I heard that Google use MySQL for something like the AdSense customer database.

It was six characters [a-z] all lower case.

One of these days, I'll replace login with biometrics or something. I bet even then users would leave DNA swabs or fingerprint moulds floating around like post-it notes.

But the point is that it is reducing Google's costs. They fund development of MySQL and PostgreSQL because they use it. The Xbox comparison isn't a good one: Microsoft has started making a profit on Xbox, but Google are never going to make a profit in the same way from Linux or MySQL/Postgres, but making those products better reduces a cost center for Google. That's a pretty good primary reason that should pass muster with the regulators.

That it means little guys like me working for a tiny European company can run Linux and Postgres and Apache on our servers rather than paying Microsoft for a Windows/MS SQL/IIS/.NET solution is a nice secondary effect. It sure would be nice to think that Google are putting all this investment into FOSS to keep me from having to be a Microsoft customer. To argue that, I'd have to see some evidence that Google are funding FOSS development for stuff they have no direct business use for.

I went to a machine the other day and found the user's password on a post-it note.

That's common enough, right?

Except he was in /etc/sudoers. Not any more.

I'm instituting a new security policy: if you leave your password on a post-it note, you lose sudo. If I find your password on a post-it note again, I get to hit you on the head with a hammer. Eventually it will stop.

Well, in the UK, kids go to school for twelve years. That should surely be enough time to teach cursive and touch typing as part of an integrated writing curriculum!

I heard about a job advert that a large multinational in London's Square Mile put out. They needed a receptionist/secretary. They needed to be able to type and use MS Office. The typing requirements? 40 WPM. They had to reduce it down to 40 WPM to actually get applicants for a secretarial position. That tripped my "WTF? Something is wrong here." detector.

I don't understand why touch typing is not part of every school curriculum in every Western nation. They spend enough time teaching people Word and Excel these days, why not teach touch typing? In a society where a huge chunk of people will end up in an office in front of a computer all day, it seems like a basic component of literacy. If you are writing things, there's a pretty high chance those things will be written in some electronic form.

I can touch type pretty fast (90+ WPM) but that's because my mother (who had been to secretarial college and worked as a legal secretary) taught me how to touch type on a manual typewriter.

I can install Windows (XP at least) or Linux on my old PC.

Ergo, I have no reason to buy a new PC.

Except, you know, to make my software run better...

UK, MiFi: 1Gb a month costs 10 GBP == 11.77 EUR.

And a pay-as-you-go phone for the occasional phone call. I pretty much only use my phone to arrange lifts, book cabs etc. The legacy voice network probably costs me about 1 or 2 GBP a month in call charges on pay-as-you-go. And my legacy phone is completely unlocked.

Legacy voice phones are for calling the police if someone is in a car accident, and occasional interfacing with weird people who haven't quite grasped the whole Internet thing. For everything else, I just use TCP/IP (and often Skype), and for that 1Gb is more than enough. Anything that requires heftier bandwidth? Pop open SSH and tell my machine at home to do it.

So basically, I'm probably using the same amount of data as the smartphone users, but I can use that on any device that supports wifi. And I pay less than if I had a contract. The only downside is I have to carry a phone as well as a dongle. But I carry a bag with me everywhere.

There, FTFY. ;-)

Substitute "India" for "London" and "service counter" for "bar in a busy pub on a Saturday night" and this remains true.

That's why you need someone to open up shortcut routes during quiet periods. I believe they do this at some airports.

Also, you can do it in a slightly more subtle way by having markings on the floor and by doing sort of 'nudge'-style design that basically encourages people to form a queue even though there isn't actual physical barriers.

For instance, at some ATMs I use in London, they have big blue arrows on the ground to show people to queue. During busy periods, it nudges people into an efficient queuing protocol, but during quiet times, it doesn't force people to walk long distances.

You can do this electronically, by having an electronic display saying "NEXT CUSTOMER GO TO COUNTER {x: Integer}" (and an audio version for blind people). You add a button to each counter, and the staff member presses it with enough time for the customer he's currently dealing with to finish (just as he's counting the change or once the credit card has been approved, as he's bagging etc.) This basically pops a new customer off the queue, and by the time the customer arrives at the counter (i.e. the object has loaded into memory), the staff member is ready to do the next transaction. This works pretty well so long as the quantity of items the customer is buying isn't high.

(That's it: if the programming thing stops being profitable, I'm going into retail planning. Heh.)

Except for public transport, where it is every-man-for-himself and passive-aggressive behaviour all day, every day, everywhere. I can't remember the last time I saw a queue at a bus stop in London for instance.

Good christ, I've seen too many people arguing about how noisy they are in the "quiet carriage" on trains.

My favourite bit of public rudeness was on a commuter train out of Cannon Street, the terminal in the City, London's financial district. Lots of bankers, businessmen etc. I was on said train and two men are sitting opposite one another. I know from experience that this seat in the carriage has a large box of emergency equipment under the seat, so your feet always end up going forward under the table. If you've got long legs and big feet, your feet end up protruding quite far under the table because you can't pull them back towards you very easily. This was evidently happening. The man opposite shouted "EXCUSE ME SIR, ARE YOU A HOMOSEXUAL OR SOMETHING?" The rest of the carriage -- myself included -- tried very, very hard not to burst into giggles.

Passport control is an interesting one. Perhaps it's because I'm a UK citizen and I'm biased, but UK passport control always seemed slightly better organised than US in terms of queuing. At LHR Terminal 3, they just have one massive queue for UK/EU passport holders and one massive queue for foreign passport holders, then have a cluster of agents at the end, all close together.

In SFO and BOS, they have a queue for US and a queue for foreign, then they have fan-out queues for each agent. As you say, this is bad queuing theory.

The strange thing is that even though the LHR queue is usually enormous, it seems to get processed extremely quickly. Perhaps it's just subjective and my brain is playing tricks on me (the combination of spending 6-10 hours in a tin box, followed by the feeling that "London! Home!" etc.), but it would be interesting to see how this works comparatively between UK and US.

I wonder whether the bottlenecks that get built into airport (and international trains like Eurostar) terminals are deliberately built-in or planned around. I mean, there may be a bottleneck at passport control in order to make sure that people go through customs at a steady speed, or to provide an opportunity for CCTV operators to keep an eye on the queue to see if anyone is acting oddly.

Or, as when I last flew to Boston, so some idiot can dance around, making a nuisance of himself and swear at the TSA/ICE guys, while the polite group of Brits stand in line with a mixture of embarrassment (at someone being a dick in public) and fear (that an armed TSA/ICE guy or cop is going to shoot the dude when he does something unpredictable: 'cos, you know, we've seen Westerns and cop shows).

"That's why they won't let you buy a data-capable phone without the data service."

http://expansys.com/ does. If you've got loads of money: iPhones/iPads, Android, Palm, Blackberry, Nokia etc.

Oh, wait, you mean in the US where you've got weird old network technologies (CDMA), lack of effective regulation and bizarre pricing (pay to get a text message? Who thought that up?!)

In most EU countries you can buy unlocked phones, and if you've got a phone on a contract, once the contract's minimum term is up, you can call the operator to get it unlocked or you can get your phone unlocked in the many quasi-legal unlocking shops. This is so widespread that loads of networks (all in the UK, for instance) offer SIM-only contracts.

(Personally, I have an unlocked Sony-Ericsson phone I won in a hacking contest. And I use a MiFi for data so I can use my laptop, iPod touch and various other gadgets. Both are pay as you go: 1Gb of data for £10, 3Gb for £15, 7Gb for £25 - lasts for 30 days.)

I post this only because so many "oh my, isn't mobile so fucked up" rants are tied specifically to US-specific things.