Another example of the CORRUPTION rife in the computer business is in the use of Amazon by authors. Turns out that as regards Build Your Own .Net Language and Compiler I was a dumbo, since I gave myself an honest rating of 4 (being a perfectionist with limited time and money to write a computer book) and I didn't "spam" my book site with positive reviews from multiple user ids...with one exception I will describe.

It turns out (from reports in the New Yorker and a journal of philosophy I read regularly) that distinguished authors and teachers of ethics have no compunction whatsoever about spamming their own book sites at Amazon with reviews from phony ids. And let's be honest: I was persuaded one evening by a coworker to do so in ONE case at the site for Build Your Own: the review by "Bill Knights of Puerto Rico" was fabricated by us to test his assertion that it is too easy for authors to create a false impression about their own book.

I have marked the spammed review as Inappropriate and added a signed comment explaining its origin. I should have done so a long time ago. The other reviews are all on the level, except perhaps for some negative reviews which MAY have been the result of an organized campaign.

Fuck it. I don't have to live on proceeds from my book. I'd starve to death.

Apress' very generous advance, which I needed in 2003 not only to upgrade my hardware but also to eat, has been repaid. I will never forget the kindnesses done me by Dan Appleman and the gang at Apress when I was writing the book! At one low point, when I'd totaled my laptop by spilling an (expensive I admit) Starbucks on it, Dan said "we're rooting for you Ed" and he was most generous with his time...even more so with his patience.

Nor do I have to cultivate a rep as a guru, since my kids are grown: I certainly understand the position of men and women who work like crazy to get a reputation as experts because they have a family. Even if some of their knowledge is knowledge of secrets, most of it is honest and earned by brutally hard work.

Nobody is perfect, especially not me. In fact, I regard the years I spent working for wiseguys in computer consulting as in part a waste of spirit in an expense of shame, insofar as I dealt in the secrets of "job control language" or Visual Basic 4.0 as opposed to real problem solving. I'm proud that I simulated a switch in Cobol, but not proud of the times I was sent to a client in a suit to make him feel that everything was under control.

The city in which I live now, Hong Kong, realized in 1970 that it would be a hell hole if men had to be corrupt and to lie to survive let alone get out of squatter camps on the midlevels. They set up the ICAC to control corruption and the RESULT is today that cabdrivers at times refuse tips, and are surprised when as an American I tip big. They are paid enough to survive for doing their jobs.

The most developed economy in the world, that of America, is I believe tipping into corruption powered by data systems which can be and are used by wiseguys to conceal the truth...using such artifices as deliberately confusing code and deliberately non-normal data bases, as well as allowing authors to spam their book sites. The social reason is that increasingly, Americans are given no safety net and no security as compared with other developed nations.

And, some of the wiseguys are in commanding roles, starting with the Vice President of the United States, a corporate wiseguy who destroys people who don't use data systems to bring him the answers he wants.

This creates situations in which Amazon authors who do depend on sales feel forced to spam their own sites in defense against organized campaigns to spam their sites with negative reviews. This creates situations in which Microsoft developers are forced by one set of marketeers to implement a complex "activation" process and then by another set of marketeers to totally disable the process with a secret open to anyone who knows that the Registry still exists in Vista.

Any way, that's my story. Let's hear some of YOUR stories. Is the computer business run in part by wiseguys? Is the whole country a moving paper fantasy?