The trouble with Google

The problem with smart people is they can be so dumb.

Take the techie wunderkinds at Google. They thought it would be a fine idea to combine Gmail with elements of Twitter and Facebook, thus giving themselves the chance to be the Masters of All Social Media.

BUT NONE of these scary-smart people thought combining the exhibitionism of Twitter and Facebook with the inherently "private" nature of electronic mail (even if it is web based like Gmail) might be a problem. And could, for some people, be a full-blown privacy nightmare from which they'd be hard-pressed to wake up.

(Note that the last link is not kid- or workplace-friendly . . . the title is "F U Google," only spelled out in all its Anglo-Saxon glory. And the post gets more bitter from there.)

Reuters explains it all here:

Google touted its 176 million Gmail users as a key advantage in its latest attempt to break into the red-hot social networking market, dominated by the likes of Facebook and Twitter. But email may turn out to be Google’s Achilles heel.

Less than four days after introducing Google Buzz, a social networking service that is built-in to Gmail, the company is already moving to address a growing privacy backlash.
At issue is the network of contacts that Buzz automatically creates for new users based on their existing email contacts, saving people the laborious chore of manually building a social graph from scratch.

The problem is that Google’s ready-made social network is composed of people’s frequent email contacts – which are not necessarily the folks you want to receive regular status updates and random musings from (e.g. your landlord).

But the bigger problem – as many blogs and online publications have pointed out in recent days – is that people’s email contacts are in inherently private and the mere fact of making them publicly accessible can be dangerous.

FAIL.

Who needs the National Security Agency to comb the Internet for every detail about us when Corporate America so helpfully encourages us to out ourselves? And then we're shocked, shocked when an abusive ex-husband shows up on the stoop with a shotgun. Or when an employer takes a dim view of that picture of you . . . well, prudence dictates that I not elaborate upon that one.

Thing is, it's not just Buzz in Google's quiver of poison-tipped arrows aimed right at the stuff formerly known as "None of Your Beeswax."

See the above screenshot.

If you have Google Chrome as a web browser, you might want to be extremely careful about who you let use your computer. Or about using any remote-desktop software.

You might even want to set up various user accounts on your PC, and then banish Chrome from all but your own. Then again, you just might want to uninstall the whole thing and resign yourself to surfing the web more slowly.

That's because all it takes for someone to steal every saved password you have is to open Chrome, click on the "wrench" icon on the toolbar, go to "options" and . . . voila!


AND IT WILL show them all to you, too. Or anyone else. Oops.

The trouble is you're likely to look at that and think, at first, "That's handy. I can't keep up with all the damned things. Can't remember half of them." Only later -- if ever -- do you get around to thinking that if you can look up all your passwords. . . .

Pity. I like Chrome. It really is sleek and fast.

But I like lots of things that, sooner or later, could land me in a world of hurt. The question is whether you can afford to indulge in them.

And that question, the way things are going, could be the death of Google.

Creating a negative buzz

Who in the world, upon hearing the premise of Google Buzz, ever could have thought privacy issues might come into play for all those early adopters getting their "buzz" on?

Really, what in the world could be the problem when you, in effect, combine Twitter and Facebook with your clunky old G-Mail account?

WELL, this, according to Business Insider:

There is a huge privacy flaw in Google's new Twitter/Facebook competitor, Google Buzz.

When you first go into Google Buzz, it automatically sets you up with followers and people to follow.

A Google spokesperson tells us these people are chosen based on whom the users emails and chats with most using Gmail.

That's fine.

The problem is that -- by default -- the people you follow and the people that follow you are made public to anyone who looks at your profile.

In other words, before you change any settings in Google Buzz, someone could go into your profile and see who are the people you email and chat with most.

(Freaking out already? Here's how to IMMEDIATELY stop following someone >)

YOU ARE NOW FRIENDS with that cheap barfly from the Cougar Lounge in the Bide-a-Wee Motel. Boy, you E-mail her a lot. Thirty-seven people like this.

Your wife does not.

Personally, I try to avoid "friending" loose women from local drinking establishments. That's one reason I've been married almost 27 years now.

See, there are things that I electronically share only with a specific person or persons. That is called E-mail -- it's not perfectly private, but it's about as private as you get in cyberspace.

Then there are things I care to share with friends, acquaintances, friends of friends and friends of acquaintances. That is called Facebook -- it's a great tool for finding folks, catching up and keeping up.

Finally, there's this thing I use to spew out pithy little tidbits to whomever wants to read them. I also use it to, in a matter of speaking, keep my electronic ear to the ground. That is called Twitter.

I GUESS if I were someone who just couldn't manage to keep three applications straight in my head -- and on my computer -- I'd be interested in Google Buzz. But I bet if that were the case, I'd be someone you'd figure you couldn't trust with a secret.

Thank GOD for free shipping

What I want is a bad-ass Mac Pro to fly through multimedia chores -- to put together podcasts with the greatest of ease.

I can see it now.

Dual quad-core Intel processors, 32 GB of RAM and four 2 TB hard drives in a RAID array. An NVIDIA GeForce graphics card. Two SuperDrives. A 24-inch Apple cinema display.

HANG ON, I'm just getting started, y'all.

An Apple Magic Mouse. An 802.11n Wi-Fi card. Logic Express 9 and Final Cut Express 4 (Hey, I'm not greedy . . . I didn't go for the Pro versions). Aperture 2 photo-editing software. Microsoft Office (Ick, but what'cha gonna do?)

A Mini Display Port-to-DVI adapter, just in case.

And a Canon PIXMA printer.

Oh . . . and don't forget the AppleCare package -- a no-brainer here.

AS YOU probably can tell, I went to the online Apple Store to configure me one of these bad boys. Likewise, you probably will not be shocked by what I say next.

Brother, can you spare $15,042.90?

Sigh. Windows sucks, but at least it's an affordable sort of suck.

In the year 2025 . . . will K-Yuck and the Daily Blab still be alive?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The past 10 years has been the decade of "disruptive technology."

And the easier the tech is for your average clod to use, the more disruptive it has been, is and will be in the decade to come. See "search engine, Google" and "iPod, Apple."

FROM A series that began Sunday in the Omaha World-Herald:

“In the year two thousaaaaaaand!”

That cry heralded one of Conan O'Brien's recurring late-night gags in the '90s, in which he listed ludicrous predictions of how the world would change in the new millennium.

In the year 2000, O'Brien said, political correctness would dictate that the term “homo-sapiens” be changed to “alternative lifestyle-sapiens.” Also, for no apparent reason, the color green would be renamed yellowy-blue.

Who could've guessed he wasn't being absurd enough?

Just 10 years ago, we lived in a world that didn't recognize the phrase “reality TV.” A world in which, for all we knew, Paris Hilton was a French hotel. It was a time before steroids killed baseball, before iPods killed CDs.

It's not just the simple stuff that's changed. Terrorism, war, political battles and financial struggle indelibly affected every aspect of our culture, even — or especially — the parts traditionally considered entertainment.

But the question is: What cultural elements will come to define the years 2000 through 2009?

(snip)

1. Google

You know what another good name for Google would be? The Internet's oxygen.

Google, the Internet search engine founded in 1998, is about as omnipresent as things get online — it's always around, it's absolutely essential, and like that odorless gas we breathe, its importance is pretty easily ignored if you're not paying attention.

Beginning with its fast, accurate and thorough search, the GooglEmpire (it's not a word, but it should be) has grown to include Google Maps, Gmail, Google Earth, Google News and endless other incarnations, innovations and creations.

Face it, it's Google's Earth. We just live on it.

2. iPod

It's a simple gadget, basically an empty — albeit pretty — hard drive and some white headphones. And yet, in just a few short years, Apple's iPod (first released in 2001) has staged a cultural coup and completely changed the way we listen to music.

As much a feat of marketing (joyous, bright musical commercials) and marketplace genius (iTunes, the most convenient music store ever) as it is beautiful hardware, the iPod forced the music industry to change its focus from albums to singles, and from CDs to online digital files. Two-hundred twenty-five million sold, and music may never be the same.

MAYBE I should revise my lede on this post. What if we only think the "noughts" have been the decade of disruptive tech? What if the first tenth of the 21st century only has set the table for the real disruption to come?

What if 2000-2009 has been high-tech's figurative working over of traditional media's midsection, with the odd jab here and there to newspaper's snout and broadcasting's swollen right eye?

And what if the next 10 years delivers the uppercut that finishes the job that started with the last 10 years of "softening up"?

Muhammad Ali, meet Steve Jobs.

Jobs, the brain behind Apple, bloodied and staggered radio and the record industry with the iPod and iTunes. And now, it looks like he's about to either save or kill off newspapers and magazines with Apple's long-rumored "tablet" computer.

Personally, I wouldn't even consider that Apple's tablet will save newspapers, but I mention the possibility because the analyst in the MSNBC video above did. He apparently has much more faith in traditional media's ability to embrace and adapt than I do.

DID I mention the age of tablet computing probably will be the death of radio, too? Just ask former radio man Jerry Del Colliano:

In my opinion when this device is debuted -- not if -- it will be the most successful consolidation of media ever -- far more successful than radio consolidation.

Apple will likely allow music, movies, email and web browsing. Some call it a potential Kindle killer because it is likely to compete in the book reader category that Amazon's Kindle has started.

This is purely out of the Apple playbook.

Let someone else test the market and they come in with a cooler, more intuitive device with a back structure that includes Apple's massive and growing iTunes store.

I've heard that the new device may also include a PDF reader making it a phenomenal choice for professional people (doctors, lawyers, disc jockeys -- sorry, I'm partial to radio djs) as well as an ideal replacement for student textbooks.

How popular do you think Apple will be if municipalities everywhere could stop ordering textbooks and have students access digital books through the iTunes store?

(snip)

Let me be blunt.

If radio is not actively engaged in iPad content, it is over even sooner than the ten year life radio has left.

Why?

Older consumers will also migrate to the iPad. They showed a willingness to embrace the next generation's new tools when they adopted email, texting, Facebook and iPods to name a few. This will be no different.

The new iPad will be their own personal media device. Their bookstore. Their TV.

And radio's answer to simply stream terrestrial audio won't work here. In fact, radio needs to get video. And I'm not talking about a studio cam aimed at the morning dj (if they still have one).

The iPad is something very exciting and the only industry that has talent in place to occupy that space is the one industry that is firing all its talent.

You know who.

The iPad will be bigger than the iPod and iPhone but for radio and the music business it will be the iPlop if they don't get into the future right.

AMEN.

What we have today -- and what already is wreaking havoc on traditional media -- are version 1.2 devices, essentially. An Apple tablet will be cheaper than a good laptop, as capable as a netbook (and far more capable than a Kindle), easier to carry around than a newspaper and will offer a far more compelling multimedia experience than an iPhone or other "smart phone."

It will be like jumping directly to a version 3.0 device.

Unfortunately, broadcasting and newspapers -- at least those still working in broadcasting and newspapers -- by and large are partying like it's 1999.

Saving grace in an amazing tablet?

This is great.

This is the paperless newspaper . . . and magazine.

This is what we all knew was coming down the proverbial pike a decade and a half ago. See?

NOW, it's almost here. But is it too late?

That's a good question, because the Big Question remains the same: In an era where free is the new subscription price and information comes from a diffuse electronic cloud surrounding us, how do you monetize this?

Will the ads in a "tablet" version of, as the demo shows, Sports Illustrated be compelling enough, targeted enough and cost-effective enough to hold advertisers and fix the broken model of "traditional media" financing? And is it possible anymore to charge for content even as cool as the demo?

See, in the brave new world we find ourselves inhabiting, the "cloud" giveth and -- as unemployed newspaper people everywhere have found out -- the cloud taketh away.

They're a PC

They say Mac faked this video to embarrass PC.

Somehow, I doubt it. Now, if Ogre had run into the Microsoft Store in Mission Viejo, Calif., and screamed "NERDS!" while this "line dance" was going on, that would have been too perfect, thus leading me to think it a fake.

BUT THERE IS, starting at about the 2:11 mark in the video, a line-dancing shopper seemingly availing herself of a five-finger discount on a Microsoft product that likely will mete out rough justice to her in its own special way. And at 3:47, it appears a kid might be doing the same.

That child had better give his heart to Jesus, because his ass is going to belong to the Blue Screen of Death.

Of course, it could be that the lad was driven -- allegedly -- to a life of crime by a new Microsoft innovation. Allow MSNBC.com to introduce you to the brand-new Black Screen of Death:

Microsoft says recent security updates made to computers running Windows 7, Vista and XP operating systems are not to blame for the "black screen of death" some users are having on their machines, which results in the computer shutting off.

However, it was still unclear Tuesday what the source of the problem is. It is the first of any scope to affect users of Windows 7, the software maker's newest operating system which became available in late October. Microsoft said if there is a problem, it may be tied to malicious software, or malware.

"Microsoft has investigated reports that its November security updates made changes to permissions in the registry that are resulting in system issues for some customers," said Christopher Budd, security response communications lead member for the company. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

The company, Budd said, "has found those reports to be inaccurate and our comprehensive investigation has shown that none of the recently released updates are related to the behavior described in the reports."

Windows users are familiar with the "blue screen of death," when their computers essentially shutdown because of an operating system problem. The new "black screen of death" appears to occur when the computer is first turned on, then shuts down.

"We’ve conducted a comprehensive review of the November Security Updates, the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool and the non-security updates we released through Windows Update in November," the company says on its blog.

"That investigation has shown that none of these updates make any changes to the permissions in the registry. Thus, we don’t believe the updates are related to the 'black screen' behavior described in these reports."

WELL, that's it. Gotta post this sucker before the computer locks up.

And next, we'll make felt banners!

Hey, Mac! You have GOT to come see what PC is up to now!

Really, Mac. Look at this instructional video for playing host to a Windows 7 launch party later this month. The only thing they left out are the Windows 7 pocket protectors.

I MEAN, this isn't a really kewl launch party for a really neato-keen operating system that locks up on you 15 percent less than Windows XP if the wind is blowing right and you don't actually run any Microsoft applications. No, this is your church youth group with the possibility of adult beverages.

My God, it even has the same kinds of "activities."

And when all the party hosts get the bright idea to play Windows 7 "sardines," it'll be easy enough to find where everybody's hiding.

That would be the Apple Store.

HAT TIP: Crunchy Con.

Digital news on magic tablets? Who knew?

The day every computer user knew was coming a decade and a half ago is just about here -- 10 years later than we thought.

It would have been nice had newspapers spent that time developing the kind of product predicted in this 1994 video from the Knight-Ridder Information Design Lab. Instead, print journalists -- and broadcasters, too -- decided it would be a far better thing to operate as if there were no tomorrow . . . as if their past would be their future, forever and ever, amen.

Newspapermen and broadcasters turned their buggy whips into more buggy whips, and then took their 30-percent returns and turned them into massive debt as big corporations acquired other big corporations. Meantime, local publishers sank money into bigger and better buggy-whip factories erected as monuments to their business acumen.

The "digital newspaper" could wait. Half-assed efforts on this "Internet" thing would have to do.

Pared-down electronic versions of print ads would suffice as a digital business model as well. What would you expect on a medium capable of text, audio, video and instant connectivity -- instant shopping without even having to click away from the Daily Blab's website?

THE TROUBLE IS, the "information superhighway" had ideas of its own. More precisely, the billions of people using it had distinct ideas of their own, ideas that didn't jibe at all with publishers' or broadcasters'.

Newspaper people -- as reflected in the above video -- thought the digital revolution would be the equivalent of an electronic newspaper vending machine. When they put their own product out on the World Wide Web for free, it had to have been with the assumption that the genie could be put back into the bottle.

Also, there must have been a like assumption that few would seek to become digital "publishers" and, furthermore, couldn't make a buck at it if they dared to try. Because -- in the ossified minds of the ossified types in ossified "mainstream media" boardrooms everywhere -- the thought of "new media" philistines making a digital go of it without the expense of a sprawling buggy-whip infrastructure and 19th-century distribution network was just crazy talk.

NOW, 15 years later, the newspaper industry's "bright idea" is to make readers pay for online content they now get for free -- and for which the "new media" philistines happily will continue to charge the low, low price of . . . nothing. The new "crazy talk" is someone pointing out that readers never have "paid" for news content, that advertisers always have been the ones bankrolling newspapers' journalistic undertakings.

No, it's not publishers who are crazy for not providing advertisers a decent return on a hefty investment, thus exploding the entire business model of newspapering. The "loons" are the folks pointing out plain facts.

Want to hear something crazy? Newspaper advertising revenue is at its lowest level since 1965, and newsrooms all across the country are starting to look a little like postwar Dresden. The average denuded newspaper of 2009 probably would be able to implement the Knight-Ridder Information Design Lab's digital vision of 1994 about the same time -- give or take a few years -- hell freezes over.

AS IT TURNS OUT, the above video was the last hurrah for the Knight-Ridder Information Design Lab. Knight-Ridder closed it in 1995.

Knight-Ridder itself ceased to exist in 2006, having been swallowed whole by McClatchy Newspapers. McClatchy, of course, is choking on the $2 billion in debt it took on in the process.

A major problem for the chain has been a 30-percent drop in advertising sales. I'm sure that can be remedied by expanding readership by charging folks for online content.

HAT TIP: Mashable

Fun with software

Hi, boys and girls! I'm Cap'n Favog, and this is the Revolution 21 Show.

We're going to have a great show today, and we'll get it started with today's Popeye cartoon right after this message from our sponsor, Twice as Sweet cereal. Have some tomorrow! It goes great with an ice-cold Coca-Cola.

In other words . . . there is absolutely no point to this post whatsoever. Just felt like showing off what you can do with a freeware "paint" program while I wait for the Spybot to quit running.

The TV, by the way, is ours. They just don't make sets with character anymore . . . says the original steam punk.

Kill virtual baby, si. Pass virtual gas, no.

Talk about your "killer app."

Baby shaking is all the rage among the no-self-control set, so we knew it was only a matter of time before some techno sk8r punk app developer brought a prison-free version of it to your iPhone, all for the low, low price of 99 cents.

Not surprisingly, the "Baby Shaker" program made it into Apple's App Store, which deemed a virtual whoopee cushion too tasteless to be sold. Slightly more surprisingly, Apple pulled it after child-welfare groups raised holy hell.

THE FOLLOWING Culture of Death Minute is brought to you commercial-free by Suzanne Choney and MSNBC.com:

A controversial program for the iPhone called "Baby Shaker" was added to, then pulled from, Apple's App Store this week after protests about the program's offensive nature dealing with a deadly serious subject.

Child protection groups were outraged by the 99-cent app for the iPhone and iPhone touch, which encourages those frustrated with babies' crying to shake them, or in this case, shake their devices to change drawings of a crying baby to a calm one.

Apple, "which notoriously and routinely rejects new apps from developers with a 'rigorous' vetting process, nonetheless apparently allowed this horrible application to be sold through its store," said the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, whose aim is assist in the research of new developments for children with pediatric acquired brain injuries such as Shaken Baby Syndrome.

"Not only are they making fun of Shaken Baby Syndrome but they are actually encouraging it. This is absolutely terrible," said Marilyn Barr, founder of the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome and a board member of the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation.

Apple, asked about why the Baby Shaker app was approved and how long it was available before being pulled, did not answer those questions.

"It was removed today," was the only statement Wednesday from Natalie Kerris of Apple.

Sikalosoft, listed as the developer of Baby Shaker, could not be reached for comment.

OH, AND ABOUT that rejected virtual-fart app? Apple has standards, you know:

The company has been criticized by software developers for not allowing other kinds of programs, such as those that pass digital gas, into the App Store.

Such apps ultimately were approved, although the developer of one, "Whoopie Cushion," was first told by Apple that his program did not "comply with Community Standards,” programs that have “any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.) or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”

NOW, if someone were to develop a Capitalist Shaker app, they might be onto something.

They've only had 28 years to figure this out

Picked up your local newspaper lately? Not much to it anymore, is there?

The ink-stained wretches are wretched, indeed, these days, and a whole medium is being washed away by the Two Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- the Internet and the tanking economy. A whole way of life, and the jobs that went with it, are being swept out into the troubled financial waters.

What? Four horsemen?

No, you didn't hear. (Probably because there was no room in The Daily Blab.) Two of the horsemen got laid off.

Well, there's one thing you can do in the face of this sudden media disaster. When next you see a publisher or an editor crying crocodile tears over what has befallen his newsroom . . . punch the son of a bitch in the nose. Then hand him a handkerchief.

BECAUSE, YOU SEE, what the Internet would ultimately do to newspapers has been a long time coming. The publishers and editors saw it coming. We all saw it coming.

We for sure saw this day coming 15 years ago, back when we were marveling at the news and information you could get off of America Online and CompuServe. But it was more obvious than even that -- we saw an inkling of it with the fledgling over-the-airwaves teletext services of the mid-1980s.

And, as we see in the above 1981 news story from San Francisco's KRON television, newspapers damn well knew this day was coming. Back then, geeks and the well-heeled were playing with Apple II, TRS-80 and original IBM personal computers that set them back $1,000-plus -- and newspapers like the San Francisco Examiner were making their content (sans ads or pictures) available for download.

Still, editors felt no sense of urgency in the days when online access was expensive and it took a couple of hours to download the paper via an old-style acoustic modem.

THAT NONCHALANCE about the computer world held sway for a long time -- I remember when I was a copy editor at the defunct (of course) Baton Rouge State-Times in the mid-to-late 1980s, only a couple of privileged longtime copy editors were instructed how to use the newsroom's lone Macintosh.

I wasn't one of them.

That nonchalance never did give way to any sense of urgency, come to think of it. For the last decade-plus, most newspapers' websites have remained red-headed stepchildren. And it is the Amazing Shrinking Print Edition that sets the agenda for the Uppity Whippersnapper Online Presence.

And for every cool online effort like the New York Times' or the Las Vegas Sun's, you have sorry, unnavigable messes like . . . well, most everything else.

NOW, THOUGH, broadband ubiquity has met Great Depression II, and that ink-stained nonchalance has given way to wild-eyed panic. Well, ye guardians of the Fourth Estate, you abandoned the parapets to go smoke cigars and admire your double-digit returns on investment.

And now the barbarians are at the gate, and you're desperately trying to reinforce it with the bodies of your cast-off employees. But it's too late.

I hope our new media regime will be a benevolent one. I hope that benevolence doesn't extend to Mr. Editor and Mr. Publisher.

HAT TIP: Jason Siffring.

The next big thing

As we speak, there are Mac enthusiasts flocking to their local Apple stores wanting to buy the new MacBook Wheel. I have a better name for it, but there are ladies present.

Really, if Steve Jobs built it, people would buy it. Probably the same people who really enjoy tagging MiniDiscs.

I think the reason The Onion's satire is so damned funny is because you know there's someone out there. . . .

HAT TIP: Dvorak Uncensored

Digital rebels without a clue

Talk like National Public Radio's Dick Meyer and you might be a dangerous man.

TO WIT:

"The 1960s was a symbolic turning point," Meyer said, citing the decade as a time when personal choice became more important than following tradition.

"It became much more important to make all these choices as a witting, conscious consumer of life," Meyer said of formerly tradition-bound elements like religion, where people live, whether they decide to get married.

"And deeper than that, there was a sense that if you did follow a traditional route," Meyer said, "you were an existential weakling."

MEYER IS AUTHOR of Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium, and he can't stand incompetence, indifference, rudeness and normative bad behavior. Or, at least, what used to be bad behavior before it became normative. His comments were from a piece accompanying audio from an interview on NPR's Morning Edition.

Meyer, NPR's new digital-media editorial director, also has a certain fondness for traditional community . . . and tradition, period. He thinks it wasn't bad to have identities other than the one you manufacture for yourself out of whole cloth -- a religious identity, an ethnic identity, a community identity.

He thinks those things can add real meaning to life.

IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN BETTER for Meyer, at least among some decidedly postmodernist combox warriors, had he advocated flying jetliners into skyscrapers. At least, with that scenario, those now hurling invective at poor Dick Meyer might instead be wringing their collective hand and wondering "Why does he hate us? Have we done something to offend."

That, however, is not how Postmodern Man -- which is kind of like Socialist Man, only whiny and self-centered -- rolls when it comes to those guilty of thought crimes. Here's something taken from the comments on a Meyer thread at The BPP Diner:

This is either a joke or just pure provocation. The man is angry because the only place where he could be sure that the guy making his sandwich wouldn't forget the tomato has closed. The man is a self-hating trailing-edge boomer (see his bio) who yearns for the good old days of "community" where everybody knew your name. Well, they knew your name, but they were probably much more fond of calling you "hey nigger", "hey faggot", "hey dyke", "hey kike", "hey slut"...

AND HERE'S another measured response to the Meyer piece on NPR's Morning Edition:

"But I have no sympathy for "poor Dick Meyer". Appreciating civility and values is one thing. But there's a difference between that and wishing for things to be like the past. You know what, things aren't like they were 50 years ago. Get Over It.

"Seriously, you want a guy who thinks community is having the people in the lunch place know your name running digital media where in the present we are trying to build new types of communities?"

YES. Yes, I do.

If people don't care to know your name in the "real world," they sure as hell won't care to know it in the "new media" world, either. And if someone doesn't care that his sandwich was made indifferently and not-to-order by a couple of lazy morons at the chain eatery, he also just might not care whether your Internet content is created indifferently by a department full of morons.

And if folks think that a prerequisite for building "new communities" based on digital media is the neglect or outright destruction of real-world communities, wait until the power goes out. Or a bad storm hits. Or your house burns down.

Or, perhaps, wait till some future day when oil is no longer affordable (at all) and the economy runs out of gas in an energy-starved country. Can a "digital community" save us if our computers have no juice? Or if we no longer can afford to buy a computer?

Even considering all the potential online social media have, will computers or some "digital community" be there to help raise your kids, or have your back when life hits the fan . . . or make sure you eat when you're old and enfeebled, then wipe your ass when you no longer can?

NO, I GUESS things aren't as they were when I was born in 1961. In some ways, that's a really good thing -- being that I was born in the Jim Crow South, experienced segregated schools first hand and saw quite enough ugly before I turned 10.

In other ways, it's a terrible thing that things aren't as they were in 1961. The commodification of everything in society -- including people -- wasn't nearly so advanced as it is now. Folks had manners, for the most part, and while the barbarians might have been at the gate, they generally weren't running the culture.

Yet.

Tradition is a funny thing. Religion, too. When they're functioning in a meaningful way, they can seem stifling to some people. We feel like we're unable to "create our own identity."

And sometimes, tradition for tradition's sake can grow incredibly stale and pointless. You can't ever lose sight of the "why" in tradition . . . or in anything else.

Thus, it's quite true that some traditions outlive their usefulness, if ever they had any. I don't know that many civilized people would argue for female circumcision, serfdom, intractable class structures or women being regarded as property.

On the other hand, when you start flailing away at the whole of "tradition" and the "old ways" with a broadax, you're going to find quite quickly -- as we now are realizing -- that we've just chopped down whole institutions and forces of habit that provided refuge from what sought to devour us. The unfettered freedom to "create our own identity" likewise gives a disordered and dysfunctional society the unfettered license to define us as mere pieces of meat.

What does a virtual community based on digital media do about that?

Really, isn't the craving for "new kinds of community" online just a case of humans -- operating on sheer instinct -- desperately seeking what they've just spent the last 50 years dismantling?

And some combox Nietzsches see poor Dick Meyer as being unfit to do his digital duty just because he, on some level, recognizes that?

Good God.

Oh . . . sorry about that invocation of a primitive belief structure. It's difficult being a troglodyte, you know.

Ask Dick Meyer.

Why it's important to smart-ass-test ads

Stung by bad street and slow adoption of Windows Vista, Microsoft is getting ready to launch a "fight back" ad campaign, says ZD Net.

If this is going to be the overall message of Microsoft’s much-vaunted new $300 million ad campaign, it might be money well spent. According to the folks at LiveSide, the first ads in the new campaign were previewed at Microsoft’s employees-only Global Exchange conference last week to rave reviews. As Tim Anderson astutely noted the other day, “Vista is now actually better than its reputation. That’s a marketing issue.” Microsoft’s biggest challenge is to get would-be customers to set aside whatever preconceptions they have and listen to its pitch for Vista. Aligning its most vocal Vista critics with the Flat Earth Society is a clever way to get people’s attention.

But the bigger job, that of actually changing people’s minds, will be easier said than done. Apple has largely defined Vista’s public image so far with its devastating “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads. Responding directly to those ads is a losing tactic. Largely thanks to John Hodgman, the humor bar is set extraordinarily high. Any kind of response ad would legitimize the claims in those Apple ads and run the significant risk of being seen as lame and uncool.

And there’s no sign that anyone in Redmond is going to go down that road. Instead, clicking the link on the “World is flat” add leads to a page headlined, “Windows Vista: Look how far we’ve come.”

ON THE OTHER HAND, shouldn't a "fight back" ad NOT be this damned easy to parody:


I MEAN, really. The concept of the spoof took about . . . ooooohhhhhhh . . . three seconds. All the rest was dinking with the freeware Paint.NET program.


HAT TIP: NE Creative blog.

No keyboard to pound

Someday soon, computer users won't be called computer users.

Someday soon, people everywhere will have to find all-new ways to have non-computer, computer-related nervous breakdowns when whatever-the-hell Microsoft gadget we're dealing with goes on the fritz.

CNN breathlessly shows us the brave new world, when the whole family can gather around the tabletop media center for group primal-scream therapy at the prompting of a futuristic Blue Touch Screen of Death:

Software giant Microsoft unveiled some of its future technology at its fourth annual Innovation Day in Brussels on December 4.

And from virtual family organizers to tabletop touch-screens, their vision of the future sees technology move from the traditional desktop computer to become seamlessly integrated in all aspects of our lives.

One key area that's set to change, says Microsoft, is user interface. MD of Microsoft Research, Cambridge, Andrew Herbert told CNN, "Sitting at a keyboard with a screen in front of us is an old-fashioned view of computing. Technology is going to be around us, it's going to be much easier to use."

Developments in touch-screen technology have resulted in large screens that can be used by multiple people, creating table-top tools for collaboration at work. And along with touch-screens, voice recognition will make our interaction with computers much more natural.

Herbert told CNN, "Interactive surfaces are making it easier for people to use computers with gesture and touch. It will make it easy for people to collaborate together. Speech will be an important part of that, too."

"We'll think less of one person, one computer," he continued. "It'll be people working together in an environment with lots of computers that you can interact with."

Touch-screens will also play a role in the home, according to the Microsoft-funded "Living Tomorrow" project. They showed off a large electronic touch-screen family organizer integrated into the wall of a fridge, which included shopping lists and menus compiled from product bar codes, a family calendar and virtual sticky notes.

"It's a way for a family to stay in touch, even though Mum's away on a business trip, Dad's at the office and the kids are doing different things," said Herbert. "It's the idea of social computing holding families together."

Immense tragedy makes you do odd things

I am one of those people who notes the little absurdities and oddities amid great tragedy, how sheer urgency and a little panic makes people do odd things.

This is one of those moments and -- though I'm skating along the thin edge of propriety amid the horror of the previously unthinkable -- I did want to note one bit of media pretense and stodginess crashing to the ground and breaking into a million pieces. Because when it all hits the fan, you've got to do what you've got to do.

Like use the word "blog."

This happened at the Omaha World-Herald, which has been notoriously suspicious of this Internet thing . . . particularly the phenomenon of weblogs. In fact, "blog" (a.k.a. "live update," when the paper absolutely, positively had to commit blogging) was that Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken.

Until today, when immense tragedy pushed the trivial and the petty to the side, as old media and new did what they had to do. Today, instead, all of us were forced to focus on the Big Things in life.

And death.