How Not To Blog

Wired news used to be a good, clean place to get your tech news from. But ever since the porn star news reporter, "Gina Lynn", came onboard... things have been a little different. (Ok.. she's not the Gina Lynn, but I'm pretty sure they're both using fake pornstar names.)

Now, instead of the regular news and on-time-every-time monthly rave about some new military gizmo we have to deal with a sex-deprived techie whose every article seems to be about cybersex.

First there was Fleshbot, the porn blog so often linked to by the Disney-and-Porn obsessed BoingBoing.net (did they ever figure out how to work their site?) Its popularity spawned dozens of copycat blogs trying to make their publisher's fetishes popular so they won't feel so bad about the size of their penises.

Wired.com, give me technology news. If I want to read something that will turn my private into a soldier I'll peruse Craigslist's WSW section.

Other blogs, you don't need to put in a picture of a new type of vibrator or a closeup of my vagina every week just to garner additional interest.

I suppose the only job a washed-up actress can get these days is playing herself.

I bet they bought her at a discount rate. Heck, she's probably doing it for free to get some publicity.

Watch out! If her show is successful we will see the return of Gary Coleman, the other midget from Fantasy Island (or is he DEAD?), and Corey "Crack Head" Feldman.

Hollywood is out of ideas again. How about a line of television shows based on successful movies if you can't think of anything?

The Netscape 8.0 beta is out.

So, what we've got now is three very similar products from basically the same sourceforge: Netscape 8, Firefox 1.1, and Mozilla 1.7.

What value does Netscape add to this mess? Besides taking the Firefox 1.0 platform and mucking it up with their own AOL shi7, they also made it less functional, made it 11MB (more than 2x heavier than Firefox) with no support for either themes or extensions, and with a butt UGLY user interface. In addition, its plugin to access IE's engine makes Netscape 8 vulnerable to the same security issues as IE regardless of what engine is being used. Talk about a waste of resources. Who's going to download and actually use this crap?

How could you "improve" on Firefox by messing it up completely?

Way to go, Netscape.

Users don't want bloat-ware, AOL/Netscape. They want less. Only you want more. You want your AOL crap to self-install on my PC (which is why you don't bother telling users about this on your product page). You want me to use AIM and other future AOL crap.

Does AOL still use IE for their browser? Does anyone still use AOL besides clueless suburban familes? Netscape went from browser company to AOL baby to low cost ISP. Now they are wasting time and effort on this browser. Why do they even still exist?

Netscape should have died a long time ago.

The Globe and Mail had, on page F9 a few weeks ago a short article about Hunter S. Thompson, who apparently was writing an expose -type book or piece on the 9/11 WTC demolitions.

Hunter telephoned me on Feb. 19, the night before his death. He sounded scared. It wasn't always easy to understand what he said, particularly over the phone, he mumbled, yet when there was something he really wanted you to understand, you did. He'd been working on a story about the World Trade Center attacks and had stumbled across what he felt was hard evidence showing the towers had been brought down not by the airplanes that flew into them but by explosive charges set off in their foundations. Now he thought someone was out to stop him publishing it: "They're gonna make it look like suicide," he said. "I know how these bastards think . . ."

The New York Post also talks about it on March 4, "suicide fuels conspiracy buzz".

"There was a spent shell casing, but although there were six bullets left in the gun's clip, there was no bullet in the firing chamber, as there should have been under normal circumstances."

There was also a power down around the WTC buildings a couple of days before. Also see the video, "New York Firefighters Discuss Bombs in WTC Towers"

Funny, the Lone Gunman (X-Files spinoff) pilot episode on 3/2001 was about a WTC/airplane conspiracy.

The only conspiracy here is that the secret government wants a story on the WTC buildings being demolished by Bush & co. so that you won't think about his love monkey, Jeff Gannon.

If you haven't seen it already, check out the Paris Hilton Sidekick Simulator. It's pretty damn funny.

People will never feel comfortable paying for Wi-Fi access at exorbitant rates. Who wants to be charged by the minute or hour.. or megabyte... just for the privelege of being outside the home?

When is someone going to come along with a nice little script that allows businesses to sell targeted text ads (like Google Adwords) to display to users surfing on their wifi networks for free?

Is broadband really so expensive that companies can only think of how to charge for the "luxury" of internet everywhere? They're missing the exponential value to business everywhere by limiting the natural outgrowth of being online at home.

In my example above the more you would like me to use your wifi the more money I could actually make you.

Businesses and enterprising citizens would be screaming to spread their wifi connections everywhere. The whole country would be blanketed with free high-speed wireless in less than 3 years.

To help the process, I wouldn't mind some kind of innocent tracking cookie in my jar that allows you to show me only those ads you're pretty sure I would be interested in. Don't show a lot.. perhaps rotate one ad (and one ad only) every 2-3 minutes. That way, I'd want to see what the next lone ad is, instead of wanting to avoid that section of my screen entirely. I think an ad scarcity model would work because I think most people would long for some kind of external message/validation.

Google or some other company would surely make a killing on such ads, guaranteeing their own future relevance in the process. I would almost say that Google needs this kind of growth if it wants exponentially greater profitability.

Continue to think of WiFi as a commodity, and you miss where the real money is. Traffic.

In China, Microsoft will start offering large discounts on its products to those who have bootleg versions and are willing to rat on their suppliers.

Who in their right mind would think of something like this?

The "discount" of 50% is still expensive for most Chinese, which is why the black market for software and other media thrives. Walk through any market in any good-sized city in Asia and you will find every kind of Microsoft product imaginable for $4 or less. (Even this is a little expensive.)

As far as they're concerned, the product is real (the CDs work 95% of the time, just like the authentic version - ok, so I know some people). So much for US companies losing billions to piracy - tell me how? Most of the people who purchase the bootleg versions would never in their lives have paid full retail price for it. It many large cities you can't even find a place that sells software. Much of the piracy that occurs is in internet cafes and other communal settings, where one bootleg copy is ghosted to every computer. A lot of students use Excel after class to work on a project, for example.

By the calculation of companies like Microsoft, every person who used a bootleg version was actually going to purchase the full retail version, but the bootleg was cheap and readily available so they purchased that, instead. This kind of tomfoolery sounds great in the news, but there's no substance behind it. It would be interesting to see some research done that reflected the reality of piracy in developing countries.

They should actually be thanking pirates for doing them a favor and ultimately helping their bottom line by the magic of free brand building and free advertising. They get $0 distribution and marketing costs all across Asia and South America, among other places. Consider it a promotional copy that got way out of hand. (But that's good under certain conditions, right?)

Here's the How for Microsoft...

If everyday Chinese are forced to buy Microsoft products, they wont. (Unless it's the same price as the bootleg - market forces are at work here. And there's no way to stop piracy in China. You've got to be kidding!)

If you crack down too hard (wasting much precious time and resources with nothing substantial to show for it in the end) then the market for FREE software will explode leaving you with no street cred in the largest consumer market in the history of humanity.

Let piracy flourish with Microsoft products in developing countries. Build your brand among the up-and-coming class. Educate them about how your crap smells a better than the free, low-class crap they could be using right now. You're Microsoft, dammit. "You want to be rich like Bill Gates? Then buy from Microsoft." They'll love it...

When they're middle class enough to purchase your products, most of them will. If a few people who now could afford to purchase your products don't.. so what? Heck, I started using Windows when it first came out.. but I didn't actually buy it until I was older and could afford it. That first copy of your shi7 product made me very proud. I still love your shi7 products for some unknown reason.

My guess is that for every dollar companies like Microsoft, Time Warner, Macromedia, Adobe, Disney think they're losing, they're probably only really losing about 5-10 cents.

They should just shut the hell up, focus on piracy in rich countries like the US and Europe, and devote more time and energy to building better products - the kind that is actually worth pirating - and try to understand the value of creative disruption.

Embrace what China is. Don't work against it. It is changing. Are you?

Philip Winn talks about his experiences with the new Napster at Blogcritics.

In 5 years, who will remember either? The iPod's cool novelty will pass gas, and there will have been an even better device to come along that will start another wave of copycats. A small device with a full-color display that lets you experience music like people are starting to experience and share photos and blogs with variable pricing plans would do the trick.

The only great thing about mobile phones in the US is that you can purchase a subsidized one that would have cost you a lot more if you commit yourself to a service plan. (You're also locked, which would be a benefit to the media companies.) Europe, with it's much better and more flexible GSM legacy, is actually looking to the US companies as a model for expanded profitability.

Why not the same thing for an iPod Shuffle and regular iPod? $40 and $15 a month for 2 years for the Shuffle. You'll break about even with the first $40 on the Shuffle. Wrap it with a revamped Napster-like buffet music plan according to how much people are paying you every month, and by locking your users in you can at least stave off an attack from another hardware company with a better product until you get your engineering department in order.

In other words, give me a good reason to give you more of my hard-earned money. The illusion of cheap is good enough for most people, including the millions more who haven't bought your products because of the price.

I try not to smoke, myself, but this is what religion can do to people. Some people can't handle their own delusions, and this pastorale SOB is one of them.

Your God can reclaim Uranus and sop it up til hell freezes over. No need to worry, though. Such demons are only in your mind.

Without people like me and he, bitches like these wouldn't have anyone to promote and sponsor their short-comings. Bad ideas can only survive through the actions of well-meaning people. The best punishment for ignorant people is just to let them be - give them mind and they will subtract from you. We're all massively ignorant about something. Some of us are just more annoying about our ignorance and stupidity than others.

Anytime I hear "he" in reference to "god", I know I'm talking to The Chosen Brainwashed. When they start talking about gays or 'unwed sex' then it's time for me to jump backwards three times and douse myself in mineral water to cleanse myself of intellemotional filth.

Without reference to Him, this world would be a much better place. There'd be a few billion more of us, but I think we can handle it.

Obviously, the "pastor" Fred Phelps is sexually attracted to Jesus and wants to suck from the lamb's teet. Why does he have a problem with that? I personally don't have a problem with "gay", as long as it's not me whose teet you're trying to suck.

To prove his manliness, he's had 13 children. And he told all of them that Mr. Rogers is in hell right now.

I will personally donate $5,000 to the Westboro Baptist Church, $1,000 towards counseling for all 13 of the Phelps' kids, and apologize in this space for being possessed by Satan herself if Mr. Phelps publicly kisses an image of the God he supposedly loves so much.

How far does his love go?

One solution to the 'Happy Birthday' copyright.

Sing it in Spanish.

?Feliz cumplea?os a t?!
?Feliz cumplea?os a t?!
?Feliz cumplea?os a ......!
?Feliz cumplea?os a t?!

and if the federalis bust down your door and hassle you for a bribe and your virgin wife is out blowing someone else, try this version on them...

? Cumplea?os feliz!
? Cumplea?os feliz!
? Cumplea?os feliz!
? Cumplea?os feliz!

That's right.. sing the song backwards!

Or, just give ASSCAP your middle finger like we all do with every other song.

Here's the history behind the song.