It Might Get Loud

On Friday night I saw "It Might Get Loud". I didn't bring my mother along explaining that rock was still not something she'd like. She responded that at her age (early 90's) movies should be entitled, "It Should be Loud".

In a memorable scene, Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) thumbs through some 45s, puts one on the turntable, and plays air guitar to Link Wray's "Rumble". As he strums his imaginary guitar, Page's smile widens and an ecstatic look spreads across his face as the distortion increases in waves.

I still marvel at the thought of Jimmy Page playing air guitar. It would make a great hard core rock trivia question.

Foreclosure of the Day

A sure sign of our time: "Foreclosure of the Day" as a feature in Newsday. Public hangings being a thing of the past, perhaps the county can post eviction notices so we can gather an gawk.

Those who stumble onto this from another part of the country may want to stop reading right now. West Hempstead is not a wealthy area. The taxes on the property are $7,430, with additional village taxes of $4,300.

Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach

I spotted a copy of the Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach by Peter Schickele as I was leaving the Systems area. "Whose is this?" I asked. With no answer I declared it mine and ran. Not really. I spent a few minutes regaling them with PDQ Bachianna: the drunk musician sprawled on the concert stage, the left-handed sewer flute, "last and least loved son", "Trance and Dental Etude", the "Unbegun Symphoney", etc. and then I ran. Finding PDQ's biography (oft cited as the long-awaited hoax) in Systems was astounding. To my knowledge only Ray reads books. His readings fall into two narrow categories: waaaaay right-wing/libertarian screeds (the last I knew his crush on Ann Coulter was unrequited and undiminished) and job-related computer security tomes. Most of the Systems guys don't read books, understandable since most of what they need to read is online. Recreational reading, if such a thing happens for Systems guys, seems confined to Cigar Aficionado, Money magazine, and Car and Driver.

Back to PDQ: Shickele's humor is sophomoric -- dead aimed at my level. It's Chicken Inspector No. 23 (SJ Perlman) humor: "One of the reviewer mentioned 'long lines at the box office,' but in all fairness it must be admitted that the lines consisted of people demanding refunds." There's the visual humor:After hearing about it for many, many years I finally got to see a picture of the legendary left-handed sewer flute, an instrument whose performance use declined with the advent of indoor plumbing.

Loose Lips Sink Career

Robert Maley, Pennsylvania's CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) was terminated after mentioning a recent incident at the early March RSA security conference. A driving school was able to circumvent security to schedule its students ahead of others in the queue.

Rules governing Pennsylvania State employees require prior approval before discussing official matters publicly, but it seems that he aired some dirty linen (2008 cross-site scripting vulnerability in a voter registration website, SQL injection attacks, etc.) and the driving school case was under active investigation. For more see the IT Knowledge Exchange and a Computer World interview with Maley.

What is Not Said

IBM stops disclosing U.S. headcount data

The headline says it all. Citing the practice of it's competitors, IBM no longer breaks out employment by country. Two stark figures appear in the article: in 2009 IBM reported 105,000 domestic works. Two years earlier (2007 for the math challenged), IBM employed 121,000 people. Slightly less than one-sixth of its work force was no longer employed by Big Blue.

I look around and wonder when my term to be RIFfed. In my mind, RIF (for Reduction In Force) is a particularly sinistereuphemism as it suggests RIP (Rest in Peace) and the thought that a "reduction in force" is an extreme prejudicial way of saying KIA (killed in action).