If you are a software developer you should make it easier to download the demo of your software than it is to pirate the whole thing. Seriously. I wanted to check out Sid Meier’s Railroads! but the demo is only available via FilePlanet. FilePlanet prioritizes paid members, so my wait to grab the demo was 45 minutes. Out of curiosity I checked the availability of said game from a well-known torrent site. Fifteen minutes and I could have had the whole thing. What’s wrong with this scenario? Oh, yeah, I know what’s wrong: it’s easier to do the wrong thing than the right thing. One of my coworkers prevented me from becoming a temporary software pirate by suggesting FileFront. It …

Read More

I am now officially sick of this whole Kenny Rogers thing. Dirt, pine tar, I don’t care. Why don’t I care? Because after he washed it off he continued smoking the Cardinals. They sucked last night, and that’s that. If they had paid more attention to what they were doing, rather than what Rogers might have been doing, maybe they would have hit a few more balls. La Russa can be magnanimous about the whole thing, but you don’t start a war with a guy who worked for you for six years and knows all your secrets. With all of the crap the St. Louis press and populace is now slinging at Rogers and Detroit I wouldn’t mind seeing the …

Read More

Bruce Schneier posted a piece yesterday about the death of ephemeral conversation. I think it meshes well with what I was saying a few days ago, albeit in reference to this blog and myself: With the Internet caching everything that becomes part of it, what if I write something that labels me? What if I say something that makes me unemployable, or causes mail bombs to be sent to my mother? The scope of a blunder is no longer local, it is global. The lifetime of a blunder is no longer measured in hours or days, but in lifetimes, as humanity records everything as a permanent record. People routinely judge others as they would never want to be judged. Corporations …

Read More

So I’m on vacation this week, up in Minnesota for my brother’s wedding this weekend. It’s nice to be on vacation, though I do feel out of touch with the office. For example, my boss resigned yesterday. That’ll be interesting when I get back next week. The notes so far from this trip: Mama’s Pizza in Saint Paul is my continuing benchmark for thin crust pizza. Damn, that’s tasty. If you go I recommend a large “Special Deluxe” pizza. The beer selection is not great so have a Coke then head over to the Muddy Pig in Saint Paul. Decent selection of microbrews, especially local stuff like Summit and Surly. Phil’s Tara Hideaway in Stillwater doesn’t look like much from …

Read More