BillSaysThis

I wonder if this is the result of blinders-on bureaucrats or greedy executives. The bands are alleging that the record label is deducting standard physical packaging costs from their royalties on songs sold through iTunes but of course the label isn’t incurring those costs. Not much per individual song but over the course of a year those pennies certainly add up and these corporations have a bad enough business relationship with artists and the public on pricing already.

Having worked in the purchasing department of a major book publisher some years ago, I’m sure acts aren’t charged actual costs but some kind of average–tracking which lot of jewel cases or CD blanks were used for a specific CD just isn’t practical. So you can imagine that the accounting systems use a rule that assigns cost as a percent of revenue or fixed amount per unit and the bookkeepers didn’t think to update the software for this different type of sale.

Then again, recent years have given us more than enough examples of executives finagling things to their advantage, legal or not.

Barca can take the league title this weekend, trophy one for the most amazing player out and about today. My money says he’ll get number two in a few weeks at the Stade de France when his club take apart Arsenal in the Champions League final. The third may well be in early July when he leads his national side to a second straight World Cup victory. All three will be an awesome haul!

This weekend was the inaugural Silicon Valley Ruby Conference organized by SDForum and Ruby Central and the result was good enough that I hope (and expect) that it will become an annual event. Big props to Bill Grosso, David Black and Raya Fowler and putting together a quality event despite scheduling the event only 10 days after the much bigger Canada on Rails conference.

We did get two of the same presenters though: Joe O’Brien, who spoke about the value of creating domain specific languages, and Steven Baker, who discussed his RSpec project implementing behavior-driven development for Ruby. Also on the test front, Ryan Davis discussed his ZenTest suite, which I think will be very useful for me. I really got a lot from Chad Fowler’s presentation on Rails 1.1 (subbing in for Marcel Molina).

Rich Kilmer gave a case study of a very short but interesting contract he did for the US Air Force–who knew moving fighter jets around (off mission) was so difficult? Jason Hoffman, CTO of the company which hosts this fine website, gave a really well-done presentation on the whole concept of scaling for web apps and how Joyent/TextDrive manage it; frankly, though, I was quite surprised that he only got one “when will this be available to TextDrive customers” as I’m sure there were more than just the two of us in the room.

Less good were the sessions by Alex Chafee and David Pollack but the less negative said the better.

Very good overall and, based on the success of this event, SDForum is creating a Ruby SIG; that bodes well for the Rails community here in the Valley.

Taco Bell’s new ads are pushing something they call the fourth meal. Yeah, another feeding time–between dinner and breakfast–because Americans aren’t fat enough yet. This comes on top of their “I’m full” campaign bragging about how much food they can stuff into a cheap meal. The leadership of this company is simply sick!

Unless they put exercise machines next to the tables, the most suitable punishment for people like Bill Pearce, Taco Bell’s Chief Marketing Officer, and David C. Novak, Chairman, CEO & President of Taco Bell parent company YUM! Brands, Inc., is that they must eat 80% of their meals off the standard menu. Heck, I bet the company could make some serious cash webcasting the last meal of the week and that would be generating real shareholder value.

There have been lots of stories and rumors about what might happen at my alma mater Sun Microsystems next week. For example, Red Herring has Sun Setting on Scott McNealy? and the Mercury News Pressures build for Sun Microsystems to cut costs with layoffs with McNealy as the sub-head.

Wall Street apparently wants another huge layoff round, at least 12,000 people (over 25% of the staff), but McNealy is resistant to the idea. Part of the rumor is that the board brought Mike Lehman out of his four years retirement to be CFO again is because he agrees with investors and has the clout, or whatever it takes, to force Scott on the issue. Investors have seen the company seriously lag the other big iron vendors in recovering from the dot com crash, losing market share and unable to return to real growth and profitability. I suppose they’ve seen what Mark Hurd’s done at HP, looked at the innovation at Apple and whatever it is that Palmisano’s done at IBM and can’t understand why Sun has yet to figure out a way back.

I’m not sure McNealy, Lehman, Jon Schwartz or anyone else in the executive ranks really has a good answer. But I don’t think chopping off such a huge number of smart people who know important technology so well will revitalize the company. If anything, another round of pink slips–at a time when demand for them is strong–may be the final straw that pushes the best still on staff to leave. Nor do I see how a RIF will sell more boxes.

Instead of cutting the headcount by so much, why not do something out of the box and game changing? Reassign 8-10,000 staffers to a supercharged professional services organization and Sun can finally compete with IBM and HP for all of huge systems deals that so often now they have to do jointly with partners. Certainly the demand is out there and the products are complex enough that customers want the help.

I remember a NetDynamics company meeting back in 1997 or 98 when we discussed the quarterly results. Someone asked why we weren’t adding more consultants on staff since customers were asking for help with what was, after all, an incredibly complex product. Brooke Sewell, our very experienced CFO, said that the margins on services were too low compared to license revenue and that, as a small and growing company, our resources were better used in adding to R&D.

Sounds a lot like Sun, and not surprising since they bought us later that year. But that quarterly meeting was the high point for NetDynamics as a product, including the follow on when it was replaced by the iPlanet Application Server. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of the work I did as product manager for iAS and of the team as a whole. But BEA and then IBM ate our cake, stole the market out from under us.

Why was that? For my money one of the key reasons (though there were several other important factors) was that these companies, especially Big Blue, could simply drop in a half dozen consultants within a week to the cutomer offices. We could never do that, even as part of Sun. I don’t really understand the rationale for never building the kind of colossal ProServ group competitors have but the leadership still has time–do they have the guts and imagination?

Sci Fi Wire — Abrams Reviving Trek: “Paramount has hired Mission: Impossible III director J.J. Abrams to write, direct and produce the 11th Star Trek feature film, aiming for a 2008 release, Variety reported. It will center on the early days of original Trek characters James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, including their first meeting at Starfleet Academy and first space mission, the trade paper reported.”

Can I just say W00t!? I can’t explain why I’ve never got into Abrams current hit show Lost though I’ve been an Alias fan from episode 1. You might point out that the show I like features a hot fighting chick way out in front while the other is more of a male-dominated ensemble but Jennifer Garner, who is undoubtedly very pretty, just doesn’t do it for me in the fantasy department. Seriously, I think Abrams found his calling when he switched away from semi-funny relationship stuff into tech-action-mystery territory and Trek will allow him to stretch even further in that direction. Casting this movie will be a bitch, that’s for sure.

Two years is a long time but I can wait.

I just finished listening to the sneak peak (note: the sneak peak is only available until tomorrow, April 20) of Bruce Springsteen’s upcoming We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions and am glad to report that I like it a whole lot better than after seeing the John Henry video a couple of weeks ago. Even the closing bonus track, Froggie Went A-Courtin’, which you probably remember best as a little kids’ tune, came off well.

The most significant reason I can put my finger on is that the band’s overall energy blasts out of the speakers from most of the songs. This isn’t another Nebraska, Devils and Dust or Ghost of Tom Joad, with stark, minimal musical arrangements underlying darkly negative lyrics; of the three only Nebraska really worked for me, mainly due to Atlantic City, State Trooper and Johnny 99. Seeger is much more of a feelgood outing though old Pete’s lyrics on tunes like John Henry can twist their tales back against the instrumental backing. Maybe it’s Greg Liszt’s banjo but I can picture this music driving people to the dance floor at an old time hoedown.

Our nephew Jake went to Florida, some beach resort on the Gulf of Mexico side, for a vacation from the tough life of an 11 month old and took his mom, dad, brothers and sister along too. His first plane rides and he had a blast. All we got were these four new photos, but we’ll see him in just a few weeks in person!

I’ve been doing fairly well again this season in the SpoFi EPL Fantasy League, standing fourth after Sunday’s matches, but screwed up last night. Easter means the teams squeeze in an extra match in the first part of the week and so a new fantasy league round covered the games played today, tomorrow and Wednesday, or at least most do. Arsenal doesn’t, since they meet Villareal of La Liga Wednesday in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final; also off are Liverpool and the teams they meet, Fulham and Manchester City.

I didn’t realize all this until after dinner last night while checking the standings. I had three Arsenal players and so I made two transfers (no way was I giving up Thierry Henry), looking to take most advantage of the remaining four rounds. This morning I saw a few scores, such as Chelsea walloping Everton, and thought to my self, “Self, you did remember to make Lampard captain, right?” Captains get their points doubled.

Of course, self did not remember to switch the captaincy from Henry to Lampard. Thereby wasting at least 11 points, and possibly 14 once bonuses are awarded. Henry will need to go on a tear the last few games to make it up to me.

Bill’s Movie Reviews :: Hotel Rwanda: thanks, Stan!

I used to read and love every new Spenser novel Robert B. Parker turned out–you remember Spenser, the characters and general mileau were the basis of the Robert Urich TV series Spenser: For Hire–but after about 20 Parker seemed to get stuck in a going through the motions rut and I stopped reading. He finally realized it himself I think and decided to create two other characters so he’d have to keep the muscles stretching.

The tactic must have worked because Bad Business (2004) is definitely a return to form. This story throws our favorite PI into the middle of an Enron/WorldCom situation when the widow of a murdered top exec comes for help clearing her name. Turns out the books aren’t the only thing cooking at Kinergy: there’s also a free love party hosted by a radio love doctor to confuse the motives.

Parker makes a couple of glaring continuity errors but they were easy to forgive since I read these novels for the wordplay, especially the clash of Spenser’s literary verbal style against expectations generated by his appearance and background. Also, his completely wonderful devotion to life partner Dr. Susan Silverman. Spenser gets the bad guy at the end, of course, but the ride there was fun.

recommended

This morning I had to stop at the bank and take out a loan so I could fill up the car’s gas tank (ba da boom).

Can you understand how the Italian police could not catch the top man in the Sicilian mafia for 40 years, until yesterday? No matter how careful Provenzano was, he was still running the biggest criminal gang in the country, actively, for the last dozen years and had to communicate and keep in touch somehow.

There is much unhappiness in the ex-Sun camp, exemplified by former VP John Shoemaker’s blast at the company. I certainly agree that the board should have done whatever was necessary to keep Ed Zander and his results since taking over Motorola are good evidence. I spoke with Ed a few times when NetDynamics was acquired; he came by to meet the troops, something Scott McNealy did not do, and showed a strong understanding of why NetD was good for Sun.

The New York Times has a decent article about how not all blogs are being written by youngsters or even the middle aged such as me though I think the phrase they coined to refer to the group, elderbloggers, is pretty terrible. I wonder if I can get my Dad to start writing because he really knows how to tell a story.

Bush, Bush, Bush. I just would like to have one week day when he and his crew don’t get headlines for yet another stupid and/or dangerous decision.

John Gruber may, like Robert X Cringely, not always be right–though he is often funny–but reading his occasional essays such as today’s analysis of why Boot Camp does not presage the availability of OS X for non-Apple hardware nor does it mean that Apple will be competing (any more directly than they already do) with Microsoft. Personally, that the new Intel-based laptops can boot into Windows or run it in a VM layer is giving me thoughts of spending some cash on one this summer, after the second wave of machines are released.

Open source project Subversion is pretty much the source control system of choice in the Rails world; TextDrive includes it in the shared hosting plan I use. From all I’ve read it meets and even exceeds the requirements for such a tool so fine by me. Never having had to use any SCM tools in the past, always having been pretty much developing off by myself, getting started isn’t simple but the time has come when it must be done.

Installing is brain dead, just unzip the Windows binaries, install the highly recommended TortoiseSVN client, reboot. Create repository. Import a special trio of directories (trunk, branches, tag). Import the existing Rails project into trunk. Rename the existing project directory. Check out the project. Ooh, look at all the shiny icons in Windows Explorer!

I also installed Eclipse this morning, finally removed the redundant standalone Ruby and Apache web server installs (Instant Rails is better for me, I think) and just need the RadRails boys to get 0.6.2 out the door with Rails 1.1.1 support and I’m good to go.

Sure, I actually need to write the code but with all these swell, free tools how hard can that be?

p.s. I just checked the news at Instant Rails and see they’ve got an update which, since it includes the very cool Mongrel, I probably need to pull down.

The library had Nick Hornby’s latest, A Long Way Down, so I grabbed it off the new releases shelf to see what the male chick flick author had to say on the subject of suicide and if he could make it funny. Fortunately for me, himself and the rest of you lot, he did. Lots of folks, including Johnny Depp, agree and Depp and partners have bought the film rights.

Hornby has definitely increased the sophistication of his writing with each book, there’s a real progression from Fever Pitch (which is now classified as a memoir, though I thought it was a novel) to High Fidelity (book or movie) to About a Boy (who makes the best screen Nick, Colin Firth, John Cusack or Hugh Grant?) to How to Be Good (apparently being brought to the screen with Emma Thompson, mmmm!) to this one. Autobiographical, fantasy biography, protagonist with some basic similarities to himself but in most respects very different, a female lead working out problems with which very few men would really have to deal, and finally four main characters, all very different from Mr. H., alternating point of view control like a relay marathon.

Still, Hornby has a certain style and Down sticks with it; also, the tales always take place in London. No matter which of the gang of four is up front, the prose is stream of consciousness, as if the character were sitting in the Big Brother confession room or a church confessional recanting events as best they remember (or want to), no holds barred. The quartet are:

• Maureen, 51, single mother of a 20-something son born in a vegetative state
• Martin, 40-something divorced, disgraced former TV breakfast show presenter
• JJ, 29, American expat small time rock and roller
• Jess, 18, total brat daughter of a junior Cabinet minister

They meet on New Year’s Eve on the roof of Topper’s House, a gone to seed apartment tower
known as a good place to jump from if you prefer to not awake at the bottom.
Other than JJ, each has gone with precisely that intention and even he is scouting the possibility. The story covers the three months which follow since none has really sunk to the requisite level of despair.

Hornby really achieves something with this book. Each of the four is truly a different character, fleshed out and not particularly likeable. Except, of course, for the common inability, imposed by the confessional writing style, to hold anything back during turns at the camera. Perhaps Martin could have been a bit darker but how deep is a disgraced former TV breakfast show presenter anyway? Frankly, I had trouble putting the book down.

definitely recommended

FYI: According to the website, Johnny Depp bought the film rights; it only mentions that he plans to produce it, no word if he’d play Martin.

Amazon has the first video from Bruce Springsteen’s new release, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, available for the viewing. The DualDisc–who knows what to call things these days–comes out in three weeks but if the rest is more or less like John Henry, the video track, I won’t be leaping out of my chair to buy it. Sorry Bruce, I’m happy that you’ve made music that means so much to you, but it just ain’t my thing.

DeLay Is Quitting Race and House

Ghana coach Ratomir Dujkovic says teen sensation Freddy Adu should play for Ghana at World Cup 2006 this summer. Seriously dude, put the has brownies down. The DC United star has already played for the US National Team, coming on as a sub in the last CONCACAF qualifier against Jamaica, so I’m pretty sure he can’t play for any other country’s side. Besides, why would he want to play for the country his parents had to flee when he was a little child? Is that how people where Dujkovic comes from say thank you?

My good friend Pam has finally released her first CD through CD Baby, Roses and Bone, and I can tell you that if you enjoy heartfelt, emotional singer-songwriters like Shawn Colvin or Stephen Bishop you’ll probably enjoy Pam’s music. Since Pam plays piano that’s the featured instrument rather than guitar, though she does have pedal steel support from Bobby Black (Commander Cody, Asleep at the Wheel, New Riders of the Purple Sage). You can listen to the songs online and the $12.95 is money well spent. She was back in the studio this afternoon to kickstart her next recording.

Being humor-deficient (you’ve read my movie reviews, right?) April Fools is laways a bit of bother for me. Unless the goofs are as obvious as Scoble or WordPattern, I have a much tougher time deciding if an announcement is a joke or not.