A few data points for your consideration:

• The 1.3.x branch of Apache was last updated in January 2008, making it going on 2 years old. 2.2.x is about a month old. (Source)
• You are still advised to use Apache 2 prefork MPM or Apache 1, by a large scary red-on-red box at http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.unix.apache2.php.

Look, I’m not saying the world can’t turn without threads, and to the best of my knowledge there are no outstanding security problems with the latest Apache 1.3.x. It is unlikely that the threaded MPM will be the thing that people remark about on your site.

Still.

I understand the value of not chasing every last trend in the technology world but sometimes it feels like PHP is standing athwart progress, shouting ‘NO!’.

from http://blog.tabini.ca/2009/11/13/going-virtual/:

Every now and then, therefore, it happens that the fine folks at ServerBeach, who have hosted our systems for many years now, will drop us an e-mail to let us know that one or more of our machines has reached its End of Life and making us a special offer for switching to a newer server—one that won’t send them scrambling for parts when it goes belly-up.

We have tried this one more than one occasion; the machine the customer was hosted on was EOL, spare parts were becoming scarce, and in any event they’d outgrown their server.

The nicest response we’ve ever gotten to this was FUCK. YOU.

We still have a Sun v100 w/ Solaris 7 running an app last updated in 2002 live and in production. We told the customer, look, number one an iPhone has more CPU and number two, we can’t guarantee any sort of rapid turnaround as long as you stick with that.

We were told any downtime will result in a law suit.

I love my job.

It is a perfect indicator of where the “Values Voter” is, that Carrie Prejean is a featured speaker at their little conference, when she got fake tits she didn’t pay for and sends little movies of her jilling off to a man she is not married to.

A little-c conservative thinks there’s too much sex on TV.

A big-C Conservative wishes it was legal to stone abortion providers to death.

But this isn’t really about what you think god wants, is it? You’re using the bible as an excuse for your own prejudices, selectively quoting the parts you happen to agree with. The old testament also states that you’re not allowed to shave your beard and that you must stone adulterers and disobedient children. It forbids wearing cloth made out of a mix of wool and linen. It states that women who have their period must not be touched for seven days. So, how many disobedient children have you stoned recently?

(here)
Look, it’s real simple.

The root of the problem is that the Religious Right has been completely incapable of enacting serious change in American social policy for going on 35 years now. They have at best nipped the fringes.

Only recently have they been able to organize and fund-raise efficiently, enough to get a couple of half-ass bills “banning” gay marriage.

Make no mistake: those aren’t long-term changes. Americans will hip to it in due time. Miscegenation used to be illegal for the same “OMG it’s yucky” reasons, too.

Anyway, the root of the problem is they can’t enact the changes they want – the total banning of abortion, mandatory reciting of the 10 Commandments by students, putting actual Biblical quotes into law – so they nip at the fringes and exploit the prejudices of people that sometimes aren’t even religious in order to get something, anything passed.

So it’s not that they necessarily want to have children stoned to death, it’s that they can’t seem to accomplish anything. So they get what they can and that gives them the strength to stay the course.

Let us imagine a scenario.

1. Your sales team works very hard to convince someone to sign a contract – well more a “statement of intent”, really – for your services.
2. The customer will complete the sale – handing you a pile of money in return for us building them a web thing – as soon as we waive the startup fee.

It should be noted that we charge a startup fee. Like many service providers that fee is fixed, in the sense that it embodies a basic set of services, in return for a slightly lower monthly fee and no commitment in the contract. As well, like many service providers, we price the startup fee with the assumption that we regularly offer routine discounts, sales, etc.

3. After a long series of negotiations, we come to a minimum startup fee and services bundle for the customer, who declines it, saying they will begin service when the fee is waived.

At this point you’d think it would be over, right? Otherwise I’d not be posting, obviously.

4. Customer hits TEH GOOGLES and finds some other company offering a similar service for $49/month and NO SETUP FEE! Customer immediately signs up with this competing service.

5. We receive an angry call, positively fuming, from said customer, demanding service and support. They cannot get the web thingee working! There’s no way load their images, and their text, and it’s vitally important this get up and running now!

Now at this point, my business strategy would be to tell them to kindly fuck off and never, ever call us again; I’ll mail you the shredded copy of the signed contract so you can be sure we’ll never hold you to it. That’s also not the best strategy to grow and build a business, which is why I’m not speaking for said business in any capacity.

Still. It should illuminate just how nuts things are out there in the “long tail” and why I’m a little on the grumpy side most of the time.

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsofts-online-operating-income-2009-10

1. It always amazes me that shareholders don’t revolt, as online is clearly a HUGE drag on the company.
2. This is also, of course, why I loathe MS and refuse to support them: they get to have giant strategic drags that would destroy everyone else in the business. Everyone else has to actually succeed, but not Microsoft.

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/10/26/new-york-times-windows-mobile-sinking-android-and-apple-benefi/

Microsoft owned the smartphone market for years, so it is a mystery to me why they fell so far behind.

How is it a mystery, you dummy. Here’s the Microsoft business plan in its entirety:

1. Enter into market late, after most everyone’s established on what works and what doesn’t.
2. Copy successful market leader(s).
3. Bundle/tie in with desktop OS, preferably for free.
4. When market dominance is achieved, stagnate.

They have done this with every single product. The only reason they can’t win with their online properties is because they didn’t have a rapidly-iterative culture; but that’s changing, and will allow them to get a foothold.

Apropos: notice how iPod, etc. were late entries that came to dominate? Yeah, AAPL learned a thing or two from their arch-nemesis. The trick is to innovate late. Let the punters sort out the hard details.

Here we have me as Kevin Smith impersonator:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neurobashing/773563664/sizes/l/in/set-72157600753878116/

I’m close to 400# in that picture.

And here is the actual me, a few weeks ago:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neurobashing/4036163946/sizes/l/in/set-72157622518222761/

Similarly:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neurobashing/772743583/in/set-72157600753878116/
vs
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neurobashing/4040423478/in/set-72157622528457385/

God I was a fat fuck. Depression is a hell of a thing. This is why I obsess about working out.

Attention, people of earth: My new phone number is

Update. Similarly, if you have my threegee@me.com (or threegee@mac.com) address in email or IM or any web URL, please be aware that the MobileMe experiment is over and I’m going to let the account lapse. I barely used anything except Back To My Mac, and router failure has somehow impaired that from working, so I’ll probably just try to get by w/ something like DropBox and some other hackery.