Steroid Baseball and Jackass 2.5

Wikipedia asserts...

"There's a sucker born every minute" is a phrase often credited to P.T. Barnum (1810 – 1891), an American showman. It is generally taken to mean that there are (and always will be) a lot of gullible people in the world.
However, when Barnum's biographer tried to track down when Barnum had uttered this phrase, all of Barnum's friends and acquaintances told him it was out of character. Barnum's credo was more along the lines of "there's a customer born every minute" — he wanted to find ways to draw new customers in all the time because competition was fierce and people bored easily.

Emphasis mine...

Whether you characterize them as 'suckers' or 'customers' H. L. Mencken hit the proverbial nail on the head... "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

Just as sure as Paramount Studios is releasing Jackass 2.5 somebody will get the bright idea to sanction Steroid Baseball. Just look at what the entertainment industry has done with rasslin'.

Coming soon to a television stadium near you... Step right up ladies and gentlemen, see the mighty Slugger with the 42" biceps... He can hit that pill a country mile, step right up!

Open w00t

December 12, 2007
'w00t' Crowned Word of Year by U.S. Dictionary

"w00t," an expression of joy coined by online gamers, was crowned word of the year on Tuesday by the publisher of a leading U.S. dictionary.

Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster said "w00t" -- typically spelled with two zeros -- reflects a new direction in the American language led by a generation raised on video games and cell phone text-messaging.

It's like saying "yay," the dictionary said.

"It could be after a triumph or for no reason at all," Merriam-Webster said.

Enough!

Open Bemoaning

I followed Boyd back through Scoble all the way to Gates (sorta)...
to hear the moaning and bemoaning of corporate software initiatives and the relative 'sexiness' of them... SHEEEEESH!!! Give us a break! Can't you guys hear the paradigm shifting? It is not corporate software or the individual as a group or even sexiness!

People have just begun to wake up to what their real computing needs are.

The personal computing revolution will not be televised, streamed, meme'd, podcast or blogged... the PC revolution will be live ... lead by little children carrying OLPCs. People are waking up to the fact that they do not need HUGE personal computers running BLOATED software.

People are realizing the Google's Documents & Spreadsheets are all they really need. Businesses large and small are beginning to understand that we are not headed for a paper-less environment. We are headed for a paper-paradigm-less environment. As long as applications and programs were/are designed to render a final product on paper we are stuck in the paper-paradigm.

There are two great examples of this paradigm shift. The first of course are web browsers. Their final 'product' is not designed to be rendered (printed) on paper. So web browsers and by association web sites do not have to conform to the paper-paradigm.

Lotus Notes in my opinion is another great example of the paper-paradigm-less computing environment. Very early on criticism was leveled at Lotus Notes that its e-mail interface was built on a poor word processor. I argued then as I do today that Lotus Notes was never designed to be printed on paper. I found that if I left my e-mail messages inside Lotus Notes they formated perfectly. It was only when I tried to print them on paper that the formating appeared to change. I attribute this concern about format change to a deep seated paper-paradigm expectation. As soon as I moved away from that expectation I was able to accept Lotus Notes formating as it is. As it should be - in its native digital form.

Now I realize that I have dragged you the long way around the barn to get to this point but... people are beginning to realize that they don't need paper-paradigm computing applications or platforms. I am confident that we will see a new PC revolution, albiet a very small form revolution, with the advent of the small-form laptops.

Coming up next: In my next post I will offer up the paper-paradigm-less challenge.

Human Rights Day (Reprint)

From Global Voices Online...

Happy Human Rights Day

Monday, December 10th, 2007 @ 18:23 UTC

by Solana Larsen

Today, is International Human Rights Day and while this is good cause for reflection (and depression) about the terrible state of affairs in the world, there are also some remarkable victories to celebrate. Activists around the world are finding new, innovative ways to use technology to tell their stories, and fight back against censorship and oppression.

Yesterday, six Global Voices bloggers on different continents participated in a conference call with Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson, and Graça Machel. You can listen to an audio recording of the conversation here (thanks to Preetam Rai).

These heroes of human right have recenltly joined forces with Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and eight others in a new group called The Elders. And they are asking the world's bloggers and citizen media activists to help them in their campaign to make human rights more relavant to individuals around the world.

A new campaign

The Elders new online campaign, Every Human has Rights is aiming to get as many signatures as possible on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

On openDemocracy's women's rights blog, 5050, I wrote:

… Desmond Tutu said he would like to see “a billion” signatures on it. I wonder how many have even read it? Considering the enormous mailing lists of organizations like Amnesty International, UNICEF, Action Aid, and other who are partnering in the effort, it shouldn’t take too long to reach the first million signatures. But 1 billion signatures? Has that even been done before?

Open Headlines

From Datamation

Headlines I Never Expected to Read

Warning sounded over 'flirting robots'

Microsoft pulls plug on potty-mouth Santa

How Your Creepy Ex-Co-Workers Will Kill Facebook

Your Computer Thinks You're Lazy

Cops: More Smoke Toad Venom to Get High

White House Mum On Destroyed CIA Tapes*

* Just kidding. This one's no surprise at all.

Posted by Chris Nerney at December 10, 2007 01:47 PM

Open Silence

Silence should be put on the endangered list.

We live out in the county. That is a way of saying 'out in the country' or 'out in the sticks' or 'out in the boonies'. Sure the road out front is two-lane blacktop. And yes, the "highway" that is half a mile away is two-lane blacktop as well but out here at the 12 Mile marker we are about as far away from things as a body can get. Why, any farther away and ya'll start gettin' closer to somethin' else. If you get my meaning, if ya'll catch my drift...

So I made a point of pausing the most excellent work of The James Quintet. That leaves only the chiclet clicking of this laptop's keyboard and the rhythmic ticking of the two battery driven clocks that are in audible range. If you open your mouth slightly (improves the acoustic resonance - lets you hear better) you can make out the low rain slick whisper of the occasional car on on the highway.

Returning from town this morning after dropping my eldest off early I absentmindedly reached to turn on the car radio. I thought to myself how comforting it would be to hear the familiar NPR Weekend Edition. Then I stopped (not the car) and asked just why is it so comforting?

Certainly it is familiar - like hearing from an old friend. It is part of my vehicular ritual - listening to NPR during my regular morning and afternoon commutes. I also noted that the sound of the radio covers a multitude of niggling little 'road' noises - those little audio reminders that I am driving a 10 year old car that really wants a little more TLC than it is receiving.

I occurs to me there is one other reason, one personal pressing reason that I want something on the radio, something comforting. I really don't want to be left in my own personal silence. I don't want to have to listen to myself. I don't want to hear what I truly have to say.

If sound were a drug I would be the worst kind of junkie. Jonesing when the music isn't playing. Getting the shakes and the delerium tremins when the TV isn't on and blaring. (How about those odd moments when the TV is on but the volume is off?) Heck fire, I've even taken to talking to myself just to fill up the silent spots.

Now I am curious. Just what would I say if I would just shut up and listen.

Say "Yes!" to the James Quintet

Sometimes it is so few words

Thank you Betsy Devine ...

Our mother’s belief system, summed up in four lines: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without.”

Christmas List (Rev. 002)

From the wonderfully twisted mind of Platicus at Sandwich Flats...

The "Fatal Attraction" Kitchen Set

I wan' it, I wan' it, I wan' it... NOW!

Christmas List (Rev. 001)

Here is something fun to say...

...a silicon photonic wave guide...

I want one...or a few... hundred.

Open & Closed

Joi Ito received this when attempting to access Twitter...


While the United Arab Emirates are well within their rights to block objectionable content it is imperative that we see first hand the result of their actions.

Open the door

Thanks Frank (RIP)

Open Pains of Glass

When I posted "Open little "w" windows - MinWin" I tried to put the best possible spin on a commodity that I grudgingly endorse, Microsoft Windows. As an IT professional I have to embrace Windows even if I find them contemptible. When I learned about MinWin I thought there might be some redeeming value... until I heard this

Monday, December 3

Maximum Wait for MinWin, Windows 7.0

By The VAR Guy

...

Yes, Microsoft needs to address its bloatware problems. It’s time to put Windows on a diet. But MinWin and its desktop operating system personality — Windows 7 — won’t arrive till 2010. Yet CRN is predicting that MinWin could “Soothe Vista Headaches.” Wow. That’s quite a leap of faith.

TWO THOUSAND AND TEN ?!?!?
You have got to be kidding me. Listen to this...

Microsoft Partners: Use Of Downgrade Rights Is Surging

By Kevin McLaughlin, CMP Channel
4:49 PM EST Mon. Dec. 03, 2007

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) claims that adoption of Windows Vista and Office 2007 is chugging along nicely, with more than 88 million Vista licenses and 71 million Office licenses sold in the past year.

But these numbers belie the fact that some organizations just don't see the value in upgrading to Vista and Office 2007, and are perfectly content with XP and Office 2003. Many solution providers are seeing surging interest in downgrade rights, which Microsoft offers to business users of both Vista and Office, and which allow companies to use previous versions of Microsoft software.

Emphasis mine! This is the final tolling of the Microsoft death knell. "Surging interest" in downgrading from Vista to XP means that Microsoft's income stream will shortly dry up to a trickle. Couple that with a 'wait until 2010' forecast for the future and I can only ask if Microsoft can survive its own desolation?

It used to be that Linux was a fringe alternative. Now it is looking like the mainstream choice.

Open Blogging

Amid the raging controversy of whether blogging is dead comes a not so quiet report from Rebecca McKinnon ...

Is Web2.0 a wash for free speech in China?

This is a picture of Zhai Minglei's computer after his hard drive was removed and confiscated on Thursday.

Blogger and publisher of the recently-shut-down grassroots newspaper "Minjian," Zhai posted the photo on Friday along with an account of the questioning he had undergone that afternoon. See John Kennedy's translation of Zhai's Thursday blog post describing how his home was raided. Friday's post is a long account, which hopefully somebody will translate in full. His hard drive was returned to him, with "Minjian"-related material removed.

After reading Rebecca's excellent reporting along with associated articles I am ashamed that I even dabble in the "is blogging dead" spit-fest. How easily I (we) are distracted (again) by bright baubles and glittering trinkets. How quickly we rise to the self importance of who is Scoble-izing whom and what does Calacanis have to say about that...

China: NGO blogger’s house raided, hard drive confiscated

Published by John Kennedy November 29th, 2007
...

In an urgent post [zh] on 1bao this morning, Zhai writes:

At just after 10 this morning, on November 29, 2007, five people from the Shanghai Municipality Cultural Market Administrative Enforcement Squad (three men, two women) suddenly showed up at my home. Three of them produced identification, two did not, and they proceeded to search through every room and every corner of my house. Even the paper in my printer was confiscated, along with my last remaining copies of the forty-one issues of Minjian. At the same time, they demanded to search my home computer. They searched through files on the computer, and even removed the hard drive which they took with them. The reason they gave was my involvement in work on the illegal publication Minjian.

I told them:
1. Minjian is internal material pertaining to the Civil Society Center at Sun Yat-sen University, and not something I have published privately.
2. Minjian is non-profit.
3. Minjian contains nothing pornographic reactionary or related to religious minorities.

I respectfully asked them to work appropriately and in good faith as they carry out their work.
As they left, they told me that on the afternoon of the 30th, tomorrow, I am scheduled to undergo an investigation.

This is most likely connected to the notice I posted online informing readers of Minjian’s closure [zh], and I am prepared for the worst. This is the price to be paid in struggling for freedom of speech and media freedom.

Fortunately, I was able to express myself fully in [zh] the online notice, and it is also my formal statement in this matter: the shutting down of Minjian was illegal, a violation of academic freedom, of freedom of the press, and of media freedom in general.

Zhai signs off in a solemn, but carefully-worded tone; Minjian translates to ‘the civil,’ or ‘that among the people’:

Pass this news on to as many readers as possible, tell them to take proper care of Minjian, to appeal on behalf of Minjian.
[…]
Yours,

Zhai Minglei
November 29, 2007

...and I am prepared for the worst. This is the price to be paid in struggling for freedom of speech and media freedom.
Can we even comprehend "for the "worst"? Incarceration? Being held incommunicado? Imprisoned for the expression of beliefs of freedom?

Oh yeah, blogging sure is dead.

Open little "w" windows - MinWin

Microsoft has driven the last nail in Vista's coffin if the reports about MinWin are true.

Microsoft Partners: MinWin Could Soothe Vista Headaches

By Kevin McLaughlin, CMP Channel
7:19 PM EST Fri. Nov. 30, 2007

In the year that has passed since Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) released Windows Vista to business users, the operating system has gained a reputation in the channel as a bloated memory hog that many companies are avoiding like a trip to the dentist.

But Microsoft partners have a more positive opinion of Windows 7, the next generation of Windows that Microsoft expects to ship in the 2010 timeframe. That's because Windows 7 will be based on MinWin, a scaled down version of the Windows core that will also serve as the framework for Windows Server and Windows Media Center.

MinWin's source code base takes up about 25 megabytes on disk, compared to about 4 gigabytes for Vista. Solution providers see this as a sign that Microsoft has learned its lesson from trying to cram too much into the Windows OS, and some feel that Windows 7 will be a roaring success in the market.

From an end-user and "integrator" perspective this means never having to say I am Vista. It also means another 12-18 month delay before I make another significant Microsoft investment.

The silver lining that I can hope for is that with a 25MB foot print Microsoft can create a unified cross platform environment. I can see where PCs and Phones and PDAs all running the same OS could be a great boon to connectivity.

All that said I believe in my heart of hearts that Microsoft is again dabbling in the fine art of vapor-ware. Promising 25MBs while rolling out a 1-2GB package.

Open Journalism

At the recommendation of the august Blogist and Philosopher Frank Paynter I clicked on a link that took me to the writings of Ben Paynter. Most specifically the article in The Pitch - Don't Look Down.

Ben, you've done it again!

Open Forests

Who plants trees although he knows he'll never sit in their shadows has at least begun to recognize the sense of life. - Anonymous

Fore score and 7

Our forefathers should be forewarned
about the potential abuse of forearms...

Thanks to The Way I Think for the pic

Open Face

As I have posted earlier I have no love for FaceBook. So it is sort of antithetical that I offer the solution to FB's privacy issues.

According to the WSJ's informal survey some 60+% of FB users would not like their friends to automatically be notified if they bought Prada or tickets to see Lion King. Ok, the answer is simple.

FB users should be notified that X number of their friends have bought the latest Stephen King thriller. Then privacy is maintained. No specific user is named. But the endorsement is implicit. AND the unknown aspect of X will only server to create a greater conversation (reads more FB traffic = more FB revenue.)

Somebody over at FB owes me a nice fat check!