Edward Thomson

I had the honor of being interviewed for The Thirsty Developer, a great little podcast by Larry Clarkin and Dave Bost. I talk about what it's like to develop the Teamprise Client Suite and how we work with cross-platform development in Java.

If you're interested in hearing a little bit about some of the difficulties in writing cross-platform code in general (or a cross-platform Team Foundation Server client in particular), then I recommend you give it a listen. It's an overview of the topic, and not a deep dive into some of the hairy monster you might encounter, but I have (and will continue to) blog about those topics more in depth.

I got a flyer in the mail for the RSA Conference 2008. Since I enjoy cryptography - and despite the fact that I know next to nothing about it - I was interested.

But I'm not going to lie, I'm really put off by the advertising. This year's theme for the conference is Alan Turing. How this conference has been going on for 14 years and ignored him up to now is a mystery to me. (They made a carrier pigeon the theme in 1997. That's right, a carrier pigeon apparently did more for security than Turing.)

But now that RSA has finally decided to recognize the man, they're doing some stupid advertising around it: What Would Turing Do? Which, frankly, would make a cool bumper sticker, and I would have been impressed... if they had just asked the question and not tried to answer it.

Instead, they give some odd answers that show that their marketing department never bothered to talk to a developer - or even a read a Turing biography. Their answers are frequently bizarre and have nothing to do with Turing: he would "have a raging sushi addiction", "be a huge Dr. Who fan" and would "collect rare Phillip Glass vinyl". (Yes, they also didn't bother to google "Phillip Glass" to realize that they misspelled his name.)

This is the company that was founded by three math PhDs who invented the RSA public key algorithm the RC block ciphers, and the MDx hash functions. And they're suggesting that he would "recite the far reaches of imaginary numbers to pass the time"? I'd like to think that would be beneath Turing... hell, it would be beneath me. (A googleplex times i. A googleplex plus one times i. See, not very satisfying is it?)

Very disappointing.

Especially since it's obvious that really, Turing wouldn't care about sushi or Bill Gates. He'd be far too busy enjoying the liberal sexual mores of this fine time we live in.

Engadget has an article on how to remove the Windows BSOD icon in 10.5. They seem to think that removing it is a good idea - since it's "so pompous and galling".

I call shenanigans. Pompous? Maybe. Galling? Give me a break.

It's true, Microsoft would never do something like this. Mostly because Microsoft cares precious little about interoperability with other network filesystems. CIFS is good enough for everybody - how's that for smug?

I suggest ignoring the whiners and embracing the BSOD icon. And then take it a step further: install xscreensaver and use the BSOD screensaver. Then smile when people tell you "there's something wrong with your computer!"

(From the Matchbook Museum)