Quote Of The Day — MS-DOS Causes Improper Foreclosures
HuffPo is writing on a new Fed report that of 500 foreclosures they investigated, they couldn’t find a single one where the borrower was not significantly delinquent on payments. Thus, the Fed declared that no improper foreclosures occurred.
This doesn’t matter to those who think bankers are raping angels in their spare time, and who want to see the bankers riddled with papercuts and dropped in a vat of lemon juice. They want to stop foreclosures by any means necessary, and anything that casts doubt on the “paper trail” [as quite a lot of doubt already legitimately exists] looks good to them.
But this is a bit too far:
Citing Wednesday’s briefing, Rangan said the Fed review found numerous flaws in banks’ procedures and internal mortgage operations, and that the Fed’s bank examiners directed the firms to fix those problems.
One firm was found to be using Microsoft DOS, an outdated computer operating system, to handle home mortgages, Rangan said.
Oh no, DOS! Because Windows has just a strong track record of reliability, right?
As I’ve said before, I’m an engineer. I’ve spent a good portion of my career working with customers in the “embedded/industrial” market space. I’m talking about computer equipment that goes on oil rigs, locomotives, industrial control [assembly line] PC’s, etc. For most of these companies, things have to be nearing “outdated” to be well-understood enough to be trusted for the types of tasks they need to complete. And yes, some of those folks are still using DOS, though most have moved on to other RTOS products. Only where a major user interface is needed do we see people using an OS such as Windows, and even then they use a specific embedded version of Windows XP that allows more control over what is and is not included in the final package.
My dad always used to say, when talking about the fast pace of technology progression, that “a computer will never do *less* than it did when you bought it.” I.e. if you need something new that newer technology offers [including performance enhancement, of course], it might be time to upgrade. But it’s pointless to do so simply for its own sake, because something newer exists. Hearing that a bank is still using DOS doesn’t bother me at all, because they have a known, tested, proven system. It does exactly the same thing today that it did when it was purchased and installed. And as long as it meets the bank’s needs, there wouldn’t be any reason to upgrade.
