Um… I don't even know what to say about this. Hell, I don't even know why I am sharing it with you. I just… I… just watch.
And just in case that wasn't enough for you, this guy also wrote an ode to accountancy. Apparently using the same producer.
Related Posts
Today in IRS Resistance: Ohio Man Bulldozes His Own House
What’s the saying about trends? We can’t remember it but after the suicide attack on the IRS last week, we now bring you a less violent but equally ineffective middle finger to the IRS.
Terry Hoskins, of Moscow, Ohio had IRS liens slapped on his carpeting store and other properties. Apparently he used his personal residence as collateral on the business and these other properties, leading his bank to foreclose on his home. Hoskins wasn’t okay with that:
Whether Terry the Bulldozer was looking to get a Facebook following out of this, isn’t entirely clear. But we will give the guy credit; even if he did this to himself by putting up his personal residence for some bad business deals, he’s got pretty creative for the sake of making a point.
“I made a bad business decision. Fuck you IRS! Up yours, RiverHills Bank! You think I’m not serious? I will rent heavy machinery to prove my point. I will make my loved ones temporarily homeless. I will go on a local NBC affiliate to talk about it. How do you like me now?”
Unfortunately, the timing couldn’t be worse. If that attention whore Joe Stack hadn’t gone on his little flight, Terry could be enjoying Joe the Plumber-esque fame right now. Next time, Terry.
These Are the Videos That Made Your Busy Season Slightly Less Awful
For some reason, earlier this year we asked you to submit videos of your busy season exploits as part of some fake contest. The idea was haphazardly thrown together and not taken that seriously, but for whatever reason1 the post sat up top for months. Anyhoo, busy season has been over for everyone for at least a week so I guess we'll wrap this thing in old newspaper and put a bow on it, so we can all move on with our lives. Right? Right.
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night…or: Cloud Computing and SaaS Briefly Explained
Figuring out how to sum up Cloud Computing and Software as a service (SaaS) in the space of ~800 words would absolutely require the biggest, puffiest, most cumulus metaphor that ever precipitated understanding over the dry, barren plains of ignorance EVER! Something like….
king Business Applications By Storm, or
– Burning off the Fog Around Cloud Computing, or
– Cloud Computing goes from Light Showers to Torrential Downpour, or even
– Quit Jiiiivin’ Me Turkey, You Got to SaaS it! (a Turkey is a bad person)
Why?
Because this thing is growing like a Class 5 Hurricane sucking up warm air over the Gulf of Mexico in mid-September, and you’re in the eye of the storm baby!
Enough! I can’t… I just can’t brew up another hackneyed metaphor!
All joking aside, Cloud Computing and SaaS are now “required reading” if you’re even remotely involved with technology (i.e. you use a computer). I can help you understand this stuff better, but first some disclosure:
I work for a SaaS company. My paycheck depends upon acceptance of this technology.
If you can accept this embedded bias, I’ll try to suppress any overt advocacy while providing a synopsis of this space over the course of the next few weeks. Call it Saas 101.
So, what is it?
We’ll get into this in more detail soon because there’s more to it, but very simply:
Software as a Service – A software application that you access online without having to download anything to your computer.
Cloud Computing – Provides computing power and data storage on an “as needed” basis much the same way as a public utility provides electricity.
Why should you care?
At the very least, you should care because you are already using this stuff for personal web activities (e.g. Facebook – think privacy, Twitter, LinkedIn, Gmail, etc). And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the next software sourcing project your company undertakes will include Cloud and Saas representation.
This is a bet I’ll win because even the big, established players in the software world like IBM, Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft are running to try and get in front of this thing on the business side.
You want to know about this.
Where did it come from?
How did Software as a Service and Cloud Computing as we know it come about?
Well, what’s in a word?
Again, there’s more to it, but without rekindling the internecine nerd-fighting I think tracing the roots of this movement back to Marc Benioff, the founder, Chairman & CEO of Salesforce.com is not unreasonable for our purposes. He was arguably the most vocal advocate for looking at software delivery in a new way back before this stuff HAD a name. Salesforce.com launched as an unknown start-up back in 1999 and is now one of the leading CRM (Customer Relationship Management) products Cloud or otherwise and is traded on NYSE with a market cap of over $10 Billion.
Along with another early entrant, Netsuite, these guys let the genie out of the bottle. Interestingly, both companies have deep, deep roots back into Oracle Corp., Oracle, a company that, according to Oracle, “would change the face of business computing forever.” I don’t dispute the claim though. And I would take it one further saying, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
The creation of Salesforce and Netsuite were both extremely capital intensive. In order to host their customers (i.e. users of the software), tens of millions of dollars were required to build the data center infrastructure. You’re not required to buy servers and hardware, so where do you think all your data is residing? In a cloud? We haven’t advanced that far.
But we have advanced.
Today companies building Cloud apps don’t tend to build their own data centers, at least not right off the hop. Another important innovation in Cloud comes from companies like Amazon. Apart from books, Amazon has a whole other line of business providing computer infrastructure on a rental basis. It’s like a power grid for computing.
This changes the business model for companies who build software in the same way these Cloud app companies are changing things for you.
Suddenly, your IT goes from being a Fixed Cost to a Variable Cost.
More next week.
Enjoy!
Geoff Devereux as been active in Vancouver’s technology start-up community for the past 5 years. He regularly attends and contributes to the growing entrepreneurial ecosystem in the city through the Vancouver Enterprise Forum, guest blogging on Techvibes.com, and as a mentor with ISS of BC. Prior to getting lured into tech start-ups, Geoff worked in various fields including a 5 year stint in a tax accounting firm. He is currently working in a marketing/social media role with Indicee, a Saas Business Intelligence company, bringing B.I. to mere mortals.