Show Stopper!

Just finished reading Show Stopper!, an account of the creation of the Windows NT operating system. 

Originally written in 1994 and updated in 2008 this book was like a huge jump back in time – you forget just how primitive operating systems were back then and exactly how advanced NT was when it released.  Not only that but it gives you an idea of the effort involved in any development project of such major scope and the sacrifices involved, and they are major.

Fast paced, with enough technical detail to give you a good idea of the issues involved without overwhelming the average reader, and clearly written unlike many technically oriented books (or this blog for that matter, although this is hardly a tech oriented blog.  Just a poorly written one, but I digress) it is a fairly breezy read.  I recommend the book.

Don’t be evil?

See if you can guess the company described here:

When news arrives that Xxxxxxx is interested in a particular product or service, small celebrations often erupt. Whiskey is drunk. Karaoke is sung.

Then, Xxxxxxx’s requests start.

Xxxxxxx typically asks suppliers to specify how much every part costs, how many workers are needed and the size of their salaries. Executives want to know every financial detail. Afterward, Xxxxxxx calculates how much it will pay for a part. Most suppliers are allowed only the slimmest of profits.

So suppliers often try to cut corners, replace expensive chemicals with less costly alternatives, or push their employees to work faster and longer, according to people at those companies.

“The only way you make money working for Xxxxxxx is figuring out how to do things more efficiently or cheaper,” said an executive at one company that helped bring the iPad to market. “And then they’ll come back the next year, and force a 10 percent price cut.”

WalMart you say?  It must be since this behavior sounds like the very epitome of evil capitalist behavior.  You would be wrong, it’s every hipster’s darling (and America’s most profitable company) – Apple.

The NY Times continues it’s series on Apple and it’s (main?) overseas supplier Foxconn.  The subject this time is employee safety. Again I am going to let you draw your own conclusions without too many comments.  I just want to note that however you may feel on this subject I find it interesting that these articles start the same week as the President’s State of the Union address, in which he castigated American companies for using overseas manufacturing.  Which was the cart and which was the horse?

Well I feel safer now

Microsoft says botnet kingpin worked for antivirus vendor

Contrary to what Daniel Patrick Moynihan said…

Nina Totenberg believes she is entitled to her own facts (via NewsBusters)

NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: You know, Newt knows how to play this game. And as Charles said, he is in his own backyard, right next to Georgia, and he is incredibly glib. It doesn’t matter that, you know, that there were more people on food stamps under George W. Bush. It doesn’t matter that his suggestion is that minorities are the ones who get food stamps, that far more white people get food stamps. It doesn’t matter that working people get food stamps in order to feed their families. Facts don’t matter to him and it makes for great, it makes for great talk.

Ooops:

Oops again:

According to the USDA, 35 percent of SNAP recipients are white. That means that 65 percent are minorities or are of unknown race or ethnicity.

To paraphrase Ranier Wolfcastle – “The facts, they burn!!!”

Presented without comment:

Some background (not comment – background):  In the Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs it is revealed that at a dinner with President Obama Jobs laid out a number of reasons he felt that manufacturing jobs were leaving the U.S. 

In a NY Times article today they have a deeper (7 page) account of, what I believe is, that dinner with an exploration of Jobs / Apple’s reasoning for shifting manufacturing overseas.

This section sets the tone of the article, but I will let you read the rest and decide on the accuracy of the arguments:

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

(I am doing this as a presented without comment because I know that we have people who contribute here who work on both sides of the design / manufacturing process and I want to see if there are contrasting views.)

Survived Fimbulvetr

Not sure if I will make it through Ragnarok.

The Seattle area was hit by a fairly decent weather system this last week. A few inches of snow and lots of ice. I admit I wimped out and left work early on Wedsnesday and didn't go yesterday. The road weren't plowed or sanded where I live and when I checked the traffic cams on the freeway they weren't much better. I could have toughed it out but why take the chance on an encounter with an idiot who thinks a 4WD means you can drive 70 on ice.

Hmmmm

So a President who has been aggressively anti-business and pro-government now wants to decrease the size of government and make it more efficient in order to make it more business friendly.

Something here does not compute.

Finished Moneyball

Not a bad book. Easier to get through than Liars Poker or The Big Short but also a little more superficial. Still all in all it's an interesting look at the business of baseball.

Apple about to push into digital textbook market?

That's the rumor.

This idea was mentioned pretty heavily in the Steve Jobs biography. I am of two minds about it: on the one hand this is the type of thing that Apple really does well, on the other given Apple's penchant for dictatorial control over products and content I worry a bit about the textbooks we may get. On the gripping hand (ok three minds) I hate textbook publishers with the burning passion I usually reserve for communists, hippies, and OWS protesters (but I repeat myself) so take them down you Jobsian hordes.