Phil’s Diary - [Blog @ http://www.philsdiary.net/]
I mentioned the other day about a brief glitch with my ISP. Well it seems their system upgrade plans didn’t go acording to plan. They’ve worked since that glitch changing hardware and routing, and finally think they’ve got the problems sorted (but not the upgrade in place).
As this has happened alongside our own system changeovers at work (ok, ok, so I’ve mentioned them a thousand times already!), it’s given me a good example of how it can all go horribly wrong. By comparisson our own changeover seems to have been a walk in the park.
There’s a lot in the press at the moment about a law case against a former butler of a former (as in deceased) member of the UK’s royal family. The story is here. The interesing part here, isn’t the original case, but more the Queen’s involvment (or lack of). I find it amazing the lack of involvment she’s shown, especially considering the key evidence she had. The trial has no doubt cost the tax payer a fair bit of money, and all because she wasn’t paying attention, and didn’t feel it proper to say anything. Equally to blame are the CPS, who should have either called the Queen as a witness (if they can) early on, or at least spotted this evidence during the case’s discovery. All in all it’s proved a big mess with practically no one smelling of roses (except the defendent).
And while I’m here, I may as well comment on the Microsoft settlement (details here). The first thing that strikes me as strange is that Microsoft shares rose, when the settlement upheld is one that the US Attourney General reckons was a win for the government. Within the settlement is an amusing idea, whereby 3 people outside of Microsoft’s directorship, form a comittee to ensure the settlement agreement is upheld.
As Bob Thompson points out, the effect of all this is going to be a few years down the road. I don’t disagree with what he says, but it could well be that the effect is the other way. That the downfall of Microsoft, but the exact opposite.
The fact that Microsoft have (more or less) been left to carry on doing as they please means that they could well end up building even further on what they already have (which is a lot).
There’s no point now arguing about obsolete source code, or indeed that the millions of lines of it mean anything to anyone. Instead someone needs to keep a close eye on what a monoploy is doing now, and they need the power to stop it in it’s tracks when they see something that shouldn’t be happening.
Ok, I’ve said enough for today. Much more than this and I’ll be posting nearly as much as John Dominik (but in a smaller typeface!), and I really don’t think I could sustain that, day in, day out.
It’s a bit like a warzone round here at the moment. Everyone and their dog seems to be letting off fireworks (hey, it’s not until Nov 5th!). Still, won’t last long.
I’m gone for the rest of the evening.
Catch you tomorrow.
Posted by Phil on November 02, 2002 08:01 PM | Categories: Lazy weekend