ackfoo

The "No solution" rejoinder to criticism-- weak

2007-05-27T17:07:00.000-04:00

No one likes to be told that something that they have done was done poorly, or stupidly, or just incompetently. We all react (naturally) with a combination of irritation, defensiveness, or hostility. Often a "discussion" will ensue regarding the merits of the "your (work | decision | product) sucks" statement, and this is a natural part of the process of confirming that the thing which sucks does in fact suck.

However, I have noticed a growing tendency to assert that the statement that something sucks is insufficient-- the critic is required to offer an alternative that would be better. This should always be rejected. There is no requirement that criticism of a decision, product, or action also have a full project plan for addressing the less than adequate elements of the criticized thing.

I noticed this relatively recently when a competitor was reacting to multiple references to the UI of their currently in-market product. The UI in question does, in-fact, suck. The reaction (from a company executive no less) was that those criticizing the UI weren't very useful, as they weren't stating that should be changed. He was quite wrong-- they were saying that the UI should be changed, not applying for the job of UI designer at this competitor. What they were pointing out was that the UI does suck, and that there should be some effort by this company, if they want to sell software, to address the suckiness of the UI. I can see, for instance, inviting additional comment on how the UI sucks, or asking individuals to join focus groups, etc. One can even ask what would be done differently, but asking what would be done differently does not negate the criticism if no answer ifs given.

This little trick is an old standard of Republicans and the current administration defending the Iraq war. Most recently I have seen this as a statement which roughly is "let's stop talking about how we got here, what you critics need to offer to be taken seriously is a plan to move forward." (this was recently offered to us here) Like the company executive above, this is weak. In fact, it is still required, in this case, to point out how much that decision sucked, and how many, many actions stemming from the decision have sucked. I am sure that this criticism is tiring for the administration, the GOP, and their legions of defenders. However, we really haven't gotten much in the way of an explanation of how this tremendously bad decision was made, so pointing out how much it sucked has a useful element-- highlighting that the current decision makers are the same ones who made the very, very bad decision to invade Iraq (which includes the decision that post war planning was adequate). So the ongoing criticism of that decision, and it's outcomes, is worth continuing to make.

Loving this album

2007-05-23T22:53:00.001-04:00

Dog Problems by The Format. It's really just great-- XPN (great Philly radio station-- we miss you in Seattle) describes it as "infectiously danceable indie pop", and it has exceeded my expectations. All the more so as the album is about a difficult long term relationship between the lead singer and his girlfriend-- not the stuff of "infectious pop."

Highly recommended.

The deluge of posts

2007-05-06T21:11:00.000-04:00

That the zero non-ackfoo/Mrs. Foo readers of this crappy blog expected have not materialized. The we're busy dodge has gotten old, so I guess that for all our best intentions, our missing legions of fans will have to hang in there for a while longer.

Why aren't we more prolific in posting on this sad little unvisited blog? Well, we are busy. The fantastic Mrs. Foo has finally determined which of the many suitors for her workplace services will get the pleasure of her company (some travel outfit I've never heard of), while work and the mountain of home projects that we have been doing has slowed us down.

So until Mrs. Foo seizes control of this humble blog and guides it to the great things she expects of it, you, our fair reader (ghd3), should expect only sporadic and uninteresting updates.

Welcome Mrs. Foo!

2007-02-05T00:46:00.000-05:00

Well, Mrs. Foo found the blog, and is chastising me for the long delay in between posts. She's a publisher now, so I'm sure that the action will be way more cerebral and frequent here!
Ackfoo

Deserves a link, has for a while

2006-12-07T00:30:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen,
I return to this posting every few months, and each time (especially when I think of how many Americans [and Iraqis] have died since it was written) I feel a combination of anger at the political leadership of the US from 2001-2007 and sadness at the fact that I, as an American, abetted this situation.

I have several good friends who are former military (Army, Navy, and Marines), and I have to admit that the thought of any of them being mistreated the way our current military is by the "pro-military" GOP enrages and disgusts me.

So here, for my one reader, is Lions Led by Donkeys, from Memorial Day 2006.

That is some strong Kung Fu.
ackfoo

What's first? A Black President or a Woman President?

2006-12-07T00:05:00.000-05:00

I was talking about this question this weekend with some friends, and today i realized how close we might be to the answer, looking at potential candidates in the 2008 cycle.

Hilary is the 900- pound gorilla of the Democratic party. I'm not that disappointed by this. Many think that she would be a doomed candidate, but I am not so sure. Bottom line, it is difficult to handicap a candidate as unprecedented as Hilary Clinton.

Barak Obama is is wildcard. His charisma is obvious, but he has not been tested as Hilary has been, which gives me pause. However, he is a very interesting candidate, and as difficult to handicap as Hilary is. One advantage is that he is less distanced from the retail campaigning that is critical in early primary/caucus states (having only recently moved from the state senate to federal office), and that could be an advantage in the early going.

A cell phone rule

2006-12-05T23:54:00.000-05:00

It's fine with me if you talk on the mobile. It's also fine with me if you have inane conversations on your mobile (though I would prefer not in my vicinity, but I assume that you [and you know who you are] don't always know you're in the presence of greatness).

But...

If you're having an inane conversation on your mobile (i.e., I and everyone else on planet Earth know it's not your boss or a dramatic family emergency) and because of that you are keeping the long line behind you from moving forward expeditiously because the addition of a mobile is too much for you to handle, you must hang up.

If you are in line within my reach, this may be done for you. That is all.

Hi Troy

2006-11-14T00:54:00.000-05:00

We had dinner with the only person on the planet who has this blog in his RSS feed, our friend Troy. So shoutout to our boy Troy!

It was great seeing you and your lovely wife on Friday-- hope that you and the women in your life had a good, if rainy, weekend.

Blogger beta

2006-11-10T22:49:00.000-05:00

Way better. comment moderation is decent compared to the old model (yes, thanks to that I let comments through that were languishing-- you can stop thinking that your complaint about what I wrote regarding Mr. Bonds was ignored).

I'm really going to try to write more often, then maybe I can even blogwhore.

Thursday night beagle (with a little basset we think) blogging

2006-08-17T22:10:00.000-04:00

Action shot, from waaaaay back in the DC days.

Updated: Mrs. Ackfoo didn't like the link to Tbogg (http://tbogg.blogspot.com), where I got the hankering to put the little fella on the web, so I got rid of the link.

Still here

2006-08-17T21:58:00.000-04:00

Been QUITE a while, and I'm not quite up to getting back to the blogging on a regular basis, but I will say that things have changed a lot since that last post. There was a long house buying saga. Then a Summer full of house projects (the natural outgrowth of the house buying process). but things are good-- we made it out here and it is beautiful here-- a good change from before. Mrs. Ackfoo is still seeking employ, but things are happening there too, so all is generally well.

More coming again sooner than last time I hope.

Product review: Coca-cola Blak, 8 ounce bottle

2006-04-22T21:36:00.001-04:00

Blak. It's gotten a lot of different reviews.

Negative: Long or Short - Could not be shorter on Coca-Cola Blak.

Positive: A friend IMd me on Thursday, and it went something like this--

Friend: coca cola blak DO NOT DRINK THIS SUBSTANCE!!!!
Me: yeah, I hear it sucks
Friend: wrong, it's incredible
Me: huh?
Friend: I'm warning you-- one sip and I was thinking that it would be sensible for me to quit my job and just lie around and drink blak. The stuff is liquid heroin!
Me: Really?
Friend: DO NOT DRINK THIS LIQUID. My work here is done.

Neutral: Yeah, it's meant to be the Coke answer to the Starbucks Frappucino and Pepsi category entrants. It only has 45 calories, so it's not too bad, and women seem to like it.

So this afternoon I passed by a 7-Eleven and figured that I could buy a single bottle there (they come in 4 packs at the grocery store). the cashier at the store asked if I had had it before, and I said that I had not. The guy behind me in line mentioned that he had not even heard about it.

The bottle is glass, so it is heavier than you expect. The plastic coating around the enntire outside makes it look plastic, so the weight is surprising when you pick it up.

The first sip is unusual, no doubt-- the coke taste is definitely ascendant but there is a sugary aftertaste. I expceted a more surypy taste, but it was relatively clean cola taste with a hint of coffee.

Not swill. It was expensive, and that would be an issue for me (1.79 with tax), but if the pricing was agressive I would think about drinking it occaisionally.

Long break

2006-04-22T18:27:00.000-04:00

Well, I've been away from this blog (not that anybody noticed, I'm sure) for a while. Lots of hectic changes are the reason for that. I feel like today, busy as it was, was the first day that I've had that was relaxing in any way for a long time. The reasons are a new job, on the other side of the country, the logisitcs of moving across country, and getting established in both a new city and a new job. The good news is that I'm very happy in my new job so far, I love my new city, and I feel as if things are generally on the upswing. There's lots more to do before we are really establised here, but I'm getting comfortable.

I'm going to try to post more-- there's been a lot of things that I've wanted to write about, but it will probably be a while before I'm ready to be a really active blogger again.

Boswell makes me feel better

2006-03-10T12:11:00.000-05:00

It's often worth waiting for what Tom Boswell, the best baseball columnist in America today, has to say about a matter. He proves it is worthwhile to wait with his column today on Bonds.

...as public scrutiny and cyber vituperation rain down on Bonds, we should remember that he is just the symptom, not the cause. When sports fundamentally warp themselves out of greed, we never know until later where the long-term damage will manifest itself. When baseball's owners "took a strike" -- ousting conciliatory commissioner Fay Vincent and installing Bud Selig, then a hardliner, to do the deed -- no one dreamed that the greatest damage to the sport would come years later and in an unexpected form.
The true price of the strike was not in canceled games or wasted revenue or a glaring gap in the list of World Series champions. Instead, the greatest toll was taken from the game's credibility, its integrity, its place in the national consciousness as an institution worthy of high and long-held regard.
...
But your sins don't "find you out" in the forms of your own choosing. Your misdeeds come back in warped and intractable ways. Then suddenly you are stuck with problems that have no solutions. For example, every baseball fan for decades to come will have to make mental adjustments for every accomplishment since the juice arrived. Who was clean? Who was dirty? And who cheated, yet did not technically break any of the written rules?
Bonds's own words will echo in the future, a perfect representation of the broken moral compass of his baseball period. "What players take doesn't matter. It's nobody's business," Bonds said four years ago. Last spring, he rebuked a questioner, saying: "You're talking about something that wasn't even illegal at the time. . . . Man, it's not like this is the Olympics."
No, sad to say, it's not the Olympics. It's only baseball, a business that misplaced its conscience for years, and only now is discovering that, in ways it never dreamed, the sport has truly become a game of shadows.

Don't know why I've done all the baseball posts-- must have something to do with the spring coming soon, the first signs of which being pitchers and catchers reporting in February. Or perhaps it was running in shorts this morning in the northeast.

In honor of Boswell's greatness, here are some of his recent greatest hits on the DC stadium struggles:
For the Nats, One Stadium Down, One Owner to Go
Time to Decipher D.C.'s Code
Nationals' Stadium Gets a New Lease on Life
Baseball, D.C. Are in a League Of Their Own

Steven A. Smith is wrong about Barry Bonds

2006-03-09T07:44:00.000-05:00

Wrong. I read his column today with my jaw dropping increasingly open, having the same feeling one has watching a horror movie as the virgin female character blissfully prepares to fall asleep (from which she will be awakened by the killer).

Barry Bonds is the topic:

None of us gets to sit here and chronicle Bonds' transgression as if he's committed some crime against humanity, as if he's someone who should be ostracized for all of sports eternity. We especially don't get to do that when, reportedly, all Bonds was trying to do was level a playing field McGwire allegedly desecrated with his own unethical practices.

Uh oh. It gets worse though:

...at the time that McGwire was a media darling, Bonds, alluding to McGwire's pursuit of Maris' home-run record, said, "They're just letting him do it because he's a white boy!"
Bell also reportedly claimed that Bonds said, "They'll never let him win," speaking of Sammy Sosa, a Latin player battling with McGwire for Maris' record.
...
But what, pray tell, was Bonds actually wrong about?
The fact remains that while no one can prove what is inside someone's soul, a large segment of the black population feels exactly the way Bonds feels:
It believes that McGwire was cheating the whole time. That it was evident he was on something more than andro, likely even Deca-Durabolin and Winstrol - steroids Bonds has been accused of using.

It believes that many in the baseball community knew this much, and still covered their eyes and ears because they didn't want to taint baseball's once-pristine image, already sullied because of innumerable boneheaded decisions (such as the cancellation of the World Series in 1994) that the sport had yet to recover from in 1998.

Many black folks believe what Bonds believes: that if he wasn't on the brink of eclipsing the great Babe Ruth's No. 2 spot among all-time home-run leaders, there may not have been a Balco investigation, constant leaking of grand jury testimony, or something tantamount to a witch hunt against a guy who continues to play baseball with impunity everywhere but in the court of public opinion.

I'm black, and I'm no different.

Look, I'm typically very sympathetic to those asserting that blacks are treated differently and seen differently by society at large and portrayed in the media, but this is not going to go far with me.

First of all, I find this crying out that Bonds is being singled out because he is closing in on Babe Ruth offensive. Mr. Smith might want to refresh his memory of Hank Aaron's experience as he closed in on the same record that Mr. Bonds is nearing. In that case, Aaron was receiving death threats (not having his illegal steroid use exposed) solely becasue of the color of his skin (not because he had chosen to do something illegal by taking performance enhancing drugs). Hank Aaron played in the negro leagues (Mr. Bonds was never in a segregated league). Hank Aaron made a top salary of $250,000 in 1976. Mr. Bonds made $22,000,000 in 2005 and is in the last year of a five year, $90,000,000 contract with the San Francisco Giants (meaning that he will earn $22,000,000 this year as well).

Second, take a look at Mr. Sosa, who is portrayed as a victim of some massive baseball conspiracy to keep him from setting the single season home run record in 1998. We have direct knowledge that he is a cheater. The phenomenon of "mini Sammy Sosa" in Baltimore once steroid testing began in major league baseball is one of those things that makes you say "Hmmm, maybe there IS something to the rumors that Sosa was on the juice." Steroid testing leads to markedly smaller Sammy Sosa and a big drop off in production-- correlation is not causality, but there may be something here. Also, how exactly did MLB orchestrate this incredible conspiracy to keep McGuire in front of Sosa? It sure would take a lot of people in on the effort, with all the pitchers and managers involved. I like (and am even willing to believe) a good conpiracy theory any day. This is not a good one. Smith says that baseball is run by boneheads (true), but then wants us to believe that these same boneheads who couldn't keep their sport from imploding over labor issues pulled off a widespread conspiracy to keep McGuire on top and then successfully kept it quiet all these years-- I don't think so.

Third, Mr. Smith tries to link the BALCO investigation solely to Barry Bonds. Mr. Bonds got himself in to trouble with BALCO. He publicly endorsed one of the company's (legal) supplement products as early as 2000. He remained a customer and defended the company in statments and insisted on his innocence of any involvement in steroid use. However, the driving force in performance drug testing is not Major League Baseball (not by any stretch), but athletic events associated with the Olympics, especially track and field and swimming. BALCO clients started to test positive on a broad basis beginning in 2000 with C.J. Hunter (who BALCO's founders defended with a story about contaminated supplements bought from BALCO), and many more BALCO clients were found to be users of the company's designer steroids in 2003-4. The leaks from the grand jury investigation are a crime, and should be investigated and prosecuted where they exist-- however, much of the information on Mr. Bonds comes from individuals (including his mistress, Kimberly Bell) who were witnesses to the Grand Jury, but who are not constrained from talking about their testimony in any venue. (Smith is snide about Bell, at one point ridiculing her as someone "who somehow is capable of corroborating his mood swings to his use of everything from insulin to human growth hormone to testosterone decanoate" implying that she is reaching beyond her non-medical knowledge, but wouldn't she have known enough about his steroid use activity to correlate that with observed mood swings by Mr. Bonds?)

There is something that strikes me as false when Steven A. Smith, a celebrated sports media personality who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, attempts to explain that "the Man" is Barry Bonds' problem. American sports fans have come a long way from 1974 (thank goodness), and sports fans of all races celebrate and worship the feats of Michael Jordan, Michael Vick, and (yes) Barry Bonds. Sports fans also understand that McGuire probably was using something with a little more juice than the non-banned "andro" that he acknowledged taking in 1998 (just look at his Congressional testimony to see the weaseling he does), and know that this devalues his accomplishments, just as they devalue Mr. Bonds'. Mr. Bonds is a premium talent who belongs in the Hall of Fame (provided he is not banned for something that we do not yet know-- an unlikely occurrance in my mind), just as Mr. McGuire does. I'm a believer that, disgraceful as his Congressional testimony becomes after he tested positive for steroids in 2005, Rafael Palmeiro belongs there as well.

Barry Bonds' problem is Barry Bonds, the man who probably took steroids, the man who had a mistress, the man who believes that "the Man" is his problem and who believes the syncophantic sports media players who help him to believe he is right.

Update: I think this is interesting too.

I hated Kirby Puckett

2006-03-08T19:22:00.000-05:00

October 26-27, 1991 in particular. I grew up an Atlanta Braves fan, so the 1991 season was like water to a man dying of thirst in the desert.

And then. Kirby F---ing Puckett and Jack F---ing Morris screw it all up for the men of destiny. When I think back on the Braves long run, that series probably mattered more than I imagine. First, you see the character of the Braves under Bobby Cox is not to will the other team into sumbission when they are down-- Cox's Braves let the other team return from the dead in Minneapolis. At the time it seemed like it could be the jitters of a playoff rookie team versus a team of veterans. Now I think it is just the Bobby Cox way-- one that I admire for it's success over time-- but one that lets a more desperate team up off the mat to come back and beat you.

Kirby Puckett came off the mat and beat us in game 6, and Morris did in game 7. Puckett was on the national stage one more time, winning the All Star MVP award in 1993. He continued to have a great career, then suddenly retired in spring training 1996 due to blindness in one eye caused by glaucoma. His post-baseball life stripped much of the Kirby Puckett sainthood from him, with allegations of sexual abuse, obvious infidelity, and obvious "issues" with self discipline becoming clearer via his weight problems, personal issues, and the like. Many people saw him as a tragic figure-- he had such joy in playing baseball that most could, even wanted, to forgive and forget.

Not me. I hated that bastard for his 1991 World Series work. I never got over it, and that may be the cruelest thing about baseball sometimes-- you are forced by circumstances to hate that which you would find admirable, even lovable, due to your feelings for your team and against their enemies. (As an example, I find Derek Jeter to be roughly equivalent to Josef Mengele, but then I have a bit of an ingrained yankee hatred).

Updated due to comments from Mrs. Ackfoo that "I hope that there are no children reading this.."

Product review: Diet Pepsi Wild Cherry soda, 2 liter bottle

2006-03-07T11:34:00.000-05:00

Packaging: Looks similar to other Pepsi packages, but does have and additional red border at the top and bottom of the label and a more "action-oriented" background in the blue of the label, almost giving a sense of vibration to the viewer. The label states that it is a "GREAT NEW TASTE." Otherwise, a relatively standard two-liter bottle, clear with blue top.

Initial presentation: Opening the bottle, the soda seemed less fizzy than regular Diet Pepsi (which is the fizziest of dark sodas). The pour, from a warm bottle onto ice, was smoother than a regular Diet Pepsi pour, with the bubbles receding quickly. Dark cola color was as expected.

Initial taste: Bringing the soda to the mouth with a faint bottle fizziness still on the glass, the smell of cherry soda was strong. The initial taste was of a very strong cherry flavor, overpowering the assumed cola taste (based on the cola coloring of the soda in the glass), and a definite chemical element to the flavor and bouquet, despite the promise of "Cherry Flavored Diet Pepsi with other natural flavors" on the label. In the glass the cherry flavor dissipated slightly, allowing some of the cola flavor to come through. However, the cherry flavor is very strong, overpowering the naturally light Pepsi cola taste.

Straight up this cola is really a cherry cola, not a "Pepsi." As cherry is a relatively poor mixer for spirits, this is not likely to be a great mixer for alcoholic beverages. It does contain caffeine, and appears to be an efficient delivery vehicle for this much needed substance in modern life. However, the overwhelming cherry flavoring, completely masking the cola undertones so critical to cola-based soda refreshment, makes this a poor substitute for other forms of diet soda, even at sale prices.

Rating: 71 (out of 100)

Yahoo! 360 sucks

2006-03-06T16:51:00.000-05:00

Problem 1: Stupid URLs
you might want yours to look like (say) http://ackfoo.blogspot.com. Dignified. Easy to remember and type. However, if you join Yahoo 360, you get a blog with a url like http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-OhTKPNY6calDS0Ql5OTstYDYl_QQ7noznDuQAUfyR.M-?cq=1&p=13#comments. That's a serious "you gotta be kidding me" moment. I guess that idea is that you can invite people (your Yahoo! friends)

Problem 2: Must be a Yahoo! member to post comments. Trolls hate sunlight. And actually, sometimes I want to post anonymously even if I am a registered member of the site (imagine!). Believe it or not, there are a number of reasons you might want to do this. Well, you can't on Yahoo! 360. You also can't use html in your comments. Plain text baby, it was good enough for BBS users in 1984, it's good enough for Yahoo!

And yes, I always type the official Yahoo! name because it reminds me, every time, how annoying any company that has an exclamation point as part of their name truly is. And Yahoo! is truly annoying.

AT&T and BellSouth: Didn't see that coming

2006-03-06T14:59:00.000-05:00

But I guess that I should have. AT&T is buying BellSouth.

The heart of this deal is the Cingular problem. AT&T owns 60% of the Cingular assets and BellSouth 40%, but they have 50/50 control of Cingular. When one thinks about how the wireless network assets will be used in the future, especially as new technologies that enable fixed-mobile convergence enter the market, the inability to do anything with the Cingular assets without BellSouth's approval was always going to hinder AT&T's agility (such as it is) in the market. Wireless assets will become more startegic over the next few years and will see slower revenue erosion as well. So AT&T had to get control of Cingular, and this is probably the best way to do it.

On the other hand, the non-wireless BellSouth assets create problems as well. BellSouth has long been a slower mover in the telecom marketplace (a follower in pretty much every product category), and they are probably seeing proportionally more of a decline in revenues than Verizon, AT&T, or Qwest for voice. On the other hand, they haven't begun to invest in fiber to the home nearly as heavily as Verizon of AT&T, so they have not yet committed themselves to the massive destruction of shareholder value that results from FTTH. If this deal goes through, though, they'll be committed to that path. This probably means that AT&T will be required to invest even larger amounts in FTTH, as it will cover an even larger portion of the country than before. On the other hand, the BellSouth territory is at least as densly populated as AT&T territory, and includes fast-growing Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee-- four of the top ten states in population growth for the year ending in July 2005. AT&T territory already includes Texas, California, and Nevada, meaning that the new company would benefit from having it's territory include 7 of the top 10 states by population growth. The problem with this is that it requires investment of capital in infrastructure today (to serve these growing populations) which very well may not be supported by the revenue streams of the future, especially if prices continue to decline in key voice and data segments.

This deal is bad news for Lucent and Nortel, since it will shrink their universe of customers by one very large customer. Telcordia (recently sold by SAIC and currently owned by Warburg Pincus and Providence Equity Partners) will probably lose some of their current business with BellSouth.

Bad news also for Atlanta, where AT&T will reduce headquarters staff for BellSouth. Operational staff will be more difficult to cut, but if you work in marketing or finance, time to start looking over that resume. Cingular wireless is headquartered in Atlanta, and you've got to think that most of those jobs will move or be eliminated.

Of course, all this assumes that the deal will be approved, and it will take a long time to close this deal-- currently expected to close "next year."

One thing that always makes me shake my head and wonder what is going on is the slavish love of the AT&T brand. AT&T (nee SBC) has announced that at the completion of the deal, not only will BellSouth come under the AT&T brand, but Cingular will be re-branded as AT&T. Of course, this is after AT&T Wireless was re-branded as Cingular when Cingular bought AT&T Wireless. I guess that shareholders won't want all those billions used to re-brand back. I just don't see that value in the AT&T brand-- I see AT&T as hated phone company with a reputation that might have been good once, but that has been tarnished by years of obvious mis-management and incompetence. My guess is that Whitacre and Ackerman, who both started their careers at AT&T before the breakup (although their official bios say that they started at Southwestern Bell and BellSouth, we must remember that they were part of AT&T before 1984). Seems like there is a bit of a "let's put this thing back together, no matter how little sense it makes" thing going on there. As a friend noted, the idea is: "Lemme prove I have a big dick by putting AT&T back together", whilst Google is hanging nearby with a machete, waiting to chop that member off.

Whitacre and Ackerman will retire and ride off intot the sunset feted by some for rebuilding AT&T. Their successors may not be as happy though.

Writing is hard (a resolution)

2006-03-02T17:44:00.000-05:00

Just read this column in the WSJ. I was not surprised at this:

"The latest word from Dave Sifry, CEO of the blog search engine Technorati, is that there are some 28.4 million blogs and the blogosphere is doubling in size every 5.5 months. Eye-popping figures like that have been thrown around a lot recently, but folks making revolutionary claims about blogging won't like other Technorati numbers: Less than half of those blogs are still getting posts three months after their creation, and less than 10% -- just 2.7 million -- are updated at least weekly. That means of Technorati's blogs, more than 90% are either abandoned or updated too rarely to merit the name -- nothing kills reader interest or visits more quickly and thoroughly than a stale blog."

This makes sense. The column author goes on to write that:

When my friend Greg Prince and I started our baseball blog, Fear and Faith in Flushing, our moods used to soar and crash based on the "referrer summary" of sites that had linked to us. After a while, we noticed something odd: Our traffic kept increasing, even as our referrers held steady or decreased. Then we realized this was a good thing: Readers were coming directly to us instead of through intermediaries.

(you should click through the link above-- both of the writers on the site are professionals engaged in a labor of love-- it is something to see, especially Greg's prolific writing)

But the takeaway for me was to not quit-- as easy as it is. No comments, few readers to date is depressing. I'm against blogwhoring, but I should probably do it. But I started doing this for me-- to improve my writing and learn about writing on deadline. That has been useful, and I shouldn't give up on it.

Abortion and the power of the state

2006-02-23T08:17:00.000-05:00

Over New Years I had the pleasure of spending some time with friends who are either in, or recently graduated from, some of the best law schools in the country. These folks are going to have a hell of a time being confrmed to the Supreme Court in the future, because they actually dicsussed the issue of abortion and the legal basis for restricting access to it (unlike Clarence Thomas, who was able to ascend to the Supreme Court without ever sullying his mind with such matters).

The bottom line that they agreed on was very interesting to me and has resonated more strongly over time: restrictions on the right to an abortion make a woman an unwilling conscriptee of the state for the duration of her pregnancy. Think about that for a minute, mull it over, and see the underlying truth to it.

The fact is that the technology exists to safely terminate unwanted pregnancies. Abortion restriction activists seek to deny access to a technology that is:

Safe for the user/recipient
Poses no danger to other citizens
Reliable
Well-understood
Inexpensive to deliver

I'm racking my brain trying to come up with another technology that is comparable in these areas and that is restricted by the state, but cannot come up with a truly comparable technology/service. This alone points out the exceptionalism of the abortion case-- that it is not a common occurance to legally restrict access to technolgies that are safe, reliable, and inexpensive.

An important consideration is the argument made by abortion-restriction advocates that the state has a duty to protect the abortion target-- the fetus. There is a simple answer to this argument-- the state has an obligation only to protect its citizens, and since citizenship is acquired by birth, prior to birth there are no citizenship rights and no obligation of the state to "protect" prior to birth.

Is abortion necessary? Examine the reliability statistics for the following methods of birth control:

Male condom: 97% reliable (when used correctly)
Female condom: 95% reliable (when used correctly)
Diaphragm: 94% reliable (when used correctly)
Cervical cap: 74% reliable (when used correctly); 91% reliable for those who have never given birth
Birth Control Pill: 99% reliable (when used correctly)
The "mini" pill: 99% reliable (when used correctly)
The Patch: 99% reliable (when used correctly)
Birth Control Ring: 98-99% reliable (when used correctly)
Depo-Provera: 99% reliable (when used correctly)
Progesterone or copper IUD: 98-99% reliable
Vasectomy: 99+% reliable (1 in 1,000 chance of pregnancy)
Tubal ligation: 99+% reliable (1 in 400 women become pregnant within 10 years)
"Natural" birth control methods: 85% reliable when done properly

It takes no more than a simple knowledge of statistics too see that, even under ideal circumstances, some women will become pregnant. If these women don't want to carry a child to term, a safe, reliable, inexpensive method is available to address this problem. Yet, in the view of the abortion-restriction activists, these women should be required to carry the child to term, regardless of her desires or the impact that it would have on her health and welfare. Pregnancy and childbirth are not without risk-- in fact, obstetricians have described it as "the most serious, complicated and life-threatening experience that most young women will have in their lifetime."

Requiring women to take on this burden and the attendant risk when they are unwilling and there is a reasonable alternative is effective conscription by the state.

It is no accident that we see many male politicians holdong forth on abortion and advocating for elimination of abortion. I find male leadership on abortion restrictions illogical and undefensible. If they can't find women to lead this fight, I think that Tbogg is onto something.

Question for analysts: Bird flu

2006-02-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

Visiting a company last week, I was surprised and impressed to see in every bathroom a sticker above the sink asking people to wash their hands to help prevent influenza. Included on the sticker was the (easy to remember) URL for the company's internal "Influenza Readiness" site. In addition, I learned that the company has distributed hand sanitizer to all employees.

I was impressed that this company has taken these steps, at a minimum, to address and mitigate some of the risks of an influenza pandemic. Thinking about the kind of forward-looking risk management that this represents, I would think that securities analysts would want to ask companies the following questions:

How would an influenza pandemic (or other pandemic) affect your business?
What steps have you taken to mitigate these risks and ensure the continued performance of the business?
Has an influenza readiness plan been created?
Are the employees aware of the plan if it has been created, or is it limited to key staff?

My guess is that many companies have not thought through their response to such a threat, even in industries that would be hard hit by a pandemic. So get to work, analysts!

Link to Long or Short Capital

2006-02-14T11:39:00.000-05:00

longorshortcapital.com

Because they asked so nicely.

Seriously, I love that finance-flavored snark.

RSS interfaces are irritating

2006-02-14T10:41:00.000-05:00

So I've gotten really into the utility of RSS-- I really like the ability of RSS and it's friends to publish out new items for those who wish to subscribe. However, I've found all of the RSS interfaces really irritating.

Safari's on Mac OS X is terrible. I'm a smart guy, IT background, know how to deal with klugy interfaces, and I still don't have a clear idea how Apple means for me to use RSS in Safari. When I land on a page with an associated feed, I get a little blue "RSS" icon on the right side of the location bar, which when clicked takes me to the feed's "page" (e.g., http://site name/atom.xml), but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do there--- bookmark it I guess, but then I can see the number of items I haven't "visited" in my feeds, but going there basically takes me to the atom.xml page. However, I've decided that I want to go to the actual article. Apple also gives me an option to view all RSS articles in a menu, but then interleaves them based on date of publication and doesn't allow me to sort by source. The display of information also takes up way too much room, requiring a lot of scrolling to see the articles, even though the font size is relatively small.

Firefox is better-- I like that it basically places the RSS feeds into bookmark menus-- this is much more intuitive for the user. I recognize that some people would like to see the syndication beyond the title of the new items, but I like this-- it makes the headline/title writer think about how to communicate the important point in a title, which is a good thing. One thing that I would like, however, is for Firefox to keep track of visited RSS articles-- perhaps by bolding unvisited links and unbolding them after a visit. I also keep finding myself wanting to go to the main site, but having to either follow a story link and then backtrack to the main page or having to go to another bookmark (for instance, I see several slashdot stories I want to take a quick look at but can't go directly to the slashdot home page from Firefox's live bookmark).

I've always stayed away from browser plugins that add features-- the only one I've ever really used has been Pith Helmet on Safari-- so I can't comment on IE RSS readers. I've seen a couple of articles on RSS in the new IE (version 7 I believe), and they have generally been positive.

I've also stayed away from using standalone RSS reader applications, although I played around with Thunderbird and it was ok, although I would have preferred that it not load the entire html page in the lower pane-- it seemed to make things slower than they should be.

I'm still hoping to find something worthwhile, but I'm thinking that we're again stuck at a stage where making things the extra 10% better that they need to be is not going to be easy.

Glenn Greenwald

2006-02-13T12:26:00.000-05:00

Although Glenn Greenwald has only been blogging for three months, he's been rapidly embraced and linked to by other (especially progressive) bloggers. He's one of those bloggers whose output and clarity are awe-inspring (well beyond my abilities, as should be evident to everyone reading this blog).

In the last two days he's written a great post on the bizarre phenomenon that has been the creation of an incredible cult of personality around Bush and the replacement of conservative political ideology with a "whatever Bush does = conservative ideology." Glenn's argument is good, and goes a long way toward explaining why Bush, who objectively seems to have abandoned practially all of what would have been seen as conservative principals in say, 1988, retains a rabid base of "conservative" defenders. I guess 9/11 changed everything, including the ability of many conservatives to identify and stick to their principles.

The follow up to Glenn's original post is great, too.

NBC is the worst network in the universe

2006-02-12T15:32:00.000-05:00

So I'm socked in by snow-- did the shopping, etc. yesterday before the big storm and don't need to leave the house (did go to the gym this morning and shoveled snow, but that will be enough to head off cabin fever I think). Usually, snow is a bigger inconvenience, but with all the weekend activities done, I felt great about sitting around and watching TV, especially with the Winter Olympics in progress.

What. the. hell?!?

NBC, rather than trying to show the Olympics to fill their Sunday afternoon sporting timeslot, is showing, and I am not kidding in any way, Daytona 500 gualifying "events." These events include the fascinating spectacle of single cars going around the track, totally alone, in order to qualify for the race. The other riviting television that we see in between single cars going around the track are scenes from the NASCAR inspection process. Honest to god, a few minutes ago I saw the gripping television that is a crew member adjusting the turnbuckles on the rear spoiler flap while an inspector watched to ensure that the angle would be within the limits of the NASCAR rules. Occaisionally the network will show us a timer counting the elapsed time for the car that they are following through the inspection process. I guess I'm supposed to be impressed that the inspection process takes upwards of four and a half hours. Just this second an announcer is standing next to what I imagine is the Daytona 500 trophy.

Now I'm sure that NBC knows what theyre doing, and that ratings for the NASCAR Daytona 500 qualifying will be higher than anything that they could have shown instead, like any of these things that happened today in Torino:

Men's and women's cross country skiing pursuit races (30 and 15 Km, respectively)
Men's snowboard halfpipe qualification runs
Luge men's singles runs 3 and 4
Ski jumping 1st round
A boatload of short track speedskating heats

I'd love to see more of these events-- we just don't see them in the US, and I like to see them in the olympics every 4 years. I know that they are going to be "shown" in the prime time programming later in the day, but we all know that NBC will show us virtually nothing of these events. In the Luge we'll see the top two guys (the 39 year old Geman and the Italian) and the US runs, and that will be it. We'll see outtakes from the cross country events. We'll see the US jumps and the jumps of the top competitors in ski jumping, and that will be it.

It jsut seems like NBC, especially on the weekend, could do more with these events. I'm old enough to remember ABC's Wide World of Sports-- "spanning the globe to being you the constant variety of sport"-- and the great thing that was the variety of the events showccased week to week. When Wide World of Sports started, ABC felt that it wasn't going to be anything more than a filler for the non-sporting Summer weekends, and it's unexpected popularity took ABC by surprise. It seems like the lesson of WWoS, that Americans like to see the variety of sporting events worldwide, have been lost on NBC in it's quest for prime time relevance and domination by the Olympics through the "dramafication" of the various events and incessant rooting for the US atheletes. We like sports, all sports, and the fact that we don't know what will happen next. I'd like more of the olympics from NBC.

[UPDATE: Monday 12:31 PM]: So NBC did step up and do an admirable job of showing more olympic sports than I expected yesterday afternoon (cross country pursuit for instance). So I will perhaps remove their "worst network in the universe" title depending on their performance for the remainder of the Olympics. Their prime time shows still stink, though.

Whoa. Weird.

2006-02-10T14:30:00.000-05:00

Last night I went to the Bodyworlds exhibit at the Franklin Institute. Aside from it being absolutely fascinating to be able to see the interior of actual humans, there was a lot to think about in other respects.

First, the artistic license of Gunther von Hagens, the guy who does the plastination of the bodies is interesting. The various ways that he creates exploded views of the bodies is something-- there is clearly a measure of artisitic interpretation in the way that he has chosen to put together exploded views of various individuals. Some of the displays-- the hurdler, the soccer goalie (diving to his right for the ball while his vicera is held upright in his extended left hand, as if when he dove it remained in place while the musclature did the work), the gymnast. There was neuron-skeleton with just the bone and nerves, there was circulatory person, where the circulatory system was all that was left, having been filled with some type of reddish laquer and the body blasted away from it. Torsos and heads split in any number of ways to expose the actual inner organs.

Fascinating, but a little disturbing. I've got to think about it some more, but I admit to leaving and feeling a little queasy.

Olympics: What's a Sport and What's a Contest?

2006-02-09T08:50:00.000-05:00

The Winter Olympics start tomorrow. Time to drag out my usual pet peeve and irritating topic of the fortnight-- which of these are sports, and which are contests (and not sports).

First, the argument. It goes like this. A sport will pit athletes against one another in an event in which there is a clear and objective standard for winning: fastest time, most goals scored, first around a track. Contests test athletic skills of the participants, but there are subjective elements imposed, typically by a panel of judges.

There you have it. So if I can train my body to perform a task that is measured objectively better than other athletes, I participate in a sport. If I train and compete against other athletes in a task that involves subjective elements judged by human experts, I'm a contestant. In the spirit of making the difference perfectly clear, here are the Winter Olympic events categorized into contests and sports:

Sports:

Biathlon (weird, but a sport)
Bobsleigh (including bobsleigh and skeleton)
Curling
Ice Hockey
Luge
Short-track Speed Skating (even though it has some weird rules)
Speed Skating
Alpine Skiing
Cross-country Skiing
Snowboard: Parallel Giant Slalom
Snowboard: Snowboard Cross

Contests:

Nordic Combined (due to inclusion of ski jumping)
Ski Jumping
Snowboard: Halfpipe
Freestyle Skiing (moguls and aerials)
Figure Skating (obviously)

I have a fight every four years with female friends who insist that figure skating is a sport. It's not. In addition, it is only better than gymnastics because the athletes (especially the female athletes) are generally older and therefore the creepiness factor is much lower.

News from the incompetent

2006-02-08T08:49:00.000-05:00

Well, I planned to write something different today, but then I read the thread on this at slashdot entitled Verizon threatens Google's "free Lunch" and read the comments and a few things struck me.

The first was the absolutely stunning audacity of the statement in the Washington Post article that Google "...is enjoying a free lunch that should, by any rational account, be the lunch of the facilities providers."

Wow. I mean wow.

I didn't realize that all of the money that the poor "facilities providers" (for those of you not familiar with the language of the industry, this means telcos, since they own the facilities and provide them for use) spent on the network infrastructure was forced on them by the government. Nor did I realize that the government was forcing them to sell their services at a price at which they couldn't make money. Oh wait, neither of those is true.

What is true is that the telcos spent a lot of money on deploying DSL services to customers, and are spending even more money installing fiber to the home. The problem that they had with DSL and are probably going to have with fiber is that the business case used to justify the investment assumed a higher price point than they could get for the service. For instance, I happen to know that in 2000/2001 a lot of people thought that you couldn't make money on DSL services unless you charged $75 a month.

That's fine and all, but the fact is that telcos couldn't sell it to consumers at that price for three main reasons:

The first is the existence of a substitute-- cable access-- that could be purchased for less or equal money.
The second was the venomous hatred of the phone company in many areas. I know that it may be a surprise, but if you overcharge and mistreat your customers for a century, you can't fix it with a few radio spots. Pretty much no one loves the cable company, but they don't have a century of ill will to sell through.
The third reason is that telcos have no idea how to sell to customers. For a century, they took orders for phone service. The sales function was answering a phone, taking the order from the customer, including a very few overpriced options, and telling them how many weeks it would take for a technician to show up sometime during the day to hook up your service. Well, that sales method doesn't really work anymore for phone service, but it's a model that is heavily embedded in the phone world.

In addition, has there ever been an industry with worse marketing? Just look at the company names-- AT&T, SBC (gone now, unloved and unmourned), BellSouth-- ugh. Even when they threw out the old and came up with new names, ugh-- Verizon?!? Level(3)?!?!? Terrible. The product names-- DSL is bad until you find out what it stands for-- Digital Subscriber Line?!? A former colleague told me that he was talking to the head of sales at a telco (he'd come from outside of telecomm) who said that the industry was so bad at naming and marketing if they took over KFC they'd change the name of the main product to "Hot Dead Chicken."

The only way that they have found to sell the products (especially DSL) to customers is to discount heavily and for a long time. Current thinking is that they have to offer a year of service at $15/month for people to get DSL (or switch from cable, which has been able to maintain a better price point). That's a far cry from the $75/month that people in the industry thought that they'd have to charge to "make money."

So after much "thought" (and no doubt millions spent on consulting services), the telcos have realized that they can't sell DSL at a high enough price to make a decent profit, have started to spend money hand over fist to put fiber into homes, where they may have the same problem (and probably will, since they haven't addressed any of the three problems that they had with DSL-- competition, ill-will, and inability to sell).

The approach that they have turned to now is to claim that Google, Microsoft, and other money making companies should pay them more, ostensibly because the money that Microsoft, Google, and the rest make my creating content (I am defining software as content here, mostly because it makes this paragraph easy) should belong to them since it happens to traverse "their" network.

Look, Google, Microsoft, and the rest pay for Internet access, probably a lot more than any of us imagines, and if AT&T, Verizon, and the rest set the prices for their service at a level that is too low, they need to reexamine and reopen the contracts that they have with Google or with whoever is providing them access to AT&T's network (i.e., if Level3 is providing access to Google, then Verizon needs to talk to Level3 about their contract). But at the end of the day, if they paid too much to build a network that they couldn't profitably sell, then that is primarily their problem.

The sad game that they are playing now is a familiar one to them (noted in the Post article): go to the government and rent seek! Maybe we can get some sort of exclusive arrangement from the government for providing a commodity service that many companies can provide! What they would like is a legal cover to do what they want-- charge the sender of a packet every time that packet is delivered to one of their customers-- instead of paying by the call/minute, we can pay by the packet. And they want the "right," which they have already, to deny access to those who don't pay the packet fee. The problem is that there are alternatives, alternatives for which we are already paying more and which will become more valuable if the telcos follow their current path.

Pay Us More, We're Incompetent Part 1: Telco History in the Internet Age

2006-02-07T11:16:00.000-05:00

So I've been following the telcos' (AT&T [nee SBC], Bellsouth, etc.) comments on "not getting paid" by people using their networks and I've got to say that I'm surprised more hasn't been written about this. I've got a telco industry background, so I understand these things a little better than others (although I haven't kept up with them as much as I should), and this line of reasoning seems to be coming from outer space.

When Internet access first started to affect telcos, it was a winner-- it meant people needed a second line, meaning more monopoly profits, best of all from the highly lucrative dial up franchise. In fact, telcos started to look like a growth business, what with all those extra phone lines and Internet traffic increasing at unprecedented rates (for quite a while, it was erroneously stated as a "fact" that Internet traffic was doubling every six months). Wireless wasn't good enough, cheap enough, or ubiquitous enough to be a replacement for the home phone, so there was no threat there. As it became obvious that higher-bandwidth was going to be a consumer demand, the telcos rolled out Digital Subscriber Line or DSL services. On the good side, this allowed the telcos to charge even more than they had for the second line. On the bad side, there was competition for this service from the cable companies.

Now not may people "love" the cable company. But compared to the phone company the cable company looks like your loving momma. The cable company also had a better product-- the phone company could complain all they wanted that cable was a shared system and DSL was tecnically better, but the fact was that you got T-1 speeds or better over cable and anemic (usually 256K/128K) speeds comparitively over DSL. Neither group did a great job with the marketing of the product, but most cable firms at least called it what it was, "high-speed Internet" (for example), while even when you figured out what DSL stood for, that didn't tell you what you were buying.

A root problem for the phone company was that they were really suddenly required to sell something. For 100 years, they had basically been order takers. Suddenly they had to compete. Cable companies had gotten an education in competition from satellite TV. While they still operated as quasi-monopolies thanks to local franchise agreements, they had been exposed to market forces (and had been investing in their networks to be able to compete against satellite offerings, so they had a lot of fiber optic cable in their networks fiber that could be used for Internet traffic as well as TV signals)

Prior to the Internet, telcos were as good a place as any to park yourself if you were a middle manager-- plenty of cash came in from the voice business, as an incumbent utility you were generally able to charge the customers a rate guaranteed to provide a profit no matter what your monopoly product "cost," and no one was ever laid off, since you could always increase prices. Wireless looked like a threat, but it wasn't very good and never seemed like anything that would really affect the RBOCs (Regional Bell Operating Companies). Most of them had some skin in the game, but wireless was crappy and expensive. Even better, the government had mandated that telephone service was a universal need, and created a system called the Universal Service Fund (USF) by which urban telephone users payed an extra fee to support service to rural customers. (USF lines are very profitable thanks to this system)

So in the space of a few years in the 1990s, the local phone companies went from boring but profitable utilities growing at the pace of their underlying goegraphy's economic growth rate to a suddenly surprising revenue growth company thanks to all those extra lines to a compnay that had invested a lot of money in equipment to provide DSL but was suddenly losing customers to the first real competitor they had ever faced. The first few years of the 21st century were no kinder, as wireless phones replaced traditional phones for many and VoIP phones that completely bypass the traditional phone network while providing more functions for free made the goose that had traditionally lain the golden egg for telcos-- the local dialtone service-- a shrinking commodity.

Next: Where does the money come from and where does it go?