The Lone Sysadmin

BMW’s new ad campaign says “We say no to compromise so we can say yes to great ideas.”

How dumb is that? Since when are compromises and great ideas exclusive?

What happens when there’s a great idea but it needs some tweaking? Do they just throw the idea out?

“Hey Hans, I’ve got a great idea for how we can solve the problem with the headlights!”

“Oh, excellent idea Franz, but we’d need to change it a little to accommodate the new front-mounted death rays.”

“Gosh, I am sorry for not having a perfect idea. Forget I mentioned anything. I hope we can get this headlight problem fixed sometime.”

Nearly every good idea I encounter needs a little compromise to get it shoehorned between whatever bad ideas it’s fixing. Not to mention that great ideas are sometimes only identifiable as such in hindsight. Or not. Someone at Netscape had a great idea to rewrite their web browser, and while they were doing it Microsoft kinda took over. Then someone had a half-cocked idea to open source the whole thing. Turns out that was an awesome idea. The point is, we don’t necessarily know right away which ideas are great and which ideas suck.

I’m all for great ideas. As it turns out, I’m all for compromise, too, when it means more great ideas see the light of day.

And I’m all for fewer retarded ad campaigns.

In a followup to my post on The Pirate Bay, a friend told me that it’s probably not wise to admit to being a software pirate.

“How’d I admit that?” I asked.

“Well, you ended it with ‘Which, if you ask me, is fine.’ It seems pretty clear that you support piracy.”

“Oh, yeah. I can see how you think that.”

I’m not a fan of software piracy, though I do think that companies should either give away copies of their software or permit longer, full-featured trials. The longer I can use a piece of software the more likely it is that I’ll buy a license, especially with expensive software. I was able to use the full JetBrains Omea Reader and I bought a license. Same with Macromedia Dreamweaver — I used the full-featured trial and loved it. Adobe Photoshop is a different story, as they didn’t have full-featured trials of it at the time, so I scammed a copy and created my own trial. I now own a license to the whole Creative Suite, which bugs the crap out of me because every time I reboot their activation system flips out. VMware gives away free licenses to VMware Workstation to people who go to their dog and pony shows. What better way to get them hooked than to just use it? Why do you think they are giving VMware Server away?

Companies, in general, should get over piracy worries. The more they lock a product down the more it sucks for legitimate users, and pirates will just hack out the restrictions anyhow. Spend less time worrying about piracy, more time making your product excellent, and you’re set. If you’re really worried make it a hosted product.

And as far as torrents go, when I say they’re fine I mean that I think the MPAA and RIAA suck, and are treating a symptom of a problem, rather than the cause. This has been discussed to death by everybody, so I’ll just say that it’s the same as with software, in that there will always be people copying music. Always. But most people will do the right thing and buy music if it is a reasonable value, and especially if they can try it before they buy by listening to it first. And especially if the quality of pirated MP3s continues to be painfully low.

That’s what a friend told me. :-)

“Hey Bob, I didn’t know you have a blog.”

Great. A coworker has found my blog. Now I get to be the second person in the organization to experience the whole blog persecution thing.

“Yeah.”

“Where is it? I want to read it.”

Okay, so maybe I’m safe. I have a couple options here. I could lie and tell him my blog is someone else’s (in fact, maybe I should set up a decoy blog… just thought of that). I could tell him to find it on his own. Or I could tell him where it is.

“I write it on my own time, from home, and it’s on my own server elsewhere in the world. I try pretty hard to make sure it’s separate from work, even though I use stories and stuff from work and my consulting clients. I think others can learn from those stories, it’s therapeutic for me to write about them, and I’m still a little shy about it. Maybe you could look for it on your own; it shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“You write about me? That’s why you don’t want me to see it.”

“Actually, I don’t write about you. [until now - ha!] I just think that there is a difference between me advertising my blog and you finding it on your own. Subtle, yes, but important. It isn’t a secret — it’s like a hobby. You don’t bring your hobby to work, either.”

“Gotcha. Where should I look?”

“Geez, dude. Get in touch with your inner blogger and do a little research.”

“On what?”

“Maybe pretend you want to have a blog, too.”

“Oh, duh, got it. I’ll IM you tomorrow when I find it.”

…and the clock is ticking, like a time bomb. What is it with people absolutely needing to out anonymous bloggers?

When playing a strategy game like Civilization 4 you learn quite rapidly that when you attack but don’t succeed in killing your enemy, the enemy gains experience and is harder to kill in the future.

The same is true of bacteria. If you have an infection, you attack it with antibiotics. If you don’t kill all of the bacteria you end up with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which are quite troublesome.

It is no surprise that these lessons are lost on the MPAA. They attacked The Pirate Bay but didn’t kill it. Now, all manner of people who didn’t know about TPB beforehand know about it now. Not only are they not dead, they’re stronger. BitTorrent networks are better when they are bigger.

Which, if you ask me, is fine.

Update: I explain what I mean by my last sentence.

• Intel Activates Xeon Virtualization Tech
  Interesting quote in here about spending $40K per 100 servers for power and cooling
• ROFLCOPTER!!!1
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What is it when you listen to Jimmy Eat World’s “Kill” on repeat for two hours?

Well, you’re just across the street.
Looks a mile to my feet.
I want to go to you.
Funny how I’m nervous still
I’ve always been the easy kill.
I guess I always will.

I can’t help it baby, this is who I am.
Sorry, but I can’t just go turn off how I feel.
You kill me, you build me up, but just to watch me break.
I know what I should do, but I just can’t walk away.

I guess I just hope that, whatever it is, goes away soon.

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