Patrick's playground

For some time I've watched the uncontrolled Vista-hype in technology publications. Since Windows XP I've been very annoyed with Microsoft because they add silly registration and other privacy-violating things to their software.
And I personally don't use any software that tries such stupid things, I just watch it on friend's computers and try to form an opinion of it. My opinion of XP: It sucks, but because most people have it they assume that suckitude is normal.
Vista, the new shiny toy from KleinWeich, is a totally different beast. It fails hard. Multiple times. Just during installation that is. Like ... multiple harddisks? OMG install randomly to one of them, then forget to add a bootloader and die. Moving one harddisk from port 2 to port 3 of the SATA controller? Fail. Trying to dualboot with XP? Fail.
The performance is very mixed - some parts (like reboot) appear to be really fast, other parts (like using it) remind me of the 80s when computers were mysterious, slow beasts.
What's really funny - my windows-using flatmate prefers Knoppix over Vista, because knoppix behaves like a new windows should. It's quite funny to see people prefer Linux because it's more predictable and more ... well ... windowsy than windows.

My recommendation for new computers: Use XP if you have to, use Linux (or a BSD or whatever free software you like) if you can, ignore Vista and save yourself days of frustration ...

"It's worse than bread - you know, bread can grow mouldy, and Windows can't even do that"

So, kinda accidentally I found this gem: Bug 38368. It is quite interesting to see this liberal interpretation of policies where suddenly being _really_ inactive for a _really_ long time isn't a problem this time of the year. Must be my fault then that I got retired, eh?
Also, I think there's been a small bureaucratic accident, because there's still no bug for Ulrich Plate, who has been MIA since May last year. Just saying - what use are policies when they are only enforced when it suits you? I don't care much either way if all are retired or none ... just try to be consistent in your action or you lose respect and credibility
Also, a really important comment to one of my last blog entries:

<@eroyf> DrEeevil: once again you've showed the world how big an idiot you are.

That just gives me this warm fuzzy feeling. Thanks, guys. In other news I'll be busy with life the next weeks, so I'll most likely blog even less. That's my incoherent rant for today, don't be afraid if you see something that looks like Gollum. Peace out ...

Here's something I found quite amusing in the same way a dentist drilling inside your mouth is funny:
--- /etc/mailcap 2007-03-01 10:02:40.000000000 +0100
+++ /etc/._cfg0000_mailcap 2007-03-01 00:46:07.000000000 +0100
@@ -23,5 +23,3 @@
text/*; more '%s'; needsterminal
*/*; less '%s'; needsterminal
*/*; false; print=lpr '%s'
-# Java Web Start
-application/x-java-jnlp-file; /home/me/Desktop/jre1.5.0_10/bin/javaws %s

>> (11 of 14) -- /etc/mailcap

So dispatch-conf tells me that without asking me this friggin JRE just edited some config files. Let me ask one question - why do you touch my config files without asking me? That's totally uncool. And thus the SUN JRE/JDK get a timeout for not being teamplayers. Let's reconsider them again when SUN has opensourced them ...

Came across a nice theory today, basically "how a-holes take over your company". To give a summarized translation of the 4 stages of decline:
stage 1 - isolated bridgeheads of bad people. No big problem, usually they get removed by self-defense mechanisms
stage 2 - more important positions are being assimilated. Bureaucracy and committees are used to paralyse the self-defense. Fighting back can become a constant background noise that slows down things.
stage 3 - the key positions got 0wned by a-holes. Senior a-holes are delegating all important stuff to junior a-holes. Getting anything sane done is almost futile as the power structure is inverted.
stage 4 - the senior executives pull in their retarded cousins for jobs. If you haven't left yet you should re-evaluate your life ;-)

Maybe we should get a certification on companies so that us poor souls can avoid stage 3 and 4 companies ;-)