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!

So it’s that time of year again when we review the events of the past year and sum them up for those of you who haven’t really been following along, or in case you need a refresher. So let’s quit wasting time and get to it:

• I made some predictions about the new Mac Mini that would come out. My predictions were wrong.
• I wrote about the folly of a confiscatory gas tax.
• I made some predictions for 2009. I then reviewed my predictions.
• I underwent brain surgery. Yes, everything went fine.
• I discussed the word, “Mister”.
• I posited some theories about superheros and their nemeses.
• I discussed senility with respect to our public leaders. Haven’t decided whether or not this belongs on the best-of list yet.
• I noted a rare occasion on which Rob Enderle seemed to make some sense.
• I declared that the Federal Government had jumped the shark.
• I developed a list of how $800 billion could be better spent than on a stimulus bill.
• I posted exclusive early photos of the new Microsoft store.
• I theorized as to what a proper mortgage might look like, i.e. the Danish mortgage market.
• I declared the Obama mortgage plan unserious, and stated what would be required to make it serious.
• I actually lamented that McCain hadn’t been elected in 2000.
• I wrote a rebuttal to the stimulus plan. Best of samaBlog.
• I actually defended Limbaugh on his use of the word “failure” with respect to what he wishes for Obama’s plans.
• I lamented that television wasn’t worth paying for any more.
• I declared that American Idol was jumping the shark. I wouldn’t be surprised is 2010 is the last season for the show, frankly.
• I actually defended Obama’s repeated due diligence failures regarding his staff appointments.
• I developed a plan for saving the newspaper industry. Nobody will implement it.
• I discussed Bernanke’s stated signs of economic recovery he expected to see. I should point out I have yet to see his own stated signs of economic recovery. Don’t count anyone in the MSM to be swift enough to call him or members of Obama’s economic team on it.
• I discussed Obama/Biden gaffes.
• I declared it was time for me to stop taking public transportation to work. I should say I’m very happy with my decision.
• I announced I was developing a Grand Plan for America. I’ve since published 4 planks to the Grand Plan: Taxation, Housing Crisis, Financial Regulation, and Tort Reform.
• I called for citizens to force their state governments into involuntary bankruptcy.
• I posited that in light of the Craigslist Killer prostitutes would cease using Craigslist and start using Twitter to post their ads. I can’t tell if this has occurred to any real degree or not, but I suspect not.
• I noted Bea Arthur’s passing, and speculated about her death.
• I spoke the truth about Arlen Specter.
• I shared some memories of Jack Kemp after his passing.
• I announced the coming of the samaSequel.
• I encountered a castle.
• I opined on Sonya Sotomayor.
• I ditched the Forbes blog network and joined the Boston Blog network. I’m quite happy with my choice.
• I took note of the 100 hottest women according to lesbians.
• I critiqued the new Ally Bank. After predicting that it wouldn’t work, I later noted that I was proved right.
• I joined a credit union.
• I solved the MBTA’s budget problems.
• I felt sorry for Scipio Africanus.
• I wrote a long-winded piece on Letterman, at the end of which I stated I would take a dump on his grave. Probably wasn’t worth writing.
• Curtains.
• I suggested Massachusetts tax college tuition instead of raise the state sales tax. Massachusetts didn’t listed to me, but I hear that Pittsburg is considering my proposal.
• I noted the confluence of Father’s Day and the Summer Solstice. I posted that there must be some alchemical meaning in the occurrence, but failed to get Wolfram Alpha to tell me how often the two events occur on the same day.
• I noted the passing of Ed McMahon, mostly by calling him names, but I did recall my one encounter with him.
• I shared my thoughts on Mark Sanford.
• I noted that Farah Fawcett died, and of anal cancer, and made some lame attempts at jokes as a result.
• I took note of the in-flight nudist. I’m still waiting for the MSM to follow up and find out why the guy disrobed mid-flight.
• I celebrated Independence Day. Best of samaBlog.
• I declared Sarah Palin’s political career dead. At this point, I think I called that one incorrectly.
• I ditched cable tv, and I haven’t looked back.
• I reviewed the history of postal service in the US.
• I decried the changes made to Storrow Drive. More here and here.
• I queried whether Afghanistan was worth it.
• I reviewed A Trip Of Goats.
• I ditched Google Reader in favor of Feed A Fever. Look for me to ditch Google in other ways going forward.
• I called for the cessation of the use of apostrophes in the English language.
• I wrote a brilliant piece on Net Neutrality.
• I witnessed Massachusetts crap on its own constitution.
• I noted that under Obamacare our medical records are to apparenly be centralized.
• NOBEL.
• The samaSequel arrived. He’s very cute.
• I wrote about assault marketing tactics.
• I celebrated Halloween with my family.
• I lamented Brigham’s fate.
• I noted some changes that ought to happen in our idoms.
• I noted that WHDH fucked up their broadcast signal. It still isn’t completely right.
• I said “Fuck You” to Hulu and the entertainment industry in general.
• I supposed a crazy theory about the KSM trial to happen in New York
• I invented a new videogame. In retrospect, I think this idea came to me because of media slang about politicians “slamming” each other all the time.
• I attempted to switch to FIOS. I documented my travails, but ultimately failed.
• I suggested extreme measures may need to be taken to stop the healthcare bill.
• I celebrated Christmas.

That’s it. Hope you all are having a happy new year, and are enjoying today’s blue moon. I’ll see you in 2010.

So I made some predictions last year. Let’s see how well I fared:

1. I predicted that the Dow would end the year at or under 9,500. I would have to say I called that one incorrectly. The Dow looks to be ending the year around 10,500.
2. I predicted that Al Franken would be seated as the senator from Minnesota. That prediction was correct.
3. I predicted that American Idol, Top Chef and Blu-Ray would all jump the shark. I think that Americal Idol is still jumping the shark, Top Chef has not jumped, and Blu-Ray is well gone.
4. I predicted that NY Governor Paterson would not appoint Caroline Kennedy to the open Senate seat. I was correct in that prediction.
5. I predicted Steve Jobs would not die from his “hormone imbalance” but that he would not be fully recovered by next year. I think I called that one pretty well.
6. I predicted that Obama’s approval ratings would fall below 50% after 250 days in office. Given that his disapproval ratings are now above 50%, I think it’s fair to say I called that one correctly.
7. I predicted Rod Blagojevich would remain governor of Illinois. I was wrong on that one.
8. I predicted the unemployment rate would be 9.5% as of year end. It’s apparently 9.4%. I think I called that.
9. I predicted we would not see another major terrorist attack in 2009, as defined as one that kills over 100 people. I was wrong, a bombing in Iraq killed 120+ people in the fall.
10. I predicted the dollar would continue to fall in 2009, and it has.
11. I predicted that Sirius/XM and the New York times would each go out of business without major financial interventions. Both saw such interventions this year, from Liberty Media and Carlos Slim respectively. So I think I called that.
12. I predicted that the baseball season would seem insufferably long again this season, and it did.
13. I predicted that people would continue to be worried about the end of the world in 2012, and they do seem to be.
14. I predicted that the War on Christmas would still be on in 2009, and I was right. See here, here, here, here, and here.

Ok, that’s it. I’ll make new predictions early next week for 2010.

During my lifetime, there are three political issues that I remember from my teenage years as being issues then that are still issues today. Those are the poor state of our public education system, the mathematical certainty that our entitlements systems would collapse, and our jackpot justice system. Of these the last one should be the easiest to solve. And it is necessary to solve it before any talk of health care reform.

Philosophically speaking, there are two competing conceptions of justice at work in the United States. The first and older of the two is what’s called strict liability. Which is to say, he who is at fault pays the damage. In such a system, people pay the price for their own stupidity or negligence. The competing theory is what’s called the deep pockets theory of the law, which is to say that because somebody is going to have to pay for the damage that’s been done, best that the party who is most able to pay do so.

The problem with the deep pockets theory, of course, is that it motivates the less than scrupulous to put themselves in situations where they can sue those with the deep pockets for compensation. And not just those with deep pockets themselves such as large companies and governments, but those who are well insured as well, such as individual doctors. Indeed, an entire industry has blossomed around suing such deep pocketed parties. The result has been catastrophic.

One part of any long term answer to this problem is to only appoint judges who rule on the basis of strict liability law. But there’s more to it than that. We need to eliminate the idea that going to court is a potential bonanza. And that requires some structural changes to our current ways of managing tort disputes.

I’m going to propose a few simple reforms, and then walk through how those reforms would have worked in some famous cases.

English Rule – Loser Pays Winner’s Legal Fees

The United States stands alone in requiring everyone to pay for their own leal fees in a civil suit. In most countries, what’s called the English Rule applies, which is to say that the loser pays at least some portion of the winner’s legal fees. This is only natural and just. In the event one party is wronged and goes to court to seek justice, that justice should include the cost of going to court. Likewise, should a party have been dragged into court by a jackpot justice seeker out on a fishing expedition, justice ought to include that his cost of acquittal be paid for by he who is wrongly accusing.

The lack of such a rule encourages legal extortion throughout society. Here’s how it works. Legal extortionist files a lawsuit against MegaCompany. MegaCompany knows that the suit has no merit, and that they’ll win in the end. But legal costs will exceed $3 million to put this to bed. So they offer to settle for $1.5 million, even though they did nothing wrong. Not only is this situation manifestly unjust, but it acts as a tax on all of productive society for the benefit of a class of legal leeches. The only reason why this situation hasn’t been rectified is because our legislators are in hoc to the legal lobby, and have no regard for their constituents.

In any event, you can read much more on the English Rule here. Suffice it to say, this one reform alone would do wonders for ending the system of jackpot justice we’ve created in this country.

Class Action Reform

I don’t object to the existence of class action suits per se, though I spent a long time considering whether or not they should just be done away with. However, I can see how they serve a purpose, when scores of people have been wronged by the same party. Nevertheless, some reform is desperately needed here.

The first step is to mandate minimum damages to be a viable suit. I’ve been “involved” in 2 class action law suits, one of which resulted in getting a coupon and the other in a check for $15. In the latter case, I was not only a customer but a shareholder, so I was literally robbing myself on that one. But in either case, it wasn’t worth it. In neither case did I feel I’d been wronged, or really want a lawsuit to proceed. And when it did proceed, the result was stupid.

So there needs to be some sort of minimum damages per person for the class action to make sense. Without that, this just amounts to lawyers raiding companies on behalf of themselves. So we need a rule that says something to the effect that “If you can’t prove damages of at least $100 per class member after legal fees, then you’ve wasted everyone’s time and you lose.”

Now the objection to this will be, “But the purpose of class action lawsuits are to stop companies from screwing their customers in little ways. If you eliminate any suit where damages are under $100/class member, then what’s to stop companies from behaving badly?” And the answer is, the marketplace. When a business does something small and petty to make me unhappy, I cease frequenting that business. Conversely, when something is industry practice, like the way that a monitor size is measured, I simply learn about it and adjust my buying behavior. I just don’t need class action lawsuits to “help” me, and businesses learn from their petty bad behavior by virtue of losing customers.

The second reform that needs to be made with respect to class action lawsuits is to strictly regulate legal fees, which get paid out only after the minimum $100/claimant is paid. Something like 2.5 hours should be billable for every hour of court time, with a strictly regulated rate per hour. Without a real client to answer to who can fire the attorney or dispute the bills, a fixed rate is the only way to assure there are no abuses with legal fees.

End Punitive Damages

Punitive damages, it seems to me, is a confused concept. Punishment, by definition, ought to be for the state to engage in for violations of the law. Citizens ought not be engaging in it against each other; that is vigilantism. Punitive damages, it seems to me, seeks to legalize a form of vigilantism, or citizens meting out their own punishments.

There are several problems with this. The first is that punitive damages put the plaintiff in the position of receiving a windfall for being harmed, which only serves to encourage him to be harmed, or to not take proper precautions on his own. The second problem with this is that it violates the principle of having no ex post facto law. If something were already against the law, then there would be established and publicly debated fines for violations, and citizens would know before acting what the consequences were. That’s only just. But punitive damages undoes that, in effect creating law on the fly. And that’s unjust.

Take for example the lady who spilled hot coffee on herself after going through the McDonald’s drive through. First off, according to strict liability she’s the one at fault because she spilled the coffee, not McDonald’s. Nevertheless, her contention, and reason for seeking punitive damages, was that McDonald’s served their coffee at unreasonably hot temperatures. But McDonald’s was acting within the scope of the law at the time. And if coffee temperatures needed to be regulated, then the proper method isn’t by creating law on the fly in a courtroom and exacting insane punishments upon the company. The proper thing to do is to legislate a regulation on the maximum temperature coffee can be served in the state.

So to that end I would be supportive of any measure that eliminated punitive damages, and remanded legislative recommendations to the legislature in extreme cases where action needs to be taken. Because the proper way to assure that behavior changes is to change the law.

But at a minimum, if you are going to have punitive damages, then by God put an upper limit on them, and have the proceeds go to the state. Barring that, we will continue to see frivolous lawsuits and an increased cost of doing business if not living as a result of them.

Other Reforms

There are two other reforms that are needed. The first of which is what I’ll call specialist reforms. Basically, there’s too much junk science and other nonsense allowed in today’s courtrooms. Particularly when it comes to medical related lawsuits. A simple sanity check form a panel of experts, appointed as judicial advisors as it were, would alleviate this problem. I envision it as acting as a screen allowing or denying suits from moving forward. Basically, allowing a legitimate medical malpractice claim through, while denying the “vaccine caused my kid’s autism” lawsuit to pass.

Finally, in recent years, lawyers have taken to suing companies for the fact that their stock has dropped in price. This is about the most asinine thing imaginable. as if the proper response to a decline in stock price is to partially liquidate, as if management has control over the markets, as if management should withhold bad news from the public. These types of lawsuits should be eliminated entirely. If you buy stock, you take risk, end of story . If there’s fraud involved, let the state mete out punishment and a bankruptcy judge handle liquidations. If you don’t like the way management performs, sell your stock or vote for different directors.

Well, here we are. Congress just delivered you a bucket of shit for the holidays, hopefully the samaBlog can do marginally better.

Previously:
2008
2007
2006
2005 (best of samaBlog)
2004
2003

I think this is worth a reread. Classic Internet theory, Assassination Politics.

It’s the shortest day of the year.

So Drudge has been reporting that there are 60 votes for cloture in the senate to end debate and bring this health bill up for a vote. I think it’s time to start discussing more radical options for putting a stop to this bill.

There are a number of senators who represent states where there is a Republican governor. Let’s review who they are:

• Al Franken: Stole the election in Minnesota after the count showed less than 1000 votes in his opponents favor. Managed this feat through the unbelievable incompetence of his opponent. Governor is Tim Pawlenty.
• Evan Bayh: Senator from Indiana, where Governor Mitch Daniels may be the best currently serving governor in the country. Looks like some sort of plastic Ken doll. Never heard the guy say anything, mostly because he induces narcolepsy to all within earshot.
• Kent Conrad/Byron Dorgan: Senators from North Dakota. I know I’ve heard the names a dozen times, can’t think of what they’re all about. In any event, North Dakota has a Republican governor.
• Chris Dodd: Somehow Connecticut has a Republican governor. Who knows what kind of senator she’d appoint, but to be sure, nobody in the state of Connecticut would miss Dodd’s absence. He’ll lose his reelection bid in 2010 too. So I would say he’s low priority.
• Joe Lieberman: Seriously, know knows what makes this guy tick. But he’s done the right a few favors in his day, so I say give him a pass.
• Tim Johnson: Senator from South Dakota. Again, I can’t think of anything this guy has done, but the governor there is a Republican.
• Amy Klouchbar: Senator from Minnesota. Seriously, who is this?
• Mary Landrieu: I always harted this woman, in particular for her staunch opposition to charter schools for DC while she sent her own kids to private schoold. In any event she’s from Louisiana, where she’ll likely lose election in 2010 anyway. Governor is Bobby Jindal.
• Patrick Leahy: Vermont has a Republican governor??? Who knew? Seriously, that guy is safe as can be. And I’m not going to bother to mention the other Senator from Vermont, who appears to be opposed to this health care bill because it isn’t liberal enough.
• Ben Nelson: The guy is open to bribes, apparently. But seriously, he’s a douchebag. And Nebraska has a Republican governor.
• Jack Reed/Sheldon Whitehouse: Rhode Island has a Republican governor, but this is similar to the Vermont situation. Prolly not worth bothering.
• Harry Ried: Senator from Nevada. Tarks’ gonna kick his ass in 2010, no doubt about that. Nevertheless, they do have a Republican governor out there.
• Barbara Boxer/Diane Feinstein: Senators from California. Governator out there is nominally Republican but not reliable enough to make these two worthy of consideration.

So there’s my list. Do with it what you will. I personally won’t be doing anything, but it’s nice to fantasize a bit.

Go here and here for background.

So the supervisor from Verizon called me back. I explained to her that the sign-up system said it wanted to verify my identity, not run a credit check. So I was confused as to why they were attempting to run a credit check on me, particularly for such small dollar amounts. She told me that they do it to verify my identity. I told her that I wasn’t applying for credit, and she claimed that on the sign-up form online it says you are applying for credit, which if it’s true I missed it. I told her that I didn’t need credit, that I was willing to pre-pay for the account. I explained to her I was willing to go into a Verizon store and show my identification to prove that I’m me. None of this was acceptable to her. She said that everyone needs to go through this process, even if they are pre-paying!!!

I’d like to diverge here and tell you about Hassey Landscaping. I hire Hassey to mow my lawn during the summer months. He charges me $35/week for this service. That’s twice as much per month as Verizon wants for their mid-tier Fios service. When Hassey started doing my lawn, he did so on a handshake, no contract or anything. I asked him how he’d like to get paid and he shrugged, telling me he’d bill me. Which he did, once, at the end of the summer. And guess what? I paid him.

Hassey was able to extend me twice as much credit as Verizon not because Hassey knows me or anything. Not because Hassey ran credit checks on me. Or because I paid him a deposit. But because Hassey knows where I live, because he could stop cutting my lawn if I didn’t pay up, and because even if I didn’t pay up, the risk to his operation is minimal. If only Verizon knew how to think that way.

Back to my call with the supervisor, I told her that she lost the opportunity to gain a new customer. It’s too bad really, I was really looking forward to the service.

Oh, and just in case you think I’m being a little nuts here, I want to let you know that giving your credit report to your ISP is an extraordinary thing. Your ISP knows every website you go to, sees every bit that passes in and out of your home. Matched up to your credit report, your ISP likely knows more about you than anybody on the planet. Moreover, Verizon and Yahoo are refusing to disclose the number of requests that are made through the Patriot Act for information on their customers.

One can only assume that the correlation of one’s credit report to one’s internet usage is required for nefarious purposes, especially since the credit risk to Verizon is so low, especially since they declined my offer to prepay my account and show them a government issued ID. I suppose I’m better off without the service. OTOH, who knows what Comcast has on me. They probably ran a credit report on me before I signed up for Debix. Seems like there’s no winning out there…

Go here for background.

So I received an email from Verizon telling me I needed to call in to verify my identity. I called in and got a woman on the phone in short order. She explained to me that they needed to verify my identity, and that I was under no obligation to give them my SS#. That was good, so she asked me permission to look at some Experian database to verify my identity. I told her to go ahead. This is where things get interesting.

She told me that I had a fraud alert put on my account, which I do. It’s from the company Debix. It’s a service I pay for to make sure that unauthorized people do not have access to my credit report. So Verizon wasn’t verifying my identity. They wanted to see my credit report. But they wouldn’t acknowledge this. I told her that she didn’t need my credit report to verify my identity, and that that wasn’t the proper way to verify my identity in the first place. I explained to her that I own the property, and that can be easily verified online with the register of deeds by visiting www.masslandrecords.com.

She responded by saying she didn’t have Internet access.

I tried to ask her why my credit card number and billing address, which match the location where service is to be installed, is not enough. She didn’t have an answer, other than to repeat that I hadn’t verified my identity. I asked her why she needed to verify my identity. I tried to explain to her that I spent more at Amazon this Christmas season than I will spend with Verizon in a whole year, and with Amazon I shipped goods all over the country. Yet Amazon doesn’t require my SS# or run credit checks on me. After all, I gave them a valid credit card number, and am able to verify the billing address. She didn’t seem to get my point, but she offered to have a supervisor call me back, which I accepted.

In any event, I recorded the conversation on my iPhone while having her on speakerphone. I’ll post it later. But my guess is I’m not going to wind up getting Fios.

Some time ago, I wrote about how I am one of millions of Americans with no choice in Broadband service provider. That has just changed, as Verizon now offers FIOS. This is excellent news, as I intend to ditch Comcast as they are nothing less than evil incarnate (post to come later on them).

Nevertheless, FIOS doesn’t make it easy to switch, for reasons that absolutely baffle me. First off, their online sign-up process requires you give them your social security number. They provide a button saying “Why do we need this” but when you click on it, they assure you it’s for your protection, so that nobody else opens up a Verizon account in your name. That is absolutely absurd on multiple levels. Verizon will be coming to my house, which is registered with the recorder of deeds in my name, to hook up service that the Town of Belmont acknowledges belongs to me. Upon coming to my house, they have every opportunity to inspect my drivers license, passport, or other government issued identification to satisfy themselves that I am who I say I am. So what gives?

In any event, you can decline to give them your social, but they say your installation will be delayed as a result. Fine with me. They’re the ones who want my business after all.

Next up comes their service agreement, which they want you to agree to after refusing to give your social security number to them. The agreement is 9,222 words of dense legalese. I’m going to post the entire thing after the fold, but it’s worth noting that they present this contract in a window that is 50 characters across by ten lines tall. Try reading a brief email in a window so small. I cut and pasted the entire thing into Word so I could read it better. And I suppose I’ll abandon my cart and start over again at some point because this will take me a while to read through and digest.

What I don’t understand is why they would want to make it so difficult for someone to sign up for their service? If I give them a credit card number and agree to buy at least one year’s worth of service, what else could they possibly need? Is the risk so high that I might not pay enough for the installation costs to force me to jump through these hoops? And if it is, why not just charge an installation fee and forget all the credit checks and prying into my personal information?

I’m just saying that this is no way to start out a healthy new relationship between a customer and a vendor.

UPDATE: Here’s my favorite provision, from attachment A-2, they have the right to terminate my service if I “(e) post off-topic information on message boards, chat rooms or social networking sites; (f) engage in conduct that is defamatory, fraudulent, obscene or deceptive;” Maybe I should have them review the samaBlog before entering the contract…

Read the rest of this entry »

So if you use a mac, you’re aware that Microsoft stopped supporting Windows Media Player for the Mac, and the suggested solution was to download Flip For Mac to be able to play .wmv files. This plugin enabled you to play .wmv files in Quicktime. It seemed like a fine solution for a while.

Flip For Mac has occasionally requested that it be updated, and I never hesitated to update it. I had already updated on my living room mac and was about to do so on my kitchen mac when I noticed in the install window it said it was also going to install Silverlight, which would update itself on its own without asking future permission. That is a MAJOR no no in my book, and is subversive to the security measures that are built into the Mac.

So I sought out to uninstall Silverlight from the machines where I may already have it. I found some instructions on a MS Developer Board. Go into Terminal and enter the following:

rm -rf /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/Silverlight.plugin
rm -rf /Library/Receipts/Silverlight*.pkg
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft/Silverlight

Flip For Mac contains an uninstaller in the applications folder, so I used that to uninstall Flip For Mac. So I think I’m now free and clear of the SIlverlight issue, but I can’t be sure. I’d be interested in hearing from other parties on this.

The proper solution for how to play .wmv files on a Mac comes from the open source community, of course. It’s the MPlayer for Mac. Go ahead and download it, and associate .wmv files with it. It won’t play in-browser like Flip For Mac, but it will play any downloaded files, including Divx and just about every other format under the sun.

This concludes our public service announcement.