Latest News >> 2008-09-29

I read Obie’s most recent post about his intense passion for Loverboy’s quintessential anthem, “Lovin’ Every Minute Of It”. I find the early 1980’s music is inspiring and uplifting and definitely suited to such important things as corporate culture, recruiting, and motivating the troops to do better. Yes, nothing gets a worker working better than a little Loverboy right in their ear.

2008-09-25

Don’t forget folks, the FU NYC show will be in a few hours (7pm-9pm). I’ll be icecasting this one at http://zedshaw.com:8000/fu_nyc and as usual you can use VLC, mplayer or many other players to play the stream.

2008-09-17

I got into music school last week and I’m going to study guitar exclusively for the next year. This is something I’ve always wanted to do, but just never had the chance. Either I wasn’t good enough (being self-taught for so many years) or I just didn’t have the money. After being laid off and getting a small package I decided to practice my ass off on the guitar, do a few live shows to get ready, and then audition for a school in the city.

2008-09-04

The Freehackers Union NYC show went insanely well. I managed to pull off a full live internet feed of the audio to people in FU and the show at the same time. We had about 10 newbies show up to give their first five minutes and 11 listeners on IRC/icecast. Some people showed up just to hang out, so we relaxed the rules and let them stay to build an audience. Overall, there were some cool projects presented and everyone had a good time.

I’m almost done answering the emails everyone sent me and I must say they’re great. There’s so many people who’ve ran into the exact same things I talked about in my rant that I’m planning a series of more serious essays around the evils of the software industry.

I may be contacting some of you to ask if I can include your stories in my essays. If anyone has stories about getting screwed by political bullshit, stupid people, or just bad businesses then send them my way. Let me know if I can include them in my next essay.

One thing I think everyone should read is this short essay by Rickard Öberg entitled Psychopaths in the software industry about a process called Ponerization. He gives an excellent perspective on how companies can get this way because of psychopathic weirdos who infiltrate your company.

Finally, there was only 2 hate mails I had to deal with so far which makes me feel good. In the “blogosphere” (god I hate that word) people seem mixed leaning more toward me being a moron and and asshole. However the emails are great and all supportive.

Except those 2, and man those two were morons. The best one was a guy who emailed me from a hotmail account saying he had an MBA and he was a way better coder than me. I quick google found that he was a fat obnoxious .NET coder living in Orange County. Even found his myspace page.

Just in case people are thinking of sending me hate mail, here’s what my response was (minus his identity):

: Read your rant and I only have one thought.  Fuck you. 
: I have an MBA and I can probably code circles around your ass 
: and not get wrapped up in pissy arguments over technology in the process.
:  
: Take a midol dude..
:

So, you email me from a hotmail account and you're probably this
shithead:

*cut LOTS of google hits off his email.* 

Looks like you're probably some fat fuck living in the OC who thinks
he's hot shit in a champagne glass when really you're just warm piss in
a dixie cup.

And the day some piss ant little cock sucking fuck nut .NET coder like
you is better at just about anything is the day I toss myself off a
bridge.

So far, all you've got to back up your goddamned piece of shit ego is
two little postings on some fucking message boards.  Your MBA is nothing
but a yuppie green card that lets you work at some giant company so you
can blow the people above you and treat the people below you like shit
because you're a clueless fucking moron who had his spine removed in
ECON 501.

Next time you decide to email me make sure you've gone out and paddled
your fat ass around for a while so that the canoe shapes your ass well
enough to fit in your mother fucking chair and you can write something
longer than three sentences.

: _________________________________________________________________
: Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live.
: http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_012008

WTF, a windows guy?  Give me a mother fucking break you pathetic loser
and go fuck your fat wife.

Amazing how he not only gets wrapped up in the pissy argument, obviously can’t code for shit, but also proves that MBAs are morons.

Other than that wonderful gem I’m pretty happy with people’s reactions.

Now to finish these emails and write a new essay.