Ugh!

Now I have a nasty internal conflict: IBM is the vendor of Informix, which I love, but it's now also clearly aiming its sights at the deeply unpleasant world-wide corporatist state agenda that I see coming over the next decade:

There are two things recent events have shown us these past weeks: how small and interconnected our world is. And that change is unavoidable.

Once our economies have stabilized, we will need to heed the call for change and address the systemic inefficiencies in our world's infrastructures—the processes that underpin the way billions of people work and live—and make our planet smarter.

Tell me that these words don't make your blood chill. Especially when you look at one of the successes they laud and where they are going:

We have just scratched the surface. Right now, IBM is working with thousands of forward-thinking companies, governments, universities and institutions to make our smarter world a better place to live where...

* Smarter roadways reduce traffic

We helped Stockholm implement a road charging system that reduced traffic by 20% and emissions by 12%.

Ugh. I can't believe my beloved Informix is part of this disgusting quasi-fascist bullshit.

Back and forth, keening again...

Jesus wept.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) on Friday will formally unveil its newest, eco-friendly data center. But visitors who want to check it out will have to log in to Linden Lab's Second Life virtual world -- the only place the facility actually "exists."

IBM plans a rich-media Webcast on Friday to promote the center, which sits behind a private firewall in IBM's "green spot" in Second Life. The Webcast will feature IBM's Andrew Verdesca, program manager for the company's Energy Efficient Technologies and Services Team, both as his corporeal self and as a Second Life avatar.

IBM is using content produced by King Fish Media to create the Webcast, which will be hosted by On24.com.

IBM hopes to use the data center as a demonstration area for its eco-friendly technologies and services. The company is increasingly turning to Second Life as a platform for showing off new products, as well as research concepts. IBM announced in 2006 that research into virtual worlds would get a share of a $100 million fund that it has earmarked for new technology development.

IBM and Linden Lab last year announced they had teamed up to create avatars that can jump from one virtual world to the next.

Under the plan, the companies are working together to create standards that, if broadly employed, would allow Web users to move their digital personas seamlessly across online environments like Second Life and other 3-D worlds.

IBM says universal standards will help drive the use of virtual worlds beyond gaming and entertainment and make them more practical for businesses. Among other things, the company envisions online malls where users can stroll around, chat with "sales avatars," view product demonstrations, and make purchases.

I can't even summon up the energy to begin to fisk this. Every time I read the article I start whimpering and have to cover my eyes.

What a complete pile of utter cock.

Technowibble

I was reading a blog aimed at developers, where I found this absolute bollocks:

< Insert Vendor Name Here > has embarked on a strategic initiative to deliver an integrated, yet modular, data management environment to design, develop, deploy, operate, optimize and govern data, databases, and data-driven applications throughout the entire data management lifecycle. By focusing across the lifecycle and enabling different roles to collaborate, we believe we can increase organizational productivity and effectiveness, while improving the quality of service, cost of ownership, and governance of diverse data, databases, and data-driven applications.

Quite unlike other vendors of expensive technology who want to cunt up systems with more bureaucracy and butt-covering, eh?

It's an entire game of bullshit bingo in one paragraph!