The silicon.com Weekly Round-Up: 23.05.03

"Hell is other people." So wrote French existentialist philosopher and serial café frequenter Jean Paul Sartre.

He may have been inspired to write this from the depths of a heady fug of Gauloise smoke and avant-garde chitter-chatter in a Parisian coffee house after his fifth espresso of the morning in irritation at the woman with the horsey laugh at the next table. Posterity does not say.

He almost certainly wasn't applying it to the relative virtues of teleworking but that's not going to stop the Round-up doing so.

"I don't like going into the office," Amy Greene, computer systems manager for Sun Microsystems, told the LA Times this week.

"You just end up talking to people in the hallway. It's unproductive," she added, manfully failing to do her bit to dispel the myth that techies are social pariahs and not the lovable, huggable, under-valued staff members we know they really are. ("Human interaction? Yuk! Where's my command prompt?")

Sun CEO Scott McNealy wants all 35,000 Sun employees to be prepared to abandon permanent desks in favour of flexible workstations and telecommuting. The company reckons its iWork initiative could save it around $140m a year.

Workers who plan to spend a day in the office must request a cubicle (don't just read Dilbert, live it!) two days in advance and remove any proof of human habitation when they leave. Personal items left behind are often stolen or thrown away, the paper reports.

Now don't get the Round-up wrong: working at home an be a wonderful thing, after all it affords you the opportunity to wake up at 8.50, have a cup of tea at 8.55, shuffle into the office at 9.00, polish off that business plan by 10.25 and only think about finding your pants at 10.30.

Many jump at the chance to work from home and avoid commuting headaches. But working from home can be a lonely affair and not everyone's cup of tea - and when you do work at home you end up drinking a lot of tea.

Some Sun engineers have already admitted to the LA Times they miss the spontaneous brainstorms and "nerd bonding" with colleagues.

Furthermore, HR consultants are concerned that pushing iWork too far could "erode interoffice relationships and further dent morale".

This should be a lifestyle choice, and not something mandatory. We are social animals. We thrive on contact and camaraderie - familiar faces in the office, that kind of thing.

So consider this other snippet from Monsieur Sartre's laugh-a-minute Being and Nothingness:

"Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth."

Ho hum. But coincidentally that is very similar to how the Round-up feels when he gets up on Thursday mornings, powers up the laptop in the flat and stares at the blank screen, waiting for inspiration to come a-knock-knock-knocking.

So heed well the words of EM Forster, whose novels may be responsible for catapulting Merchant Ivory films and Helena Bonham-Carter inexorably into the public consciousness, but may be forgiven for his brief urging at the beginning of Howards End, and a perfect axiom for the wired world: "Only connect..."

Whoever said dreams don't come true?

All across Britain millions of schoolchildren dream of being plucked from suburban obscurity to become international footballers and scoring the winning goal in the World Cup final. Much like that little three-legged fellow with the potato-like head in the Coca-Cola adverts who bears an uncanny resemblance to Paul Scholes. Other from the third leg, obviously.

Meanwhile, all across cyberspace hackers dream of having their work gain some recognition in the Matrix movies. Especially if your work is put to good use by lithe, PVC-clad über-hacker Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss).

The second film in the Matrix trilogy, Matrix Reloaded, has received the thumbs-up from the hacking community for its accurate portrayal of hacking technology and techniques.

One can only imagine the tsunami-like waves of geek pride and joy that washed over a hacker calling himself Fyodr when midway through the film Trinity opens a terminal and launches his Nmap tool to scan a network for vulnerabilities.

Later in the film, Trinity gains access to the network by exploiting another real hacking loophole called SSH1 CRC32.

According to the BBC, Fyodr said that when he saw his creation on the silver screen he almost danced in the aisles of the cinema.

Yeah right, like anyone believes that hackers can dance. Fyodr added that in the film the program runs much quicker and more efficiently than in real life.

(Aside to Microsoft marketing department: with the third Matrix film due for release later this year, the film makers might yet be persuaded to include a scene showing Trinity using Windows to connect to a printer without having to reinstall the damn drivers four times.)

If you've never seen the Matrix then this story probably doesn't make too much sense to you. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself. The sequel opened in the UK this week.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to prevent Fyodr from hyper ventilating in his excitement, Dr Round-up recommends he takes the red pill AND the blue pill, lies down for a bit and tries to avoid thinking about white rabbits...

The old adage states: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned..." The wired world version adds "...especially if she has access to blogging software".

silicon.com was recently contacted by Marie Griffiths. She claims Dixons and Mastercare (its post-purchase support service) have been promising to get around to fixing her faulty TV for about five months. After months of broken promises Marie has had enough, so she's started a web log detailing her experiences with the retailer.

The blog has been running for two weeks and seems to have proved a hit with other disgruntled customers. The feedback Marie claims to have received seems to have been cathartic for some former customers and some former employees - like online primal scream therapy.

What's more, Marie is urging blog readers to outlaw the store and is keeping a tally of site visitors who claim to have taken their business elsewhere.

So far, Marie claims the total loss of potential sales to Dixons stands at £270,000. Ouch.

The site even contains jokes: "How many Mastercare employees does it take to provide good customer service? Unknown, it's never been tried."

Though to be fair her jibe at Vanessa Feltz is bang out of order.

Feel her pain here.

And now, as promised, some toilet humour and (hopefully) the final word on the protracted is-it-real-or-is-it-a-joke-and-does-anyone-really-care-anymore Microsoft iLoo saga.

Cartoonist Illiad has this take on a possible scenario involving for the web-enabled toilet that caused the software giant's PR departments so much, ahem, discomfort last week.

(Thanks to Paul Bouzan for sending us the link.)

And finally this week, an Australian man is suing his former bosses after he claims he was sacked by SMS.

The 86-character message simply read: "It's official, you no longer work for JNI Traffic Control and you have forfeited any arrangements made".

John Eid, a former traffic warden (and at this point the Round-up began to lose a little sympathy), was understandably aggrieved and sought legal advice.

His lawyer told the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission: "There was no justification. The lack of procedural fairness culminated in the undignified process of being terminated via an SMS."

But the plot thickens. According to a report on Ananova, JNI Traffic Control claims Eid actually quit (bravo Mr Eid! An awful profession in any case, why not work for Dixons customer care instead?) and the SMS was sent merely as confirmation that his resignation had been accepted.

JNI's lawyer adds that Eid's resignation had been verbal and was delivered with a volley of "colourful language" - painting a picture of a man who "swore at length" before walking out saying he would never "work for JNI ever again".

Watch this space...

Have you ever used SMS as the cowardly alternative of face-to-face confrontation? Have you ever been sacked by SMS? Perhaps you've broken up with a partner via the medium of text message? Email your stories of SMS shame to editorial@silicon.com

The Round-up returns in a cloud of existential angst next week. Until then, some headlines...

'She was a high maintenance mobile-meltdowner' - more SMS confessions... Euro notes to get RFID tags from Hitachi? Gates on spam: a danger to realising tech's full potential Broadband Britain - two million homes connected and counting Boardroom Despatches: The unlikely story of India's greenfield success SMS SOS saves Solent seamen