Saturday, September 30, 2006

HP Hearing: Passing Bucks in A Morality Play. HP Hearing: Passing Bucks in A Morality Play. So what's the verdict the day after the seven or so hour long Congressional grilling of HP? Two of my favorites: Brian McDonough does a analysis of buck-passing that would make John Madden proud over at the Recorder's Legal Pad: The Hewlett-Packard folk testifying before Congress today passed the buck so many times, it should've been the trigger for some unlikely C-SPAN drinking game. And over at the San Jose Mercury News, Scott Herhold does a close reading of the hearing's morality play: But at the end of the day -- and the end is what counts in politics -- Hurd was served up the softest of softballs by U.S. Rep. Michael C. Burgess of the 26th District of Texas.[...] Then Hurd invoked the deity: "One of our founders, David Packard, said, 'There'll never be a time when we don't make mistakes. The defining point will be what we do about them.' I promise we are committed to our core to define our company in a way we can be proud of.'' That was what the panel craved -- the penance, the vow to sin no more, even the hope that HP will put a plant in their district. If nothing else, Hurd's testimony demonstrated just how much high-tech executives have learned about the needs of Congress. My first take on Hurd's performance is here, but it's not as good as these.   [27B Stroke 6] 11:59:37 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Bad Code. Bad Code. I've been puzzling over the Republican bill to deny accused terrorists fair trials, and the seemingly-irrational language champions of the legislation have been using to describe its purpose. The goal, "is to render justice to the terrorists, even though they will not render justice to us." -- Senator Lindsey Graham. "We don't want (terror suspects) to have everyday rights of American civilians right here. These are war criminals." -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. It occurs to me now that the whole 94-page bill really amounts to a common, one-character programming error. if (person = terrorist) { punish_severely(); } else { exit(-1); } Can you spot the error? (Solution). This is why coders and other left-brained types seldom vote Republican. I'm confident the Supreme Court will catch this in debugging. Just in case, I'm sending them a copy of Kernighan and Ritchie. [27B Stroke 6] 11:58:11 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []