for the government to bear, it must be too much for anyone to bear. He cites the economic analyses of that were done about 30 years ago when politicians were debating whether or not to change to an all-volunteer army and claims they show explicitly that such a conclusion is already proven.

However, Landsburg makes clear his logical error when he writes: “But it follows inexorably from what he [Justice Stevens, in the majority opinion] did say.” Cost, in some abstract, economically perfect world, probably is the same no matter who bears it, I’ll concede, but we don’t live in such a place. Our society has chosen to operate on the basis that some government decisions will cost some people or corporations money, directly through taxes or indirectly through regulations, and so it does not follow inexorably that the Supremese must recognize that almost all routine government decisions “are … unjustifiable luxuries.”

HP plans to sell off middleware products but who would want to buy the skanky ass software? The WebGain news was weird but makes a little bit of sense. They paid good money for Bluestone and its app server less than two years ago although lately they have been giving it away with every copy of HP/UX. I wonder if HP would take a bid of $1 (no zeroes) for the app server?