Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2

Ballmer as Hamlet?

Kara Swisher sounds like she's loving the classics in her post about the ongoing sturm and drang between Microsoft and Yahoo. She pulls out references to Hamlet, (Steve Ballmer as Hamlet? The zaniness fits.), Scylia, Charybdis, and Odysseus.

She may be right, but even with her explanation I'm thinking this more Damon Runyon like with a chorus of gangsters singing Luck Be  A Lady Tonight, and Ballmer as Big Jule.

Latest reports have some sort of decision happening today after the market's close.

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday morning reading to share.

The Presidential Follies keep getting sillier with all of this talk about elitism and calls for Obama to apologize. If he does, he loses my support. I like it when a politician speaks the truth, even if it will cost him votes, and even if he could have phrased it better. This is a non-issue that the media is using to justify their own importance. Nothing more, nothing less. Oh, and the elitists on all sides are happy to help.

Why China is the Real Master of the Universe. Ah, history.

Simplicity Sells to the older set when it comes to gadgets and high-tech. Heck Simplicity sells to every set.

Gartner analysts prove they can summarize a gazillion blog posts about Vista and claim it is collapsing in on itself. Wow. I guess when you're an analyst you can do that. Yeah, it is bloated and no where near what anyone hoped it would be. But that is such old news I'm amazed it is still getting headlines.

Reducing Back to Art. Ethan Kaplan looks at piracy and value in the era of digital insanity.

Alberto Gonzales can't get a law firm to give him a name on the letterhead. Anyone surprised?

Death by Oboe. How acoustic instruments torment their players.

Eric Rice on "How can I stop being called a 'blogger.'" Everything eventually loses its meaning.

Twitter is Like Sex. No wonder it is so messy.

Nvidia CEO Brings Out The 'Whoop Ass'

If this wasn't about serious issues and serious money it would be hysterical. Wait a minute. Never mind. It is hysterical. In ongoing war between Nvidia and Intel over the Integrated Graphics market, Nvidia's CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang decided to get down and dirty and said, "We're going to open a can of whoop ass" before proceeding to jump all over many of Intel's claims. You have to also love this line that apparently came later in the diatribe: "How much faster can you render the blue screen of death?"

Oh, my.

Via DailyTech

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Intel,Nvidia,Whoop Ass

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday morning reading to share.

The New York Times is talking about the class action suit against Microsoft for the Vista Capable designation.

A Blog House not a BlogHaus in Washington DC. The New York Times reports on a group of bloggers sharing diggs. What's next, Twitter dens?

Bill Maher says politicians should stop saying "Americans are smarter than that." Go, read the rest of the quote. I couldn't agree more. Via Crooks and Liars.

Michael Parekh On The State of Online Video. As usual, Michael is spot on.

Cringely on Antisocial. From CB radios to Social Networking. Destined to crash and burn?

Steve Gillmor on The Power of Choice.

Bernard Lunn on Local 2.0. So is re-localization a trend?

The next war. Chinese Hackers brag about cracking the Pentagon.

Building new theatres is a trend. DC certainly has been seeing this recently. But it takes boosters, a community, and dollars. Trust me I know. Without those things, it is an uphill battle. Even so there are trade offs. Good article in The New York Times.

Loren Heiny on The MID Wars. Coming on the heels of Apple's announcements this week, there's some interesting discussion going on. I weighed in here.

Dave Winer thinks Obama should name his VP now and that it should be Jim Webb. I still say Sam Nunn.

You know the economy is in the crapper when Vegas is seeing a slide.

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday morning reading to share.

I'm enjoying the Presidential Follies quite a bit. I've been saying that Hillary Clinton could never win the White House long before things heated up for one simple reason. She doesn't connect with many voters. David Broder in the Washington Post is now saying the same thing in Clinton's Flaw: A Failure to Connect.

Meanwhile, Obama looks like he's pulling out all the stops for the primaries on Tuesday. According to the NY Times he's upped his spending in Texas and Ohio to try and throw the knock out punch.

Frank Rich on looking at the fine print on John McCain. The Republicans already have and are waiting for 2012.

Nick Carr (and others) are saying Microsoft is going to finally unveil its web strategy this week. TechCrunch thinks we might see an offline version of Silverlight. I just hope we see something other than announcements.

The cost of everything is going up. Now it is pizza and beer.

New Jersey joins the club of states with a law forbidding text messaging and phone calling while driving. I still ask this question. Why does their need to be a new law for this? Isn't it considered simply reckless driving?

The New York Times on denouncing and rejection.

Doc Searls on No Country for Old Men.

Colin Walker's thoughts on the role of Bloggers.

Scoble Goes on a Tease with a Tear

Robert Scoble sheds a tear he is so excited by something Microsoft is going to show us later this month. Supposedly whatever it is, it is a game changer.

Yesterday was one of those days. Curtis Wong and Jonathan Fay, researchers at Microsoft, fired up their machines and showed me something that I can’t tell you about until February 27th. I’m sure you’ll read about his work in the New York Times or TechCrunch, among other places. It’s too inspiring to stay a secret for long.

While watching the demo I realized the way I look at the world was about to change. While listening to Wong I noticed a tear running down my face. It’s been a long while since Microsoft did something that had an emotional impact on me like that.

Nothing like setting up the expectations game. Now if someone can only deliver.

19-0 Super Bowl Sunday Morning Reading

Some Super Bowl Sunday morning reading to share.

Yesterday I wrote a little parody about the NFL (and New England Patriots) going trademark crazy. TechDirt has some more here. It's a crazy world.

What Does Twitter make you do? Shel Israel links to Laura Fitton's blog post that garnered some interesting, but very similar responses. Colin Walker also follows up.

Microsoft bids for Yahoo. The world goes nuts trying to analyze it. Who knows how it will all shake out. But I bet this story is one that will dominate the headlines for quite some time to come. My bottom line? If Microsoft succeeds in its bid, it has to succeed with whatever its plans are, otherwise... big news turns into big failure.

Jeff Jarvis says The Internet is THE social network. I couldn't agree more. Problem is, no one can make any money that way.

Reports that the Patriots did some taping prior to the 2002 Super Bowl. This coming after the NFL admitted it destroyed the tapes from this year's taping scandal. Congress wants to get involved. Silly.

States Rights? West Virginia wants to teach gun safety in PE class. Mississippi wants to ban the obese from restaurants.

Ann Coulter proves that labels like Republican don't really matter. She says she'd support Hillary over McCain. She's not the only right wing talking head trying to take down McCain. This will be interesting to watch and almost makes me want to see McCain elected.

Al Qaeda is either having trouble recruiting, or is just getting stupid. They are now using the mentally handicapped as suicide bombers. Someone tell me what chapter of the Koran that is in.

On a day about a game with a pigskin, it seems China is dealing with pig-jacking. Yep. Someone is hijacking pigs in China.

Technorati Tags: Twitter,Super Bowl,19-0,NFL,Yahoo,Microsoft,pigs

Microsoft Patent Wants To Spy on Workers

Who thinks up this stuff? I mean seriously, who sits around and comes up with the idea that it would be a good idea to remotely monitor a worker's productivity and health through wireless sensors connected to their computers? Are these the guys/gals that think up torture techniques? Are these the folks who think up Terms of Service and EULAs'? I mean there must be some genetic disposition to this kind of insanity.

Supposedly if I was wired up to through this gizmo it would be able to detect my frustration and anxiety and offer assistance.

Give me a break. But then I guess breaks will be monitored too.

Via The TimesOnline

The Myth of El Dorado

Sometimes the naming of things is prophetic, sometimes just stupid, and sometimes Freudian. Microsoft has named its digital watermarking system El Dorado. It might eventually classify as all three of the above. Digital watermarking is the latest move towards allowing entertainment companies to protect their content and supposedly will replace DRM. All it really does is shift the technology behind the concept. Given that the Myth of El Dorado led many to search for a city of gold, at least calling it that exposes the motivations.

A lot of folks got excited that the majors are supposedly abandoning DRM in favor of digital watermarking, but I have my doubts that that this sort of "forensic precision" will be the answer and predict it will cause all sorts of disruption.

I don't think they ever found the gold of El Dorado and I doubt they will this time either.

More reading at Wired.

Technorati Tags: el dorado,drm,microsoft,digital watermarking

2008 Wicked Stage Predictions

Someone will be elected President of the US, despite everyone's best efforts to screw it up.

Whomever is elected president will not get the usual honeymoon that new presidents receive.

There will be natural disasters.

There will be extreme weather conditions at various places on the planet.

Extreme weather will be blamed on Global Warming.

Scientists will insist Global Warming isn't real.

There will be several celebrity trials, murders, scandals, etc.. that will dominate the news.

The Writers Strike will never end. No one will notice. No one will care.

The RIAA will branch out to start suing other lawyers for using boilerplate legal language in EULAs.

New products will be announced. Some will actually be released. Some will actually sell units.

Google will continue its march towards world universal control of all data.

Microsoft will continue to suck at marketing its products.

Apple will continue to roll.

Steve Jobs will continue to fight with the entertainment industry. He'll win some and lose some. He'll  be perceived as the winner and the loser, depending on the phase of the moon.

Web 2.0 will become Web 2.1.0319428. We're not ready for Web 3.0 yet.

The Gang will continue to be this decade's best effort at surrealism.

The Russian Bot gang will take down another country.

Savings will become the new consumer buzz word.

Telco's and big media companies will continue to bite the hands that feed them, even though they continue to get slapped by those same hands. What's a little pain when you have profits?

Robert Scoble will upset someone somewhere with a blog or Twitter post.

Someone will patent stupidity and then we are all doomed.

There will be predictions made at the end of 2008.