The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar

You Know You're DOOMED When...

your boss gets back from vacation and says, "What the hell did you do?"

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...

Jimmy Choos, the death of tech, and Katie's big mouth.

Katie and Bob, Shut Up!

I'm watching the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics. The Greeks have completed their parade of history. The athletes have entered. And now Bjork is singing some sort of song. But I can't hear it.

Bjork, who is rather famous for wearing unusual costumes, has done it again. As she sings the edges of the dress begins to expand.

"And now the dress begins to expand over the athletes," says Katie Couric.

I know. I'm watching television an industry which has spent billions of dollars to create and perfect the transmission of moving pictures. I can see the dress morphing. What I can't hear is Bjork's song because Katie thinks no one could possibly figure out what they are seeing.

Katie Couric and Bob Costas continue to talk over this song, even to the extent of talking about completely un-related subjects until the song is over. I'm not sure why they are doing this, but here are a few possibilities.

They think they are the story. This is happening more often this days. The media has decided they are the reason you tuned in. The media believes they are important. They aren't. The media is a mere conduit and should remain so.
I noticed the quality of any of the audio that was played in the stadium was extremely poor. Normally, when one broadcasts a sporting event, the television truck takes an audio feed from the stadium PA system. But it sounded like NBC had simply hung a microphone next to a stadium speaker. The effect was poor sound with a lot of echo. Could it be the sound sucked so bad that Katie felt she needed to save us from the piss-poor job of the audio guys?
Did NBC take really crappy monitors to the Olympics? Perhaps a producer was not able to figure out what he was seeing and asked Katie and Bob to flap their lips to fill the time?

Take your pick of these possibilities. But I'm betting on number 1. This crap started in 1972 with ABC's "Up Close and Personal" coverage where we saw more mini-documentaries than we did competition.

It's unfortunate we can't choose who we get our Olympic feed from. But exclusives are the ways of television.

R.I.P. Tech TV

I've been waiting to comment on this for a couple months. I wanted to see how this played out. Three or so months ago, a small cable channel called G4 bought a slightly larger channel called Tech TV and merged the two. Tech TV had about 10 times the audience of G4, and in television if you can't beat them, buy them.

One wonders why they bothered. As soon as the two were merged into a single channel, almost every Tech TV produced show was axed. Now this was not one of those synergy situations we hear about when two companies collide. These two channels had damned little over-lap in programming.

G4 was a channel for gamers. Tech TV was a channel for general tech news and information. What G4 did was the opposite of what one would expect. Any show that didn't aim itself at a particular audience was gotten rid of. The more like G4 the program was, the more likely it was to survive the merge. As far as I can tell, only two Tech TV shows are still around. The Screen Savers was modified. Anyone over 35 years of age was let go. The program is less hard hitting geek news, and more dumbed down. Unscrewed With Martin Sargent appears to be largely untouched. The reason? You're going to love this.

G4 Tech TV as the merged channel now calls itself has a primary audience of 13 year old boys. If it doesn't appeal to them, out it goes. And just what do 13 year old boys like? They like video games, and women wearing tight clothes. Really, the puberty factor is key in G4 Tech TV's strategy.

This is a loosing strategy. Anyone else would have kept both channels and built an empire. There's a reason G4 only had a tenth of the audience of Tech TV, there are more people out there interested in tech who are not 13 year old boys. It's called broadcasting guys! You look for the widest possible audience to increase the price of the ad minutes.

Just look at the big boys. They buy and create as many cable channels as possible then cross use the same material in slightly re-packed ways. Look at the Discovery Channel networks. If one doesn't have a show you want to watch, they are hoping their other channel will. It's like fishing with a real big net.

But G4 bough Tech TV and effectively killed it off apparently only so they would be on more cable systems. Meanwhile, they continue to program an incredibly narrow selection of shows. Although I do have to admit that I did enjoy watching a show where a foul mouthed Asian dominatrix cracked a whip and described that week's top ten video games. I enjoyed it once. The next week it was like watching Dallas, I had already seen what it had to offer.

I would watch the dominatrix whip Katie Courac to get her to shut up. THINK OF THE RATINGS!

Take a Letter

Newbie in Cube 53 writes...

Fek,

I just don't think my manager understands anything I say to him? What do you do?

Newbie in Cube 53

Well Newbie, we all know that managers live in their own little world. Bad managers (redundant phrase) think they actually are the ones who get the job done. Good managers (few and far between) understand that they are infrastructure. Being infrastructure you can't necessarily speak to them they way you speak with your co-workers. Many managers are not technical.

Recently, a manager asked me about an aspect of the WTHAIS product. I first provided her with the technical explaination, and followed up with analogies. Here's what I said.

The idea that we do not use the IE proxy settings when authenticating makes sense. Since we are making an HTTP request to login (The same type of connection the IE settings would change) we don't want to route that authentication request through a proxy server. The proxy server would not be available and the authentication request would fail.

It's like saying for the bunny to unlock the door to his burrow, he must eat a carrot first. But all the carrots are inside the burrow.

You want to get a new pair of Jimmy Choos, but before they can be manufactured, someone has to kill a cow - and you're Indian.

Newbie, believe it or not, when she hit the Jimmy Choos reference it all made sense. In broadcasting school they told us to know the audience and always package your message in a way the audience could understand. See? I am using my degree!

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

The American People Are Safer!

Be on constant alert. Watch what you say. Keep an eye out for suspicious looking terrorists. Alert Status Yellow - we'll probably invade someone by 6PM. Toenail clippers must now be registered unless you are a member of the NRA. Duct tape can save your life! Wall Street - The New Ground Zero! Hey! What's that lurking behind the bush?

Thank You - The Department of Homeland Bullshit

Let's play, "Who said this?"

Heard in the halls of various software companies.

"No, really. Aren't you supposed to work Diet Coke into your column every month?"
"Thank You."

"Why are you trying to get this woman promoted? She's incompetent."
"Yes, that's right."

"You're the only person I know who puts shaving cream on his wrists before slashing them."

"There's no such such thing as low-carb breakfast cereal."
"Yes there is! Frosted Meat Flakes!"

"Now who are you going to believe, us or the Org Chart?"

"I always leave my cell phone on when I fly. I have a death wish and really don't like humanity."

"I'll think of you driving to work a little like the asteroid field sequence in The Empire Strikes Back as I stroll through Green Park... Feeding the ducks in St James Park ..... Checking my watch against Big Ben..... *sigh*"

Excuse Me

I need to eat a carrot.

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.

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EOJ

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