Brilliant movie, must watch:

Via gruber.

So Obama says that his healthcare package deserves an up or down vote. But no vote has been called. Mostly because they don’t have the votes in the house for the Senate bill.

So I say the Republicans should call their bluff. Why give them time to twist arms and dole out favors? Demand the vote NOW. And watch them lose.

Moreover, if you’re a Democrat in the House caught in the middle of this mess, you must be pissed at Pelosi for putting you there, and for not telling Obama that it’s time to move on. So why not give those House members the opportunity to tell Pelosi to move on? There are 255 Democrats in the House, with 216 needed to vote for passage. Why not say to the 40 or so members who are going to vote no on this or who are on the fence, “Look it, we’ll support you in an effort to replace Pelosi. Join with us and we’ll oust her tomorrow, and we’ll support your effort to make Steny Hoyer the new speaker!” From all I’ve read about how much of an autocrat she is as speaker, I suspect that rank and file Democrats would relish the opportunity to throw her out.

So I say make your move. Strike now, while they don’t have the votes.

last day

Addictive game. Found here.

So this Orca whale killed his trainer at Sea World, in front of a crowd of guests, while performing a show. So let’s say an audience member was armed, and unloaded his weapon into the whale, killing it, sparing the life of the trainer.

Would said guest be charged with a crime?

So my wife and I are considering buying bento boxes to pack lunches with us for work. It’s part of an effort to save money and eat better. In any event, we’ve been looking at the Zojirushi Bento Boxes on Amazon, which look really nice. I’ve been looking at the Mr. Bento box, for which it turns out, there is a Flickr photo group where enthusiasts post photos of their amateur bento creations. Most of them are rather ordinary lunches, though occasionally you get something that looks like a true work of art. But even the ordinary lunches are noteworthy for their attempt at doing some honest culinary artistry, for attempting to emulate the Japanese bento tradition to the best of their abilities.

One poster, though, seems to be, well, I’m not even sure how to put it in one word. Her bento boxes seem to be an utter misunderstanding of what bento is supposed to be all about. It’s reminiscent of a cargo cult, where this woman had a bento box land in her backyard, and proceeded to stuff it with things that do not qualify as artistry, good food, or even home cooking. Let’s peruse a few of her boxes.

I’m just providing links because the photos are not licensed under creative commons.

I’m going to start with a bento box that DorothySH apparently packed for her husband. Let’s begin by stating unequivocally that McDonalds pies do NOT belong anywhere near a bento box. But honestly, that pales in comparison to a nauseating looking bowl of ham salad which appears to come from a can. Of course, a side of spicy pork rinds is included. At least she packed a pear for something healthy.

Here’s an exciting gross lunch featuring wilted lettuce that’s turning brown, McDonald’s BBQ Sauce, factory made chicken nuggets, Baybel cheese, and most amazingly, a Hello Kitty salad dressing container. I think I find the Hello Kitty accessories that appear in many of her photos to be the most disturbing of all. She obviously isn’t completely unaware of Japanese culture. It can’t be that she just picked up a bento box figuring it was a neat-o lunchbox. Could she?

Let’s continue. Today’s meal consists of an English muffin, a grotesque unidentifiable blob that is apparently meat loaf, a red potato, some sort of Jello fruit cup, and white bread wrapped in cellophane. This is accompanied by a pack of Smucker’s jelly, two packages of McDonald’s ketchup, two packages of sweet relish, and unbelievably, three whole packages of something from KFC called, “Buttery Spread“. I shudder to think what might be contained in a package labeled, “Buttery Spread“, regardless of which one has to imagine that surely the diner in question could make do with fewer than three packages of the stuff.

There’s more you can flip through, a lot more. I began to wonder if maybe this woman wasn’t playing some sort of joke, putting together intentionally bad bento boxes in order to get reactions out of people. But she’s a prolific poster, and not all of her boxes look inedible. And even stranger is that the comments aren’t even negative. I think she’s for real.

Maybe I should buy her a cookbook on making bento boxes.

Sent this to my representative again. Hopefully we can get something done about this:

Representative,

It’s been six months since I first wrote to you regarding the changes made to Storrow Drive. It is still a backed up and gnarled mess. The right hand lane is a parking lot all the way back past the Fiedler bridge every night and at the Fenway exits, lots of people cut in randomly rather than wait in the long lone, which is incredibly dangerous. Taxis seem to be the worst offenders, but regardless of who’s doing it, it’s dangerous and causes the right lane to get further backed up.

The DCR told you they would have this under review for six months, and you thought that was a long time to wait. You said you would ask some hard questions. On October 27, you told me they would be adding new signage and paint to get people to switch over earlier. You also said:

Clearly, it’s not working by any reasonable criteria. I think the question is how long should the engineers be permitted to play with it.

I’ll be looking for a more formal response — so for it has all been informal.

So given that the DCR’s own timeline to make this work within 6 months is up, what is the next step?

I should also point out that in the DCR’s own public presentations asking for money to revamp Storrow Drive, this lane change was NEVER included for public review. See here [PDF]. It seems that they just did this without seeking legislative approval from those who use Storrow Drive on a daily basis. People buy houses and decide where to live based on their understanding of traffic and how the roads works. That is why these things are normally given a full public airing and disclosed well in advance of their implementation. That fact that this wasn’t just makes the change all the more offensive.

Thank you for your continued attention to this matter. I should tell you that being in touch with other citizens who are upset about this, citizens from other legislative districts, I really do appreciate the personal response you’ve given this matter.

All the best,

-Rob Sama

Wow, it’s depressing to count down the years. I’m turning into some kind of fogey.

So it was 7 years ago today that the samaBlog was born. I have no idea whether or not all of this was worth it or just a colossal waste of time. Probably the latter.

Cowardice, in general terms, is the perceived failure to demonstrate sufficient robustness in the face of a challenging situation. … wikipedia

I’m not even sure where to begin here. I’m just going to go stream of consciousness. A hit and run is when someone operating a motor vehicle hits a pedestrian with his car, and then flees the scene. The hit and run driver may have intended to hit the pedestrian, or it may have been accidental. But what unites all hit and run drivers is their cowardice; their fear of being held to account, of being made to stand in judgment for what they have done.

So too does our political class, exhibit much the same traits. Except with the political class the hit is almost always intentional. It’s just that most hits don’t get noticed. They’re narrowly focuses hits, designed to harm one unfavored group to support a crony. Most people don’t even notice it happening. And so when re-election time rolls around, the politician is not made to answer for anything he has done. The people vote to re-elect because he’s that nice, familiar, handsome face they’ve known for so long.

It’s only when the politician tries a hit on EVERYONE that the people wake up, take notice, and realize what’s been going on. It is then that scrutiny is applied to the politician, and that the people realize what rotten, thieving scumbags their elected class is filled with. It is then that they are motivated to pass judgment upon, to condemn, to send packing their elected leaders.

And of course, it is precisely at such a time, that the coward announces his retirement.

With the passage of the stimulus package, the purchase of General Motors, the attempted takeover of our health care industry, today’s political class has attempted the equivalent of not hitting a single pedestrian crossing the street, but plowing through a schoolyard full of playing children. They know they’ve been spotted behind the wheel, and that their constituents thirst justice. But they choose to drive off into the sunset. They dare not stand in judgment for what they have wrought.

And so it is time to call the cowards out, one by one, and pronounce judgment upon them here, in the public square of the Internet. For if we are denied the opportunity to show them the door, then the least we can do is verbally tar and feather the bastards while they happily show themselves the door.

Chris Dodd, CT

You, sir, are a thieving corrupt scumbag who is more responsible for our current economic predicament than anyone else on this list. That you, of all people, should choose not to run for re-election is an act of cowardice in the extreme. And to think you thought you were presidential material… I AM CALLING YOU OUT AS A COWARD!

Byron Dorgan, ND

YOU ARE A SPINELESS SNIVELING COWARD!!! THAT SENATE HEALTHCARE BILL IS ALL YOURS! RUN FOR RE-ELECTION AND ANSWER FOR WHAT YOU’VE DONE!!!

Roland Burris, IL

YOU’RE NOT A REAL SENATOR!!! YOU’RE A SEAT WARMER, BUT THAT DIDN’T STOP YOU FROM VOTING FOR THAT ATROCITY OF A HEALTH CARE BILL!!! STAND FORTH AND BE JUDGED, YOU COWARD!!!!!

Ted Kaufman/Beau Biden, DE

YOU TWO DISGUST ME!!! KAUFMAN, YOU TOO ARE A SEAT WARMER, YOU LOSER!!! AND BIDEN, YOU DECIDED TO NOT RUN FOR RE-ELECTION BEFORE YOU WERE EVEN ELECTED!!! THAT’S A WHOLE NEW LEVEL OF COWARDICE!!! STAND FORTH AND BE JUDGED ON THE HEALTHCARE ATROCITY THE TWO OF YOU SUPPORT!!!

Evan Bayh, IN

YOU ARE A DANDY BOY COWARD!!! YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD RUN FOR PRESIDENT BECAUSE YOU’RE GOOD LOOKING LIKE JOHN EDWARDS!!! WELL YOU’RE A COWARD LIKE HIM TOO!!! STAND FORTH AND BE JUDGED ON THE HEALTHCARE BILL YOU WEASELLY FRIGGING COWARD!!!

William Delahunt, MA, Venezuela

YOU FUCKING DISGUSTING SCUMBAG, PALLING AROUND WITH THAT THUG IN VENEZUELA (PELOSI’S WORDS, NOT MINE)!!! YOU’RE SCARED SHITLESS NOW THAT SCOTT BROWN GOT ELECTED, AND YOU SHOULD BE!!! YOU SUED YOUR WAY INTO “WINNING” YOUR FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PRIMARY, YOU VACATION IN SWINGER’S RESORTS, AND YOU LET MURDERERS LOOSE SO THEY COULD KILL AGAIN! EVERYONE IS WATCHING NOW, AND THEY KNOW WHAT KIND OF A SCUMBAG YOU ARE, SO STAND FORTH AND BE JUDGED, YOU COWARD!!!!!

Patrick “Patches” Kennedy, RI

YOU DRUNK FUCKING DOUCHEBAG!!! HOW DARE YOU CALL SCOTT BROWN’S ELECTION A JOKE!!! THE ONLY JOKE I SEE IS YOU EVER HAVING BEEN TREATED SERIOUSLY AS A HUMAN BEING, LET ALONE A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES!!! YOU TOO, ARE SCARED OF SCOTT BROWN, AS WELL YOU SHOULD BE! STAND FORTH AND BE JUDGED YOU SLIMY ALCOHOLIC COWARD!!!!!

Bart Gordon, TN

YOU, SIR, ARE A GOOFY LOOKING COWARD!!!

John Tanner, TN

COWARD!!!

Brian Baird, WA

YOU MAY HAVE BEEN GIVEN A PASS ON VOTING FOR THE HEALTHCARE BILL BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULDN’T BE JUDGED, YOU COWARD!!!

Dennis Moore, KS

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS??? IT’S REPRESENTATIVE DENIS MOORE, YOU COWARD!!!

Diane Watson, CA

COWARD!!!

Vic Snyder, AR

YOU LOOK LIKE ROB ENDERLE OR SOME SLEAZY USED CAR SALESMAN!!! YOU ARE A COWARD!!!

Marion Berry, AR

HEALTH PROBLEMS MY ASS!!! TELL IT TO BOB BYRD!!! THE ONLY HEALTH PROBLEM YOU HAVE IS THAT STUPID HEALTHCARE BILL YOUR PARTY LEADERSHIP WANTS YOU TO PASS, YOU COWARD!!!

Wow, am I angry or what? I actually think this commenter at Gateway Pundit hit the nail on the head:

They are trying to make the anti-incumbent sentiment dissipate. Cant let the message be lost, “no matter what democrat it is, they suck!!”

Sing it loud, brother!

UPDATE: Forgot to mention, I’m already taking bets on whether or not Obama is a coward…

UPDATE 2: Apparently, Mikulski is next.

This is my new favorite music video. It has everything that makes a music video worth watching. I recommend watching again and again and again. I will be.

So by electing a new President, who prostrated himself in front of a Saudi Monarch, offered to hold unconditional talks with the theocracy in Iran, told the Israelis to stop all settlement expansion, and apologized for everything the United States has ever done in Cairo, the muslim world likes us, right?

Of course not. Today Iran announced they are a nuclear state. But sometimes, pictures speak louder than words.

Hope and change. Say it with me now…

So Google Buzz is opt-out and not opt-in. So you have to turn it off, but that’s only after it starts sharing crap with everyone you’ve ever exchanged an email with. Mainly, it announces to the world who you chat and email with the most (link, link and link). That’s PRIVATE information. At a minimum, you have to go into your settings and adjust your privacy settings. But you’re probably better off scrolling down to the bottom of your screen and turning the whole damned thing off.

And that doesn’t even bring up that Buzz doesn’t work with Firefox, and breaks all sorts of other functionality in Gmail. Gee, THANKS GOOGLE!

I guess Steve Jobs had a point when he said that Google’s slogan, “Don’t Be Evil” was bullshit. It most certainly is.

So you’ve undoubtedly heard about the Macmillan/Amazon spat over eBook pricing. And you may have read John Scalzi’s snide play about how tough life would be for writers without publishers. And today, the CEO of Penguin has an op-ed in the WSJ on the subject as well. I think they’re all kind of missing the point.

Traditionally, publishing and retailing were distinct enterprises, with separate margins. Publishers would print up large numbers of copies of books which would then be sent to retailers for sale. Invariably, excess books would be printed, which then needed to be destroyed. The cost of printing, hauling, and destroying all those books was enormous, not to mention the capital costs of both the printing operation and the retailer. Because all of these costs were simply too high to be borne by a writer, writers would seek publishers to print and distribute their work.

Because the cost was so high up front to publish, publishers would make every effort to carefully screen the books they would choose to take on. They couldn’t publish any old crap out there because the cost would be prohibitive. In fact, there still exists an enormous imbalance between publisher and author. Publishers demand authors secure for themselves agents, who take a cut of what the author gets of course. Said agents act as a screening device for publishers, aiding the publisher from having to sort through volumes of junk to get to the good stuff.

I would posit that in a world of electronic publishing, where the marginal cost of producing an extra copy of anything is exactly zero, there ought to be no difference between a publisher and a retailer, and that the agency model should disappear entirely. In such a world, prices for books ought to come down enormously.

The CEO of Penguin attempts to argue that since the cost of a book is only 10% of its price, that that’s the only discount that ought to be available for electronic publishing. I have no idea if his 10% number includes printing and destroying the volumes of books that don’t sell, but clearly those costs go away too. Marketing costs wouldn’t completely go away of course, but the double margin for the publisher and the retailer, not to mention the agent, all ought to be compressed into one party’s profit margin.

Moreover, there’s no need for a CEO of Penguin, or all the stature and overhead that those organizations support. I think that people who live inside the entertainment world, publishing included, completely underestimate the resentment which consumers have toward them and the outlandish ways in which they spend their money. As a consumer, I have absolutely zero need for the fancy offices and executive management of a publishing house to enjoy my books. Same for the outrageous salaries and lifestyles of the Hollywood elite. Throughout most of human history, being an entertainer was not among the most lucrative professions on earth, and there is no reason why it should be today.

The model of the future, I believe, is one where publisher and retailer is one in the same, probably Apple and/or Amazon, maybe Barnes & Noble will get in on the act. The Penguins of the world go away except for printing and licensing out the works they already have a lock on. Agents will eventually fade away as well. The need to spend large marketing dollars on entertainment is folly. People discover what they like by means of social networks, and intelligent in-store algorithms that know what you would like based on your past preferences and buying history. That trend is only going to increase in the future.

Scalzi’s story about his difficulty in finding an editor and graphic artist for his books in a world without publishers is downright silly. Surely, he knows who his editor is today. Surely, in a world where Macmillan goes bankrupt, Scalzi and his editor can come to some sort of arrangement. I have been involved in the launch of a large number of websites, all of which are nicely laid out, and never found that the cost of hiring coders or graphic artists was prohibitive, if I used my personal connections and knew where to look. With respect to publishing, I wrote a book that I was looking to get edited, and was quoted a price of $3k. That was expensive for me at the time, but if you’re making a living at this, if you’re a known author, if you’re keeping more profits because your agent and publisher are now gone from the picture, surely you can afford it. And as for taking the time to find one you like, it can’t possibly be more work than finding an agent who you like and who will represent your work currently. No, those objections are red herrings.

I understand that the new world that is coming down the pike is a scary one, and a lot of people don’t like change. But it is coming. I suspect that in 20 years paper books will be mostly decorative items, used to show off which books you liked most, and to simply fill up the shelves we have in our homes. But we won’t really be reading books on paper much any more. That world will be a great one for aspiring authors and for consumers. Frankly, I can’t wait for the BS to get all sorted out in the interim.

Oh, and BTW, the CEO of Penguin ends his article by saying that he’d love to be the publisher for Jane Austin’s novels in electronic form. But why would anyone want to pay him for works that are in the public domain? Surely Apple and Amazon will offer them for deminimus amounts, along with the rest of the world’s literature that’s in the public domain. If you think the publishers are in a bad place now, just wait until some sort of copyright reform happens…

So this year marks Superbowl XLIV, or #44. Likewise, Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States. This is the one and only time these numbers will ever intersect, unless something should happen to our current president and Joe Biden becomes #45 next year, in which case that will be the last time those two numbers will intersect unless something happens to Joe Biden, and so on. There must be some larger alchemical meaning in this numerical intersection, but I will leave it to my readership to attempt to determine just what that meaning is.

UPDATE: Speaking of which, I think it would be way cooler if presidents used Roman numerals like the Superbowl does, to designate themselves. Why doesn’t that happen?

So I’ve been relatively skeptical of the iPad, but not to the point of entirely dismissing it. I think it’s a neat device, but I do see some issues with it. But I think my approach has been reasonable. What has seemed less reasonable is the approach of John Gruber, who seems to have gone off the deep end in his defense of and ecstatic reaction to, the iPad.

Now I don’t mean to pick on John here, he certainly links to some people who seem to have iPad euphoria even more acute than he has. But what interests me about Gruber is that he’s generally pretty spot on regarding computing matters, so his euphoria surprises me more than a bit. In fact, the things he’s been linking to recently embody the contradiction I see. Allow me to show you a case in point.

John links to this engadget piece in which they ask engadget staff for a paragraph or two of reactions to the iPad. He seems surprised that all but one of the reactions are either negative or offer grave reservations regarding the iPad. So I read through the reactions and found myself agreeing with this bit by Richard Lawler:

Media playback capabilities, e-reader and gaming functions are shiny and good looking, but where’s the substance? I’d like to avoid the transcoding necessary to play back media on my phone, enjoy the wide access and support that I have using a PC to browse the web or create content and hopefully have a dollar or two left in my pocket afterward.

Allow me to translate that for you:

I want to be able to play the pirated media I get off the Internet in the formats that they come in without having to translate the files into different formats first. I pirate content because paying for every piece of content I consume will quickly bankrupt me. Therefore, I’m just not interested in buying a piece of hardware for which I either have to pay exorbitant prices for content, or which can’t play my pirated content without making me jump through countless hoops first.

Clearly, the need for players that will flawlessly play every format of video without issue isn’t lost on Gruber, who proceeds to link to a bit about a new alternative to the VLC player for the mac. The need for such a player is moot if you’re buying all your content from Apple. But nobody does that, hence the need for VLC and other media players on the mac. To my knowledge, no such players exist on the iphone. I’ve looked.

I believe that what’s going on here with respect to Apple is a misunderstanding of what drove the original popularity of the original iPod. I believe that Apple thinks that it was tight integration with iTunes, and an iTunes store, that drive popularity of teh hardware device. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Two things drove the popularity of the iPod:

1. The iPod’s innovative circular scroll wheel enabled one to easily search for individual songs in a library that may contain thousands of songs. Every previous attempt had been cumbersome and ineffective. However, this innovation wouldn’t have mattered a wit had it not been for #2.
2. The iPod played non-DRM MP3 files, whether they be ripped or pirated. In effect, it had the ability to play everyone’s pirated library of music in its entirety. Had Apple attempted to release a device that only played DRM enabled songs bought over iTunes, I believe that they would have found the iPod to be a hobby much like the AppleTV has become, much like the iPad may well become.

The principal difference between the mac and the other devices that Apple produces is that the mac gives you the flexibility to do what you want, to consume everything you want, without jumping through serious hoops. None of the other devices Apple sells allows for this. Apple lucked out with the iPod in that pirated music converged on a single format, the MP3, before competing formats like Ogg Vorbis could get traction.

But in the world of video, no convergence has taken place. As a result, what we need are not devices that play only a few formats, but devices that can handle whatever is thrown at them without blinking. Had the AppleTV been able to do this, I may well have had them hooked up to my televisions instead of mac minis. Had the AppleTV been built to handle any and every type of video available on the Internet, I suspect it would have become more than a hobby for Apple.

But the format issue is just one of many. Gruber and others seem to believe that the iPad is meant to be a whole new way of computing into the future. I’m afraid I don’t see it that way, and I really don’t think that Jobs & Co. see it that way either. Most notably, the iPad syncs. In other words, it requires you already have a computer to sync it to, to back up your files, to grab your photos and music and even movies. In other words, it’s a giant iPod touch.

Look, if Apple were going to make this thing into the new standalone device, then they shouldn’t have built it to sync to a desktop mac or PC. Rather, they should have built it to integrate with the cloud. Buy a MobileMe type of service with it, have it automatically save everything you do with your account online, and then be able to log in from a mac or PC or a terminal somewhere and grab your files and do other things with them. But this machine doesn’t do that. It looks like it still needs to be brought back to nurse at the desktop’s teat. Which means the iPad isn’t weaning us off of desktop type guis at all. In fact, I tend to think that if you bought an iPad without owning a desktop first, you’d be totally lost.

And those objections exist even before we consider the fact that it can’t do video chat, or any other type of chat in the background while you work on other things, or anything else in the background for that matter.

So count me among the people who think that the iPad is interesting, but who have some serious reservations regarding it. I should hope that Apple would figure it out though, because the iPad hardware does seem seriously cool as shit. It’s obviously not too late, but if Apple waits forever eventually others will figure it out.

Here’s to hoping Apple figures it out too.

So I’ve added a formspring.me box in the sidebar. Feel free to ask me whatever questions you’d like. I understand that formspring is the newest shizzle in the under-20 set, so I figured I’d try my best to stay young and see what all the fuss is about.

Enjoy.

West coast samaBlog correspondent Calzone sent this missive in from the field. I thought you should read it:

I was reading The Economist, who like so many other reporters over the past week, chose to focus on the promise of the iPad to reinvigorate the dying print industry. Of course, the DRM question you posed is crucial to their notions of any such reinvigoration.

I can’t speak for all consumers, but this one says: ‘enough!’

I don’t give half an anorexic rat’s ass what happens to the content publishers. Really, I don’t. The internet genie is out of the bottle and it ain’t going back in. Millions of bloggers are perfectly happy to provide their analysis and opinion on current events FREE of charge. With the exception of a handful of boutique news outlets, the media do not add significant value to the reporting of current events. Certainly not enough value to pay for it. It was hardly enough value to stomach putting up with ads.

Here’s a thought experiment: the average consumer subscribed to one or two newspapers. Now that you can essentially get any newspaper delivered via the internet, let’s be charitable and assume people were willing to pay for their news. It’s reasonable to expect that the average consumer nationwide will gravitate to one or two newspapers from around the entire world. Maybe three or four. Over a short while, it’s also reasonable to expect that the result of that would be that there are maybe 3 major viable alternatives for each of the three or four papers a person subscribes to. The market ends up supporting a max of about 12-16 major papers nationwide. So even if the iPad or any other device is some kind of savior to the print industry, I wouldn’t count on it to be a panacea for your company.

But it’s worse than that. We don’t want to pay for your content. Reuters and AP newswires are good enough. Local, decentralized reporting is good enough. PBS and BBC are good enough. For in-depth analysis and opinion, we’re going to go straight to the authors we care about and can afford. That means we’ll mostly gravitate to blogs we can read for free. Maybe there’s a market for premium blogging ala Salon.com. But I sure ain’t gonna pay the Boston Globe or even the NYT for access to their columnists. Dream on. The best columnists end up WILL going indie, or at most migrate to something like Salon.com.

Consumers are fed up with endless cable bills and phone bills. We’re already paying THROUGH THE NOSE for access to media over cable and for having the flow of bits in and out of our homes and devices. The Subscription Economy is already at its limit; in fact, it’s past it. People are actively seeking ways to circumvent paying what they currently pay for both content and connectivity. The average US household budget simply cannot sustain the content utopia envisioned by those who seek to be content gatekeepers and middlemen. There are far too many middlemen as it is between me and the producers of content and they all want an ongoing piece of me each month. Bit-schelppers are charging WAY too much for too little and trying to charge more for access to specific content types, while content producers and publishers are tying to find ways to make even more obscene gobs off the content they distribute than they did when it wasn’t digital.

So back to the iPad.

If the point of the iPad is to provide a platform that primarily gives for-pay access to locked-down reading material, then fuggedaboutit, I don’t want one. The last thing I need is to PAY to buy into a platform that requires me to PAY more just to read stuff. I’m happy to PAY Apple for a mobile computing platform that’s as capable as my MacBook Pro, that I can install my own software on, that I can use to download stuff and consume the stuff I download, that I can use to copy and paste content and remix content to my heart’s content, that I can use to save ‘clippings’ of stuff that interests me, and yes, that I can use to SHARE stuff I’m interested in, copyright or not, with my friends just like I can share newspaper clippings and pages or share books.

All these news types, text book publishers and other publishers are seeing stars suddenly. ZOMG, the iPad is going to do for print what iTunes did for music. People will pay! Dream on. Sure, if I owned an iPad, I would probably buy a good novel to read on the plane. It’s money I would have otherwise spent at the airport bookstore. I would use the iPad to go read blogs and free news. But I’ll be damned if you think I’m going to have an NYT subscription just so I can read your paper in near-full broadsheet quality with fancy fonts. Shit, I’ll just grab the abandoned copy of the paper I found on the seat here in gate 4B and read it old-skool. The digital revolution is NOT about recreating a literal virtual model of analog content.

But that’s the crux of the problem with the iPad. Sure it’s gorgeous, sure it’s fast, sure it’s magical. But if it’s gonna basically be useless without paying for content subscriptions, it’s doomed among people like me. Even more so if content is going to be restricted by DRM or other protections (like password protected PDFs) preventing me from doing what I want with it, or if said content will expire 3 days after buying it.

As you said, this business model is bearable on the iPhone, because its primary function is to be a great phone. We can overlook such shortcomings. We can pretend that it’s ok to impose restrictions because AT&T is trying to protect its fragile network. But that is not to say that we haven’t always been hoping and pining for a day when such restrictions would be lifted. We ALL want the iPhone to be more open. We just live with it because we’re willing to make that sacrifice to have an iPhone. But let’s be clear: it IS a sacrifice and we all feel it and know it, and we all half-expected that model to eventually go away, not become more widespread.

In the end, what will happen is that content producers will have at most one degree of separation from content consumers. There will be stables of premium creators. Reputable places where consumers can find content of a certain quality, frequency, degree, and persuasion. People will be willing to pay for access to those creators. There will be far more who are independent and connected directly to their consumers, whether ad-supported, totally free, donation-supported, or pay-walled. Reuters and other primary and open sources of news will live on, and big networks, like CNN will live on and help support them. Current headlines and raw news will remain ad-supported/free and widespread.

Try as it might, Apple’s desire to be a primary gatekeeper for all content will ultimately fail if it also tries to regulate that or take too big a cut. Long term success for the iTunes App Store model can only come with opening the floodgates and taking a modest cut from those who do charge and requiring no money from those who don’t. The iPad is either going to adapt to that reality and become a viable platform, or it’s going to try to impose the restricted authoritative vision Apple has and doom the iPad to expensive toy of the month.

No, the iPad itself is not really expensive, what makes it expensive if the cost of ownership. I think few or none of us are interested in seeing the razor blade / printer ink cartridge business model being applied in every single possible market marketers can come up with.

So with JD Salinger dead, I would assume that Hollywood is salivating at the thought of finally obtaining the rights to make a film of his most famous book. Hollywood should not let this opportunity go to waste.

While the movie could be made in the original setting of the book, I fear that most people wouldn’t connect very well with the 1940’s today. Much better to set the novel in the Blade Runner universe. That way, every character who Holden meets and believes to be a “phony” can in fact, be a replicant. You may even be able to sneak clips of Harrison Ford killing off characters in the background after Holden is through with them, just to reinforce the theme.

Seriously, how much worse an idea is it than what Hollywood is bound to actually come up with?

He wrote a good book. One.

Still sad to see him go.

Let’s get right to it, shall we?

1. You’re offering the iPad in two flavors, one with 3G and the other with WiFi only, each in a variety of memory sizes. I have an iPhone, so I already pay for an unlimited data plan. I’m wondering, will I be able to tether my iPhone to my iPad and thus only need to buy the WiFi iPad? Just when will tethering be made available for American customers? If I lived in some third world country that allows for tethering, would your answer be different? Will European customers be able to just tether their iPhone to their WiFi iPad?
2. So I noticed that you’ll be selling books in ePub format. According to Wikipedia at least, there’s a method of enabling DRM on ePub files, but it’s optional. Are you planning on enabling DRM on the books you sell? After your previous essay decrying DRM, I would think you’d be loathe to introduce it to this new medium. After all, it took a herculean effort to convince the record labels to ditch DRM. Where do book publishers stand on this? Has your position changed at all?
3. So the iPhone/iPad OS doesn’t have a file manager, which is fine in the iPhone, but I’m unsure if it’s fine on the iPad. For example, say I downloaded a video legally over bit torrent that is encoded as a wmv (example here). Will I be able to move that video onto my iPad to watch it? Will alternative video players such as the VLC player or the Mplayer be available to decode videos that Quicktime cannot, at least not natively? And will I be able to load files into the ebook reader that weren’t purchased from Apple? Say, classic works that are in the public domain?

It’s sad. I’ve wanted a netbook type of thing for a while now, and have been waiting for the ARM netbooks to come out. And now Apple seems to have made some really cool hardware that’s super fast (although it’s missing a camera for video chat, which I really want), but it’s unclear if the software is open enough to warrant buying it. I suppose the answers to my questions will become clear enough over time, and perhaps my concerns will be alleviated when Apple changes carriers (this should be a great opportunity for T-Mobile to poach iPhone subscribers). In the meantime, I think I’m gonna hold off on making a purchase.

So there’s an Apple event tomorrow, at which some sort of tablet computing device will be unveiled. I suspect the most likely name will be the Apple Canvas, as the invite showed paint splattered all over it, but there are not shortage of names that it could be. Calzone and I bandied a few names around, and so I’m printing the lot of them here, just in case Apple names it one of those. Any of these names could be “Apple X” or could take the form of “iX”. So here’s the list:

• Plane
• Flat
• Rectangle
• Pad
• Board
• Tricorder
• Slice
• Wafer
• Host
• Shingle
• Tile
• Plate
• Altar
• Flockhart
• Cracker
• Leaf (a personal favorite)
• Splash
• Sheet
• Chip
• Smudge
• Print

For the record, I’m going to say it does have a front facing camera. The facial recognition rumors would make sense given what they’ve been experimenting with it in iPhoto. And I’m guessing that the display is a color eInk display, one that can display video. They may even own eInk at this point, and may make an announcement to that effect tomorrow (idea shamelessly stolen from Cringely).

It seems to me that in the future, every computing company needs to have a search engine (with maps), a desktop operating system (with office capabilities), and a mobile device, all of which work seamlessly together, but are operable with other company’s offerings should one choose to do that.

Currently, Google has a phone and a search engine, and is dipping its toe into the OS market. It offers online office applications currently, which will be integrated into their upcoming Chrome OS.

Apple has an OS with an office suite (iWork) and a phone, and is rumored to be developing a search engine. They bought a Google maps competitor, which will likely be integrated.

Microsoft has a mobile phone OS that is crappy, and is rumored to be working on their own phone. It wouldn’t surprise me to see them buying RIM or Palm to get the phone in their lineup. Microsoft has a search engine, Bing, which works pretty well, and appears to be the only viable competitor to Google at the current time. And obviously, Microsoft has an OS and office suite.

Until Microsoft and Apple are able to build/buy their mobile phone and search engine respectively, I expect to see them allying against Google for the time being (next 6-18 months). Once they launch their respective phone and search engine, expect a quick but amicable divorce.

Question(s): Where does console gaming and media distribution fit into all of this? Companies like Netflix and Amazon compete with iTunes and the XBox store for movie rentals and the like. And Google is rumored to be offering movies for rent over Youtube soon as well. Is this another component that needs to be offered by a modern computing company? Apple has the AppleTV device, which sucks, and the Mac Mini, which is awesome but not easily connected to a television. Will that change? Does Google need to make a device for the TV? Does that device need to play games? Is Nintendo a takeover target for this reason? I’ve long thought that Apple and Nintendo would make a good fit together. And where do the Playstation and Roku and Boxee Box fit into all of this?

Just looking for ideas here guys.

I’d heard a rumor on the radio that Barney Frank’s district actually voted for Brown. So I looked around online, and I couldn’t find any breakdown of how the election went by congressional district. So I went ahead and did my best to pull the numbers together for myself. Starting with the election results posted at the Boston Globe, I tabulated the results by congressional district. There are four municipalities that are split into multiple congressional districts. They are: Boston, Fall River, Hanson and Wayland. I was unable to find published results that were broken down by town wards and precincts, so for Boston and Fall River I split the results in 2, as they looked to be roughly evenly divided, and for the other two I split by the number of precincts in each district, one split into thirds and the other into quarters. I’ve published the spreadsheet here (too big for google docs apparently).

So the results I came up with are presented below. I’ve highlighted in red any precinct which Brown won. In my mind, we ought to have strong Republicans running in each of the congressional districts in which Brown ran, and probably even in the 9th district, which was lost by 1%.

Apparently, the congressmen are worried. So we should feel confident.

>

Congratulations and thanks to Scott Brown! Best $300 I ever spent. Seriously.

Bear Witness:

Seriously, it’s like some sort of mutant gyro. Why would I want big mac taste in a gyro form factor? It’s all wrong.

And of course, real life looks nothing like the publicity photo.

So Rasmussen shows Scott Brown within 9 points of Martha Coakley, and one poll even shows Brown ahead. It would appear that people are less than enthused by Coakley, and are ready to consider the alternative.

So given that this is a real race, I thought it would be a good idea to make the case for Scott Brown. In particular, I want to make the case to those of you who are independent voters or who tend to vote for the Democrat, though not consistently. You should vote for or support Scott Brown because he is principled while his opponent is not, he’s a man of character where his opponent is not, his election would represent a giant slap in the face of the national Republican Party leadership, and most importantly, his election may be the last legislative opportunity to kill this insane health care bill moving through congress right now.

Principled

Martha Coakley is a typical Massachusetts beta Democrat, which is to say that she will do what the Democrat leadership tells her to do. This is a phenomenon that I’m not sure is seen in many other parts of the country. In Massachusetts, the representatives consistently vote the way their leadership tells them to vote, and never vote to replace their leadership, even when it’s corrupt or just plain embarrassing. Coakley fits this mold.

Coakley won the nomination by playing for the female vote, partly just by being the only woman in the race, but more importantly by saying that she would stand firm and vote against the health care reform bill as it currently stood, because it contained restrictions on abortion funding. This won Coakley not only the nomination, but accolades from around the country. But of course, it was only words. As soon as she’d won the nomination, she backtracked, and became Harry Reid’s beta, pledging to vote for the bill as it stood.

There is no reason whatsoever to promote such people. Politics of every stripe tends to corrupt over time. And it requires independent thinkers to stop the rot from infecting our governing bodies. On a national level, Republicans failed to stop their internal party rot and created a mess in their wake. On the state level, Massachusetts Democrats have had 3 successive Speakers of the House indicted. This is not a path that anyone should want to follow, regardless of party.

Coakley is not a principled Democrat. She’s a beta-Democrat, a party hack, and party hacks cause the demise of their parties, sooner or later.

Scott Brown, on the other hand, is a principled and deliberative, moderate Republican. His stands have been consistent over the years on matters such as tax cuts. But he voted for Romney-care as well, and is active in trying to learn lessons from our experience with it and adapt. Scott Brown isn’t anybody’s beta, and he will be an independent voice that Massachusetts can be proud of, regardless of your party preferences.

Character

The health care flip-flop is not the first time or even the most important time where Coakley has shown an utter lack of character. When Coakley was Middlesex County Attorney General, Gerald Amirault had come up for parole. Gerald Amirault, for those not familiar, was wrongfully convicted of sexually abusing children in his family run day care center. This was during the paranoid craze of the 1980’s, and the children in the day care center were induced into telling stories about how they were abused. But because nothing had actually happened, the children told, well, tall tales of how robots abused them and the like. The whole thing should have been thrown out, but after 15 years in prison, well after the child abuse craze of the 1980’s had subsided, it had become readily apparent to just about everybody that this guy was innocent, and deserved his freedom.

But Coakley wanted to burnish her tough on crime credentials, and so she worked overtime to keep Amirault in prison. She was successful, keeping him in prison for another 3 years. Anyone who cares about justice and about freeing the wrongfully convicted should be absolutely disgusted by Coakley’s actions.

But if she were some sort of Joe Arpaio, then at least it would all fit into a consistent narrative. But she isn’t. When a Somerville cop raped his 23 year old niece with a hot object, Coakely couldn’t be motivated to act. She convened a grand jury as was her duty, but couldn’t manage to get an indictment. Only after the victim’s family pressed criminal charges did Coakley reluctantly act. Now maybe Coakley’s reticence was due to her being a beta-Democrat, and this was a connected cop or some such thing. But either way, it displays an appalling lack of character, which should preclude her from being promoted to the US Senate. Here’s a good rundown of her other appalling cases.

Scott Brown, on the other hand, is a normal family man. He’s served in the National Guard for 29 years, and has been a practicing lawyer for 25 and serving on Beacon Hill for 11 years. His daughter is a noted singer who placed well on American Idol. And basically, there are no scandals regarding the guy. It’s hard to write on and on about a man’s character when it’s not plagued with flaws. But put it this way, electing Scott Brown will not cause us any embarrassment. The same simply can’t be said of Coakley.

The RNC

Nobody likes the national Republican party leadership. And by no one I mean no one. The RNC seems to have learned nothing form it’s electoral losses in 2006 and 2008, and has spent millions of dollars promoting a RINO republican in upstate New York who rank and file party members rebelled against. And they tried to stick us with former Bush Chief of Staff Andy Card as our Republican nominee. When the rank and file of local Republicans told Card to take a hike, the national GOP cut Brown off from funding, abandoning the race.

Electing Scott Brown would be a thumb in the eye of the national Republican Party leadership. It would be the perfect way to tell them that they have no idea what they’re doing, which they don’t. But perhaps more importantly, unlike beta-Democrat Coakley who is beholden to her party’s edicts, Scott Brown will arrive in Washington owing nothing to his leadership. If anything, they’ll be the ones who owe him. And that would put Brown in an enviable position in the United States Senate, even in the minority party.

So if you want an independent voice in Washington who will command respect and get his way, Scott Brown is the only candidate for you.

Killing Health Care Reform

Let’s face it: nobody likes this health care bill. Nobody. It is lacking the public option that Democrats so wanted, and it creates government mandates and intrusions that the right abhors. And to get this bill even to the stage it’s currently at, the Democratic leadership had to cut innumerable unsavory deals, deals which at their best constitute spending $100 million here and $100 million there, and at their worst exempt whole states from the costs and cuts which the other states have to bear. It’s not the way that the legislative process ought to work, whether you are broadly speaking in favor of more government intervention or against it.

In the United States, 85% of people are satisfied with the health care they receive. Moreover, unemployment is now up over 10%, and there is no end in sight to the economic downturn caused by the financial meltdown. What’s more, it’s become apparent to everyone in the country that the measures we’ve been taking to stop terrorists from infiltrating our airplanes have been absolutely ineffective. In such a world, health care can afford to take a back burner position until the other issues are sorted out. And it should take such a position.

Health care reform, whatever form it takes, whether it be a government takeover or a John Mackey style reform, is a complex matter that deserves ample time to be debated and deliberated. There is no need to ram something through just because they can.

So if you want to stop this train wreck, and you should, then you need to support Scott Brown. Like Obi Wan, he’s our only hope.

Now I’m aware that there are shenanigans afoot to keep Scott Brown from being seated until the bill is passed, should he win the election. I will simply say like Obi Wan being struck down, denying Scott Brown his vote should he be elected will not only make Brown a more formidable force in the future, but it will make the entire Tea Party movement more powerful than it ever was before. I suspect that the powers that be in Massachusetts and in the Democratic leadership nationally will regret the day they denied Brown his senate seat. If you think it’ll be a november slaughter for Democrats as it currently stands, then it will be nothing short of a cataclysm if they deny Brown his seat.

Just watch.

Conclusion

If you live in Massachusetts, vote for Scott Brown next Tuesday, January 19. If you live here or not, you should support him financially. I gave him $250 already, and will give more on their money bomb tomorrow, January 11. Support Scott Brown in any way you can.

It’s rare when you can have an election where the choices are so stark, so clear. Vote for Scott Brown. You’ll be glad you did, and the country will be grateful.

What could be more fun than looking through a gallery of 50 pictures of cute animals?

Ok, so it’s the first week of the new year, and so I figure I’ll make a few predictions for the next year. I did well enough last year I suppose, especially since I came up with the questions myself. If you’d like, grab my questions and play along for yourself:

1. Q: What will the official unemployment rate be on December 31, 2010?
   A: Above 10%.
2. Q: Where will the Dow close at next year?
   A: Under 10,000.
3. Q: What will the price of gold be on December 31, 2010?
   A: Close to $2,000/oz.
4. Q: Assuming Apple releases a tablet computing device this year, will it be revolutionary like the iPhone, or an also-ran like the appleTV?
   A: Also ran like the appleTV.
5. Q: How close will the special Senate election in Massachusetts be? Will Scott Brown be able to beat Democrat Martha Coakley?
   A: Within 10%. Scott Brown will narrowly lose the race.
6. Q: Will the Republicans gain control of the house or senate in 2010?
   A: Yes and yes.
7. Q: Will Harry Reid or Barbara Boxer keep their senate seats in 2010?
   A: No and yes.
8. Q: Name three things that will jump the shark in 2010?
   A: Congressional Democrats, the TSA, facebook.
9. Q: Will Janet Napolitano keep her job in 2010? Will Hillary Clinton?
   A: No and yes.
10. Q: Will confidence in the US dollar erode, or will hyperinflation occur in 2010?
    A: If it does, it will be an all-at-once event. It will not be a gradual occurrence.

Ok, that’s it. We’ll revisit this next year!