BillSaysThis

Capitalism at the edge

Have you gotten spam lately advertising gas masks or Cipro? garret reports getting spam touting Viagra as “the most powerful anti-anthrax agent available.” I dislike receiving spam certainly but I also don’t mind too much getting it, since we live in a capitalist society and these people are simply taking advantage of the system as it exists now. I would like to see some improvements in the system, like a real opt-out/remove function. Still, spam is a small price to pay for so much functionality for which I pay so little.

Someone else’s work hell

Not for a moment did I ever think the stress and pain we went through after the Sun acquisition was unique, but I have never seen a similar experience written up quite so well as Jeff does in hell. Be sure you read the two paragraphs the author has formatted in extra-tiny font size.

Microsoft still aiming at J2EE

Many observers have said that a target, perhaps the main target, of Microsoft’s .Net web services strategy is Sun’s Java. In the most clear indication yet that this is indeed true, Mary Jo Foley writes that Microsoft Readies “Indigo” for Web Services. Indigo is the next generation web services, developer-oriented platform from MS; the article says that the company plans to include it in a version of Windows expected to be released in Spring, 2003. Services planned for the platform include common naming, addressing, security, event and messaging using XML, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI. A very early test release is likely to certain development partners next week at the Professional Developers Conference.

Indigo compliments the other .Net initiatives: .Net My Services (also known by the code name of Hailstorm) for consumer-oriented functionality and Blizzard for B2B/ecommerce functionality. Blizzard is also far from release and analysts do not expect a public announcement of it until next year.

Ode to America: not a hoax

Lonna Beers, Librarian and Administrator at The University Center, reports that the Ode to America is not just another web hoax: check out the research at Snopes’ Urban Legends Reference Pages: Rumors of War (Romanian Editorial). Thanks, Lonna!

Today’s book: Section 31: Shadow

This is the fourth and final book in the Section 31 sequence. Trek novel veteran co-authors (and husband and wife) Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch had the toughest assignment, in some ways, since how do you get Section 31 into a story set tens of thousands of lightyears away? Their solution is simple enough, they just have a prologue showing an operative getting assigned to the ship prior to Voyager’s relocation to the Delta Quadrant. They pull it off well by using the classic Trek two substories that crash together formula. I think the whole series is worth reading!

Story A is the work of the Section 31 agent and story B has Voyager investigating a pair of stars that are about to collide. Sure enough, there is trouble found, in the form of a slower-than-light generation ship carrying the 800 million survivors of a planet that used to orbit one of the colliding suns; the ship and all its inhabitants will be destroyed in 24 hours by the force of the explosion if Voyager cannot save them.

Historical roots of al Quaeda

garret points to a very interesting NY Times article titled The Deep Intellectual Roots of Islamic Terror by Robert Worth, which the Times oddly published in the Arts section. Worth explains the key concept behind the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and bin Laden’s group is that the Saudi royal family and Egyptian politicians, among others they target, are no longer Muslims (because they do not observe the Koran correctly) and therefore are legitimate targets. This way of thinking builds on the writings of the 1950s Egyptian revolutionary Sayyid Qutb and reaches back to a revered medieval intellectual named Ibn Taymiyya.

Arabs and Americans

I had lunch with a close friend today who had a long conversation last week with an American who was in Saudi Arabia teaching English to Saudi military on 9/11. I have no reason to doubt my friend’s account in the least.

This teacher said that his students simply hate Americans and don’t understand us. For example, in the days immediately after the al-Quaeda attacks, his students drew pictures of planes crashing into buildings, showing them to the other students, and laughing. This meshes with other accounts I’ve read. The teacher pointed to two examples that help explain their hatred:

The American military forces stationed in Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, of course include women. The American women go out in public dressed in military clothing, shop and drive, and in other ways do things that Muslim women simply are not allowed to do. The Saudi (and other Arabic) men think of women as objects, to be treated and to act in certain specific ways, and nothing else. The Taliban give an extreme example of this way of thinking of and regulating women but do not doubt that women face similar strictures in most countries where Islam is dominant. Americans think of women as people, same as men, and will not allow them to be treated otherwise regardless of local custom. This is just to great a disconnect for Arab men to handle; when talking about women with this teacher they generally giggled and acted the way American teenage boys do since their minds have no other context for it.

The Saudis and other nationalities of the Arabian Peninsula think of themselves as warriors. Notice the scimitar on the Saudi flag (the other element on the flag is a shahada, profession of faith meaning “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet”). Yet they needed American and other western nations to protect and liberate them from Saddam Hussein 10 years ago, even though it was less than 100 years ago that the Saudi’s Bedouin great-grandfathers were the scourge of Arabia and finally conquered the area that established the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. This is a source of shame and self-loathing and since we put them in position to feel such emotions, not surprisingly they are thrown back at us. How does the old saying go, don’t expect thanks for a favor? No good deed goes unpunished is another spin on the same sentiment.

I’m listening to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s amazing concert on HBO as I write this and I can’t help but think that this is one more thing such people probably hate. Springsteen, since the name sounds Jewish even though it’s Dutch; the music, which is raucus and free and all too often about love and sex and even society’s ills (how many Arab nations have freedom of speech and protest?); and even HBO itself, which is constantly broadcasting images and messages that violate taboos. To go deeper into why Springsteen is a good representation of the target of this hate, consider Cornel Bonca’s essay published in July of this year, in the wake of the HBO concert, in which he describes Springsteen’s oeuvre as “dramatic enactments pitting a Dionysian spirit desperate for release against an equal and opposite force desperate for moral containment.”

In Badlands, Springsteen sings “You got to live it every day, let the broken hearts stand as the price you’ve gotta pay, we’ll keep pushin’ till it’s understood and these badlands start treating us good.” We’re in the Badlands now.

Worth reading

Sometimes I run across material and wonder if I should blog it. Often, I’ll take a pass, especially if the site is a weekly and I would have to link often. But this stuff is worth a few bytes of storage:

The Onion claims to be “America’s Finest News Source” although funniest might be more accurate. Finest is so, well, vague. Just funny, nasty, no respect humor. Don’t miss this week’s job hunting tips.

Back of the Envelope is Christopher Byron’s forum for dismantling the pretenses of corporate America. Unfortunately publisher New York Observer does not post permanent links until the next column is published, so look for the 10/15/01 column on Gateway Computers.

Joel on Software is Joel Spolsky’s part one of a look at his own company’s software development process. Spolsky, author of User Interface Design for Programmers is quickly becoming an important voice on the state of the art in development.

Proud to be a voice for peace

[The following entry is a letter to the editor I sent today to the San Jose Mercury News, my local newspaper.]

Becky Hobson (Letters, Oct. 11) suggests that “only by living our lives in peace will that peace spread out and ‘infect’ everyone around us.” This is typical of the pacifist responses I have read in the past four weeks and frankly I’m fed up. There’s one big thing wrong with it: the terrorists who claimed over 5,000 lives last month aren’t get infected and more likely have taken a vaccine to inoculate themselves. All my life I have been for peace and against violence in all forms from the personal to national, but there are times when violence is necessary, specifically when a person or country needs to defend themselves against attack.

In the face of this, protestors continue to speak out but I have two questions for them: Are you ready to sit still while al-Quaeda delivers the next killing strike to America or one of our allies? If you’re not, how do you suggest we prevent that tragedy?

[I would link to Ms. Hobson’s letter but this paper does not provide free access to their permanent archives.]

Ode to America: just another fake?

Well, LIEMails says the Romanian editorial I posted a few days back is another email hoax. The site does point out that there is no attribution to a specific newspaper or publication date. However, I published it because of the sentiment expressed, which I agree with, rather than because of who wrote it or where it was published. On the other hand, the site does link to BillSaysThis as an example of the editorial, which is nice. Say whatever you want about me, just spell my name (or URL) right and print it often, to paraphrase the old PR man’s saying.

Today’s movie: Training Day

Are you up for a powerful, nasty, angry movie? Then see Training Day, because Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke blow up the screen in it. Aside from having Washington continually call Hawke the n-word and dog, director Antoine Fuqua makes this a movie of eyes, lots of massive closeups on the two leads as they talk. Fuqua also directed The Replacement Killers (Chow-Yun Fat) and Bait (Jamie Foxx), so he’s pretty much three for three with movies I enjoyed. Washington is always good and Hawke, well he was great in Dead Poets Society.

We have seen the future, and it looks like us

Thanks to the redoubtable captain of the USS Clueless we have an amazing 1998 article by Ralph Peters titled Spotting the Losers: Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States. Peters is a retired US Army intelligence officer and he points out the simple facts underlying globalization in a very clear, concise, and intelligent manner. Read the article and the Clueless analysis.

Amazon: No more discounts on books

Amazon.com is getting a big push of publicity today from the new view TOC, covers, and flaps feature. But what I just noticed, and I haven’t seen mentioned yet, is that Amazon is no longer discounting mass market paperback books! Random checks of some of the other Amazon stores (music, DVD, cameras, outdoor living) shows those items still being discounted. How come I am not seeing this reported by the business press or the Wall St. analysts? Of course, I could have just missed the stories but somehow I doubt it. A check of CBS Marketwatch, Motley Fool (including the Amazon discussion board) and Salomon Smith Barney research (sorry, you need to be a customer so no link) shows absolutely no mention of it. Books are the biggest moneymaker for Mr. Bezos and Company, right?

Having thought this through a little bit, there seem to be two possible sides to this. One is that Amazon so dominates the online book market, especially for mass market paperbacks, that they have pricing power, the ability to unilaterally raise prices and people will still shop there and make more or less the same purchases. Since the underlying cost structure is the same, one would expect the (generally 10%) price difference to flow fairly directly to the bottom line. There might be some reduction in unit volume but the increase in gross margin would make up for quite a bit. The second possibility is that sales are dropping through the floor and this attempt to raise gross margins is necessary to prevent a meltdown. Amazon has lost money every month it’s been in business and some commentators on the Motley Fool discussion board pointed out that they appear to be draining their cash reserves. Fewer, but more profitable, sales would be one good solution here. Certainly most Wall St. analysts are citing a significant reduction in online shopping since the attack on America. Difficult to say which one of these sides is the correct one yet, but it will be interesting to follow the situation.

Woohoo! BillSaysThis has it’s first scoop as an investigative journalist! I have sent an email to Amazon’s investor relations email contact, so we’ll see if there is more information available. I wonder if Steven will swoop in and burst my bubble.

My idea of a great tech article

WebmasterBase has published what I consider an excellent example of what tech articles should be like: Migrate your site from MySQL to PostgreSQL — Part 1 by Nathan Matias. The topic is interesting to me, since I use MySQL and have read many good things about PostgeSQL. What I really want to point out, though, is the level of technical detail Matias provides. The article avoids airy metaphors and claims of greatness and instead sticks to the precise explanation of how to complete the task at hand. When he hits roadbumps, they are described; where there are complications, he explains how to get through them. Kudos, Nathan! May we see lots more work like this.

[Update] Looking at Matias’ website I found part two of the article and a bunch of other good articles.

An ode to America: an editorial from a Romanian newspaper

[This was passed to me by email, I agree with the sentiments and think it is a lovely expression of what’s happening]

Why are Americans so united? They don’t resemble one another even if you paint them! They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations. Some of them are nearly extinct, others are incompatible with one another, and in matters of religious beliefs, not even God can count how many they are.

Still, the American tragedy turned three hundred million people into a hand put on the heart. Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the army, the secret services that they are only a bunch of losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts. Nobody rushed on the streets nearby to gape about. The Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping hand. After the first moments of panic, they raised the flag on the smoking ruins, putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colors of the national flag. They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in every place and on every car a minister or the president was passing. On every occasion they started singing their traditional song: “God Bless America!”.

Silent as a rock, I watched the charity concert broadcast on Saturday once, twice, three times, on different TV channels. There were Clint Eastwood, Willie Nelson, Robert de Niro, Julia Roberts, Cassius Clay, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Springsteen, Sylvester Stallone, James Wood, and many others whom no film or producers could ever bring together. The American’s solidarity spirit turned them into a choir. Actually, choir is not the word. What you could hear was the heavy artillery of the American soul. What neither George W. Bush, nor Bill Clinton, nor Colin Powell could say without facing the risk of stumbling over words and sounds, was being heard in a great and unmistakable way in this charity concert.

I don’t know how it happened that all this obsessive singing of America didn’t sound croaky, nationalist, or ostentatious! It made you green with envy because you weren’t able to sing for your country without running the risk of being considered chauvinist, ridiculous, or suspected of who-knows-what mean interests.

I watched the live broadcast and the rerun of its rerun for hours listening to the story of the guy who went down 100 floors [Ed. note: was really 68 floors] with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player, who fought with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that would have killed other hundreds or thousands of people. How on earth were they able to bow before a fellow human?

Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put in a collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit which nothing can buy.

What on earth can unite the Americans in such a way? Their land? Their galloping history? Their economic power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases which risk of sounding like commonplaces. I thought things over, but I reached only one conclusion.

Only freedom can work such miracles!

Today’s book: Section 31: Abyss

The third book in the Section 31 quartet is a Deep Space Nine episode, set post-relaunch and continuing from Avatar, which features Julian Bashir, Ezri Dax, Taran’atar, and Ro Laren. The quartet is ‘assigned’ by Section 31 (well, Bashir is assigned and he takes the others aling) to track down and prevent another genetically enhanced human from using a captured Jem’Hadar hatchery to unleash horror on the Alpha Quadrant in the wake of the Dominion War. In a nice touch, a few pages are used to update several continuing stories (Kassidy’s pregnancy, Jake Sisko’s disappearance, who is Commander Vaughn). Here’s an old but interesting interview with co-author Jeff Lang

Quick look at the major Islamic countries

TechnoPolitics, a website from the producers of the now off the air PBS TV series of the same name, has some interesting articles and other information. Of much current relevance is this two parter that takes a quick look</a. (part one) at the major Islamic countries (part two). Also of interest is their TP Database, a set of statistical questions and answers covering a wide range of topics, although it would be nice to get a better explanation of their information sources.

Sun admits it screwed up with NetDynamics

In a recent government filing, Sun Microsystems admitted acquisition misfires in purchasing NetDynamics, Diba, and even Encore. Duh! I think I could have told you that two years ago. We are still wondering why Sun bought us, then turned around and made the iPlanet deal with AOL, and then took a year to figure things out. Oh, it was not a stressful time at all, no! And the executives did not screw the pooch by taking so long and changing their minds 67 times. No! They did not fiddle while BEA burned us in the marketplace. At least the execs are starting to admit some culpability, to the tune of a $33 million writeoff.