Saucemaster

In a table of our database for the system we are currently producing, czp and I create a general settings table. In it, are some settings for the database itself, that the application can use.
For example, our table had a few keys like:

• version
• adminpassword

Runt Boy (the quintessential programmer fuck-tickle) was asked to complete a few RFC’s in which he could add some keys to the table. So what does he do? He follows the key naming standard to the book [sarcasm] and gives us:

• 0BODY
• 0FOOTER
• 0SUBJECT
• 1BODY
• 1FOOTER
• 1SUBJECT
• 2BODY
• 2FOOTER
• 2SUBJECT
• Default Operational Appetite
• Default Project Appetite
• version
• adminpassword

Now I would have thought having spaces in the key were strange enough, but
these keys that start with a number and are all in UPPERCASE, what the fuck do they mean? I have
no idea what the guy was trying to do. This is another example of a lazy
programmer with “UQ” syndrome… I will bring you more examples soon!

Every ninety days my work network password is set to expire. From about T minus 15 days a message box pops up after login or unlock my computer telling me about this imminent expiration event. I’m not going to bitch much about the password policy because I think it’s a good thing. People should change their password often. I also think password change algorithms should stop people incrementing their last password mypetsname1, mypetsname2, etc.

So I reached T minus 2 days and I changed my password (Friday). I know I could have changed it as soon as the warnings started but I wanted to get as close to the full 90 days worth out of my password as possible (waste not, want not). As with every password change event I am going to suffer long lasting repercussions because my brain is jelly.

Stage 1 – After the weekend.
Attempt to login to my computer using my old password, get error, assume that I have just typed incorrectly and try again, repeat. On the fifth attempt realise that I changed my password on Friday and type it in slowly with two fingers. (After five incorrect attempts my network account is locked and I have to suffer the embarrassment of calling helpdesk).

Stage 2 – Smeghead
Throughout the next two days spend at least 2 login attempts using your old password. Tell yourself ‘you have a new password now, enter it correctly next time first.’

Stage 3 – Walk towards the light
I like this part because I know I am close to the end. Start to type in your old password (maybe 3-5 characters) and remember you have a new password and backspace your way to the beginning and try again.

Stage 4 – Disco.
Enter your new password each time correctly for an entire day.

I think next time I’ll use a sticky note.

He sits behind me, I’ve placed my tower computer up on my desk, just so he can’t see what I’m doing. I’ve collapsed my LCD monitor as close to the desk as it can go, so I have some privacy at the cost of fucking up my own eyes. He’s a fuck-tickle contractor that nobody likes.

On Fridays, we all send emails to each other saying we are going to the pub or the German Club, and everyone is to disperse in a staggered formation and meet in the foyer of the building at a certain time. This is is all an elaborate way of not having to spend lunch with Runt Boy. That’s what we call him, the name suits him perfectly but it’s hard to put a finger on why exactly - it just seems to work. When we all reappear after playing pool and drinking pints of german wheat beer, Runt Boy appears to have a tear in his eye. Possibly the only emotion one can observe from Runt Boy. Does this suggest he wants to be included in the team? Does this suggest he would like to be our friends?

WHY THEN DOES HE ACT LIKE A COMPLETE CUNT?

Yesterday was D-day.
I hadn’t exchanged verbally with Runt Boy for over a month now, which is quite an achievement - considering I’m supposed to work with him.

Runt Boy is a graduate from UQ, supposedly he did Information Technology, though I’ve seen no evidence. He’s a toffee nosed arsehole that believes (and attempts to prove) he is much more intelligent than everyone else on the team. Often a conversation with Runt Boy is really a multifarious trap to make you look stupid. If he asks you a question, he already knows the answer, and as soon as you answer he can cut it down in a blaze of pretentious vile. He’s done this to everyone in the team, even over a crossword in the Woman’s Day…within three days of starting with this team he was already in contempt. Now it’s been 8 months and he now knows he’s at the bottom of the food chain, his attempts to climb the ladder are few now, but they don’t lack passion when they do happen.

Yesterday, I spent the day fixing up Runt Boy’s dog terd code. I never wanted him doing work on my application because everything he does is crap and never works. This reflects badly on me, not just him. So I usually just go and re-write everything he does before it goes to testing. Yesterday, he’d seen what I’d done.

The arsehole should have thanked me for fixing up his crap code.

Instead he launches into an attack on what I’ve done, questioning everything and trying to pick holes in my new code (that works). I had a thought of grabbing his neck and squeezing his adam’s apple until it crushed, and then I thought about stanley knifing his eye and slicing it down to his mouth so he has one big eye-mouth. I wanted to say that he should thank me for picking up his crap so he doesn’t look bad. Instead I said ‘whatever’ and left, I had already been packed to go.

This is just another example of this quintessential programmer fuck-tickle we have working for us, now that it’s Friday, he’ll probably have a tear in his eye when we come back from the pineapple publican. He’ll be asking himself

“Why don’t they love me?”

czp’s suggests, in his comment on my last post about Microsoft not supporting Blu-ray because it uses Java, that Blu-ray doesn’t actually use Java. Well it’s damn hard to find definitive information on these two competing formats, but from what I can tell from various sources on the net Blu-ray does use Java software (developed by HP) and will require a JVM on Blu-ray players (including Windows PC’s).

From Business Week:

HP’s détente with Microsoft regarding DVD technology is a surprise, given recent history. Soon after it joined the Blu-ray camp in early 2004, HP nearly convinced Microsoft to do the same. Microsoft’s only requirement, says an insider, was that the Blu-Ray Disc Assn. agree to adopt a Microsoft technology called iHD that had already been accepted by the HD DVD backers. The software would let studios add interactive features to Blu-Ray DVDs, such as the ability for users to buy tickets to new releases or download movie trailers. Trouble was, the Blu-ray camp had already adopted similar software devised primarily by HP, based on the Java standard developed by Sun Microsystems (SUNW).

The insider says the Blu-ray Disc Assn. did a three month side-by-side evaluation and concluded that iHD didn’t offer enough advantages to make a switch worthwhile. That was good news for HP, which stood to earn royalties on every Blu-ray DVD sold.

Microsoft was livid, says the source. For the software giant, it served as yet further evidence that the Blu-ray camp wasn’t embracing its view of how next-generation DVDs should work. Microsoft envisions a future in which DVDs will be just one element of a digital lifestyle, whereby content such as songs or movies can be easily moved among various devices, typically with the PC as the hub. Whether content is purchased in the form of a DVD or as a digital download from an online store, it could be transferred by a variety of means to a variety of devices — burned to a PC hard drive, streamed to the living room HDTV, or ripped onto a DVD to be played in the car.

Engadget has a mildly useful summary of the “facts”, and so does CNET.

From The Daily Princetonian:

Bill Gates: Well, the key issue here is that the protection scheme under Blu-ray is very anti-consumer and there’s not much visibility of that. The inconvenience is that the [movie] studios got too much protection at the expense consumers [sic] and it won’t work well on PCs. You won’t be able to play movies and do software in a flexible way.

It’s not the physical format that we have the issue with, it’s that the protection scheme on Blu is very anti-consumer. If [the Blu-ray group] would fix that one thing, you know, that’d be fine.

Really? So Bill are you sure you’re being completely honest here? Are you sure Microsoft’s support for HD-DVD has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Blu-ray uses Sun Microsystems’ Java for interactivity, a language and platform you have been trying to destroy for the past decade, and that HD-DVD uses something called iHD, which is based on Windows CE and developed by the company you founded?

There are some large companies that do ok by the status quo. Some maybe operate in more creative capitalist fashion; of course there are also the unscrupulous polluting, poisoning, cancer-giving, socially non-responsible ones. These bastards I can live with, they however pale into comparison to the biggest dim-witted, bottom feeding and narcissistic of them all… Yes, It’s A Sony.

I’m not going to elaborate on the latest root-kit installing, spyware-invading, trojan back-door opening exploits by our much loved and revered Sony as I’m sure you’ve all read enough. For me this latest incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

My hatred for this conglomerate started about 2 years ago when I realised that Sony stuff wasn’t compatible with anything else. You buy a Sony Camera you must buy Sony Memory stick. You buy a mini disk you must play it on a Sony player. ATRAC can go f-its-self. Blu-Ray can go f-its-self.

Why as a society of consumers do we put up with this?

Destroy yours and throw it into the streets. If you can’t live without it, scratch off the branding and tell people it’s Palsonic.

Just don’t buy it again.

What about J0hnnie H0ward’s IR R3forms?

A) Good - I like the idea of facism

B) Bad - I like the idea of anarchy

C) Makes no difference as I couldn’t give a fuck about anything like that anymore

I think the Saucemaster falls into the ‘C’ category. But I (the Saucemaster) was interested and ordered H0wards little colour booklet complete with smiling factory workers and kiddy fiddling brick labourers… After reading the happy workers booklet from cover to cover, I wondered to myself, “What the fuck was that about?“… In all honesty, I couldn’t understand what the content was trying to say and it skirted around all issues in a most pleasant easy manner. The language used could basically mean anything, in different contexts it could be used to argue almost anything. All it told me was that most of the laws already in existence will be “protected by law“. I like that a law can be protected by a law…which law is which though?

So I put it to you that H0w4rd has taken a page out of the programmer’s book and produced a law template or law abstract class. Now that his propaganda is out there, he can refine it later to do whatever he wants since it doesn’t mean anything anyway. Just like an abstract class - it can’t do anything in it’s own right but it provides a basis to build some crude on top of it.

In the same theme that Sausage has started, I thought it might be time to mention the OS-tans which I find both amusing and interesting.

The OS-tans are an Internet phenomenon on Futaba Channel; the OS-tan or simply OS Girls are the personification of several operating systems (OSes), most famously Windows, by various amateur Japanese artists. A pure fan creation, the appearance of each OS-tan is generally consistent across artists. OSes are almost always portrayed as women, the Windows girls usually as sisters, despite sometimes seeming the same age.

The concept is reported to have begun as a personification of the common perception of Windows Me as unstable and prone to frequent crashes. Discussions on Futaba Channel likened this to the stereotype of a fickle, troublesome girl. The personification became expanded, with the creation of Me-tan (dated to August 6, 2003) followed by the other characters.

Breast Size, Hunger, and Memory -
It has been suggested from time to time, that the breast sizes of the individual OS-tans represent their RAM size. Because Windows XP is considered a memory hog due to its increased resource consumption, XP-tan is incredibly well endowed (and she has no qualms for getting “upgraded” from time to time). 2K-tan normally rates as a close second, whereas the DOS pair are at the distant end of the spectrum.

Another theory states that the breast size of an OS-tan represents the overall “fanciness” of their graphical user interface. Since XP was designed with bells and whistles, she has the largest breasts, but DOS, being no more than a command prompt, is at the other extreme.

An alternate method of displaying memory or resource requirements in general is through the character’s appetite. XP is often seen eating ridiculous amounts of food (yet never gaining an inch except perhaps on her bust) because of her heftier demands on hardware.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS-tan

Since most of us must be using Windows XP, I’ve added a background for everyone of XP-tan.

If only XP looked this good!

Since I started using Mac OS X, I have been struck by how Apple make things simple to understand and use in comparison to other operating systems (especially Windows), but I was never able to really define why that is. The basic concepts are the same: graphical interface, windows, pull-down menus, mouse and keyboard. So how can two operating systems that are pretty much the same, Windows and Mac OS X, feel so different?

Out of interest, I started compiling a list of the names of comparable things in each operating system, see the table below. A couple of things are immediately apparent: (1) Microsoft is more verbose and (2) Microsoft is self-referential.

One might argue that verbosity is a good thing, and that it makes it easier to understand new concepts. I disagree: it shows a weakness of mind and a lack of clarity, and taxes the reader with a dizzying number of words, burdening the memory. It lacks Art.

Witness exhibit (A): “Windows Picture and Fax Viewer”. Firstly, it is self-referential but it could be worse and I am thankful that it is not called “Microsoft Windows Picture and Fax Viewer”. A full 27% of the characters in this string are dedicated to reminding us that we’re using Windows. Why bother? It’s not like they’ve developed a “Picture and Fax Viewer” for Linux and they have to differentiate them. It’s a horrible mix of cross-promotion and ra-ra marketing: Windows Windows Windows!!! It’s like I’m trying to hold a conversation with a twitchy insecure 14-year old nerd with bad acne who simply has to mention how great his best friend, Windows, is in every sentence: “Yeh, Windows is great. He can do everything and even view pictures and faxes at the same time!”

Secondly, why is this a picture and fax viewer? Consider that there is no way to run this program directly, instead you have to double-click or open an image (or fax?!?) to view it. Also consider that a fax is just another type of image anyway. So it’s not really a fax viewer per se, it’s an image viewer and because faxes are images it can also view faxes. By this logic it could be called the “Windows Porn and Fax Viewer”, if specificity is what they wanted. Why not keep it simple and call it “Viewer”?

Compare this with Apple’s “Preview”, which does pretty much the same thing for images and PDF’s. It isn’t self-referential, and it is succinct. In this example, Microsoft uses 3o characters for its name, and Apple uses 7.

This isn’t an isolated case either. Microsoft consistently expresses operating system concepts using verbose language littered with self-referential or redundant noise. On average Microsoft uses 15.23 characters per concept, whereas Apple uses 9.03 characters per concept. That makes Microsoft a whole lot (1.7 x) more verbose than Apple.

This is indicative of the difference in approaches between Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft’s mind is muddy, there is no clarity of thought or vision, marketing and cross-promotion are more important than usability, verbosity is mistaken for being easy to understand.

Everywhere you look in Windows XP, things are named as if they are the sons of rich pompous dukes, with three or more parts (”William Rupert Byron Winchester the 3rd” anyone?). On my Windows desktop sits a shortcut for Outlook, but in typical fashion the name of the shortcut reads “Microsoft Office Outlook 2003.” I’ve just renamed it to “Mail.”

Comparing how stuff is named in Microsoft Windows XP and Apple Mac OS X 10.4.

Microsoft	Apple
Windows Picture and Fax Viewer	Preview
Control Panel	System Preferences
Windows Explorer	Finder
Command Prompt	Terminal
Internet Explorer	Safari
Windows Media Player	iTunes
Outlook Express	Mail
WordPad	TextEdit
NotePad
Documents and Settings	Home
Program Files	Applications
Administrative Tools	Utilities
Application Data	Library
My Documents	Documents
My Music	Music
My Pictures	Pictures
Sound Recorder	GarageBand
Visual Studio	Xcode
Windows Movie Maker	iMovie
Task Manager	Activity Monitor
Accessibility Options	Universal Access
Sounds and Audio Devices	Sound
User Accounts	Accounts
Network Connections	Network
Taskbar and Start Menu	Dock
Speech	Speech
Security Center	Security
Regional and Language Options	International
Printers and Faxes	Print & Fax
Power Options	Energy Saver
Network Connections	Network
Phone and Modem Options
Keyboard	Keyboard & Mouse
Mouse
Date and Time	Date & Time
Fonts	Font Book
Display	Displays
Automatic Updates	Software Update
System Information	System Profiler

It’s a common question, especially for government employees. On average you go to the pub at least once a week, over lunch and a game of pool you drink as many drinks as you can fit into the time span and in the excitement of it all, you forget you have to drive home…

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Do you:

A) Drive home via back streets avoiding all major roads?

B) Drive home via major roads but keeping a vigilant eye out for checkered blue and white cars and be prepared to hand brake turn into a back street?

C) Drive home as normal, pretending to be the most sober person alive and possibly on your way to a Religious Friends Group meeting?

D) Get a Taxi…and risk being molestered by a scar-faced cab driver?

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The following site might help you decide which option to take:
http://www.intox.com/wheel/drinkwheel.asp