It's gone all quiet...
Must... Resist... Sim... City...
P.S. Anyone know how to build a decent bus network?
P.S. Anyone know how to build a decent bus network?
2003-01-28
Just Read: Bellwether, by Connie Willis
[amazon.co.uk]
A researcher tries to work out why fads happen, whilst battling the bureaucracy of her company's trendy management (which is portrayed in a manner that should be familiar to any readers of the work of Scott Adams) and a particularly witless office dogsbody.
I was struck by a couple of things about this book. Firstly, it's not remotely Science Fiction (a bit of a surprise, but not a problem). Secondly, the structural and plot similarities with the same author's Passage (which is SF - just)
Otherwise, nothing special. 'Twas OK, but if Bellwether and Passage are typical CW books, then I have to say it's not really my kinda thing, and I'll probably go read something else instead in future.
A researcher tries to work out why fads happen, whilst battling the bureaucracy of her company's trendy management (which is portrayed in a manner that should be familiar to any readers of the work of Scott Adams) and a particularly witless office dogsbody.
I was struck by a couple of things about this book. Firstly, it's not remotely Science Fiction (a bit of a surprise, but not a problem). Secondly, the structural and plot similarities with the same author's Passage (which is SF - just)
Otherwise, nothing special. 'Twas OK, but if Bellwether and Passage are typical CW books, then I have to say it's not really my kinda thing, and I'll probably go read something else instead in future.
More US corporate shenanigans...
Megacorps arranging retailer's shelves.
I suppose I should be reassured by the fact that there are 9-figure antitrust lawsuits flying about over this practice, but I think that just confirms how broken it is...
N.B. I don't have a problem with a lot of the practices described in that article - they just sound like doing a good job of running a store. It's the idea of a bookstore letting a major supplier like HarperCollins decide what lines of stock they carry that gets to me.
[link: BoingBoing]
I suppose I should be reassured by the fact that there are 9-figure antitrust lawsuits flying about over this practice, but I think that just confirms how broken it is...
N.B. I don't have a problem with a lot of the practices described in that article - they just sound like doing a good job of running a store. It's the idea of a bookstore letting a major supplier like HarperCollins decide what lines of stock they carry that gets to me.
[link: BoingBoing]
Are you patched?
Cory Doctorow pokes fun at one of the more prominent victims of last weekend's SQL Slammer incident:
Bit of a downer when the patch needed to fix any servers you have was downloadable from... Microsoft!
{of course, there's a lot of gloating over on slashdot, too)
"What kinda idjit runs a MSFT server product without applying all the patches? And worse, what kinda idjit makes that machine available from the public Internet?"
Microsoft, it turns out.
Bit of a downer when the patch needed to fix any servers you have was downloadable from... Microsoft!
{of course, there's a lot of gloating over on slashdot, too)