Tim Worstall should Edit the Today Programme

As must as I hate it, I find it impossible to turn the Today programme off.

Yesterday, I almost vowed never to listen to it again after a sanctimonious, economically illiterate speaker on "Thought for the day" urged listeners to help the poor of the world by refusing to buy the goods they produced. Great idea, Einstein. I think the words I yelled at the radio were something like: "This man is talking B*LL*CKS".

Anyhow, I'm glad I didn't start my boycott as they had an interesting piece this morning. Apparently, they will be allowing a group of listeners to edit the show on New Year's Day 2007.

Now I don't think I've yet done enough to establish my credibility as a balanced, knowledgeable, economically-literate observer of world events. But I know of a man who has.... Tim... if you're not preparing your application as we speak, you should be.

Blackbox

Sun's Jonathan Schwartz is proving to be just as big a publicity machine as his predecessor.

His latest ruse is "Project Blackbox" - a datacenter in a container. (Containerisation's all the rage... I blogged about the double-decker container boats that roam the Thames only yesterday)

In essense, it's a data centre in a box: it contains the CPUs, memory, disks, cooling, etc, etc. You drop it somewhere, connect it to a network, plug it in, plumb it into a water system and off you go.

I understand the idea was triggered, in part, by a customer of Sun telling them it had taken the best part of three years to build out a data centre (compared to You Tube who had been founded, gone live, ramped up to millions of users and been acquired in less time).

However, I can't help thinking that we're comparing apples with oranges here.

Compared to working with an existing estate of software and systems is completely different to building an entirely new infrastructure: in the latter case, you get to write your apps from scratch and don't have to worry about legacy applications or integration. In short, you don't have to worry about the things that are truly difficult.

In reality, installing the hardware is never the hard part. It's all the other "tiny" things you have to do before you can consider your deployment complete: getting the operating system configured and patched to the level that the software you're using requires takes time. Installing the middleware adds a bit of extra time (can you think of an enterprise-scale application that doesn't require some sort of middleware services?) Then you have to configure the middleware... make sure any clustering is set-up, database connectivity sorted, failover tested. Oh... you might want to install some databases (I hope the data you need isn't kept in some other data centre, owned by some other application) 

And that's before you've even written your application or installed it.

In short, what Sun are doing is a nice idea and it almost certainly has value but let's be clear that there are lots of reasons why data centres take a long time to build out and getting a bunch of boxes installed is only one of them.

Gendal World

Welcome to Gendal World if you've just arrived via www.ibm.com.

I am an SOA and BPM consultant working for IBM Software Services for WebSphere. This means I help my clients, typically users of IBM WebSphere software, to architect and implement solutions to their integration problems.

I'm currently working in a pre-sales mode, which explains the lack of technical postings of late - I'm not engaging directly on projects at present. I'd love to blog about how we sell our services and how we scope engagements but I suspect you'd find it a bit dull :-)

When I'm not working, I have an avid interest in politics and, especially, the intersection of politics and economics.

I hope you stick around to read future articles I'm preparing on why all business journalists are provably second-rate (spoiler: if there were any good ones, they'd have already fixed the appalling quality of business journalism in the UK), why I think I may be a libertarian (without the guns bit) and, if you're really lucky, I may devise a new design pattern for modern life.

ibm.com

Today, my blog is two clicks away from the front page of www.ibm.com.

That's not something that happens every day.

Of course, Andy Piper is only one click away.

He will be unbearable when I meet him for a drink in an hour.

TV Star

Can my day get any more exciting?

At the DLR platform at Limehouse this morning, I changed my routine and stood at the end opposite to where I normally stand.

This meant that the District Line was a better way to complete my journey from Bank this morning - as fighting the crowds to the other end of the platform for the Waterloo and City line was unappealing.

This meant I had to walk from Blackfriars along the South Bank to my office.

As I walked along, I noticed one of those boats full of yellow containers that sail up and down the river. One of the containers was missing so I looked over to see what the bottom of the gap looked like... I wanted to know how they were secured to the boat. Imagine my surprise when I realised there was another container underneath.... the boats contain (at least) twice as many containers as I had previously thought.

If this change of routine and voyage of discovery was not enough for one day, I was accosted by a researcher for ITV1's "This Morning" show and asked if I would participate in a segment they were filming.

I had to take a chocolate, eat it, describe the flavour and then react when told what the flavour really was.

I will not spoil their show by giving the answer here... I'll just repeat what I told them: "that was really quite unpleasant".

Wow. She's lucky to be alive

Given that you can get every bone in your face broken for asking someone to move their car, this woman is either brave or stupid.

"Put out your cigarette!"

Brave, stupid and very admirable.

Why has the DLR started to suck?

I first observed that DLR was beginning to take on the characteristics of a typically awful LUL line a few months ago.

Since then, more points failures (two days in a row), signal failures (trains crawling between stations under manual control) and other niggles have become the norm rather than the exception.

Not good enough, Serco.

SORE Point

It has just been pointed out to me that I mis-spelled "illiterate" in this post.

The irony is not lost on me.

Repealing the Law of Gravity

I don't care whether Richard Dawkins coined it or not, I don't like the word "meme" and so I have no intention of propagating its usage.

However, a question that is currently doing the rounds is: "Which law would you like to break?"

The title of this post hints at the usual, unimaginative, answer to such a question.

I much preferred the answer that Gavin Ayling reported someone had given:

“I would love to break the law of unintended consequences but there would probably be a down side I hadn’t counted on…”

Nice.

Reuters Reporter Embedded in "Sadville"

The Register seems to have something of a downer on Second Life.

Several of my colleagues are convinced of the potential of Second Life and other "metaverses" and are running with it as hard as they possibly can.

I admire their enthusiasm and passion and am following their progress with interest and admiration.

However, I don't think it's inconsistent also to state that I can't help feeling that I'm missing something. I'm not ashamed to say that I just don't get it.

However, this Slashdot article reminded me why I'm probably wrong. When government starts to realise there's money being made (and decide that they want their cold, dead hands on it), it suggests there really is something interesting going on...

So, even though I'm not convinced this is an area that's "for me", I'm glad to see that people I know and respect are in there and making it their own.

London Free Sheet Wars

The London freesheets are a never-ending source of interest for me. The quality of the new evening papers is mixed but, as I commented here, I quite like thelondonpaper.

I've been trying to deduce the compensation models for the distributors of the various papers and outlined some theories here.

Further evidence of the absolute desperate nature of the competition was provided today.

I took today off and had lunch with some friends in Central London. We noticed a "thelondonpaper" distributor setting up stall towards the end of our meal and we watched what he did.

Once his stall was set up, he walked down the road and placed a copy of the paper on every parked motorbike. He then placed a copy on top of the street furniture (bollards, post boxes, you name it: if it was stationary, he deposited a paper on it).

He then came over to the bar we were sat outside of (that it is warm enough to sit outside in the middle of October is worthy of another post. Let's just say that if this is the effect of global warming, I'm going to start burning more oil... :-p  )

Back to the story... he came over to the tables and gave everybody a copy of the paper.

So far, so entrepreneurial, perhaps.

It was only when I started to read the paper on the tube that I discovered his pièce de resistance. He had carefully placed a second copy of the paper inside the first!

The pressures on these guys to shift more copies must be utterly intense.

Wilkinson Sword Titanium vs Gillette Mach 3

I received a free Wilkinson Sword Titanium razor through the post last week. I don't know why - I suspect I may have followed a link to "free razor!!" on one of those "save money" emails that goes round.

I thought I'd give it a try.

What a disappointment!

It feels a little different to my normal Gillette but that's not a problem... change doesn't have to be bad.

But where it fails - and this is unforgiveable - is that it just doesn't shave particularly close.

FOUR blades and my upper lip is just as rough afterwards as it was before. Were it not for the stubble in the lather, I would have thought the blades were missing.

Bizarrely, it shaved the sides of my face better than a Mach 3. Perhaps the answer is to use two different razors..!

I think the main problem is a lack of audible feedback when using the Wilkinson Sword - you can't tell which parts of the face require extra attention.

Avoid.

Technorati tags: Gillette, Wilkinson, Sword, Razor, Disappointment, Shaving, Grooming, Review

O M G

This is a spoof. Surely?

http://iamfacingforeclosure.com

Just read through the comments on the various articles.  I'm lost for words.

Changes are afoot

I've finally got round to upgrading my blogger template to their new beta format.

It appears to have reset my RSS feed so apologies to those who subscribe to this blog... you may have a lot of duplicates now (although I do hope not).

 

Technorati tags: blog, admin, blogger

The Society of Real Economists

Russ Roberts is almost apopleptic at the sight of 650 "economists" signing a letter that only an economic illerate could have signed.

He proposes founding a new society that any economist can join provided they hold the following three beliefs:

1. Demand slopes downward - people do less of something when it gets more expensive
2. Prices respond to market forces
3. Motives and intentions do not matter. Results and actions do.

Russ's third point is the most important. I find the most effective way to make the muddle-headed realise their closely-cherished political/economic beliefs are wrong is to make them realise there is a BIG difference between "intent" and "outcome".

The oddest lunch I've experienced for some time

We went to a local pub for Sunday lunch this afternoon.  We'd been before and found it reasonable.

This time, however, the alarm bells began to ring when we were met with hastily-printed signs warning us that "Due to unforseen circumstances, the kitchen will be open from noon - 4pm today".

The curious form of words should have sent us running (is the kitchen usually open for fewer hours? Is it normally closed and the unforseen circumstance was that the locks failed?)

Regardless, we found a table and placed our order. We were told they were busy and that it might take 35 minutes or so to be served. No problem.... it gave us time for a drink and a chat.

After 50 minutes, the food still hadn't arrived and I was about to chase it. At that moment, a harrassed-looking waitress appeared and asked which of us was "having the chicken". The answer ("none of us") sent her scuttling back.

Five minutes later, she reappeared with a single dish (there were five of us at the table) and informed us that the order three of us had placed "had run out".  My response ("WHAT?!!!") temporarily threw her until she formed a response (something about a "busy" kitchen...) and placated us with a promise of quick delivery of our second choice meal.

Ten minutes later, another single dish arrived.

At this point, I asked her if she could help us out: we had been served the wrong meal, been told fifty minutes late that they didn't actually have what we ordered and then failed to deliver the meals at anything approximating "the same time" as each other. Perhaps they would like to offer us a drink?

"Sorry. We can't do that. But we can offer you a free dessert".  The prospect of receiving my pension before dessert momentarily passed before my eyes and I decided to ask again if they could help us on the beverage front instead.

She went away to ask the manager before deciding that yes - they could offer us a drink each as compensation for the issues they were plainly experiencing in the kitchen.

Our meals arrived shortly afterwards and the situation appeared to be improving.... until we tried to leave.

As we were finishing our drinks, we heard a disturbance to our left and realised that the staff were locking us into the room we were in! Our next exit was down some steps, via an outside terrace and through the room next door. A family with a pushchair tried to leave and were told to exit via the kitchen.

What an utterly bizarre experience.

Ballmer talks

It would be better for me if my competitors' leaders were incompetent. When they're not, they should at least be as articulate and clear as Microsoft's Steve Ballmer.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2006/tc20061011_940241.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_more+of+today%27s+top+stories

He was spot on in his comments about social networking sites (e.g. ones based on attracting university students will find that 25% of their customers graduate every year... ouch!)

What I found most interesting, however, were his comments on Web 2.0 valuations. His inability to justify some of the valuations should be a warning to us all: I really hope we're not about to enter bubble territory again.

Fantastic!

I wonder what the results would be if they tried this in Westminster?!

http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/2006/10/swabbing_politi.html

It serves me right

I had drinks with a friend I hadn't seen for ages in town last night. For reasons I don't completely understand, we ended up in the roof garden of the Hilton on Trafalgar Square.

Fantastic views, good (albeit expensive) drinks and now I have a cold :-(

I've never accepted the link between "going out in the cold" and "catching a cold". It's like saying you can catch TB from conspicuous extravagance but coincidence makes for a good anecdote and admitting that I probably just caught it from all the people around me who also have colds isn't as interesting an explanation.

It still sucks, though. I was supposed to go out in Clapham this evening. Instead, I'm inhaling Olbas Oil.

Chirality Update

Polly informs me, via email, that our theory of tube chirality is in crisis.

It would appear that the Jubilee line, even though it contains no loops or branches, does not have two versions of the route maps in the carriages.

Henry... does this mean we need to rethink or does your analysis cater for this observation?

Hotel Restaurant

It was my birthday on Friday (I'm almost officially old).

I spent the first hour of it (midnight - 1am) at a client site for reasons that I'll blog about when sufficient time has passed.... suffice it to say that the last few days have been remarkably intense.

I arrived back in London in time for my birthday meal: we went to Curve, which is part of the West India Quay Marriott hotel.

It majors in seafood and I wasn't disappointed by the range. Expensive but excellent.

Save the babies or the oldies?

Russ Roberts makes a passionate argument for how healthcare is too important to be left outside the marketplace

http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2006/10/the_ethics_of_r

The Government Promises you Runways... aaahhh!

It appears a group against airport expansion has decided to pursue the "humour" angle.

http://www.unlimited-spurt.org/

Apart from the fact that I disagree with most (not all) of their aims, it's quite a funny ad :-)

Cool Video

I don't make a habit of talking about popular culture on here but I couldn't resist linking to a cool music video. The song has been around for a while but I've only recently bothered to watch the video properly.

I'm talking about David Guetta v. The Egg - Love Don't Let me Go (or, rather, the sequence between 1:45 and 2:23)

I'm sure Parkour is very passé these days but I thought it was pretty cool.

The video is also helped by the fact that parts of it look like they were shot at Elephant and Castle's Heygate Estate (darn... I can't find a good photo of it online... which is a shame... it'll be demolished soon. Jon... get some photos, quick!)

(Yes... before anyone says... I don't think it really was shot at E&C but still.... )

What a cool map

Henry, a friend who works for A Competitor aCtivE iN The consUlting aREna, pointed me at these cool travel-time maps.

The idea is that the map centres on a specific point and is then colour coded to show how long it would take to get from anywhere else on the map to that point.

In other words, it allows you to judge travel times by the reality of public transport and the roads rather than by a coarse judgement of direct distance. Neat!

 

 

Unbelievable

I knew that Airbus was a political endeavour and that it may not be structured in the most efficient way but even I find this hard to believe:

They cabin of the A380 is shuttled between Hamburg and Toulouse during production as different parts of it are fitted at different sites.

I'm amazed it's only two years late.

You'll regret that!

I've often wondered how City A.M., thelondonpaper and London Lite distributors are measured. Are they paid to hand out papers for three hours? Are they paid to distribute a certain number of papers? Are they paid for time spent standing, with a bonus for handing out a certain percentage?

I obtained an insight to this question today when the new City A.M. guy at my local station took a handful of papers and appeared to place them directly, but surreptitiously, into a bin that a litter-sweeper was pushing past. This appeared to be with the consent of the litter-sweeper.

Now, perhaps they were damaged or left over from yesterday but it did appear that he was offloading a pile of today's papers.

So, what can we conclude from this?

I conclude that the City A.M. distributors are incented to shift papers (why else would they push them at you, after all?). The way this is measured must be by counting the number of papers left over at the end of the shift.

So, assuming no spot checks, it would be rational to bin some of the papers.... less work to do!

The only downside would be if he shifted so many papers that they sent him more the next day. Before he knew it, he'd have an increasing stack every day until the pile of papers was twenty feet high and swayed dangerously in the wind.

To continue his deception, he'd have to spend increasing amounts of time disposing of them.  The bin man would suffice for a while, but he might get upset when asked to dispose of half a ton of newspapers.  The distributor would then have to start hiding papers behind plantpots or under front-door mats.  If he were clever, he would take a pile to the platform, jump on a train when it arrived, dump a pile on the floor and hop off again before the doors closed but the train staff might get wise to him.

It would turn into a nightmare. He would lose sleep. He'd spend more time covering up his deception than handing out the papers. His relationship would suffer. It would just be awful.

Therefore, my advice to him (and others who might be tempted to bin the papers they're supposed to be distributing) is don't do it. It just isn't worth it!

SOA

IBM announced a whole heap of new stuff in the SOA space today.

Some new stuff that might interest my readers are:

• New version of WebSphere Business Modeler
• New version of WebSphere Business Monitor
• New product: WebSphere Registry and Repository

There are lots of articles out there and our SOA-blogger-in-chief, Sandy Carter, will have more on her blog over the coming days.

I'm particularly interested in the new Modeler product. It's often the small things that make all the difference. For example, quite apart from some of the major additions and changes, a technical change to how WSDL documents are imported into Modeler will make a big difference to BPM projects.

Free gas!

If somebody had told me, I'd have shot over to the pipline, bought a party pack and filled up a few balloons.... it's not often people pay you to take natural gas off their hands...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/10/03/ugas03.xml

Of course, those who think that high oil prices are a sign of excessive greed on the part of the "oil companies" must presumably conclude that they have just engaged in a collective bout of philanthropy. I wonder what the cause is?

(Yes, yes.... I stole that argument... probably from one of the Cafe Hayek folk)

E1W

It appears that Wapping is the fourth "best place" to live in the UK - and the only place in London in the top ten. Having just bought a flat in E1W, this is reassuring news.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1777837.ece

Of course, if you read further, you'll see phrases such as "hot spot". That is code for "dangerously over-priced" so I'm not feeling too smug...

 

(Oh... and for those who read the entire article.... No... I did not spend £1.29m)

Let he who is without sin...

Although I use Firefox in preference to Internet Explorer, I do so for features such as tabbed browsing.

Vague claims that it is "more secure" have never washed with me: how do you prove it?  I can prove that one piece of software is faster than another or easier to install or costs less but proving something is more secure (as opposed merely to having had fewer security problems discovered in it) is an entirely different question.

So those who spend their days trumpeting Firefox (or Apple's Operating System for that matter) as somehow superior than a competing product because they are "more secure" attract my disapproval (and you don't want to be the target of my disapproval!)

I therefore felt a sense of schadenfreude when I read this article. It appears that Firefox's Java Script engine is a "complete mess" and quite likely riddled with security holes.  Who'd have guessed it?!

(For the record, however, I should say that I do not approve of those who don't give vendors sufficient time to fix problems before publishing.)

I'll see your five and raise you

Andy Piper has been at IBM for five years.

Whippersnapper.

I marked the end of my sixth last month.

It's been an interesting and enjoyable ride.... testing software at Hursley, performing competitive Proofs of Concept in a worldwide Technical Sales team, WebSphere consultancy around Europe and now Technical Sales for Services sales.

Andy's idea of taking a few days off for reflection is probably a good one; my six years have gone by extraordinarily quickly. Which I suspect is a good sign (time only drags when you're bored :-)  )

Remember what the *bilities give you

Larry Osterman had a good post the other day about the *bilities. He was pointing out to the developers that read his blog that you need to worry about serviceability, accessibility and all the other good stuff.

A corollary of this is that you need to understand what each of these *bilities means and what it does and doesn't give you.

A capability of enterprise systems is transactionality. We often loosely describe it as the thing that allows us to make sure that "either everything happens or nothing does".

David Currie has an excellent post that points out that you need to be a little more subtle than that. He is giving another example of how there is no susch concept of "simultaneous". Not in physics and certainly not in computer science.

Upgrading Flights

I wouldn't be surprised if a large portion of those flying on BA's Concorde flights were frequent travellers upgrading from more mundane classes.  The loss of Concorde was surely a blow to them.

Virgin (who I find superior to BA in pretty much ever way) don't even have a First class for Business Class passengers to upgrade to (their "Upper Class" is a merged cabin)

No longer.  It appears that very frequent travellers on Virgin now have an option that surpasses even Concorde.

One man has just upgraded from Upper Class to Virgin Galactic.

BPEL evolves

Joe McKendrick discusses some recent exchanges around BPEL 1.1 and 2.0.  Some people appear to be complaining that rework may be required if one migrates from 1.1 to 2.0.

Seriously, what did you expect?

There are new features in BPEL 2.0 that weren't available in 1.1.  If you needed those features in the 1.1 timeframe, you had three choices:

• Not do the thing that the 2.0 feature would have let you do
• Roll your own
• Use the vendor's proprietary implementation (if any)

None of the options are wonderful but that's what happens if a standard doesn't contain the thing you want.

The question is: which option is best (or least worst)?

My money is on going with your vendor's version.

Free Enterprise

I popped out of the office this afternoon for an eye test (the ability to take time out when business permits and make up the time later on is extraordinarily useful)

I forgot to bring my umbrella to work this morning and suffered when I left the optician and realised it was raining torrentially.

I ran from the store (on the Strand) to Charing Cross Station (it was too wet to consider walking back to the office). My plan was to take the tube to Waterloo and reconsider my position from there.

As I was running down the steps into the station, I heard what sounded like "Free Umbrellas!" I wasn't naïve enough to believe free umbrellas really were available but I was so wet that a few extra seconds outdoors wouldn't have made a difference. So I climed back upstairs.

As I emerged back into the biblical flood, I realised one of the touristy-shops that sells tat on Villiers Street had converted itself into an umbrella emporium, with its proprietor energetically yelling at anybody going past.  He was doing a roaring trade.

The ability to turn his business at the turn of the rain was a sight to behold. Bravo!

If you're in the market for a coffee table...

... may I recommend Dorset Chunky Pine?

The table I ordered a while back was delivered on Saturday and is unique and was good value.

I specified a design slightly different to the standard ones they offered and Allan built it exactly as I asked.

It is now sitting in the living room and looking very impressive.

(Yes, Yes.... I know a photo would probably be a good addition to this post..... patience!)

Sloe Gin

It appears that the humble G&T is no longer enough. I'm seeing an increasing number of bars in London suggesting one tries Sloe Gin and Tonic.

It doesn't taste too bad and I figured Sloe Gin might make a useful addition to the spirits cupboard.

It was almost not to be. Do Waitrose in Canary Wharf sell it? No. Tesco Metro? No. Oddbins in Cabot Place? No. Where else could I try?

Luckily, the "tenth best place in London", Gerry's, in Soho, came to the rescue.  I felt ever-so-slightly embarrassed asking for this drink. I needn't have. My friend Ben, who I went there with, waited until I had paid for mine before asking if they stocked Mead. They did.

Superb

Tim Worstall points to this Telegraph Article.

About time, too.... Like I say to anyone who'll listen, reducing emissions, preventing mining and almost all the other "good things" that environmentalists promote invariably have costs. This doesn't mean we shouldn't aim to do these things but it does mean we have to consider the consequences of our actions on others - in this case those who would stay poor if a factory didn't get to open.

Gheorghe Lucian seems not to believe that others have the right to impose further time in poverty on him. Good for him.

Regulation

It seems that the anti-Roaccutane lobby are continuing their march towards having it banned. It appears it may cause "depression" in mice. I'm not sure how one tells that a mouse is depressed. But, apparently, one can.

I must confess an interest here. I was prescribed Roaccutane in my early twenties and its effects were astonishing. I have friends who have also benefitted from it - some to an astonishing degree.

Were it to be made even harder to obtain than it is today (only dermatologists can prescribe it in the UK) then I would be most upset.