Comment On Virtudyne: The Gathering

It's so not fair...  Why couldn't I have been a highly paid software developer in the late bubble years? I would love a year or two of paid Magic: The Gathering.

Sweet merciful christ. Where was this job when I graduated college? I want to sit around doing nothing all day...

Something needed to be done.

Declare bankruptcy?

Oh look, a traffic accident, let's invest!

Actually, if you subsidized car insurance for drivers with really bad driving records, you stand a good chance of THOUSANDS of people seeing your ads on the sides of the car as the rubberneck past the accidents they get involved in.

 Anyone who wants is free to run with that idea, just don't ever use my name.

Volmarias:

Sweet merciful christ. Where was this job when I graduated college? I want to sit around doing nothing all day...

 

 

WOW, I'm with YOU!  Forget what I said about dream, etc....  They wanted this to be multiplatform?  8-)    Multiplatform and Microsoft don't mix! 

Steve

I am LOVING this.

Let me guess about the other 100M dollar....

"Look, we've got the product... now we have to port it to Linux. For that we must make a Visual Basic-compatible program for Linux. We'll need 100M dollar for that. Oh, but don't worry, it'll only take 6 months... we'll do it in Visual Basic!" 

Alex Papadimoulis:

This was especially problematic because their initial $94M war chest had dwindled to less than $10M. Investors were starting to wonder about their "six-months-to-develop Microsoft Office Killer" and stopped pouring money into Virtudyne. Something needed to be done.

Tomorrow: What happens when Virtudyne is "rescued" by a single $100M+ investor

Cough, cough. I guess this might result in the CEO buying his own software to be used in his own company. Imaginary sales.

Yea, this happened once - one of our sales guys started using our own management-induced WTF-loaded software to ensure that the people investing in the product would see purchase orders. Oh, he (the salesman) wasnt happy about the self-imposed decision though. Last time I checked, they were about to shut shop.

Reading this makes me literally sick to the stomach. Not because of the waste of money (although I know a few start-ups that could have actually used it productively), but because this kind of incompetency is all too common.

Alex Papadimoulis:

Within a year, the Virtudyne CIO commanded an army of I.T. professionals whose skill levels ranged between complete ineptitude and moderate competence.

What? You mean suckering onto a project that is not just dying, but is an abomination against nature/science/god/satan/decency/earthworms/compost-heaps and Mom's apple pie that is screaming in ear-piercing agony "I WAS NEVER MEANT TO LIVE" just so you can get piles of cash, doughnuts and Magic-playing time doesn't constitute being"experienced"?

 Try telling that to Paula. She'd laugh in your face, and show you her PHD in "brillancy" from the Second-Floor Holywood College for Wood-Engraving and Computer Science.

Lordy, Lordy... I've been idolizing the wrong people all along. That must be why I'm so poor.

 Being a Remora must really suck.

Alex Papadimoulis:

Something needed to be done.

Let me guess...  Lay off all of the underpaid, steady working developers that do all the work, and keep the high profile "super-star" developers who can't code?

It's like watching a horror movie.  You know everyone is going to die a bloody, and very predicable, death.  Nevertheless, even though you still scream "don't go into the pitch black basement alone!", they ALWAYS go into the basement alone, and they always die.

Do you hear me, Virtudyne??  DON'T GO INTO THE BASEMENT!!

 

Grimoire:

Alex Papadimoulis:

Something needed to be done.

Let me guess...  Lay off all of the underpaid, steady working developers that do all the work, and keep the high profile "super-star" developers who can't code?

SHH! You're going to ruin the ending!

This is one of those kinds of stories where you can see the end result coming a mile away, but you can't help watching the whole train wreck occur.  Piddling six months away (when the entire production cycle was supposed to be six months), then slapping together a hardcoded functionless GUI for a demo that doesn't actually do anything?  BRILLANT!  Bonus points for wowing the investors enough to make them believe that this festering pile of scat could actually compete with MS Office.

 *grabs a bag of popcorn*

I would want to be on the QA team.  With this kind of scenario you could just sit there, and shout out a code line and a possible error and almost always be right.

"Line 86 of you class! There is a null pointer exception... ummm... with the... ummm... private void Form1_Load class... Yeah!" 

Captcha := "Was actually 1337"

bullseye:

It's like watching a horror movie.  You know everyone is going to die a bloody, and very predicable, death.  Nevertheless, even though you still scream "don't go into the pitch black basement alone!", they ALWAYS go into the basement alone, and they always die.

Do you hear me, Virtudyne??  DON'T GO INTO THE BASEMENT!!

Scene 1

Patient : Doctor, it hurts when I hit myself here.

Doctor : Then dont hit yourself there.

 

Scene 2

We (all of us here) : Sir, it hurts when hit us here.

PHB :  No, I must hit. It's good for you.

 

Very real. And yet, we dont show some spine when it matters most.

Thank goodness that the Chief Information
Officer chose Visual Basic 6 as their platform. Real magic ensued when
the following were combined: a handful of developers, a caffeine-filled
all-nighter, and VB6's wonderful ability to drag & drop controls
onto Windows form and "hard code" what shows in the labels, text boxes,
drop downs, etc.

The
investors were not impressed. They were astonished. In fact, the
demonstration convinced them that, not only the project was on track,
but that Virtudyne was poised to take on Microsoft and its ubiquitous
office suite.  Word spread fast and even more investors signed up. Tens
of millions of dollars started pouring into Virtudyne.

 

Show code baby.... Many a product started being sold after it "worked" at a trade show.  Scary... seriously scary.   

 

Captcha: Hacker... 'hax0r' didn't work :-/ 

CodeReaper:

Being a Remora must really suck.

 That one caused actual, physical pain.

 

<geekness> *ahem*  The Real  WTF is that the card background is green, rather than gold--as is appropriate for a multi-color, pre-8th edition card--and that the limitation "cannot be used as an instant" does not indicate when the ability may be used. 

</geekness>

Anyways, props to Alex for the hillarious MTG card.
 

[Note from Alex: Thanks, it was pretty easy to make a program I stumbled across called MTG GenCard. FWIW, the border was actually gold, the resizing/compressing seems to have toned it down]

I love the spend 5 mana to get 1 back on the card.

This is almost as anticipating as Entourage or Band of Brothers. 

 HBO is looking at you next Alex!  I can't wait to see the rest of this!

 

 

...Try telling that to Paula. She'd laugh in your face, and show you her PHD in "brillancy" from the Second-Floor Holywood...

 

So that's were the extra L came from.

Anonymous:

 

<geekness> *ahem*  The Real  WTF is that the card background is green, rather than gold--as is appropriate for a multi-color, pre-8th edition card--and that the limitation "cannot be used as an instant" does not indicate when the ability may be used. 

</geekness>

Anyways, props to Alex for the hillarious MTG card.
 

It should say: "This ability may only be used as a sorcery."

Because that effect would normally be classified as a "mana effect" which has no strict timing normally (otherwise you couldn't tap lands to cast instants in response to other instants because the stack would be fubared).

Of course restricting a mana effect to sorcery timing is the real WTF here.

Anonymous:

I love the spend 5 mana to get 1 back on the card.

I am SO grateful that I had no idea that's what it meant.

 

Anonymous:

...Try telling that to Paula. She'd laugh in your face, and show you her PHD in "brillancy" from the Second-Floor Holywood...

 

So that's were the extra L came from.

But...what happened to the "h" in "where"?

 

We've had Virtudyne: The Founding and Virtudyne: The Gathering

I look forward to tomorrow's episode, Virtudyne: The Masquerade

Hey, my captcha is "paula"  Brillant!
 

"Though his team's competence was minimal, their confidence was as strong as ever."

That's my new favorite WTF line...

Sure we're a bunch of inexperienced dolts, but we're sure we can take on the biggest software company in the world. No problem....

-Me 

Alex Papadimoulis:

With all the new talent and the fancy new hardware, development of the Microsoft Office Killer finally began. The biggest hurdle that faced the developers was the new requirements. You see, one of the major selling points to investors was that Virtudyne's office suite already had every feature they asked for: it ran on Windows, Linux, and even Palm OS. All the developers had to do was make it actually do that.

 I still find it so funny how they think that they can get a VB6 app to run on non-MS operating systems... lol...

 

I love the card too, I haven't played in like.... 10 years... but I remember the rules still... lol.... a 0/2 creature with 6 casting cost is outrageous lol... and it's THREE colors lol... and to top it all off, you can spend FIVE mana to gain ONE lol.... PERFECT card lol... 

There are different types of people. For example, some people make money, other people write stories about people making money....

 

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

...Try telling that to Paula. She'd laugh in your face, and show you her PHD in "brillancy" from the Second-Floor Holywood...

 

So that's were the extra L came from.

But...what happened to the "h" in "where"?

 

 

I fhound it! 

When you need a few $ to make a good idea happen, people tell you to get lost. When you ask for a few $100 mililion, they give it to you, I guess I'm too cheap.

Grimoire:

Alex Papadimoulis:

Something needed to be done.

Let me guess...  Lay off all of the underpaid, steady working developers that do all the work, and keep the high profile "super-star" developers who can't code?

What work?

Pay attention!

I wonder if it's an accident that this four-part series will end on Friday the 13th.

powerlord:

Something needed to be done.

Declare bankruptcy?

And point fingers...

<groan> where were we when wildspending willy wound up rich? <groan/>

 btw I ran into a similar scenario: some electrical engineer was touching wires together under a table to woo their customers into thinking the telephone would ring when they pressed the magic "call" button to make the phone ring.  Don't worry! It works as promised!  Sad to say the company is still around and does government work <yikes!/> as the electrical engineer is the head honcho now and has actual *gurus* coding for him who suck btw...

Is there some strange connection between M:TG and WTFs? The best two ilustrations up to now were the mtg cards. Googles and Virtudyne CIO are GREAT! And surprisingly they are good quality also (apart from the gold / multicolor stuff ;) ).

Or maybe it's just M:TG that is funny? monty python anyone? I'm awaiting for a full WTF set...

VGR:

I wonder if it's an accident that this four-part series will end on Friday the 13th.

Warning to all!

 

It is bad luck to be superstitious.

A "$94M war chest" dwindles to a mere "$10M" and they still can't even have a basic word processor up and running?

The real WTF is that I know I could do better than they did, but don't have a clue how to get a bunch of rich morons to fund my long paid vacation.   ;)

I knew I did something wrong when I wasted time learning how to actually do things.

More importantly, this thread has made me nostalgic for M:TG again.  I haven't played it since the 4th Ed. days.

I really need to find a way to make that old Win95 M:TG PC game work on my current system, since playing against the AI is far easier than spending gobs of money on a real deck and finding other people who feel like doing the same.  Though perhaps buying real cards would be a /little/ less of a financial burden for me now with a full-time job out of college as opposed to when I was playing in the 5th grade and earning like $5 a week.

Anonymous:

We've had Virtudyne: The Founding and Virtudyne: The Gathering

I look forward to tomorrow's episode, Virtudyne: The Masquerade

I'm hoping for Virtudyne: The Quickening ("There can be only one... office suite.") .

 

To illustrate how a person can possibly have gotten away with "The Story, Thus Far..." I think it's time for a math/physics lesson.

 Attend me carefully.

 It's a well known physics law that power is equal to work divided by time:

P = W/T

It's a well known pop-cultural fact that Time is Money:

T = $

It's a lessor known (but oft management-quoted) pop-fact that Knowledge is Power:

K = P

Let us know substitute the later two facts into the original equation for work...

K = W/$

Now, we're all curious as to the magical equation for how to make money... so let's rearrange our new formula:

$ = W/K

Now time for the math-part... anyone who has studied fractions knows that as the lower half of the fraction gets smaller, the output gets larger and larger... from this simple fact, we can deduce three things...

Attend me closely...

Not that close...

Ok...

1) The less you know, the more money you make.
2) The amount of work you do is more or less irrelevant.
3) I chose the wrong career to make money with.

Any questions class?

Yes?

No, you can't go to the bathroom.

Ever again.

Thanks CodeReaper.

You just put my entire life into perspective.  Now, as I take this drill to my brain, I expect to put Bill Gates earnings to shame. 

Position: Scapegoat

HCECBX53672

Overview:

Our client, a pre-IPO .com startup firm, is currently seeking a Scapegoat for a short temp-to-fire position.

Responsibilities:

The Scapegoat has overall responsibility for the firm's screw-ups in support of the firm's marketing and business development goals.

On a strategic level, the Scapegoat will help develop plans for deflecting blame from consultants' business development and relationship management efforts, as well as ensuring maximum blame absorption.

On a more tactical level, the Scapegoat will carry out low level work related to spin manipulation and generally be kept in the dark.

The Manager will interact with marketing colleagues and IT staff to ensure the overall quality of the blame absorption on an ongoing basis.

This job is ideal for a candidate who has the maturity, experience, and self-confidence to provide a high level of customer service AND who enjoys getting fired.


Qualifications:

Three to five years experience in a technical environment, managing data and accepting blame, is required.

At least one year devoted to public humiliation.

Experience taking the bullet for a marketing department in a professional services environment is strongly preferred.

This is a high-visibility role requiring outstanding communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to use influence to accept blame from all levels.

Accuracy, and attention to detail are critical.


For immediate consideration, local candidates should send a copy of their resume in Word format to gathering@virtudyne.com. 

Saladin:

More importantly, this thread has made me nostalgic for M:TG again.  I haven't played it since the 4th Ed. days.

I really need to find a way to make that old Win95 M:TG PC game work on my current system, since playing against the AI is far easier than spending gobs of money on a real deck and finding other people who feel like doing the same.  Though perhaps buying real cards would be a /little/ less of a financial burden for me now with a full-time job out of college as opposed to when I was playing in the 5th grade and earning like $5 a week.

Hate to sidetrack further, but the new set that just released, "Time Spiral", is really sweet. It contains reprints of cards from just about every set prior and has a bunch of new cards directly inspired by older cards.

So, $200m to take on MS-Office' with 100 developers.... last time I worked with them, there were 10,000+ people under the Office product (ok, most of them were marketing / sales), but they had several $bn in investment just to do the next release of the product... Hell, MSN have a few $bn of funding and some several thousand developers just over the next few years...

I wonder how much Rob Graves (pseudonym) is really responsible for the percieved failures of this company. Obviously he thinks highly of his talents, since he wrote the article, and very little of others. People like this are suspect in my opinion. Not that the story isn't true but he will refuse to believe he was a part of any failure he percieves real or not

GoatCheez:

 I still find it so funny how they think that they can get a VB6 app to run on non-MS operating systems... lol...

This is 1999, and VB6 is  not only the king of the desktop, but also the king of COM, COM+, ActiveX and Microsoft Transaction Server. There is virtually nothing that cannot be done in VB6. (Just like C# and Java* today) 

 

 

* ok, Java on the desktop... let's avoid answering this question by claiming "the desktop is not important anymore, the network is the computer(R)" 

Anonymous:

I wonder how much Rob Graves (pseudonym) is really responsible for the percieved failures of this company. Obviously he thinks highly of his talents, since he wrote the article, and very little of others. People like this are suspect in my opinion. Not that the story isn't true but he will refuse to believe he was a part of any failure he percieves real or not

Given the whole story, do you really think that any technician, not matter how talented or not, can be more than 0.0001% responsible for the failure of "the VB6 office killer" project? 

its me:

"Though his team's competence was minimal, their confidence was as strong as ever."

That's my new favorite WTF line...

Sure we're a bunch of inexperienced dolts, but we're sure we can take on the biggest software company in the world. No problem....

-Me 

 

That reminds me of this poster from Despair.com

None of us is as dumb as all of us.

this reminds me of my time in the military when every now and then some idiot would say "We need to run the Navy like a business!"

yup, just like 'Virtudyne'