Scriptionary Blog

OK I first thought that the concept of zombie fire ants was incredibly cool in a scifi way after a colleague sent me the below link but after thinking about it for a while, this sh*t is a bit creepy.

Go ahead and read the story or the section on Wikipedia about this.

Crazy sh*t, agreed? Now scientists are using these flies as a pest control agent in several southern states which is where the creepiness comes in. What if the fly population booms and runs out of fire ants? Here’s a hint:

[the fly] is omnivorous. It has been reared from decaying vegetation, shoe polish, paint emulsions, human cadavers pickled in formalin, and even lung tissue from living people.

Does that mean that there’s a chance that we’ll become zombies? Keep your fingers crossed for the next mutation of this species and we’ll meet eachother in Ravenholm.

I don’t know how many times I’ve ran into people that need help with a piece of C code that should run perfectly fine but for some reason it just doesn’t. Of course, after much going back and forward, you find out that the person you’re trying to help is using Borland’s Turbo C compiler version 2.01, released 20 years ago in 1989..

While the compiler is freely download-able from several websites labeled as an “Antique”, it’s really not a great tool to start programming with on modern systems. If you really (really) want to use Turbo C, buy an old 286 and go at it but don’t use your Intel Core i7. Here’s why. PS, this also applies to Turbo C++

1. The compiler is 20 years old, it won’t support the current C99 standard so many things you might have learned, you now have to unlearn in order to get the program working.

2. Turbo C is an MS-DOS compiler, chances are if you are learning C now, you have never used DOS in your life; there’s no reason to go back, nostalgia doesn’t apply to DOS. Furthermore, Windows does not support DOS programs from the 80’s, so you would have to emulate DOS in order to get your programs working properly.

3. There are many free compilers available that are 100% compatible with today’s hardware and not bound by any limitations. Even if your Turbo C compiler is 32 bit compatible, it’s not a great match for your 64 bit CPU and Operating System.

4. You’re stuck on the command line interface with no way out. Even if you make the best command line program for DOS, nobody besides yourself will ever want to use it. Converting your program to Win32 requires a new compiler that will yell at you for using coding practices from 1989 and break your program.

In other words, if the following code compiles without warning, you know you need another compiler.

#include <stdio.h>

main()
{
    printf("Hello, World!");
}

Here’s a little tip for Florida Business owners, but maybe restricted to S-Corp owners. If you get a document in the mail called: “Annual Minutes Requirement Statement Directors and Shareholders”, do not pay it, this is a scam. The Florida Department of State has now posted a warning about this on its front-page as well.

While this document might look very authentic, in the small print it states:

This product has not been approved or endorsed by any government agency and this offer is not being made by an agency of the government.

Needless to say, you should never send shareholder information to any non-government organization. And your actual annual meeting information should only be addressed to a government organization or posted at SunBiz.org.

The letter that I originally received had the following return address:

COMPLIANCE SERVICES
400 Capital Cir SE, Ste 18321
Tallahassee, FL 32301

Edit:
Thanks to all of the people who have posted a comment, here’s a list of all the street address instances used by this scammer so far, there were more instances reported below in the comment section without addresses. Also, if you happen to have more information or an address that’s not listed, please post it below, it will most certainly help many people.

• California
  P.O. Box 1265
  Studio City, CA 91614-0265
• Florida
  400 Capital Cir SE, Ste 18321
  Tallahassee, FL 32301
• Georgia (1)
  931 Monroe Drive NE, STE A-102 #333
  Atlanta, GA 30308-1795
• Georgia (2)
  Annual Minutes Disclosure Services/Business Processing Division
  5805 State Bridge Road
  Duluth GA 30094
  Phone 866-390-1176
• Georgia (3)
  Annual Minutes Disclosure Services
  5805 State Bridge Road Ste. G–380
  Duluth, GA 30097
• Massachusetts
  Compliance Services
  71 Commercial St. #241
  Boston, MA 02109
• New York
  Annual Minutes Disclosure Services / Business Processing Division
  911 Central Avenue #134
  Albany, NY 12206
• North Carolina
  324 S. Wilmington St.
  Postal Mail Box 407
  Raleigh, NC 27601

While I’m not an expert on law or anything, the last ten years have seen a steady decline in technology jobs in the western world and I would like to share my opinion as someone who (luckily) still is part of the existing workforce.

When I finished high school, like many others I had to choose a major for college. This wasn’t a hard decision for me since I was always involved with computers and programming. So I decided I was going to major in ICT (Information and Communication Technologies).

There were many jobs available in that field during that time (around 2000), so this field seemed very lucrative to me. But then the dot-com bubble burst and from then on till now jobs have been disappearing steadily.

Many of these jobs have gone overseas due to outsourcing and this is, in my opinion like everything else on this blog, the biggest problem the western tech market is facing. So, how can these jobs be brought back to the western world? Here’s my two cents:

1. Tax companies that outsource labor.
Enforce an outsourcing tax that would bring the cost of overseas labor to a similar level as the cost of hiring workers from the same country. This will make it less lucrative for companies to hire an outsourcing provider.

2. Prohibit personal information from leaving the originating country.
Personal information should not be viewable by countries other than the originating country. This will allow western call- and data-centers to be reestablished and provides more safety to the people who’s personal information is being shared.

Besides from bringing jobs back to the countries involved, this will give a higher quality of service as we all know how much quality work has come from outsourcing. Finally, the drive for innovation will be greater as people will understand that their technologies will be used by their peers instead of competitors.

All in all, this is my personal stab at the topic and might be a bit too “risque” for some and I apologize in advance if you feel I have offended you.

*cough*grow a pair*cough*

Maybe Phoenix will live up to its name and start functioning again soon, until then:

I don’t like Visual Basic, yet in many Microsoft shops, VB is still being used especially in combination with ASP.NET. The problem with Visual Basic is that it’s not very strongly typed. Conventions are often thrown out of the window and Senior VB developers often hold their seniority as experience which, is more fiction than fact.

How many more times do I have to see Functions which don’t return anything and should have been declared as Subs.

Or: Variable 'XYZ' is used before it has been assigned a value.
Or: Variable declaration without an 'As' clause; type of Object assumed.

Ugh. You’d think that people with 15 years of development experience wouldn’t dismiss this kind of stuff and just do the right thing.