Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

Those who believe the old song that says it never rains in California have not spent the last two weeks in California. I've seen some pretty torrential downpours, but everything eventually gets back to warm and sunny like it is now.

Of course if you actually listened to the song you would know that, while it may not rain in California, it pours. Right now it's just perfect.

Canadians pay a levy on blank recording media like tapes and recordable CDs that goes to the record companies, because Canadians are assumed by default to be criminals who steal music. Despite the fact that you buy those CDs solely to back up your computer, you still are forced to pay the record companies.

But the levy is not a percentage; it's a fixed price per unit. As the price of CDs plummets, you just end up paying a larger percentage to the record companies. Michael Geist points out just how ridiculous this has become, with consumers now paying twice as much for the levy as they do for the CDs:

The numbers remain unchanged: 21 cents per CD-R. As prices have dropped, however, the levy now frequently comprises a significant percentage of the retail price. Consider the purchase of 100 blank Maxell CDs. Future Shop retails the 100 CDs for $69.99. The breakdown of this sale is $48.99 for the CDs and $21.00 for the levy (even worse is a current Future Shop deal of 200 blank CD-Rs from HP, which retails for $59.99. The levy alone on this sale is $42.00 (200 CDs x 21 cents/CD) which leaves the consumers paying $17.99 for the CDs and $42.00 for the levy).

Tip of the hat to Digital Copyright Canada.

Like the folks at Qumana, I also don't get the OPML Editor. Perhaps it's because I tried it on the Mac, because it doesn't seem to work well there. I couldn't quite figure out what to do with it. I think an application should give some suggestion of what you can do with it, but it wasn't obvious from the menus (but no screen or preferences) that the OPML Editor presented.

Perhaps there is some great unmet need for this kind of thing. I get the outlining capability from looking a Lisa's draft manual, but I'm not sure how this applies to blogging. Are we talking about threaded posts by category? Because I couldn't see how that would work either.

I wrote a blog editor named Bleezer .It does what I want it to do, no matter how long or short the post. I've yet to see an example of what Lisa or Dave Winer refer to of "a new way to blog".

A concrete example of this revolution in blogging might ne nice. Perhaps we're all just too dumb to understand.

One recommendation. You really can't convince someone that they are wrong by telling them that they don't get it. You have to tell them how it makes their experience better. The reason blog editors look the way they do is because everyone understands the WYSIWYG word processing experience. People need a frame of reference to understand how to do something.

After listening to everyone else, I finally have my own Rick Segal story to tell. Rick and I had dinner the other night in a little restaurant in Los Angeles.

I didn't pitch anything to him. We didn't talk about technology, or business. We talked about sailing, about his wife's education, my wife's daycare, and our kids. And he paid.

That's all. I had a great time, and he is a nice down to earth guy.

Not satisfied with only suing those who are sharing movies, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is now also suing the search engines that find the movies:

The Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday that it sued a new round of popular Web sites associated with movie piracy, including several that serve as search engines but do not distribute files themselves.

I have a much better idea. The MPAA should just sue the telecoms like Verizon and BellSouth and put a stop to this whole internet thing. After all, the ISPs are clearly aiding and abetting file sharing by providing connectivity.

Once we've killed this silly notion of mass communication we'll eliminate the problems of information sharing AND low cost phone service. Then everybody can raise their prices for their captive markets again.

Problem solved.

Via Furdlog.

I could build an entire application from start to finish with no problem in Netbeans, but I had to waste an entire afternoon trying to figure out why the debugger in Microsoft Visual Studio won't show me the value of a pointer.

I estimate that my productivity level has dropped by about 200% by using Visual Studio, and most of that time is spent tracking down errors that aren't even explained on Microsoft's site.

Yesterday I needed the Windows Media Format SDK. At Microsoft.com I couldn't find anything but the 64-bit version. I Googled it and the top hit was.... you guessed it - at Microsoft.com. But Microsoft sure wasn't going to tell me about it.

Next time Robert Scoble talks about how much better search could be he should start with his own site.

Om Malik is writingabout Vyatta and their open source router:

Vyatta is one of the many start-ups that are bringing open source disruption to the highly profitable and closed world of networking. While open source software movement has ravaged the bottom lines of companies like Sun Microsystems; networking behemoths like Cisco and Juniper have continued to enjoy fat margins they earned even before the telecom crash of 2000. Even today, a big portion of their IT budget goes into networking gear. Routers, switches, firewall devices, and even VPN boxes cost thousands of dollars.

As Om points out though, open source tools are definitely going to make huge inroads into developing countries like China. In my last job I competed against Huawei who were using open source software and cutting their prices to 50% of ours. At the point you have no choice but to use open source solutions. And that is going to hurt companies like Cisco unless they are willing to take a loss to get the business.

Also, the use of open source tools might allow people to begin to compete with the big telecom companies.

Jeremy Wright is afraid of MySpace:

MySpacers connect better than bloggers, get their friends into it better than bloggers, stay in touch more than bloggers, and form true sociological pods better than bloggers. MySpace is closer to the Google Grid than Google is. MySpace is the closest humanity has ever come to a central community or a central consciousness.

MySpace is a publishing medium as well, but while blogging is the domain of "adults", MySpace is the domain of teens. And let's face it, this is the most connected generation in history. MySpace is merely one of many connection and communication channels.

MySpace isn't a culture unto itself. It is merely one more outlet for a very connected culture and lifestyle. As I've watched my kids grow up the internet has been integral to their lives, first for research, and now for an almost unbroken connectedness. They move effortlessly from MSN Messenger to Skype to cellphones and back. Their IMs are sent to their phones. They make plans online. I've even watched a few of my son's friends sit with laptops in our family room and laugh simulaneously at some comment they've IM'd around, without a word spoken.

And if MySpace were to suddenly vanish something else would take its place the next day, if not sooner. I can remember the day Napster shut down. My kids had new tools within minutes. Just as the internet routes around problems, so do they.

I read the novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson for the first time over 10 years ago, and I can now clearly see it becoming a reality. My kids spend much of their time connected. In fact that is often the quickest way to get a message to them. And we can move information, software, music, or videos virally around the planet in minutes.

I personally don't care if blogging becomes obsolete tomorrow, because for me it is just a tool to reach people. If a tool like MySpace, or some even cooler thing that comes along tomorrow does a better job then I'll be there to use it.

I see MySpace as a huge opportunity. For research on how people interact and communicate. For understanding on how to better market effectively to large groups of diverse people. For improving our ability to build connections and maintain them.

Disruptions are like that. You have to destroy what you have to get something better. Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, said his company had to blow up their business model if they wanted to grow. Apple just says Think Different. MySpace isn't scary. It's just different.

But if you're a teen, it's perfectly normal. And it's just the beginning, because in their lifetimes the internet has been a constant disruption. They're used to change. Everybody else better get used to it.

Given that Toronto - actually anywhere east of Vancouver - has a distinct lack of "Web 2.0"-ish activity, it's nice to see that Mark Evans, Mathew Ingram, Rob Hyndman, Michael McDerment, and Stuart MacDonald are banding together to organize a conference on the subject.

Whatever you want to call it, the Web 2.0 idea is effecting a huge change on the way we do things, from creating and releasing products without funding, to altering the way we find and consume information in all types of media, to our expectations of how we do business.

While I'd love it if the run the show on the west side (I live in Waterloo), I appreciate them getting this going. I'd be happy to lend a hand as well. Maybe they can even get local VCs like Rick Segal to show up, if he isn't too busy hanging out with Robert Scoble on the west coast.

After all, Bleezer was just a start. I'm thinking about some new ideas myself.

From Kathy Sierra comes the Clueless Manifesto:

Here's to the Clueless Ones

The ones who see things differently

They're not fond of rules (granted, that's because they don't actually know about the rules)

They have no respect for the status quo (see previous statement)

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things.

I've always thought of myself as clueless. Read the whole thing.

The subject of Monday's debate in USA Today was childhood obesity. The opposing view suggests that today's parents are powerless against junk food marketers advertising to their children:

Junk-food marketers are waging a full-frontal assault on American families and kids' health. Companies spend about $10 billion annually convincing kids to want sugary cereals, fatty snacks and every manner of high-cal, low-nutrient, factory-spun junk food.

Their marketing is designed to convince toddlers and 'tweens alike that parents are wrong and that junk-food spokescharacters such as SpongeBob SquarePants are right. Many parents are sick and tired of having the nutritional rug pulled out from under them.

When I was a kid we were bombarded constantly by ads for toys and junk food. My parents had a different way of handling it. They said NO. Yet we survived. Oh we had the odd box of Count Chocula cereal as a treat now and then, but it certainly wasn't the norm. My wife and I raised our two sons the same way. They didn't get everything they wanted, but I think they appreciate what they have more.

Yes you can say no to your children. And no they probably won't wind up in therapy.

The Los Angeles Times has a big article on the state of the Canadian border. "North Border's Guards Who Don't" mentions the fact that unionized Canadian border guards walk off the job in response to reports of dangerous suspects headed north from the US:

Roughly a dozen times in the last four months, Canadian border guards, who unlike their U.S. counterparts are unarmed, have left their posts in response to reports of dangerous suspects heading north.

The walk-offs, spanning the border at posts from here to New York, have closed the crossings for periods of a few minutes up to several hours. In the most recent incident, Feb. 10, traffic heading from Blaine into British Columbia was backed up for three hours after Canadian guards left their posts in response to a report that a murder suspect from the Seattle area might be headed their way. The alleged killer never materialized.

You can't really blame them though; Canadian border guards are unarmed. The former Liberal government apparently had a reason for that:

Officials of the Liberal Party, which was in charge until recently, generally opposed the idea. As then-Revenue Minister Martin Cauchon put it a few years ago: "Side arms would not reflect our image."

Union president Ron Moran had this to say:

"Primarily, this has been an image thing. We're a peaceful nation, with Canadians being proud of the fact that we don't greet people at the border crossings with someone who's armed," said Ron Moran, the union's president.

"But the reality is that we don't live in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood anymore."

365 million dollars.

According to USA Today, US airlines lost 10,000 bags a day in 2005:

The rate of lost suitcase reports per 1,000 passengers on flights soared 23% from a year earlier, according to recent numbers from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Among the reasons: a surge in the number of passengers, airline budget cuts, backed-up flights and tighter inspections of luggage.

10,000 bags missing. Every day.

I just wandered into a Red Lobster restaurant to get some dinner. There were about 40 people waiting in the foyer for a table. As I spoke to the hostess I noticed that at least half of the tables in the restaurant were empty. When I asked her why there were people waiting when the tables were empty she told me that they only had partial service.

Imagine that. People wanting to come to your restaurant and give you their hard earned money. Only you can't be bothered to serve them.

An article in today's New York Times describes a new campaign to convince advertisers that print isn't dead yet.

The ads look as if someone has ripped out the regular ad, suggesting that people tear out ads that appeal to them. Honestly though, I can't recall a single time that I ripped an ad out of a magazine. It isn't as if there is a shortage of them; that I'd forget if I didn't take it with me.

It seems to me that before you can sell the advertisers on buying print ads, you'd better convince more people to buy and read print media.

Since I've been having a bit of a misinterpreted mail discussion today I thought this post at Techdirt was quite timely:

A recent study reports that the tone in email is misinterpreted 50 percent of the time. Furthermore, 90 percent of people think they've correctly intepreted the tone of emails they receive, making for a dangerous gap in communication. The lack of tonal and non-verbal cues have made email and IM a haven for misinterpreted statements and flame wars.

A story in today's National Post entitled "Microsoft takes aim at BlackBerry" (which doesn't seem to be online) talks about the introduction of new Windows Mobile email features at the 3GSM World Congress. It contains this interesting line:

RIM co-chief executive Steve Ballmer gives a keynote speech at the show today.

I wasn't aware that Steve, president and CEO of Microsoft, had gone to work for RIM. Perhaps they meant Mike Lazaridis or Jim Balsillie. Or maybe they know something I don't.

Pete Cashmore may think that CoCommentis the best Web 2.0 service launched this year, but frankly it doesn't matter to me.

Why not? Because I don't have a personal invitation code or an invite to try the service. Whether they want to build up hype by only giving selected people the right to try it, or their servers just can't handle the load doesn't matter to me. Either way it just says that they either don't want, or aren't ready for, me as a user.

But for every service like this, another one will pop up soon enough, like MyComments (via Scoble). So I'm not too worried.

Google did the same thing when they released Gmail. Now they have about 5 million users while Hotmail has about 200 million.

Simply put, if they don't want me use their service, that's fine with me. There are other places to shop. And new ones every day.

puts into words exactly what I've been thinking about the fleeting nature of many so called Web 2.0 applications. The geek in me wants to sign up and try every one of these cool toys, but they seldom become part of my day to day array of useful tools. Jeff Sandquist calls it the seven day rule:

I love to try out new software all the time, in fact its sort of an obsession. I'm always on the prowl for cool new applications. After seven days of use though if I'm not totally blowon away or if its not improving my PC life, its straight to add/remove programs I go. (Please, have a good un-installer).

These applications rarely gain traction with me because they are just that - cool toys - but they don't solve a problem for me. One pleasant exception is a tool called Filangy that caches every page I view in Firefox and allows me to search them later from any machine. It has allowed me to take all of my history with me as I go from machine to machine anywhere in the world. Unfortunately my Filangy use is suffering because of issues with Firefox on Mac OS X that have forced me to use Safari more, and Filangy doesn't work with Safari.

3bubbles is a perfect example. Adding chat to a web page, even an ajaxy chat, isn't new. And if I don't have chat on my web page already then I probably don't perceive it as a problem I need to solve. Mathew Ingram isn't that impressed either.

The proliferation of search engines is similar. Until I find that Google isn't finding what I want to find, then none of these other search engines is going to stick with me.

Of course all of these services will probably be seeking valuations based on how many users they have, but it seems that churn may be a factor here just as it is in the telecom business. Maybe we should be asking how many current active users they have on an ongoing basis.

Mark compares this to an endless buffet, but I prefer to think of it as a toy store. There are lots of toys to choose from, and people will buy pretty much any toy once, but there are only a few Cabbage Patch Doll, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Furby, or Harry Potter kind of successes. The toys that people don't but just end up in the clearance bins. And the web 2.0 applications that people don't continue to use just fade into last week.

Congratulations! We've taken the blogosphere and turned it into a replica of the traditional news media - the domain of a few editors who decide what people will be reading about or seeing today.

Doc Searls responds to Seth Finkelstein's post about the New Gatekeepers:

I have this idea that the blogosphere is the one place in the world; or perhaps an entirely new world, or a part of a new world, created on the Net; where there is no need for class, for caste, for gates or keepers of anything.

To me this is a world where the only success that fully counts is in helping move good ideas along, in helping make this new world a bigger, better and more open place. And in helping others enjoy the privilege of participating in it.

And it's Doc's post that makes it on memeorandum. In fact, on any given day I can pretty much guess with uncanny certainty who is going to be on memeorandum. And rather than tracking new ideas, memeorandum reinforces those existing bloggers comments.

Robert Scoble complained about the fact that bloggers had ignored news from Microsoft but were fawning over similar news from Google. Imagine, a Microsoft marketing guy complaining about press Google was getting. What are the odds? And that topped memeorandum.

Yet as Shelley notes, and I've seen myself, having these folks link to you doesn't really generate much traffic for you:

Along similar lines, Phil Sims writes The Piss-Ant Blogosphere. In the post, the Squash Man notices that the A-Listers don’t send him the traffic to go with their ranks, and this tends to cast doubt on the power of webloggers in influencing the success of startups.

I can agree to this: other than blitz of traffic for my Parable of the Languages, and the flurry of links to my Men Don’t Link writing, the most traffic I’ve ever had was for a blonde joke; I still get close to 4000 unique visits a day for this. Perhaps I can get Clairol to advertise on my site in the future.

But people do carry on excellent discussions in their comment sections.

So what we have is a model similar to that of the news media. The editors select the stories to print, and then people are allowed to comment on them (just like letters to the editor) in most cases, unless the blogger - like Doc - doesn't allow comments. Of course memeorandum does provide a mechanism for my related post to be found.

So in essence memeorandum is equivalent to the New York Times. Here are the stories we're following right now by our approved writers, and here is what people are saying about them.

Maybe that's why citizen journalism projects like Bayoshere aren't working out as expected. The average citizen can't get a word in edgewise. 

Folks have had chat on their websites for some time now, and it can be
useful, but I can't see the value for the average blog. While popular
bloggers and sites will have the traffic needed to get a good
conversation going, that to 5% or so doesn't seem to be enough customers
to build a business model on.

And if this kind of thing does take off, does it mean that we lose the
value of that conversation, or will it be saved somewhere and indexed
for future use? At least comments, while more static, are persistent and
searchable.

Lots of folks like Nick Carr, Paul Kedrosky, and Mathew Ingram are taking Robert Scoble to task for a comment he made. Robert is upset that Google is getting loads of press and blog love for something that he feels Microsoft did months ago, but didn't get the equivalent credit for.

Some time ago Microsoft introduced the Live.com beta project. I recall they got a fair amount of press at the time, but there never seemed to be a clear direction. It just seemed to be a collection of "all this stuff we could do". It seemed like a solution in search of a problem. And months later, the situation really hasn't changed.

On the other hand, when Google announces something it seems that they've thought it out, and it does one thing well (generally) and one thing only. And it is already working, as in the case of the San Jose Community College email system. They have solved a problem.

Microsoft is getting an inordinate amount of press everyday for Vista, a new operating system, even though nobody can articulate a clear reason why I might need it, other than all the cool new features it will have. There isn't even a delivery date, but in Europe Microsoft is having a contest to see who can guess the release date.

Microsoft gets plenty of press for merely announcing something. I think it is perfectly reasonable for Google to get press for doing something.

Now that MPEG-4 compression has become popular, AT&T has decided to monetize some patents that they claim underlie the technology:

AT&T possesses several patents related to video compression, which the company says are an essential component of the MPEG-4 video technology. In a bid to drive its global licensing program, AT&T has targeted Apple Computer, Inc., CyberLink Corp., DivX, Inc., InterVideo, Inc., and Sonic Solutions as unlicensed companies whose products and software utilize the MPEG-4 technology.

AT&T has also contacted national retailers that distribute products from the companies listed above, to let them know that they may be held liable for infringement.

They don't make any products that use the technology, and they waited until the technology became popular before they decided to enforce their patents. So does that make AT&T a patent troll?

If there was ever an example of software that makes life easy for IT administrators at the expense of users, Lotus Notes is it:

Where Notes does win praise is from those who administer it, who say it is secure, stable and flexible. Databases can be tied together, and there is even a "bridge" to Microsoft's Outlook.

[...]

Delay's remarks brought one sharp user retort, who observed that "Notes's backend functionality has no bearing on us 100m or so end-users. As far as we are concerned the GUI is the system. And boyo... is the GUI client a heap of ill-conceived, non-intuitive rubbish."

I used Notes years ago and found it painful even for the most simple of tasks. This was about the time when we were starting to build collaborative software over the web, and Notes became far too painful to use. Replication alone was a huge waste of productivity, especially from a hotel room over dialup.

While Lotus Notes claims that its strength is collaboration, I've typically seen it used only for email and calendaring, sometimes in situations where the companies also use collaboration products like Documentum.

Yes Bleezer version 0.9.5.6 is available at www.bleezer.com. So what's new in the past two weeks?

• Much prettier interface, and restructured menus.
• SFTP and Proxy support (though untested)
• Support for Wordpress (online) and MetaWeblog blogging
• Improvements to tag definition and handling

There is also a laundry list of bug fixes and a bunch of other stuff that nobody noticed yet.

• Get Posts with Blogger on Windows XP is unable to retrieve posts - fixed
• Blogger returns 500 error - fixed
• Bleezer occasionally hangs while sending trackback pings - fixed
• Get Posts doesn't return posts properly in edit window - fixed
• div tags in posts causing problems - fixed
• File-New menu option now does something

Support for del.icio.us bookmarking was in up until the last build when it suddenly broke, but you can expect it to show up in the near future.

Remember, suggestions are always welcome. Enjoy Bleezer!

I was reading Jeneane's comments about the "beta-everything" state of the internet today and something occurred to me. Maybe we're not at Web 2.0 yet. Maybe we're only at Web 1.9... beta.

Tim at O'Reilly Radar wonders why Netbeans has such buzz right now compared to Eclipse. Hmmm. Is Netbeans eclipsing Eclipse?

Well part of it might be the fact that version 5.0 was just released. But when I started writing Bleezer I tried both Netbeans and Eclipse, and I found Netbeans to more intuitive and easy to use. That isn't to say that it is perfect. Some things don't work as advertised, the documentation isn't always clear, and there is a lack of examples. But Bleezer was created entirely in Netbeans 5.0, and I think that it helped me get things done quicker.

Perhaps people are just discovering that Netbeans is a viable alternative to Eclipse.

Russ Beattie decided to drop the comments from his blog because they were taking too much time to deal with. And now he's getting abuse from people that feel that he must listen to their opinions about his opinions.

Folks, along with "freedom of speech", we also get "freedom to not listen". Russ is certainly free to exercise that right (though he's actually exercising his right to "free time" here). If you've got something pressing to say, then start your own blog, write about it and link to him. At no point in history have you ever been more free to say what you think for all the world to hear.

I read Russ's thoughts because they are always engaging and entertaining. He can choose to have comments to not. That's up to him. I'll still be reading.

My local paper, The Record, is blogging. Unfortunately, they are still thinking like a newspaper. Rather than encouraging readers and bloggers to quote and discuss their blogs, they have posted a prominent legal note:

Distribution and transmission or republication of any material is stricly prohibited without the prior written permission of The Record.

Let's just hope it isn't a violation of copyright for me to post their legal notice.

Some people are suggesting that RSS has broken out into the mainstream:

With support in both major browsers now, the large group of people who haven't actively gone after RSS are starting to subscribe to it as they see it come at them.

Hmmm, let's see. Internet Explorer 7 is a beta, still breaking, and probably a long way from primetime. And yes you can click a feed icon in Firefox and it will create a whole bunch of bookmarks a couple of levels deep. Not exactly user friendly.

I agree with Dave Winer here. RSS has potential, but it is hardly well known once you step outside of the rarified world of bloggers.

When my local paper figures out that they need to put an RSS feed on their main page I'll be more convinced. Of course when they do my browser should just pop up a little window and ask me if I would like to subscribe to the articles online.

What we really need is a Pandora-like tool that analyzes my OPML reading list and suggests other feeds I might be interested in.

Hey, I agree that the new Sony Ericsson M600 is a very cool phone, but how does a corporate press release end up on Memeorandum?

Valleywag humor:

Overheard on Ocean Beach, two guys talking about "double beta probation" social browser Flock:

Guy 1: Does anyone use Flock who isn't making Flock?
Guy 2: The people dating the people making Flock.

Not real pain and suffering, but the kind of mental anguish that afflicts you when you are developing software and you just can't get something to work.

I've been adding a few things to Bleezer, and making a bunch of bug fixes. I noticed a comment by Robert Scoble about posting to del.icio.us from Flock, and I though that would be a great thing to add to Bleezer. So I grabbed the del.icio.us-java code from Sourceforge and coded it up. It worked first time, and it was slick.

Today I did the final release build and I tested it and it failed miserably. Try as I might I just could not get it to work. The addPost just fails with no explanation. I finally gave up and backed it out, and I'll put it into the next release.

So here I sit, aggravated by the fact that I just couldn't beat the problem today.

David Dingwall, of the Royal Canadian Mint, resigned last year in connection with a $748,000 expense tab. Yet he still felt that he was owed severance. His comment, "I am entitled to my entitlements", was played frequently in commercials from the Conservative party, who defeated the ruling Liberals in the recent Canadian election.

Andrew Coyne now points out that the Liberals did pay Mr. Dingwall $418,000 in severance, quietly approved on January 20, three days before the election. They conveniently forgot to tell anyone. It also appears that Mr. Dingwall didn't resign; he was fired, though the Liberals insisted that he had resigned.

A senior official claims that "neither Prime Minister Paul Martin nor any other campaigning politician knew about the Dingwall settlement until Saturday, when officials in the Privy Council Office issued a news release." And if you believe that...

Perhaps Google is thinking of eliminating the need for those pesky telecom companies. That doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

A woman. In the venture capital business. And she says exactly what she thinks, which makes for pretty entertaining reading:

Circling back to the example of being thought of as "intellectually déclassé", I cannot tell you how many times VCs I’ve dealt with have made snide comments when they see me at a bookstore in Palo Alto with an interesing title in hand or reading a book of “substance” at lunch . The most over-used comment I’ve heard is,” Oh, I thought all you admins read is Cosmopolitan.” Now, I’m not exactly the paragon of intellectual firepower..but how insulting is that comment?!?

Next time one of you idiots sneers at me when I’m reading something that seems up to “your standards”, I will drop kick your ass and stomp on your head like a late harvest grape. Bring it on!!

Tip of the hat to Rick Segal.

Living in Waterloo, Canada, I am inundated by the NTP vs. RIM saga. Here the whole thing is painted as the American patent troll attacking the Canadian success story. The latest chapter is the suggestion that, given the fact that the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has issued preliminary rulings that the NPT patents are not valid, the court should wait for final rulings before judgement.

I've also noticed that many of the people commenting do not understand the patent system or the US legal system.

Fortunately Dan Taylor, managing director for the Mobile Enterprise Alliance, has been explaining the situation in clear unbiased detail. He explains how the three branches of government work here.

Today he explains why we can't just wait for the patents to be declared invalid, which could take years, by quoting from a decision of the court in the NTP vs. RIM trial:

The Court recognizes the rights of a patent holder whose patents have been infringed. Indeed, the essence of patent protection is that a party legally deemed to have infringed one or more patents shall be liable to the patent holder for damages. Valid patents would be rendered meaningless if an infringing party were allowed to circumvent the patents’ enforcement by incessantly delaying and prolonging court proceedings which have already resulted in a finding of infringement.

When I installed a wireless network in my house a few years ago I used to tell people that I could work in the bathroom. I could, but I was kidding.

Apparently some people took the idea a bit more literally:

With a BlackBerry, two mobile phones, three office computers and wireless Internet for his car, Greg Shenkman is never far from his work. But recently the CEO of San Francisco-based Exigen Group eked out more productivity by wiring the final frontier: his bathroom.

When Mr. Shenkman answers the speaker-phone in his shower, the water automatically shuts off. He can open the front door for deliveries while shaving. He's also put the finishing touches on a waterproof computer that will let him answer emails from his sauna. "I took Gates a little too literally," he says. "The flow of information never stops."

Technology was supposed to make our lives easier and give us more free time. Instead it has merely pushed people to work longer and harder. If people are now working in their bathrooms, where do they go just to think?

Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, believes that the CBS brand is strong enough that people would rather go there to purchase episodes of television shows, rather than usin