This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
|
I just attended my first demo of an enterprise software product since I left my previous job where of course what we sold was an enterprise software product. And oh my did it bring back bad memories.
Now, OK, the product we were looking at is much more well known and undoubtedly of much much higher quality than anything my previous company put out. And it is a public company, so you can go to their website and get all kinds of real information about them and the company and all that. So not so much hocus pocus behind the curtain stuff.
However, it is still enterprise software, and so a lot of the same things apply. Can it do X? “Well, it could be configured to do X.” ARGGH! Probably true, but… Just the whole way that business works makes me uncomfortable. And although where I was last year and the year before seems to be much worse than most, a lot of the games that are played are common to that whole industry. And especially after now having been on both sides of that fence, just the whole being there and hearing the demo thing just… Well, I tried to concentrate on the pros and cons of the product itself, but my thoughts kept going back to just my whole negative impressions of the PROCESS.
And then there is the whole adoption thing. This seemed like a nice product. But it is one of those things that to be completely effective a culture has to develop around using it. A single person or two trying to use it makes no sense. It only starts to make sense when everybody uses it. So the obvious question is about adoption and how to bring it about. Of course, the management team on our side was clear. If the decision is made to do this, then it will be mandated from on high that everybody must use it, and that will be enforced.
Well, that is one way to solve that problem.
Anyway, we’ll probably end up using this thing. And really, I see no real problem with it, and probably some advantages. But I just naturally find myself suspicious now of just about anything labeled as an “enterprise solution”. And yes, I am jaded and disillusioned by my previous job. I fully admit it. :-)
Got back from a meeting and noticed that Cronus, my computer at home which is home to both my wiki and my webcam was not responding. Luckily, today I’d had both the usual external webcam and the internal one going. They were both frozen on the last image they captured. The last image on the internal webcam was the one above. Hmmm…
Of course, I had all the cameras set because I knew they were coming. Somebody from the apartment complex doing a “routine inspection”. Of course, the thing that pisses me off is that on that last frame you can see the guy’s hand going for that lightswitch… the lightswitch that happens to be connected to the plug where my cable modem and wireless router are plugged in (I know, bad place to plug those in). So as he left he flips the switch and boom… no more internet connection or camera pictures… or Wiki.
I’d set both cameras to take more frames in their time laspses than they usually though, but I think I messed up the way in which it was set, so it may not come out right. I didn’t realize until I was at work and it was too late to change. The switch only controls power to the internet connections, not to the computer, so hopefully I’ll have full timelapses when I get home… just messed up I think.
I am thinking I accidentally set it so there will be one timelapse with alternating frames from the two cameras rather than two seperate timelapses. Either that, or I’ll only have one timelapse from the external camera. Or, it could be screwed and I’ll have nothing at all. I guess I’ll find out when I get home.
After my last meeting today I may have to go work from home so that I can get that connection back on. Having it off is driving me nuts.
Over the weekend we dropped the asking price on the house in Florida about 10 grand. Ten grand and six dollars to be exact.
The price of the house now matches my customer ID at the place I work. Not my employee ID, my customer id. Which back in the day when I made my account in 1997 were given out sequentially. Little did I know before I came to work here that I was six people away from a very round number. If I had just hesitated one or two seconds before placing my very first order back in 1997, I would have had a customer ID with five zeros in it and that would have been very cool. As it is, I have four nines in a row, and that is kind of neat, but not quite as neat.
Anyway, since it turned out that the price we were going to drop it to anyway was right near there, I said why not, and set it to match exactly. It probably won’t, but if it actually sells at exactly that price it would be kinda nifty.
Anyway, as predicted a month ago when we finally got the place on the market things are pretty darn slow. We’re maybe getting one or two people a week looking at it. Our price per square foot was actually somewhat agressive (even before this drop) compared to other houses in the area that sold within the last six months and other houses currently on the market. It is just that very few people are in the market right now in our area. Our agent said things were averaging being on the market 90-120 days before they get an offer. He wasn’t kidding.
Hopefully this will get us some additional traffic, preferably even an offer. If not, we’ll reevaluate again after another month. We could have been even more agressive to try to prompt it to move faster, but while we want (need) the thing to sell, we’re not yet at the point where we’ll just drop it a crazy amount just to get it to sell “NOW”.
But the paying for a house plus an apartment thing really can’t go on forever. We start the monthly payments for Amy’s school on July 1st and things are already tight enough as they are.
Spilling coffee on your mouse on Friday afternoon and then leaving it to dry until Monday morning is NOT the best way to have an enjoyable mousing experience to start off the work week.
 Time for my mother’s father. Born in Arkansas, but spent most of his life in Ohio. I really don’t have a huge amount of biographical information on Ralph Brandon. Perhaps other members of the family will be able to fill some in or send me more as time goes on. He died while my Grandmother was still pregnant with my Mother, so my mom never knew him, although her older brothers did. I have vague memories of stories of how he died, but nothing solid enough to put down, and no sources to back it up. Something about a doctor’s office or a chiropractor or something. He died young. Just about a week short of his 36th birthday. Just about my age now. In any case, click the picture for more.
For those who have not been following:
31 May 2006:
Swedish Authorities Sink Pirate Bay (PDF)
Motion Picture Association of America Press Release
Swedish authorities announced today that they have shut down “The Pirate Bay†– one of the world’s largest and most well known facilitators of online piracy. With more than one million registered users, “The Pirate Bay†touts itself as the “World’s Largest BitTorrent Tracker†facilitating and enabling illegal swapping of millions of illegal copyrighted movies, music, software, and games. The operators of The Pirate Bay have publicly ridiculed copyright holders and taunted law enforcement for years claiming immunity to copyright laws. Since filing a criminal complaint in Sweden in November 2004, the film industry has worked vigorously with Swedish and U.S. government officials in Sweden to shut this illegal site down. Over fifty Swedish law enforcement officials executed search warrants and raids at ten different locations which resulted in three arrests and the preclusion of millions of users trading up to two million illegal files simultaneously.
The Pirate Bay boarded, may be sent to Davy Jone’s locker
(Eric Bangeman, ArsTechnica)
Through all the lawsuits, takedowns, and criminal charges, The Pirate Bay has continued to operate openly and with utter disregard for the MPAA, RIAA, and any other copyright holder. In fact, the site owners have maintained a “Legal” page where they post cease-and-desist letters along with mocking responses.
All along, The Pirate Bay has maintained that its operations are perfectly legal under Swedish law (an argument familiar to Allofmp3.com users). This insistence continued in the wake of a new law passed by the Swedish Parliament in July 2005 that strengthened the country’s copyright enforcement law. As The Pirate Bay only hosts trackers and not the copyrighted material itself, it claims that it has every right to operate in Sweden.
1 Jun 2006:
Aftermath of The Pirate Raids
(Thomas, Slyck)
During the raid, each and every server that was hosted by PRQ was seized, despite the proper labeling of each domain. Not only did the Swedish National Police succeed in removing ThePirateBay.org, but every other domain hosted by PRQ. The seizure of these domains, which total between 200 and 300, affected a wide range of websites. While some were smaller, personal websites, many were business oriented websites that depend on advertising for the owner’s personal livelihood. Either way, virtually all servers confiscated had absolutely nothing to do with piracy, ThePirateBay.org, or the online copyright wars.
“Corruption Goes All the Way to the Top”, Says Pirate Bay Chief
(Wiredfire)
It is now being reported that the Swedish Department of Justice received what amounts to orders from the U.S. Administration, who had in turn received “requests” from the MPAA, to shut down Pirate Bay. Orders went straight top to bottom, from the Swedish minister of Justice, this is even worse than I had possibly imagined. We have a situation where not foreign corporate interests, but foreign governments, pressured by their corporate interests, manage to get young people arrested for something that is not breaking Swedish law.
When asked for his reaction to these reports, Falkvinge said “this is even worse than I had possibly imagined. We have a situation where not foreign corporate interests, but foreign governments, pressured by their corporate interests, manage to get young people arrested for something that is not breaking Swedish lawâ€.
He went on to say “And being a nuisance to the media industry is not illegal. It was a scandal of the worst sort to have Swedish Police Force used for these purposes. It’s not what they should be doingâ€. We asked him to amplify, to which he responded “ X causing Y to lose money doesn’t automatically make X a criminal, in Sweden. You have to actually break a law. A few people arrested for file sharing is just some youngsters getting caught for a prank. The US Administration forcing the Swedish Police to raid somebody against the law, though, that gets people up in armsâ€.
2 Jun 2006:
YARR! Swedish police site broadsided after Pirate Bay raid
(Eric Bangeman, ArsTechnica)
It looks like the raid on The Pirate Bay and confiscation of its servers upset somebody. That’s one conclusion to be drawn from the sudden unavailability of the web site of Sweden’s national police. Beginning last night, the the site came under a widespread and intense denial of service attack, according to National Police Administration Director Lars Lindahl.
…
The Pirate Bay maintains that the raid was a violation of Swedish law and that the site will be back up “soon,” operating from another country this time. In the meantime, Piratpariet and the Pirate Bureau are organizing “Pirate Demonstration Saturday,” a protest in Stockholm beginning at 3pm local time.
Swedish crackdown on Net piracy sparks row
(Reuters on ZDNet)
Swedish public television said Thursday that an official in the Justice Ministry had put pressure on the police and prosecutor’s office to act against the Web site on a request from the U.S. government and the U.S. movie industry for action.
Justice Minister Thomas Bodstrom rejected the report.
“I have not had contact at all with the U.S. government as regards this question, and I have not had any meetings or discussed this matter,” he told Swedish radio.
He said he had never given instructions to the police or the state prosecutor in individual cases.
But two parliamentarians reported Bodstrom to a special house committee which probes government actions.
3 Jun 2006:
Movie piracy site reopens
(AFP on DNAIndia)
The Pirate Bay, one of the world’s most popular websites for the illegal downloading of movies through filesharing, reopened on Saturday, three days after Swedish authorities shut the site down.
“We just got the servers up and running. They’re not totally stable yet but we expect the site to be working as normal within an hour,” one of those behind the site, Fredrik Neij, told AFP.
…
Neij, who insisted Saturday that his actions were not illegal, said the reopened site was using servers in The Netherlands. The Pirate Bay provides instructions on how to share music and film files using links offered on the site, which attracts 1.5 million users throughout the world everyday, 29 percent of them in Sweden, Neij said.
The Scandinavian country last year passed a law banning the sharing of copyrighted material on the Internet without payment of royalties, in a bid to crack down on free downloading of music, films and computer games.
So… the site is back up again at the moment. With their logo changed so the Pirate Ship is opening fire on the Hollywood sign. And the browser title bar reading “The Police Bay”. It isn’t all that stable at the moment though and is up and down quite a bit. And not fully functional. And this may not last long anyway. It is important to point out that they have NOT been vindicated in Sweden or anything. They just set up shop elsewhere. And one of the reasons they were able to last so long in Sweden is because of the particular ways the laws were set up there. That most likely will not be the case elsewhere, although they may gain some time.
Of course, if they actually win in court in Sweden, it will be a whole different ball game.
We shall see.
And of course, whenever one goes down, more pop up. It isn’t like this kind of thing stops anyone.
A few final thoughts…
Where is the American version of Piratpartiet (The Pirate Party)??? A one issue party to be sure, but I happen to completely agree with them on that one issue. I’d most likely vote for them unless they turned out to have views on non-IP issues that I strongly disagreed with.
And finally, a nice quote from Thomas Jefferson:
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.
 I should have posted pictures with the last four genealogical posts, but I didn’t. You had to click through to the Wiki to see the pictures on those. Oh well. Cause after all, there are only so many of these that I WILL have pictures for. In any case, it is time for my father’s mother:
Mary Sue Wootton
She is currently doing well and emailing regularly on her WebTV from Tucson, Arizona. :-) I remember fondly many visits to her house as a child up through a few years ago. Almost always at Christmas. The last time I was there was a few years back when I had a business trip to Phoenix and decided to take a side trip one day and drove to Tucson in the rental car and made a surprise visit for lunch. I got pretty close to being able to find the house without directions even though I had never driven in Tucson before. I think I was within about a mile when I gave up and called for directions. :-)
Oh, and very important. She goes by “Sue”. Not “Mary” or “Mary Sue”. Of course, she is just “Grandmother Minter” to me.
Time for another ancestor. This time my father’s father… born 1912 in North Carolina, died in 1991 in Arizona. With quite a lot of interesting events in between.
David Ramseur Minter
On 27 Sep 1955 a “Mass Meeting” of the white elite of Holmes County, Mississippi met and accused Dr. Minter and his co-practicioner Dr. Gene Cox of “communist doings” at Providence due to the fact that they treated both blacks and whites at the same facility. They were told to get out of town. David and Sue stayed for about another year, but then the pressure on them and on Providence Farm became intolerable and the family moved to Tucson, Arizona to join son William (Bill).
On the wiki page I link to the three pages of a biographical article published in 1997. It is a fascinating history, especially the years in Mississippi. In fact, there is a whole book on the history of the “experiment” that my grandfather was a part of in the late 40’s and early 50’s. I’d definitely recommend the article (it is a very quick read) to everybody and the book for anybody that is interested in a bit deeper view.
This last evening I’ve had the opposite problem. I fell asleep at 3:30 UTC (early for me) but then work up at 8:30 UTC (middle of the night). Then I was up two hours. Then tried to get back to sleep another two hours. I only succeeded in lying in bed tossing and turning. Then just a few minutes ago I decided that even though I would really like a couple more hours of sleep and feel quite tired, that given my failure to fall back asleep and the fact the sun is now up, I should just go ahead and get up even though normally it would be another two (maybe three) hours until I would be stumbling out of bed. Ideally at this time of year given my work schedule, I’d sleep from about 6 UTC to 14 UTC each day. So I am getting up, although I resent it. Yawn!!!
But usually, I have the opposite problem. Hitting snooze for hours and not getting up when I should. People keep coming up with good ideas for alarm clocks to combat this sort of thing, but I haven’t seen any of them actually AVAILABLE TO BUY yet. And this one is no different. Just another design prototype. Come on, somebody please sell one of these?
Anyway, I love the idea.
Alarm clock that won’t give up
Stephen McGinty, Scotsman
The wall-mounted alarm clock can be switched off only when its user climbs out of bed, stands directly in front and repeats, by pressing coloured buttons, a sequence generated randomly each morning. If the user fails to repeat the sequence swiftly, the alarm will continue to blare until the task is completed correctly.
(via Digg)
|
|