General Rambling

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 …

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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 …

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“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 …

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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 …

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Solid “get things done” advice. Thanks 37signals!

Today’s nugget of machine-trashing goodness is brought to you by malloc(). #include <unistd.h> int main() { while (1) { malloc(2000); } return 1; } I originally wanted it to stop when it ran out of RAM but you know, it just wasn’t worth the time to fix it. Yes, I’m testing per-user limits on machines. No, I didn’t get them right the first time. Yes, that’s why I love VMware. 🙂

I’m gonna get me one of these here shotguns ter kill the runnin’ deer gone past me. Now if I can just get the deer to line up in groups of 12… Yup, I’m definitely part redneck. Hell yeah. Pass me another Old Milwaukee. Update: My friend Rich points out that this is why the U.S. of A will never get invaded. Heh. Update 2: Some RSS readers apparently don’t parse object tags, so I’ll remember to link to the video next time.

It’s amazing that a good ol’ fork bomb can still provide hours of fun: #include <unistd.h> int main() { while (fork()) { fork(); } return 1; } Add a sleep() in there somewhere for additional enjoyment/bewilderment, depending on who you are and who runs the machines you’re on.