The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar

You Know You're DOOMED When...

your boss says, "This won't hurt a bit! It's fully tested by QA."

You've stumbled onto another issue of The Crapolla, a journal written for software professionals. No not the managers; I mean the people who do the work.

This Crapolla is sponsored by...

In This Issue...

Screening Stuff at CES

Take a Letter

Harold Peterson writes...

Hey, this is Harold Peterson out in Okie country. I think it's spelled "Vasoline" rather than "Vaseline". Is Steph's car American?

-Harold Peterson (still a meteorology student at OU... graduate assistantships pay better than unemployment)

Hi Harold,

How's the weather?

I'll defer to your expertise on body lubes.

I haven't seen Steph in a very long time. I think he's trying to get into commando school. Last I saw, he drove American (He's from Motown), but now, who knows, he might be driving a tank.

CES

In crap200102 I recalled a meeting of The Committee to Figure Out What's Going On. Looking back I see The Committee was out to lunch that day in more ways than one. We concluded that the next big thing was definitely not wireless. I'm curious. Just how wrong can one be?

Wireless is the next big thing and it's been that for about a year now. Go to McDonalds, get on a wireless network. It's hard to buy a laptop now that doesn't have wireless built in. 802.11b cards are getting embedded in several interesting gadgets, including media appliances that enable the content to be stored in one room of the house and played in another without pulling cable. I wouldn't be surprised if sometime this year General Mills announced that my breakfast cereal is wireless.

Just where are we now? Well, magnetic tape has almost drawn its last breath. The VCR is almost dead. (I saw a TiVo on sale for 200 bucks the other day.) Blockbuster is buying more DVDs than tapes. Very few cars come with a cassette deck. Magnetic tape had a great run, but it appears to be over.

Film is also dying. More digital cameras are sold every year than film cameras. Kodak saw the handwriting on the wall 15 years ago. When the first Sony Mavica was released, Kodak started worrying. They haven't had too many wins in the consumer digital market. Yes, they do sell digital cameras, but the sales don't make up for their loss of revenue in film sales. Most recently, Kodak announced it would no longer sell multiple-use film cameras.

CD sales are still on the ropes. Do you really think the only cause is file sharing? Or could it be that a lot of the music really sucks? In any case, there's already talk of a successor to the audio CD. A new format that controls copying. All I have to say is, take a lesson from the software business of the 1980's. Customers don't like copy protection. This will also affect sales.

We Need More Toys!

In January, Trouble and I went to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). We went because of the high toy density, but also because it's was in our home away from home, Las Vegas. One of the great things about Vegas is that you can eat Prime Rib breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The only time I broke this routine was when a waitress said I could have a steak, two eggs, and a pile of hash browns for two bucks. Screw Mad Cow! Vegas is a great town, pitty it's difficult to find a decent Diet Coke there.

The future is here, and it is a flat panel screen. Every booth had something with a screen on it. Radios, computers, cars, telephones, cameras, they all have screens. Of course the ultimate screen is the TV. These jewels are pushing 75 inches, and look like incredibly clean windows. The price is pushing half of an inexpensive car, but prices will go no where but down. I can't wait for the day when what I saw is considered a piece of crap.

CES is loud, crowded and big (now larger than COMDEX). You have to admire Las Vegas. Every week hundreds of thousands of people show up, and Vegas handles a large volume of traffic in a small area better then any other city I've been in.

If CES is accurate, the next time I come to Vegas, I'll have a screen embedded into my stomach giving me traffic reports. That's right, the prediction from CES is that in the future, we'll all be Telltubbies.

Let's see how The Committee handles this news.

This Issue's Headline submission to the National Daily World Enquiring Globe.

NASA Probe Finds Absolutely No Evidence of Intelligence on Mars

Lack of donut shops proves there is no law and order on the Red Planet.

Let's play, "Who said this?"

Heard in the halls of various software companies.

"I need drugs."

"This is obviously a case of Microsoft being caught red-handed with their pants down around their ankles and trying to cover themselves with Saran Wrap. A pretty transparent cover-up..."

"I'm an equal opportunity snob."

"You need a Doctor Evil chair."

"Hey look! It really is a Boob Tube!

"I'm happy that we have secure toilets."

Excuse Me

I need to read the screen on my cereal.

Fek'Lar
(The Last Honest Geek)

Remember: The Crapolla contains my personal opinions. That's right they're mine, so get your own! And you kids get off my lawn! This whole mess is copyright © 2004 by LowComDom Performances, all rights reserved. Wanna send this to your friends? Go ahead and pass out the URL.

Hey, you can subscribe to this rag by sending a message to majordomo@lowcomdom.com . On the first line of your letter type subscribe crapolla. Unsubscribing is the same, just change the command to unsubscribe crapolla

feed available from http://www.lowcomdom.com/crapolla/index.rss

EOJ

<-- Read the previous Crapolla   or   Read the next Crapolla -->