Anthropomorphized Chronologism

Posted: 16th January 2012 by charper13126 in Anthropomorphized Chronologism, Nonsense, Petulent Cry for Help
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Dear Monday,
Dude, what the hell? I thought we were cool? U mad bro?

You know that I get that you’re not exactly the pride and joy. I see every day how people squat bare bottomed over your name and give you their taco dinners and then sing the praises to Friday, that sanctimonious prick of a brother of yours. I see your drunken and overly promiscuous sister Saturday having all the fun and getting her tattoos of names of sailors she’ll never see again but I don’t comment. I let your family slide even though your mom, Wednesday is nicknamed “Hump.”  And I thought we were past that thing with your wife, Tuesday?  Listen, you guys were on a break and you told me to go for it, so you can’t hold that against me.

At first I thought maybe you were stuck listening to that holy-roller asshole Sunday again when I couldn’t get the thermostat working.  I was a little curious why you sent me to WalMart at 3am when all I needed was to change the batteries and double check the wiring, but I didn’t want to judge.  You and I never had beef, so why would this be different?

You turned off my alarm and made me late, but that wasn’t it.  You had to remind me I’d wired the thermostat backward by turning off the boiler.  Real classy.

The last straw had to be when you gave me that piece of shit “Patriot” with which to commute to Philadelphia.  Thanks for getting the snow out of the rotors, by the way… oh wait, I had to drive 3 hours in the midst of a mopar epileptic seizure to get to that point.  And your 3 horsepower proved more than enough to overtake the Amish buggy on the Northeast extension.  Too bad the same can’t be said for the ’93 Buick LeSabre or any other mode of conveyance on 476 today.

So listen, we go back a long way, you and I.  I’m going to let this one slide this time.  See you in a week and I hope maybe we can let bygones be bygones.

With love,

Charps

 

The Business of Software, or You Get What You Pay For, or Do You, or Marshmallows Don’t Have Bones

Posted: 4th November 2010 by charper13126 in Pet Peeves, Public Service
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Mike Taber of the Single Founder ( www.singlefounder.com ) really hit a home run with his post regarding what you’re actually buying when you pay for software (or not, as it were) ( http://bit.ly/cvHpWW ).

As his blog is read by many talented developers, I thought I’d weigh in from a customer’s perspective.

Having worked in IT for about 10 years now, I can tell you nothing frustrates me more than licensing. You make a great point that we’re not buying code, but, as one fairly large ERP vendor recently put it, we are buying “the right to use the software.” On top of that, that same software vendor charges an 18% maintenance fee per year for patches and support. If you go off maintenance, and seek to get back on? Forget it. They rake you over the coals to pay for support you didn’t use during the time you were off maintenance, then want an exhorbitant reconnect fee, then want you to commit to a three year agreement. Geez, if you don’t want me to use your software, you could just say so. Incidentally, during my tenure on maintenance, I paid them nearly $300,000 and logged 10 total tickets and didn’t upgrade once. $30,000 per call? That’s good work if you can get it. We also explained to them how Microsoft had nerfed DCOM and security was handled different in 2003 than in 2000. You’re welcome.

I don’t think SaaS is the answer either. At least not from a medium to large enterprise standpoint. SaaS works extremely well in smaller installations but scales up very poorly. The real demon on this decision is who owns the architecture (not so much the software). Companies, especially in the build-to-flip equity capital world, are trying to get out of the game of data centers and depreciating a huge asset base. This makes on-demand solutions like managed hosting or SaaS so appealing. Trouble is, a lot of decision makers are getting caught in the buzzword trap as SaaS vendors are throwing around sexy words like “cloud computing.” Most SaaS setups are as much “cloud computing” as they are a meatball sub (pardon the food analogy, its nearly lunch time).

Case in point. I can implement a mature ERP system at a company of 500 users and own the hardware and licensing in the traditional model for under $750,000. Let’s ignore the requisite consulting fees for now, because they’re the same for both scenarios. That exact same system in a SaaS environment will cost me $26,000+ per month after you factor in added bandwith, machine upgrades, etc. That means in 29 months I have broken even in both scenarios. Even in a double declining depreciation model, it’s clear the winner is to buy the equipment and the licenses. Bean counters will reach into their dusty GAAP tomes and feed you all kinds of lines about how renting is better than buying, but I’m still not convinced.

So where does this leave us? Some software companies are making due with a FOSS strategy, but the open source community seems to be too arrogant to get out of their own way. I wish they would get some traction because then we could truly stop viewing software as a “thing” and more as a service, just as transient and soulless as I am.

Disposable Flatware and Code That Goes to Nowhere

Posted: 27th October 2010 by charper13126 in Nonsense, Public Service
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A good friend  and former colleague asked me to try and extract the files of a web site from a host.  Trouble is, the “site” was actually a flash site built from a website builder.  I thought I’d be sneaky and go in through the back door.  Speaking of back door, the puncture wound in my colon may never heal.  I digress.

Here’s my last email on the topic.  Some random meta tags have been redacted to protect the innocent (a.k.a. me)

“Even the HTML is nonsense.  I don’t even know where to begin with this (I indented to show some of the idiocy – like the table that defines a div that has a level 2 header WITH NO FUCKING TEXT????? HAHAHAHAHAH – Or how about how the BODY is within the HEAD – But then, the HEAD tag never closes… I’m surprised any browser even rendered this garbage)

The only way I can get through all of this is with a bottle of scotch and a plastic fork suck in my butthole. (but then, that’s my solution for everything…)”

 The HTML in question follows:

<html>

     <HEAD>

           <title></title>

           <body bgcolor=’#000000′ TOPMARGIN=’0′ LEFTMARGIN=’0′ MARGINWIDTH=’0′ MARGINHEIGHT=’0′>

                <div align=’center’>

                     <table width=’100%’ cellspacing=’2′ cellpadding=’0′>

                           <tr>

                                <td height=’4′><img src=’spacer.gif’ width=’1′ height=’1′></td>

                           </tr>

                     </table>

                     <script src=’domain.js’></script>

                     <script src=’site.js’></script>

                </div>

                <br>

                <div align=’center’>

                     <table width=84% align=center cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0>

                           <tr>

                                <td>

                                     <div align=center>

                                           <h2 style=’color:#cccccc; font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:12px; font-weight:100;’></h2>

                                     </div>

                                </td>

                           </tr>

                     </table>

                     <table width=’98%’ height=’25′ align=’center’ valign=’middle’ cellpadding=’0′ cellspacing=’0′>

                           <tr>

                           </tr>

                     </table>

                </div>

           </body>

</html>

Six Feet Under TV series – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted: 20th October 2010 by charper13126 in Uncategorized
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Six Feet Under TV series – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Rediscovered this when I was watching another wonderful, yet polar opposite, Alan Ball joint.  If You’ve never seen it, watch all 5 seasons back to back and tell me you don’t ball your eyes out at the finale.

Lates

Blech

Posted: 13th October 2010 by charper13126 in Nonsense
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I’m not getting the obsession with pomegranate. They look like rotten tomatoes to me.

Posted from wherever the hell i am with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Oooh, Dr Livinsgston

Posted: 3rd October 2010 by charper13126 in Uncategorized
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“In 1872 the Arabs invented the condom, using a goat’s lower intestine .
In 1873 the British somewhat refined the idea by taking the intestine out of the goat first.”

In a bit of completely unrelated nonsensery, I’m thinking about having another crack at NaNoWriMo this year. More to come.

You stay classy, Oswego.

Posted: 28th September 2010 by charper13126 in Nonsense
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Did I pull the hair? A gentleman never tells and neither do I.

Posted from wherever the hell i am with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Narcissus and the Vapid Blog Post of Destiny

Posted: 9th September 2010 by charper13126 in Petulent Cry for Help
3

Alright, here’s the game.  I’ve always thought of myself as someone who can intelligently discuss anything.  Here’s your chance to prove me wrong!  Comment on this post with a topic about which I should write, and I’ll write it!

Sky’s the limit here, folks.

That Ruddy Irish Complexion

Posted: 2nd August 2010 by charper13126 in Nonsense
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Actually, I’m mostly Scots and Welsh, but anyway.

So it seems I can add razors to my list of items in the category of “you get what you pay for.”  Decided I wasn’t going to be a slave to the man and pay $15 for a 4 pack of refills for my $5 razor.   Big mistake.

This morning it took all I could muster to not end up looking like Ray Liotta on a meth bender.

(Just kidding, Ray Ray.  You know I love ya brother.  Heartbreakers was off the chain!).

Move Over Mayans, Mr Zuckerberg has a New Prediction

Posted: 2nd August 2010 by charper13126 in Nonsense
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So I got a text earlier in the week.

Fife: “Not gonna be around all weekend.”

Me: “What are you doing?”

Fife: “Grandma’s 80th birthday and family’s in town”

Me: “Gotcha.”

Fife: “Let’s plan our 80th birthdays.”

Me: “Yes!!!”

And so it went that we decided to plan our 80th birthday parties, him on April 6, 2059 and me on July 13th, 2058.  Immediately, my mind went to a Facebook event.  It would be glorious.  I would set up the date, invite my entire friends list, and it would be a hoot.

“Hey ladies, Look Who’s 80!” was all set to be scheduled for its appropriate date in the not-so-distant future.  Clicking Create Event yielded quite the surprise.  “The end date can not be in the past” was the message, and the dates had mysteriously shifted to.. 1971?

Forlorn, I briefly gave up my quest for guffaws.

Then it occurred to me as I commiserated to a colleague of mine about the inadequacies of Facebook’s datetime data type selection to try 70.

“Word that Rhymes with Seventy, Look who’s Seventy!” July 13, 2048.  No dice.

“Call Bill Bixby cause Somebody’s Sixty!” July 13, 2038.  Try again.

“Ain’t that nifty, Look who’s Fifty!” July 13, 2028.  Score!  It ain’t 80, but it took.

Then it occurred to me.  At some point between July 13, 2028 and the same day a mere decade later, the Facebook calendar runs out of time.  Could this mean the end of existence as we know it?  A morbid feeling washed over me as I thought, “How have we not seen this before?  Mark Zuckerberg has determined when and probably how the world will end and built Facebook as a tool for telling the word about it!”

Then I remembered all the failed Ajax calls, the sketchy privacy practices, the poorly written PHP website that is Facebook and determined that no, it’s not a harbinger of doom.  It’s just shitty code.

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