2010: End of year thoughts.

Here we are, together again.

Another year. Another decade.

Okay, I'll drop all the philosophical bullshit.

2010 had its ups and downs.

There were some ups.

I moved away from a sucky location. I hated where we lived. Okay, I loved our bedroom in our house. But I wasn't moving on anything I really wanted to do. Apart from family, I was living somewhere surrounded by people I largely didn't care about. Mostly they were my family's friends, but the truth was, I didn't really feel connected to any of them. Some people I had legitimate issues with. Admittedly most of them were fairly nice. Perhaps it's just my nature, but I don't really respond when people I know try to pick my friends for me. I'm instantly tuned out. Never mind that our politics may be similar, some of them might even like the same things I like - I didn't really seek them out, so as far as I was concerned, I never really dropped my guard, and resolved to maintain basic politeness, and nothing else.

At my job, things weren't much better.

Despite all the apparent 'success' at shipping a product and getting it certified by essentially a competitor, and working with very difficult (but gifted) people, it seemed I was unable to cash in on said 'success'. Now I don't claim to have been the driving force behind everything that went on to make things successful, but I did provide some direction and guidance in the areas I was responsible for. And of course, I was there to do the 'pick up the shit' others didn't want to do. And although my boss was a good guy, he wasn't really in any position to do much of anything when another manager at a higher level stepped in and began being abusive to me and others. He didn't stand up to the head of our organization and challenge him to to put a stop to this.

I did. At least I tried.

And when it was clear nothing was going to change, I simply spent my 'success' by getting a job and moving back to an area I'm a lot happier with.

Still that hasn't happened without some problems.

Some in the family weren't too happy with having their lives uprooted.

And yes we left a house behind that's now financially underwater,  that we're still paying for. Joy me.

And we brought an untrustworthy useless excuse of an animal with us. What a mistake that's been.

If it weren't for those last two, I'd almost be happy.

Anyways, I work in a pretty nice place. It's a much different environment in a famous company. And I get some free stuff every week that we get to enjoy. I have a really good boss - who really gets what I do, and really values my input and thought.

Despite the world being much shittier due to -

Costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
Economic decline of the working and middle class
Loss of Internet freedom
No improvement in efforts to solving global warming

And lots more ... in my own life ...

... I never forget that could be a lot worse. Indeed it's a lot worse for many people.

But I still have my ideas. I still have my friends. I still have my goals and dreams. I still have my wits and the will to improve life for myself, my family, my friends.

So here's hoping 2011 is the year I take more steps to moving in that direction.

Definitive link between the US economic debacles of the last 50 years and the right-wing.

Read and weep -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/in-money-changers-we-trus_b_802174.html

This comment from 'MyTake' got my attention -

The President does not choose his key advisors and they have not done so since Carter.
Those key advisors are supplied by and drawn from the 4000 membership base of elites that comprise the NY Council on Foreign Relations.

Everything described in this article is, while accurate, just the symptom of the problem where the Corporate State has taken control of the U.S. Government­.

There is no use in flogging these individual names such as Rubin etc.. They are the symptom of the problem and you have to identify the core of the problem and spend you time drawing this single organizati­on out into public view.

Both Bush and Obama economic teams were supplied by the Council on Foreign Relations, David Rockefelle­r, Chairman Emeritus. That 4000 membership­, including the heads of Wall Street Corporatio­ns and heads of Corporate Media, if funded, organized and controlled by the Rockefelle­r Syndicate and their myriad of tax exempt Foundation­s.

Robert Rubin is Co-Chair of the Board of Directors at CFR and it is that Board that has supplied each incoming President with over 300 names for appointmen­t to their respective Administra­tions.
And when you examine the CFR interlocks with the two other organizati­ons known as the Trilateral Commission and the internatio­nal Bilderberg Group, you will see David Rockefelle­r as being the cornerston­e member of each of these groups.

Those three groups are the CORE of the problem. Get to them, expose them and protest them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_Foreign_Relations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateral_Commission

The common name among all of them is David Rockefeller, a 'A lifelong Republican and party contributor'.

There you have it - you know why the country is in an economic shambles? It's because of the people chosen from these organizations to run government (into the ground, apparently).

America’s Political Class Struggle - by Jeffrey D. Sachs.

An excellent article that summerizes succinctly where the economic and political future of the US is going if things currently unfolding, are allowed to continue.

Can you believe - the richest 1% of American households now has a higher net worth than the bottom 90%?

It's funny but the right-wing (as housed politically in this country by the Republican Party) is almost by design thinking like a corporation for their patrons. They cannot or do not see the long-term damage they are doing to their own interests by creating and encouraging an economic situation that will eventually collapse. This is no surprise - though perhaps the shocking part is the lack of more public discussion of this topic in the media.

Oh wait - that's not shocking either, since most of the media in this country is largely controlled by 5-6 large multi-national media conglomerates.

Still, it's nice to know I'm not the only person who thinks this way -

If this continues, a third party will emerge, committed to cleaning up American politics and restoring a measure of decency and fairness. This, too, will take time. The political system is deeply skewed against challenges to the two incumbent parties. Yet the time for change will come.

Real change will not come from within the system that society has set forth and created the very real problems we now face. Real change comes from society itself and specifically from those who can think, who can observe, who can learn, and who have the will and the courage to act to make it happen.

While I don't wish to disparage those of a conservative nature, I see the biggest obstacle in front of real positive progress for all is the American Right-Wing.

The real question for me is - will such change come in time to save us all from our own inevitable demise? How can people really effect real positive change on a global and person level, and all points in between?

Vantucky Nazis

I used to live in the Portland, OR area, specifically in the WA state area just north. The city is Vancouver, WA.


Its residents refer to is sometimes as 'The Couv'. Others called it 'Vantucky'.

Here's a strong reason for the latter ... (edit is mine)

http://rosecityantifa.weebly.com/1/post/2010/11/nazi-propaganda-on-vancouver-campus-administration-assists-spread.html

Nearly two weeks after the NSM flier distribution, Clark devoted its regularly scheduled "open dialogue" to the topic, on Monday, October 18.

Nathan Goncalves, NSM member and resident of Stevenson, Washington, claimed responsibility for distributing the fliers. He was given the first opportunity to speak to the room of 250 students, faculty, and community members. For three minutes he stood in front of the crowd in a full NSM uniform, boots, and a swastika armband, delivering a fascist recruiting message on behalf of the National Socialist Movement.

Earlier this month, Clark’s attorney general approved of a second round of neo-Nazi fliers to be posted on official college bulletin boards. These fliers delivered a message suggesting people of color are inferior to white people. (Clark College president) Knight defended the choice to grant space to the racist fliers.

I'm not sure which is worse - that the flier was distributed, or that the College allowed this Nazi group a forum to speak later.

Of course, if you search on the story, you'll find links where the right-wingers are out in full force defending this group's 'free speech', and the college's conduct. I don't think this is a free speech issue. Defaming (i.e. slandering or libeling) a person or persons of a specfic skin color I don't think is protected by the First Amendment.

It's pretty fucked up. A family friend's neighborhood in Vancouver was recently covered in swastikas.

How does one defend oneself or one's community against this? As best as I can figure, the only way to counter this is with fact-based free speech by society-at-large.

In response, over 100 students rallied on the campus on November 9 to promote diversity and oppose the actions of the College and the NSM.

College students appear to get this - will everyone else?

12-21-2010 - Red Letter Day in American History: The day the Internet became another corporate service; and the loss of political credibility of the Obama Adminstration.

Today in America, the Internet will become another corporate service, just like network television. Americans are in effect watching choice, and freedom of speech be handed over to large corporations.

Net Neutrality is dead. Happy Winter Solstice everyone! On the planet's darkest day come pretty dark news for the future.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/obama-fcc-caves-on-net-ne_b_799435.html

"For the first time in history of telecommunications law the FCC has given its stamp of approval to online discrimination.

Instead of a rule to protect Internet users' freedom to choose, the Commission has opened the door for broadband payola - letting phone and cable companies charge steep tolls to favor the content and services of a select group of corporate partners, relegating everyone else to the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road.

Instead of protecting openness on wireless Internet devices like the iPhone and Droid, the Commission has exempted the mobile Internet from Net Neutrality protections. This move enshrines Verizon and AT&T as gatekeepers to the expanding world of mobile Internet access, allowing them to favor their own applications while blocking, degrading or de-prioritizing others.

Instead of re-establishing the FCC's authority to act as a consumer watchdog over the Internet, it places the agency's authority on a shaky and indefensible legal footing -- giving ultimate control over the Internet to a small handful of carriers. "

Backseat to no one my ass.

How much would you like to bet that some of the members of the FCC after their terms are done, will find employment with some of the very large telecom companies they were supposed to watch over?

P.S.

Here's an interesting comment from called Birdman372537

Let Verizon and AT&T control the internet. Just tax their profits at 95%. Then



Tax capital gains as ordinary income


Tax yearly incomes over 250K progressiv­ely up to 90% over 2M;


Tax yearly church receipts in excess of 1M;


Eliminate the “carried interest compensati­on” tax code provision;


Increase SS benefits by 10%


Eliminate the ceiling on SS earnings;


Progressiv­ely eliminate SS benefits for those earning over 100K yearly in other income;


Tax stock transactio­ns over 1M in yearly aggregate;


Increase the estate tax on estates valued over 5M;


Tax luxury purchases on homes over 5M, cars over 50K, boats over 100K;


Eliminate the mortgage tax deduction on home mortgage debt over $250K


Double corporate income taxes and eliminate their offshoring tax and job loopholes;


Bring back a windfall profits tax up to 90%;


Legalize and tax illegal drugs;


Increase medicare/m­edicaid fraud detection budgets five-fold;


Decriminal­ize, regulate and tax most victimless crimes;


Eliminate farm and oil subsidies;


Tax all political contributi­ons over $3K from any source at 100%;


Bring the Iraq, AfPak troops home;


Subsidize university educations for worthy students;


Expand drug treatment availabili­ty;


Give medical and dental coverage to all those who need it;


Focus law enforcemen­t and incarcerat­ion on violent crime;






Time for the monied and monopolist­s to pay up. Put our wonderful country back on track.


Other than setting eliminating the mortgage tax deduction up to $500K instead of $250K, I'd say it's all on track.

Dogs in grocery stores

If I ever put together a list of people in the world who by and large constitute morons, pet owners would come somewhere near the top.

And really in America, we're talking mostly about dog-owners (followed closely behind by cat owners).

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not saying ALL pet owners are morons. And it's true that if one goes to a dog park, most of the owners of dogs are generally friendly, responsible, and have a genuine love of the animal. (Though it should be noted while I find some overlap and correlation,  that there is a difference between loving/appreciating animals, and being an owner. The latter requires responsibility.).

But I'm not ranting about those people.

• I'm talking about those people who let their dog bark for hours on end.
• I'm talking about people who cannot pick up their dog's shit, or worse, let them shit anywhere they like (like on other people's property).
• I'm talking about cat owners who let them scratch up their house or piss all over things.
• I'm talking about owners who let their animals dictate every action when they are at home.
• I'm talking about people who carry a small dog everywhere they go, including a place where food is available, like a restaurant, a grocery store or supermarket.

It's that last one I find very intolerable.

These people act so idiotically. I find most of them smug, and usually very self-absorbed. There is almost this sense of entitlement, as if their pet is their child.

Here's a dose of reality: Pets (i.e. animals) are not children. They do not equate.

Calling your little poodle a 'baby' is moronic.

So why is it on an almost regular basis, when I go to a grocery store, I find there is always someone carrying a dog? Why is this allowed?

Why can't society get a grip and pass laws that actually prevent this? I mean laws where a business' employees are trained to know whether an animal is helping someone with disability (instead of meekly asking and being forced to accept a fake 'yes').

It's not like that little dog being carried is actually aiding the person to do stuff (except perhaps be moronic) in the store.

Okay people with disabilities - that's different.

It's fucking unhygenic. That and the animals too.

What's the solution?

Happy Meals - the fucking bullshit we've always known them to be.‏

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/12/15/con-mcdonalds-suit.html

While I agree with the comments by some that the responsibility of children's health lies with parents, kids are relentless in demanding something they really want. You only need to give in once and it'll be etched in their minds, because that's how their marketing works. It's designed to rope children in and it's fucking manipulative.


I think it's completely appropriate to have laws in place to prevent corporations from using manipulative marketing practices to induce people to buy their products.

And if the plaintaiffs can show that the toys exist specifically to induce kids to get their parents to take them there (which I know has always been the singular reason they offer toys), then I'd love to see them take them to the cleaners, because there's apparently a law in the county where they are suing that appears to forbid this.

And on that note, I'd rather take our kids to an Applebees before ever stepping into a McDonalds dump again.

How fucking awesome if this turns out to be true!

AIDS BREAKTHROUGH: First HIV-Positive Man Cured



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/14/hiv-cure-berlin-patient_n_796521.html

Here's the kicker -

"Brown's case paves a path for constructing a permanent cure for HIV through genetically-engineered stem cells. "

I wonder who all those religious folks who opposed stem-cell research feel about it now?

Home

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/citizens-awake-and-cast-ye-off-the-chains-of-home-ownership-20101212-18tvj.html


This comment got my attention –

Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves.

While the article above really talks about the security of having some place to call home, there’s something the article really misses.

It confuses buying a home with owning a home. They are not the same thing.

Owning a home really means you don’t owe anyone any debt (yes I know, governments really own the land, hence the concept of property tax, but work with me here)

The concept of paying mortgage to some financial institution is really spending 30-40 years buying a house. Oh sure they give you a deed, and on paper it looks like you ‘own’ the property (at least that’s the way the government sees it, since they come to you for the aforementioned property tax).

For the longest time, the concept of equity (which is what the mortgage payment really represents) has been a nice way to placate the middle class into thinking they are moving up in society. And for the longest time it was true.

But the fact is, over the last 20 years, if one has missed payment or two, they are usually not that far away from getting kicked out and losing it all. And truthfully, most people in this day and age are so early into their mortgage that none of their payments are really giving them any real equity at this point. Payments are mostly to cover off the interest in the loan (the ability to negotiate anything beyond that either is not available or not readily apparent).

Removing the concepts of equity and security out of it, then it’s all really no different than renting a house, isn’t it? It’s a dream sold to most people into believing that if they stick it out long enough, they’ll have something to hold onto and call their own at the end of it all. Indeed it’s a dream I’ve bought into.

For most people now, that dream is turning into a nightmare. Many are finding out that absent the equity and security, the ownership and investment in a house is no longer there, but the responsibility and obligation(s) still are. Add to that declining incomes, rising prices and more bills to cover and you have a recipe of financial collapse.

The housing crisis represents a clear case of the eradication of the middle class.

It’s not wonder today that society is slowly moving to extremes. Many people today are awash in debt.


I've always felt that the major strengths of the United States rested in two places, both of which are derived from generally one source: the middle class, and small busineses. I believe there are strong connections from the latter to the former. One can see the future when one looks at how both are treated. We don't need to look elsewhere because we know what each extreme represents.
 
We are slowly moving towards those extremes. Today and tomorrow, there are and will only be really two kinds of people who live in homes: Those who own them, and those who don’t. While I believe myself to be an optimist-at-heart, without knowing what possible solutions there are to address this future problem, I'm at a loss to stay positive.

How to Fix Fake Net Neutrality - if you live in the US, please read and take action

How to Fix Fake Net Neutrality (courtesy Craig Aaron)
Five Steps:

Wireless. Even though Genachowski has said it's "essential that the Internet itself remain open, however users reach it," his proposal would leave wireless networks unprotected. It would enshrine Verizon and AT&T as gatekeepers to the rapidly expanding world of mobile Internet access, allowing them to favor their own applications while blocking, degrading or de-prioritizing others.

Paid Prioritization. Genachowski's proposal reportedly fails to explicitly prohibit deals that would allow ISPs to charge steep tolls to favor the content and services of a select group of corporate partners, relegating everyone else to the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road. (See the video above.)

Key Definitions. The devil is always in the details at the FCC. So it's important how the agency defines terms such as "Broadband Internet Access Service" and "reasonable network management" so giant loopholes aren't created that could undermine the purpose of these rules.

Specialized Services. Last summer's Verizon-Google pact was widely lambasted because the deal would have allowed ISPs to split the Internet into two pipes: the public one we have now and a separate private lane reserved for "specialized services." The FCC needs to be sure there are safeguards so we don't lose today's level playing field where anyone with a good idea has the chance to be the next Google or Facebook.

Legal Footing. Genachowski reportedly is grounding these new rules in the same kind of legal arguments that were rejected by the courts last spring. This strategy presents an unnecessary risk in a short-sighted attempt to avoid "reclassifying" broadband under Title II of the Communications Act. Such a move doesn't just put Net Neutrality on shaky ground, it places the FCC's entire broadband agenda in jeopardy.

Read all about it here - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-aaron/the-fccs-guide-to-losing_b_795061.html

And if you live in the US, act now - http://act2.freepress.net/sign/real_net_neutrality/?source=STNhomepage

Secular humanism

I was looking at this link and wondering if this describes my view of life -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism

Seems pretty close.

Driving and parking in the wrong lane.

I don't know what it is about this part of the United States (or whether this is something prevalent) but I find it odd that people park their cars on the wrong side of the road, pointed in the opposite direction of traffic.

In order to do that, one has to cross the street into oncoming traffic and pull up their car so that the headlights are facing .... yes ... oncoming traffic.

Why?

Maybe it's a Pacific Northwest thing?

Word Warriors in DC and Wikileaks

It is a "scandal" when the Government conceals things it is doing without any legitimate basis for that secrecy. Each and every document that is revealed by WikiLeaks which has been improperly classified -- whether because it's innocuous or because it is designed to hide wrongdoing -- is itself an improper act, a serious abuse of government secrecy powers. Because we're supposed to have an open government -- a democracy -- everything the Government does is presumptively public, and can be legitimately concealed only with compelling justifications. That's not just some lofty, abstract theory; it's central to having anything resembling "consent of the governed."



But we have completely abandoned that principle; we've reversed it. Now, everything the Government does is presumptively secret; only the most ceremonial and empty gestures are made public. That abuse of secrecy powers is vast, deliberate, pervasive, dangerous and destructive. That's the abuse that WikiLeaks is devoted to destroying, and which its harshest critics -- whether intended or not -- are helping to preserve. There are people who eagerly want that secrecy regime to continue: namely, (a) Washington politicians, Permanent State functionaries, and media figures whose status, power and sense of self-importance are established by their access and devotion to that world of secrecy, and (b) those who actually believe that -- despite (or because of) all the above acts -- the U.S. Government somehow uses this extreme secrecy for the Good. Having surveyed the vast suffering and violence they have wreaked behind that wall, those are exactly the people whom WikiLeaks is devoted to undermining.

Thank you Mr. Greenward for putting things in perspective when it comes to the impotnent idiots who call themselves the 'media' in the US.

Read it all here.

"Localism" and Columbia River Crossing debate.

In the area where I used to live, there exists a debate over a proposal to replace the Interstate Bridge that goes over the Columbia River, as it's reaching its end-of-life.

This bridge currently is the main surface transportation route and contains the following significant points -

• Interstate 5 - which connects three nations - Canada, the United States , and Mexico
• The states of Oregeon and Washington (and by extention, California)
• Clark County and Multnomah County
• Portand, OR and Vancouver, WA

Lot of traffic goes through this bridge, both commercial, military, and otherwise.

Unfortunately, a lot of the debate is being clouded by various groups with interests that don't take any consideration into resolving the issue from all perspectives.

1. Bicylists - Bikers advocating for a reduced bridge (or no bridge) are out to lunch in their thinking because they don't take into account the impact of the bridge to the regions around them.

2. Liberalish morons - People who write at the Portland Mercury are also clueless in that not building a bridge doesn't reduce carbon emissions. That would only move the problem somewhere else, not solve it.

And even if that were to actually work, it would still not solve the larger problem. Anyone who's ever crossed that bridge would be able to tell you why. Within a few miles is PDX. Airplanes take off and land all day. They use a higher concentrated gasoline, and because they are closer to the atmosphere, can release their emissions into the air much easier. Note that the writier is (conveniently) of Portland Mercury article is now a member of the Sam Adams team. Criticizing Vancouver, WA as 'urban sprawl' is hypocritical when one looks at North Portland. What does one see when entering the state of Oregon through the Interstate Bridge? Target, Hooters, McDonalds, Denny's. Frankly NoPo is urban sprawl, compared to the Vancouver, WA side of the Columbia River. And what about all the concrete snakes being built everywhere in Delta Park (i.e. all the entrance/exits being added to Interstate-5).

This overall inability to see beyond one's path and not be aware of the impacts around them is what I call localism. People who advocate without any regards for the impacts (or even bothering to think about it) are the essence of localism.

(This may differ with the Wikipedia definition of localism - which states: "It is primarily a rural movement." This would seem to imply that only rural folks are primarily about localism)



I don't claim to have all the answers to solving the problem. But doing nothing, or replacing the bridge with nothing are not answers.

USA-212

Know what it is?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-212

USA-212[5][6] was the first flight of the Boeing X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle 1 (X-37B OTV-1), an American unmanned robotic spacecraft. It was launched aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral on 22 April 2010, and operated in low Earth orbit. Its designation is part of the USA series.

The spacecraft is operated by the United States Air Force, which has not revealed the specific identity of the spaceship's payload. The Air Force has stated only that the spacecraft will "demonstrate various experiments and allow satellite sensors, subsystems, components, and associated technology to be transported into space and back."[7]

...

William Scott, coauthor of the techno-novel Counterspace: The Next Hours of World War III and former Rocky Mountain Bureau Chief for Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine believes that with X-37B, the Air Force might test weapon delivery from a space plane in low Earth orbit. He mentions Rods from God as a possible scenario.[31] This hypothesis aligns with speculation that the launch of USA-212 marks the beginning of military operations in space.[32]

Read more here, and here.

To quote Yoda, "Begun the Clone War has."

Daniel Ellsberg's opinion of Amazon's dumping of Wikileaks

I understand that many other regular customers feel as I do and are responding the same way. Good: the broader and more immediate the boycott, the better. I hope that these others encourage their contact lists to do likewise and to let Amazon know exactly why they’re shifting their business. I’ve asked friends today to suggest alternatives. I’ve removed all links to Amazon from my site, and I’ll be exploring service from Powell’s Books, IndieBound, Biblio and others.

I could not have said it better. This coming from the man who disclosed The Pentagon Papers.

Read more of Mr. Ellsberg's open letter to Amazon here - http://www.zcommunications.org/open-letter-to-amazon-com-by-daniel-ellsberg.

It's good to know there are still smart people in this world who conduct themselves honestly and are brave enough to fight for what they believe in.

That public destruction of society's right to the facts on their governments.

It's rather disturbing watching American government officials turn into Nixonian stormtroopers.

I suspect all the attempts to incarcerate or discredit Assange is nothing more than a blatant attempt to stop the flow of information on government activities to the American public.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/the-shameful-attacks-on-julian-assange/67440/

There are many implications behind what's currently going, but this is perhaps the most important one - probably the one that most governments find the most threatening -

Wikileaks is a powerful new way for reporters and human rights advocates to leverage global information technology systems to break the heavy veil of government and corporate secrecy that is slowly suffocating the American press. The likely arrest of Assange in Britain on dubious Swedish sex crimes charges has nothing to do with the importance of the system he has built, and which the US government seems intent on destroying with tactics more appropriate to the Communist Party of China -- pressuring Amazon to throw the site off their servers, and, one imagines by launching the powerful DDOS attacks that threatened to stop visitors from reading the pilfered cables.

Uh-huh - rude service.

I used to think observing behavior changes in society was just me aging and all that.

One of my major pet peeves is rude customer service. Or people who work in a service area and cannot user professional language.

Case in point yesterday morning. We drove to an IHOP restaurant for breakfast, just south of Seattle.

We ordered our food. A couple sat nearby a server took their order. Their food arrived before ours did, but that's another issue.

Anyways our server was an middle-aged woman, and instead of saying 'You're welcome' to my thank you, she said the now-standard 'Uh-huh'.

Here's a piece of advice - 'Uh-huh' is not the response to 'Thank you.'. "You're welcome' is. Going forward I think I'm going to start posting a zero tip when I hear people utter that term in restaurants.

Classic Dallas clip

Wanna see high-drama at it's over-the-top best?




"No body gives you power. Real power is something you take!" - as spat out with venom by Jock Ewing.

In case you're wondering ...

Some of you may have noticed that the number of posts on this site has increased rather dramatically. For some strange reason, I'm trying to either tie or ecllipse my number of posts from last year, which was 62.

I wonder what it is in human nature that drives us to always improve or go higher with something, anything than the time before. Even more, I wonder why I'm so concerned with wanting to have more posts this year.

Maybe I'm trying to prove something to myself. Maybe it's way of saying I accomplished something over last year.

I started blogging about five years ago. It's odd how back then, I didn't really post that many messages, but somehow it felt easier. Perhaps there's a lost innocence to it all (I'm no longer a blogging virgin ~ la!)

So anyways, bear with me. What with all that's going on, I'm sure I can find a bunch of posts to beat my 2009 record.

Yay me. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Think I was kidding about calling Amazon a bunch of censors?

Guess again screamer.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/01/wikileaks-amazon-servers-_n_790652.html

Wikileaks' twitter response, said it best -

"If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books."


Seriously, people should take their business elsewhere this holiday season, and going forward.

Product or feature doesn't make it out of testing because is doesn't work?

Don't blame the development team for writing code that doesn't work.

Don't blame the 'engineering' team for failing to meet a committment.

No, instead, tell the customer that the feature is no longer needed -

Microsoft announced its decision to discontinue development of one of the core features of Windows Home Server, a technology called Drive Extender.

And ... here's the rub -

"The reason they are outraged is because everyone knows the real reason why this feature was dropped. The Drive Extender architecture had a troubled past involving a particularly nasty data-destroying bug that was finally fixed in late 2008. For the next release of Windows Home Server, someone made the engineering decision to completely redesign the Drive Extender code base. I’ll let Peter Bright explain what happened next:

With Vail, Drive Extender was completely rewritten in a manner that should make it both more flexible and more reliable. Instead of using regular NTFS disks, Vail inserts a layer underneath the filesystem. This layer was responsible for distributing blocks of data between disks, replicating them to ensure fault tolerance, and de-duplicating them to make the system more efficient…

Unfortunately, the new block layer in Vail doesn’t quite work right. Just like Drive Extender in Windows Home Server, there have been bugs. Different bugs, but bugs all the same. Microsoft hasn’t gone into explicit detail about what these problems are, but there were some issues with its ability to correct errors, and some Small Business Server testers reported application compatibility problems.

So instead of fixing the flaws, and potentially delaying the three products dependent on Drive Extender, Microsoft is killing the feature altogether.

Everyone in the Windows Home Server community knows this is absolutely true. And yet Leworthy did not mention a word of those bugs and engineering issues in his bland and incomplete blog posts. Let’s call it a lie of omission, because that’s what it is."


Read the article for the rest. It's one thing to admit something doesn't work. It's another to lie about it to customers you've previously committed to that something will be there.
 
I have a similar issue in my own life. I refuse to do business with Amazon because they are all a bunch of right-wingers, and they believe in censorship. But the Mrs. ordered something recently from them. Their delivery vendor had been saying up till yesterday that the order would arrive ... yesterday.
 
Well it didn't. And now, the vendor says it's arriving at a later date.
 
I understand things happen. I understand that often times, these things happen beyond one's control.
 
But don't lie about it. Don't lie to a paying customer.
 
Why can't businesses understand this?

The future of recording music for me - Reaper?

I've never been a fan of most digital recording technology for music. Maybe it's that I'm not hip, or perhaps I'm just a snob, but to my ears the quality, the richness in the music when recorded through analog isn't there in things like Logic, Pro Tools, or Cakewalk. What I record has no real presense or weight. And no, it ain't the instruments or the amps, as those setup have largely stayed the same over the years.

Despite the apparent ease of use (basically anyone who can write a song, can record one with just the right setup), I always imagined I'd always see it as nothing more than a glorified demo.

That being said, I'm checking out this product called Reaper - http://www.reaper.fm/ to see what they offer.

I'll keep you posted.

Before The Onion ... there was Airplane!

It's too bad one of creators went all right-wing a few years back. And it's too bad the Naked Gun series was all racist with its depictions of Arabs (that and watching O.J. Simpson is a bit much to stomach, knowing he murdered his wife in cold blood).

Still ... we have Airplane!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/30/airplane-predicted-tsa-fiasco_n_789604.html#s194147

Seriously, Airplane! was just ahead of its time.

Dallas - The great American entertainment export of the 1980's.

Okay. I admit this blog has been somewhat serious (even grim) about various subjects over the last couple of years.

Maybe it's that part of me that's going all midlife crisis already. And by my own admission, I've not been a fan of much culture these past few years. I only recently found out who Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga are (i.e current big hypes being pushed by 20th century business models like record companies). They both kind of remind me of Justin Timberlake and Cyndi Lauper 2.0, though in the Lauper's case, she actually struggled for a long time before becoming successful (that whole thing about paying one's dues, working, writing, etc).

So I thought, why not publish a note about real escapism?

For many Americans in the previous latter half of the 20th century, there were soap opera television programs. They mostly ran during the day, were sponsored by large hygenge companies like Proctor and Gamble (hence the term soap operas), and contained a bevy of melodrama, bad acting, bad hair, and ... well that's about it.

Then, there's Dallas - the television series.

It started off not with a pilot, but rather as a 1978 mini-series - a production that spanned 4-5 one hours episodes that were broadcast over a few weeks or so as a test run. Its ratings were not bad, but not that great. It got picked up.

What started out as a Romeo and Juliet show about two people (Bobby Ewing and Pamela Barnes) married to each other from different families and such, turned into a Reagan/Me show about excess, evil, etc.

The over-the-top acting, the Southfork mansion, the cars, the hot women, the bombastic music. That plus all that back-stabbing, bed-hopping, yelling, sceraming, punching, oil, Lone Star State (Ewing Oil was an 'independant' oil company founded by Jock Ewing), coupled with strong writing, and good continuity make for the perfect American fantasy of the 1980's.  Seriously when something 'happened' whereby they went to commerical, you'd swear the world was coming to an end just by the music alone.

Yeah Dynasty was there too, but we all knew it was a rip-off of Dallas.

It was Dallas that really ushered in the idea that soap operas can be successful in prime-time, as opposed to daytime.

Of course the key to it was JR Ewing, as played by Larry Hagman.

Seriously, Who Shot JR? was quite the phenomeon.

Sometimes I'll buy a TV show I grew up on and watching it now, discover how pointless and devoid of any real content it was. Don't get me wrong, Dukes of Hazzard is entertainment, but like Knight Rider, it was the car that was the show. You can only pull off so many plots where the car jumping over something resolves the plot.

But Dallas was different. There was quite a lot going on.

JR Ewing was a complex evil character. And like so many popular 'evil' characters, they themselves didn't think they were evil at all. Even when you didn't want to see his latest scheme to succeed, even if you didn't want him to win Ewing Oil from Bobby (who let's face it, every straight guy wanted to be. After all, he did bang the hottest chicks on the show, Pam and Jenna Wade. Though it turns out, so did Ray Krebs), the best part about the character was that the audience was really in on everything he did. Even when 'good' characters were doing something they thought they came up with independantly of themselves, in the back of the audiences' minds, we knew it was another move concocted by JR. And Larry Hagman pulled of the great acting feat of appearing both sympathetic and sincere when having dialog with other characters, as well as giving subtle and obvious cues to the audience that he was evil all the way through.

What a guy!

Okay, so not all the female characters were as multi-faceted. Sue Ellen (who I believe Mrs. Culture Vulture described as a tool) was forever an idiot, running back to JR each time. You'd think being put in a sanatarium, and being framed for shooting one's husband would be signs, but no. And yes, Pam had quite the stick up her ass much of the time (she only seemed to ever relax when Bobby was spanking her). And let's face it - Lucy was annoying and never really part of any major plot, unless it involved JR.

And it's true, that when Jim Davis (the actor who played Jock Ewing) died in 1981 from brain cancer, the show's direction focused solely on JR, which I think proved to be it's eventual downfall. A show can only focus on one character for so long before it becomes tiresome (this I recall from watching the show as a teenager).

But all in all, it really was the show that looking back, provided a true form of entertainment. And all this before the Internet, iPhones, Facebook, etc.

Sure many prime-time shows came afterwards, but it seems just about every major character is more a boy or girl, rather then a man or woman. And for all the money spent on the production, the writing, the stories, the dialog, and the acting fall flat. I'd even make the case that this extends not to just soap shows, but pretty much all television shows.

But for now, we're up to Dallas Season 7, and there's no let-up on the action and drama.

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Okay, I know I should be really spending more time blogging about the US 2010 Mid-Term Election results and their impact on the nation, or perhaps the latest Wikileaks relevation, and their impact.

Well yes they are important. Probably the impact of those will be long felt for very long time to come.

However, as a resident of Montreal, I think it only fair to take a moment and celebrate -

Alouettes pull off Grey Cup repeat

Ah yes. I know the CBC and TSN are Toronto-focused when it comes to sports. But it's hard to avoid focusing on Montreal when -  you know - a team wins the big prize.
 
So on that note, every one sing with me -
 

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai la tete

Je te plumerai la tete

Et la tte, et la tete

Alouette, Alouette

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai le nez

Je te plumerai le nez

Et le nez, et le nez

Alouette, Alouette

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai les yeux

Je te plumerai les yeux

Et les yeux, et les yeux

Alouette, Alouette

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai le cou

Je te plumerai le cou

Et le cou, et le cou

Alouette, Alouette

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai les ailes

Je te plumerai les ailes

Et les ailes, et les ailes

Alouette, Alouette

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai le dos

Je te plumerai le dos

Et le dos, et le dos

Alouette, Alouette

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai les pattes

Je te plumerai les pattes

Et les pattes, et les pattes

Alouette, Alouette

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Je te plumerai la queue

Je te plumerai la queue

Et la queue, et la queue

Alouette, Alouette

O-o-o-o-oh

Alouette, gentille Alouette

Alouette je te plumerai

Orcinus explains why most manufactured goods in the US come from China

I read this blog because he lays out reality in plain cold-sober English. This includes everything from tracking hate groups (and their connections to the right-wing in the US), immigration, global warming, you name it.

In a single post - he show how and why people find just about every manufactured good Americans purchase today is made in China.

Two words: Wall Street.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words - http://cdn.crooksandliars.com/files/vfs/2010/11/Manufacturing-Financial.JPG

Read it here.

Money, money, money. And lots of it ...

... if you're a corporation.



"Word that American businesses sucked in profits at an annualized pace of $1.66 trillion between July and September is certainly better than the alternative. Ditto, the wholly expected news that the economy grew faster than an initially reported 2 percent annual rate, reaching a still modest 2.5 percent. But none of this has translated into the sort of job growth that will be required to cut into an unemployment rate stuck at 9.6 percent. Worse, there is little reason to suspect it will anytime soon."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/23/corporate-profits-q3-2010-_n_787573.html

You have to wonder about the future viability of a society that prioritizes the health and welfare of a corporate non-human 'person' over actual human beings and their lives.

Another Korean War? Let's hope not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelling_of_Yeonpyeong

As if there isn't enough strife and violence in the world today.

Google, Android, Verizon, the US wireless market, and Net Neutrality

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/google-raises-the-white-flag-on-transforming-the-us-wireless-industry/41996?tag=nl.e539

So the dream of having a European-style wireless market in the US was dealt a big blow by Google and it's new Nexus S phone.

This commenter sums it up best -

The only force that can transform consumer markets... is consumers. When consumers become educated and stop accepting crap from vendors for their money, things may change. Unfortunately the consumer has been conditioned to believe that they have no say and no power. This is made abundantly clear when you look at any number of vertical markets...software and airlines spring immediately to mind.

Consumers have been led to believe that they have no alternative but to accept whatever level of treatment the industry deems appropriate. They don't understand that "market-driven economy" doesn't mean "business-driven economy". Consumers are the market, business is the entity that serves the market.

Google, in developing Android, provided a tool for business to serve the market. It is ultimately up to the consumer to vote with their pocketbook which vendors are serving the consumer best.

I fear that this venture will further erode the possibility of Net Neutrality ever becoming a viable reality in the United States. Till people come to fully understand and realize the implications of what's going on and respond, I see the Internet going the way of network television - another controlled corporate product distribution system.

TSA's and their new 'scanners'.

http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/these-events-took-place-roughly-between.html

Mr. Tyner is brave guy. I applaud him for refusing to let the TSA search him or be subjected to Joe Lieberman’s scanners. I certainly won't let them use that technology or grope me or my family.

That means people like me and my family will avoid flying. I doubt I'm the only person who feels that way. I wonder if the travel industry is paying attention, just before the holiday season?

I wonder if there are any exemptions for government employees/officials, or people who enter the airport via the VIP entrance?

So why is the TSA pushing a technology on the public that would violate an individual's civil liberties, plus result in having their privacy violated, on a technology that doesn't work (or the simply be groped)?

Could it be that one of the people involved with the scanner company happens to be former Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff?

Seems to me the group benefiting from all this is the Rapiscan Systems with a guarantee of profits and future upgrades courtesy from the TSA.

(h/t here, and here)

If you ever wondered why people in the United States continually vote against their better interests ...

... like for example not putting up much of a real fight on things like, health care, perhaps it's because a percentage of them are conditioned to believe it's not important.

Conditioned you (may) say - how?

Well ...

Often times, the organizations that conduct such operations can be traced back to the very health care insurance companies that want to keep things as they are.

Case in point -

http://www.prwatch.org/node/9591
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendell-potter/why-i-will-stay-far-away_b_780961.html

"Few Americans know what a central role the health-insurance industry played in the fear-mongering and anger-mongering campaign against the Democrats' original vision of reform, which included a "public option" that would have competed against private insurance companies and which President Obama said early in the debate was necessary to "keep insurers honest."


Insurers were able to kill the public option and weaken the reform bill, but it couldn't kill it. Despite conventional wisdom, insurers didn't want to kill it because the requirement that all Americans buy private coverage if they're not eligible for a public program like Medicare and Medicaid will ensure their profitability for years to come.

They do, however, want to weaken the bill further, which is why the industry funneled millions of policyholders' premiums this year into the campaigns of Republican candidates and round-the-clock advertising based on lies about the new reform law. "

And it's not like there isn't socialized healthcare in the US? The VA? When you hear some politician railing about the evils of socialized medicine (usually reading the insurance talking points) in the US, remember, that person has their health coverages handled and paid for the by the taxpayer.

Seriously, unless one has lived in a country where healthcare isn't tied your employer or the healthcare provider itself, people in the US have truly no idea how they are fucking themselves repeatedly out of something every person should have - good quality healthcare.

CBC asks: Who's the best NHL coach ever?

Process of elimination is the answer here.

First – eliminate people who weren’t good coaches. That's an obvious point, though it's no surprise that person is on there, considering the CBC is his fucking employer.

Second, eliminate any active coaches (because their careers are still a work in progress). Babcock is out.

Third, eliminate any coach who didn’t win a Stanley Cup. Gone are Neilson, Reay, and Quinn.

Fourth, I rule out any coaches who didn’t win at least four cups (i.e. repeated success). That leaves Irvin, Arbour, Bowman, Blake, Sather, and Imlach. Arbour, Imlach, and Sather’s success were with one team, so they are out. I would’ve eliminated Blake here, but his successes span more than ten years (plus he did win some cups as a player).

That leaves Irvin, Blake and Bowman. Irwin and Bowman both have long coaching careers, but Bowman has a better record of success, and Blake has won more cups. Since Irvin doesn’t match up to either individually, he’s out.

Finally we have Blake and Bowman. While Blake’s success is phenomenal, it was part of a dynasty, and all with one team. Bowman is really the guy who demonstrated repeated success over a long term, across many teams.

Scotty Bowman is the winner.

The coolest organizational chart, predating the 1980's!

Whenever I watched The Godfather, Part II, I always tried to pause it here to see this chart. I'm glad someone out there was able to find it.

On this day, Sesame Street debuted 41 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Street

Original run	November 10, 1969 – present

It largely died sometime in the 1990's sometime after Jim Henson's death.

It's amazing to me how a show I grew up on has changed so drastically in the last 20 years to become something I don't even recognize.

All the humor, wittiness, and sense of enjoyment is lost today on idiot characters like Elmo, Abby Cadabby, and Zoe, largely in a effort to market and Elmo's world is turning current toddlers into future morons.

ALERT: Corn Refiners out to dupe people about HFCS.

http://www.care2.com/causes/real-food/blog/hfcs-lobby-courts-mommybloggers-gets-spanked/

Are these people who bought into this HFCS crap really that fucking stupid?


The only thing that tops this is the pre-digested CRA comments that follow in zombie-like fashion.

Where the Internet is heading ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-brodsky/our-open-internet-under-s_b_774888.html

I fear the Internet is becoming more and more just a large controlled product distribution system, and less of an information superhighway.

SAW 3D

I'm a big fan of the SAW film series - the last one is to be out in theaters this Friday.

This survivor blog is really cool - http://survivorsofjigsaw.blogspot.com/

I'm also pleased to see a shot of one survivor.

Grow a pair and use 'em.

At a party awhile back, I overheard the husband of one of the battle-ax wives uttering the time-honored, vaginalized, emasculated phrases - "Happy wife, happy life."


What a fucking pussy.


Nothing says you are no sense of self-worth more than putting someone head of your because they have a different set of genitals than oneself.


Seriously, why do men do this to themselves? It's like a complete lack of self-respect. I have a theory, that often times, most men think (or are convinced) they cannot do any better in terms of attracting the opposite sex. And in doing so, they reveal that sort of thinking is what limits where they can go, more than anything else.


This also applies to success in life. I think what Tom Leykis has stated is quite true today, that women often times sabatoge or deliberatedly set out to make things as difficult as possible for a man to be successful. I find in North American society, women generally don't want their men to be successful because it reduces they hold they have over them.


What fucking bullshit. I can't respect any woman who'd do that to me. I can't respect any man who let's their wife do that to them. But I do respect a man who learns from that experience and sets out to stand up for themselves, their kids and continues through to become successful for not just themselves, but their families too.

“Any man can win when things go his way, it's the man who overcomes adversity that is the true champion.”

(spoken by Jock Ewing, fictional character from the American television series Dallas).

DAVE REICHERT - an fucking embarassment to Washington State.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2010-10-20/news/reichert-not-familiar-with-much-debated-glass-steagall-act/

Any person who does not know the Glass-Steagall Act and the effect it's repeal had on the economy has no place in Congress. It's people like Dave Reichert with their stupidity and blissful ignorance (and the morons who vote them into office) that will cause things like this to happen again in the future.

Stupidity is most dangerous when backed by power.

Question: "I agree with you that overregulation is not a good thing, but do you think that they should reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act and at least separate the banks' ability to gamble with our money?"

Reichert's response: "Well, the Glass-Steagall Act is one that I'm not familiar with. I'm sorry I have to go back and look at that, but I do agree it's something that we haven't dealt with on the House side in committees that I've had, so I'd be happy to look at that and come back and give you an answer on that."

Seriously, what value does he offer to his constituents? Has he really been serving them well when he cannot even remember basic history? Does he not remember the last three years? Probably not - he's been spending too much of his time talking about how he captured the Green River killer (here's a clue - he did not.).

Well if Reichert is too dumb to learn about history, or too lazy to look it up, Wikipedia offers a great synopsis -

The Banking Act of 1933 was a law that established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in the United States and introduced banking reforms, some of which were designed to control speculation.[1] It is most commonly known as the Glass–Steagall Act, after its legislative sponsors, Carter Glass and Henry B. Steagall.



The repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 effectively removed the separation that previously existed between Wall Street investment banks and depository banks and has been blamed by some for exacerbating the damage caused by the collapse of the subprime mortgage market that led to the Financial crisis of 2007–2010. The potential to make enormous profits trading mortgage-backed securities with artificially high ratings encouraged banks to take on otherwise intolerable risk in the form of bad loans. The ease with which people were obtaining home loans contributed to an artificial housing boom and exacerbated the inevitable decline.


To those people it the 8th district still thinking it's a wise idea to put Reichert back in Congress - think again, think hard, and think carefully about the risk in doing so.

Then please cast a vote for his opponent - Suzan DelBene.

http://www.delbeneforcongress.com/?id=1

WordPress and Microsoft: how to lose customers.

I had a family blog, and recently migrated it from one service to another.

Or so I thought.

It was advertised as being able to migrate the whole blog - which in our case was posts, lists, and photos. It turns out not all the blog got migrated over. The part the readers cared about the most (the photo albums) didn't get moved over. Or actually, the photo albums are not viewable in the blog.

So I did some research on the new company's support page, and came across some interesting exchanges -


pengparic


September 28th, 2010 at 8:25 am


Hi, I really really regret that I moved — all my albums disappeared!!! I know now I can only check the photos at live.photo, but I REALLY DONT LIKE THIS WAY! Is there a way for me to return to windows live? Can you help me stop the redirection on my domain address?!!!!!!!!


You guys didn’t say anything about the album and this is unacceptable!! I need help!!



Ryan Markel


September 28th, 2010 at 3:11 pm


Photo albums are not moved as part of the migration because they weren’t actually part of your blog on Windows Live Spaces—they were a completely different service.


Because Windows Live Spaces will be closing permanently at the end of the upgrade window, the change to WordPress.com is likewise permanent and cannot be reversed.






If you’d like to learn how you can add photo galleries to your WordPress.com site, you can read here.


Spoken like a developer, not a customer or end-user.



As far as a customer goes, when my folks typed in our family blog URL they used to be able to see photo albums right there in the blog (in the form of a preview widget). Customer don't care if photos are a different web service - they were happy seeing the pictures in one place.

And that's what WordPress doesn't get - they may have been different Microsoft services, but to our familes and friends, they are a single integrated customer experience. Perhaps they should've paid more attention to that, instead of blindly assuming people don't care about having to go now to multiple places for content.

This is what happens when businesses don't pay attention to the customer experience.

Maybe they expected people to just buckle down and accept. Maybe they expected people to complain about it. Maybe they figure a small group of people will just leave.

Maybe they just don't care.

I understand that if customers wanted to see more, they could click it (which would launch into the photo site) but that's not the point.

I understand that because I know a thing or two about how these services are built.

If these Microsoft and WordPress folks were smart(er), they could've worked in migration the photo widget piece into the WordPress blogging technology as part of the migration. I'm guesssing if the idea was floated around, some development manager/lead dismissed it as costly and not worth doing (probably didn't occur to them that such a idea could serve as a viable took in enticing customers to stay with the WordPress service. The widget itself could've been updated later to reflect how WordPress does their photo uploads. Or customers could have a choice on how they want their photos to appear in the blog).

Planning along those lines would've gone a long way to ensure a smoother migration and better customer experience (and eventually customer retention).



But no. Not WordPress. Not Microsoft.



Here's another commenter -

ahteem


September 30th, 2010 at 11:02 pm






I’m also very disappointed that none of my photo albums have migrated. The process for inserting galleries in WordPress not only seems long winded, the end result seems neither very user-interactive nor aesthetically pleasing. Stupid me I guess for having assumed that the description claiming that “all photos” would be moved actually meant all photos.


I am, quite frankly, absolutely gutted to have migrated – irreversibly, it would seem – and to have lost the integrated photo-text platform that MSN Spaces offered.



I could not have said it better. What a way to lose customers.

Ray Ozzie leaving Microsoft - what does that mean?

http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/225271.asp

Ray was a tech-driven guy, in a role where he was supposed to be a visionary. But without the business acumen or executive backing, I think he was doomed to fail. I don't think it's a role any one person can play anymore.

That doesn't mean it's not needed. Thinking, planning, and executing are at the heart of any successful business, and vision is the starting point.


Some may think Bill Gates should come back, but I don't really see him being anymore successful. Maybe on the executive and business area, but wasn't Gates the guy who missed the Internet in the first place because of his focus on Windows?


Two things I wonder about -

1) What role did the MS Presidents play in ousting him, if any?

2) I read somewhere that Ozzie was one of the few outsiders Bill Gates showed the original Windows code to way back when. I also read that the first Windows Product Manager was none other than Steve Ballmer. I wonder what kind of relationship Ballmer and Ozzie had and whether there was any tension?

In any case, that the role isn't being filled I think speaks volumes about the direction the company is taking.

Legislating culture - and how to bring about its inevitable end.

As some may know, I was born and raised in another country. I lived in Canada for over 25 years. Je suis fier de s'appeler un citoyen de Montréal.  Much of my adult life however has been spent in the States.



One of the reasons I left Canada was taking advantage of economic opportunity in the field I was working in. The opportunities in IT were greater in the US.


But I had another reason for leaving.


I left Quebec because I couldn’t stand all the endless fighting over language, education and culture.


More than 10 years out, and it doesn’t look like anything has really changed.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/10/19/quebec-bill115-language-103.html  


Look I get that Francophones in Quebec don’t want their heritage, culture and language to disappear. And yes I can see that it’s tough living on a continent where the English language dominates.


What they don’t see, is that English is not just the dominating language in North America, but at present, pretty much the whole world.


When are people going to finally wake up and realize when you try to legislate, language and education in order to restrict one culture in favor of another, you’re already past the point of decline? When honoring the past becomes more important than living in the present and planning for the future, everyone loses.

Stupidiocy - and some illustrated examples.

Some people do or say stupid things. Some people are idiots (i.e. morons).
Often times there is a correlation between the two, as it's possible there are people who do or say stupid things, and are idiots.

I would call them 'stupidiots'. What they do is stupidiotic.

Here's an example observed in North Bend this past weekend -

Yes, this is an example of a stupid person (WA license plate A23489Z drivng a Chevy gas guzzler) doing something extremely idiotic - parking a large vehicle in four parking spots. Talk about having a big ass and letting the whole world know one has one. It's one thing to not fit a GM vehicle in one parking stall. But to take up four - that's quite an accomplishment.

Please help me in congratulating the driver (WA license plate A23489Z drivng a Chevy gas guzzler) in providing the first public example (but certainly not the last) of stupidiocy!

Commentary: Microsoft job cuts - part of a bigger problem? Part III – further analysis.

It seems as though 'Mini-Microsoft' appears to be coming down from the high that he claimed was the recent Microsoft Employee meeting.

Regarding this - http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2010/10/case-of-microsoft-downgrade-blues.html and some of the comments flying about, led me to think up the following.



While I definitely concur about Goldman Sachs' motives, I think that's a separate discussion.



The basis of what's coming out in their report however, I think is largely on-track.


Why Mini would be fighting it so much is anyone's guess. Where could such a reaction orginate from? As someone who worked at MS for a number of years, I think I can make an educated guess, based on what I've observed.



1) All the repeated daily (even hourly) exposure to all the code, technology, and people immersed in it, I think leads many Blue Badges to believe that on some level up (likely Mr. Ballmer and Mr. Gates) ... someone ... has a visionary master plan that leads and ties products, services, strategies, business deliverables and so forth, that will prove all the naysayers wrong (i.e. "this code is so cool, look at what it can do! we rule!!!! billg and steveb just know!!")


In many ways, it's almost like code is a religion at Microsoft, in that a lot of smart people suspend their ability to observe and see reality. If you don't worship at the alter of code, you're not really part of Microsoft.




Anyways back to that 'plan' ...



Years ago, that plan largely revolved around Windows (and eventually Office) and that master plan came from Bill Gates' head. It may not have been documented somewhere, but it was articulated on some level and executed upon. We can argue about whether it was ‘innovative’ or not (I think from a business perspective, it was pretty visionary of Gates to see tying the O/S and the Desktop GUI to the PC).


But that was then.


Today's products, services, etc. require a much more complex and integrated visionary master plan, but a plan nonetheless. That requires a lot of thinking, research and planning, but most important, it really requires an understanding of what one's products do (or can do).

Only the top executives (and perhaps the board of directors) know if such a thing exists and whether they are on track. Right now and for the last 10 years, I think the consensus has been that such a thing does not. I think most people (including those at MS) are finally finding out that Mr. Ballmer has been very good at keeping the company’s two main sources of revenue going, but that’s all.


And more crucially... I think people are finding out that really what he's been doing all along for the last 10 years  is simply executing on the original plan.


The proof is the amount of money that's been spent and the poor results achieved in just about every other market/business. While I would agree that many of the technologies are in and of themselves cool, interesting, useful (perhaps even potentially profitable), as long as they are tied back to Windows and/or Office they will never be really successful (SQL Server is a perfect example - great technology, wonderful innovations. Will never be able to compete or ever be as successful against Oracle because it only functions on Windows.The entire mobile/digital platform is another).

So, how does this tie back to reactions from people who work there?


2) People there spend so much time with their noses and minds in code, that I think they get sucked into a mentality that since they view everything as code, so should everyone else, including their partners, competitors, market analysts, and yes their customers. And that view exists, even when said product or service or whatever goes wrong.


The problem is, not everyone wants to be a developer.

Many if not most customers don't see code.

They see a product or service as a solution to a problem.

If the product doesn't solve the problem, then it doesn't work.


Not everyone wants to spend time going into the Windows registry, or updating a config file. Not everyone thinks that they should have to constantly go into the Control Panel and check if a codec is correctly installed to view that file in Windows Media Player that worked a month ago – only to find out that it doesn’t, and the Microsoft overwrote the codec, and no longer supports it, and no longer gives a fuck whether it bothers you.


When a customer is paying to use a product or service (whether through money, but also time, energy, effort), said customer's experience is to expect things to work … correctly ... each and every time.

 

Why is that important?

So they can get on with their lives.

Customers don't live and breath code.

Customers aren't developers. People in general have things to do.

And when it doesn’t work, when they have to spend time, and effort in understanding why something was done by Microsoft only to realize that they are not going to be helped - > inevitably what happens is, not only to they turn to a competitor (that’s what used to happen).


Given the breath of technology available on the Internet these days, some of these customers actually find themselves saying to themselves –


“I don’t need to turn to Microsoft or someone else.”

“I can do this myself.”

The customer then becomes a competitor.

Think I'm joking? This happened at IBM (SAP was founded by a number of ex-IBM employees).

I think one will find much of that both the old view (anger and turning to some competitor) and the new view (becoming a competitor itself) taking place.

....


Combine these two issues (poor or non-existant modern visionary plan beyond Windows and Office; and an inability to really see and measure the customer experience) and I'd say it's all finally catching up with Microsoft now.

The Goldman Sachs report is really the 'conventional wisdom of the market' finally catching up.

Time will tell what that will really mean to Microsoft's leadership, shareholders, employees, partners and so forth. But I'd say, unless the company's leadership suddenly pulls out this master visionary plan and shows they can act on it and deliver results (or perhaps someone comes in to truly re-invent the company, re-organize them and move in a new direction), well ... I think more layoffs will come, but I think things will go deeper than that.

Microsoft won't disappear (no one sitting on billions of dollars of cash just disappears), but really the decline started long ago and barring any sudden changes, they are on a path to irrelevance; and an inevitable end.



UPDATE: Looks like things are moving already (http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/224089.asp):


Microsoft employees must contribute to health care in 2013



Microsoft held a "surprise town hall" meeting this morning to discuss the "evolution" of its U.S. employee benefits, requiring Blue Badges to contribute to their health-care plans starting in 2013.

Personally I don't think private companies should be in the business of managing their employees' health coverage (through benefits), but that also is a separate subject of discussion.

For now, from a business perspective, I'd say this probably isn't the best way for Microsoft to be retaining Employees.