Softpanorama (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)

This site is best viewed with a bottle of Stoli

Experts arose from their own urgent need to exist. Murphy's laws  I am 7 years old. My friend told me that Linus Torvalds is a talking penguin. Papa don't know. Please tell me the truth.  from a Slashdot post

Hacker's Christmas

There are four major species of Unix sysadmins: ... The Administrative Fascist. Usually a retentive drone (or rarely, a harridan ex-secretary) who has been forced into system administration. ... The Idiot. Usually a cretin, morphodite, or old COBOL programmer selected to be the system administrator by a committee of cretins, morphodites, and old COBOL programmers Know your Unix System Administrator

Bulletin of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society
(Prev)  Vol. 18, 2006  (Next)

The mission of this site is to promote a "slightly skeptical" approach to the computer science and programming, as well as serve as a refuge to people who were hurt by absurdness of the current IT environment in general and software development (including its open source variety) in particular...

In order to do this we decided to organize a new society, called Softpanorama IT Slackers Society (SITSS). Like open source development this is a semi-religious movement (cult) and we strive to enroll into it as many University students as possible.

Enrolling is easy and unlike some other cults we do not charge members for reading our secret scriptures. Also unlike obscure cults like OOP, where even preachers often do not understand what they are talking about our cult is very simple and transparent.  There are actually just two of them:

• IT Slacker Manifest
• Ten Commandments of the IT Slacker Society"

Unlike most societies we do not even insist that you read and agree with them.

On a slightly more serious note the main goal of this page is to fight fundamentalist thinking and fashion in programming with humor. That's why it makes fun of open source fundamentalists and hypocritical /. (slashheads), often naive and clueless to the extent that they send their pro-Linux mails from Windows (it would be really funny if Slashdot revealed their browser statistics :-).

The most sarcastic pieces are devoted to recent Open Source/Free Software excesses when this software cult is driving many talented young people into slaving day and night for the benefits of large multinationals.  Open source is a very good thing but is should be simple (complex open source is actually asymptotically approach closed source as exemplified by Microsoft products). Also fixation on "us vs. Microsoft" is a very questionable approach: IMHO this should be a battle for better ideas and lean implementation,  not a death march for creating yet another software Christmas tree (is we use a New Year analogy) with multimillion line codebase supposedly maintained by volunteers although key decisions are made is nice corner offices.

Along with collecting IT and open source related humor I wrote dozen of things. Sorry only few of them are in English. You can check The Cuckoo's Egg Review ,  Hoax Quiz,  Ten Commandments of Software Slackerism,  IT Slacker Manifest (all of them, in best slacker tradition,  are actually my own reinterpretations by somebody else stories :-).

Archives of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society Bulletin are also available:

The general mood probably can be characterized by the following samples from my collection:

Quotes:

• The difference between BSD and GPL is similar to the difference between sex and rape. -- Usenet SIG
• "Sysadmins are the janitors of Information Technology, no matter how much the current crop of adolescents looks up to them like boys in the past admired riverboat pilots and railroad engineers."
• "A programmer is a device for turning coffee into the source code."
• "Oh My God! They Killed init! You Bastards!"    -- from a Slashdot post
• Richard Stallman's GPL is free like in Henry Ford's quote: "You can have any color as long as it's black."
• I always thought that extreme programming was like, jumping out of an airplane with a laptop.
• "There are two major products that come from Berkeley : LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence." -- Jeremy S. Anderson
• An "open sauce company" is news to me

• Don't let a few insignificant facts distract you from waging a holy war A Slashdot post

• It's spelled Linux, but it's pronounced "Not Windows" - Usenet sig

• It is time to unmask the programming community as a Secret Society for the Creation and Preservation of Artificial Complexity. Edsger W. Dijkstra: The next forty years (EWD 1051)

Stories:

bsd_logo_story (this is from Top 10 Classic Unix Humor Stories )

Last week I walked into a local "home style cookin' restaurant/watering hole" to pick up a take out order. I spoke briefly to the waitress behind the counter, who told me my order would be done in a few minutes.

So, while I was busy gazing at the farm implements hanging on the walls, I was approached by two, uh, um... well, let's call them "natives".

These guys might just be the original Texas rednecks -- complete with ten-gallon hats, snakeskin boots and the pervasive odor of cheap beer and whiskey.

"Pardon us, ma'am. Mind of we ask you a question?"

Well, people keep telling me that Texans are real friendly, so I nodded.

"Are you a Satanist?" ...

... ... ...

Todd's Humor Archive Computer Center Humor (reproduced with minor variations):

Computing Center [n], is an organization whose functions are

1. To impede wherever possible the development and usefulness of computing in the company or University.
2. To gain the lion's share of funding, spend it largely on obsolete, bloated and otherwise inappropriate IT Solutions, and convince the businesses/campuses wherever possible to spend funds on the same.
3. To oppose vigorously any new, useful and popular technology for three years or more until nearly everyone on the business/campuses and elsewhere in the world is using it, then to adopt that technology and immediately attempt to centralize and gain complete and sole control of it [for example, Web hosting, Webmail, ssh, etc].

'I Provide Open Source Office Solutions,' Says Pitiful Little Man -- a nice parody on doc-coms in general and open source doc-coms in particular

"VisTech is your one-stop source for Internet and Intranet open source development, as well as open source software support and collaborative development" said Smuda, adjusting the toupee he has worn since age 23. "We are an open source company that can evaluate and integrate multi-platform open source solutions, including Linux, Apache, MySql, Python and Zope"

"Remember, no job is too small for the professionals at VisTech, and high quality is guaranteed" added the spouseless, childless man, who is destined to die alone and unloved. "And no job is too big for us, either."

... ... ...

Other notable entries:

Enjoy the collection !

Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov

Free as in "There's No Profit" News :-)

The difference between BSD and GPL
is similar to the difference between sex and rape.
-- Usenet SIG

An average Slashdot reader loves Linux and runs Windows
- From a Slashdot post of a person who,
 probably, has access to the Slashdot webservers logs
 with their 90% of Windows hits and 40% IE hits
 

[Sep 17, 2008] Asset valuation programmer seeks job (Score:5, Funny)

Slashdot

by tjstork (137384) <`moc.erawythgim' `ta' `wordnabt'> on Wednesday September 17, @01:47PM (#25041957) Homepage Journal

Hi! I'm a programmer for Lehman brothers and I'm looking for work.

I was the designer of Assett Manager 1.0, a powerful tool that allowed our brokers to get values of our contracts....it's not a bad program, but it had a couple of bugs in it that I would like to have fixed.

IT Commandment Leave the ideology to someone else Rational rants ZDNet.com

About two o’clock in the morning, I heard Bukowski’s publisher talking about the New Formalists, a group of poets that wanted to take poetry back to the strict forms, such as sonnets and metered verse, alledgedly because they were offended by the likes of Bukowski’s rude honesty in free verse.

... ... ...

"As the spirit wanes, the form appears," Bukowski had written...

Our IT Commandments:

1. Thou shalt not outsource mission critical functions
2. Thou shalt not pretend
3. Thou shalt honor and empower thy (Unix) sysadmins
4. Thou shalt leave the ideology to someone else
5. Thou shalt not condemn departments doing their own IT
6. Thou shalt put thy users first, above all else
7. Thou shalt give something back to the community
8. Thou shalt not use nonsecure protocols on thy network
9. Thou shalt free thy content
10. Thou shalt not ignore security risks when choosing platforms
11. Thou shalt not fear change
12. Thou shalt document all thy works
13. Thou shalt loosely couple

[Mar 21, 2008] Penguin Suicide Bombers/The Terrorism of Open Source

Brilliant satire

March, 2008

The open source movement is widely recognized as “an important development” in the computer industry and has been both lauded and criticized by many pundits. However, despite exhaustive analysis and discussion, the phenomenon of open source has remained singularly vexing to classify. Variously, the open source movement has been classified as socialism, communism, a “gift economy”, charity, futilism and gullibilism. It has even caused distinguished Yale professors to wave the proverbial white flag and invent remarkably catchy new phrases such as “commons-based peer production”. Rolls right of the tongue.

Because it is widely understood that for anything to have any real meaning or be properly studied that it must first be stripped of its outward trappings and pigeon-holed as narrowly as possible, I, The Objective Observer, have risen to the challenge and will now properly classify the open source movement. In three scintillating acts I will first describe what open source is, dispel certain myths and pejorative characterizations of it (what open source isn’t) and finally analyze the open source movement’s goals and tactics to properly and succinctly explain its true nature.

The layman’s definition of open source software is software that is non-proprietary or “free” and can be modified by anyone with the requisite programming knowledge without the constraints of overly restrictive licensing. Now, there are certainly those that will decry this definition as incomplete since there are apparently entire organizations, such as the Open Source Initiative, whose seemingly sole reason for existence is to maintain the exact definition of the term “open source”. Thus, it is highly unlikely that a single sentence definition for so complex a term as to require its own dedicated organization to define it; no matter how expertly crafted, will universally satisfy everyone. However, the important thing to remember here is that open source software is different than commercial software because commercial software makers incur expenses from employing software developers, charge for their software, have restrictive licenses on its use and do not release their source code. Conversely, open source software is built by a process in which one or more individuals collaborate to create software and then release that software and its source code to the public domain. These individuals are not paid to create the software and they may never make a dime from it.

As altruistic and benevolent as this all sounds, open source is not without its detractors; who have variously categorized open source as “socialism” or even “communism”. Most notably, SAP; a large European software manufacturer has criticized open source as “intellectual property socialism” and Bill Gates has even hinted that the open source movement is communism. For some perspective, remember that Bill Gates has been feuding with the “free” software movement for over three decades. These characterizations are used pejoratively and are highly inaccurate, proving yet again the age old adage that technologists know much more about bits and bytes than they do about socio-economic systems.

Socialism and communism are both economic and political ideologies typically characterized by State control of property, distribution of wealth and/or means of production. Open source has no “State” or governing body and thus it is perhaps more correctly characterized as Anarchism or Fascist socialization, which is not really as bad as it sounds; look it up. However, the problem with all of these characterizations is the same; they make certain incorrect assumptions and thus fail to capture the core essence of the movement. All of these characterizations attempt to fit the open source movement into the presupposed category of a political ideology or socio-economic system. But this is most definitely NOT what the open source movement is all about because it completely and utterly misses the mark with respect to the origin of the open source movement, its goals and its tactics. Under this ridiculously broad characterization, two neighbors who borrow sugar from one another in order to make cookies for a volunteer church function could be categorized as socialists or communists.

Another myth that must be dispelled is the analogy of a charity or non-profit organization. While there is most definitely an element of volunteerism present within the open source movement, again, there is no clear organization that masterminds or directs giving. In addition, most true volunteer efforts offer direct assistance to specific groups of individuals. For example, after a flood, the Red Cross might show up on your doorstep and give you a bucket and mop or if you are house-bound “Meals on Wheels” might show up on your doorstep with some vittles. With open source, there is no central organization and there is no direct beneficiary to benefactor relationship. Open source projects are simply posted online and it is up to potential beneficiaries to find them. This is akin to the Red Cross keeping a warehouse of mops and buckets and expecting flood victims to come get them or “Meals on Wheels” cooking mass amounts of food and hoping people show up to eat it.

• This volunteer aspect of the open source movement is frequently reinforced by such things as the “Bee Keeper” model. In this model of open source development, alternatively known as the “Profiteering and Exploitation” model or “Rape and Pillage” model, open source development volunteers are the bees and a professional services organization, such as Red Hat, are the “bee keepers”. Thus the bees volunteer their time and the professional services organizations profit from their labors. While this seems to be an accurate analogy, businesses may wish to keep in mind the phenomenon of “colony collapse disorder” and the bees may wish to keep in mind that the worker bees literally work themselves to death for the sole glory of the “queen bee”. 

• This brings us to the second biggest issue with the characterization of open source as purely volunteerism which is that it completely misses the strong narcissistic drive present within the open source movement. Many open source or free software products are named after their lead developers or else the lead developer’s name is strongly associated with the product and used as a means to gain notoriety. Linus Torvolds and Linux is perhaps the best example of the former while examples of the latter are too numerous to mention, being characterized by individuals such as Bruce Perens who regularly brags about the notoriety he has gained from his work on open source projects. That, despite the fact you have almost certainly never heard of him and he will likely never sleep with a super-model.

The biggest issue with characterizing open source as purely volunteerism, however, is the same problem as classifying it as a socio-economic system or political ideology which is that such a classification focuses on only a single aspect of the open source movement. Any characterization which focuses on a single trait instead of all traits is undoubtedly flawed.

Having debunked the typical characterizations of the open source movement, the question remains as to exactly what IS the open source movement? To answer this, the only objective thing to do is to first make a list of the open source movement’s defining characteristics and then draw some sort of analogy or conclusion. Research shows that there are five primary characteristics or traits of the open source movement.

• First and foremost, the open source movement is to some degree a rejection and opposition to the direct capitalization of software but is perhaps more specifically and correctly defined as the rejection and opposition to what is perceived to be a “unipolar, capitalistic superpower”, in this case Microsoft. This appears to be a widely accepted attitude within the open source community as there are endless quotes spanning a large number of open source projects to the effect of “the enemy is Microsoft”.

• Second, the open source movement is organized as a loose confederation in which a relatively small percentage of highly skilled and charismatic leaders exert influence over legions of faceless, and often fanatical, volunteers. Individuals such as Linus Torvalds and Eric Raymond are the leaders who admittedly serve as “benevolent dictators” and nearly everyone else is, well, a faceless minion.

• Third, the open source movement by and large uses crude propaganda and hate-filled rhetoric to defame and demonize its opposition. For example, this third point can be easily demonstrated by the coarse language used by Linux proponents when debating or characterizing peers that utilize Windows-based technologies. More often than not, Linux proponents and other open source advocates go out of their way to characterize their opponents as “stupid”, “ignorant”, “retarded”, “evil” or much, much worse. If you don’t believe me, go browse any forum frequented by Linux or open source proponents. In addition to the name calling and hate speech there is even advocacy of sending Windows users to concentration camps or purposefully spamming their email with viruses.

• Fourth, a favorite tactic of the open source movement is the use of fear as a weapon. Again, this can most readily be seen by Linux, Apache and Firefox proponents that tout the perceived security of their systems while attempting to instill fear, uncertainty and doubt in those that use Microsoft technologies by claiming that Microsoft systems are inherently insecure or inferior in terms of security.

• Fifth, the open source movement often skirts the boundaries of the law with its open disregard and disdain for intellectual property rights (patents), association with criminal hacking elements (whose primary motivator is also often an attempt to damage or humiliate Microsoft), open advocacy of harm to Windows users (outright support or at least turning a blind eye towards Windows virus creators) and even outright theft, such as Bruce Peren’s self-admitted “stealing time from Pixar to work on Linux”. As a side note it might be interesting to conduct a study regarding the cost in unproductive time to corporations who employ developers that also work on open source projects.

Given these five characteristics, there is one and only one inescapable conclusion. The open source movement most closely resembles a terrorist organization. Now, I do not say this to be pejorative or otherwise mean-spirited to the open source movement but the similarities are rather striking. To point…

• The main motivation and rally cry for terrorists, especially Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, is the destruction of the United States, which, as the world’s sole super-power, is perceived to be the “Great Satan”. The parallels between this and the open source movement’s attitudes towards Microsoft are inescapable.

• The organizational structure of terrorists into cells and the open source movement into projects, the loose confederacy between these cells and projects and the tendency to form “splinter cells” or “forks” is also quite strong. In addition, within both groups, the followers tend to exhibit a particular penchant for fanaticism to the cause.

• Both terrorism and the open source movement use propaganda and defamatory rhetoric to demonize the opposition. The level to which this occurs within the open source community is simply unforgiveable.

• Perhaps the most telling characteristic is the use of fear as the primary weapon of choice. This fact is inescapable and irrefutable as the “security” argument is a mainstay in the propaganda of major open source projects such as Linux and Firefox. The main goal or aim of terrorists to defeat their adversaries is to cultivate fear within their enemies. Similarly, the use of the security argument is a weapon of fear and is apparently the primary method by which open source advocates hope to defeat Microsoft.

• The criminal, or at the very least questionable, tactics and guilt by association is yet another trait that the open source movement shares with terrorism. While terrorists’ criminal activities are obviously much more violent and physically destructive, the point remains that the activities and tactics of both groups tend to skirt, or at the very least, flaunt the law.

I am not aware of any other entity, group or idea that matches these five primary characteristics of the open source movement as exactly as terrorist organizations. Even more telling, one final similarity that deserves mentioning is the complete disregard both groups have for “non-combatants”. In the terrorist world, innocent bystanders and civilians are fair game and considered acceptable collateral damage. So too are non-technical folks in the open source realm of thinking. The open source movement seeks to destroy Microsoft even though open source technologies are not as easy to use or intuitive for non-technical users. If the open source movement was to succeed, those non-technical users would be brushed aside simply as collateral damage.

I want to stress here that I am not a Microsoft apologist and bear the open source community no ill will, but facts are facts. Besides, it has been stated that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter so I am not here to judge but rather to simply provide an objective analysis. My sole purpose is to point out for academics and scholars that attempting to study the open source movement by latching onto a single trait or characteristic is a flawed endeavor. No scientific knowledge can be gained from incorrectly classifying and studying the open source movement in terms of socio-economic theory or as a charity organization. True progress can only be made by instead recognizing the open source movement for what it truly is, a form of terrorism.

Ten things a Linux Fanboy will not tell you…

Yes, everyone has a friend who is a Linux Fanboy; he keep saying as a slogans dispenser:

“Linux is good, Linux is stable, Linux is cool”, but there is a dark side…

If you will install Linux:

07) You will stay 10 hours a day on the web writing phrases like: “Microsoft is the Devil”, “Linux is free as in beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer”

[...]

04) You will try 10^10 Linux distributions and in the meantime you will use Windows to have some work done

[...]

02) Your electricity bill will jump to new highs because you can’t be owned by that guy on irc on uptime!

01) After 5 years without a real-life you will understand that BSDs are better!

Just kidding… or not

[Jan 24, 2008] -dev-toe Satire engineering, sales, and open source

a group of open source zealots:

Hey, here's some free water to quench that thirst of yours. This water is really good, as good as that commercial spring water, maybe better. The nifty thing about this water is that no one can claim its theirs. You see we all contributed to the production of this water and any water that mixes with our water is required to be free just like the water that is there now. The Water License Agreement we've all implicitly signed by contributing to this source of water allows anyone to drink the water, to give the water away, or to do anything else you'd like with the water with a few minor exceptions. You can't charge for the water, remember its free and when you contribute to it or use it you're part of our Water License Agreement. You can charge for the water bottle, but you don't have too and we encourage you to just give that away too. You can charge for the cost of getting the bottle to its destination, but again that's up to you and we discourage such behavior. If you change the water, say by adding sugar and lemon juice, that's fine too. But remember that when you give someone that lemonade you're required to pipe up and say, "Well, I squeezed a single lemon and added two teaspoons of sugar into some free water I received as part of a free Water License Agreement I joined." That lemonaid will have to be free too because you've used the free water we gave you under the Water License Agreement. You're also required to make the lemonaid recipe available to anyone. Make sure not to infringe on any patents related to your new recipe or trademarks related to the name (you might have to call it Gemonade for instance rather than Lemonade), etc. If you had patented the concept of lemons and sugar in water to create Gemonade, then that patent would no longer be in effect (another side effect of the Water License Agreement), so don't bother with patents. In fact we frown on the whole patent system as a general rule. Here's something else nifty about this water. Lets say you give it to a Vodka company and they make a Lemonade/Vodka combination drink. Bingo, that Vodka drink, and its formulation are then governed by the same rules as the water and so the Vodka is free. Isn't that cool?

[Jan 24, 2008] Are you a Slasher, Basher, Butcher or Pusher

The Linux community and indeed the Open Source community in general is comprised of many different types of people. Their way of life, philosophy, age and location all vary widely with as many variations as the human face. However like the human face it can be categorized in a broad manner and stuffed into rather large boxes.

This is my attempt at categorizing the face of Linux into four general areas. The Slasher, Basher, Butcher and Pusher. These are by no means definitive and any one person can fit into multiple or even all of these arbitrary titles. So take a deep breath, a pinch of salt and delve into the twisted psych of Locutus's mind. Don't forget it is all a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, then it doesn't matter.

The Slasher.

These individuals love to live on the cutting edge of Linux. They must have the latest release of any program and will go to great lengths and spend a lot of time to make sure they get what they want. For some sad cases the program release is not enough and they have to go and pull the code out of the programmers repository as quick as it is posted. For these people there are various degrees of Slasherisim. There are those that are content with predigested packages that other more fanatical Slashers have prepared and if that is not enough they get down and dirty with the compiler and have been known to sit for hours watching incomprehensible lines scroll in front of their wildly staring and usually highly caffienated eyes. Of course as they live on the bleeding edge they are often cut and their systems are broken as much as they are fixed.

The Basher.

People like these have a real control issue. They like to, no must know, every nuance of their chosen operating system. They are in the command line more often than not and are affectionately known as command line warriors. In any of these system you will find multiple, sometimes quite elaborate, unique scripts that they have painstakingly and lovingly hand crafted so they can perform many magical tricks with their system that astound the un-initiated. If you ever want any question about any aspect of Linux answered in great detail then these people are the ones to ask. There is just one warning when dealing with these people. Make sure that any question you ask must be well informed and you have at least tried to solve your problem yourself. Otherwise be prepared for a flaming rebuttal that will burst your ego faster than a soap bubble in the dry desert heat.

The Butcher.

One thing that Basher's really dislike, and are most likely to shout RTFM!! with the utmost venom to, is the Butcher. These are the ones who think they know everything about anything and aspire to be either a Slasher or a Basher. Infact the Butcher does have elements of both, but neither the experience or patience to make the full grade. The best thing about these people is their unbridled curiosity but as the saying goes it is also what brings them down. They will throw just about anything on their system with no regard to distribution, package management or dependencies. They will go willy nilly into configuration files that they have only the vaguest notion about and blithely change many settings at once. Then when thing go horribly wrong as they are bound to, the Butchers are the most vocal about how this distribution or even Linux in general is an abomination to the world.

The Pusher.

No these people are not what you think. They neither push illicit substances, although they have been known to use them, nor are they the evangelistic preachers that spread the Good Word of Linux around to everyone who listens. The Pusher is perhaps the most common type of personality there is. They come in all age groups from the single digits to octogenarians. They are also in all walks of life from the lowest to the highest. They are perhaps the most important demographic you could possibly find, as a personality type, for the improvement of Linux. Their biggest virtue, although the developers would not think so, is complaining. This is because they have no real knowledge of computers in any way shape or form. All they can do, and at times just barely, is move the mouse around and hunt'n'peck at the keyboard in accordance to the instructions they are given, thus the category Pusher. If anything out of the ordinary happens they stop quicker than a trainwreck and make as much noise as one until their problem is fixed. They don't know what the problem is or what caused it but they want it fixed and fixed now. It is these people who are more responsible for the stability of Linux than anyone else for the developers know that these fickle people will leave something that breaks for something that "Just Works" quicker than you can say "It's Howdy Doody time!".

I am sure that there are many other categories and even sub categories that are out there but for now I have just painted broad brush strokes over the Linux fabric. So are you a Slasher, Basher, Butcher, Pusher or a combination of them all? Don't be afraid to tell, and remember, we need all of you in the Linux community.

[Jan 1, 2008] 2008 will be the year of Linux desktop.

FWIW, 2008 was the year when I first put Linux on my desktop. After a horrific experience with Vista, I installed Ubuntu and it's been smooth sailing so far. It did not last long and for unrelated reasons I reinstalled Windows XP but this is beyond the point.  Linux, especially Ubuntu, is definitely the way to go.

Everybody should install Linux in 2008. Linux is free and Vista is horrible, horrible, horrible. They are saying that they sold more copes of Vista during the first year then they sold the copies of Windows XP.  Whom they try to deceive, those Microsoft bastards ? Not me, as I know the truth. They do not counted people who dumped Vista and installed linux the first day they got a computer or a day before that like I did. Vista sucks. It blows.  It should not be your desktop. No wonder Bill Gates is retiring. He feels that Microsoft will go under and decided to jump the ship.

Linux rulez. Everybody should be on Linux now. Compare this horrible ugly Vista with the beauty of Linux and you will understand my point. Even colors on Linux are better. And you know, I am convinced that Open Office beats Microsoft Office. I did not try it as I am writing this from a Windows XP PC but I am pretty convinced it is a better software. And it is free.

My daughter, who is not a techie, prefers Linux over all OSes. She never saw Linux on the computer yet but she gave me a lecture about how Linux is "safer from viruses and DRM". I wonder who she's been talking to. My Grandparents also became Linux fans recently.  They do not have a computer yet but they appreciate the beauty of Linux. 

Linux time on desktop finally has come, no doubt about it. 
 

[Jan 1, 2008] A letter to a husband with a computer addiction

My Dear Husband,

I am sending you this letter via this blog thing, so that you will be sure to read it. Please forgive the deception, but I thought you should know what has been going on at home since your computer entered our lives TWO YEARS AGO. The children are doing well. Tommy is seven now and is a bright, handsome boy. He has developed quite an interest in the arts. He drew a family portrait for a school project, all the figures were good, and the back of your head is very realistic. You should be very proud of him.

Little Jennifer turned three in September. She looks a lot like you did at that age. She is an attractive child and quite smart. She still remembers that you spent the whole afternoon with us on her birthday. What a grand day for Jenny, despite the fact that it was stormy and the electricity was out.

I am doing well. I went blonde about a year ago, and discovered that it really is more fun! George, I mean, Mr. Wilson, the department head, has taken an interest in my career and has become a good friend to us all.

I discovered that the household chores are much easier since I realized that you didn't mind being vacuumed but that feather dusting made you sneeze. The house is in good shape. I had the living room painted last spring; I'm sure you noticed it. I made sure that the painters cut holes in the drop sheet so you wouldn't be disturbed.

Well, my dear, I must be going. Uncle George--err--Mr. Wilson, I mean, is taking us all on a ski trip and there is packing to do. I have hired a housekeeper to take care of things while we are away, she'll keep things in order, fill your coffee cup and bring your meals to your desk, just the way you like it.

I hope you and the computer will have a lovely time while we are gone. Tommy, Jenny and I will think of you often. Try to remember us while your disks are booting.

Love,
Your Wife

[Jan 1, 2008] If Dr. Seuss was a technical writer

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort, And the buffer overflow makes the driver to abort, then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!

Unix History

UN*X History By Alan Filipski

The UN*X brand operating system was the creation of two computer science researchers in a closet in the attic of a famous research laboratory (The Labs) in the late 1960s. The authors had complete freedom to design an operating system according to their own wishes without management constraints. This was because everyone at The Labs, including the management, thought they were janitors who spent their time in the closet wringing out mops or something.

The first version of the UN*X brand operating system was a game that simulated the gravitational motion of all known planets and satellites of our solar system. Soon such things as a file system and user procedures were grafted onto it. It ran on a PDP-7 computer that someone had stored in the closet and forgotten about.

Later the authors made the mistake of drawing attention to themselves by asking the management for a larger computer. At this, the management took the operating system and, deciding it to be something of use only to hippies (or closet hippies), sent it University of California at Berkeley.

It may be coincidental, but at the about the same time cases of a peculiar compulsive mental disorder known as Unirexia Nervosa were first noted in San Francisco, Calif. area. The symptoms of this disorder are the interjection of nonsense words such as grep, awk, runrun, and nohup by the victim into his or her speech; the misuse of ordinary words such as cat and lint; and the avoidance of the use of uppercase letters.

Advanced cases of Unirexia Nervosa have been found at many major universities throughout the U.S., where youths with pasty complexions and sunken eyes can be found late at night subsisting on diet pop, glaring fanatically at CRT's, and mumbling about "one more bugs". Since for the most part this malady has been confined to university students, it has not cause great public alarm. But recently there have been reports of regular people contracting the disease, even some who hold otherwise respectable positions in industry. The mode of transmission of Unirexia Nervosa is not known, but it is thought to have something to do with beards.

Members of the UN*X community have developed a novel and effective means of communication with each other. Suppose a user named Athol at Epizootic Systems in Cupertino, Calif., wishes to send an electronic mail message to his friend Elba at Perjorative Systems Inc. in Palo Alto, Calif. Although their computers do not communicate directly, they message may be passed via intermediate links. Athol would merely type:

mail ihnp4!allegra!ucbvax!seismo!decvax!cbosgd!ucbvax!pejor!elba

and then enter the text of his message. This electronic mail would appear at Elba's terminal either within two days of the time it takes to propagate a telephone signal 73 times between the East and West Coasts of the U.S., whichever is greater.

Although many people think the word "UN*X" is an acronym (or even a homonym), the word actually originated in the following manner. When management in The Labs noticed the strange machine running in the closet, they stopped the first technical-looking type they saw in the hall and asked him what it was. As fate would have it, it was not a technical type at all but a member of a lost Australian aboriginal tribe who had been wandering the halls of The Lab for years without drawing attention. The fellow did not understand English and believed they were asking him to haul the computer away. He replied, "UN*X(tm)," which is aboriginal for "Not my job, man." The rest is history.

The different versions of the UN*X brand operating system are numbered in a logical sequence: 5, 6, 7, 2, 2.9, 3, 4.0, III, 4.1, V, 4.2, V.2, and 4.3.

The C programming language is descended from the languages B and BCPL (short for Bucephalus, Alexander the Great's horse). It is a highly structured language. The following structured program, for example, is well-known to all C language programmers, and prints a well-known message at the terminal (try it!):

 

#define TWENTYNINE 29
int ll, L1, l0, h_1,q,h1,h;
main(){
	for(putchar(putchar((h=7)*10+2)+TWENTYNINE);
		l0?putchar(l0):!h_1;
		putchar (ll),L1==2?ll=' ':0){
	L1++==0?(ll=l0=54<<1):
		ll=='l'&&L1<3?(ll+=1L|
		1L<<1L,l0=0)
	:L1==sizeof L1&&ll==' '
		?(ll=19+h1):(q-=h1);
		L1==5?ll-=8:q&& &
	h_1;L1==sizeof ll+2?
		(ll+=3):1L;ll==(h<<4)+2
		&&L1!=6?(ll=ll-
	6):(h1=100L);L1!=1L<<3?q--
		:(h_1=ll=h1);
	}
printf("%s\n",0);
}

Note the absence of goto statements in the program. Also note how the portability of the program is enhanced by judicious use of the C preprocessor and the sizeof operator. The dereferenced null pointer at the end is used to make sure the output is properly terminated.

The most commonly used UN*X interactive command language is known as the Bourne shell. (This shell was recently completely rewritten and is now available as the Bourne-again shell.) The shell provides a uniform syntax by which the user can interact with the operating system kernel and utility programs. The utility programs in turn accept a uniform syntax of command line arguments and options. Typical examples of utilities are the ar utility, which requires single-letter options that are lumped together in a specified order with an introductory minus sign, before the other arguments; and the find utility, which has multiletter options that cannot be lumped together, each of which must be preceded by a minus sign and which follow any other arguments.

Besides being used interactively, the shell itself may be used as a programming language. Although programs written in shell are slower than equivalent programs written in C, they are shorter and easier to read and debug. For example, to add 1 to a variable a in C one would have to write:

a = a + 1;

or:

a += 1;

or even:

a++;

In shell, one need only write:

a = `expr $a + 1`

where it is essential to have spaces around the + sign to use the $ sign only before the righthand occurrence of the variable a, and to use the backward quote character instead of the common single quote. When UN*X brand operating system programmers want to develop an application quickly, they often use the shell because of this convenient syntax.

Security is a very important issue in the UN*X brand operating system world. The typical UN*X brand operating system source licensee is living in a fool's paradise, little realizing that on the streets of every major city wander broken hackers who would kill for access to kernel source code. These people may be down on their luck, but they are not stupid. As you read these words, there are people who but for lack of a quarter would be whistling uucp protocols at 1200 baud to your modem from a downtown pay phone.

Therefore, the prudent administrator should be aware of common techniques used to breach UN*X brand operating system security. The most widely known and practiced attack on the security of the UN*X brand operating system is elegant in its simplicity. The perpetrator simply hangs around the system console until the operator leaves to get a drink or go to the bathroom. The intruder lunges for the console and types rm -rf / before anyone can pry his or her hands of the keyboard. Amateur efforts are characterized by typing in such things as ls or pwd. A skilled UN*X brand operating system security expert would laugh at such attempts.

The Trojan horse strategy is used in many attempts to defeat the security of a UN*X brand operating system installation. The following scenario is typical: The UN*X brand operating administrator arrives at work one afternoon and finds a new terminal outside the system security area. Since it is better than the current system console, he brings it in to the computer. After a few minutes of use, hordes of cockroaches come pouring out of the back of the terminal, driven out by the heat. The operator jumps up to stamp them out and the intruder has his will with the system.

How can this sort of damage be prevented? The greatest weakness of the UN*X brand operating system is the fact that the superuser root is so powerful. Therefore, an important principle is simple to minimize the use of root. An ingenious way of doing this is to first, without looking, set the root password of the system to some randomly generated string of character. Do not memorize or even look at this string. Now set up the /etc/inittab file with the run level 2 flag that will cause it to demand this unknown password whenever the system is booted. The system is now secure. Log off.

What can a system administrator do if he suspects that some has broken root? Simple. First, at the slightest suspicion that someone has unauthorized access to the superuser capability, immediately seal off the computer room, sound the fire alarm, release inert halon gas into the atmosphere, and activate the automatic sprinkler system. Type "shutdown 0" and cut all circuit breakers to the computer. Physically destroy all magnetic media that have ever been mounted on or associated with the insecure system in any way. Order a new distribution and reboot.

An administrator who is aware of these methods can maintain a sufficient degree of paranoia for most applications.

It has often been said that if God had a beard, he would be a UN*X programmer. While this may be an exaggeration, it is true that UN*X brand operating system is well on its way to replacing the outmoded 10- and 15-year-old operating systems in common use today.

[Dec 2, 2007] Eleanor Rigby - Hacker Style

Slightly modified.

Eleanor Rigby

Sits at the keyboard

And waits for a loading screen

Lives in a dream

Waits for a Web page

Finding some info

That will help the machine to do more.

What is it for?

All the waiting users, where do they all come from?
All the waiting users, why does it take so long?

Ah, look at all the waiting users...
Ah, look at all the waiting users...

Our sysadmins

tear out their hair

and they swear that they really care

but cannot help us

look at us waiting

starring at the screen 

'til our eyes start to go

what does it show?

All the waiting users, where do they all come from?
All the waiting users, why does it take so long?

[Nov 2, 2007]  Performance tuning for Linux servers.

(Score:3, Funny)

by grub (11606) <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday August 09, @04:29PM (#13281624)
(http://www.grub.net/blog/index.html | Last Journal: Monday February 26, @11:37PM)

a) Install FreeBSD.
b) Reboot.

[Nov 2, 2007] We don't need no stinking disaster recovery plan

The network is totally unusable. System administrators are frantically running back and forth from the server room, in a total panic.

The web site is down, as well as corporate email, due to a power outage at the office server room where they are hosted. The IT director walks out into the area where the network and system administrators work and announces that it is time for plan B. Everyone stops running back and forth, stops yelling into phones and at each other, and looks at the director.

"Plan B?", the network manager asks. "We have no plan B, you laid off the person in charge of disaster and contingency planning six months ago!"

The director pauses for a moment, brow furrowed, before replying, "Well he seems to have a replacement that replied when I sent email to the old guy's email address. The new guy was very responsive the first time I sent email, but after that he just seemed to ignore me."

The network manager asked the name of the replacement.

"Vacation something," replied the director, "Oh, yes I have it - Vacation Program."

[Oct 11, 2007] Apparently the "Many Eyes" Need Glasses

A nice Microsoft manager Pat Edmonds joke about 'Many Eyes Makes Bugs Shallow' mantra of open source development. While the context was slightly misplaced as Microsoft really "owns" virus problem, one "open source guy" was so insulted that wrote a blog entry  defending this illusion :-). In reality Microsoft's assumption is quite flattering as the hypothesis that many eyes are looking at the code is a stretch ;-). You need to pay well those eyes, otherwise there are too many more interesting objects that tend to distract them.
 

IBM Seeking Patent for Outsourcing

They should really be congratulated ;-)
 

You cannot make this stuff up....From the US Patent and Trademark Office:
 

Outsourcing of services

Abstract

A method for identifying human-resource work content to outsource offshore of an organization. The method is provided on a computer readable medium and includes the steps of identifying at least one task being performed by an organization; associating each identified task with a functional group within a plurality of functional groups related to the organization; determining information about individual human resources spent on each task; determining task information about human resources spent on the plurality of tasks, the task information based on the determined information about individual human resources spent on each task; using the determined task information to determine a value of each task; and outsourcing tasks having a value lower than a predefined limit to at least one of offshore and to a low cost supplier....

Assignee Name and Address: International Business Machines, Armonk, NY.

Urban Dictionary noob

Noobism might be a new mass epidemics hitting IT managers ;-)

A noob or n00b is someone that lacks intelligence or common sense. ...derived from online video games.
often confused with the term newb or newbie, but instead of meaning new to the game as the latter does, noob refers to people who have played the game for a while but still suck balls and are ignorant, selfish, and lack the most important skill of all, teamwork.

Avoid a CLM - MSN Encarta

Whether you're working in a giant global corporation, a local mom-and-pop, or you're toiling away toward your M.B.A., you'll be more effective--or at least pretend to be--if you can talk the office talk. And more often than not, that talk is full of acronyms. You know--those abbreviations that workers may disguise as timesavers, but that mostly seem designed to impress their audience with their business fluency. So, if you're NVQ (not very qualified) in business lingo, this list may help you decipher those memos from the boss, woo a new client, or ace your next midterm exam.

1. A2O (Apples to Oranges): A comparison of dissimilar things; an inappropriate comparison. "I think we should ignore Smith's suggestion; the analysis is totally A2O."
2. BHNC (Big Hat, No Cattle): Adapted from cowboy parlance. Used to describe someone who is all talk and no action, full of self-importance, and/or a poser. "She brags about her 'fabulous' job all the time, but she's BHNC."
3. CLM (Career-Limiting Move): A move that blocks your career path, or gets you fired, as in: "Wow, he made a real CLM when he showed up an hour late for the big pitch meeting."
4. CTD (Circling the Drain): Something that is on its last breath and about to die. Possibly related to disposing of a dead pet goldfish or a similar flushing-something-down-the-toilet scenario. "We all know the project is CTD, so most of us have started looking for new jobs."
5. FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt): A marketing tactic used by companies (often computer-related), FUD is used to scare consumers into staying with their product instead of trying the competitor's new product. "You could go with Company B, but their servers might crash on you."
6. PEBCAK (Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard): Tech-speak used when the "problem" is within hearing range. "I took a look at her machine and it's clearly a PEBCAK situation," said one technician to the other.
7. PURE (Previously Undiscovered Recruiting Error): A new employee who isn't working out as well as expected; an employee who looked good on paper but isn't cutting it on the job. "The new assistant buyer is definitely a PURE. Her qualifications are stellar, but she's so rude!"
8. WIIFM (What's In It for Me?): A key question in communication. People aren't going to be interested in hearing your pitch if they can't see what's in it for them. "Jones completely failed to sell the new PR campaign. The client just didn't see the WIIFM factor in his pitch."
9. We hope these acronyms help your résumé, sales pitch, or term paper avoid the TNT (Thanks, but No Thanks) "reject" pile

[Jun 25, 2007] The Office Lexicon

Selected items, slightly revised

• 404 Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found", meaning that the requested document could not be located.
• acluistic (prononced 'a-cluistic') Clueless and extraordinarily clue-resistant
• Adminisphere The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.
• Assmosis The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss.
• Beating Interchangable with 'meeting' in many circumstances.
• Blamestorming Meeting of a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed.
• BOHICA Bend Over, Here It Comes Again. Same as "Dilbertized." (see below)
• Career Canary A person where you work who is slightly less competent than you are. When this person gets rifted, it's time to leave. (From the canaries kept in coal mines to detect gas--when the canary dies, it's time to go.)
• Career-Limiting Move (CLM) Used among microserfs to describe ill-advised activity. Trashing your boss while s/he is within earshot is a typical CLM.
• Carter's Trap If you display an ability to work well with difficult co-workers, you will continually be assigned to work with difficult co-workers. Corrolary: If you execute an unpleasant or distasteful assignment well, you will be given more unpleasant or distasteful assignments.
• Chainsaw An newly hired boss brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the brass with clean hands.
• CUW (Cleans Up Well) A technical employee (usually a software developer) who can be brought to a product demonstration or customer meeting without embarrassing the company.
• Code Rot Operating system or software that suddenly crash.
• Crowd Gravity  The principle that a group gathered in a hallway or outside a cubicle grows in size by sucking in people who pass by. Also called 'flypaper meeting.'
• Cube Farm  An office area filled with cubicles.
• Cube farmer Inhabitants of a cube-farm
• DASH-D  Die A Screaming Horrible Death.
• Decision Mendoza Line  The level in the hierarchy above which
  • You get credit for good decisions made by anyone below you,
  • You avoid blame for bad decisions you make, shunting it to people below you.

  Corrolary: if you're below the line, credit for all your good decisions goes to your boss, while blame for bad decisions made by everyone above you goes to you.
   

• Deja Moo The feeling that you've heard this bull before.
• Dilbertized To get screwed over by your boss. "I've been dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week."
• Ego Surfing Scanning the Net, databases, print media, and so on, looking for references to one's own name.
• Face Time Any significant social contact with a superior.
• Fauxne Pas (pronounced "fone pa") Speaking freely because you think the speakerphone is muted... but it isn't.
• Generica Those features of the American landscape (strip malls, motel/restaurant chains, prefab housing) that are exactly the same no matter what part of the country you're in.
• Goat jump When someone terribly incompetent gets promoted
• Group Hug Any meeting convened by management designed to improve morale
• Grandboss Your boss's boss.
• Human Compiler A peer reviewer who only checks only syntax, grammar, spelling, and punctuation
• 'I Love Me' Wall A cube wall with the occupant's diploma(e), awards, certifications, etc., prominently displayed.
• Interrupt-Driven A boss who hands out assignments and never follows up on them.
• Key Macarena Sequentially patting all your pockets in search of your keys or important thing.
• Kobiashi An impossible assignment that will guarantee your being blamed when you fail (from Star Trek's 'Kobiashi Maru,' an unwinnable training scenario).
• Kobaiashi chicken A cube-farm dweller with a Kobiashi assignment.
• Matador Someone highly skilled at dodging A) assignments in general, or B) blame for failed ones. Ole!
• Microserf Engineer, programmer or system administrator at the age of outsourcing
• Midnight Requisition Stealing good furniture and office supplies from someone's office after s/he leaves the company.
• Ohnosecond That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a big mistake.
• 401K slave When you want to quit but can't because of 401K.
• Peacock Anyone for whom the Peacock Principle applies.
• Peacock Principle Your value to the company is inversely proportional to the number of awards you display in your office
• Prairie Dogging When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm and everyone's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.
• Rifted To be laid off. From RIF, 'Reduction In Force'.
• Salmon day The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.
• Schedule Chicken Betting that some other person or group will admit they can't make schedule so you can get the extra time you need without catching any flak for it.
• Seagull Manager A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, poops over everything and then leaves.
• Selective Obedience Interpreting contradictory or ambiguous orders of a bad boss to your maximum advantage (or minimum work).
• SITCOMs Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.
• Slacker Window The gray area between screwing up an unpleasant assignment badly enough that you won't be given similar ones in the future and screwing it up badly enough that you get fired.
• Startup marriage A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property, and no regrets.
• Stealth bug When someone else's code is broken so badly that it obscures the fact that yours is broken as well.
• Stress puppy Someone who job is connected with a lot of everyday workplace stress.
• USBA Ultra Slick Bullsh*t Artist.
• Vacationers People who take frequent business trips just to get a vacation from their jobs.
• WAG Wild-*ssed Guess

http://www.baetzler.de/humor/unix_tech_support.html

Author unknown

A Customer calls the Support Tech with a question.

Customer:

What is the command that will tell me the revision code of a program?

Tech:

Yes, that's correct.

Customer:

No, what is it?

Tech:

Yes.

Customer:

Yes?

Tech:

No, yes is not. 'what' is.

Customer:

So, which is the one?

Tech:

No, 'which' is used to find the program.

Customer:

Stop this. Who are you?

Tech:

Use 'who am i', not 'who are you'.

Customer:

All I want to know is what finds the revision code?

Tech:

Yes. What.

Customer:

That's what i am trying to find out! Isn't that true?

Tech:

No, 'true' gives you zero.

Customer:

Which one?

Tech:

'which programname'.

Customer:

Argh. Let's get back to my problem. What program? How do I find it?

Tech:

Type 'find / -name it -print' to find 'it'. Type 'what program' to get the revision code.

Customer:

I want to find the revision code.

Tech:

You can't 'find revisioncode', you must use 'what program'.

Customer:

Which command will do what I need?

Tech:

No. 'which command' will find 'command'.

Customer:

I think I understand. Let me write that.

Tech:

You can 'write that' only if 'that' is a user on your system.

Customer:

Write what?

Tech:

No. 'write that'. 'what program'.

Customer:

Cut that out!

Tech:

Yes. Those are valid files for 'cut'. Don't forget the options.

Customer:

Do you always do this ?

Tech:

'du' will give you disk usage.

Customer:

HELP!

Tech:

'help' is illegal. Use 'man'.

Customer:

Which man?

Tech:

No, 'man what'.

Customer:

What?

Tech:

Yes.

Customer:

You make me angry.

Tech:

No, I don't 'make me' angry, but I did 'make program' when I was upset once.

Customer:

I don't want to make trouble, so no more.

Tech:

No 'more'? 'which' will help you find 'more'. Every system has 'more'.

Customer:

More of what?

Tech:

More or less.

Customer:

Nice help! I'm confused more now.

Tech:

Understand that since 'help' is such a small program, it is better not to 'nice help'. And 'more now' is not allowed but 'at now' is.

Customer:

This is almost as confusing as my PC.

Tech:

I didn't know you needed help with 'pc'. Let me transfer you to the Pascal compiler team.

Slashdot Software Architecture

... ... ..

"Are you familiar with the CORAN 2 process?"

"Oh yeah...we use that a lot."

"Really? I use it in concert with UMX and ICBM VSLAM for maximum effect. We use Agile Extremities processes with core-duplex programming methodologies"

"Ooooh...sounds awesome!"

"Yeah, it's good stuff. You really need quad-programming to and read once write never methodologies to have quality code. As long as you use over the shoulder management with sycophant posterior gestulations it all turns out good."

Working Hard, Hardly Working kuro5hin.org

Three years ago, I was working at a small company as the unofficial IT director / all-purpose computer bitch. I was laid off in early 2003, but to this day, the job presents me with difficulties; namely, that of telling prospective employers what I did, and for that matter, what the company itself did. I have virtually no idea what this company's function was, despite working there for over a year and a half, although I did learn how to spew an amazing amount of marketing jargon without thinking. As for my role there, it was essentially vast tracts of doing absolutely nothing, punctuated erratically by moments of panicking and crisis-defusion, usually involving something truly earth-shattering like the CEO not being able to print her email. When asked by interviewers "What did your company do?" I am forced to mumble vaguaries about consulting and hope they leave the issue alone.

[Dec 22, 2006] fullduplex.org » How to Do Nothing at Work, and Get Away With It

If you’re like me (God help you if you are), you’re lazy. Here’s a few tips I’ve learned in my short time on this earth that have kept me from getting too much accomplished.

Update: As a little update, I’ve done another article of Even More Ways to do Less at work and still get away with it. Check it out!

1. Look Busy: Having papers spead all over your desk helps, as do pencils which are whittled down to the eraser. If you have to walk somewhere, keep your head down, and walk quickly (this also works if you’re trying to avoid being called over to do work. NEVER MAKE EYE CONTACT!). Carrying clipboard with you while moving around also helps.
2. Look Stressed: If you look completely stressed out, co-workers and your boss will be more likely to leave you alone, since you must have other pressing matters on your mind. To look stressed leave your eyes unfocused, move from place to place quickly while quietly talking to yourself, and if someone asks you a question, stare off into the distance for a moment, give a big sigh, and answer them with an irritated tone.
3. Speak Quickly: If they can’t figure out what you said, they’ll assume you don’t have the time to explain it.
4. Hide: Find a good hiding place. A couple good examples are under a desk, in the air vents, or a janitor’s closet.
5. Break a Limb: Obviously this method only works when you work at a job that requires physical labour or typing. How you break the limb is up to you, though I recommend something spectacular (ie. snowboarding on the Alps).
6. Make Excuses: There’s nothing like having a good list of excuses on hand (Memorized, that is. A list on paper is suspicious). Ones like “I would stay late, but I have to babysit my mother’s aunt’s friend’s sister’s goldfish,” may work. Of course, ymmv.
7. Never Leave Your Office/Room: If you don’t leave your office, you are less likely to be bothered. Remember: out of sight, out of mind. Of course, you will need to ensure that you have an ample supply of rations so that you can survive until it’s time to head home. Bathroom breaks, I’m still working on.
8. What they can’t see… Rearrange your office so that your computer monitor faces away from any windows or doors that your boss may be able to see through. This will ensure that you have ample time to hit the “Boss Key” in any game you’re playing, or open a Word document to hide the porn you’re surfing, should your boss happen to wander into your dungeon..er..office.
9. Fool their eyes: If you can’t rearrange your office, perhaps employ a service like WorkFRIENDLY which acts as a proxy to mask any website that you visit. You can mask the sites to look like a Word Document and at a quick glance, they look like any other document. If the boss gets too close, click the “Boss Key” and WordFriendly will hide the website with pseudo-word document.
10. Choose a profession people don’t understand: I’m a web developer. Most people don’t REALLY understand what you need to do to be a web developer, so I might be doing a blog post, but they’re thinking I’m working. Golden!

[Aug 2, 2006] MC MCSE Corporate Speak Dictionary for programmers. Even if you are in a technical position, you may still find yourself dealing with sales people and other corporate types. You may also discover that they speak a different language and use an arsenal of corny phrases that might just give you the hives. This article is a glossary of our 35 favorite terms and phrases.
 

• Acquisition
  Demonstration of the corporate food chain, whereby larger eats smaller and then excretes all non-essential nutrients.
  
  Action Item
  Something which needs to be either done or at least placed in a list of things in need of doing. This is probably the most annoying corporate term that there is.
  
  Challenge
  A big problem that nobody in the company knows how to fix. A challenge may very well lead to the demise of said company. If your company spends more time talking about challenges than home runs, it may be time to look for a new job.
  
  Corporate
  The group of people in a company that make the important decisions and all of the money. You are most likely not a member of this group.
  
  Corporate Vision
  The list of things that a company would like to provide and accomplish. Most are more like hallucinations than visions.
  
  Deliverables
  Features of a product that should have been included in the original release, however, due to market pressure the product had to be released without these features. These may be sent to customers if/when they are available.
  
  Disconnect
  This is a misunderstanding. For example, your sales staff is probably selling a product that was discontinued in the '70s. This would be a disconnect between sales and marketing.
  
  Diversity awareness/training
  The classes that are taken when a racial discrimination or sexual harassment complaint has been filed against a company in order to limit legal liability.
  
  Download
  If you request information from me, I will give you the download. This term is usually used by sales staff in hi-tech companies that want to seem cool in front of the computer geeks.
  
  Fast Track
  Usually referring to a person that has moved up the corporate ladder faster than they could prove their worth or be held accountable for the mess they made.
  
  Growth industry
  A bandwagon. All aboard?
  
  Hit a Home Run
  This can either mean that things went according to planned for once or that the sales team has actually been coming into work and selling stuff.
  
  Incent
  This means to motivate someone to do something by promising something (usually a company mug or pen) if they do. They become a perfectly predictable robot, subject to the whims and offerings of the clever, incentive-offering manager.
  
  Integrated solution
  A utopian term meaning that all of the different parts of a solution (product or series of products) work together. While the term is used frequently, there is no such thing in the real world.
  
  Key Enabler
  The person that will get all of the credit on a project.
  
  Leverage
  A fancy version of the word "use." For example, instead of saying "We could use your product knowledge to help us make a sale", the corporate type would say, "We could leverage your product knowledge to help us make a sale". The use of this word is one of many examples of people trying to sound important in the office.
  
  Major Account
  As a technical type, these are the accounts that you will drop everything for and brown-nose at the request of sales and management.
  
  Metric
  A measurement of success or value. These measurable parameters are used by companies to make important decisions regardless as to whether or not they are measuring what they should be or their collection model is sound.
  
  Next steps
  Next steps are where you go from here and can refer to a project or a process. It is difficult to ever complete these steps due to the number of meetings scheduled to determine what the next steps are.
  
  Objections
  The reasons why a customer does not want to buy from your sales people. The most common objection is the overuse of the terms on this page which tends to confuse the customer. The antidote is plain English.
  
  Off-line
  This means to discuss something in a place or at a time other than the one you currently find yourself in. This may be used by managers to convey that they do not wish to talk about the subject, they do not find it important or you are wasting everyone else's time in a meeting.
  
  Out of the Loop
  This phrase means that one has not been informed about a subject. It is used to deny responsibility or to complain about not having been consulted.
  
  Outside the Box
  Creativity. Those that do think outside the box are generally considered rabble-rousers and trouble-makers. While verbally encouraged, your reward for thinking outside the box may be a pink slip party.
  
  Outsourcing
  The process of laying off internal employees in favor of a staff of high-school drop-outs run by another company for half the price.
  
  Overhead
  The cost of keeping the lights on and the doors open.
  
  Own
  To take responsibility for something. Someone who "owns" something can never claim that they are "out of the loop."
  
  Pre-Meeting
  A meeting before another meeting in which the company slackers will get together and figure out what to say or present at the next meeting so that they do not make fools of themselves.
  
  Resource
  An employee. Resources are managed by a group which calls itself "Human Resources." Like hardware, resources have fixed lifespans, can become obsolete and can even malfunction.
  
  Restructuring
  Poor choices have been made and the company needs to start from scratch. Will include massive layoffs and double the workload for those that remain. Upper management will all receive raises.
  
  Talk Track
  A sales pitch committed to memory by sales staff. Designed to prevent foot-in-mouth syndrome and to discourage creativity.
  
  Team
  This term refers to a group of people that work together. The team is strongest when composed of "Yes" men and women.
  
  Up-Selling
  The process of convincing a customer to purchase products and services that they do not want or need.
  
  Value-added
  Tacking on extra features (for free) to an existing product so that customers have difficulty comparing prices with competitors.
  
  War Story
  A story told by a salesperson that describes a difficult sale that they made. It usually starts off something like, "So I was in the Bahamas..."
  
  win/win
  A fascinating business concept that somehow eliminates the "loser" in any deal or project. A win/win situation is when a customer pays their bills on time and doesn't ever complain.

APL, COBOL, & Dijkstra Paul Murphy ZDNet.com "APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums. ". See also PAPPL (People Against the Proliferation of Programming Languages) comment:

The Top 10 senior management IT mistakes Paul Murphy ZDNet.com from feedback: "At many times working in corporations I have had the uncomfortable feeling that one day the shareholders were going to find out just how much money was being squandered in IT, and break into the building and run amok."

[May 18, 2006] When a consultant isn't A rogue's gallery Jon Espenschied

The Eurostar is the real deal in modern rail travel – purposeful and efficient service, delivered with considerate attention to the client – adjusting language, frequency of contact and minor deliverables during a trip that’s dead-on schedule.  Sure, unexpected events and distractions happen – I’d just spilled a good bit of the cappuccino carefully carried from Gare du Nord in my lap, and the woman next to me seemed quite intent on stealing the glassware – but overall the experience seemed oddly synchronous with a chat I’d had with some British security consultants a few days prior.

We’d been commiserating about clean-up jobs, specifically those done after some other security consultant had left a client stranded, frightened, overwhelmed, underinformed, half-done, or some combination of all of these.  Not too long ago, I encountered one of these characters while speaking to professional students in a graduate health program in Alaska.  The topic was compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act security rule, and the earlier speakers – purportedly genuine greybeard suspender-wearing security consultants – spent the better part of an hour filling the air with geek war stories.

They bragged to a wide-eyed room about how they could hack into any network, silently defeat any defense, expose any data, and humiliate any IT staffer who posed an obstacle.  In hushed voices they warned that all the scary bad guys out there could do the same things, packed up their PowerPoints , and walked out the door.  The implication, of course, is that clients ought to pay to have vulnerabilities found before the true black hats pull into the station.

I tried to put myself in the shoes of these midcareer medical managers. Would I hire these soldier-of-fortune wannabes?  I spent the following hour leading another session, listening to the same audience describe their various situations and concerns.  Then we talked about how to apply metrics to their subjective concerns and organize their security response more objectively and purposefully.  No fewer than half the attendees sent me thank-you letters, saying it’d been the first time a security consultant didn’t frighten them and run.  That’s a sad state of affairs.

It’s unfortunately true that the IT world is full of junior consultants who learn basic technical skills on a client’s dime when they ought to have arrived with appropriate knowledge, or at least to have shadowed prior assignments.  But anyone represented as a technical specialist, be their focus networks, storage, applications or security, should have a firm grasp of the material.  Consultants are supposed to be an even better package: Beyond technical competence, add the ability to listen, adjust language to the client, maintain good contact, deliver useful knowledge and make the overall experience approachable.

A good consultant actually consults – connects with the problem she is presented with, and has the ability to recognize that the best solution for a particular client and situation might not be the most technically elegant, expedient or appealing one.  Did the train attendant insist on delivering juice when I was mopping coffee off my lap?  No, that person's routine took a back seat to my admittedly awkward situation, but it didn’t get completely derailed either.  After an indelicate mopping with a wet towel, daubing with a dry one and a brisk walk, routine service resumed.

Security consulting, however, deals with topics that cause fear and anxiety, not just bewilderment.  Routine service in this line of work means enumerating things that can go mildly or terribly wrong, what one stands to lose, and the likelihood that it’ll actually happen.  A junior, untrained or just plain bad security consultant doesn’t just baffle with technical BS, he inevitably resorts to serving up broad fear, parrying clients’ queries with their own self-doubt, and (often) leaving a trail of something approaching despair.

Frightened clients are worse off than the merely confused, because the latter may try to gather more information and sensibly reassess their situation.  The frightened are far more likely to make panicked decisions about security controls.  Show me a public health system or credit union that can afford to ma