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We're all wizards now.   A C Clarke's often cited,paraphrased or mangle quote is appropriate for many of the daily tasks we take for granted.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' 1972 A. C. Clarke Lost Worlds

Over the last couple of weeks I've found that walk up magic and showing people how to get the most out of a cell phone leads to the same reaction. ( the latter is far less likely to get you  burned as a witch in some of our undeveloped  3g areas) 

 Shazam is one of those apps that is cooler than a cold man's  cold bits  during an Alaskan  Mr Ice Pants festival.   For the last  few months  I've been trying to find out the names of a couple of songs that are played  at the  good old hockey game. Both tracks  have no music ,  have really short hooks and one could safely classify them as being graduates from the " bleep bleep thump"  school.

I'd sat with an iPhone in my pocket  game after game while forgetting I had the means to do so with me. Loaded the shazam app from the stadium wifi,  awaited the song to come on and set it to capture.  This is not an easy capture.  That's a PA  with  cheering and pervasive  clapping   but Shazam was  able to determine most of the songs under these conditions.    Just load, lift and listen and it does the rest on your iPhone or Android device and you can save it for later, or buy it  now.   My god a  business model on the mobile web what a wondrous age we live in!

 

That's still not the interesting part.  Why did it take so long to put this 2+2  together?   Turns out it was an ambiguity that I could live with but my  wife always  kept asking about.. "what song's that"   is a problem that's harder to live with. 

Locating the good apps quickly then  finding out what is, and isn't useful , could be a second career,  a really badly remunerated  second career.   So best make it a hobbyto find out what your friends regularly overlook  when relating to the net  and   with your  best  Carnac the magnificient  impression  hold the phone  to your head and proceed to  amaze.

 Why spend the time?  Most of the coolest apps  work when   you have an audience,  heck  in that  stadium of 11,000 people only  2 were logged in on the  two presence services I use. In general  I feel like a "boy and his iPod dog" wandering the  desert , Phoenix  looks pretty much looks like  distopic sci fi anyway so it's not too hard to play along.

My Personal blogging has been quite light over the past months. I've found that most of the items I want to "chip in" is sated by  commenting on them  via Google Reader  and  quite frankly there are better written  blogs on every subject apart from that niche category..  "what does an internal exile  that escaped Scotland to come to the USA think about the weird customs ,practices and beliefs of his adopted nation"   which is , regardless of grammatical heresies ,  the authoritative  source for what I believe that I believe at the moment.     It may look like a list of things  Hal thinks are stupid especially when voted upon but  I assure you that the 18 , 26, and 30 year old me didn't keep the same list so the next time you  batter someone on the head with an opinion     keep it around  a  decade or two and see if that idea really stands up.  Where I am not in error, though these are rare and happy events,   relates to  illogical ideas.  E.g when people ask me to keep something the same but change it  I don't see how any restatement of their request can lead to a "happy" answer.   At the moment these are things that interest me. Mobile web,     the kind of world that emerges when  resources are too costly to move people to and from places of work,education  as a matter of course,  educating our toddler, thinking of alternate ways to make a scrapyard profitable and dare I say green?     Locating items which are truly innovative and not just this year's restatement of the past with  a couple of features , aka  the marketing departments mega pixel effect were more is better, cough bullshit. Go Daddy Christmas party. Last night  saw Joan Jett at  the companies  Christmas Party, aka Go Daddy.   We got home around 1am and bought her last CD,   Sinner by Joan Jett  which made up for  the other two acts Sinbad  ,  the last syllable is devastatingly accurate,   and 38 Special ( I was ignorant of their oeuvre ) and  I had to leave my own   38 special at home  this being a work event and there being drink and all:)  We also had to forgo hearing Patrick Lauder    sing the national anthem at the Coyotes vs Redwings game , for which is were we would have been  barring the party, but instead  had  Lillian Garcia   sing which , no offence to Patrick,  is physically prettier but   he wins out on overall delivery :)   Still Lilian was really good  and way better than the  usual  histrionic warbling  and  3 or four notes when one would do  from singers that may have  the impression that singing the song's more about their performance.   Yep I'm glad nowadays when the longest held note contest is a separate event:D.   That's  all very cool  but what's even  better is the message  given by our CEO, Founder and lover of things two wheeled and  European  , Bob Parsons who,  after riding  up to the podium on a Ducati let us know that we  had our best year ever,  are  not an example of the kind of company, institution that  promoted dud loans, built too many car or houses.  The company gives a lot of time  , via staff, and money   to charities and this is the annoying part coming up. Since when do you have to justify success in the USA?    Understand I am not getting at those justifying but the people asking the question in the first place.   Many companies curtailed their  parties because of the   business climate and  to them , I say  hum bloody bollocks bug to you.   The number of staff to  cater, provide entertainment, services etc   that's money going to real businesses, same with the shoes,    clothing and other accessories.   The money that the staff won    guess were most of that is going too?       I don't often post on work related items because  it's a difficult balance  to not come across as a gushing fan boy  which as anyone that knows me  would find hard to reconcile with my  cynical daily demeanor.  The latter is a relative scale   , seriously in the UK  I was pretty much on the optimistic side:)     So celebrating two thousand people, their families  and the charities, venders and stores  that benefit from Go Daddy's existence  is something that should NEVER be apologized for at any time  and certainly cheered my holiday up.The laser and fireworks finale would have been  perfect toddler material but it pleased my inner toddler greatly will post some pics as they come in.   [The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.] Oh I nearly forgot..   moobies!

I know the name , least what's widely believed to be,  of the first "murderer" that was outrun by radio  Dr Crippen. People like to tie the new  with the  very very old  but usually it's in the other direction E.g  look at how these infernal machines are aiding those with malice in their mainframe to carry out. 
Would driving a  car get the same attention?  How about using a camera? Is it more newsworthy if it's silver halide or CCD that captures the  image?   Radio type   or something else?    Oo let's scare people with  VOIP  not only  does it not let 911 know where you are (rtfm)  it's now enabling decades old dispute in a new manner that's just so so so hard to have envisioned prior to its adoption.
VOIP is not the challenge  it's made out to be here.  Impossible?  Impossible to intercept    surely some mistake unless there's a whole load of forgetting about India's tussle with Rim. India wanted to monitor the Blackberry network and got that concession.
I'm also  rather  less impressed with stories on how  highly trained they are.  I must  be missing something here since shooting a passive crowd    and lobbing grenades  at the same time in different locations doesn't seem to be on my list of hard to conceive plots. 

"Definitely they were trained,'' said a masked officer of the force.

''Not everybody can fire AK-series weapons.

''Using such weapons and explosives, it is obvious they were trained somewhere.

Do you have a spare 10 minutes?   Ak's are famous for their robustness when used by  irregulars, nades, baseball!  as for the explosives I  have no idea but they always kept me away from that safe  Oddly enough the  reporting in realtime that provided this alleged  edge is not considered to be an inappropriate use of technology.. weird that.
Mumbai terrorists' most powerful weapon: VoIP phones | Computerworld Blogs

The Times reports that the handlers were communicting with the attackers using VoIP phones that made it difficult, if not impossible, for the Indian authorities to intercept the calls, or even know they were taking place.
Here's how the Times explains it:...

Don't get me wrong there has to be consequences  for carrying a loaded firearm into a nightclub that is discharged. Like a hole in the leg, pain and maybe the end of your athletic career. Still that's not good enough  we really have to show em:)  Shame that the  same zeal doesn't apply to those that enforce the laws Hospital suspends worker who failed to report NFL star's gunshot - CNN.com

Bloomberg, who has long fought against illegal gun ownership, said public figures "make their living because of their visibility. They are the role models for our kids, and if we don't prosecute them, to the fullest extent of the law, I don't know who on Earth we would. It makes a sham, a mockery of the law."

One word answer..... Spitzer.

 

I posted on the phrase on my other blog that I would like to extirpate this phrase  from the English language or at least the workplace. Rather than do an original one I'm running a semi ok off  post.  I'd prefer people would say " it's this way because"  which gives an indication that they've looked at the issue rather than just accepted it on a prima facie interest.

"it is what is is" 

Today I heard it several more times and  it didn't have a calming effect , quel surprise? I needed to look further into what irks me so much about this new catch all.

It is what it is" means what it means. Depending on context, it can be a statement of resignation or of defiance, but in neither case does it connote the optimistic good humor of "It's all good." If anything, it expresses the absence of emotion, the abdication of feeling. Although it seems to imply value-neutrality, that misses the point; it's not so much that something is neither good nor bad, but rather that its quality simply isn't relevant, that it's not worth the energy to make a value judgment.

To put it another way "” it doesn't matter what you think about it because you can't do anything about it anyway. It was in this spirit that Al Gore invoked the phrase after winning the popular vote and possibly the electoral tally as well: "I strongly disagreed with the Supreme Court decision and the way in which they interpreted and applied the law. But I respect the rule of law, so it is what it is."

Flak Magazine: It's All Good vs. It Is What It Is, 06.11.03

and

Radar, Oh really ? It is what it is... Welcome to tautology Thursday.

One of the colloquial phrases, ok  maybe it's not just AZ but I hear it more here, that's been annoying me is the Popeye school of    "it is  what it is" as a cover all for  ill conceived, poorly implemented or ineffable solutions that have wandered onto the radar.This verbal chaff that's tossed up in the air , rather than  fixing a location onto the problem , obscures the problem and by the time all the flakes have landed , or given up and go home,  there's still the small matter of a  missile  bearing down on you. As a bonus there's now less time and fewer options to react with.  

tautology - Definitions from Dictionary.com
1. (logic) a statement that is necessarily true; "the statement 'he is brave or he is not brave' is a tautology"

I really enjoyed Sean of the Dead and wasn't disappointed by hot fuzz either   so it's nice to see that a pretty good case is made for those lacking in  "dead cred"    a la Michael Jackson  leaving   zombies the hell alone.     Tis a fun read. No mention of Joco though..

Simon Pegg on why the undead should never be allowed to run | Media | The Guardian

I know it is absurd to debate the rules of a reality that does not exist, but this genuinely irks me. You cannot kill a vampire with an MDF stake; werewolves can't fly; zombies do not run. It's a misconception, a bastardisation that diminishes a classic movie monster.

 

I have been  pretty good  in my  reduction of TV over the past two years but then again I always was more in love with the radio. That's were I first came across David Lawrence, whom I've previously said some very nice things about. There's no need to change that here. What  I am happy about is that  I get to be some kinda human,  how so?   Well there's always these nagging doubts that schadenfreude was  an inescapable part of my make up since I really do find other people's  misfortune, specially when it's   heading towards  Greek tragedy , amusing.   If there's a church bus and cliff involved  I'm set for the day,  the driver swerved to avoid a tortilla   with the Image of Mary and you may have to medicate me down:)  So it's  gratifying to see that  three people that I know well enough to have  lunch with, occasionally see working ,are doing so well for themselves based on 

 

 working  at what they love, yeah that  old cliché:) . More important though I think about the only sane  advice that I regularly hear within new media  is nicely laid out here.  The source ,  someone else I admire,  seems to have the same qualities  which kinda hit me between the  "œwhat the hell am I doing and when will I wake up" eyes:)   Anyway  writing more won't help,  just  watch. 

From Tim Street

Like most things in life, the universe and what's still being called social media , you can pull up some aphorism from some Greek that's been dead for over two millenia to anchor your point to. Do no harm isn't a bad one, and it's a lot easier to pull off than do no evil yet neither are as compelling , or succinct as Wil Wheaton's "œdon't be a dick" as an almost libertarian reduction of the non aggression principle into the vernacular. (Sadly his writings on politics really don't ultimately follow this but let's not get into that)

In short it's a set of rules for the relationship between creators, promoters and fans around Sci Fi / Fantasy conventions which can be extrapolated to most commercial interactions.

E.G Are we customers, consumers, data points or people that want to get things done?When you have a "œvoice" for a corporation engaged in social media maybe it's a good idea to think about the above because the mode of address you choose in 3/4 cases is going to be wrong.

Can a corporation really be your friend? Does this construct sound real? X is out buying yummy things his company make , Y is out watching their Movie etc Does this sound remotely like a relationship your engaged in? If it doesn't it's for the obvious reason that it ISN'T.

I love dealing with people from companies, hate dealing with company names that have a rotating cast of interchangeable responses that would make Turing dance with glee. I can't tell them apart from a machine or human either.

Wer in ur boahdroomz wutchin yu wit intrst

*invisible pink unicorn peace be unto her hooves.

I've argued with people in the past that to use a quote is  agree to the defense of it's inclusion.  I've never been amused by those trying to wiggle out of a comment  by stating it's not their words so .. Cough BS.  So while I don't agree on the latter paragraph  as being accidental, e.g the military picking up where the system failed since I believe that it's there to benefit from such, the rest is pretty much what the US looks like from here.

America the Banana Republic: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com

Now ask yourself another question. Has anybody resigned, from either the public or the private sectors (overlapping so lavishly as they now do)? Has anybody even offered to resign? Have you heard anybody in authority apologize, as in: "œSo very sorry about your savings and pensions and homes and college funds, and I feel personally rotten about it"? Have you even heard the question being posed? O.K., then, has anybody been fired? Any regulator, any supervisor, any runaway would-be golden-parachute artist? Anyone responsible for smugly putting the word "œderivative" like a virus into the system? To ask the question is to answer it

Ouch:) 

Ok it's an octopus but you can't tell your cephalopods  from a hole in the ground  and your attitude, quick frankly , towards the cuttlefish stinks. So just shut up and enjoy this animated appetizer  ink his way into the history books. Via Found on the web

From the newthink   dept over at Google a  decision that causes me to laugh , hard.  A selective  ban on video of weapons that are deemed to be of an intimidating nature.  That should read  personal  weapons since  I don't forsee  those that glorify the state's ability to render large areas  hostile  will be included within this ban.     You Tube is becoming just the kind of "damage" that the Internet  is great for routing around and not a concern on its own.  Does Google ,which owns You Tube ,  seriously think they can take into account existing social mores for each culture   and apply that  sanely?   So   for most of the world no piss taking of the prophet,  no info on  biological processes and a myriad of  changes keeping up with tin pot edicts of the moment.  This is not organizing the world's info  it's  recreating it in your own image. 

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7621013.stm

One of the greatest  losses of moving to the USA was that of the BBC Radio services. Sadly the BBC is funded by a tax  not for using their services but for the  gall of operating a TV  , Radio or Satellite receiver. Licensing electronic media  which is the ONLY practical location were people of limited means could  find out what's up in their society,  you know get informed which is what we're told is crucial to playing the  game that is democracy , is a pretty horrible way to behave. 

You must pay the $200+ a year to the BBC  even if you never use their service. Yet for free I can  access this programming over the net. ( odd that but I'm grateful anyway)

I listened to a short series about the placebo effect ,BBC - Radio 4 - Placebo, which  goes  into depths on just how much " it's all in the mind"   goes towards   reducing the perception of pain,  recovery time and  general mental well being.  Yep  sugar pills work , their analogs work  ( reiki, reflexology or anything that has a  believable story that your culture buys into )

In short

We feel what we expect to find  as long as we're committed to that belief.
Reality can be changed by symbols , yep symbols really are for the symbol minded.
 
And advertising.. well :) that's another story.

 

Like most things in life, the universe and what's still being called social media ,  you can pull up some aphorism from some Greek that's been dead for  over two millenia to anchor your point to.   Do no harm isn't a bad one,  and it's  a lot easier to pull off than do no evil   yet neither are as compelling , or succinct as Wil Wheaton's   "œdon't be a dick"  as an almost libertarian reduction of the non aggression principle into  the vernacular.    (Sadly his writings on politics really don't ultimately follow this   but   let's not get into that) 

In short  it's  a set of  rules  for the relationship between creators, promoters and fans  around  Sci Fi / Fantasy conventions which can be extrapolated to  most commercial  interactions. E.G   Are we customers, consumers, data points  or people that  want to get things done?

When you have a "œvoice" for a corporation engaged in social media  maybe it's a good idea to think about the above because the mode of address you choose in 3/4 cases is going to be wrong

Can a corporation really be your friend?   Does this  construct sound real?   X is out buying yummy things  his  company make  ,  Y is out  watching their Movie  etc  Does this sound remotely like a relationship your engaged in?    If it doesn't it's for the obvious reason that it ISN'T. 

I love dealing with people from companies,  hate dealing with  company names that have a rotating cast of interchangeable  responses that would make Turing dance with glee. I can't tell them apart from a machine or human either. 

Wer in ur boahdroomz wutchin yu wit intrst

*invisible pink unicorn  peace be unto her hooves.

Came across this item on the  Clean Technica blog which has a practical  view of energy that's sadly lacking on those that oppose it. Hell in the UK when Torness , a nuclear power station, was being built many locals had a sticker that said "nuclear power? No thanks. Atop an image of the sun.  I laughed, I still laugh and to this day usually ascribe such glorious ignorance to those that   want to save the planet but ONLY  within their ideological boundaries on what's comfy technology wise.  In most cases their comfort level is  fire , then you have the raw foodies who've not even gotten that far but more abuse on that natural crowd later.  Natural does not equal good in all, hell most cases. That people post these online rather than using a "natural" rock to stand and engage passers by with leads me to question their commitment to the atavistic tendencies that seem to serve them so well with the diet.   

Anyway.  Let's get back to the portable nuclear generators and how fricking handy these will be if we can  avoid the people that work at Jiffy Lube ever getting these in for service.. :D

Answer to an Amory Lovins Disciple Who Believes in Conservation, Solar, Wind and Micropower : CleanTechnica

Hyperion Power Generation, for example, is focusing on a heating unit that is small enough to fit on the back of an over-the-road truck that can produce 70 MW of thermal energy constantly for several years. I spoke to the company founder for The Atomic Show Podcast and he explained how his company is establishing the supply chain needed to build 4,000 units that will be able to provide heat for about $3 per million BTU. By comparison, liquified natural gas sold in Japan last week for $20 per million BTU.

This is to the tech crowd, the geeks e.g the people that should know better.

Nearly everything I'm seeing from the Pax08 concert has such poor sound / video that it's a complete waste of time and energy yet this crap is getting 4 and 5 stars. Here's where it bugs me. The crappy sound and video in a sane world would be "œmediated" by the crowd and given an appropriate rating but it seems that it's totally broken in the cases of geek centric clips. Self recognition doesn't = ****/***** stars dumb ******/*******

You are today's equivalent of the idiots in sports stadiums with their GN14 flashes trying to reach out all the way to center field. Either drop the money on a reasonable recorder or just leave it in your pocket.

Ah the question.

The James Randi educational foundation   are  in their own words

The James Randi Educational Foundation is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1996. Its aim is to promote critical thinking by reaching out to the public and media with reliable information about paranormal and supernatural ideas so widespread in our society today.

I've been to a TAM , the conference tied to JREF and loved it. I  was really shocked by just how many religious skeptics there were though , really amazed.  Toss that in with the statists that believe that thinking and research are a government sport  and I was a little  unsettled that the critical thought movement would  align on the democracy YAY! side of things I mean these people are smart Gell Mann smart.   Just have to face it  classically liberal ( aka libertarian)  ideals just don't fly in this land of the lobbyist.  ( I don't blame them  they would not exist if the politicians weren't corruptible)

Here's the question as I thought I was going to ask it to Penn  after seeing the show in Vegas.

I think  Joe Rogan  pwned Phil Plait  on Penn's show  on more than one occasion how does that bode for his new position as the president of the JREF  and how about a rematch moderated by Penn

Here's what came out:    

At the Coverville party Aug 2008 Erin poses with the amusing and more talented than you'd think Dick Cheese and lounge against the machine

 Repost from Work blog. Mobile web is something I am about to become boring on.  I really would like to remake Apple's 1984 commercial in a similar vein with the projectile of choice being mobile handsets.

Input a post on the iPhone wordpress Or read Galt's speech ? The latter. Seems quicker

 

I'm going to start posting items from my work blog onto this one since I get more exposure here.

A couple of items appeared on my  reader in close proximity that  suggested that iPhone isn't just a neat phone but it's also the future of handheld gaming and the death of terrestrial radio.

It's also the death of common sense least for  the current incarnation of the iPhone. Which network is going to have the ability to support that many real times streams?  If you don't have immediacy it's not radio.  Sure you can  DL the playlist  1st over night then just add in the  hosts  locally  may work, but  why bother  what are we trying to achieve here?   Replication of radio? Why if it's so bad, would we want to?

Apples  target"¦ 10 million  phones.

Yep that kills radio's    more than 1 unit per person.   > 300 million.
that kills  Nintendo's ( just one  companies) 20 million  DS base.

It doesn't even kill XM/ Sirius  merge  with  17.3 million paying users.  It's a bit late to walk by the  bleeding corpse of radio  and get your friend to take a picture of you standing with your foot on its chest.  That's the perception of radio anyway.   Sadly it doesn't jibe with these results.

Radio reaches more than 235 million listeners over the course of the week according to the RADAR 97 June 2008 Radio Listening Estimates. (link)

20 times more people than  Apple expect to sell phones to. Radio  Two controls,  no computer needed to keep it in sync  and oh battery life can be in weeks/ month range.

As to handheld gaming?  Would you  pay  $70 a month for your kid to play games on it?  Beggars belief really that it's being seriously considered as a question. 

Can we start using the iPhone to do excellent iPhone  related things rather than trying to recreate the old world?

Fans of things Whedonesque  have got a lot to be thankful for.  This show may be instructive on proving that  Unions still have a use :) That point is  that whenever a sea change in technology ,be it media or  improvements to manufacturing , education ( yeah right)  they  are always present in the role of societal Canute.   I will grant you their role had value back in the early days but    in the latter half of the 20C it's been all about maintaining their power from that point  on , the organization  uber alles.  I digress but this show is a product of the WGA  strike and rumblings on  who gets paid  what  in relation to online content from both sag and aftra.  There's a great post on that here from the closest thing to an objectivist I think you'll find in media ( I saw closest as I am agnostic about their existence;)  

Anyway this is a mini web series , three episodes, and other than  note that anyone I know  already has this , so , so   who the hell am I telling?   Frak that .  

Think live action Venture brothers with a tad of Pinky  tossed in.  Seeing Captain Mal, er Hammer  again  rocks as the "œgood "œ  guy that wants to take the heroine  on a tour of a VW's rear , you know somewhere uncomfortable was great. It's not like most web shows , ephemeral to the power of mayfly   , you truly can  watch  and sing along more times that may be healthful:)   Don't be horrible,  buy this , don't rip it off as I want to see more, more more!

One of the original cast  for Now never funny, er Never not funny ( buy  season 1 disk it's really good  )started a podcast sixteen episodes back.   I forgot to mention it to people.    If you don't like casual vulgarity , talk of violence towards those that deserve it .

If things like

"œI'd stick my dick in a fence just to get it away from Lucy "œ 

re Lucille Ball   in  a made  up piece re "œthe joker"" Cesare Romero  trying to hit on Desi.  His mind doesn't just wander, it books cruises and  circumnavigates the Earth. 

The show iss deeper than this of course but  I'm  trying to make the point that  if you believe that truth can only  be found in civil company with no naughty words then  please avoid this and go back to your Marmaduke comic collection

 

Mike Schmidt Comedy - Podcast