NETFORCE - USA Network - Sept. 26-27, 2002-Check local listings.
Is this on DVD yet?  It's a good one. Will Stiles as Bill Gates char. It brings me back to the CODE RED issue and this defacement from of April 2001 by Evil Angelica. Did the U.S. government attempt to destroy the Internet because they couldn't control it with the help of Microsoft? About this defacement: The music O Fortuna is used in the movie Omen. It has lyrics and other meanings though.

Phoebe was the Titan Goddess of the Moon and the daughter of Gates. Phoebia is a persistent anxiety about something--the moon? I wonder what the fear of a telepath would be--telephobia? It's magic or supernatural isn't it billg! Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Fuzzy Wazzy was a worm...
Fuzzy Wazzy knew how to squirm.
Fuzzy Wazzy wasn't very Funny Wazzy he?

In August of 1990 I was working with Microsoft's Military contracts as part of the sales and marketing group. This is a letter I found disturbing that came to me from the Military:

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I was head hunted into the company. It seemed a bit odd to me at the time but I decided to do it on a bet.  I was a hardcore engineer, but had experience in sales and with military buyers at other non-computer  companies.

I wasn't ready for what I found going on in Microsoft sales. First, they were marketing spread sheets to be used for all kinds of critical situations.  Problem was that Microsoft Windows and Excel had major math errors at the time and still does.

The other problem is that we always have problems doing complex math on computers.  Take calculating Compounded Interest. We use e to the exponent of rate and number of periods. Since the rate is a fraction and multiplied by the number of periods, we get a fractional exponent. Do you know what a FRACTAL is?  It's the predictable uncertainty in the kind of Fuzzy math that is produced on a computer when using decimal numbers and fractions as exponents. All math is Fuzzy but on a binary machine it's not even funny how Fuzzy it is.  These beautiful designs we create are from the errors in the math that we call artifacts. We make use  of them in art.

1990 HEIZER CATALOG FOR EXCEL AND EXCHANGE MACROS - Cover

1990 HEIZER CATALOG  - Index 1
1990 HEIZER CATALOG  - Index 2

Letters like this were quit disturbing. Math errors are insidious. Unless you have programmed the lower level math you don't understand the limits to what a computer can do.  In floating point, the error can compound and create results that become exponential, like the way the stock market and budgets went up in the last 90s.

I was also talking to many contractors on the phone.  These people were doing even more in NARDAC and other military operations. These people were writing their own macros in Excel.  One person said that the spread sheet they worked out took over 30 hours to execute.  Our processor speed was about 25-33 back then, but even so, this was a major math problem--not only due to the complexity but the chances of error in such a complex application using floating point math.

I've seen totally ridiculous results, number go negative, and minor errors that were maybe 15% but that was more than they could deal with in financial analysis. If you have 15% less fuel or miss a target by 15% someone could end up dead.  During the Gulf War, we had an 18% failure rate on our technology.  That is too high to be acceptable. Now we are depending on it even more.  What kind of failure rate could we expect.  Well, I've been monitoring friendly fire and crashes for over 10 years. They have increased at an alarming rate. This can be seen just buy monitoring things like the Risk Forum for Computer Engineers. These are all on the rise. Why?  People are overly trusting of the mathematical output of the computer.

When we create a new tool or piece of software, we never anticipate what normal people might use it for.  Spread sheets were developed to basic columned math typically seen in financial accounting ledgers.  No one expected that they would be used to do other math operations until this movement in about 1990.  The Heizer Catalog give a bit of an example of all the uses that people started putting spread sheets to.  The problems with doing this are hard to explain, but many of these applications are very problematic.

I'm getting that S.O.S lound and clear.
WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TELL THE TRUST GATES!
 

Bush: Solitary is for your own protection Mr. Gates! And with all the math and security problems in your software we just can't let you have a computer. You might hack the White House or find a way to escape.

Gates: NO! My Daddy made me do it... He managed my money. He was trying to avoid estate taxes for his grandchildren.  I'm totally innocent. We didn't mean for people to get killed.  Trust me. Would I lie to you? It was an accident.

Bush: Well... YES! That is why you are in there. We are still going to let you see your  kids and wife for congeal visits every week. We will have to watch of course, but you will have access to Viagra.

yeah... she will have all your house, kids, the trust and then sum... or maybe she will be right there with you. LOL

This generation doesn't deserve a war like we had in Vietnam. The economy is already a mess. And it will get worse. We had an 18% failure rate in the Golf War. It will be much worse now. People project their own mode of behavior onto others.  My biggest concern is that we might try to launch a nuclear or chemical missile at Iraq and have it come back down on the U.S. The math is that bad.

This page explains some of the math errors and how they look when we see them in graphics.  People call this problem Fuzzy Math. This is because their is a major problem between how math was developed in decimal systems on paper and how it is handled on binary machines that do the math in base 2 sets.

1990 HEIZER CATALOG  - Fourier Transformation Macro

As most engineers knows, what works on the Mac may not work the same on the PC.  They use different math processors, CPUs, BIOS, Operating System, Development tools/compilers and hardware.  At each of these levels minor differences can cause differences in the way these math programs perform on other platforms. We use to have a joke about how Myst worked on the Mac and crashed on the PC.  In fact, we still have problems with things like scaling and screen display in our Browsers from platform to platform. Even Direct X and 3D APIs don't correct the problems. 

The math problems are so sever on the PC side that Games did so poorly that Microsoft decided to develop the X-BOX gaming hardware in order to get into this market.

[ NOTE: What is worse is that when there is any upgrade, even a patch for security or newer version of IE, which is now integrated into the OS--a majorly bad and stupid idea--the math can change.  This will change the way any older macro in Excel works the same way it changes the way our older graphics programs worked. This is greatly compounding our problems. So I'm really not supportive of our present method of fixing the security with patches or IE and other OS related downloads. They are creating more chaos than they are fixing.  One of the best ways to be secure is NOT upgrading. Older operating systems don't get hacked as much.

So if you really depend on a spread sheet macro, DON'T up grade your OS or spread sheet unless the macro can be upgraded too. I'm using an older version of Windows and have three computers on my desk, a 386 without a math co-processor, a 486 with one and a Pentium II   because I don't know where to go now. Mac OS X may be OK if their have good Spread Sheet and all the support for these macros everyone is using. People need to scrutinize and trust their gut. If you get a belly ache then when you see those output, 86 it. Rethink and rework. ]

When I blew the whistle on this problem in Windows and computers in general, I came under attack.  I was injured on the job at Microsoft and then had my Labor and Industries insurance and need for medical used as a form of retaliation. They even cut off my Labor and Industries without a release from a doctor. When he testified in a hear that I wasn't medical stationary his testimony was rejected and my claim was closed anyway. No one in my state would help.  Now I am physically disabled.  But that hasn't stopped my research. Microsoft has never stopped harassing me.