Master and Commander of the Family



Scene: A father, not unlike Clark W. Griswold, is driving his wife and two sons cross-country to Los Angeles from Chicago in a large, wood-paneled station wagon. Having recently seen (and very much enjoyed) the motion picture Master and Commander, the father has decided to be Master and Commander of the the Family.



Cast: The father, Herbert, is wearing thick black glasses, the product of too many years as an associate in a medium-sized accounting firm. His wife, Madge, is a part-time real-estate agent who aspires to join the $1,000,000 club. His twin boys, Brad and Brent, are 14, their eyes obscured by mops of sandy-brown shocks of hair.



Herbert: Mr. Midshipmen, hands to the braces! Port your helm. Jump to it - and brail up the mains'l!



Madge: Herbert, will you please stop with that silly yelling? It's been over a week since you saw that movie! You're making no sense!



Herbert: Madge,under penalty of a charge of insubordination, ye'll address me as Cap'n and by no other appellation. Discipline in this man's navy is the watchword. Failure to abide by this rule will mean I muster ye out at the next port-o-call.



Madge: Seriously? Is that an option?



Herbert: Lieutenant Madge, I'll not warn you again, I'll brook no insubordination -



Brent: Dad, there's one of those new Porsche Cayennes coming up fast in the passing lane!



Herbert: [Shouting] Master of the watch, I'd be pleased if ye'd run up with a glass and tell me if ye see any of the enemy about!



Brent: What's that mean, Dad? [Whispering to Brad] What's he mean?



Brad: I think he wants to go faster so he can get a better look at the Porsche as it passes us. See if there's any cops around.



Herbert: Look smart, Mr. Midshipmen... have you sighted a privateer or a frog on the horeezon?



Brent: Uhmm, no...



Herbert: That's no way to speak to your commanding officer! Boy, you'll run up to the mizzen watch this instant or be clapped in irons!



Brad: Dad, I think he meant there aren't any cops around.



Herbert: Another bloody insubordinate? Both of you will taste the lash before this day is done!



[Continued on page 3]

Doug's Automotive Predicteration for 2004



#1) For better or worse, the automotive horsepower race will continue unabated. Nissan's groundbreaking success in appealing to lead-footed instincts will breed a host of copycats. Witness Acura's 2004 TL, boasting 270 horsepower versus the G35's 260. Look for 300 horsepower sports sedans, in the under $40K category, coming soon to showrooms near you.



#2) Mazda will continue its struggles. Its margins must be truly appalling and I suspect its volumes are disappointing overall. Witness the RX-8, which has been priced to undercut the G35 Coupe. Or the Mazda 6 Sports Sedan, which has some appeal, but is fighting against premium brands that have introduced low-end competitors (e.g., Acura's TSX). The Miata needs more horsepower... significantly more. In short, not a pretty picture.



#3) As I've written previously, VW's Phaeton will be an unmitigated sales disaster.



#4) Porsche will be forced to find a partner as it struggles to survive. At nearly every level, Porsche has been met with major challenges: Infiniti's FX versus the Cayenne, the G35 Coupe versus the Porsche Coupe, the Honda S2000 versus the Boxster. Porsche has to modify its model if it is to stay in the game... since this won't happen, its only other choice is to find a sugar daddy.



#5) Grille-challenged autos will suffer in the marketplace. Those models with bizarrely shaped grilles, presumably to establish uniqueness or brand awareness, will underperform equivalent models with conventionally shaped grilles. In the bizarre grille category: Acura and Mazda.



#6) Another safe bet: GM will continue to lose marketshare outside of Cadillac (which will perform a bit ahead of plan) and its Pontiac division, which will hold its ground - barely.



#7) Ford will take major heat for revelations that the Ford Foundation funded Palestinian and other interests not aligned with mainstream America. Expect Ford, Mercury, Jaguar and Volvo all to suffer as a result.



#8) The first manufacturer to produce an eco-friendly SUV (e.g., hybrid powerplant) for a reasonable price will perform astonishingly well in the marketplace.



#9) Hummer's forthcoming H3T will be a big hit among professional athletes, musicians and other playahs.



#10) Ford's new F150 will meet sales projections, but only by a hair.




Top Ten Fixes After HB12 is Law



From GlockTalk: "Top Ten Problems with HB 12 as passed by the General Assembly...



#3. Sec. 2923.16 creates a nearly unworkable framework for licensees to carry a firearm in an automobile, requiring that it be in a holster "in plain sight on the person's person" or locked up. Will this lead to a new market for chest holsters? What are women supposed to do who carry in their purses? What if your car's glove box doesn't lock? "



Read more: Top Ten Fixes for HB12.

The Software Biz: Make More Mistakes



From MSDN, shockingly, comes an insightful article on small software businesses: Make More Mistakes.

A very personal Automotive History ;-)

1982 Honda Prelude - It was my senior year in college when I first spotted the gen-I Honda Prelude. I was smitten. Sports-car? I don't know, but I loved the lines, the sun/moon-roof (this, when the only way to get such a roof in a GM car was to use a blowtorch), the five-speed. When my '77 Nova was finally paid off (thanks, Dad!), I went to Joy Stillpass at the old Stillpass Honda and bought a stripped, burgundy Prelude.	1985 Saab 900 Turbo - My Dad introduced me to Saabs: they were certainly very rare in the Midwest. He had a beautiful company car: blue 900S four door. When I was close to paying off the Prelude, I decided to switch. I bought a black 900 Turbo 16-Valve (woo-hoo, 16 valves!) with the factory whale-tail spoiler. I also had a company car, so I could leave my baby in the garage for long stretches. At the time, these cars were so uncommon that I pulled into a McDonald's drivethrough once, only tohave the guy at the window ask me, "is that a masserrattee?".	1991 Mazda Miata - With a young child, my wife sent me to get a sedan in October of '91. I came back with a Miata. An Indian Summer test drive left me captivated with ragtop driving. Rear-wheel drive, manual transmission, with no limited-slip - in snowy Boston - truly teaches you how to drive. My first attempted fast-lane pass in the snow resulted in me doing 360's on Route 128. Over the years, I spun the Miata out three times. Each time, the car touched nothing. Yes, I was lucky - not good.
1994 Cadillac Eldorado - My brother-in-law Marc introduced me to the comfort of Cadillacs, taking me to Thomson-McConnnell. After about a six-hour negotiating session - after which both Marc and the salesman ("G") were near tears, I drove away in the Eldo. The seats were the most comfortable I'd ever felt. The 275 horsepower Northstar engine was a delight: torquey, responsive and turbine-like. The downsides? Handling (non-existent) and the 'sploded fuel-pump that left me stranded partway to Indianapolis. After a few years of spotty reliability, I'd had enough.	1999 Volvo S70 T5 - My Dad had a T5 five-speed, which I thought was very cool ("it looks like a Nazi staff car"). I'd never thought of springing for one until Tommy (again, from Stillpass) called with a deal I couldn't refuse. They would take the Eldo in trade (strangely enough, no other dealership seemed to want to take Cadillacs!) and cut me an end-of-the-month deal on a T5 that had been on the lot awhile. Powerful and luxurious, without any ostentatiousness, the T5 did have some downsides: it was plagued with a variety of electrical problems including starting, burned out bulbs and the dreaded "check-engine light".	2003 Infiniti G35 Coupe - What can you say about the G35C that hasn't been said by the automotive press? I compare it to a Porsche 911 Coupe for a fraction of the cost. 280 HP, tremendous handling and grip, back seats that are actually usable - at least by my kids - and the most 'looks' per mile I've ever experienced while driving. A black coupe with 18" rims is simply a moving piece of art. I'm going to be an Infiniti driver from this point forward. At least until a fuel pump 'splodes.

G35C on Ice



In California, a G35 Coupe gets iced.



Relationships



All you need to know about male/female relationships is easily explained with the Ladder Theory. Excerpt:



"A common question men ask of women is "Tell me what you want in a man?", which is ... an invitation to be lied to. Because she'll almost invariably answer with some combination of: sense of humor, intelligence, sensitivity, emotional stability. As far as I can tell this is mostly rubbish. But in an effort to be fair I have included this, since there seem to be a few rare cases of this. Just none that I have ever seen. Another thing to watch out for is the code words women use. Here is a translation guide for dealing with women.



Says: I want a man who is motivated and has goals.

Means: I want a rich man



Says: I want a man who knows how to treat a woman.

Means: I want a rich man



Says: He's from a really good family.

Means: He's from a really rich family.



I'm sure you get the point..."



Ladder Theory



I love this game!



The wit and wisdom of Rasheed Wallace, who earns approximately $17 million per year as a forward for the NBA's Portland Trailblazers: "'I ain't no dumb-ass [racial epithet deleted] out here. I'm not like a whole bunch of these young boys out here who get caught up and captivated into the league... No. I see behind the lines. I see behind the false screens. I know what this business is all about. I know the commissioner of this league makes more than three-quarters of the players in this league.



There's a whole lot of crunching numbers that, quote-unquote, me as an athlete and me as an NBA player should know. In my opinion, they just want to draft [racial epithet deleted] who are dumb and dumber -- straight out of high school. That's why they're drafting all these high school cats, because they come into the league and they don't know no better. They don't know no better, and they don't know the real business, and they don't see behind the charade."



Raw 'Sheed

More Outsourcing Fodder



My reply in the most recent JOS outsourcing thread... "Outsourcing should be especially terrifying to financial services/insurance organizations. Given the fact that their lifeblood is truly a set of business processes (i.e., moving bits around)... handing this domain knowledge off to a group in India, Romania, etc. could very well breed a new global competitor.



A bank or insurance company that farms out IT may, in fact, be building and training their own competition... ten, fifteen or twenty years from now.



Of course, I suspect some CEOs and boards are starting to get it. Bank One, I believe, stopped outsourcing and brought everything back in house. Still, I wonder how many institutions really understand the danger that outsourcing represents."



JOS - outsourcing thread

Paul Graham



Quote: "Hacking and painting have a lot in common. In fact, of all the different types of people I've known, hackers and painters are among the most alike.



What hackers and painters have in common is that they're both makers. Along with composers, architects, and writers, what hackers and painters are trying to do is make good things. They're not doing research per se, though if in the course of trying to make good things they discover some new technique, so much the better...



...Great software ... requires a fanatical devotion to beauty. If you look inside good software, you find that parts no one is ever supposed to see are beautiful too. I'm not claiming I write great software, but I know that when it comes to code I behave in a way that would make me eligible for prescription drugs if I approached everyday life the same way. It drives me crazy to see code that's badly indented, or that uses ugly variable names."



Hackers and Painters.



Misunderstood Genius Dept., Part I: Tesla



Quote: "War clouds were again darkening Europe. On 11 July 1934 the headline on the front page of the New York Times read, TESLA, AT 78, BARES NEW 'DEATH BEAM.' ... The morning after the inventor's death, his nephew Sava Kosanovic´ hurried to his uncle's room at the Hotel New Yorker... By the time he arrived, Tesla's body had already been removed, and Kosanovic suspected that someone had already gone through his uncle's effects. Technical papers were missing as well as a black notebook..."



From PBS: Nikola Tesla: Master of Lightning.



Misunderstood Genius Dept., Part II: Galileo and the Inquisition



Quote: "Being one of the most renowned scientist of his time Galileo's opinions were scrutinized not only be his peers, but by also by Church officials and the public in general. This made Galileo the lightning-rod of many complaints against the Copernican doctrine (and also some against Galileo himself). He did not come out unscathed out of these encounters..."



Galileo and the Inquisition.



Return of the King



If Peter Jackson doesn't get a Best Picture Oscar for LOTR/ROTK, they might as well do away with the Academy, the red carpet, the statuettes, everything. Awesome in every conceivable measure. As an aside... funny column in the Toronto Star describing plot holes in LOTR.



Excerpt: "...Elrond is like the modern-day CEO who complains about the way the country is run, but won't run for office and do something about it. At Rivendell, the Ramada Inn of Middle-earth, he chooses to sit back and let the Fellowship do the dirty work. 'I'd love to help out and all, but hey, I got stuff going on,' he might as well be saying. 'I did let you guys use my house for your little meeting, you know, and came up with this whole Fellowship idea. But good luck saving the world.'...



LOTR plot holes

Spam Missive



Okay, here's some of the spam I received within the last 30 minutes (is AT&T really using Brightmail to filter? One wonders...). Anyhow, my question is... who clicks on messages like these? And, if you click on one of these messages, is that an automatic indicator that your general (and/or Internet) intelligence quotient is at the simpleton level?

		Direland	p.r.i.c.e.s are v.a.l.i.d until 30..	12/24/03	3KB
		Rene Blair	Hiya	12/24/03	3KB
		Brigitte Dyment	This is what she wants	12/24/03	2KB
		eBay	Please update your eBay account in..	12/24/03	8KB
		Carlita Adam	cheaap but great medications ilium..	12/24/03	7KB

Book Review: Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++



From Slashdot: "In the foreword to this book Gene Spafford observes that there really are four types of programmers:



Those who are constantly writing buggy code, no matter what,

Those who can write reasonable code, given coaching and examples,

Those who write good code most of the time, but who don't fully realize their limitations,

Those who really understand the language, the machine architecture, software engineering, and the application area, and who can write textbook code on a regular basis.



There are, as Spafford claims, too many people in category 3 who think they belong to the category 4, and that's the primary target audience of the book"... Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++.



Obfuscation



For you old-time C hacks: here are the past winners of the International Obfuscated C Code Contest (IOCCC): Memories - the Previous IOCCC Winners. Some of the code is hilarious.