> I think there's a market here, and that the
anarchist
> community is being poorly served. What's needed is
> an employment agency to match up surly uncooperative
> anarchists with well-paying jobs in companies whose
> customers expect, nay demand to be served by
> anarchists.
> I'm going to register www.unemployables.com and make
> out like a bandit. Yesssss, rich at last, the male
> lactation idea didn't really work out but this one
is
> a surefire cant fail blowout. IPO here I come.
I forsee some computing infrastructure problems here. I expect the anarchists would prefer to use a web site that was Linix powered, but if you're expecting any volume at all, you'll need something more scalable. (I understand there are multiprocessor Linixes out there, but I don't think they're quite ready yet.) The only other Intel based solution would be some Micro$oft products and that's clearly out of the question. This means regular Unix vendors or a proprietary solution, i.e., Compaq's NonStop servers (the platform formerly known as Tandem). These aren't as repulsive as M$, but each vendor would likely turn off at least part of the market segment you want to serve. My advice: go with the least objectional Unix vendor.
So much for hardware. Now for software. I suppose you could run the Apache web server and have the application logic in Java, but what'll you do about the backend database? If there were a GNU database server, that would be great, but there isn't (how come?). M$ SQL Server? Of course not. Sybase? Forget it; Wall Street's favorite database. Oracle? Well, here's one instance where going with the market leader will hurt you. DB2? HAHAHAHAHAHA! Informix? Can't think of anything to disqualify them, but you never know. Ingres? Well, they *had* domestic partner benefits for their gay employees, but that was before CA bought them. My choice: Informix by process of elimination.
Now comes the hard part: development and infrastructure team. If you *really* want to find out what Yoshie means by a frat boy, you could hire some recent CS grads who'd spout rightwing libertarian rhetoric that you could (mis)represent to your market target as anarchists (hey, they do it to themselves) -- but they'd insist on stock options, Friday beer blasts, season tix to the local football team -- on top of which, your project milestones will slip because they'll be spending all their time on Yahoo! chat or doing day trading. Expect the office furniture, monitors, and keyboards to get good and fucked up when the home team loses -- I expect you'll know better than to leave the servers out where your staff could get at them. And make sure your corporate attorney has experience in racial/sexual discrimination/harassment cases, because you're going to need it. My advice: punt on doing the development yourself; outsource and then lie about it (you had to bring in a consulting firm? Somebody on the team had to use the GNU debugger or GNU Emacs -- hey! You support free software!) -- Curtiss, who wishes he were exaggerating about the staffing issues.
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