After being in captivity for 1059 days the verdict against Saddam Hussein is expected for tomorrow. Two days before elections in the USA.
Mark Cuban gives a name to the other end of the long tail: “Vert Ramp”
Two kings got together. No, not those. This times it is Novell and Microsoft. To do Linux.
Without having the time or intention to go into detail of the press release the headlines and sound bites read pretty hilarously. Let’s just pause for a second and look back: Microsoft did try everything they could to stop or surpress Linux. For years. They fucking failed. Language? Yes, it is justitified. Since this is a big deal. Not the announcement of Novell and Microsoft doing whatever they feel like doing. The big deal is that Microsoft was unable to win against Linux. They still dominate the desktop, and probably will for years to come. But they lost billions in server revenue. Not to somebody. They simply could not make the money. Nobody did, since Linux is essentially free. If the last sentense should prompt thoughts like “that’s communism” or “but there is total cost of ownership” in your mind, then let me tell you, since today I can, and it is oh so sweet: You merely parrot Microsoft prograganda of a past aera here. Not even the people that paid millions so that you would think these things claim that anymore. Yes, there is also corporate flip floping. No, Ballmer did not stay the course. He never did say that either.
Today it’s allot of fun to quote Sun Tzu:
According to my assessment, even if you have many more troops than others, how can that help you to victory?
“The interface of a cheeseburger” is one of these Blog entries that validate those 30 Million other blogs with random noise in one simple swoop. If you ever contemplated to create anything that get’s used by a human, be it nuclear power plant, condom or breakfirst table for your dearest one, you could find some great insight in this text from Oliver Reichenstein. At least I think it’s by him. While content and form of the text are pretty nice it seems almost a relief that ‘Information Architects Japan’ messed up the branding for themselves. Sticking Lego’s on business cards won’t help either. Die Kinder des Schuhmachers tragen immer kaputte Schuhe.
Democracy is based on people casting a vote. Making the act to vote more complicated than it needs to be is a simply a criminal act against the spirit of Democracy. In developed Democracies you vote by taking a thick pencil and making a cross inside of a circle. That’s it. Since decades. Works always and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s the best way of doing this. In 2000 there was a bit of a stir up in the USA around punch cards, butterfly ballots and hanging chads. The remedy was not to abandon complicated things. It was to add more layers of technology. Which defies logic and furhter dilutes the act of voting. This kind of story is to be expected. Actually the whole vote fraud idea deters people from voting, instead of motivating them. Which means that democracy looses it’s foundation.
If you have any doubts about mal intend around the voting process just look up “Gerrymandering”. But sure the US has all the rights to wage war on the other side of the planet to find WMD, retaliate 911 spread Democracy. I wonder if those painted index fingers were collored diebold. Probably not, since the color would dissapear within seconds in that case.
Advertising Age is raving about Dove’s “Evolution”. Their headline reads “Better ROI From YouTube Video Than Super Bowl Spot”. Now that’s what some people want to hear. And it leaves reason behind. Jumping head over heals into the current media internet bubble bath.
The Dove campaign is great. How often is there an ad for a cosmetic product that I want to show to my daughter? It certainly works on the internet. Because of it’s content. Certain content will work well on the internet. But let’s face it, if something works really well it will get killed by it’s own success: Today you can find a video of mentos + coke on Google Video. It is prominently featured on the google Blog.
Dove is great since it’s decent and sells soap. Are you feeling having a Diet-Coke or Mentos after watching the latest and lamest sticky liquid orgy? Certainly not. Actually with todays video dropping Mentos into big soda bottles becomes officially lame. The Meme has suffocated itself under it’s own weight.
Update:
Cnet however sings a different song. I wonder how many kids run around now with the video cameras to do the ‘next big thing’.
Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:
1. He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
2. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
3. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.
4. He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.
5. He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.
Sun Tzu aprox 600 BC (copy pasted from wikisource)
looks like we are fucked.
for my last post I googled around for ‘calculation slide’. And so I found [again] the website of John Walker. He started AutoDesk. The companies second product “AutoCAD” became rather successful. Among other things that I plan to read, I found his anagram creator and learned -after tweaking the dictionary- that my name could be rearranged into draw neck areas or ransacked ware.