Hmmm, what to write about…
There is so much going on in the world I can't decide. I'm currently stuck on a meataphor for the total catastrophe that awaits XOM shareholders this year so I'm shelving that article until inspiration strikes me and I'm still not confident enough to buy Google calls but that article is already written and waiting for the right target prices to firm up.
Sending 30,000 more troops to Iraq 1,000 of whom will statistically die (assuming things don't get worse) is stuff I will leave to other writers. We couldn't even get Saddam's execution done right (as if making him a martyr was the right move anyway) and I'm ashamed to live in a country run by people who didn't think hanging a human being would play poorly on YouTube!
I predicted this would happen on October 8th when I said (regarding war videos on YouTube at the time): "How much do you think the people are prepared to take? While we were momentarily angered by images from Abu Ghraib, times have changed, and still images just don't capture the imagination the way videos do." Apparently the Arab world wan't prepared to take images of Saddam being insulted by Shi'ite guards on the way to the gallows – who'd have thunk?
Strangely, the Bush White House rarely calls me to discuss policy decisions even though the current score on making good policy calls is me 327, team Bush 3 – but hey, they've got 2 more years! Of course I don't feel bad about it as they don't listen to the Iraq Study Group either who recommnended:
- Withdraw troops by early 2008
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Initiate a new diplomatic policy
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include serious talks with Syria and Iran
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- Change course with the Iraqi government
- Create economic incentives to rebuild Iraq for ALL people, not just Shiites
All this goes into Bush's brain and comes out: "Send more troops – but not enough to make a difference."
Oh sorry, I said I wasn't going to get into that… Damn newspapers with their front pages – always throwing silly world events right in my face – no wonder they're losing market share to Google, who only tells us what we ask it!
So don't worry, be happy and let's move on to all the cool stuff I've been looking at…
I'm now sorry I'm not going to the CES show this year as I just HAVE GOT to see if this is real: http://www.getpicop.com/locker.html . My inner geek is just dying to have a chat with these guys and I want to thank the always interesting FlyonWallStreet for bringing this cool tech to my attention.
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Note to Howard Stern: I know what's wrong with your show – it's vulgar! I know that may seem kind of obvious to some of you but I was, and still am, a huge Howard Stern fan but I can't listen to his show anymore when I'm around people. The lack of censorship has allowed the show to sink to a level of sex and profanity that used to be funny when left to the imagination but has become embarrassing when described in graphic detail. You can't even risk rolling down you window at a toll plaza with Howard's show on the radio anymore.
I was hoping he'd grow out of it after having some fun saying F*ck a few thousand times but, apparently, the novelty hasn't worn off for Stern but it has for Sirius subscribers, who are deactivating at a rate that is increasing twice as fast as subscriptions are increasing! Deactivations for Q2 were 230K vs. 66K (up 350%) in Q205 while subscriptions grew to 830K from 432K (less than 50%). While an army of sycophants may whisper in Howard's ear that this is OK and still represents a net gain – I like him too much not to tell him the truth!
They are still outperforming XM, who lost 528,000 subscribers in Q2 alone and who's additions are actually dropping but this isn't about beating XM, it's about Howard getting back to doing a show that made him a national sensation. It's hard to be the "Bad Boy of Radio" when the radio you're on gives you carte blanche to say and do whatever you want.
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Remember Amnesty International?
If you’re my age you probably went to one of their huge concerts in the 80s or at least bought the record. Bono just got knighted for his charitable works, which began with U2 Amnesty Concerts. Back then the bad guys were Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, today they are taking on two other repressive regimes: George Bush and Google!
Amnesty is spearheading a huge international campaign to pressure the US to adhere to the rules of the Geneva Conventions regarding the treatment of prisoners at home and abroad. I know, I know, we're not at war so we can treat "detainees" any damn way we want.
Cheney, called Amnesty a ''highly politicized pressure group'' whose latest accusations ''amount to pro-al Qaeda propaganda.'' Gee and I had such a good time at Live Aid…
Oops, sorry, that was politics again – can't help it it's all over these darned papers!
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The NY Times has moved to my side of the table on the dollar but, so far, does not credit the Roach Motel Theory!
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PC Magazine, on the other hand, has to go and shoot down my space elevator post from my December report! Well I’m sure if in 1950 you would have asked the same group about mobile phones, the Internet, Ipods and TIVO by 2000 they would have laughed those out of the room too!
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Speaking of the Internet here is a truly epic map of the Internet that I call “Gibson’s Dream” as he referred to the Internet, in it’s very early stages as “A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.” Some other quotes from Gibson are:
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…the street finds its own uses for things.
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The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet.
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Emergent technology is, by its very nature, out of control, and leads to unpredictable outcomes
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Why shouldn't we give our teachers a license to obtain software, all software, any software, for nothing? Does anyone demand a licensing fee, each time a child is taught the alphabet?
Things like this (the map) reassure me when I think about why I keep buying into this web thing – it's not a fad, it's a whole new universe we have become a part of and we are just now beginning to explore the very edges of it.
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What kind of superhero are you?
Turns out I’m 75% Superman and 60% Green Lantern!
http://www.thesuperheroquiz.com/
There's also a villain quiz at: http://www.thesuperheroquiz.com/villain/ but the results on that were inconclusive for me as I had a lot of 45s and nothing over 50 – I guess I have to work on my evil side…
