Protecting Troy

It is interesting to me how many different ways one could spin Palladium. On the one hand it may be the long overdue integration of decades old security concepts into a popular operating system while on the other it might be another way for consumers to surrender privacy and control for what is merely the illusion of security. However, until actual technical specs are delivered or at least until I can attend a presentation or two on Palladium I'll consider it to be another grand strategy in the vein of Hailstorm.

One of my co-workers questioned my likening of Palladium to Hailstorm because it implied that Palladium would deep-sixed before it saw the light of day. I disagreed, when I think of Hailstorm I think of a project that had some interesting technology, answered some interesting questions but required acceptance by a wide range of corporations as well as end users while failing provide a value proposition that satisfied these disparate entities.

I assume that the people making the big bucks at my place of employment have learned this lesson and whenever the Palladium strategy is finalized it won't fall into the Hailstorm trap. Corporations and end users will adopt Palladium if it provides substantial benefits which outweigh its [perceived] costs. Of course, until actual technical specs and Microsoft press releases are actually published neither the costs nor the benefits can be measured with any degree of accuracy.

Relationship Problems

I think I broke up with my girlfriend on Monday night but we're definitely back together now. Capsule Summary: she asked me to stop being an insensitive, self centered shit and I told her that my character traits were too ingrained for me to change quickly enough for her. Of course, being me I said this in a way that implied that I wouldn't try to change some of my more self centered behavior and she'd just have to deal with it so she made me take all my stuff with me on my way home.

On getting home I realized that behavior such as asking her for money for casino chips so I wouldn't go over my arbitrarily chosen spending limit when I a.) already had a fistful of chips and b.) knew she'd just spent over $1,000 on her dog that got hit by a car (as told in my last diary) is probably behavior I should be curbing and is actually rather insensitive and extremely self centered. So wish me luck in becoming less of the self centered prick.

Egoless Programmers

A Chinese saying I saw in the Pacific Science Center in downtown Seattle this weekend read

He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes, he who does not is a fool forever

One of the biggest problems in software development is that of the few programmers that actually have a clue many of them greatly overestimate their abilities and would rather trudge blindly through trying to solve a problem for hours or days on end instead of asking an experienced hand for help or clarification in about five minutes. Such waste.

Armed and Dangerous

Eric Raymond aka ESR, everyone's favorite Open Source™ pundit, now has his very own weblog. I tried to read it but it hurt my head. It does look like ESR would be very comfortable at K5 since his blog so far seems to be all politics and culture with nary a thing about technology.

Not Front Page News

The first major Apache worm shows up and Slashdot posts it to a section page since it obviously isn't front page news like a New Linux News Portal

Amusing Link of the Day

Semen Makes Women Happy

Depressing Link of the Day

Court Punishes Pakistani Adolescent For Dating Upper Class Girl By Having His Sister Gang Raped

Another Amusing Link of the Day

U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that corporate earnings statements should be protected as works of art, as they "create something from nothing."