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.

Have you had this problem before? Getting people to listen to what you say.

For most - if not all - of my life, I've had this problem.

People never seem to ever listen to what I say. Almost every single person I've ever met (to the point that I've known them enough to call them by their first name) has at one point basically ignored something I've said, when I've made a sincere attempt to be honest and forthright.

I've been trying to understand why.

And it seems every person I've ever known in my life has treated me this way. It's like the only person in my life who ever listens to me, is myself.

Think I'm going off the deep-end? Here is a recent example ...

Some months ago, the team I'm working on was spending time setting up a system, in order to see how it worked. The plan was to spend some hours learning about how the system could be configured, set up the system per one of the configurations, then run a test to verify things worked.


So the team picked a configuration, based on our understanding of the things to set up. While doing so, one thing contained a missing field. I noted this. I was given a polite smile by most of the group, and things continued. We got to our tests, and things didn't work.


Again, I referred to back to that missing field. I suggested that we should try and figure out why this field was missed, as the instructions said it needed to be filled. My reasoning was that since we set up everything else, filling in this field should be the only reason why the test didn't work.


Apparently my verbal suggestion was ignored, because the team spent the next two hours looking at every other field and parameter in the system. And yet still the test failed.


Finally, one of the functional analysts looked back at one of the configurations and noted that a field was missing (would you care to guess? Yes it was the field I had mentioned only for the last half-day). Someone else then instantaneouly suggested that we figure out why this field was missing, as it could be the reason why the test didn't work.


The field was checked, it got filled in. The test worked. That someone else was lauded for their quick thinking.

(Almost by instinct, I felt my eyes roll upward)

....

Don't get me wrong, this isn't about adulation, or the sort. It was about avoiding wasting time looking at the problem from every possible angle, except perhaps the one place where something was missing. Yet somehow when I said it, it wasn't listened to. It wasn't until some time later when someone else mentioned it, that it was looked at and determined to be the problem.

And on the way home, I kept asking myself - why didn't anyone listen to me when I said it? Is it because I was the only non-white person? No, because there were a lot of non-white people where I worked, and none of them seem to ever have a problem. Is it because I was the youngest one on the team? Possibly, but also because I was the least knowledgable about the product. On the other hand, I went through the same instructions they did. Is it because I worked in a different part of the team (the team consisted of two developers, and two analysts. I was the only QA person)? Part of my job is to follow instructions carefully, in order to get a specific result, and to be able to reproduce results when they go wrong. That whole 'attention to detail' part of me.

Maybe I have a volume issue - maybe I speak for too long that some think it babble or double-talk?

Could it be something in my face?

Anyways that was from awhile ago. I'm no longer there, as I felt it better to live and work some place where I'm happier. Maybe in time I'll learn what the secret to getting someone's attention is ...

Wall Street profits and overall economic health.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/corporate-profits_n_748889.html

"Profits for companies in the S&P 500 soared 38 percent from the same period last year, hitting $189 billion ..."

(source article: WSJ)

 They did this not be earning more revenue (emphasis mine) ...

"Since 2008, corporate profits increased 10 percent -- but revenue was down 6 percent, the WSJ says. To achieve the impressive quarterly results, companies have had, as the WSJ puts it, to "streamline" their operations. This means firing workers, outsourcing labor and shuttering unprofitable (or less profitable) divisions."

And then there's this -

"All these corporate profits came as the country as a whole got poorer. The net worth of households and non-profits dropped 2.8 percent during the second quarter to $53.5 trillion, erasing two quarters of gains. The figure hadn't been that low since the third quarter of 2009."

So can we agree once and for all that corporate health and overall national economic health are NOT the same same? Trickle-down has always been a myth, and the proof is here.