tidying up old cruft

In the process of hosting the Oblique Strategies stuff, I found that the randomizer wasn’t very random. Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff you find on the Internet is out of date: this is an example. This code dates from 1996, an eternity ago.

From the srand page at www.perldoc.com:

Note that you need something much more random than the default seed for cryptographic purposes. Checksumming the compressed output of one or more rapidly changing operating system status programs is the usual method. For example:

srand (time ^ $$ ^ unpack “%L*”, `ps axww | gzip`);

Seems to work much better now.

Forbes.com: Will Apple Put Intel Inside?

Forbes.com: Will Apple Put Intel Inside?

And therein lies the biggest reason that Apple will stick with the PowerPC chip for the foreseeable future. It doesn’t want to go head-to-head with Microsoft.

“By saying its machines are a separate OS on a separate platform, Apple can say it doesn’t compete directly with Microsoft,” says Kevin Krewell, analyst with MicroDesign Resources. “Moving to an Intel or AMD platform would put them directly in Microsoft’s crosshairs, and that is something Apple should not want to do.”

Apple gives break to multi-Mac homes

Apple gives break to multi-Mac homes – Tech News – CNET.com

Under the plan, which will coincide with next week’s release of Mac OS X version 10.2 (also known as Jaguar), consumers can buy a $199 a copy of the operating system and install it on up to five Macs in a single household. [ . . . ] “This is a great way to allow honest people to remain honest,” Bereskin said.

Thanks to Wade for the tip.

keeping up to date with FreeBSD

FreeBSD Ports

Since I just rebuilt this laptop 2 days ago, I have been filling in the gaps of stuff I need to reinstall. I received this tip via email:


pkg_add -r ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/packages/All/cvsup-without-gui-16.1f.tgz
&& /usr/local/bin/cvsup -g -L 2 /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile -h
cvsup2.freebsd.org

This will install the CVSup package, then execute it against an installed config file and update my entire ports tree, all 7000+ of them. And will probably do it in seconds as well: cvsup is lightning fast.

I love things like this: Apple’s software update is similarly cool.

maybe they should give it away

HyperCard Forgotten, but Not Gone

IHug [Int’l HyperCard User Group] wants to see HyperCard ported to run on Mac OS X, and the incorporation of overdue features, like fully integrated color. HyperCard is still, at heart, black and white.

IHug campaigned vigorously for several years, with little luck. Their efforts culminated in a meeting with Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of worldwide marketing, who reportedly ended up asking them, “But how do we sell it?” Clearly, Schiller wasn’t convinced by iHug’s answers.

I loved HyperCard. It was easy, useful and in many cases all you needed. Even when it wasn’t it could get you a lot of the way there.

Perhaps IHug should turn Schiller’s question around, and ask why doesn’t Apple make HyperCard open source? They don’t care about it, and IHug does. If they’re willing to do it with Darwin et al, this should be an easy one.

Thanks to Frank for this one.

the other side of the coin

In depths of World War One, as the red-faced, potbellied generals dithered safely behind the lines and British losses mounted frighteningly , Churchill referred to the brave British Tommies embattled in the muddy trenches as ‘lions led by donkeys …’

lions led by donkeys

There’s another aspect of this discussion of the Seattle job market and how tough it is right now.

Even during the boom and now following it, the executive corps of many tech companies was filled with people who had very little or no experience as managers and had never experienced a down market. Couple that with business plans and internal goals that had nothing to do with the longterm survival of a business, and you have a real mess.

As a hiring manager, I had hiring goals or headcount requirements I was to meet, not that I couldn’t go over, as is usually the case. I was expected to hire people, and not doing so was not perceived as prudence but lack of effort or commitment. That, as they say, is no way to run a railroad.

The people now doing the hiring as the same as were there in the boom times: the best way to get rid of any “retaliation” would be to turn them out on the street and hire professionals.

The hiring process at many tech firms seems to be a simple keyword search, with no analysis of what the applicant’s actual strengths are. Inexperience then looks more like incompetence . . . . .

plus ca change

“Some employers seem to be retaliating in this buyer’s market for the perceived arrogance of job seekers during the boom years,” said Janet Scarborough, a Seattle-area career counselor who hears countless horror stories. “Now that the supply-and-demand situation has changed, some employers are acting in unnecessarily callous or punitive ways.”

Salon.com article

Paul Beard, 38, the former director of technical operations for Fizzylab, a now defunct Internet infrastructure company, says that he’s been looking for a job in I.T. since Jan. 19. “It’s pretty bad. There are so many layoffs, and so many people out at the same time, and nobody is doing much hiring. They’re taking a wait-and-see attitude. ‘We’re waiting until second quarter before we make any decisions.’ It’s a buyer’s market, and the buyers aren’t buying.”

if I was a warez d00d

I have a copy of Microsoft Office 2000 Small Business which I legally own but I lack a license key (note to self: write the key on the CD next time, in case the jewel case goes adrift).

When I rebuilt my laptop the other day, I reinstalled Win2K from the recovery disk and discovered I had the Office disk. But alas, it looks to be a coaster. An OS is only as good as the apps it runs: I guess I could try [open|star]office . . . . .