Find Out if Your Passwords Were Leaked by LulzSec Right Here

(h/t Gizmodo)

Reports: Google to Face Broad Antitrust Investigation from U.S. Government

When I see something like this, I start getting really cynical, based on the Microsoft experience of the late 1990s:

• Can the market be defined accurately?
• Will Google have a hand in defining the market, as it seemed Microsoft did in their case?
• What sort of lobbying clout does Google currently have?
• If this really does go to trial, and Google is found guilty, and is forced to break up, will it end up like the AT&T breakup of 1994, where to company was reconstituted of its original parts less than 20 years later under a different market definition?

There are times I’m really glad I didn’t follow my original career trajectory in antitrust economics…it all seems so pointless in the legislative environment of the last thirty years…

The ugly Oracle-HP divorce: Customers could get hurt

I have to take exception with one of Mr. Snyder’s main points, however. He believes that Oracle is not being “its hardball self” in giving its customers no choice in server platform other than conversion to its Sun-acquired hardware, and that they won’t (and haven’t) backed down in the face of customer complaints. He bases this on a conversation with one person, who may or may not be knowledgable in the situation. I think Mr. Snyder needs to get out more.

I know that Oracle made a tour of their major PeopleSoft clients in the eighteen months after the 2005 acquisition, and I know that they heard more than an earful from each of them regarding the feeling that they were being forced to change platforms simply because of Oracle’s corporate goals. I also know that the “Applications Unlimited” program was instituted after this tour, and wasn’t even considered until then.

This squabble between HP and Oracle looks quite familiar, and I feel it will take a similar course – Oracle will talk tough, but will ultimately relent. The question I have is – why does so much energy have to be expended on ultimately meaningless things like this?

Bacon Ipsum

Fillerati

Personally, I like Fillerati a little better – you can become literate and be subliminally funny at the same time…

(h/t LifeHacker)

Oracle Donates OpenOffice to the Apache Software Foundation

This makes it about six weeks from abandonment to “donation”…

The question still remains – when will this happen to MySQL?

(h/t ReadWriteWeb)

The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science

Keep this in mind when you’re arguing with a friend who is taking seemingly irrational positions…

So, how much longer will it take to fork MySQL? And how long after that will Oracle abandon it?

(h/t ArsTechnica)

America in the age of primitivism

New PeopleTools Developer Book Available

Keep It On Track

Do You Know What Your Reports Are Doing?

Also, my recent post Making It Fit made it onto the B-Eye Network! Huzzah!

Happy Holidays!