Techy Tib Bits
Piles of stuff accumulating on the tech front.
First up. All sorts of interesting commentary in the past few weeks on MySpace’s technical architecture and infrastructure issues. As I wrote to someone earlier today, this is fascinating to watch. It’s not often one gets to watch a train wreck as it happens. In years past, this sort of technical disaster would have taken several years to unfold. But this will all play out within the next year to eighteen months. It’s a classic example of an initial incorrect architecture decision, taking too long to recognize and correct that decision, building out instead of up, and then perhaps a questionable next generation architecture decision (it is my sense that .Net is not robust enough for MySpace’s ginormous usage volumes). The long article I linked above to is a fascinating case study of attempting technical and business planning while drinking from the mother of all firehoses.
Next: The FCC’s proposed rule making regarding Pretexting. Make no bones about it, pretexting is odious and should be illegal. However, the FCC’s corrective proposal is also odious: If a customer calls their telephone company to ask for call record information, the customer would be required to give a password to the customer service representative in order to access the call information. On the surface, that seems quite reasonable - the customer would create the password and the password would be stored in the customer’s profile. However, the approach is actually ridiculous. Customers will now be required to remember two passwords - one for verbal access, the other for internet access. As each of us experience every day, multiple password management is difficult - let alone managing multiple passwords for the same company. Second, verbalizing a password to a myriad of customer service representatives is ludicrous from a security perspective. This is a classic example of bureaucracy promulgating a pathetic technical solution to a human engineering problem. Gads. One of my co-workers had this to say in response to my internal ranting on the subject:
I did want to praise your use of the word promulgations - nice SAT score and offer this food for thought - Don’t you think it ironic that as our Republican administration is sweeping away all manner of civil liberties they are mandating business adhere to stringent “privacy” protections for the consumer. Does this not suggest that we are as more valuable as consumers than citizens?
Third up: Both Comcast and Amazon took hits from market analysts for their technical infrastructure spending. Analysts tend to be so short sighted. They go ga ga over the latest and greatest technical advances. Yet, they demand cost cuts in order to optimize short term profits. How do they think that all those technical advances such as IPTV, Video on Demand, Fixed-Mobile Convergence, Interactive TV, etc. will be delivered? Via networked tin cans and strings? The networks and infrastructure required for this next generation stuff are huge, very expensive, very complicated and can’t be built in a day. Sheesh…
Finally: Bill Gates’ amusing guest appearance on The Daily Show. Bill Gates’ voice squeaks and he giggles!!!! He squeaks and giggles like the high school nerd that I’m sure he was. It’s actually sort of endearing.
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That quote from your co-worker is so good. I may indeed have to steal it…