Email or username:

Password:

Forgot your password?
Infrogmation's posts Back to profile
2 posts total
Infrogmation

Ian Muir explains the context for the Crowdstrike Microsoft disaster.

Facebook post by Ian Muir 19 July 2024: OK, I will answer here in a group since a lot of non tech friends have asked me. Lots of stuff broke today because a company called Crowdstrike released a bad piece of software that a lot of systems rely on. Here are some answers to common questions people have asked me. Edit: One note for people who think I'm being dramatic here and that this was all just an accident. This whole thing happened before at a smaller scale with McAffee in 2010. The CTO of McAffee at the time was Crowdstrike's current CEO. This isn't a coincidence, it's a pattern. Why wasn't the update tested better? Because tech people are expensive and Crowdstrike laid a bunch of them off over last 2 years to save money including testers. Testing is expensive and it's hard to convince a business leader that testing is important because it doesn't "make them money". Why didn't big tech companies have a way to function without this one piece of software? Because tech people are expensive and big tech comapnies laid a bunch of them off over last 2 years to save money including the people who help make things stable and flexible. Flexibility is expensive and it's hard to convince a business leader that flexibility is important because it doesn't "make them money".
facebook post by Ian Muir text continues: Why didn't airlines, governments, telecom companies, and other business have a backup plan? Because tech people are expensive and many companies laid a bunch of them off over last 2 years to save money including the people who research and implement backup plans. Backup plans are expensive and it's hard to convince a business leader that backup plans are important because they doesn't "make them money". Wait a minute. How many of these critical systems in tech, transportation, government, and infrastructure are short staffed right now? Pretty much all of them. Good luck. Wait a minute, all of these people who laid off all the tech workers said they were replaced by AI. What happened? AI was just a bullshit justification to lay off expensive tech people. AI hasn't really replaced many people in tech because making major changes like shifting to AI is expensive and it's hard to convince a business leader to spend money on making changes when they can just fake it because their compensation is affected more by how many tech people they can lay off than how well the companies actually function. Someday, AI might replace a lot of people in tech, but right now most of the jobs were not replaced by AI and were likely just closed or sent overseas.
21 July at 13:01 | Open on mastodon.online
Show previous comments
paul

@Infrogmation

they don't pay the price for their mess.

society does.

also see:

data breaches.

regulatory capture.

climate change.

disaster capitalism.

move fast and break things.

Short-termism.

too big to fail.

22 July at 7:07 | Open on beige.party
Sasha

@Infrogmation the missing piece of the puzzle for me is the risk to shareholders.

Shareholders don't care about systems being down if the lost revenue and repair costs are less than the money they made through the layoffs. CEOs mostly spend their time trying to delight their real customers, the shareholders.

22 July at 7:08 | Open on mastodon.gamedev.place
Andreas K

@Infrogmation
Well at least 85% correct.

Buying a 3rd party product that claims to fulfil requirement X on your checklist, so you can tick off that item is almost always cheaper than building the capabilities, or even investigating if requirement X on that list even makes sense for your company, and properly documenting that X does not make sense for your company and hence you skipped it.

And if that 3rd party product happens to kill your company, 🤷, you have taken home your bonus already.

@Infrogmation
Well at least 85% correct.

Buying a 3rd party product that claims to fulfil requirement X on your checklist, so you can tick off that item is almost always cheaper than building the capabilities, or even investigating if requirement X on that list even makes sense for your company, and properly documenting that X does not make sense for your company and hence you skipped it.

22 July at 9:51 | Open on mastodon.social
Infrogmation

New Orleans signs: Cats edition

1)St. Claude Avenue, Bywater (iconic!)
2)Faubourg Marigny
3)Mid-City
4)Carrollton Riverbend

Photos by Infrogmation of New Orleans.

@noladon

#NewOrleans #NOLA #signs #cats

Tire store with weathered wood sign, black capital stencil letters on white paint. Text: "NO LOITERING - NO CRACK SELLING - NO CAT SELLING - THE FACTS - MR SAMUEL - NOPD WILL BE CALLED"
Fence gate with wooden sign, hand painted red, yellow and green letters on light blue background. Text: "NO PARKIN' - NO PEEIN' - NO HATIN' - NO CAT SELLIN'"
Colorful sign hand lettered with inconsistent use of capital and small letters, with cartoon drawings of two cats in fighting pose. Text: "NO FiGhting in Here! - NO bad AttituDE DUDEs! & Dudettes! - NO DRUGS - NO HUMBUGS - AbsolutelEy No DiscrimiNATEion ALLOWED! - NO WEAPONS - BE NICE OR LEAVE!"
Hand lettered wood sign, red letters on white white background, with 4 small cartoons of cats in corners. Text: "I DON'T HAVE DUCKS IN A ROW. I HAVE CATS AT A RAVE"
18 April at 18:13 | Open on mastodon.online
Go Up