Random Thoughts

From Nick Jenkins
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I've come to a conclusion about buying stuff on the web - that although you CAN buy stuff from everywhere, it's usually most sensible to ACTUALLY buy it as locally as possible ... basically the price and time taken for shipping, plus the amount of hassle involved if there are problems, and compatibility issues like different TV-standards or power plugs, all combine to make it a bad idea to buy most types of products from overseas, especially electronics.


I've never been sold on PayPal. When I started their account application and they wanted to be able to take money OUT of my account, I said "hang on - I only want to be able to RECEIVE money, at least at first until I trust them!". That put me right off, and then the stories of problems with them started (freezing funds and pulling money out of bank accounts), plus their refusing to register as a bank (which would help force them to put a stop to dodgy behaviour), plus the apparent difficulty of talking to an actual human in event of problems - so at this point I have never had an account with PayPal, and I don't want one :) Update: As of at least 2005, PayPal have now fixed their terms and conditions so that this is no longer required.


A comment I saw and agreed with:

I still hate RealPlayer. Any sort of file format that requires me to install the company's software to use I will eternally hate, regardless of who it is. I hate Real, and I hate QuickTime. I'd ask that they both die a slow miserable death, but I honestly want them both out of the way so that more open standards will take their place faster.


Saw this and it made me laugh:

Are you Lonely ? Don't like working on your own ? Hate Making Decisions ?

Then Call a Meeting !!!!

YOU CAN...

  • SEE people
  • DRAW Flowcharts
  • FEEL Important
  • IMPRESS your collegues
  • All on Company Time

MEETINGS - The pratical alternative to work.


Some particularly bad Microsoft computing ideas:

  • Encouraging HTML email messages.
  • Allowing email to contain scripts (such as JavaScript).
  • Allowing an email to contain an executable program that runs by clicking on it.
  • Leaving many ports open, and enabling lots of services by default.

Two areas that are likely to significantly worsened under the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) - Pharmaceuticals and Software:

"One controversial aspect of the FTA that the US side was pushing for was the dismantling of the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. The PBS is a list of specific medicinal drugs subsidized by the Government. I think it involves limiting of prices on the part of the manufacturer as well. Only certain medicines get on the PBS, but it means that the cost of treating a lot of medical conditions is lower as the pharmaceutical company's take is less. The giant US pharmaceutical manufacturers wanted to scrap this scheme and charge whatever they decided the market rate is. The conservative government in Australia knew that if it caved on the PBS, it would be electoral suicide (prices would jump 10 fold for most people using these drugs)."

"The text of the US-Australian Preferential Trade Agreement has been released. It has significant implications for Free Software and the Public Domain within Australia. Implications include extension of copyright terms (death to the Public Domain & Gutenberg Australia), software patents (death to Free Software) and the DMCA. It is not yet law."


Random thoughts I had today:

  • Companies that grow too fast become completely dysfunctional.
  • When estimating cost and time taken to do something, people usually underestimate the time it will take them to do something, and massively underestimate the time and cost it will take someone else to do something.
  • Responsibility and authority. The two go together. You can't have one without the other, and if you do, then you'll find yourself living in a Dilbert cartoon.

Useful site if you buy stuff off of eBay: http://www.auctionstealer.com/ You just login to their web site, choose the eBay site (e.g. eBay US / eBay Aus / UK, etc), enter the item number, enter the amount you'll pay, and press go, and forget about it, and then you'll get an email telling you whether you won or not once the auction is over.


Software optimization stuff [mostly written by someone else,with 2 small additions by me]

These things ARE performance degraders:

  • Mass object construction.
  • Searching sequentially through large arrays.
  • Repeated string concatenation (there are techniques to mitigate this).
  • Staying inside critical sections for too long.
  • Things you do thousands of times (sometimes)

These things are NOT performance degraders:

  • Lots of object indirection.
  • Lots of critical sections.
  • Something you only do once. It really doesn't matter if these things are inefficient.

Saw this on an American web site: Right-Wing Ideology in a Nutshell: "Cheap Labor".


Regarding Open Source Java:

It would be better for Java developers, and probably for Sun too, if Java were made a standardized language, and an open source implementation of the virtual machine were released. Unfortunately it has been so long in coming that a lot of the momentum that would be gained from doing this has slowly dissipated. Better late than never though.

Various comments from other on this topic:

  • Xavier Basora editorialized, from December 1999, on Sun's recent actions. "Sun's removal of JAVA from consideration amply demonstrates that the company just doesn't understand Open standards let alone Open source. If Sun truly understood Open standards, the company would've realized that it gained more by opening than by owning the software code. Further, if Sun also understood Open source, it would've released JAVA under the GPL the moment that Microsoft began to add its own proprietary extensions."
  • Something from Newsforge in Oct 2003.
  • Sun should dual license Java under GPL + commercial licenses, from Feb 2004.

Tips for overseas travellers from Australia:

  • It's sometimes cheaper to take money out from ATMs (in large quantities) than it is to change money at a money changer. Typically a AUS$5 charge applies for using an ATM belonging to an overseas bank.
  • Mobile roaming is NOT on by default on your mobile phone. Remember to turn it on with your mobile carrier BEFORE you leave. Overseas mobile calls can be very expensive however, but SMSing is a workable substitute for keeping in touch with family, at around 50 cents per overseas SMS sent.
  • Travel light.

Conservatives seem to love killing off those parts of government not associated with the military or law enforcement!