TABLE OF CONTENTS by Dan Kaminsky
There is a peculiar model to supply and demand in the softwareindustry: at times, there is huge demand, but the supply just isn t ready yet. For some, this isn ta barrier buggy, unreleased code is more than a pastime; it becomes a commodity, to be acquiredfrom its authors in the middle of development and distributed to an ever-growing undergroundcommunity. The more who receive it, the harder it becomes to figure out who took it in the firstplace, unless some creative measures are taken.
Another day, another death march. Ron grumbled his greetings toExcorsoft s stereotypically and preternaturally perky receptionist as he pawed his RFID badge inthe general direction of the door. The eventual beeping noise reflected the building s begrudgingassent that he had a right to be there.
He d miss that beep.
Today, he was going to do something about that bug in the physics engine. Two vehicles wouldget embedded in one another, self-colliding over and over again, elastically bouncing against oneanother faster and faster until one of them managed to randomly break free and fly off in somedirection. Ron actually thought it looked pretty cool (and it was vaguely reminiscent of how lasersworked, how appropriate!) but it caused some huge problems for that idiot writing the networkingcode. Ideally, they d leave this bug in place until it forced the net code to stop collapsing, butapparently that codebase had enough problems without his corner case spewing all over it.
Ah well. Ron wanted to work on...
