The Monkey Lab

Powerset says f%$#ck you Google, your ass is grass and has $10 mill extra lunch money to do it.

2006-10-06T14:23:00.000-04:00

http://venturebeat.com/2006/10/02/bold-start-up-powerset-about-to-raise-10m-to-take-on-google/

Powerset is a startup that is raising some eyebrows in Silicon Valley. It’s led by a Barney Pell, a former NASA and SRI engineer, who recently served as an entrepreneur in residence at Silicon Valley VC Mayfield and left to form Powerset. Some of the “we’re better than Google” language is just good PR, but this raises the interesting question of where search is going. Natural language search has been hyped as a more intelligent mode of search, more similar to asking HAL from Space Odyssey 2000. For all the raves people give Google for their search engine and page rank, it still rather clunky in that results often take several iterations before users get to the information they need. Natural language search makes it easy for non-power users to get to information faster because the engine understands descriptions of what users are seeking.

But people are wondering if search is already “good enough” and that Google/yahoo already fills the needs of the average user. Also Google’s stickiness is not just from its search engine, not the least because of the recognizable interface, simple main page, and robust ad-engine. AskJeeves already offers natural language search and yet it is a distant fourth behind Googs, Yahoo, and MSN. Powerset has a ways to go, but we won’t see just how good it is until they launch. This is interesting though because there is substantial interested from other VC’s such as Foundation. Search is still not entirely mature despite the strong businesses and business models that evolved from search portals.

Mayfield has a pretty substantial history and portfolio of enterprise orientated companies too including Legato, MIPS, Webmethods, Broadvision, and 3com. Since he left Mayfield, I wonder if that has any bearing on the direction Powerset may take, i.e. Enterprise natural language search?

WTF!? - JonBenet Ramsey killer found...THIS JUST IN "That sex with young teens is not a strong taboo in some Asian cultures"

2006-08-18T10:26:00.000-04:00

JonBonet Ramsey's killer has finally been found, in Thailand of all places. He was apparently arrested post-perverted-sexual-predator coitus, having just paid beaucoup Thai dinero to get meet his creepy needs. That's good.

But whoever wrote this article needs a firm slap in the face. I've never known a culture in the Asia who believes having sex with children is ok and the only reason it exists in places like Thailand is because of the monsters like John Mark Karr. This guy deserves alot worst than he's going to get I'm sure. Note his blankish unrepentant gaze. He's clearly going to hell.

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Southeast Asia a haven for child sex predators

Corruption and culture blamed

August 17, 2006

ASSOCIATED PRESS

BANGKOK, Thailand -- It's a photo that has become a staple in the tabloids of southeast Asia: the foreigner taken in by police after being caught in bed with a local boy or girl.

For many of the region's countries that derive huge sums of money from the tourism trade, it's a vivid illustration of its seamiest side -- child sexual exploitation.

The spotlight was on Thailand on Wednesday after a man suspected in the slaying of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey was arrested in a surprise breakthrough in a decade-old U.S. case that some feared would never be solved.

U.S. officials identified the suspect as John Mark Karr, a 42-year-old American.

In countries such as Thailand, child sexual exploitation builds on a long-standing and vast prostitution industry and thrives where law enforcement is weak or corrupt. That sex with young teens is not a strong taboo in some Asian cultures makes fighting the problem even more difficult.

In recent years, poverty-stricken Cambodia has become a new frontier for pedophiles for this reason. The arrests of aging British rock star Gary Glitter -- real name Paul Francis Gadd -- first in Cambodia and then in neighboring Vietnam brought a rare international spotlight, though new cases come to court virtually every month.

In June, Glitter's child molestation conviction and 3-year prison term were upheld by an appeals court in Vietnam. He had been found guilty of committing obscene acts with girls ages 10 and 11 at a rented villa in southern Vietnam.

"This case sends a strong message to child sex offenders around the world that society will not tolerate any form of sexual violence and exploitation of children," said Carmen Madrinan, executive director of the Bangkok-based child protection group ECPAT International.

Vietnam does not have the reputation of Cambodia as a haven for sex tourism, but recent surveys by the government and the United Nations Children's Fund indicate that child prostitution, including child sex tourism, is on the rise, Le Hong Loan, head of UNICEF Vietnam's child protection section, said this year.

"I think the case of Gary Glitter is a historic case for Vietnam so it can be more vigilant about the situation of sex tourism," Loan said.

In Cambodia, there are about 33,000 child sex workers, according to UNICEF.

The U.S. State Department has listed Cambodia as among the world's worst nations at adequately addressing human trafficking problems, including the trade of child sex workers.

Peter Rip of Leapfrog Ventures on Web 2.0

2006-08-17T10:26:00.000-04:00

Gartner has now officially anointed Web 2.0 a bona fide IT trend. BFD. Of course, they straddled the meme, by putting it at the peak of their 'hype cycle' graph. That is the consultant's version of plausible deniability. If it turns out to be real, they called it. If it is not, they still called it. This idea has picked up a lot of steam since I first noticed it ten months ago. Dion Hinchcliffe and Andrew McAfee are the real thought leaders, emphasizing the technologies and social/managerial impacts respectively. Dion Hinchcliffe does his usual masterful job of deconstructing some of the elements of this Gartner-validated wave.

Before we all jump on this bandwagon, let's exercise some intellectual restraint and rigor, and in the process perhaps abandon the use of 2.0 as a synonym for "new". The original moniker of Web 2.0 has been used to imply/describe/justify/motivate a collection of concepts that range from standards (like RSS) to technical methodologies (like AJAX) to social phenomena (like personal publishing, rating, and sharing). Web 2.0 has been as much about sociology as technology. But Enterprises are not just big "collections of consumers" and so let's not graft the same concepts and expect a thousand enterprise flowers to bloom.

First, dispense with the sociology. Enterprises have two core attributes that do not exist as widely in the public web -- purpose and accountability. So 'empowerment' and 'collective intelligence' are not end points. Nor are 'discovery,' 'networking,' nor 'sharing.' These are embedded in processes and are methods for creating context to purposeful transactions. A sales forecast is 'collective intelligence.' Mining customer comments is a form of 'discovery.' A internal blog post is more likely to be linked to a product release status than photos of my vacation. Viewed in this context, a lot of what passes for (aspiring) businesses in Web 2.0 are simply features of larger processes in the Enterprise.

So Enterprise 2.0 as a platform shift is mostly about the enabling technologies. Web 2.0 rode the back of Open Source and Moore's Law to crack the economic barrier in building web based services. What followed were technologies for making applications richer (AJAX), easier to build (Ruby on Rails), and easier to integrate (REST and RSS).

But only a tiny community of developers have built Web 2.0 apps using AJAX, ROR, or LAMP. It is really just a few thousand people -- and very few work in large enterprises or ever will, again. So how will the Enterprise 2.0 apps get built? I doubt it is from a startup like Jotspot who has no business process expertise nor business data management expertise. I doubt it is Oracle or SAP who pride themselves on selling Sherman Tanks as radiation-hardened compact cars. The users will build Enterprise 2.0 apps, not the vendors.

The question is who will "get it" first?

Will the enterprise application guys (the IT dinosaurs) "get it" about embedding communication and social context in long-running transactions, or
Will the web 2.0 guys (the IT plankton) "get it" about business processes being the purpose of enterprise community and communication?

Tough call.

Maybe there's a third choice. Maybe the users will be able to imbue business processes with social computing features.

The growing consensus is that web-oriented architectures in the form of "mashups" will be the first wave of Web 2.0 in the enterprise. Maybe, but I think these are going to be niche tools, not mainstream. Why? Because today's mashups are data mashups and once you have the data, you rarely need it again. As a test, think about how often you got back to a cool mashup you've seen to re-use it over again.

This is the promise of process mashups - user-driven, maybe even user-authored, collaborative applications that support core business processes. Data mashups are the New EII. Process mashups are the new EAI. (To be meme-compliant you may want to call them EII 2.0 and EAI 2.0. I don't.)

We are ripe for an breakthrough as big as Visicalc. The spreadsheet exposed the power of the microprocessor to millions of PC users. It was and remains the only significant programming tool used by millions of people who know nothing of linting, compiling, scripting, or even looping. It provides a simple method of assembling data sources to create a custom "application". The application is really part of a business process, most often a financial process. A spreadsheet for business processes would be a powerful way to unlock collaboration and process knowledge in Enterprise 2.0.

New grounds reached in gluttony

2006-08-15T10:46:00.000-04:00

This is the famous 100x100 burger ordered at a Las Vegas In and Out burger. Notice there are 100 patties wedged with greasy melted, almost nauseating slops of cheese, but two lone buns on the top and the bottom. Apparently the box was assembled impromptu by the staff who had never had an order like that before in their life. As much as I wished I was capable of eating such junk, I have to say my current state of overeating and lack of strenuous physical exercise makes me think I'm pretty much guaranteed to collapse from a stroke upon reaching within a 1 foot radius.

Virtualization - Differing views on containers

2006-07-31T11:53:00.000-04:00

Interesting stuff on virtualization from virtualizaiton.info reporting on the recent Linux Symposium: What emerged since the very first day of this year Linux Symposium is that various virtualization approaches have to reach a common standard before being considered for Linux kernel inclusion. In other words it's unlikely one technology will be chosen over others. SWsoft is reporting different positions about the specific virtualization approach called OS partitioning, implemented by mentioned solution like its products Virtuozzo (commercial) and OpenVZ (open source), Sun Solaris Containers, UML, Linux-VServer and others:

Eric Biederman wants to have so-called namespaces in kernel. Namespaces are basically a building blocks of containers, for example, with user namespace we have an ability to have the same root user in different containers; network namespace gives an ability to have a separate network interface; process namespace is when you have an isolated set of processes. All the namespaces combined together creates a container. But, as Eric states, an ability to use not all but only selected namespaces gives endless possibilities to a user. IBM people want application containers, and for them the main purpose of such containers is live migration of those. The difference between app. container and the ?full? (system) container is a set of features: for example, an application container might lack /proc virtualization, devices, pseudo-terminals (needed to run ssh, for example) etc. So, an application container might be seen as a subset of a system container. OpenVZ wants system containers that resemble the real system as much as possible. In other words, we want to preserve existing kernel APIs as much as possible inside a container, so all of the existing Linux distributions and applictions should run fine inside a container without any modifications. Of course, the goal is not 100% achievable, for example we do not want the container to be able to set the system time. Linux-VServer wants just about the same as OpenVZ, it?s only that their implementations of various components are different, and their level of a container resembling a real system is a bit lower (for example, in networking).

Read the whole article at source. Solution convergence is a huge problem here like in Xen / VMware server virtualization approaches. And an agreement seems too far at the moment.

MyNoteIt - Web 2.0 for students and workgroups

2006-07-28T13:08:00.000-04:00

God I wish I had this when I was in college: From the website: MynoteIT is an extremely powerful utility for any student at any grade level. You can store all your school information in one place, and access it anywhere in the world instantly. Here are some reasons why every student would benifit from mynoteIT. * Tell us the scores you get on assignments throughout the semester and we will automatically calculate your grade. * Instant access to your teacher's contact information. * Our note taking area has an auto-save feature so you never lose any of your notes if your browser crashes. You can also lookup words you don't know, and translate words between languages, instantly inside your workspace. * If you need help on a certain subject, use our community search to find what you need, even bookmark notes for later use. Need to find those notes you thought you would never need from two months ago? Use the Your Search option to search through your notes instantly. * Build a friends list so you can easily get in contact with your classmates. * Our calendar allows you to view all your upcoming assignments so you never forget what is due again. Create (or join) groups at your school so you can more easily share information with the people who need it.

Middle age for startups

2006-07-28T12:33:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine has a hardware startup called PowerToad. Typical to any middle-aged startup, they are suffering from growing pains. It is imperative for startups to begin moving from the "sell it to anyone who sniffs at us" phase, to really focusing on just exactly, what type of market you are focusing on? Those questions are the most salient for PowerToad as they have signed up a number of high profile clients, but as of yet it doesn't appear they are cash flow positive and need just the right marketing and sales effort to make it all happen. This post from Early Stage VC seemed to fit the bill. Jeff if you're reading, take a look. ------------------------------- Business Model, Schmizness Model The term “business model” has bothered me for a long time. I have always found it to be a glib method of characterizing a company’s relationship with its various constituencies, e.g., customers, suppliers, competitors, etc. The problem isn’t really the concept. The problem is that it’s a complex, multidimensional structure that doesn’t really lend itself to a summary sentence, at least not if you really want to understand the business. Yet it one of those economic terms that has entered the popular lexicon as the rise of business schools in the 1970s and 1980s mainstreamed “businessperson” as a profession (like engineer, doctor, or lawyer). Wikipedia does a decent job of summarizing the cacophony of ideas that are embodied in the term business model. I won’t recount them here. The reason the question “what’s your business model?” bothers me it that the inquirer often judges the answer based on its parsimony, as though simple is prima facie evidence of good. Occam’s razor applied to business strategy. I myself will sometimes ask others the question, but I use it to test for complexity, not simplicity. I use it as a Rorschach to see how deeply the respondent has thought about the market and which aspects of the business appear most salient to him or her. In preparing for this entry, I started to ask myself how do I think about a business model? And how do I test if business models are complete, coherent, and compelling? When I worked at Bain in the early 1980’s the firm then specialized in ‘strategy’ and ‘business definition,’ equally amorphous concepts. (Amorphous is good when you bill by the hour). We used to refer to three tests to define whether two companies were in the same business – similarities of cost structures, competitors, and customers. So I sat down and drew this little graphic for myself to try and outline the key concepts that seem to appear in the “business models” of companies that I see in my practice. I don’t claim this is complete or some form of ‘ground truth.’ It is a snapshot of the concepts that I most readily gravitate toward when I think about “what’s your business model?” I am sure I have left out huge chunks that will become obvious when I go to my next deal pitch meeting tomorrow. I am not going to explain every facet. Most of it is self-evident (I hope). However, a couple of things are worth noting. First, at the center are the terms “lever” and “return on equity.” I think of all these bubbles as knobs or levers in the machine that is a business. Not all are equally important, but all are impactful choices that Management has made about the business, even if the choice is to ignore this facet. Second, the objective I want to maximize is return on equity, not growth, not revenue, and not necessarily even market share, though these may be part of what generates ROE. I have enumerated some of the common choices more for illustration than prescription. I should point out the category of “enterprise asset” because I think of this as a separate objective beyond barrier to entry. The “enterprise asset” is that intangible that is the difference between book value and enterprise value. It is the reason why an acquirer is drawn to the business beyond the NPV of the earnings stream. It is the strategic value or what accountants call goodwill. This box is particularly important in early stage investing, as the exits are so often around acquisition. The business should have a clear definition of its ‘residual value’ to a potential set of acquirers. Hopefully some will find this useful as a checklist. There is nothing Web 2.0 about this framework. And there shouldn’t be. Business is applied microeconomics -- Web 2.0 or pest extermination (perhaps a poor juxtaposition – I need an editor.) Anyway I feel better for having shared my quick and dirty model of a business model. Thanks for listening. So, quick, what's your business model, anyway?

20 Chinese firms in Fortune's top 500

2006-07-27T14:55:00.000-04:00

Something of interest: Twenty Chinese companies, including four newcomers, rank among the 500 largest firms in the world in Fortune magazine's latest Global 500 list to be published on July 24. China's three largest state-owned construction firms made the list for the first time, with China Railway Engineering debuting at 441, China Railway Construction 485, and China State Construction 486. Shanghai Automotive, at 475, also made the list for the first time, but China First Automotive dropped from 448 last year to 470. Sinopec remains the largest Chinese company on the list, rising from 31 to 23, followed by State Grid, up from 40 to 32, and China National Petroleum, up from 46 to 39. China's four state-owned commercial banks also moved up the rankings: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China jumped from 299 to 199, Bank of China from 399 to 255, China Construction Bank from 315 to 277, and Agricultural Bank of China from 397 to 377. Comparatively, India only has 6 companies in the Fortune 500: Reliance Industries Ltd, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Oil and Natural Gas Corp. State Bank of India just joined at 498th. The highest ranked is IOC, or Indian Oil Corporation. None of India, Inc. makes the 500. Heavy industry still puts companies in the Fortune 500 it appears.

My favorite Overheard in New York post

2006-06-16T08:27:00.000-04:00

No, Seriously -- Let's Hit It By Jenny Old Chinese lady: Ex-see-cus-see me. Old Chinese lady: Ex-see-cus-see me! Gangsta: Man, what are you excusing me about? Fck you! Old Chinese lady: Fck me? Ok, take-a off the pant. Stairway in silence. Old Chinese lady: Ex-see-cus-see me! Gangsta: Sure thing, ma'am. I'm sorry. Chinese kid: And that's why we respect our elders. --Canal St station

Music Industry: Big Market, Big Questions

2006-06-15T16:22:00.000-04:00

Music Industry: Big Market, Big Questions Despite complaints and panic-induced lawsuits against file sharing services such as Napster by major music labels in the United States, the U.S. and global music markets are flourishing. The global market has grown by 3.4% annually since 1991 and the U.S. music market is the largest in the world, having grown 71% in value since 1991 to U.S. US$13.2 billion in 1998 [4]. More importantly, Napster use appears to be boosting music sales both online and offline. One study, commissioned by Napster and prepared by Peter S. Fader, associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, found that "over 91% of Napster users buy as much or more music than before they used Napster, with 28% purchasing more" [5]. Even so, the major music labels and their mouthpiece the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) appear to be frantically searching for a strategy to maintain control and revenues. The industry is being challenged not only by technology innovators such as Napster, Gnutella, and MP3.com, but also by alliances of music artists and supporters such as the Future of Music Coalition. Internet research firm Jupiter Communications suggests that if the music industry were to let players like Napster stand it would drive incremental sales, but if the industry partnered with networked music-sharing technology companies through licensing schemes, the benefit would be exponentially greater. Jupiter also proposes that "a subscription service to an online music community with high-quality digital music, virus protection, and a wide variety of content could eventually be a more successful driver of revenues for recorded music than individual downloads sold through an online store." Of the five biggest music labels, at least Universal and Bertelsmann seem to be paying attention. Bertelsmann announced at the end of October 2000 a legal settlement with Napster in which Bertelsmann's e-commerce group will partner with Napster to create a membership system to allow paid users to download high-quality songs from Bertelsmann Music Group's entire catalogue. Napster CEO Hank Berry suggested membership fees of US$4.95 per month, but neither party has released information regarding a start of service date. Universal may have swung an even sweeter deal with MP3.com. After watching Bertelsmann, Sony Music Entertainment, Time Warner's Music Group and EMI settle in court with MP3.com for approximately US$20 million each, Universal waited and eventually settled out of court with MP3.com for US$53.4 million. As part of the deal Universal also reportedly bought warrants for up to three million MP3.com shares. The big question still remains: Will partnerships such as those engineered by Napster and Bertelsmann or MP3.com and Universal actually generate revenues? A July 2000 essay in the Economist argues that if the music labels can put their songs online in a format that is more organized and more appealing than their illegal competitors can, fans will be willing to pay something for that privilege [6]. Although online sales - both CD and digital downloads - represented only 2.4% of total music sales for 1999, according to one survey 50% of online U.S. youths ages 16-22 report that they will purchase music online in the near future. Online Internet economy publication The Standard reports Jupiter's prediction of download sales in particular to increase through 2004, reaching 25% of total music sales in 2005 [7]. Media Metrix forecasts that in 2005 76 million users will purchase US$5.4 billion of music online, and another US$1 billion will be spent on online music subscriptions. In October 2000 - before their dances with MP3.com and Napster - both Universal Music and BMG announced new online initiatives to capture some of this projected revenue, with BMG charging users per download. Singles are priced from US$1.98 to US$3.49, and albums are going for between US$9.98 and US$14.98. Universal is experimenting with a subscription model offering users unlimited access to more than 20,000 songs. The Universal plan is not offering actual downloads of music, however. Instead, users can listen to streaming song files, which are extremely difficult to record and share at high audio quality. The online music file access strategies as currently conceived by the major labels, including the two joint initiatives with Napster and MP3.com, are likely to fail for three main reasons. First, few music consumers purchase music of only one particular label, so until the major labels create some form of low-priced, comprehensive access from one Web site to all of the songs in their combined catalogs, any consumer response will be tepid at best. Separate subscriptions or memberships to each of the four big labels will not be an attractive option. More importantly, BMG's current per song or per "CD" download model is priced at levels similar to CD costs in a physical store, giving consumers little incentive to move from existing no-cost file sharing services. Second, streaming of music as planned by Universal will not replace the appeal of downloading song files because the ability of consumers to share music appears to be a major motivation behind current use of Napster, MP3.com and similar services. Finally, current industry initiatives appear to make no concessions to music artists' increasing dissatisfaction with recording contract restrictions enforced by major labels and what many artists and supporters consider to be unreasonable percentage takes of sales revenue. Although it is not clear given the popularity of free file sharing services that music consumers feel compelled to pay artists for their music, if paid subscription access becomes the dominant model in the future there may be increased interest among consumers in seeing that artists get a better deal from the labels than in the past. Put differently, if consumers are forced to pay for digitally downloaded music, many probably will demand that artists get a fair deal. In fact, some well-known artists have declared a kind of unilateral divorce from the labels and have pledged to support innovative schemes by entrepreneurs that give artists more control and compensation for their art, and give consumers the flexibility and convenience of digital downloading. To compound RIAA's headaches, researchers at Xerox PARC, Princeton, and Rice University recently claimed to have cracked four digital watermark technologies created by RIAA's Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) encryption scheme. Following this claim, the five major music labels driving the SDMI announced the results of a challenge posed by SDMI in which two of its five copyright protection technologies were apparently thwarted. Critics on all sides are attacking SDMI as a waste of time and resources, and many analysts believe that the effort will die on the vine. In the next section I describe some possibilities for music experience innovation using mobile Internet business models and technologies.

Congress takes a dump on network neutrality - What will the Senate do?

2006-06-09T14:26:00.000-04:00

My thoughts are that this bill is simply a case of the combined long haul/RBOC's trying to recoup the cost of network buildout...really if you think about it, we are running on the corpses of the Global Crossing, MCI, AT&T, L3 etc's of the world....Every player that leveraged the hell out of their balance sheets to lay out fiber have essentially gone bankrupt or been acquired. There still "dark fiber" that has yet to be lit underground that are static assets for holding companies out there. Google has been slowly acquiring it over the past couple of years and I'm sure Yahoo/MSN has as well. Its a fiber layer's graveyard out there, but it has been for the overall good, since we all know that the content providers have innovated the shit on top of it, so there is certainly cause for some sympathy for the Verizons and Bellsouths of the world. Of course there is the argument that network providers are the "gatekeepers," and by virtue control the quality of services such as VoIP and IPTV, and I am in agreement with this. However, a much better alternative to network neutrality is unbundling of local access which is what is being done in Europe. By unbundling local access and in effect giving the broadband provider the ability to determine speed and service. You no longer have the issue of network providers infringing on the ISPs ability to provide a certain level of quality/speed because the ISP (internet service provider) would rent this line (at a wholesale rate) and determine by itself the type of service it is willing to provide and charge you for. If ISPs wanted to provide advanced services, they themselves would have to install equipment at the local exchange. In my opinion, unbundling is a much better alternative to network neutrality as it fosters investment and only allows serious players to enter the market. But we all know network neutrality not only has implications on the content providers...it has implications on the internet commerce as an engine of growth for the entire economy since it is so integrated into the fabric of modern commerce. It would definitely change the economics of doing business on the internet, not just for the Web 2.0 players such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Amazon, but also major brick and mortar guys who do a surprising amoung of business on the web such as Target, Walmart, Fedex, etc etc. Having seen the capex of alot these folks and it clearly would have real economic impact. Any idea what the prospects of the bill is in the Senate? I'd imagine if there is any lobbying effort toward thwarting the bill it would likely be focused there. ---------------------- June 9, 2006 House K.O.'s Net Neutrality By Roy Mark WASHINGTON -- Legislative language to make the controversial concept of network neutrality the law of the land failed in the U.S. House of Representatives late Thursday night. In an amendment to an otherwise widely supported telecom reform act, lawmakers rejected by a vote of 269-152 a measure to require broadband providers such as AT&T and Comcast to treat all Internet traffic in a nondiscriminatory price manner. Under the proposal by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the telecom and cable giants that control virtually every broadband connection in the United States would be unable to implement their proposed business models to create a two-tiered Internet based on bandwidth consumption. In a roll call vote, 58 Democrats joined 211 Republicans in turning back the measure. Only 11 Republicans joined the 140 Democrats voting for the amendment. The overall bill, known as the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act (COPE, H.R. 5252), would permit national video franchising for Internet Protocol television (IPTV) providers in hopes of spurring competition in the pay television market. Unlike the Markey statutory language approach, under the COPE Act the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on a case-by-case basis would deal with allegations of network neutrality violations. The legislation would also prohibit the FCC from creating additional network neutrality rules beyond the non-binding principles adopted by the agency last year. "The bill... seeks to strike the right balance between ensuring that the public Internet remains an open, vibrant marketplace and ensuring that Congress does not hand the FCC a blank check to regulate Internet services," House Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton (R-Tex.), author of the bill, said in introducing the legislation. "We do need the FCC to stop the cheats without killing honest creativity. We don't need anybody to be the first Secretary of the Internet." In addition, the legislation mandates Voice over IP ( define) providers make E911 services available to consumers and allows state and local governments the option to provide their own telecommunications, cable or information services. The bill passed on a 321-111 vote, with 215 Republicans and 106 Democrats voting in the affirmative. Both Verizon and AT&T have combined to invest billions of dollars into building fiber optic IP networks capable of delivering a competitive product to cable systems and millions more to lobby Congress to break from the historical treatment of Internet traffic by carriers. Currently, all traffic is prioritized, treated and priced the same from the smallest of Web sites to Internet giants such as Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Amazon. Under the cable and telco scheme, fees will be imposed for heavy users. "[The] overwhelming vote brings our nation one critical step closer to TV freedom, where consumers enjoy the benefits of real choice and competition for their video service," Walter McCormick, president and CEO of the U.S. Telecom Association, said in a statement. "Consumers win when companies are free to invest and compete head-to-head by offering innovative products at attractive prices." The defeat of the Markey amendment, while not unexpected, still caught technology executives flat-footed. On Wednesday, House and Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton (R-Tex.), author of the COPE Act, said he saw no way the bill could be voted on before Friday. He did nothing during the day Thursday to discourage that notion. But while TechNet, the influential nationwide political network of IT CEOs and senior executives, lunched at the National Press Club and enjoyed afternoon meetings with top White House executives and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, Barton lined up supporters and the House Republican leadership punched through a surprise Thursday night vote. With TechNet members winging their way home, lawmakers closed the debate on the House side. "Unfortunately, the House voted today to protect the big phone and cable companies at the expense of preserving an open Internet," the It's Our Net Coalition said in a statement. "We are not surprised at the outcome, but we are disappointed that the House has abandoned net neutrality." The issue now moves to the U. S. Senate, where Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has scheduled a third hearing on his own telecom reform package Tuesday morning. Like the House-approved bill, Stevens' proposal showcases national video franchising. It leaves issues of network neutrality to further FCC study. Senators Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, and Democrat Byron Dorgan, of North Dakota, plan to push for network neutrality language similar to Markey's to be included in the legislation. "We are confident that the Senate understands and appreciates the importance of net neutrality to the Internet and to the American economy and will take steps to preserve the Internet as a vibrant... open marketplace," It's Our Net stated.

Dell Googles

2006-05-30T09:18:00.000-04:00

Excellent post from Emergic's Rajesh Jain: Apparently, Google has scored Dell as a big distributor of the information vendor's software and services. Or so says several news sites this afternoon, including Wall Street Journal. The Microsoft doomsayers claiming fierce Google competition will have yet another sign to demonstrate that the sky really is falling (Has anyone at Microsoft ever heard of a character called Chicken Little?). I don't doubt the situation stated by the Journal: "People familiar with Google's thinking have said the deal with Dell wasn't designed exclusively to strike back at Microsoft, but rather to increase use of Google's services." Google has more to gain by making its own business objectives the priority than making deals against Microsoft. The sky isn't falling, and Google isn't looking to get Microsoft. By contrast, Microsoft's bigger business objective would appear to be about getting Google. Some friendly advice: Rather than launch zillions of new Windows Live products and services, Microsoft would be better off making the stuff it already sells much better and getting upgrades, like Windows Vista, out the door on time. I swear, too many Microsoft Chicken Littles grew up playing Risk when they should have learned Chess. Windows is a huge position of strength, but one which needs some fortification. No offense, but Microsoft is fighting a war with a fantom and weakening its position by not protecting its prized asset (Windows) and extending its strength. While terms of the deal haven't been released--and may never be--it's a reasonable to assume that Google agreed to pay Dell a bunch of money for the PC bundling. Microsoft used to, ah, stipulate in its contract against subletting its property (Windows), but the Housing Authority (US Department of Justice) insists renters must be allowed to sublet. It's fairly common practice for software developers and/or service providers to pay a bounty for prime Windows desktop placement. Given recent quarterly results, Dell was a good prospect for subletting space on its consumer, SMB and (some) enterprise PCs. Of course, the deal is good for Google. The company gets prime desktop and Web search, toolbar and other software placement from the world's largest PC manufacturer. JupiterResearch surveys show that more than 80 percent of US online consumers regularly use Web search. Google benefits in all kinds of ways--keywords and contextual advertising, for starters--and directly adheres more of its products, services and brand to consumers. Last week, I tried to rationalize why Microsoft made yet another search announcement--and one oddly timed. Today's deal, assuming the news reports are right, creates context. Deals like Google on Dell ("Dude, you're getting a Google") don't occur in a vacuum. It's sure that Microsoft was privy to negotiates and may even have counter offered. It wouldn't shocked me--and, yes, I'm totally speculating--if Microsoft's most-recent future search announcement without products was pre-emptive. By the way, deals like this would have been nearly impossible before Microsoft's US antitrust case. The landlord (Microsoft) covets his property (Windows). He doesn't like redecoration (changes to the desktop) or subletters (the likes of Google software or services bundled instead of Microsoft stuff).

Why wireless will end ‘piracy’ and doom DRM and TCPA – Jim Griffin

2006-05-24T16:48:00.000-04:00

Interesting interview with Jim Griffin, former CEO of media company CherryLane. Lots of interesting viewpoints on music and digital media. -----

Don't worry about DRM and lock-down computing, says Jim Griffin. Historically they're doomed to fail. The former director of Geffen's technology group believes that wireless networks such as 3G, 4G and WiFi will provide the tipping point at which the entertainment industries come to the table to cut a deal - before political pressure forces a deal upon them. The deal will involve one of the flat-fee models, such as 2002's Blur/Banff proposals [PDF, 473kb (http://www.nsu.newschool.edu/blur/blur02/reports/blur02_user_love.pdf)] or the model Harvard's Professor Fisher summarized here (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/35260.html). Both of these envisage a pot of compensation money and a mechanism for divvying it up, permitting the free exchange of artistic goods. And with 'piracy' abolished, there's no need for DRM.

How newspapers can face online rivals: Is it too late to cooperate?

2006-05-24T16:17:00.000-04:00

In the same vein as my prior posts on media, the issue of splintering audiences are a problem for music, television, and print. The could there be a need for all media to operate on a consolidated number of platforms? One for print media, one for music (iTunes anyone?) and one for television? Is it economically feasible, what does it mean for competition among labels? Big questions here...all I know is that litigation won't do a thing to slow down the digitization and capturing of data on devices. ------------------ How newspapers can face online rivals Is it too late to cooperate? Bambi Francisco [MarketWatch] | POSTED: 05.23.06 @09:31 In 1846, as the new technology of the telegraph system was catching on, newspapers pooled their resources to create a more efficient news distribution system. Jim Kennedy, vice president of strategic planning at the Associated Press, which was born out of those efforts, says newspapers are facing a similar challenge today. "Fast forward 168 years later," Kennedy told attendees at a recent Las Vegas gathering, "that's the situation we face today." Translation: It's time for newspapermen to stop fighting among themselves and cooperate if they want to survive in the era of splintering audiences, and search-engine news gateways, such as the popular news services created by Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) and Google Inc. (GOOG). Yahoo News has held the No. 1 news property spot on the Web for the last eight months. It commanded 25.7 million unique visitors in April, up 10% from last year, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Google News was the No. 11 news site last month, with 9.7 million unique visitors, up 19% from last year. Meanwhile, Knight Ridder Digital saw its audience base grow 13% to 10.6 million unique visitors while Associated Press grew a paltry 1% to 6.1 million unique visitors. AP's Kennedy was spoke Friday alongside Tom Mohr, President of Knight Ridder Digital and Colby Atwood, vice president at Borrell Associates, a consulting firm specializing in local media. The panel was part of the Interactive Media Conference, hosted by Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek. The panel was titled "5-year forecast: See the Future Today," but from the comments made on stage, it might as well have been "The final days of newspapers." For offline newspapers, the writing is on the Web. Email delivery of national and niche news on our computers or on our BlackBerry devices has made it less of a priority to pick up a printed newspaper, especially when traveling. Why bother with the added weight? In 1949, newspapers accounted for 37% of the advertising market in the U.S., according to Atwood. Today, they account for 17% to 18%. Given the choices people make on the Web, newspapers -- try as they might -- likely never will come close to having the same market share online that they once had in the offline world. Atwood said that, surprisingly, newspapers still account for 35.8% of the online local ad marketplace, which he estimates to have been $2.4 billion in 2005. About 90% of advertisements in newspapers are local. Increasingly, those offline dollars are seriously at risk. "There's a big race to go after local ad dollars," said Atwood. "I'd say newspapers will likely lose their share," he said. "They're not as well organized as the large dot-coms." Newspapers playing nice? Having spent more time at Silicon Valley conferences with Internet companies and startups, I have to say that this gathering was relatively sobering. Attendees included executives from newspapers and publications with an online presence who wanted to know how to survive against the rise of social networks, vertical or niche-oriented Web sites, and those darn search engines, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft (MSFT). Don't get me wrong. The panelists were not sounding the death knell of newspapers. But they were provocative in their identification of the problems plaguing the newspaper industry and suggestions for potential solutions. Mohr's presentation, in fact, came off like a rallying cry. Like Kennedy, Mohr encouraged the news organizations to work together to create economies of scale that take advantage of the same technology, in effect a co-op for newspapers. "How are you going to get companies, like Dow Jones, to work with AP and Knight Ridder?" I asked Kennedy? "And, what's the incentive for us?" I added. (Dow Jones & Co. owns MarketWatch, the publisher of this column.) News organizations could theoretically send their feeds into a system own by Associated Press, Kennedy explained. There would be technology to rank those stories based by authority. I didn't have the heart to tell Kennedy that newspaper companies don't have much of a competitive advantage over engineering-powerhouses when it comes to creating search technology. But I did ask how he would propose this theoretical newspaper system measure "authority?" "That's the question," said Kennedy. "We all need to think through how content is ranked." Even with such a co-op, Google News would still exist, I argued. That is, of course, unless news organizations could show that their ranking system would be immeasurably better, which I'm a bit skeptical about. Another suggestion, offered by Mohr, was to have newspapers operate on one technology platform to create efficiencies of scale. Of course, Mohr would like all newspaper companies to let go of their proprietary platforms and use Knight Ridder Digital's. Both ideas -- a news search engine and one federated technology platform -- sound interesting. (Other ideas floated about, for anyone interested, included having newspapers step up their search-engine optimization efforts and buy keywords to drive up traffic.) But it seems they all might be too little too late. Atwood said it best after wrapping up his opening remarks. The "consequences for mass media are... umm, well... troubling." Bebo gets funding Benchmark is taking another crack at social networks. The venture capitalist invested in Friendster back in 2003, when social networks were just getting noticed. But Friendster has not been the success Benchmark would have liked. Instead, News Corp's (NWS) MySpace has become the No. 1 social networking site, and is one of the premier online destinations, rivaling portals. Not to lose out in this social-networking bonanza, Benchmark just invested $15 million in Bebo, a social networking site that's growing faster than Friendster, and is popular in the U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Bebo operates a lean house, with only seven employees in the U.S., and now three more in the U.K. It's profitable on sales that are below $10 million annually. But if Bebo's traffic follows in the footsteps of MySpace and Facebook, ad sales could surge. Facebook is expected to generate about $60 million in sales this year. Watch for my video interview with Michael Birch, founder and CEO of Bebo on Tuesday. Separately, if you want to get a job with a technology company outside of college, one way to do so is to create a technology and then sell it. That's what five fraternity brothers did. They started HipCal and sold it to Plaxo.

Downloading 'myths' challenged

2006-05-23T15:33:00.000-04:00

Downloading 'myths' challenged People who illegally share music files online are also big spenders on legal music downloads, research suggests. Digital music research firm The Leading Question found that they spent four and a half times more on paid-for music downloads than average fans. Rather than taking legal action against downloaders, the music industry needs to entice them to use legal alternatives, the report said. According to the music industry, legal downloads have tripled during 2005. In the first half of 2005, some 10 million songs have been legally downloaded. Music 'myth' More needs to be done to capitalise on the power of the peer-to-peer networks that many music downloaders still use, said the report's authors. There's a myth that all illegal downloaders are mercenaries hell-bent on breaking the law in pursuit of free music Paul Brindley, The Leading Question The study found that regular downloaders of unlicensed music spent an average of £5.52 a month on legal digital music. This compares to just £1.27 spent by other music fans. "The research clearly shows that music fans who break piracy laws are highly valuable customers," said Paul Brindley, director of The Leading Question. "It also points out that they are eager to adopt legitimate music services in the future." "There's a myth that all illegal downloaders are mercenaries hell-bent on breaking the law in pursuit of free music." In reality hardcore fans "are extremely enthusiastic" about paid-for services, as long as they are suitably compelling, he said. Carrot and stick The BPI (British Phonographic Industry) welcomed the findings but added a note of caution. "It's encouraging that many illegal file-sharers are starting to use legal services," said BPI spokesman Matt Philips. "But our concern is that file-sharers' expenditure on music overall is down, a fact borne out by study after study. "The consensus among independent research is that a third of illegal file-sharers may buy more music and around two thirds buy less. "That two-thirds tends to include people who were the heaviest buyers which is why we need to continue our carrot and stick approach to the problem of illegal file-sharing," he said. Music to go The Leading Question survey also asked 600 music fans what devices they would be buying in the next year. One of the challenges will be to develop the perception of the phone as a credible entertainment device Tim Walker, The Leading QuestionA third planned to buy a dedicated MP3 player, while just 8% said they would be buying an MP3-enabled phone. Reasons cited for not purchasing a music playing phone included worries about battery life and concerns about losing the handset, and potentially their music collection. The fact that phones tend to be frequently replaced also meant people had a low emotional attachment to them. "The phone is not ready to replace the iPod as a serious digital music player just yet," said Tim Walker, director of The Leading Question. "One of the challenges will be to develop the perception of the phone as a credible entertainment device," he said. Providers need to look at features such as dual download to mobile and PC, back-up facilities and improved interfaces between PC and mobile, he said. There is a huge potential market for MP3 phones. The survey found that 38% were interested in downloading full tracks to their mobile phones. And people are happy with the storage possibilities of phones with only 4% wanting to store more than 1,000 songs to take on holiday. Story from BBC NEWS:

Music's brighter future - Oct 28th 2004

2006-05-23T15:10:00.000-04:00

The music industry Music's brighter future Oct 28th 2004 From The Economist print edition The internet will eventually be wonderful for music buyers, but it is still a threat to today's dominant record labels Rex “DIRTY pop with wonky beats and sleazy melodies” is how the Sweet Chap, aka Mike Comber, a British musician from Brighton, describes his music. The Sweet Chap has no record deal yet, but he has been taken on by IE Music, a London music-management group that also represents megastar Robbie Williams. To get the Sweet Chap known, last year IE Music did a deal to put his songs on KaZaA, an internet file-sharing program. As a result, 70,000 people sampled the tracks and more than 500 paid for some of his music. IE Music's Ari Millar says that virally spreading music like this is the future. It may indeed be, and nimble small record labels and artist-management firms will certainly get better results as they find ways to reach more people via the internet. But the question facing the music industry is when that future will arrive. And the issue is most urgent for the four big companies that dominate the production and distribution of music—Universal, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI (see chart 1). So far they have been slow to embrace the internet, which has seemed to them not an opportunity but their nemesis. Rather than putting their product on file-sharing applications, they are prosecuting free-download users for theft. They have certainly been struggling: sales of recorded music shrank by a fifth between 1999 and 2003. Today, there is more optimism. In the first half of this year, global physical unit sales of recorded music rose, albeit by a tiny amount. The industry claims that file-sharing has stabilised thanks to its lawsuits. The number of music files freely available online has fallen from about 1.1 billion in April 2003 to 800m this June, according to IFPI, a record-industry body. That said, internet piracy is rampant, and physical CD piracy continues to worsen. But big music's attitude towards the internet has changed, too. Over the past four years the big companies have come a long way towards accepting that the internet and digital technology will define the industry's future. Thanks to Apple and its enormously popular iPod music players and iTunes download service, most music executives now believe that people will pay for legal online music. (Although they have mushroomed, legal online downloads account for less than 5% of industry revenues.) The big companies are trying to work out how they can harness the internet. Consequently, they are having to rethink their traditional business models. In the physical world, the big companies have the advantage of scale. In addition to marketing clout, they own a large back catalogue of music that can be repeatedly reissued. They are also bolstered by music-publishing businesses, which collect royalties on already published songs used in recorded music, live performance, films and advertisements. Historically, the majors have controlled physical distribution of CDs. Yet that barrier to entry will erode as more music is distributed on the internet and mobile phones. Artists can, in theory, use the internet to bypass record firms, though few have yet done this. The principal reason most have not is that they need marketing and promotion, which the majors also dominate, to reach a wide audience. The majors have a tight hold on radio, for example, by far the most effective medium for promoting new acts. (Perhaps their lock is too strong: Eliot Spitzer, New York's attorney-general, is investigating whether the companies bribe radio stations to play their music.) Could the internet challenge them on this too? So far, bands have not been launched online. But that could change, and there is already evidence that data derived from the preferences shown on illegal file-sharing networks are being used to help launch acts. Much will depend on whether the majors choose to address a problem that is just as important as piracy: these days they rarely develop new artists into long-lasting acts, relying instead on short-term hits promoted in mainstream media. That has turned off many potential buyers of new music. In future, using the internet, the industry will be able to appeal directly to customers, bypassing radio, television and big retailers, all of which tend to prefer promoting safe, formulaic acts. That could give the majors the confidence to back innovative, edgy music. But much smaller independent labels and artist-management firms can do the same, offering them a way to challenge the big firms head on. Even in the physical world, the big firms are struggling to maintain their traditional market. Supermarkets have become important outlets, but the likes of Wal-Mart stock only a narrow range of CDs, choosing to shift shelf-space away from music in favour of higher-margin DVDs and videogames. That is a symptom of another headache for all music firms: they face ever more intense competition from other kinds of entertainment, especially among the young. In theory, then, digital technology offers the majors an escape hatch. With infinite space and virtually free distribution online, every track ever recorded can be instantly available to music fans. Of course, smaller firms will be able to do the same thing. Where did all the music go? According to an internal study done by one of the majors, between two-thirds and three-quarters of the drop in sales in America had nothing to do with internet piracy. No-one knows how much weight to assign to each of the other explanations: rising physical CD piracy, shrinking retail space, competition from other media, and the quality of the music itself. But creativity doubtless plays an important part. Judging the overall quality of the music being sold by the four major record labels is, of course, subjective. But there are some objective measures. A successful touring career of live performances is one indication that a singer or band has lasting talent. Another is how many albums an artist puts out. Many recent singers have toured less and have often faded quickly from sight. Music bosses agree that the majors have a creative problem. Alain Levy, chairman and chief executive of EMI Music, told Billboard magazine this year that too many recent acts have been one-hit wonders and that the industry is not developing durable artists. The days of watching a band develop slowly over time with live performances are over, says Tom Calderone, executive vice-president of music and talent for MTV, Viacom's music channel. Even Wall Street analysts are questioning quality. If CD sales have shrunk, one reason could be that people are less excited by the industry's product. A poll by Rolling Stone magazine found that fans, at least, believe that relatively few “great” albums have been produced recently (see chart 2). Big firms have always relied on small, independent music firms for much of their research and development. Experimental indies signed Bob Marley, U2, Pink Floyd, Janet Jackson, Elvis Presley and many other hit acts. Major record labels such as CBS Records, to be sure, have signed huge bands. But Osman Eralp, an economist who advises IMPALA, a trade association for independent music companies in Europe, estimates that over 65% of the majors' sales of catalogue albums—music that is at least 18 months old—comes from artists originally signed by independents. In the past, an important part of the majors'R&D strategy was to buy up the independent firms themselves. But after years of falling sales and cost-cutting, the majors have little appetite for acquisitions, and now rely more on their own efforts. What Mr Levy calls music's “disease”—short-term acts—is not solely a matter of poor taste on the part of the big firms. Being on the stockmarket or part of another listed company makes it hard to wait patiently for the next Michael Jackson to be discovered or for a slow-burning act to reach its third or fourth breakthrough album. The majors also complain that the radio business is unwilling to play unusual new music for fear of annoying listeners and advertisers. And while TV loves shows like “Pop Idol” for drawing millions of viewers, such programmes also devalue music by showing that it can be manufactured. Technology has made it easy for music firms to pick people who look good and adjust the sound they make into something acceptable, though also ephemeral. The majors could argue that they can happily carry on creating overnight hits; so long as they sell well today, why should it matter if they do not last? But most such music is aimed at teenagers, the very age group most likely to download without paying. And back-catalogue albums make a great deal of money. The boss of one major label estimates that, while catalogue accounts for half of revenues, it brings in three-quarters of his profits. If the industry stops building catalogue by relying too much on one-hit wonders, it is storing up a big problem for the future. A new duet There are signs that the majors are addressing the issue. Universal Music and Warner Music are starting up units to help independent labels with new artists, both promising initiatives that show that they are willing to experiment. Thanks to the majors' efforts in the last few years, their music has already improved, says Andy Taylor, executive chairman of Sanctuary Group, an independent, pointing to acts such as the Black Eyed Peas (Universal), Modest Mouse (Sony), Murphy Lee (Universal) and Joss Stone (EMI). And yet even if they can shore up their position in recorded music, the big firms may find themselves sitting on the sidelines. For only their bit of the music business has been shrinking: live touring and sponsorship are big earners and are in fine shape. In the past 12 months, according to a manager who oversees the career of one of the world's foremost divas, his star earned roughly $20m from sponsorship, $15m from touring, $15m from films, $3m from merchandise and $9m from CD sales. Her contract means that her record label will share only in the $9m. In 2002 Robbie Williams signed a new kind of deal with EMI in which he gave it a share of money from touring, sponsorship and DVD sales as well as from CDs, in return for big cash payments. Other record firms are trying to make similar deals with artists. That will be difficult, says John Rose, former head of strategy at EMI and currently a partner at the Boston Consulting Group in New York, because many artists, and their managers, see record companies less as creative and business partners than as firms out to profit from them. Artists' managers will resist attempts to move in on other revenue streams. Peter Mensch, the New York-based manager of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Shania Twain and Metallica, says “we will do everything and anything in our power to stop the majors from grabbing any share of non-recorded income from our bands.” Mr Mensch says that one way to fight back would be to start his own record company. Independent labels are also gunning for the big firms. For one thing, they are fighting to stop further consolidation among the majors because that would make it even harder for the independents themselves to compete for shelf space and airplay. IMPALA will soon take the European Commission to court for allowing Sony and BMG to merge earlier this year. But the small firms are also optimistic that they can grow at the expense of their big rivals. The majors are cutting back in smaller markets and dropping artists who lack the potential to sell in lots of countries. That leaves a space for the indies. For example, Warner Music Group is thought to be readying itself for an initial public offering in 2005 and, as part of cutting costs in Belgium, it dropped artists this year. Among them was Novastar, whose manager says the group's latest album has so far sold 56,000 copies in Belgium and Holland. The more the majors scale back, the more the market opens up. People who have left the big firms are starting up new ventures. Emmanuel de Buretel, previously a senior manager at EMI, is about to launch an independent record label called “Because”, with help from Lazard, an investment bank. Tim Renner, formerly chairman of Universal Music in Germany, will soon set up a music internet service, a radio station in Germany and possibly a new record label. In the material world Meanwhile, the majors are trying to plot their move to digital. Making the transition will be tricky. Bricks-and-mortar music retailers need to be kept happy despite the fact that they know that online music services threaten to make them obsolete. It is still unclear what a successful business model for selling music online will look like. People are buying many more single tracks than albums so far. If that persists, it should encourage albums of more consistent quality, since record companies stand to make more money when people spend $12 on a single artist than if they allocate $2 to each of six bands. Or it could mean that the concept of the album will fade. Online pricing is unstable too. It is likely that download prices will vary in future far more than they do now. Apple forced the industry to accept a fixed fee per download of 99 cents, but the majors will push for variable, and probably higher, prices. Online prices will have an impact on prices in the physical world, which are already gradually falling in most markets. But the result of all these variables might be structurally lower profits. Edgar Bronfman junior, chairman and chief executive officer of Warner Music Group, expects that paid-for digital-music services via the internet and mobile phones will start to have a measurable impact on music firms' bottom lines as soon as 2006. The new distribution system will connect music firms directly with customers for the first time. It will also shift the balance of power between the industry and giant retailers. Wal-Mart, for instance, currently sells one-fifth of retail CDs in America, but recorded music is only a tiny proportion of its total sales. The best distribution of all will come when, as many expect, the iPod or some other music device becomes one with the mobile phone. Music fans can already hold their phones up to the sound from a radio, identify a song and later buy the CD. At $3.5 billion in annual sales, the mobile ringtone market has grown to one-tenth the size of the recorded music business. But can paid-for services compete with free ones? The paying services need to put more catalogue online if they want to match the file-sharing networks with their massive music libraries. And it is still unclear how much “digital-rights management”—technology that restricts how a music download can be used—people will tolerate. Another key issue is interoperability: whether the various new devices for playing digital music will work with other online stores. Apple's iPods, for instance, work with iTunes, but not with Sony Connect or Microsoft's MSN Music Store. Too many restrictions on the paid-for services may entrench file-sharing. Out of the more than 100 online music sites that exist now, a handful of big players may come to dominate, but there will be specialist providers too, says Ted Cohen, head of digital development and distribution at EMI. iTunes is like the corner store where you buy milk and ice cream, he says, but a customer does not spend much time there. Real Networks'Rhapsody, on the other hand, charges a monthly subscription in return for unlimited streaming music and gives descriptions that lead people to new artists. Recommendation services like these, as well as people sharing playlists, will eventually make the internet a powerful way to market music as well as to distribute it. Jiving with the enemy In September, according to comScore Media Metrix, 10m American internet users visited four paid online-music services. The same month another 20m visited file-sharing networks. The majors watch what is being downloaded on these networks, although they do not like to talk about it for fear of undermining their legal campaign. Online music might truly take off if the majors were to make a truce with the file-sharing networks. The gulf between the two worlds has narrowed now that the industry sells its product online and allows customers to share music using digital-rights management. As for the file-sharing networks, “the other side is more willing to talk and less adversarial,” says an executive at one of the majors in Los Angeles. Music industry executives say that Shawn Fanning, founder of Napster, the first file-sharing network, is working out how to attach prices to tracks downloaded from such services, with a new venture called “Snocap”. Mr Fanning tried to make the original Napster legal back in 2001, but the music industry decided instead to sue it out of existence. Sam Yagan, boss of eDonkey, currently the most popular file-sharing network, says he had meetings with three of the four major labels last summer about how his network could start selling their music alongside free content. As IE Music's experiment shows, that is not an impossible dream. Music executives may not have the confidence yet to make a deal with their arch-enemies. But eventually they have to get bolder. It seems clear that the only way for the majors to stay on top of the music industry into the next decade is to take more risks—both technological and creative—than they have done for a long time.

Finally an SaaS SAP attacking app

2006-05-23T09:44:00.000-04:00

Intacct raises $7 million; promises guerrilla campaign against SAP/Oracle Intacct is a company trying to undercut the big boys, SAP and Oracle, by selling cheaper Web-based financial applications. The San Jose-based company will announce tomorrow that it has raised $7 million in a second round of venture capital, led by Emergence Capital and including existing investors Hummer Winblad and JK&B Capital. Bob Jurkowski, chief executive, told us the company had a record quarter, and is working closely with Saleforce.com to acquire new customers. It lets Salesforce.com handle a customer's sales management applications, but Intacct wants to manage the "backend" needs of its customers, including things such as project management, and supply-chain management. Jurkowski said he is launching some guerrilla marketing tactics, similar to those of smaller competitor Netsuite, which tried to fluster SAP last week by setting up a conference across the street from SAP's own SAPPHIRE customer conference (Netsuite failed to pull it off). For his part, Jurkowski didn't reveal any details. Posted by Matt Marshall on May 21, 2006 08:22 PM | 0 Linking Posts

Space Ninja Sneaks in Japan

2006-05-19T12:00:00.000-04:00

Anyone who remembers my post about making nunchuks when I was a kid knows this made me squeal with joy.... ------------------ Space Ninja Sneaks READ MORE: Asics, Gadgets, Ninja, Sneakers, Space, TOP, Tabi - GizmodoWhen I was a kid, my Grandma made me a full ninja uniform complete with tabi boots. While I surely did look cool then, I can only imagine how I’d look now wearing these ninja-tastic sneaks from Asics. These are actually made for astronauts. Yeah, you read correctly. Because standard sports shoes hurt in space—something about muscles and circulation—Asics designed a special pair that reduces strain. They’re not available to us non-space ninjas, however. Japan Space Sneakers Are Ultra-High Heels [SpaceDaily via TheCoolHunter]

Monkee with a head of hair

2006-05-17T22:38:00.000-04:00

So after a brief but inspiring converstion with my friend Harsh, I'm going to be growing my hair out Asian rockstar style and you my faithless readers will reap the entertainment rewards. Every two weeks I'm going to post a picture of my actual head to document my hair's growth. I'd venture to say at the end of 3 months I'll have a fantastic looking head of hair that would be the envy of all, including some females. Word up.

Walt Mossberg on the "the post-pc" era: Apple fanboy much?

2006-05-17T13:39:00.000-04:00

This article from the WSJ by Walt Mossberg kind of got my goat. Beyond simply being among the biggest of Apple cheerleaders, he's just plain yanking at the wrong beanstalk. The end to end model is how Ford and GM built their business way back in the Model T days. The era of the "integrated" players is pretty much over as you just can't squeeze out efficiencies in process and supply chain if you design, source, build, and assemble every component of a product. Granted Apple isn't really a pure end to end player in that they still source their CPUs from Intel (formerly IBM/Motorola) and some of the industrial design/assembly is sourced to Taiwan mostly, they still only occupy 3% of the total PC market share of the top of my head. If they increased it to say 50%, then no doubt Apple will have to drastically alter how they architect their supply chain to mimic that of the component model. So the ability to manage a product's entire lifecycle is alot more simple if your turnaround isn't quite as frenetic as say a Dell's which has around 60 inventory turns a year. After some further thinking, also, the reason Apple was able to dominate the personal MP3 player device is classic management consulting strategy. Although flash players existed before, they were among the first to market with hard drives, first to marketshare, first to mindshare. Then they built a platform in iTunes to bind it all. Coupled with fantastic industrial design, they were able to pull off a great win that has raised the tide for all of its products. The same can be said when IBM introduced the modern mainframe in its S/360. Other mainframes existed before them like the Univacs used by the US government, but nothing before it was designed with such thoughtfulness to enterprise needs. For the next 20 years IBM rode its success until the client/server era changed all that up. Apple is trying to do the same with the iPod, making it a hub, but the integrated model can only be successful a) if you live in the 1920's b) if you carve out dominant share in the marketplace. Even then, its pretty short lived the way tech evolves today.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114729881894749433.html For many years, there have been two models of how to make computers and other digital devices. One is the component model, championed by Microsoft. The other is the end-to-end model, championed by Apple. In the component model, many companies make hardware and software that run on a standard platform, creating inexpensive commodity devices that don't always work perfectly together, but get the job done. In the end-to-end model, one company designs both the hardware and software, which work smoothly together, but the products cost more and limit choice. In the first war between these models, the war for dominance of the personal-computer market, Microsoft's approach won decisively. Aided by efficient assemblers like Dell, and by corporate IT departments employed to integrate the components, Microsoft's component-based Windows platform crushed Apple's end-to-end Macintosh platform. But in the post-PC era we're in today, where the focus is on things like music players, game consoles and cellphones, the end-to-end model is the early winner. Tightly linking hardware, software and Web services propelled Apple to a huge success with its iPod. Microsoft, meanwhile, has struggled to make its component model work on these devices and, in a telling sign, is using the Apple end-to-end model itself in its Xbox game-console business. Now, Apple is working on other projects built on the same end-to-end model as the iPod: a media-playing cellphone and a home-media hub. The jury is still out on whether the end-to-end model will prevail in the long term. Many at Microsoft, and some outside analysts as well, believe the new devices will eventually succumb to the component model, and that Apple's success with the iPod will fade, just as its early dominance of the PC market did. Apple officials say history won't repeat itself if the company continues to make great products and avoid the business blunders committed by its past management. I think the end-to-end model can prevail this time, both for Apple and other companies. Consumers want choice and low prices. But they also crave the kind of simplicity and integration that the end-to-end model delivers best. Sure, you can get more variety in music players and in online music services if you opt for the Microsoft-based music instead of the iPod system. But the iPod, Apple's iTunes software, and the iTunes Music Store work so well together that users can just relax and enjoy the music. By contrast, the hodgepodge of players, software and online music stores on the Microsoft side frequently have trouble synchronizing between computers and players. Apple sells as many or more songs than the many stores that use Microsoft software. Critics attack the iPod and iTunes as "closed" and "proprietary," because the songs Apple sells at its iTunes Music Store play only on iPods, and iPods can't play songs purchased from other music stores. But both the iPod and iTunes handle the two most common open audio formats, MP3 and WAV, and the most common open video format, MP4. They work well even if you never buy a song from Apple. And iTunes and the iPod work on Windows computers, not just Macs. So how is that closed? Even the Mac isn't as closed as its critics charge. It's still designed to work with Apple's own operating system and software. But it can handle all the common files Windows uses, can network with Windows machines, and can use all of the common Windows printers, scanners, keyboards and mice. The Mac gives you the same access to the Internet as Windows. Heck, the newest Macs can even run Windows itself. You do get a choice of more software with Windows. And that's great for hard-core gamers and users of corporate, or niche, software. But for mainstream users doing typical tasks, the Windows choice advantage is illusory. Mac users can choose among thousands of third-party programs, including multiple Web browsers, word processors and email programs. They can run Mac versions of popular software like Microsoft Office and the Firefox browser. How much more choice do you need? Microsoft is hedging its bets. It has, in effect, created a little Apple inside Microsoft with the Xbox group. The Xbox team shunned Windows and wrote its own operating system and user interface, and built its own hardware. (The new Xbox was even developed using Macintosh computers.) Some Microsoft officials dismiss this anomaly by claiming that the game-console business is a special case. But now, Microsoft has assigned the Xbox team to create a portable music player it hopes can knock off the iPod. Why? Because the company is frustrated that the component model, which separates hardware and software, has failed in the music market. It's looking for more integration. Still, the end-to-end model isn't a lock. If Apple can't keep churning out cool products at reasonable prices, it could crash and burn. Unlike Microsoft, it doesn't have much help from other companies to succeed. But the iPod experience has shown that the PC model may not be best for all digital devices.

Amazon CTO Werner Vogels - Learning about the Amazon technology platform

2006-05-16T16:39:00.000-04:00

A very long but worthwhile interview from ACM Queue with Werner Vogels, CTO, Amazon.com, discussing the Amazon.com architecture, their decision to build on a distributed services oriented architecture, and how they govern and manage development. --------------------- A Conversation with Werner Vogels Learning from the Amazon technology platform Vol. 4, No. 4 - May 2006 Many think of Amazon as "that hugely successful online bookstore." You would expect Amazon CTO Werner Vogels to embrace this distinction, but in fact it causes him some concern. "I think it's important to realize that first and foremost Amazon is a technology company," says Vogels. And he's right. Over the past years, Vogels has helped Amazon grow from an online retailer (albeit one of the largest, with more than 55 million active customer accounts) into a platform on which more than 1 million active retail partners worldwide do business. Behind Amazon's successful evolution from retailer to technology platform is its SOA (service-oriented architecture), which broke new technological ground and proved that SOAs can deliver on their promises. Vogels came to Amazon from Cornell University, where he was working on high-availability systems and the management of scalable enterprise systems. He maintains that research spirit at Amazon, which regularly must solve problems never before encountered. "Maybe other companies call it research. We just call it development," he points out. Interviewing Vogels is ACM Turing Award winner and Microsoft Technical Fellow Jim Gray.

Google the new Microsoft?

2006-05-16T15:43:00.000-04:00

The Economist writes: Google is thus starting to look a bit as Microsoft did a decade ago, with one strength (Windows for Microsoft, search for Google) and a string of mediocre "me-too" products. Google Video, for instance, was supposed to become an online marketplace for video clips, both personal and business, but has been overtaken by YouTube, a start-up that is a few months old but already has four times as much video traffic. Google News, where the stories are, characteristically, chosen by mathematical algorithms rather than by editors, perennially lags behind Yahoo! News, with its old-fashioned human touch. Google's instant-messaging software is tiny compared with AOL's, Yahoo!'s and MSN's. ... Google thus finds itself at a defining moment. There are plenty of people within the company who want it to play the power game. "The folks who are closest to Larry and Sergey are very, very worried about Microsoft, as well they should be," says John Battelle, the author of a blog and a book on Google. Yet the company's founders themselves may not be prepared to drop their idealism and their faith in their own mathematical genius.

Open source gang forms to battle IBM, BMC and CA

2006-05-15T09:21:00.000-04:00

Its interesting observing what's going on in the systems management marketplace. Some observers note that it resembles very much the middleware market years ago until Weblogic, Websphere, and more recently Jboss has emerged as the noteworthy players. Opensource has been a trend contributing to, not simplifying, complexity within the IT landscape. To paraphrase Lou Gerstner, CIO's are tasked with making several elephants dance in synch. Now CIO's have alot of little elephants too with the likes of Red Hat/Jboss, Novell, and MySQL in the mix. Invariably some opportunistic vendors have spotted the opportunity to replicate the MySQL and Jboss business model in Open Source Systems Management. Sourceforge.net can be a gold mine if you spot the right opportunity as we can observe with companies like Xensource among others. Systems management has emerged as an extremely essential part of the enterprise, even as IBM with its efforts to link up Tivoli and Rational and vendors like BlackDuck and Spikesource build their business models around certifying open source IT stacks for enterprises. It becomes ever more byzantine when CIO's consider the possibilities in cost savings behind hard ware virtualization and to a lesser extent applications virtualization. The cost savings in server utilization and power demands are mitigated by the fact that you have 4 or 5 times more servers in your environment. That's where vendors like Opsware and Bladelogic come into play. The list of vendors offering similar components of the systems managment marketplace becomes long, however, when you look at incumbent vendors with positions of strength in other parts of the stack such as IBM, Microsoft, BMC, and the newly reconfigured CA under Swainson. My prediction is more consolidation down the road as the hot trend in virtualization, from network to server, accelerates the need for operations and systems managment and vendors invariably attempt to be the one stop shop. ----------------- Open source gang forms to battle IBM, BMC and CA | The Register The systems management market has clearly not been a favorite for customers over the years. You have to side with a vendor and then shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars or more for add-on packages to handle various tasks. An open source alternative would clearly give Linux savvy small- to medium-sized businesses a nice option. The OMC pitch weakens in these early days when you realize that its the systems management crowd's attempt to mimic the LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP/Perl/Python) stack that has become all the rage. Companies ranging in size from IBM and Red Hat down to services start-ups have put in a lot of work certifying the core LAMP software to work well together and then certifying additional packages that can fit into the LAMP combination. There's no grand certification effort going with the OMC crowd. In fact, the initial run of OMC is really just a declaration that these open source vendors exist. They've set up a web site with limited information about the partnership, and that's about it at this point. "I think the idea is that a formal structure will come about," said Mark Hinkle, a VP at Emu Software. "The first thing we have to do is come up with the conversation." The organizations backing OMC do eventually plan to do more than just talk. They'll have joint sales and marketing programs and strive to make sure their applications work well together. In addition, they hope to add more companies to the group and even invite the likes of IBM and CA to see where they might contribute. In addition, OMC hopes to carve out some true "open standards" around systems management rather than relying on standards groups that require $100,000 a year for participation. At the moment though, such plans are pretty far off. The OMC group seems set on using "conversation" as its key mechanism, which is a very open source thing to do, but we wonder how far that will carry them. There's no question that open source systems management products deserve more attention. It's only natural that this part of the software market come under siege next with the OS, web server, application server and database conquered to a degree. We wonder though how much IBM or CA will fear the open source "conversation." A more concerted effort to align the release cycles of all these open source packages and provide unified support around them would be welcomed and provide substantial competition against the giants. That said, something like OMC had to happen. If done right, it will no doubt capture the attention of the dominant players

Can Microsoft Reinvent itself?

2006-05-11T15:52:00.000-04:00

Great post from Ed Sim's from BeyondVC. Microsoft has a problem in that they are trying to build Google from the ground up within Microsoft with .NET and Microsoft's own stack of client server infrastructure. Byzantine? We'll find out and Microsoft will find out as well. Think of it as the ultimate experiment as to whether a billion dollar company can effectively scale out on Microsoft products. The acclaim piled upon Microsoft Server 2005 and SQL server 2005 will come to a full test. The problem is investors haven't bought into the idea and actually believe that the 2 billion dollars can be put to better use. From a strategic point of view, this is money well spent. Google is on top of the world and has allied themselves with some angry characters including the forlorn former high flyer Sun Microsystems -- who has been bleeding talent including Vinod Khosla and Bill Joy to Kleiner Perkins. Scott McNealy leaving the helm to Jonathon Schwartz may be too little too late.... Still this is beside the point...in my assessment MS is making the right bet, despite investor sentiment. ------------------- Can Microsoft reinvent itself? Microsoft released its third quarter numbers the other day and while revenue growth was strong, the stock got hammered and dropped over 10%. Why? Microsoft plans on investing for the long term and putting another $2b into the Internet and other new technologies like the XBox. To sum it up, here is Rick Sherlund, Goldman Sachs' Software analyst, "It sounds like you're building a Google or building a Yahoo! inside the company." Looking at the long term, I am quite excited about the prospects of all of this money coming into help grow the Internet sector and SaaS. First, having another big player push the concept of software as a service will only help further educate and soften the market, particularly business customers Secondly, this will mean that Microsoft will be aggressive with hiring and with acquisitions. I remember being at the Microsoft VC Summit a couple of years ago and hearing Steve Ballmer talk about his acquisition strategy. He would either do huge, billion dollar ones or look at acquisitions less than $20mm. That has been changing and will change rapidly with this renewed empahsis and focus. That only means good news for VCs and entrepreneurs. And as a VC, I wholeheartedly agree with Microsoft's CFO, Chris Lidell when he says, "Today, we believe we face the largest array of opportunities for growth and innovation the company has ever seen." I certainly feel the same way from a VC investment perspective. Whether Microsoft succeeds or not is another story, but $2b invested in new technologies will go a long way towards solidifying their position. I would say that they did alright in 1995 when they decided to point their guns at Netscape to make sure the browser and Internet would not circumvent their monopoly on the desktop. The problem is that once they won the browser wars, Microsoft became satisfied, fat and happy. And as we all know, fat cats don't hunt. Others came around and outinnovated them - Firefox, Google, etc. This is Round 2, which really started with Microsoft's purchase of Groove Networks and Ray Ozzie last year. To refresh your memory, I suggest reading Bill's email from October 2005 (also see the Ray Ozzie memo) where he leads the battle charge for the next generation web, the SaaS era. Today, the opportunity is to utilize the Internet to make software far more powerful by incorporating a services model which will simplify the work that IT departments and developers have to do while providing new capabilities..... However, to lead we need to do far more. The broad and rich foundation of the internet will unleash a "services wave" of applications and experiences available instantly over the internet to millions of users. Advertising has emerged as a powerful new means by which to directly and indirectly fund the creation and delivery of software and services along with subscriptions and license fees. Services designed to scale to tens or hundreds of millions will dramatically change the nature and cost of solutions deliverable to enterprises or small businesses. And yes, it sounds alot like the memo Bill Gates wrote 10 years ago called the Internet Tidal Wave where he helped the big battleship called Microsoft reposition itself and point its guns at Netscape and others. Round 2 is no different from Round 1 but the stakes are higher and it will cost Microsoft oodles more cash this time to create a dent in this market. While we all know that memos often do not mean a whole lot, it is clear that Microsoft is quite serious as they are not afraid to piss off Wall Street and really put dollars to work for the long term position of the business. This will certainly be an interesting battle to watch over the next few years. Also lifted from Don Dodge's blog: Here is a list of the 22 acquisitions sorted by product group; * VirtualEarth aka MapPoint - Vexcel and GeoTango do 3D imaging and remote sensing. * MSN - DeepMetrix (web site stats), Massive (videogame advertising), Onfolio (web research), Teleo (VoIP), Media-Streams (VoIP), MotionBridge (mobile search), TSSX (China mobile services), SeaDragon (Large Image manipulation) * Windows Live - FolderShare (file synch), MessageCast (MSN Alerts) * Speech Server - Unveil Technologies (call center SW) * Security - Alacris (Identity Mgmt), FutureSoft (Web filtering) * Systems Management - AssetMetrix (License tracking) * Business Intelligence - ProClarity (analysis and visualization) * Microsoft Game Studios - Lionhead Studios (games developer) * Exchange Server - FrontBridge (email security) * Microsoft Project - UMT (Portfolio Mgmt) * Storage Server - Stringbean Software (iSCSI SAN) * Vista - Apptimum (Application transfer) It appears that many of these acquisitions were focused on MSN properties and consumer based services. One thing to remember about Microsoft...the product groups run the company, and they all work largely independent of each other. They make the decisions about what to acquire and when. There are acquisition teams but they tend to be called in to execute the deal after the product groups have decided what they want to do. So, there will not necessarily be a high level strategy that all these acquisitions fit into, but they make sense on an individual basis.

Going to see the Black Spoons tomorrow...

2006-05-11T15:17:00.000-04:00

Yeah these guys are pretty good....reminds me of David Bowie a bit. They're on the Black Market label with The National and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Check 'em out on Myspace here.

Old photos......

2006-05-11T14:47:00.000-04:00

I went through a undocumented photography craze...was a lot of fun...just never thought about posting it...so here it is:

China's most promising investments are in gaming

2006-03-20T10:39:00.000-05:00

I'm a little embarassed that the hottest IPOs and the most dynamic companies in the country's fledgling technology economy are based around games. For example read these paragraphs from MSN money:

"NetEase.com Inc., a Beijing-based online gaming and e-commerce company posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter results Thursday, prompting two analyst upgrades and a 14 percent gain in its shares on Friday."

"Another large online gaming company, Shanghai-based The9 Ltd., also posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday, but the results failed to impress investors. Following an after-hours spike in the company's American depositary shares that evening, the stock has more or less leveled off and was recently up just 11 cents at $21.21 on the Nasdaq."

"Going with the pack, Baidu.com Inc., a large Chinese-language search engine, also posted fourth-quarter results above consensus targets. The Beijing-based company said Tuesday it earned 9 cents per share, 2 cents above average analyst estimates."

"Sina Corp., a Shanghai-based operator of Chinese-language Web portals, bucked the upward trend and posted a 21 percent drop in its fourth-quarter profit Wednesday, as revenue fell 9 percent. The results were a penny below consensus estimates, and the company's first-quarter outlook also fell short of expectations."

So two of the top companies are in gaming and are trading on the Nasdaq. The other cool tech companies are e-commerce and in search, respectively. On top of the stories of kids in Korea and China living generally unhealthy lives cooped up in internet cafes or in their bedrooms spending at least 16 hours a day playing these things, it leads me to believe Asians are succeptible to these things. What is it, the gambling gene? Is there a certain percentage of Asians that have a gene that makes World of Warcraft like crack to them? How about that kid that killed himself because his game character died or something like that?

I think in terms of character building, Asian cultures fail in many ways. Music, sports, and being social on real terms are just as essential as being successful or having stable careers in medicine, business, law, computers, etc. There definitely needs to be some changes in philosophy.

technorati tags: Gaming, China, Investments, Baidu, NetEase, Sina, Corp

Etech landing

2006-03-09T19:31:00.000-05:00

So this post was meant to go before my prior post on etech, but I thought there was some great stuff on George Dyson I promised myself I'd make notes about.

As the industry's see and be seen pow-wow for alpha geeks and hacks alike, I feel a little out of place because I'm coming to this as a representative from the Research Board --the most corporate of the corporate member-driven research organization. On my right in the hallway pontifications Clay Shirky, the usability and on-line community guru at NYU's TPI lab and a friend of my colleague George Scriban. One of the brightest guys in the field and a fantastic speaker as evidenced from his keynote talk yesterday (Wednesday) in the main convention hall. So far during the convention I've managed to rub elbows with Bruce Sterling of Wired fame, Scott Rosenberg of founder of Salon, Ray Ozzie of Microsoft, Jeff Han of the NYU media lab (creator of the multi-touchpoint interface), and Jon Udell of Infoworld. Its a little disconcerting realizing the different kind of dynamic these new media titans interact, as I come from a world where alpha is based on personality, looks, and being outgoing, rather than your ability to be nerdier, snarky, and a more popular blog than your neighbor. At the same time, this is not a conference that hubs around the vendors but rather the attendees and the speakers.

I also want to note, that George Dyson gave a tremendous presentation that I've only been able to grasp a fraction about. As a historian, his perspective is more about being an objective recounter and a collector of artifacts on the development of the modern computer concomitant with the development of the atom bomb at the fertile grounds of Princetons in the 1950s. Von Neumann was co-located with the likes of Einstain and Godel where there was a dynamic of co-opetition. His presentation was both a collection of pictures, scraps, letters to and from his wife. What was most interesting was the way that Von Neumann approached the idea of the computer....the brain is not a statistical device and it doesn't make calculations in the same way the computer does. still the approach, was what he couched as "matrixed" based appraoch, which I'm unfamiliar with and would need to create a reading list to understand. I've made myself a list of books to familiarize myself with before I can touch the subject. In my continual quest to contextualize all that's happening in computing, this is the equivalent of an archaeological dig for me, but its probably an essential underpinning to making chronicling the iterations upon iterations in computing that have happened as well as conjecturing where the new universal OS, i.e. the web, might go. As a machine that never turns off and is continually consuming cycles and almost unlimited resources, I'd say we're closer to a Cyberdyne than we've perhaps every imagined -- although Bruce Sterling would say otherwise.

P.S. As a side note, Esther Dyson was hanging around the Makefest floor shooting marshmellows at unsuspecting attendees, quite funny. Looks like it hurts.

Last day at Etech March 2006

2006-03-09T18:57:00.000-05:00

For the last four days I've been channeling every synapse in my body in hopes that I can just absorve the collective IQ of the folks I'm rubbing elbows with at this years O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference of March 2006. Only through an accident of circumstance have I been sent to this great event (read someone else couldn't go). Still, the speakers have been fascinating and the attendees the geekiest (which also means they're probably not the most socially graceful people in the world). In a span of 3 days I've managed to shake hands and buddy up with Bruce Sterling, Scott Rosenberg founder of Salon, Jeff Han of the NYU media lab, Jon Udell of Infoworld. Tim O'Reilly himself buzzes about meeting and greeting strangers gracefully, I almost got pegged by Esther Dyson rocking a pvc tube marshmellow gun much like this one:. I also shook hands with Jesse James Garrett who looked at me blankly even though my interviewing him for our last report probably did much more to give him notoriety than showing up this week in San Diego.

On to themes. I would say the theme this year is scarcity, but not the conventional economic definition of scarcity wrapped around the concept of finite resources or commodities such as corn, oil, or gold. The answer is in two parts and each of the two parts are both humdrum and surprising. Time is very scarce, we all know that. It is scarce because there are only 24 hours a day, 8 of which we are sleeping. We also live only a short time on this earth, so we we can only accomplish so much. What goes hand in hand and perhaps doesn't factor into the daily lifestyle calculations is the scarcity of our own attention spans. It goes without upgrade, without hack, without mechanical means of augmentation.

So while last year's O'Reilly Conference focused on the how RSS, AJAX, and Mashups are evolving into a platform of platforms, where the evolution of how people communication, collaborate, and share has changed because of the kinds of web applications that are evolving - i.e. people are dictating how apps should conform to them rather than how people can conform to the apps. This year, pundits explored how with the bombardment of information and means of interacting proliferates further, and as devices follow the well connected executive everywhere he or she goes whether he likes it or not, the barrage of data begins to mean less without some means of focusing the information.

Linda Stone gave a great talk about how data is easy to find. But the daily struggle, as data becomes easier to store and retrieve, is how data ceases to be useful unless it is codified and relevant. The chain goes something like this: data becomes information becomes knowledge becomes understanding becomes wisdom. Wisdom is attained when data, information, and knowledge becomes assimilated into one's understanding and once that is attained sprinkled with the fairy dust that is context, experience, insight that only time can provide. The arguement of what each of these words becomes semantic very fast, but the principle that data is simply an isolated rudimentary unit while wisdom is rich with context and insight should paint a picture that plagues people and enterprises alike -- as a society we are information rich, but wisdom poor. Wisdom is the ether upon which decisions should and ought to be made.

With that said, I will go into further detail about the specific sessions later. Don't let me forget to blog about George Dyson's session on the origin of the computer along with its cousin the atomic bomb (Von Neuman and his capricious posse at Princeton). Also lets not forget the great sessions by Clay Shirky and Jon Udell.

Housing Bubble to Deflate over 10-15 years

2005-12-23T15:13:00.000-05:00

This is a pretty good set scenario analyses around the housing bubble. The author, a writer for a great economic and technology periodical called "The Always On Network" (which I highly recommend to keep track of the world of business), makes a pretty sound assumption that housing bubbles don't pop, but they deflate in stages based on work done by a pretty well circulating study by Northern Trust economist Asha Bangalore. This sentiment is's echoed in places as far ranging as the Wall Street Journal to Businessweek so I'd say the consensus is pretty sound. The idea is that because housing assets are not as liquid as say the stock market, the downward trajectory will be fraught with plateaus as housing values deflate and varying capital buying bodies (keeping note of the enormous amount of cash liquidity in hedge funds and asset managers still on the sidelines) make incremental moves, and keeping in mind that transaction flow is on a longer time-frame than the wheeling and dealing of stock markets, he believes it will take 10-15 years to reach equilibrium.

I have no empirical evidence to support this, but my belief that shaving a good 5 years might be more realistic. Given the building boom, I'd venture to say that when demand dries up, there will be a big pendulum swing to the sudden realization of oversupply. The real estate market already "baked in" the demographic trend of baby boomers settling into their new empty nests and demand for new housing simply can't be expected from the Generation X'rs, who like me, are still settling into their careers. Just my hunch, thoughts?

Pee and Poo

2005-11-17T10:34:00.000-05:00

The perfect Christmas gift:

Vetoes ain't a durn thang clears throat and spits

2005-09-22T14:48:00.000-04:00

Whatever your politics, it is cautionary to discover that the current U.S. president has set a modern era record: He has gone five years without issuing a single veto. That has come, of course, despite ballooning twin deficits and a Congress that never met a barrel it didn’t want to stuff with pork. This quote is especially illustrative of his unusual collaboration with Congress: On many major bills that Bush has signed - No Child Left Behind and tax relief, for example - the veto was never a consideration because the White House itself had proposed the legislation. Yet on dozens of other bills, the president has become a rubber stamp for a spendthrift Congress, betraying his campaign image as a fiscal conservative, critics say. By way of comparison, here are some former presidents and their veto records (all from CS Monitor):

Of note in Murray Hill

2005-09-22T10:15:00.000-04:00

Book Signing with Malcolm Gladwell and Steve Johnson

2005-09-21T21:13:00.000-04:00

So I attended a book signing by Malcolm Gladwell and Steve Johnson who spearheaded the discussion together at the Strand Bookstore. I got there a little early so I was able to snag a front row seat with the two luminaries. First of all, I have to say Steve Johnson has an uncanny resemblance to "Chandler" from the TV show friends, playe by the actor Matthew Perry. He doesn't quite have the acerbic wit natural to Matthew Perry, but he's certainly a smart guy and could do a crack impression if ever asked. Secondly, Malcolm Gladwell has the most glorious fro on the face of this earth. He even combs it behind his ears, the most pliant shock of curls to grace this wonderful city. So I attended with a friend who couldn't make it to the front so I had a lovely arm rest most of the time. It was a very good talk. Steve Johnson, author of "everything bad for you is good for you" expounded on the premise of this book. His theory that collateral learning, not focused content orientated or explicit learning - a by product of the internet age- has resulted in smarter sharper people and students today. The reason is that with the evolution of video gaming, the internet, and email, has created a framework for systemic learning where pattern recognition and inference skills are practiced and honed in informal settings. I also got Blink, signed by Malcolm Gladwell, was pretty awesome. Once again, both authors freely admit they don't offer any solutions, just provoking new proceses to view the world, and in my case business processes or organizations. At the same time, they also freely admit their books aren't meant to be complete theories, rather they are like dangling particples - to completed by readers who question and ruminate.

Stabbings, Pizza, and Opium

2005-09-14T21:56:00.000-04:00

So this is part II of my blogging series on my trip to Miami. If you're squeamish you might not wanna read it...but honestly it ain't too bad. Good times, good times. ------------------------------------------------ [21:45] elbagrl: so tell me about the stabbing [21:45] RBKennethHuynh: ah [21:45] RBKennethHuynh: its long [21:46] RBKennethHuynh: So its gabe me and this guy named Luis, we'd just come from a club called Opium where we free bottle service courtesy of one of their frat brother's who's a promoter...its actually interesting because security, bartenders, bouncers, all of them were frat brothers to these guys so we got hooked up - this place was where P Diddy threw his birthday in miami [21:47] elbagrl: mhm [21:47] RBKennethHuynh: We decide to hit South Beach for some late night sobering up pizza at a joint called "Pizza Rustica", a famous place down the street from that hotel in Scarface where tony Montana's buddy gets hacked to death by a chainsaw wielding columbian [21:48] RBKennethHuynh: We are all SOO far gone, it was amazing Luis could pull up to the joint. We order the pizzas and sit outside next to our car Reggaeton blaring...there's also outdoor seating where there's this blonde that looks like marilyn monroe sitting down. Gabe and I start chatting with her [21:48] RBKennethHuynh: All of a sudden a group of Latin homeboys come stumbling over to where we are sitting [21:49] RBKennethHuynh: Three are noticeably covered in blood from head to toe, one is hyperventilating and holding his lower left side...he stumbles on the chair and I see his stomach is gushing blood and he's turning green [21:50] RBKennethHuynh: As this is going on, mind you, Marilyn Monroe hands us a business card...I walk over to see whatsup with homeboy....but gabe takes a look at it....it says "Adult Entertainment"....she had been winking the entire time noticeably and was talking about "some good hotels nearby"....lol [21:50] RBKennethHuynh: Gabe and I call 911 and I talk to the homeboys [21:50] RBKennethHuynh: turns out they were at a hip hop club and this guy was stabbed by some thug who was pretending to be his friend. [21:51] RBKennethHuynh: So here we are calling 911, as this guy bleeds to death, getting a business card from a street hooker on South Beach. [21:51] RBKennethHuynh: We finish up our pizza, hop in Luis's BMW and take off....calling it a night [21:51] elbagrl: okie so you didn't actually see the stabbing [21:52] elbagrl: just the bloodied aftermath [21:52] elbagrl: still pretty gross man. [21:52] elbagrl: yuck. [21:52] RBKennethHuynh: yeah, but we didn't really realize what was happening until we drove back and thought about it [21:53] RBKennethHuynh: when we did, in our drunken haze, we laughed for a very long time...which was shocking now that i think about...i blame the free bottle of vodka

Bienvenidos a Miami

2005-09-11T22:35:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I admit it. I'm a flake. Initially, I was all inspired about opening a blogger account and ripping open and exposing the contents of my skull and revealing my experiences, turmoils, and tribulations for the average surreptitious blog-reading lurker. But the reason is really that I'm afraid, and frankly, I've been MAD lazy. Its stupid. But today, I have so much to write about I've decided to emerge from my lazy-bastard tendencies and reticence and promise to myself I'd blog more - simply for myself. The big news, I just got back from a weekend trip to Miami. That's right, instead of hoarding up those personal days at work forfear of appearing like a slacker to the pulsating brain at work, I took 2 days, just for me. My roommate, although he had been minorly annoying in the month leading up to the trip, mostly because of cleaning issues, despite that he really came through and I like him like a brother, more now than I ever. He's got the mad hookups,and it ain't the hookup to the Miami McD's, and was just an overall good guy. You're props to you buddy. He and his friends treated me like their own. After a relatively uneventful flight lasting 2 and 1/2 hours (a little longer than I thought it'd be because I'm sometimes a noodle brained ebola monkey who thinks flights should be no longer than one hour when in the same time-zone), we arrived from mundane Queens trappings of LaGuardia to balmy Ft. Lauderdale on a flight costing $125 - yes it was $125, go to Spirit Airlines. But his friend Kris rolls up in a Volkswagon Beatle though, which invoked an almost openly exclaimed "WTF?". Kris is a character. He's an pharmaceutical entrepreneur with a jokester personality which, honestly can be grating sometimes. But he's got mad personality, model good looks, and he knows how to ball. These facts, for obvious reasons, were being trampled on by the mere fact that he rolls up to pick up two pretty thick and decent sized dudes with two pieces of luggage in a farkin Volkswagen Beatle!. What happened to the BMW X5 dawg? Turns out it was his girl's Beatle, which immediately ameliorated my concern that I'd be bouncing from hot Miami club to club in a car that comes stock with a flower pot. The X5 was in the shop for air conditioning work, so the next day, after "talking business", we'd roll over to the shop and pick it up. Miami is different, and beautiful. Palm trees, unlike in LA, are native to South Florida. So they're abundant, towering, and on every freeway. Another thing, its ridiculously humid and pretty hot. The weather is always above 75. In fact when it gets to 70 in January, people step out of their houses, curse the old man winter for his crustiness, and put on a sweater........ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? MAN, I'd literally kick someone else's dog to get consistent 70 degree weather in the winter time. I guess the tradeoff is your summer's in Miami are a combination of flash thunderstorms, unbearable humidity, flooding, and a relentless smiling sunshine. Hence people wear little to nothing and have beautifully clean and tan skin from mid-march to October. The water is immaculate, clear bluish green, and it looks clean. It definitely helps that most of the people in Miami, lets just say, tan very well. So we cram into the mint-case and jet over to his place, but before that we stop by the Aventura Mall for a little Pollo Tropical...money. Tasty chopped chicken with a cuban ranch sauce with brown rice, beans, and salad. Definitley hit the spot after knocking out on the plane with my yawning jaw sucking in dry, sterile, sedative infused cabin air for 2 and a 1/2 hours. The first night there was definitely an adventure which I'll post about tomorrow.

Art explained

2005-06-17T13:18:00.000-04:00

I think this is pretty much an accurate explanation of most art these days..which tend to be derivative and self-aggrandizing:

Go Long on the Tortoise

2005-05-03T13:23:00.000-04:00

From Emergic.org: Warren Buffet addressing a group of students: "If there's one thing that you leave here with today, it should be this: And I'll start with a question to get to my point. If you could pick 10% of one person in this room to own or 'go long' for the next 30 years, who would it be? It wouldn't be the person with the highest IQ; it wouldn't be the star athlete; you would look for certain other qualities... And if you had to pick one person to 'short' for the next 30 years, who would it be? Now ask yourself why you have made those selections. If you've considered these questions properly, the person you've gone long is probably someone who is honest, courageous, and dependable; the person you've shorted is probably someone who is egotistical and likes to take the credit. The point is that success is mostly dependent upon elective qualities, not anything with which you are born. You can choose to be dependable or not. And it's not easy to change, so choose correctly now. Bertrand Russell once said, 'The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they're too heavy to be broken.' So ask yourself, 'Who do I want to be?' At the end of this process you should determine that the person you want to buy is yourself. You all are holding winning tickets."

Why men are happier than women

2005-05-01T11:49:00.000-04:00

Men Are Just Happier People-- What do you expect from such simple creatures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack. You can be President. You can never be pregnant. You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can wear NO shirt to a water park. Car Mechanics tell you the truth. The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky. You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress $5000. Tux rental-$100. People never stare at your chest when you are talking to them. The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet. One mood all the time. Phone conservations are over in 30 seconds flat. You know stuff about tanks. A 5 day vacation requires only one suitcase. You can open all of your own jars. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend. Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. You almost never have strap problems in public. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes. Everything on your face stays its original color. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe even decades. You only have to shave your face and neck. You can play with toys all your life. Your belly usually hides your big hips. One wallet and one pair of shoes one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look. You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache. You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes. No wonder men are happier.

Is this her morning face?

2005-04-26T16:31:00.000-04:00

Ann Coulter, someone throw her remington, she's scowling.

Pacman hat, next big wave in demeaning your pet.

2005-04-19T13:54:00.000-04:00

In the tradition of dressing your pets in ridiculous garbs like a hot dog outfit and putting eye glasses on your dog's tail, comes this. The Pacman hat. It will only work if you have a pug. Otherwise you're trying too hard.

2005-04-19T13:31:00.000-04:00

Walmart or Ricardo?

Bums of New York

2005-04-19T00:10:00.000-04:00

This is a piece I wrote for my Writing for Magazines class at NYU. I'm hoping to submit this to the New Yorker. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bums of Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue. The gilded avenue. The street that the Rockefellers, the Trumps, Harry Winston, and Brooks Brothers all call home. But right in the middle of New York’s most exclusive addresses and the spotless windows of fashionably tressed mannequins and gold plated signage of a number of jewelry stores, sits “George” the bum. He’s in the middle of reading today’s Financial Times of London newspaper. He sits in front of the gated stoop of the un-leased property adjacent to my office; relaxing with a cup of coffee, his leg sprawled out from under the unmistakable pink papering reviewing headlines. The VERY same one that gets delivered to my office front. One block over at the 53rd and 5th street E/V train station is “Karl”. Karl gets the times too, but not as regularly as George. He doesn’t have a stoop to swipe from; instead he grabs the papers left on the station platform from hurried commuters. Karl always has something to say on marriage, divorce, abortion, and relationships. He stands on the top of the long escalator and staircase – his booming voice extrapolating on the “real” reasons women want to get married: “Marriage is a woman’s way of deceiving the man.” These fellows, and occassionally ladies, are the true residents of Fifth avenue. Rudy Giuliani may have done a phenomenal job clearing Times Square of the prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers and peep shows, but he still hasn't manage to shake New York of the truly characteristic New York bums. According to sources, there didn't appear to be a migration from the areas that have been "cleaned" up. Squatters are simply more mobile nowadays. The panhandlers that inhabit the Fifth were the same ones 15 years ago. New faces tend to pick a spot near Fifth avenue, usually by the subway station or in front of the church, and simply stay. But, from my one year working on Fifth, I've idealized the notion of Fifth Avenue's "income challenged occupants". In my own head, it is my hope was that Fifth Avenue's underclass is somehow different. I imagined that in a past life they were high achievers -- knocked down by the challenges of life and an unfortunate turn of events. A View from the Top I talked to "Coney", the security guard usually on duty across the street my office. He works the rear entrance to the MoMA. Coney is an older bispectacled black man in his 50's that reminds me of a shorter, thinner, but similarly jocular Al Roker. Coney has been working at the MoMA for 20 years keeping watch on the row of townhouses adjacent to the posh gargoyled University Club on the corner of 5th and 54th. I usually see him relaxing on the shift on a lawn chair joking with fellow security guards and occassionaly the odd German tourist. He knows all the characters that inhabit the avenue. "I've been working here for 15 years and I've seen them all. I've seen daughters who had been thrown out by their fathers who worked on Fifth avenue just pick a corner to show their daddy what's up," exclaims Coney. He tells me of several other squatters who I hadn't seen before. One in particular, named "Firefly" who got his nickname because he would light up small fires right on Fifth Avenue for fun. Another was a millionaire who kept all his money in his many various squatholes. I'm more intrigued with, Karl the thunder voiced sharp tongued inhabitant (or irritant) of the 53rd and 5th E/V subway station. Karl is usually unshaven, his hair suprisingly well maintained. He wears brown leather workboots, dirty dark pants, a trench coat. But his eyes give away his nature as a jokster while his voice has a professorial quality -- if he had something cogent to say he certainly would belong on a lecturn instead of pontificating at the top of the subway escalators. Most mornings, commuters are greeted by a tirade from Karl on his favorite subject: women. "Never trust a woman. A woman bleeds for a whole month but doesn't die, would you trust that?.." was what Karl bellowed at the top of his lungs one morning. Usually his comments get a couple chuckles and head shaking from busy commuters. "Karl is from Long Island," Coney says, "He was an undergrad at NYU, but he never finished his fourth year. He was real educated. When he dropped out of school, his momma made him leave the house and find a job. He got a job for a while as a electrician. He'd install the electronics for water heating systems for buildings...made good money. One day, he came back home because he didn't care for the work, just didn't like it. His momma called the police on him, you know, just to scare him into going back out. But the police beat him, from then on he never trusted another woman. A couple years ago he got hit by a car, after that he was never the same." "Bob" also had problems with his mother and his inlaws. He sits on the steps of St. Thomas Church flanked by a Duane Reade bag filled with papers, a manila folder, and some small articles of clothing. He's a wiry albino African American man, decked out in a ragged pair of Chuck D sneakers, stained black denim jeans, a blue t-shirt covered in brown and yellow stains, and a leather jacket. At first I was offput by his tendency to look past me when he talked to me, but I later discovered he was actually crossed eyed, they literally looked in opposite directions. His mouth was lined with two rows of gapped crevaces of yellow teeth. Somehow in that motley assortment of random clothing he managed to top his fashion medley with a trendy green Von Dutch trucker hat. As I talked to him, spittle dribble down his his unshaven chin uncontrollably, collected on the front of his shirt and on his rather nice leather jacket. While we talked on the steps passerbies periodically dropped one dollar and five dollar bills into his hat. I think I was attracting some good business. "I'm from North Plainfield, NJ, where my mom's house is. I had an apartment in the Bronx when I got married. Worked as an electrician for NBC, before I got sick. My wife and I had a joint account and when I was sick she and my in-laws took everything. I was out in street within a year and now I'm just trying to live day to day." When I asked him if he had any relatives, he responded, "My brother used to live in the Bronx, but he got shot last February. So that's it." Despite everyone having their own set of "problems", the community of squatters appears to be tight. Bob, George, and Karl all had Easter dinner last year at the Presbyterian church on 50th and 7th. There Karl actually got on the podium and told his story to a crowd of ministers, church volunteers, and fellow "residents" of Fifth avenue. When asked why didn't he simply go to a shelter, he said, "Its dangerous! I've had my locker broken into. They took my walkmen, my watch, all my clothes...some money taken right out of my locker. You leave your things out, someone will take it, most definitely." Regular Guys They're not fallen millionaires, lawyers, or professors as I had imagined, but it intrigued me in the same way that "Taxi Cab Confessions" made me wonder. But Fifth Avenue wasn't a part of their descent into the underclass. Rather it was marriage, work, family -- normal aspects of everyday human life that broke them. I promised Bob I'd buy him a couple hot dogs for his troubles. As I walked up to his set of steps I noticed the sight of my speaking to him had attracted confused tourists. I saw a young tourist making conversation with him. In the seconds I had taken to run to the corner ofthe hot dog stand, Bob had become an instant celebrity. "You know who you remind me of, " his eyes lit up in epiphany as I handed him the goods, " Norm Chow!" "Why's that," I said not knowing who Norm Chow is. "You know, the head coach at USC! You can see now at UCLA! Hey good luck and I'll see you on television!" Norm Chow? He was in line to be head coach of UCLA's football team a couple weeks ago. He must have gotten the job. It had completely skipped my mind. See, these guys may not being making six figures, but they definitely don't let anything slip by ion the news. Fifth Avenue is occcupied by the upper crust, its true. They might not be blue bloods, but the bums of Fifth Avenue are surely the upper crust of the squatter class. (Something on how life have dealt them a wrong hand, COME UP WITH SOMETHING THAT IS A TAKEAWAY) (Explore, wife or mothers that drive them into poor) Make a point that if I had talked to a woman bum, it'd be different.

Raining Box Cutters on Fifth Ave

2005-04-14T13:56:00.000-04:00

Well, working in midtown has its perks, one of them being convenience to just about anything I damn well please. I happen to work across the street from the MoMA for instance. Anyways, walking back from a strenuous workout at the NYSC Rock (255lb squat, 345lb deadlift boohyaH!), I notice some guys doing some work at the top of the MoMA. I just remember thinking, "Nothing better fall on me". Then I think better of the situation and notice they're eating lunch, no harm potentiay right? Wrong. I cross the street and I notice two old ladies. One inching along on a wheeled support crutch and another old lady assisting her; pretty feeble looking old lady too. I briskly walk past them, but not seconds later I hear a sharp metallic and plastic crash behind me. I turn around an notice a bright orange and metal object on the floor - A FRIGGING BOX CUTTER FELL 3 STORIES! Some of the idiots at the top of the scaffolding unconcsciously dropped it likely while making a deft grab for the last greasy french fry. Not a foot behind the ballen sharp object was the old lady going, "Oh my god, what was that?" The foreman comes bounding down the street to see what the matter was exclaiming, "Hey you Mario, what's going on up there?" Hopefully those two monkeys got a good berating because if that old lady was just a little bit healthier or fitter, she'd be in bad shape. Anyways lesson learned, if there's construction, watch out because the guys working on that stuff up there aren't rock scientists. They'd sooner chow down the last fry that keep the sky free of falling box cutters.

Tom DeLay - In need of a nice kick in the ass

2005-04-01T15:43:00.000-05:00

KH: So it seems like the repub's have taken the sad circumstance surrounding Terry Shiavo's condition and death to whip out the pitchforks and torches against judges who uphold rulings he doesn't agree with. As someone posted in the "Carpet Bagger Report" comment section, "Let them go after the judges, more rope to hang themselves with." Lets hope this happens. ----------------- From "The Carpet Bagger Report" It’s a nice judiciary you have here; it’d be a shame if something happened to it Posted By Carpetbagger On 1st April 2005 @ 09:31 By now, probably everyone has heard that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay took his attacks on the judiciary to a new level yesterday, making an implicit threat against the judges who upheld the law. Mrs. Schiavo’s death is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Note that this was a written statement, not an off-the-cuff remark made during a press conference. DeLay, in other words, had to think about exactly what kind of deliberate message he wanted to share — and decided to offer a veiled threat against state and federal judges. But while this remark received wide-spread attention yesterday, I’d also like to note that DeLay’s attacks on the judiciary didn’t end with his written statement. In fact, he was just getting started. For example, after warning judges that they’ll “answer for their behavior,” DeLay told the AP he hasn’t ruled out impeachment for judges who heard the Schiavo case. [DeLay] said the courts’ refusal to do just that was a “perfect example of an out of control judiciary.” … “Congress for many years has shirked its responsibility to hold the judiciary accountable. No longer,” DeLay said. The House Majority Leader was even less guarded in talking to the ultra-conservative Washington Times. “We will look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president,” said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican. “We will look into that.” This kind of talk is not only wildly reckless for someone in DeLay’s position, it’s also part of a disturbing pattern. For far too long, DeLay has used irresponsible rhetoric to undermine the courts. In 2003, DeLay told the Washington Times, “Congress, for so long, has been lax in standing up for the Constitution. There are ways to express ourselves — for instance, we could limit the jurisdiction of the judicial branch.” A year later, DeLay embraced court-stripping (also known as “jurisdiction stripping”) with even more enthusiasm, saying that conservatives should no longer look at the Supreme Court as the “Taj Mahal [that] everybody should stay away from.” In 1997, before reaching the House leadership, DeLay made his approach abundantly clear: “Many of these judges begin to grow drunk on their own power. Why shouldn’t the people have a right to impeach these out-of-control judges?” It’s reassuring, I suppose, that DeLay has been attacking the judiciary with this nonsense for years, but no drastic crises have arisen and cooler heads have prevailed. This may even lead some to believe that The Hammer is more bark than bite. But I’m genuinely concerned that as the Republican caucus has moved further to the right, and DeLay’s rhetoric has grown increasingly pathological, the likelihood of a real legal challenge to the courts’ independence and authority may be close at hand. DeLay’s threat yesterday was a shot across the bow; the next one may be more direct.

Confucius say....

2005-04-01T10:09:00.000-05:00

A 23 year old finance student at San Jose State is writing the nation's supply of fortune cookie nuggets of wisdom. That explains everything! "Her mission: to infuse dessert with her upbeat brand of fortunetelling while eradicating those stilted old-school proclamations ("Your dog will be king") that often owe their oddball nature to being bad translations or misinterpretations of ancient Chinese proverbs." (Read on at USAtoday)

Bill Gates does his intellectual heavy lifting on "Diet Orange Crush"

2005-04-01T00:53:00.000-05:00

There is something deeply off-putting about Microsoft's Bill Gates' annual Think Week. As chronicled in Monday's Wall Street Journal, it is a week that he supposedly spends alone while reading, you know, smart stuff about the future of technology. But the idea of Gates padding around some cottage in Washington state while drinking Diet Orange Crush and reading internal Microsoft papers on life, the universe, and computers is like something out of a cross between "Joe versus the Volcano" and a lost Coen brothers film: What had he read of interest this week? "Actually, let's go upstairs real quick and I'll show you, because that's where I spend all my time," he responded, as he popped out of his chair and bounded up the stairs two steps at a time, landing in his upstairs study. Facing the windows with a water view stood a desk with two Dell personal-computer monitors. To the side was a bookshelf lined with "The Great Books" series of literature classics. A portrait of Victor Hugo hung on the wall. A bathroom and a small refrigerator, stocked with Diet Orange Crush and Diet Coke, were added to the office in recent years, Mr. Gates said, so he could maximize his reading time by not having to go downstairs. Papers in bright orange covers littered the floor, their pages stamped "Microsoft Confidential." First, you can sense Gates chafes a little at his inability to simply say that he likes something anymore. As he points out, if he reads an internal paper and responds "Cool", then "They'll assign 20 people to it". Second, in all the chatter about what Gates is reading and so on there is very little to indicate we are in 2005 versus, say, 1997. It's all security, languages, storage, education, and office productivity. There is nary a glimmer about Internet 2.0, nor a hint that the Microsoft chief software architect is spending any time thinking about open source, Ajax, etc.

Banzai!!

2005-03-29T00:57:00.000-05:00

Just Kidding. Gomi is the man for beating Jens Pulver.

Whatchoo looking at?

2005-03-29T00:47:00.000-05:00

Told you not to look!

Kindness

2005-03-27T19:24:00.000-05:00

Well today is Easter. Although I'm not a Christian I thought today is as apt a day as ever to comment on something I saw the other day that is pretty heartwarming. Thursday nights is Judo night (along with Tuesday) so usually I'm ultra hyped and tired from either giving a good thrashing or being thrashed on the mat. It might've actually been because I managed to pull of some beautiful footsweeps and throws but I was pretty mellowed out and perhaps more observant than I normally am. Walking along 14th street, you see the most motley assortment of people, especially on Thursday night. Its a night where people are either kicking their weekend off or finishing off their crazy week--yes there is a distinction. Across from the Church near 6th ave on 14th, where struggling rockers share sidewalk with redeyed ragged panhandlers, there's a Popeye's chicken run by this middle aged Asian man with the determined look of a guy who worked with his hands all his life. You can see and sense a paternal aura written on the lines of his eyes and jowls. Closing up his shop and locking up, he's steps out onto the street with a bag full of leftover chicken, probably for his family. I can easily see the man with two bouncy rugrats fond of pokemon and videogames. A street dweller with dark ragged clothing discolored from grime, dirt, and urine transporting his belongings in a malformed squeaky wheeled grey shopping cart passes him. The dweller looks down to his shoes and mumbles something unintelligible but before his looks up there sits on the top of his trash heaped cart, dinner for the next 2 nights. The chicken, likely for his rugrats, offered a little relief for one homeless person in New York.

Saturday night baby...

2005-02-12T15:14:00.000-05:00

Puts new meaning to the term "Skirt chaser":

A9 -- Sexy piece code

2005-02-03T16:48:00.000-05:00

A9- showing the Iceberg Tip of Real Search By vogels on Industry Go check out the new release of A9. I have to admit that it takes some time to get used to the idea that your search engine actually remembers what you have searched for and what you thought were good results, but the benefits are too good to ignore. The immediate advantage you will have is the extension of the search category result buttons on the right. Take your search through books, imdb or reference material. At the same time as searching the web. Also if you use the A9 toolbar your browser history will now be available on each machine you log into. See A9's What's Cool page for most features.

BUSTED!!!

2005-01-29T15:38:00.000-05:00

Just to clarify, this was NOT my mom:

2005-01-28T16:28:00.000-05:00

From Seth Godin's blog: KH - Its quite amazing to consider the circumstances surrounding our orgins and how we manifest as human beings. The lucky millions of people blessed to live in this bustling metroplis of social darwinism called New York probably dont' realize it, but we hit the life lottery. What are the chances you will reach success? We are only given the hand that the genetic and social lottery is given, but many of us are brought to this city by our own will and determination to make it. Gratitude to our parents and our lucky circumstances are in order. ---------------------------- Warren Buffet on Gratitude Be Grateful There are roughly 6 Billion people in the world. Imagine the worlds biggest lottery where every one of those 6 Billion people was required to draw a ticket. Printed on each ticket were the circumstances in which they would be required to live for the rest of their lives. Printed on each ticket were the following items: - Sex - Race - Place of Birth (Country, State, City, etc.) - Type of Government - Parents names, income levels & occupations - IQ (a normal distribution, with a 66% chance of your IQ being 100 & a standard deviation of 20) - Weight, height, eye color, hair color, etc. - Personality traits, temperment, wit, sense of humor - Health risks If you are reading this blog right now, I'm guessing the ticket you drew when you were born wasn't too bad. The probability of you drawing a ticket that has the favorable circumstances you are in right now is incredibly small (say, 1 in 6 billion). The probability of you being born as your prefereable sex, in the United States, with an average IQ, good health and supportive parents is miniscule. Warren spent about an hour talking about how grateful we should all be for the circumstances we were born into and for the generous ticket we've been offered in life. He said that we should not take it for granted or think that it is the product of something we did - we just drew a lucky ticket. (He also pointed out that his skill of "allocating capital" would be useless if he would have been born in poverty in Bangladesh.)

China eschews Windows for Linux

2005-01-24T14:10:00.000-05:00

Asia Loves Linux -- And Microsoft Scrambles Cost, adaptability, and security concerns have more IT managers ditching Windows for open-source software Bill Gates has never met Chen Yongguang, but the Microsoft Corp. (MSFT ) founder's future may be more dependent on the Chinese information-technology manager -- and thousands like him -- than he'd like. Chen is in charge of IT for the city of Xiaolan, in China's Guangdong province, and recently has become a convert to Linux, the free alternative to Microsoft's flagship Windows computer operating system. Chen recently turned to the software to run the Xiaolan government's 18 servers. It's cheaper than Windows, though saving money "is not a big consideration," he insists. More important, Chen says, is that Linux is less vulnerable to viruses and other rogue programs. He's also pleased that he can get the source code for the software, which allows him to adapt it more easily to his needs. "Windows is not open," he says. "You can't change it." More in in link.

Apple Product Line Graphic

2005-01-21T13:13:00.000-05:00

Check this shit out: Click Here

Tech in 2004: The Theme is Simplicity

2005-01-20T08:54:00.000-05:00

The Economist survey and David Gelernter’s article capture what is the single biggest challenge facing the computer industry – how to make things simpler. This is especially important for what we are doing because we want to target the next set of users. This is where I believe we have a lot to learn from the telecom industry – both in its devices and the way it offers the services. Economist Survey on IT, focusing on conquering complexity (October) Steven Milunovich, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, offers a further reason why simplicity is only now becoming a big issue. He argues that the IT industry progresses in 15-year waves. In the first wave, during the 1970s and early 1980s, companies installed big mainframe computers; in the second wave, they put in PCs that were hooked up to “server” computers in the basement; and in the third wave, which is breaking now, they are beginning to connect every gadget that employees might use, from hand-held computers to mobile phones, to the internet. The mainframe era, says Mr Milunovich, was dominated by proprietary technology (above all, IBM's), used mostly to automate the back offices of companies, so the number of people actually working with it was small. In the PC era, de facto standards (ie, Microsoft's) ruled, and technology was used for word processors and spreadsheets to make companies' front offices more productive, so the number of people using technology multiplied tenfold. And in the internet era, Mr Milunovich says, de jure standards (those agreed on by industry consortia) are taking over, and every single employee will be expected to use technology, resulting in another tenfold increase in numbers. Moreover, the boundaries between office, car and home will become increasingly blurred and will eventually disappear altogether. In rich countries, virtually the entire population will be expected to be permanently connected to the internet, both as employees and as consumers. This will at last make IT pervasive and ubiquitous, like electricity or telephones before it, so the emphasis will shift towards making gadgets and networks simple to use. UBS's Mr [Pip] Coburn adds a demographic observation. Today, he says, some 70% of the world's population are “analogues”, who are “terrified by technology”, and for whom the pain of technology “is not just the time it takes to figure out new gadgets but the pain of feeling stupid at each moment along the way”. Another 15% are “digital immigrants”, typically thirty-somethings who adopted technology as young adults; and the other 15% are “digital natives”, teenagers and young adults who have never known and cannot imagine life without IM (instant messaging, in case you are an analogue). But a decade from now, Mr Coburn says, virtually the entire population will be digital natives or immigrants, as the ageing analogues convert to avoid social isolation. Once again, the needs of these converts point to a hugely increased demand for simplicity. Gelernter on how to build a better PC (December) What's wrong with today's PC? Plenty. All sorts of functions that ought to be built-in are available only as add-ons or not at all. Like many people, I have several PCs in my life--and I constantly need to ask such ridiculous questions as, "Where did I leave the latest version of that file? By what clumsy method should I move it from where it is to where it's needed?" Such questions are like asking "Where did I leave the starter crank for my Huppmobile?" If you have to ask, your (formerly) hot-shot machine is ready for the folk-art museum. IBM might have done well selling PCs with built-in "transparent information sharing." As soon as you connected such a machine to the Internet, all your electronic documents would immediately be available--no matter where you created or last worked on them. If all your computers had transparent information-sharing, you could start composing an e-mail at work, touch it up during your drive home (using a--theoretical--in-car, audio-interface IBM PC) and finish it up on a laptop in your backyard. Lots of businesses and people would have shelled out for such PCs. Many computer users are overwhelmed by e-mail. Whenever you start work on a computer, you ought to find a one-page e-mail summary ready and waiting. It would tell you at a glance (even if you haven't touched a computer in weeks) which new e-mails look important, which look like junk, and which have been acknowledged but not yet answered. There are dozens more possibilities. Why should anyone waste time throwing out e-mail (or any electronic document) when data storage is dirt cheap? Why are we wedded to a windows-menus-mouse interface that is flat, as if it were stuck to the back of the screen, when computers are easily powerful enough to turn the screen into a viewport that lets us "peer through it" into an imaginary 3-D landscape? (Information can be more clearly and effectively arranged in a 3-D space than on a restricted flat surface.) Large-screen and projection technology is cheaper all the time; why aren't large-screen computers (and living-room computers) a growing (high profit!) segment of the industry? Why doesn't every computer I use show me the exact same desktop, with the same layout of the same icons?--or (at any rate) the same picture, no matter what interface I use? I could go on. Know this for sure: Some company will build all this and more into a radically more powerful, radically simpler PC.

Wait until Barry Bonds hears about this

2005-01-20T08:46:00.000-05:00

A micromachine that walks using muscles that it grew for itself has been developed in a US laboratory.The remarkable device could eventually lead to muscle-based nerve stimulators that let paralysed patients breathe without a ventilator, or to nanobots that clear away plaque from inside the walls of a human coronary artery.Scientists at the University of California in Los Angeles grew a length of muscle about 100 microns long on the underside of a silicon frame measuring 200 microns. The cells were taken from a rat's heart and grown in a culture that mimics natural biological conditions. The muscle contracts and relaxes by feeding on glucose in a solution, the contractions causing the tiny structure to shuffle along. Before, as the third member of Kid N' Play: After, hanging out with C. Evert Koop and an eagle:

Top ten reasons to "Just do it"

2005-01-19T13:27:00.000-05:00

What to tell your girl if you isn't "in the mood": I got this in an email from a girl I know. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I thought it was pretty interesting. 1. Sex is a beauty treatment. Scientific tests find that when women make love they produce amounts of the hormone estrogen, which makes hair shine and skin smooth. 2. Gentle, relaxed lovemaking reduces your chances of suffering dermatitis, skin rashes and blemishes. The sweat produced cleanses the pores and makes your skin glow. 3. Lovemaking can burn up those calories you piled on during that romantic dinner. 4. Sex is one of the safest sports you can take up. It stretches and tones up just about every muscle in the body. It's more enjoyable than swimming 20 laps, and you don't need special sneakers! 5. Sex is an instant cure for mild depression. It releases endorphins into the bloodstream, producing a sense of euphoria and leaving you with a feeling of well-being. 6. The more sex you have, the more you will be offered. The sexually active body gives off greater quantities of chemicals called pheromones. These subtle sex perfumes drive the opposite sex crazy! 7. Sex is the safest tranquilizer in the world. IT IS 10 TIMES MORE EFFECTIVE THAN VALIUM. 8. Kissing each day will keep the dentist away. Kissing encourages saliva to wash food from the teeth and lowers the level of the acid that causes decay, preventing plaque build-up. 9. Sex actually relieves headaches. A lovemaking session can release the tension that restricts blood vessels in the brain. 10. A lot of lovemaking can unblock a stuffy nose. Sex is a natural antihistamine. It can help combat asthma and hay fever.

Hands free cellphone on a budget

2005-01-19T13:09:00.000-05:00

Yeah, this is crude but LMAO!!

2005-01-19T02:09:00.000-05:00

Its been one of those weekends....

2005-01-16T19:58:00.000-05:00

I feel just like this beaver:

Judo, taking the place of my Porsche 911

2005-01-14T15:51:00.000-05:00

You know how you can tell someone is a grappler? Look at their ears. If it looks hardened and malformed, you know the guy has put his time in. If he doesn't have a black eye or facial bruising or doesn't complain about the weather giving him pain in the knees, he's pansy. Judo, a sport that replaces my ability to purchase a sports car or wear alot of bling bling:

Effective Debating tactics

2005-01-14T15:48:00.000-05:00

These skills can be used in almost any setting, whether it be work or in order to impress that girl you've had your eye on. Remember, the more obnoxious and offensive the better, don't forget to add those latin phrases. Chicks dig latin phrases...yeah that and eyebrow rings. ----------------------------------------- From Rightthinkingchick: I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me. You too can win arguments. Simply follow these rules: 1) Make things up. Suppose, in the Peruvian economy argument, you are trying to prove that Peruvians are underpaid, a position you base solely on the fact that YOU are underpaid, and you are not going to let a bunch of Peruvians be better off. DON'T say: "I think Peruvians are underpaid." Say instead: "The average Peruvian's salary in 1981 dollars adjusted for the revised tax base is $1,452.81 per annum, which is $836.07 before the mean gross poverty level." NOTE: Always make up exact figures. If an opponent asks you where you got your information, make THAT up too. Say: "This information comes from Dr. Hovel T. Moon's study for the Buford Commission published on May 9, 1982. Didn't you read it?" Say this in the same tone of voice you would use to say, "You left your soiled underwear in my bathroom." 2) Use meaningless but weighty-sounding words and phrases. Memorize this list: Let me put it this way In terms of Vis-a-vis Per se As it were Qua So to speak You should also memorize some Latin abbreviations such as "Q.E.D.", "e.g.", and "i.e." These are all short for "I speak Latin, and you don't." Here's how to use these words and phrases. Suppose you want to say, "Peruvians would like to order appetizers more often, but they don't have enough money." You never win arguments talking like that. But you WILL win if you say, "Let me put it this way. In terms of appetizers vis-a-vis Peruvians qua Peruvians, they would like to order them more often, so to speak, but they do not have enough money per se, as it were. Q.E.D." Only a fool would challenge that statement. 3) Use snappy and irrelevant comebacks. You need an arsenal of all-purpose irrelevant phrases to fire back at your opponents when they make valid points. The best are: You're begging the question. You're being defensive. Don't compare apples to oranges. What are your parameters? This last one is especially valuable. Nobody (other than engineers and policy wonks) has the vaguest idea what "parameters" means. Don't forget the classic: YOU'RE SO LINEAR. Here's how to use your comebacks: You say: As Abraham Lincoln said in 1873... Your opponent says: Lincoln died in 1865. You say: You're begging the question. You say: Liberians, like most Asians... Your opponent says: Liberia is in Africa. You say: You're being defensive. 4) Compare your opponent to Adolf Hitler. This is your heavy artillery, for when your opponent is obviously right and you are spectacularly wrong. Bring Hitler up subtly. Say, "That sounds suspiciously like something Adolf Hitler might say," or "You certainly do remind me of Adolf Hitler."

El Tres Amigos

2005-01-13T16:59:00.000-05:00

From Rightthinkinggirl: The United Nations is attempting to stop the spread of AIDS by encouraging the use of condoms. To this end, they have created a series of PSAs using three animated figures dressed in condoms. The character's names are Shaft, Stretch, and Dick. The campaign, called The Three Amigos, has the support of Desmond Tutu who has called the series, "an outstanding contribution to the campaign against HIV/AIDS" and "a powerful communication tool to encourage people to change their sexual behavior". The PSAs vary in length from 15 to 30 seconds and feature such locations as a soccer field where "you just can't score without a condom" and a space ship where "there's no blastoff without a condom." Watch out, Barney. You've got competition.

Larry Ellison (aka rich asshole) has a new boat

2005-01-12T17:31:00.000-05:00

He supposedly came to one of our recent CIO meetings and basically called everyone stupid for not using Oracle databases. At least he's a powerful and wellpaid asshole. -------------- 1. Rising Sun 452'8" Whether you admire the exterior styling of the late Jon Bannenberg or find his cutting-edge yacht designs too, well, edgy, you have to admit that the profile he created for Rising Sun is extraordinary. While some of the largest megayachts in the world have superstructures so towering you wouldn’t be surprised if they caused a solar eclipse, that’s not the case with this new launch, thanks to her sleek stature. The photo here was taken this summer when the yacht first emerged from Lürssen’s build shed, shortly before sea trials; while her windows were covered and there was still some exterior work to do, she’s no less an impressive and indeed imposing sight. Confidentiality agreements have kept everything from details of her design and engineering to renderings of her interior features from being released to the media. Even Lürssen would only refer to her as LE120, her project name: “LE” for Larry Ellison, “120” for her original length in meters. Those of you who are math whizzes have probably figured out that the LOA above doesn’t equate to 120 meters; rather, it’s 138 meters. Why’d the length change? No one associated with the project is permitted to speak publicly, but that hasn’t stopped yacht-spotters worldwide from conjecturing that Ellison wanted to ensure that his yacht would be larger than Paul Allen’s (see no. 2), which was also being built by Lürssen around the same time. Whether or not that’s the reason, one thing we’re pretty certain of is that she’s the first yacht to feature 20-cylinder, 12,000-hp MTU Series 8000s. If she has the four powerplants that we’ve heard she does, then she boasts an astounding 48,000 hp. She also has three tenders in the 40-foot range that were custom-built in New Zealand, two being traditional monohulls to carry guests and crew, and the third being a twin-hulled landing craft to carry a four-wheel-drive vehicle. But our favorite factoid about her comes from Melanie Craft, the novelist who’s also Ellison’s wife. She was reported by Women’s Wear Daily as saying, “I tried to get Larry to call it Princess Melanie, but that got shot down pretty fast.” Y: 2004; B: Lürssen, Germany; N: Builder; H: Steel; E: 4/12,000-hp MTUs Pics:

From John Batelle's blog: MSN's blogging tool and myYahoo

2005-01-12T16:19:00.000-05:00

John Batelle is a columnist with the MIT technolog review, founder of wired magazine, the Industry Standard, and just an overall smart dude. Here's a great post on his person blog: MSN Riposte to MyYahoo RSS Coming In Of Note in Search Biz A birdy with an abiding interest has told me that MSN, through its MyMSN service, will tonight "quietly launch several new features for MyMSN, one of which is the ability to discover, read and search through blog and RSS content." You will also be able to add RSS feeds to your MyMSN page, just like MyYahoo. Innaresting, no? Apparently this will be powered by Moreover. Meanwhile, Dave Winer has launched a conversation about standardizing this whole RSS "Add to" clutter...for more, see here.

Woman tore off ex-lover's testicle

2005-01-12T08:24:00.000-05:00

Brings new meaning to the meaning of my blog: Black and Blue, uggg: A jilted woman today admitted ripping off her ex-lover's testicle with her bare hands after he refused to have sex with her. Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage after her ex-boyfriend, 37-year-old Geoffrey Jones, rejected her advances at the end of a drunken house party. She yanked off his left testicle, which was later handed to him by a friend with the words: "That's yours." Monti initially tried to hide the testicle by putting it in her mouth, but released it. Doctors were unable to re-attach the organ. Monti, of Birkenhead, Merseyside, pleaded guilty to wounding at Liverpool Crown Court today and will be sentenced next month. The court heard that Mr Jones had ended his long-term relationship with Monti towards the end of May last year. The pair remained on good terms and on May 30, Monti offered to collect Mr Jones from a barbecue and drive him to his home in Netherton, Merseyside. She then drove him to another party and then home again, where friends joined them for more drinks. As the drinks party was winding down, Monti told Mr Jones she wanted to discuss their relationship and offered him sex. When he refused, she grabbed his face and a struggle ensued. Mr Jones threw petite Monti, who is little more than 5ft 2ins tall, out of the house. She then smashed a window and confronted him on the doorstep as he went to investigate. Another struggle took place and Monti was knocked to the floor, from where she pulled down Mr Jones' shorts. In a statement read out by judge Charles James, Mr Jones continued: "I was left standing in my underpants. She was still lying on the floor. "Suddenly she grabbed my genitals and pulled hard. That caused my underpants to come off and I found I was completely naked and in excruciating pain." Referring to his friend Danny McDonagh, who was sleeping at the house after the party, Mr Jones said: "I believe Danny walked out shortly afterwards. He came into the kitchen and said to me, 'That's yours', and I saw that he was holding one of my testicles in his hand." Defence barrister Wendy Lloyd said her client did not remember much of the incident. However, she accepted the prosecution's version of events and did not claim to have acted in self-defence. Monti, who spoke only to confirm her name and enter a guilty plea, was released on conditional bail for sentence on February 10.

WTF is going on here?

2005-01-12T01:38:00.000-05:00

Cute but disturbing simultaneously.

Walter Mossberg - Business Guru- Comments on why Firefox is the cat's meeow.

2005-01-12T01:35:00.000-05:00

Walter Mossberg writes about what he likes about the Firefox browser:

My favorite aspect of Firefox is tabbed browsing, a Web-surfing revolution that is shared by all the major new browsers but is absent from IE. With tabbed browsing, you can open many Web pages at once in the same browser window. Each is accessed by a tab. The benefits of tabbed browsing hit home when you create folders of related bookmarks. For instance, on my computer I have a folder of a dozen technology-news bookmarks and another 20 or so bookmarks pointing to political Web sites. A third folder contains 15 or so bookmarks for sites devoted to the World Champion Boston Red Sox. With one click, I can open the entire contents of these folders in tabs, in the same single window, allowing me to survey entire fields of interest. And Firefox can recognize and use Web sites that employ a new technology called "RSS" to create and update summaries of their contents. When Firefox encounters an RSS site, it displays a special icon that allows you to create a "live" bookmark to the site. These bookmarks then display updated headlines of stories on the sites. Firefox also includes a permanent, handy search box that can be used to type in searches on Google, Yahoo, Amazon or other search sites without installing a special toolbar. And it has a cool feature called "Extensions." These are small add-on modules, easy to download and install, that give the browser new features. Among the extensions I use are one that automatically fills out forms and another that tests the speed of my Web connection. You can also download "themes," which change the browser's looks.

iPod Shuffle and 500 dollar iMacs

2005-01-11T16:33:00.000-05:00

Um, I think I creamed my pants when I heard this. I tried logging onto store.apple.com and couldn't even get on it was so busy. I think I'm representative of the average PC user. I've heard all the good things about macs, seen how cool they can look, but I'm reticent to try it out because of unfamiliarity and price. Steve Job's is looking to sell to guys like me with this offer. Likely its a loss leader for the innovative company, but if their products are as solid as its reputation preceding it indicates, I'm on board if I can scrape together 500 bucks.

Bush 'the king' blows $50m on coronation

2005-01-09T18:34:00.000-05:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1386231,00.html President's lavish inauguration is 'obscene' when US troops are dying in Iraq war, say critics Paul Harri in New York Sunday January 9, 2005 The Observer It will be one of the biggest parties in American history, but half of the country will be left out. With a price tag of up to $50 million, President George W Bush's inauguration in 11 days' time will be an unashamed celebration of Red America's victory over Blue America in last November's election. It is going to be the most expensive, most security-obsessed event in the history of Washington DC. An army of 10,000 police, secret service officers and FBI agents will patrol the capital for four days of massive celebrations that some critics have derided as reminiscent of the lavish shindigs thrown by Louis XIV, France's extravagant Sun King. More than 150,000 people, nearly all Republicans whose tickets are a reward for election work, will pack the Mall to hear Bush take his oath of office on 20 January. There will be nine official balls, countless unofficial ones, parades and a concert hosted by Bush's daughters, Jenna and Barbara.

Asia Quake Impacts Va. Well-Water Levels

2005-01-09T14:23:00.000-05:00

Sat Jan 8,10:21 PM ET RICHMOND, Va. - The South Asian earthquake that spawned deadly tsunami waves also shifted water levels by at least 3 feet in a geologically sensitive Virginia well some 9,600 miles away from the epicenter, researchers say. The well near Christiansburg, which started oscillating about an hour after the magnitude 9 quake near Sumatra on Dec. 26, is particularly sensitive to movements in the Earth and is monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey (news - web sites). David Nelms, a groundwater specialist with the USGS (news - web sites) in Richmond, saw the changes from his computer. "It just shot up and then it went down below where it originally was," Nelms told the Richmond Times-Dispatch for Saturday's editions, adding that it took about five hours for the water to stop fluctuating. The USGS tracks water levels around the country, and has monitors at 21 wells across Virginia, primarily for drought. The Christiansburg well, in the western part of the state, also shows regular, but small, changes caused by tides. ___ On the Net: USGS water monitor: http://va.water.usgs.gov

Ann Coulter says, "Lets Nuke North Korea"

2005-01-09T13:41:00.000-05:00

Could this chick be anymore wacko? ---------------- What would have to happen to make you say it was a bad idea to invade? "That�s a good question. It would be a mistake if we just futz around and the whole country became like one long Falluja. I thought we were wasting way too much time on that. This is a war, let�s go in and win it. Just take the city! I think if it got to the point where it was going on for six, seven years, and it was just Americans patrolling without killing anyone�I�m getting a little fed up with hearing about, oh, civilian casualties. I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning." Click Here

Fans of Philip K. Dick have just wet themselves:

2005-01-09T13:02:00.000-05:00

From Boing-Boing.net: Sneak peek at images from A Scanner Darkly BoingBoing buddy Wiley Wiggins says "First images of the Animated Philip K. Dick film A SCANNER DARKLY [directed by Rick Linklater]. I am not involved with this film (unfortunately), but I have seen about 20 minutes of it and it is the most incredible piece of animation I have ever seen." Link to pics on AICN,

Did you know Campbells has discontinued Ramen Noodles?

2005-01-08T14:30:00.000-05:00

I'm mad, but not as mad as this guy: (From MMA.TV)

"First off, Campbell's, I hate you. You had it all going for you with your fancy fucking soups and all, but you just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you? No, you had to go and put ramen noodles on the market. Well, I guess the consumers got the last word on this slap-in-the-dark-face, didn't they, you fucking dickheads. Campbell's ramen noodles have been discontinued...... and no one even noticed. Let me give you a little rundown on why this ingenious marketing idea burned to the ground...... Right off, it is important to understand that every college kid, every bachelor, every single single guy on the face of this planet eats ramen noodles for one reason and one reason only: THEY ARE CHEAP AS FUCK. You can buy FOUR packages of ramen noodles for under a buck, and whether you like the taste or not, you fucking well learn to relish their merciful existence because when you have four dollars left for the rest of the week, ramen noodles quickly become the thin line between life and starvation. Campbell's, for some odd reason, thought that people were buying the dehydrated slivers of starch and packets of colored salt because they just couldn't get enough of that beefy, chickeny, "oriental" delicacy that seemed to be sweeping the nation. NO YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES - WE WERE FUCKING BROKE!!!!! So why am I so mad that they decided to partake in the thriving ramen industry? Because they charged about FIFTY CENTS a pack. That's over TWICE what the regular ramens cost, which insults my intelligence and offends me as a consumer. Sure, the people at Campbell's would like to have you believe that they charge more because they make "better" ramen noodles than the other companies, but anyone who has ever eaten a single ramen noodle can tell you that THEY ALL TASTE EXACTLY THE SAME! Even if they were better, we still wouldn't buy them for one simple reason: you pay twice as much for half the product, NO MATTER HOW SHITTY IT IS. People don't buy ramen noodles for the quality of the product............. they buy them so they don't get hospitalized for malnutrition. Even if we had the extra fifty cents to "upgrade" oUr ramen quality, we wouldn't spend it like that.......... we would simply climb to the next shitty rung on the ladder of single-people food - Always Save Macaroni and Cheese. Let's face it, Campbell's, when's the last time any of your executives went to an expensive company dinner and ordered ramen noodles....... on purpose? When was the last time one of your rich-ass friends invited you over for dinner and this happened: "Nelson, you ought to bring over the wife and kids for dinner tonight." "Sorry, Bob, I have lots of work this evening." "Are you sure? We're breaking out the ramen noodles........" "Really? Is it someone's birthday?" What? That's never happened to you? You know why? Because you aren't poor. Do you want to know why other ramen companies are still thriving and you had to discontinue yours? This is why: Because other companies tell it like it is. Smack motherfucking Ramen. This shit is "smack" for poor people. They don't try to flower it up or make it look all gourmet. Sure, they tried to make it look a little too pretty on the package, but not only does theirs cost eighteen cents a package, they named their entire company "Smack". Because if you have to rely on ramen noodles as your chief source of nutrition, you probably look like a junkie, and Smack sure as fuck isn't going to act like they don't know. Thank you, Smack, for looking our handicap right in the face and not pretending like it doesn't exist. FUCK YOU CAMPBELL'S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I'm just gonna chill this weekend....

2005-01-07T17:10:00.000-05:00

Starbucks as Order Management

2005-01-07T01:11:00.000-05:00

from Boing-Boing.net Cool analysis of the Starbucks order processing method: By taking advantage of an asynchronous approach Starbucks also has to deal with the same challenges that asynchrony inherently brings. Take for example, correlation. Drink orders are not necessarily completed in the order they were placed. This can happen for two reasons. First, multiple baristas may be processing orders using different equipment. Blended drinks may take longer than a drip coffee. Second, baristas may make multiple drinks in one batch to optimize processing time. As a result, Starbucks has a correlation problem. Drinks are delivered out of sequence and need to be matched up to the correct customer. Starbucks solves the problem with the same "pattern" we use in messaging architectures -- they use a Correlation Identifier. In the US, most Starbucks use an explicit correlation identifier by writing your name on the cup and calling it out when the drink is complete. In other countries, you have to correlate by the type of drink. Exception Handling Exception handling in asynchronous messaging scenarios can be difficult. If the real world writes the best stories maybe we can learn something by watching how Starbucks deals with exceptions. What do they do if you can't pay? They will toss the drink if it has already been made or otherwise pull your cup from the "queue". If they deliver you a drink that is incorrect or nonsatisfactory they will remake it. If the machine breaks down and they cannot make your drink they will refund your money. Each of these scenarios describes a different, but common error handling strategy: * Write-off - This error handling strategy is the simplest of all: do nothing. Or discard what you have done. This might seem like a bad plan but in the reality of business this option might be acceptable. If the loss is small it might be more expensive to build an error correction solution than to just let things be. For example, I worked for a number of ISP providers who would chose this approach when there was an error in the billing / provisioning cycle. As a result, a customer might end up with active service but would not get billed. The revenue loss was small enough to allow the business to operate in this way. Periodically, they would run reconciliation reports to detect the "free" accounts and close them. * Retry - When some operations of a larger group (i.e. "transaction") fail, we have essentially two choices: undo the ones that are already done or retry the ones that failed. Retry is a plausible option if there is a realistic chance that the retry will actually succeed. For example, if a business rule is violated it is unlikely a retry will succeed. However, if an external system is not available a retry might well be successful. A special case is a retry with Idempotent Receiver. In this case we can simply retry all operations since the successful receivers will ignore duplicate messages. * Compensating Action - The last option is to undo operations that were already completed to put the system back into a consistent state. Such "compensating actions" work well for example if we deal with monetary systems where we can recredit money that has been debited. All of these strategies are different than a two-phase commit that relies on separate prepare and execute steps. In the Starbucks example, a two-phase commit would equate to waiting at the cashier with the receipt and the money on the table until the drink is finished. Then, the drink would be added to the mix. Finally the money, receipt and drink would change hands in one swoop. Neither the cashier nor the customer would be able to leave until the "transaction" is completed. Using such a two-phase-commit approach would certainly kill Starbucks' business because the number of customers they can serve within a certain time interval would decrease dramatically. This is a good reminder that a two-phase-commit is can make life a lot simpler but it can also hurt the free flow of messages (and therefore the scalability) because it has to maintain stateful transaction resources across the flow of multiple, asynchronous actions.

The Music Universe

2005-01-06T09:37:00.000-05:00

Looking for good new bands? Want to know their discography and musical influences? I got this from one of the blogs I read called "A VC", someone who's very much in tune with new toys. Check it out at here. Anyways, Musicplasma is awesome. Its not perfect but from my good but not great knowledge of the music world, it looks right and I saw bands on there I'd never see before. Awesome stuff.

Tucker Carlson just got fired!

2005-01-06T01:31:00.000-05:00

Now I just need Ann Coulter to be hit by a bus and 2005 will be off to a GRAND start.

The Hulk Blog Post of the week:

2005-01-06T01:15:00.000-05:00

Pure Genius. What Hulk did this week, by Hulk:

Hulk had a lot of leftover Halloween candy and then Hulk had to go to hospital because Hulk's tummy didn't like that at all, no sir. Hulk broke Nintendo game machine because of stupid X-Men game with stupid stinking Wolverine-man and stupid eye-ball laser man. Stupid game. Hulk cleaned bathroom. Hulk watched Teen Titans cartoon and new Puffy AmiYumi cartoon and even Thor with his pretty pretty hair didn't bother him. Hulk saved world from evil Galactus-man and stupid plot to eat it again. Hulk thinks Galactus-man needs to talk to "Weight Watchers" about his problem! HA HA HA HA HA!!!

F*ck Longhorn, this is Microsoft's newest release.

2005-01-05T18:45:00.000-05:00

Mrrow! You're fired!

2005-01-05T15:27:00.000-05:00

Hehehe

New Year's Eve has F*cked me UP!

2005-01-05T01:33:00.000-05:00

Thus, now I should permanantly relocate where its Pacific Standard time. Anyone know any homeopathic remedies for alcohol induced insomnia? I know I'm going to pay for this at work tomorrow.

Ok, Wesleyan is a great school and all...

2005-01-04T14:39:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm proud of my alma matter. It had a great, relaxed, yet intellectually charged atmosphere -- at least while I was in attendance. A little too many hippies on the downside, then again its better than too many frat boys and jocks. Nothing against frat boys Gabe, but I read somewhere in the New Yorker that those striped shirts....yeah the ones that line your closet? Yeah, they're ovah! Anyways, I digress (although slagging on Gabe for sport has it's moments). Wesleyan gained a reputation of being "Diversity University", which quite frankly it can't shake -- and I mean that pejoratively. It needs to shake it, it should want to shake it, we Wes alumns want it to shake it. You know why? Because instead of attracting future movers and shakers of the world, it attracted potsmoking, barefoot, treehugging hippies. Not a bad thing, but when Wes-Shop has been fully stocked with deodorant for the entire 4 years of my attendance there's something wrong, and it ain't just the B.O. Looking down the list of past "distinguished alumn" I see the likes of Miguel Arteta (director of Starmaps), Sebastian Junger (Writer of A Perfect Storm), Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind). Then there's the Rusty something or other that prosecuted Enron, Jon Seely Brown the tech guru, some old fart from the class of 1958 who heads up Primedia -- likely the most unscrupulous organization in existence. (If you've ever become friends with someone who's into that Amway or Primedia shit you'll know what I mean, they turn people into scum I tell you.) Yet, there's a pantheon of smarty power thinkers that they don't bother listing among their distinguished alumn. John Hagel is one, Jonathon Schwartz another. Tech guru's, thought leaders, cutting edge movers and shakers. We're talking President of Sun Microsystems folks. Even if Sun is in deep shit, that's another discussion entirely. Point is, they ignore the important people on their list and put on entertainers. Nothing against that, but should Wesleyan be proud of its heritage as a feeder into the entertainment industry or should Wesleyan be proud of its history of putting out thought and industry leaders? I say the latter.

Me, my middle finger, and Lauren

2005-01-03T22:28:00.000-05:00

HEHEH, I was giving Gabe the middle finger. Boy that's funneee, yeah, ahem.

This is just wrong...

2005-01-03T22:03:00.000-05:00

This is the original which is wrong enough: This is the edited version, yikes!

Um, its been awhile

2005-01-03T15:56:00.000-05:00

So, I've taken a long long very long hiatus from the world of blogging. But my interest has been rekindled by this new-fangled blog reading tool caller "Bloglines". Holy crap this is addictive, great research tool too. Hopefully this will make me post consistently since I'm such a slacker. Hey, if I'm going to being having symptoms of carpal tunnel, I might as well have something to show for it. On another note, JUDO IS STARTING UP AGAIN. The new year has begun and I'm ready to start getting all my old passions back in order again. That includes getting shape, drinking less, eating healthy again, maybe getting a bike so I can ride to my old gym that I'm way to far to get to now that I've moved to the other side of Astoria. Yeah I know, some of you would say if you were really passionate about getting shape, a 20 minute walk would mean nothing to me. Well, I say, keeping your workouts intense and productive is important. Walking to and from for 20 minutes would leave me F-ed UP! So my next mission, since Judo is beginning to get interesting me again is to buy me a damn bike. One that's crappy enough that I won't mind it getting stolen, but small enough that I can bring it up to my living room when I want to. So yeah, that's the plan.

Real Ultimate Power

2004-07-16T14:32:00.000-04:00

Facts: 1. Ninjas are mammals. 2. Ninjas fight ALL the time. 3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people Ninja Please!

My favorite Hulk blog post

2004-07-16T08:57:00.000-04:00

Why Hulk Likes The Food Court, By Hulk: 1. Hulk can get any kind of food Hulk wants! It is like travelling whole world when only making a few steps! 2. FREE SAMPLES. Sometimes puny humans at Chinese Panda place say "ONLY ONE!" but then Hulk says he could smash whole place up and they hand Hulk tray. Hulk not like threatening nice Chinese Panda people but they need to make free samples bigger! C. ORANGE JULIUS. OH, HULK LOVES ORANGE JULIUS. THEY HAVE HOT DOGS AND ORANGE DRINK. OH IT IS GOOD HAVE YOU HAD IT??!?!?!? 4. ARCADE is right next to it! Hulk can play games like SMASH A MOLE. They always have new machines every time Hulk comes by, though. Hulk wonder why.

Ever Make Nunchuks as a Kid?

2004-07-15T22:28:00.000-04:00

I made many a pair. Broomsticks, nylon cord, screw eyelets, and electrical tape became a deadly weapon after an hour in the basement with Dad's tools. I made a smaller pair that I would tuck into my waistband at the small of my back and cover it with my shirt. I would walk around my neighborhood begging for some ninja to come on out and try to fuck with me. I was never attacked by evil ninja though, they must have known I was packing.

"Only a ninja can destroy a ninja!"

Holy Crap!

2004-07-15T16:07:00.000-04:00

Worst Ownage EVER

2004-07-15T15:39:00.000-04:00

From a guy named ElJ0ker: When I was around 18 i had this girl that was about the same age as I. She was gorgeous. She was this 5'4" little latina girl with long black hair that at the end it was semi curly. A cup but a nice butt and a 5 waist. She also was open minded from people to sex to religion to politics. She was more exposed to life than I was at that age. We had great times together. It was like we clicked in every aspect. There were times that I would wake up and she was riding me or give me head, finish up, and go on her way and leave a plate of sugar cookies and juice like if I had just finished donating. So we started nearing the end of our relationship. She had to go to college in another state and I couldn't afford to go. So we knew that a long distance relationship would be torture to us both. 2 nights before she went to college we decided to stay together for the whole weekend. We rented a hotel for 2 nights. We were doing nothing but ordering pizza and being naked and doing it all the time leaving a mess every where. Housekeeping hated us. So the last night arrives and we're going wild. This was the best sex I've ever had. She's all into it and I'm all drained out from the long weekend haul that if I shot anything I thought it was gonna be cloud of white chalk. Well I blow a wad and at this time I was out of rubbers and I wanted her to bust hers too so like a moron I didn't pull out. Well I finished a couple of seconds before she did but, grinding for those few seconds more helped her orgasm pretty hard. She's laying there on top of me and she realises that I'm not moving and she feels it slipping out. She asked if I came in her and I said yes. She panicked cause she wasn't on the pill. Seeing that her older sister had a baby a few months ago and seeing how her sister pushed out all the after birth she tried to apply the same principle using her vag muscles to push the wad out. Being that we were being horn dogs and at the time I was still into everything with her I didn't tell her to move. So she's on top of me hovering over eagle style and begins to grunt and push. Well needles to say the wad came out but, she kept pushing trying to make sure she got everything out. I think she grunted a little to much cause all of a sudden a little turd pebble plops on my sternum. She was so embarassed she grabbed everything and left me on the bed tied with a little turd pebble right in the middle of my chest. That was the last time I ever hear from her. That was the time that I was owned. ------------- BWAHAAHA, LMAO @ Turd Pebble!

The Incredible Hulk Blog

2004-07-15T15:25:00.000-04:00

I crapped my pants to some of this stuff! Courtesy of George Scriban: www.scriban.com via boingboing.com.

My trip a month back to Bed Stuy

2004-07-11T22:44:00.000-04:00

I once took a train to Bed-Stuy to go to my boss's house. He bought a brownstone mansion practically in the heart of Bed-Stuy -- just a beautiful house. It was sold at a discount because of the area and apparently its an up and coming area, especially since real estate price inflation has extended to just about everywhere in Manhattan. On the way there I saw these two lanky kids dressed like they were on their way to a rap video and I swear they had ADD. They simply couldn't sit still. Even the older folks on the train where getting annoyed and embarassed for them. Suddenly one of them sits down and, conjuring up all glandular glory in his mouth, just upped and drop a huge loogie on the train platform. Not even a hesitation. The loogie had some wierd fucking discoloration too. Like brownish yellow. Not sure what the hell it could of been but it was large enough a loogie to leave a small puddle on the train. When the car stopped, momentum widened the size of the puddle. The same when the car accelerated from a complete stop. I got off the train and went to my boss's house with no problems, but I was thinking about that incident all the way back. That's my Bed-Stuy experience. Not a bad place to live, but some of the kids there obviously haven't come from the best upbringing. Not sure what to make of it, other than to say it happened and made an impression.

The outsourcing wave

2004-07-06T16:25:00.000-04:00

The topic of our next RB report is on outsourcing. But it is astonishing the level of casual thinking involved in this phenomen. Its not just jobs and livelihoods at stake, its an entire workforce paradigm shift. Manufacturing and now services. It likely won't end in IT or BPO, but will extend to legal services and medical services. I really don't see how the market can create the number of innovative and management opportunities to absorb the IT worker supply. A real quandary and likely one that won't be solved soon.

Kerry chooses his runningmate!

2004-07-06T12:45:00.000-04:00

Well, seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 only solidified my long running abhorrence of the Bush Jr. Administration. Seeing such brazen special interest cronyism running amok in Washington and the awarding of special treatment to his Washington insider buddies, which by the way includes the Bin Laden family, was incendiary. If the emotions conjured up during the movie doesn't get the vote out this November, I don't what will. It was also fairly satisfying to see Michael Moore being completely honest about his intentions in releasing this movie -- it was to sway the election in John Kerry's favor. Kerry's decision to choose John Edwards of North Carolina could be very instrumental to the outcome of the election. We have someone who appeals and empathetic with the middle class. He is also very young and charming, bringing comparisons to another southern democrat named Bill Clinton. Nevertheless, registering to vote is one of my top priorities this fall. Congrats to John Edwards and best of luck to John Kerry.

Wow my own blog!

2004-07-06T11:59:00.000-04:00

So this is my first post...how exciting. I hope I can make this place a carthartic outlet - a vessel for my daily musings and whinings. As if I don't whine enough...at least I won't bother my friends with my whining....on the other hand at some point they'll read it and think I'm an even bigger whiner! Ah, I just can't win.