Author: Mike

Rare are the times that a comment on a blog post makes you stop dead in your tracks. Such was the case this morning as I was getting my daily fix of Matt Asay’s posts over at InfoWorld’s Open Sources blog.

One of Matt’s articles this morning called out the RIAA’s influence peddling in Congress. Nothing earth-shattering, but informative nonetheless (he calls out his state’s senator, Orrin Hatch, who received $6,000 from the RIAA…an amount I suspect is more than Hatch has made as a songwriter).

Then I started reading the post’s comments. The third comment, by Peter Sysko, may be the single-most provocative comment I’ve yet to read in the blogosphere:

…i think its better that people in the world listen to the music that they want to listen to, rather than what they can afford.

Think about that for a second.

As a society, we’ve chosen to abdicate the value we place on art and culture to corporations — lawyers, really, when you think about it in the context of the RIAA and MPAA. We’ve chosen to let others determine the cost of admission to our exposure to cultural advancement.

Peter’s statement says as much about what’s happening today in software as it does about music. Proprietary companies — most notably Microsoft — are the RIAA/MPAA of software, clinging to business models that look backward instead of forward and seek to levy taxes on those that dare to challenge what they view as their monopolistic right to print money. The open source movement is doing to proprietary companies what MySpace, YouTube and other social media sites have done to the RIAA/MPAA: giving artists (in this case, software developers) a foundation to communicate, collaborate and sell to their customers without the arbitrary and outdated overhead imposed by those who are unable to adapt to the changing demands of their customers.

Well said, Peter.

Scrolling through my RSS feeds this morning, I notice there’s considerable buzz in the ether about 18 year old high school pole vaulter Alison Stokke. In a nutshell: she’s shattering state records, happens to be photogenic, and is now plastered all over the ‘net, i.e., American Idol hottie Antonella Barbra.

In one heavily-linked article, her father, defense attorney Allan Stokke, talks about how he surfs the web to protect her from potential stalkers. Well, that’s all fine and good…and what most of us would do to protect our children from society’s detritus if it were our daughters. However, maybe Allan Stokke should seriously reconsider resigning from his current profession (excerpted from feministing.com):

…Stokke’s father is the same guy who earlier this year defended a cop who jerked off on a stripper during a routine traffic stop. “She got what she wanted,” Al Stokke said, of the stripper. “She’s an overtly sexual person.”

I can imagine the dinner conversation at the Stokke table: “Yes, honey, I realize you feel this is an invasion of your privacy and you are hurt and offended, but, you know, it’s not really their fault. You are pretty and you did show the bare skin of your belly when you were breaking the records…and, I mean, c’mon, a “pole” vaulter? You pretty much deserve the attention.”

As the father of two daughters, it disgust me that I’m partly defined in the same demographic as Stokke.

Somebody get Reuters and its reporter, Martha Graybow, a Pulitzer. Heck, pull an old Nobel out of the closet and give it to them. They deserve it.

This morning, I was reading a story written by Graybow about the U.S. courts rejecting the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) broadcast decency limits. Basically, they said the FCC was “arbitrary and capricious” in defining (for all of us) what it thought was indecent. Well, no kidding.

But, unlike every other mainstream media outlet, Reuters had the cajones to include the verbatim words in dispute. In print. In a major media outlet. Against the wind of the puritan way most would’ve handled it.

And it’s a good thing, too. Because you only have to read the Republican FCC Chairman’s reaction to see the Crisco-lined slope this is headed:

Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin angrily retorted that he found it “hard to believe that the New York court would tell American families that ‘shit’ and ‘fuck’ are fine to say on broadcast television during the hours when children are most likely to be in the audience.”

“If we can’t restrict the use (of the two obscenities) during prime time, Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want,” Martin said in a statement.

Kudos to Reuters and Graybow.

I love science. Genetics saddled me with a bad case of follicle deforestation. Rather than comb-over, I shave the dome down to the skin. However, it now looks like there may be hope on the horizon:

“Hair loss in humans might not be irreversible, suggest scientists who have helped create new hair cells on the skin of mice.”

Of course, I’ll probably be 115 years old by the time any of this science will bless me with a full head of hair.

A very thoughtful, calm and reasoned excerpt from Al Gore’s new book, The Assault of Reason. Read it. The content is important and the writing is superb.

I’ll admit I’m no Einstein when it comes to math. Heck, I work with words for a living. Give me letters over numbers any day.

Which means there’s a better-than-good chance that what I’m about to say has no basis in reality: Richard Parsons, the head of old media establishment Time Warner, is quoted this morning saying “The notion that the new kids on the block have taken over is a false notion.” He’s, of course, referring to Google and YouTube.

I can’t decide whether this is a quote of desperation or one of denial. Heck, it’s probably a bit of both.

The reality is that, for the most part, old media really is on life support. By old media, I mean those that haven’t adapted to the evolution their customers have made toward interactivity, openness and community. The old media need only look so far as Redmond and the losing battle Microsoft is waging against open source software to see how this plays out.

Which brings me back to my remedial math skills. Could Google/YouTube just make this whole old media vs new media issue a moot point by going all Gordon Gecko on Parsons’s derrière?

Old media turns combative against new media | Technology | Internet | Reuters

Every once in awhile you come across a post on a blog that stops you dead in your tracks. In all of my years monitoring the news and blogs for clients, four posts have had that power over me. Two of them are heartbreaking. One is a “Field of Dreams” tribute. And one I saw today is just plain brilliant.

1. Put ABA Back in HB1224
2. The Best Hour of My Day
3. Dear Dad: Happy Father’s Day
4. First Evening at Microsoft’s SAS: Aha!

A sad day in comedy: Emmy-award-winning actor and Bob Newhart sidekick Tom Poston died.