Global

I almost always avoid politics because of many things. The first is that people tend to classify others based on who they support and what they support with no thought as to the reasons that there is support for a particular candidate. Contrary to present political systems and what people expect of them, voting is not the core of democracy - informed discussion is.

I'm not buying into the cool-kids-say-Obama-is-cool mystique. I had and continue to have Obamitis because of the way Obama's name is punted about the blogosphere and Facebook. Frankly, I'm a bit sick of it - but I do believe that Obama is the right person for the terrible job left to do after the Bush Administration. There is a need for addressing the United States' image around the world. Electing Senator McCain simply won't handle that issue, as qualified as he may be.

John Cleese outlines, in the very beginning of the video, one of the very core reasons why Barack Obama must win the election. Sure, Colin Powell recently endorsed Obama - and while some are making that about race, Powell's statements demonstrate that he's endorsing Obama because change is needed. Outside of the United States - where I have been spending the majority of my life during George W. Bush's reign - the tone is incredibly different than that which seems to be portrayed in the United States media. { Read more }

My email address, which I've had for about 9 years at this point, is finally killed dead. Not dead as in someone else took it - that would be altogether unlikely - but dead as in 'my host ate it'. But they didn't really eat it. The spammers infesting my host have made my email address null and void.

I found this out after going through about 48 hours of the ISP's hiccoughs - TSTT can be stable, but has yet to make a habit of being stable. In other words, for all intents and purposes, it's unstable. When I finally found that the light at the other end of the cyberpipe was not a SysAdmin with pizza breath, I quickly downloaded emails. Within the moldy, spam laden emails I found a few treasures, and of these treasures the diamonds were some offers to review some books that looked pretty interesting. So I sent off emails to the masked publisher, saying that 'yeah, verily, I wish to read your books and write about them!'.

In response I got the emails bounced. In the world of snail mail, this isn't a 'return to sender' - rather, this was 'We don't want your stinking email because people from your zip code keep trying to sell us adult haberdashery'. I don't sell adult haberdashery. I'm not even sure what it is. Even so, the problem is that my host appears to be a spam haven at the time - which means that my host enters the blacklists of organizations who do not want Spam (how dare they!) and thus my email address is likely to be tossed out like a green thing lurking at the back of the refrigerator. { Read more }

Groklaw has an interesting story about a possible takeover attempt by Microsoft on the Open Document Format (ODF) standard. While I don't have the time or inclination to read and analyze all the gobbly-gook that is put out in the form of standards, Groklaw has, as usual, done a serious analysis after research. It certainly looks like the committee is stacked in Microsoft's favor, which should probably be no surprise.

Of course, to someone on the fringe of technoville, this seems a bridge too far to understand. What needs to be understood by everyone is that this is about the future of how documents are passed around and who they can be passed to. An open standard allows people to share their work more easily; a closed standard creates all manner of trouble - as Microsoft itself has exemplified.

However it works out, one has to wonder what Microsoft's interest in ODF extends to. Microsoft's interest in ODF isn't sufficient to sentence Microsoft; many people (including myself) have often pointed out that Microsoft's lack of support for standards other than it's own seems like an extension of it's monopolistic practices. Before we start arming the villagers with torches and pitchforks, we might want to consider the motive of Microsoft. Historically, Microsoft's involvement could be seen as an attempt at sabotage of the open standard since Microsoft has a tendency to do this with private companies. Will it do it with an open standard? It's hard to say, but I must admit a bit of suspicion.

Even so, if Microsoft were to see my optimistic side, I could see how Microsoft could add value to ODF - like permitting royalty free use of it's patents to assure compatibility of ODF with it's own standards. { Read more }

I came across a copy of the September 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review a few weeks ago, and have had it in the pickup for emergency reading. I'd never read the magazine before, probably because it is almost never seen in Trinidad, so despite the exotic price of TT $149.99 (US $23) I picked it up. It's always good to read what others are writing, and reading broadly is something I do as a reflex.

Within the magazine were some interesting articles, yet the one that bothered me the most was Don't Try This Offshore (HBR Case Study and Commentary). I couldn't quite put my finger on why - the article is well written, funny and a little controversial for American businesses. I re-read it, as well as the commentary, and re-read it again. I thought about it for days. Then it struck me: the premise of the article is what disturbed me.

To summarize the article in one paragraph, the article is about a fictional business in the United States - 'management-metaphor boutique Serendipity Associates (SA)' - is suddenly challenged by a competitor with a lower price tag, and that lower price tag is linked to outsourcing creative work. This comes as a surprise in the story to Serendipity Associates. And that, you see, is what I found disturbing. That people even thought in this way - that creativity is geocentric or, in the Internet era, business-centric. Is this the way that people really think? That an accident of geography or hiring creates the perfect creative business? I don't think like that, but the article's premise clearly demonstrates that at least some people think like that. { Read more }

There's a lot being written of the present economic crisis. Frankly, if it weren't for Alex Rollin and his Facebook updates (he hasn't blogged on his site), I wouldn't have thought as much about it. It seems surreal, especially from my own context.

After getting the turbo gaskets replaced on the Mazda B2500 Turbodiesel, I ended up visiting an Uncle who - true to form - was watching the BBC because he has a tendency to know when to turn on Aunt Beeb. He and I sat there and watched the $700 million bailout bill pushed by George W. Bush fail, and he asked me what I thought. I basically said that I didn't know what to think. The word 'socialist' kept getting used in conjunction with the bill, and I honestly don't think that the Bill itself was socialist as much as it was a Third World answer to a First World problem. My gut told me that the response to the bill, demonstrated by the vote which turned it away (228 nay, 205 yeah as I recall), was a democratic surge of socialism itself. 'The meek shall inherit the earth', but who wants a blue marble so deeply in debt?

The tongues of Aunt Beeb's analysts danced across the screen, discussing why the bill failed. They spread their net and found a few folk who had a few interesting things to say. One man said that (paraphrased), 'everyone wanted the bill but no one wanted to vote for it'. In essence, everyone wanted to get rid of this debt but no one wanted to bail out the people who created the problem in the first place. { Read more }

When I read 'Should we tackle the digital divide or live with it?', I intended an immediate response - one that would agree with it to a large extent, yet I stayed my hand because of the depth of agreement which I have. And that depth comes from personal experience, as most agreement or disagreement does.

When Michael Grimes wrote:

...At three o’clock this morning I finished a frantic flurry of blog posts and Twitter tweets, and tried to sleep. Instead I began to panic.

When this happens – and it happens a lot these days – I feel that I’m on an irreversible and rapid ascent to the peak of my sanity, at which point I shall burn-out: not from work but from trying to keep abreast with technology (and currently with today’s hot potato of ’social media’). I feel like I’m constantly trying to catch-up, desparate not to fall behind. The world is changing incredibly fast; I already feel as though it’s running away and I no longer have the energy to keep up... { Read more }

When I wrote about Mobile Phones as a Technology Platform, I was writing about something that at least a few people on the planet have been aware of for at least 4 years - perhaps 5. We can add Google's employees - at least some of them - to that mix: Google's For the Birds. It seems that Google is a part of group which plans to 'deploy world’s first high-speed, low-cost satellite system to transform communications access for billions worldwide'. O3b Networks, supported by Google, Liberty Global and HSBC, tackling the digital divide.

Clark Boyd chimes in:

...Fine, but broadband speed data access? Greg Wyler, founder of O3b, says these sats will fly lower, which will reduce the latency, the lag time between when you click, and when you get the webpage. Now, to be clear, O3b is not selling service directly. Instead, it's going to sell wholesale to local WiMax, 3G, and eventually 4G providers. So, not just for data, but for some of that cell phone backhaul.

Glenn Strachan, an independent IT consultant with extensive experience in rolling out wireless broadband in the developing world, sees some real sticking points. He notes that while some countries like Kenya and Rwanda have liberalized their ISP and cell phone provider markets, the same does not hold true for many African countries. "In Senegal," he told me, "the controlling monopoly is Sonatel. And they're not about to disperse, at low cost, this new Internet access. There's no regulatory environement in Senegal that would allow alternative ISPs to gain access." { Read more }

Update (14 Sep 2008): I mentioned my own experience on the DRM to Steve Rothery on Facebook. He pointed out that you can get it from MusicGlue.com.

From a press release on Marillion.com that I found through Steven Rothery's notes on Facebook, it seems that Marillion is trying a new approach to getting their music out there which thumbs it's nose at existing systems of distribution.

Peer to Peer. Or P2P.

Marillion is my favorite band due to their evolving style, their lyrics, and did I mention their evolving style? Over the years, I have maintained as many albums as possible - at times having to hunt them down prior to the creation of Marillion.com. From there, despite my geography, I can download albums in MP3 format which I willingly pay for.

To me, it is important that they survive - and this is geared toward their survival, as Steve shared in one of his notes:

The band debated and agonized the best way to do this for quite a while. The reasons we chose this path are

1 File sharing is a fact of life as are dwindling cd sales (see http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ for some insights into how the industry is changing and why the major labels are in such decline) { Read more }