Musings From Scott Scott Converse Blog

something....anything

2008-11-15T13:38:00.003-07:00

Frakking DO something

New Found WWII footage.

2008-11-10T18:53:00.003-07:00

Some newly found/never before seen WWII footage discovered in Denver recently. It's Black and White.. no sound, but still interesting. I've always loved old movie reels and this feels like the raw material before it's cut down to 3 minutes for the reel they used to show before feature films in theatres (before that new fangled thing had come into being... TV). It's a little like having one of those old C dish's (10 feet across) that got the full raw news feeds from around the world.. but over half a century ago.

My Dad was in WWII (barely... he was 17 when he joined and it was the last year of the war) and he's got some pretty interesting stories about Japan after the surrender. I think this was the last time the world, as a whole, had to sacrifice and work together.

Medioh Logo (Pixar style)

2008-11-06T23:46:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Bryan!

Fox News Exec. VP calls the election for Obama! (well, sort of).

2008-10-27T15:03:00.003-06:00

Interesting note regarding this whole Ashley Todd, fake report of being attacked by a black obama supporter: John Moody, EVP of Fox News says:

If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.

If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.

I think Fox News just called the Election for Obama.

My Wordle...

2008-10-26T21:10:00.002-06:00

My Del.icio.us wordle:

Thanks to Brad and Amy. I didn't know there was such a thing as a Wordle before.

Powell and Obama (video)

2008-10-20T02:05:00.005-06:00

Well done video on Powell's endorsement of Obama and well worth the slightly over Five minutes of your life it'll take to watch.

I can't say I love Colin, not after his show at the UN claiming 'Iraq has WMD's', But this helps. And, he is definitely a Republican that other Republicans and conservative independents listen to.

I also think his statement that Obama's a Christian, has always been a Christian but, what if he wasn't? Why would it matter... is so dead on, so obvious and so the right thing, I have to say: hats off to the man. It's about time someone stood up for what America really stands for.

Oil Prices vs. Gas Prices

2008-10-16T16:43:00.006-06:00

Light sweet crude ($/barrel) 72.70
as of 10/16/08.

So...

If Crude Oil is $148.00 a barrel, and Gas Prices are around $3.95 a gallon,

Wouldn't it make sense that when Crude Oil get's down to $72.70 a barrel, that Gas Prices would be around $1.98 a gallon?

$1.98

Makes sense eh?

I'm seeing...... $3.09 (lowest price) here in Boulder.

When Crude Oil prices go up, the price at the pump goes up, next day at the latest.

How much is gas at your gas station?

What does an 83 IQ score mean to you?

2008-10-09T21:22:00.004-06:00

The average IQ for an American Citizen is slightly over 100.

Apparently, this is Sarah Palin's IQ as a high school student.

The original is here. It's a background report on Sarah Palin.

Her SAT scores are bottom of page 3. IQ scores top of page 4.

Just sayin....

Warren and Charlie mix it up

2008-10-06T02:54:00.002-06:00

There's an excellent interview with Warren Buffet up on Charlie Rose's site.

This is the full interview (almost an hour) but worth it. He isn't called the Sage of Omaha for nothing.

How to pitch to a VC: High speed compressed version by David S. Rose

2008-09-20T13:08:00.004-06:00

There's a great TED video by David S. Rose, startup guy and now a VC on how to pitch to a VC. There's lots of these out there but this is an amazingly well done, compacted and fast paced version well worth watching.

They invest in people.

You have at most 18 minutes to get the idea across.

First, You have to get across Integrity (straight shooter).
Second, Passion for what you're doing.
Third, Experience. Serial entrepreneurs are favored.
Forth, Knowledge and domain expertise.
Fifth, Skills to get a company going.
Sixth, Leadership, to get the full set of skills in place to run the company
Seventh, Commitment, to stay to the very end.
Eighth, Vision.
Ninth, Realism.
Tenth, Coachable.

Start like a rocket. 10 seconds to grab them.

From there, a solid steady upward graph that gets better and better that knocks it out of the park at the end. Never skip a step or go backwards. think "Logical Progression".

Provide touchstones like referencing companies the Angel or VC might know of, give them outside validation, things the potential investors knows of and can touch on.

An upside and believable. Show both. "$1m revenue is 3 years' isn't an upside "$1B in 24 months" isn't believable.

Never say things that aren't true. Ever. If you do, 1/2 of what you've said and will say will be discounted (no one's done this before is a good example).

Treat them like a 6th grader, walking them through it, but don't be condescending. Tricky, but essential.

Typos will kill the deal: how do you run a company if you can't run spell check?

Steve Jobs is the master at this. Watch him and learn. (Yea, I know I bash Apple a lot, but it's only because I love them. If I didn't care, I wouldn't say anything).

He then goes into a step by step on the presentation itself.

Top five tips for the presenter:

Always use presenter mode
Always use remote controls (don't touch the computer)
Handouts are NOT the presentation. The handout stands without you.
Do not read your speech
Never, ever, look at the screen. You're connecting with the audience first and foremost.

Worth every second of the 14 minutes and 39 seconds that it runs.

There's No Arguing With Conservatives ... No, Seriously, Scientific Studies Prove It

2008-09-17T12:45:00.008-06:00

<--giuliani in drag

A new study out of Yale University confirms what argumentative liberals have long-known: Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder. In essence, schooling See the report from the Washington Post article on the study, which came out yesterday

Can't say I'm surprised.

I suppose this means the whole 'trying to reason' with conservatives is just moot. I've experienced it (many times) first hand with my conservative friends, but now I know for certain what I've always suspected... it's just how their brains seem to work.

I always said it was genetic. I was kidding, but, turns out, it was a little bit true.

Nationalizing the US Financial system

2008-09-17T09:53:00.003-06:00

Think we're not?

Freddie and Fannie= Owned by the government. Controls over 1/2 of the mortgages in America.

A.I.G.= Owned by the government. Insures a huge percentage (globally) of all the 'mortgage debt instruments'.

And we're being dumb about it.

Dumbness example:

Sunday- A.I.G. asks for a $40Billion loan to stave off a change in it's credit rating.
Monday- Fed's say no. Monday night: Credit agencies lower A.I.G.'s credit rating
Tuesday- A.I.G. says it may have to liquidate. Tuesday night: Fed says, no no.. here's $85 Billion

$85 Billion vs. $40 Billion.

Why did it happen? The short answer appears to be the Fed's tried to scare the existing players (Goldmans, etc.) into funding A.I.G. and lost the stare down.

The cost to you and me? $45 billion.

Dumness galore.

E.T. and I.T.

2008-09-04T11:22:00.004-06:00

For decades the US has been on the leading edge of information technology (I.T.) and this has driven our economy (and the worlds) to new heights of prosperity, but it's soon to be the 2nd most important industry.

Energy is where it's at this century. The age of cheap energy is over and finding, developing and deploying (mostly) renewable energy sources is where the action will be. Thomas Friedman (NYT columnist and book author) calls this Energy Technology or E.T.

The railroads lost the battle to the auto/truck makers in the middle of the last century by thinking of their business as 'trains' and not 'transportation'.

The Oil companies of today are doing the same exact thing (and recruiting the politicians, like McCain's VP pick: Palen).

It's about ENERGY, not Oil. Investing only in an energy source with a finite supply is a waste of investment.

It's too bad today's Big Oil guys don't get that they're in the Energy business... not, just, the Oil business. They have the money to make the transition, at least today. But they won't in 10 years.

Big Oil is going the route of the train giants of yesteryear: focusing only on today and not investing for tomorrow.

Godin and Interns

2008-09-01T20:31:00.004-06:00

Create a facebook group to recruit and filter interns.

Brilliant! Simple! Obvious! Why the hell didn't I think of this?

Seth Godin, a guy who really gets the world in ways many don't, recently needed some interns (paid...so he was hoping for a good response) and boy did he get that response. Over 150+ applied from around the world. Then, he tried something clever, and very obvious, but to my knowledge not done before, to help filter them down to the 5 he'd actually hire: He started a facebook group.

Unable to just pick a PDF or two, I invited the applicants to join a Facebook group I had set up. Then I let them meet each other and hang out online.

It was absolutely fascinating. Within a day, the group had divided into four camps:

* The game-show contestants, quick on the trigger, who were searching for a quick yes or no. Most of them left.
* The lurkers. They were there, but we couldn't tell.
* The followers. They waited for someone to tell them what to do.
* The leaders. A few started conversations, directed initiatives and got to work.

Want to guess who I hired? (It was a paid gig and five ended up spending time with me in NY on a somewhat rolling basis). If you're hiring for people to work online, I can't imagine not screening people in this way. This is the work, and you can watch people do it for real before you hire them.

Did I say brilliant? Brilliant. He only needed five (paid) but also thought, what the hell, let's set up some unpaid virtual intern work using basecamp, see who signs up. Over 60 of the original 150+ applicants did and good things happened.

Original/full Post here.

Is the smallness of Web 2.0 killing the big wins?

2008-08-29T20:27:00.008-06:00

Great story from the New York Times.

Judy Estrin, who has built several Silicon Valley companies and was the chief technology officer of Cisco Systems, says Silicon Valley is in trouble. In a new book , “Closing the Innovation Gap,” which will be in bookstores Tuesday, she writes that the valley’s problems are symptomatic of a crisis in innovation facing the country as a whole.

I have to agree, but it's not just Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, I'm learning this from direct personal experience with my own startup.

We started as ClickCaster, a podcasting platform that was veryy good at making it simple to create and publish an audio or video podcast. We built a great product and great team. We did everything 'right', but podcasting, so far, hasn't become a business. So, about 6 months ago, we sold it to a company down in Texas (the URL, userbase and a license for the software). We kept the software and intellectual property as well as the team that built it and brought in some new business folks that really understand video.

We created a new company called Medioh and started work on what I call Broadband Social Television. Everyone we've talked to says it's the right thing and the right direction, including customers, and we've got a big jump on it with years of experience dealing with media on the web (creating it, aggregating it and distributing it with a social networking twist).

We want to augment, or better yet, replace, much of the existing media infrastructure with web based solutions. Tools, content and social sharing aspects... all at an order of magnitude less cost to implement, but with the same really big advertising revenues associated with traditional television.

The problem is, it's a swing for the fence kind of play.

There's significant competition, and, the huge legacy media companies think they know what's going o. Some do, but most don't. It just scares the hell out of investors because it's obvious there are only going to be a few winners.

In a word: A Bit-O-Chaos.

I love chaos. Within chaos lies massive opportunity, if you've got the ramp/resources to sniff it out and make it real.

We're as well positioned as anyone to do that (better than most) and we've started the conversation with VC's, but we're not getting alot of traction. Granted, it's early days, but the initial discussions, to date, aren't as encouraging as i'd like.

The market meltdown hasn't helped and, potentially, has killed off pretty much all the potential funding. People are afraid.

As Judy says, the 'big' plays scare today's investors. They're looking for the short term win.

Ms. Estrin traces Silicon Valley’s troubles to the tech boom. She said that’s when entrepreneurs and venture capitalists started focusing more on starting companies to turn around and sell them and less on building successful companies for the long term.

“Starting in 1998, there was such a shift in Silicon Valley toward chasing money and short-term returns,” she said.

For us, I suspect some of the problem comes from the "ITV" or "IPTV" push 10 years ago that failed so miserably. Billions where spent and it didn't take off. Everyone thought it would take a year or two and viola! we'd have webtv everywhere.

As Bill Gates says, we tend to overestimate what will happen in the next year, and underestimate what will happen in the next 10 years. He was so right.

It's been 10 years since the boondoggle of internet video from the late 90's, and the infrastructure, audience, technology and inclination is now very much there and very real.

But the money guys are afraid. They remember (or have heard) the late 90's horror stories and don't want to take the risk.

And as the article says her book implies, it's a broad problem.

Our fund raising situation? I think, we're just a symptom.

Boulder Parking: A Sort Of Protection Racket?

2008-08-28T12:05:00.015-06:00

I've heard of this, but I just experienced it directly today.

Boulder is running a scam on it's citizens and as far as I'm concerned it's a form of parking ticket enforcement fraud.

Know what this feels like? It feels like a revenue generating operation that's a tiny bit like a protection racket.

In an approx. 30 day period from mid June to mid July, the meter maids gave me three $15 tickets, and within 45 days of the last ticket, turned it into $180 in fines and booted my car (another $40 charge). $220.00.

Not a bad hall for 3 slips of paper and 6 minutes of meter maid time. How many times does this happen in a day? How much revenue does this generate for the city?

What' the ROI for the city? I'm betting: really really good.

Interestingly, this was all with zero warning. No letters (at least none that I got), no warning stickers on the car, nothing.

Apparently, Boulder enforces the 'laws of the state' around parking much more stringently than it does, for instance, laws about smoking pot in public (ever been to the annual '420' event?). I'm not against the 420, but it's "against the law" too. Do they get 'tickets'? Nope.

Sooo... what heinous crime did my car commit?

I have no front license plate. The reason is there is no place to put it (no plate holder , no holes for screws). I just got it a few months ago and haven't gotten around to buying a drill and putting the front plate on yet.

This is one of those 'you have to look for it' kind of tickets. You have to walk around the car and look for no plate. I park in the same general area downtown and apparently I've caught the eye of the meter maid who own this particular turf.

Why the need for front license plates? I think it has to do with red light cameras that take a picture of your front license plate and send you a really big fine in the mail. Apparently cities all over the country (like Boulder) are adding more of these cameras to their red lights and shortening the yellow light span to produce more tickets.

Oh.. you think a city would never do that? Think again:

In fact, six U.S. cities have been found guilty of shortening the yellow light cycles below what is allowed by law on intersections equipped with cameras meant to catch red-light runners. Those local governments have completely ignored the safety benefit of increasing the yellow light time and decided to install red-light cameras, shorten the yellow light duration, and collect the profits instead.

Boulder uses traffic tickets to create substantial amounts of revenue. They sent out over 10,000 red light tickets last year alone.

Back to parking tickets.

Normally I pay things like parking tickets right away (simplifies life) but these three tickets got put into a cubby hole and I simply forgot about them. Simple human mistake.

I don't even mind paying a penalty. Say, 25% of the value of the ticket....but $180 for $45 in parking tickets? All within 60 days of getting the tickets and then booting my car with no warning?

What the hell is that about? That's about 1600% annual interest rate. Even the IRS doesn't dream of doing something that outrageous. The only people that get rates like that are loan sharks and, last time I looked, that's illegal.

And booting the car with no warning? That's the municipal equivalent of a loan shark 'breaking an arm' until you pay up.

If a business tried all that they'd be brought up on modified RICO charges.

I'm getting a new bumper sticker made up:

Boulder: Bring your pot but don't f**k with our meter maids.

Is Apple a Republican?

2008-08-26T11:07:00.009-06:00

I don't mean this in the political sense, I mean it in the 'how we do business' sense.

I've noticed that Apple simply never, ever, says it's sorry. It also never admits it's wrong without being called on it, repeatedly, by many sources, over days or weeks (sometimes months). The latest example being the 3G phones unreliability and the MobileMe online service outages and outright failures.

Apple is also the most secretive company in the business. everything is a secret, even inside the company with product teams working on the same product. It's compartmentalized and everyone is isolated from everyone else (outside of their immediate group). Sound a bit like our current administration? Just a little?

I've also noticed that all the latest "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads, although cute, funny and fluffy, are negative ads. Negative in the sense of attack ads, similar to what the Republican's do so very well.

I know.. it's a stretch, but comparing the Rovian Republican attack ads to Apple ad's that have the PC guy doing most of the talking, usually pointing out what's wrong with the PC or the OS, vs. having the Apple guy talk about what's good about itself seems like a reasonably fair comparison.

The only difference is Apple does it with a sense of wry humor .. all soft and fluffy... vs the lead pipe/scare the hell out of you Republican approach. Same result though: You're left with the kind of residual feeling that the other guy's a loser and not to be trusted (or purchased over an Apple product).

Have you seen a positive Republican advertisement lately?

Watch the Apple Ads. Have you seen a positive Apple ad for the Mac (that's not denigrating the PC somehow) lately?

Me neither.

And the similarities between the control freak Jobs and the control freak Cheney are alot closer than any of the Mac Fanboys would ever want to admit.

I'm bi-computational. I own two Mac's and an iPhone. I also own several PC's. I use them all for different things. Apple makes an overall great product. I'm not really attacking the products there, I'm criticizing the company itself, and it's way of doing business, more than anything.

I could also expand this a bit more into the 'elite' (meaning: Rich/Republican) vs. 'everyday joe' (meaning: Average/Everyman/Democrat) argument and make a pretty convincing case for how PC's, which are cheap, ubiquitous, easy to repair (or just replace) are the every day joe computer where the Mac is (perceived as) expensive, difficult to upgrade/repair and generally embraced by more of the rich elite, but, being the Libertarian Hippie that I am, i won't go any farther with that line of thought.

So, add it up: Denying problems that are obvious to everyone, ignoring problems and not addressing them unless the press exposes them over and over and then doing something minor to create the idea that you're trying to alleviate the pain, but still not admitting fault; obsessive secrecy about everything they do both inside the organization and in what's presented outside and, finally, attacking your opponents relentlessly via attack ads sounds a lot to me like business as usual for the Republicans.

And now, if you just stop a minute and think about, Apple Inc as well.

Steve Jobs may be a far left Buddhist/democrat, but his company looks very Republican to me.

UPDATE: How to upgrade a Mac (click for original):

Ultimate Geek Out

2008-08-14T21:55:00.002-06:00

It doesn't get much better (or more geeky) than this.

Presenting the Large Hadron Rap:

White female science writer turned rapper Katherine McAlpine knocks it out of the irony park.

You have no choice but to love it.

Google Kills Feedburner

2008-08-14T17:24:00.001-06:00

This is sad, and I have to wonder what the motivations behind it might have been.

About a year ago, Google bought Feedburner, an RSS tracking system that did a very nice job of creating advertising revenue for RSS powered content. Google announced they'd shut it down a few days ago.

Why would Google spend a reported $100M on a company and then, a year later, shut it down? I don't think they transferred that business to their adsense network (Allen Stern, in the video above, agrees with me here).

I suspect this was an example of a big company seeing that a small company had something very innovative, were first movers and were creating an 'alternative' ad network to adsense on Google.

Having worked in some really big companies I've seen this kind of behavior over and over so it's possible I'm being overly cynical ... Maybe I'm giving Google too much credit for thinking into the future and being a little bit evil here. But, maybe not.

I'm effectively saying that Google bought Feedburner with the intention of, eventually, shutting it down. They did it in a way that bought off the digitari so their image as 'not like other big companies' would be held intact. Feedburner folks and it's investors were well paid and, in the end, that's what makes for a lot of positive buzz in the blogosphere. I find this to be the goodness part of this. Unlike some companies that smash small startups that might threaten them, this IS, in a oddly mercenary way, a 'nice' way to shut down a budding competitor.

I still think it's sad though. Dick and gang put a lot of mental horsepower and hard work into creating a great company and a compelling product. I'm sorry to see it go.

The good news is without a similar product that provides similar functionality and monitization levels to take it's place at Google (adsense is not that product) someone, somewhere, can now do it again.

Librarians as Free Speech Shock Troops

2008-08-07T09:12:00.005-06:00

Every so often, I read a blog post that makes me go 'wow' and sticks with me long and hard. Posts like that are rare so when I run across them I believe it's important others have the opportunity to read them as well.

Jamie Larue just wrote such a post called "Uncle Bobby's Wedding".

The subject matter is a childrens book about gay marriage, but it could be about any idea that one person or group of persons disagrees with and doesn't feel should be made available to another group (in this case, children aged 2-7). It addresses the importance of free speech and open thought. He's addressing libraries, but it extends well beyond that to any free speech be it in a library, or on the internet.

"Our whole system of government was based on the idea that the purpose of the state was to preserve individual liberties, not to dictate them. The founders uniformly despised many practices in England that compromised matters of individual conscience by restricting freedom of speech. Freedom of speech – the right to talk, write, publish, discuss – was so important to the founders that it was the first amendment to the Constitution – and without it, the Constitution never would have been ratified."

It's an incredibly well thought out and respectful response that I find, in our polarized world, sadly lacking in the public discussion of ideas.

"Finally, then, I conclude that “Uncle Bobby's Wedding” is a children's book, appropriately categorized and shelved in our children's picture book area. I fully appreciate that you, and some of your friends, strongly disagree with its viewpoint. But if the library is doing its job, there are lots of books in our collection that people won't agree with; there are certainly many that I object to. Library collections don't imply endorsement; they imply access to the many different ideas of our culture, which is precisely our purpose in public life."

Bravo Mr. Larue. You have, again, reinforced my belief that The Librarians of the world are our shock troops for free speech and the dissemination of ideas and open discussion.

Benevolent Dictators and Cross Pollination in Boulder

2008-08-02T11:36:00.004-06:00

Rebecca McKinnon did a great post on Silicon Valley's benevolent dictatorship. Personally, I think she nailed it. To a large degree, she exposed how a large number of high tech people tend to think about this space. Benevolent Dictatorships are, indeed, largely what creates great companies in Silicon Valley. I won't go into her take on the downside of that, read her post. It's worth it.

The guys over at Techdirt, not to be outdone, write a post about Rebecca's post that adds an important additional side note in the last couple of paragraphs about the cross pollination of people and ideas is one main reason Silicon Valley tends to be so successful. These two things, based on my 20 plus years of observing it and 10 years actually living there, make up a large part of why Silicon Valley succeeds beyond the obvious things talked about and copied by other areas many times before (money from VC's and Angels, access to universities, quality of life, etc.).

So....Benevolent Dictators and Cross Pollination of technology, people and ideas. Really really important.

Can you apply that formula to a place like Boulder, Colorado? A town that fancies itself many things, one of which is a '2nd tier' startup capital, alongside towns like Austin, Portland and Seattle?

I think you can, but I don't think, in Boulder at least, it looks the same.

Our benevolent dictators seem to also be our Money People. The VC's and Angel investors that make startups here possible. They don't act like Steve Jobs, they're far more subtle, but the effect is very similar. What they say goes, and what they want happens. This is certainly not a bad thing, but it's a real thing. We have no Apple like companies in Boulder, it's just not big enough, so a different configuration of a similar model seems to have formed up.

On the second point of cross pollination, I'm not sure we do as good a job. This is due mostly to scale.. we just don't have it here, and it's also who our benevolent dictators are.

Even 'Northern Colorado'....bringing Denver/Ft. Collins/Loveland/Longmont/Greely into it we don't have near the same number of high tech folks or money people as The Valley (I'm not counting Colorado Springs in here because Colorado Springs is to the rest of Colorado what Texas is to the US).

But, it's also partly due to our money people, or rather, our lack of them. Generally, VC's and even Angels are not overly keen on their companies hiring employee's away from each other. This is very understandable because, in a small company, a key person leaving can be devastating to that small companies progress. Because we have far fewer money people in Colorado than Silicon Valley has, there's alot more talk among the startup people running the companies about how 'VC X' really hates it when you hire someone from his/her company.

If that money person is already involved in your company, you don't want to do something to upset them. And, due to the size of the money pool being limited in this area, if that money person isn't involved with your company, chances are you'll want them to be, or at the very least have something nice to say about you, so, again, you don't want to do anything to upset any of those money people. This gives them a disproportionate level of influence (back to Benevolent Dictatorships) on the startup world in our area.

This isn't a Boulder problem alone, it's any area that doesn't have a big enough VC/Angel population which is pretty much anywhere but Silicon Valley.

Unfortunately, this creates a low level fear of hiring from other startups (i.e. limiting cross pollination) if they're involved with (or want to be) some of the bigger VC or Angel folks in the community.

In a smaller ecosystem like Boulder (or even Northern Colorado), that has a real dampening effect on cross pollination, one of the key features of Silicon Valley's success.

I don't have an answer here short of getting several dozen VC's and several hundred Angels to move to Boulder. And I'm not saying Boulder is a bad place for startups (it's actually very very good) but, the components that make Silicon Valley so successful don't yet exist here in Boulder (or by what I can tell anywhere else) and until that happens, The Valley will rule.

The Main Stream Media (MSM) is Trying Really Hard To Commit Suicide

2008-07-23T21:26:00.006-06:00

I can't really think of any other explaination for what happened at CBS.

Apparently, McCain pulled a blooper during a CBS news interview by mixing up his timelines around 'The Surge' in Iraq which is actually a big story in itself (since he seems to be basing all his credibility on it) but the real story, for me, was how CBS, effectively, covered up the mistake.

Thank god for MSNBC madman (corporate newsroom speak for 'TruthSayer') Keith Oberman. He took the original footage, and the modified footage and played them side by side. Here's the Clip:

Of course, this is getting a much larger audience on the internet then when it was aired on MSNBC. If you want the facts, on demand, the internet is the place to go.

This isn't about McCain, I'm not picking on him.

What I'm astounded at is the CBS Evening News changing the content of an interview with a presidential candidate to make him look less foolish when he made a major mistake on camera.

So I have to ask: What's to keep them from doing the same thing in reverse: make McCain, or Obama, look bad.

I mean... why not? Where's the rule book that says 'you can change the content of an interview to make a presidential candidate seem better, but not worse'?

Isn't one.

So you can bet they'll be making presidential candidates look bad using fairly blatant manipulation like the clip of CBS's clumsy editing above.

And this means that the main stream media (not just CBS, but all of the majors.... NBC, ABC, CNN, FOX... etc.) get the 'are you bullshitting me again' filter applied. Hell, if CBS is doing it, how can the others NOT be doing it? Even if they aren't, it's what people will think.

I know this because, now, it's what I think. I can't trust what I'm seeing with my own eyes from the big news guys anymore.

When the MSM blows what little credibility it has, that's it.

The internet wins.

I'll bet Walter Cronkite is really really pissed right now.

July 4th and the Declaration of Independence

2008-07-04T16:15:00.005-06:00

Although, as Americans, you'd think we'd all have a copy of the Declaration of Independence around, chances are you don't. And if you did, would you read it?

Spend a little over 14 minutes then and at least listen to it.

Punk Capitalism (The Pirate's Dilemma)

2008-06-30T21:03:00.003-06:00

THIS is a book worth reading

The Pirates Dilemma
How Youth Culture is Reinventing Capitalism

Or put another way: much of the worlds innovation was created by Pirates.

You can download a copy of it here.

Did you know Jankes was the word for pirates back in the 18th and 19th century? Its where the work Yanks came from because Americans were considered the most piratical bootlegging nation on earth. They stole, copied and ignored copyrights and patents. They looked alot like China of the 1990s, and Japan of the 1970s.

Did you know Hollywood is a bunch of pirates? Yep. Edison invented filmmaking and demanded a licensing fee from anyone making movies with his tech. What happened? A band of filmmaking pirates, including one named William, left New York for the then still wild west where they thrived, unlicensed, until Edison's patents expired. Williams last name? Fox.

CableTV: Same beginnings. In 1948 when Cable TV started, cable companies refused to pay the networks for broadcasting their content. For over 30 years operated like a primiative illegal file sharing network.

Excellent short video on the subject here:

It's worth all 4:59 seconds of time it takes to watch.

He also talks about the history of how punk music created the DIY (do it yourself) culture. Something we, today, call UGC (User Generated Content).

The basic ideas of this Punk Capitalism are simple and come directly from the philosophy of punk rock (From the book):

Do it yourself.
Punk refused to take cues from the mass market, and created a vibrant cultural movement as a result. Now a critical mass of punk capitalists is removing the associative barriers that held them back. They are working for themselves, setting up businesses, and finding ways to produce as much as they conume, laying the foundations for a wealth of new markets and business models. D.I.Y. is changing our labor markets, and creativity is becoming our most valuable currency.

Resist Authority
Punk resisted authority and saw anarcy as the path to a brighter future. Punk capitlists are resisting authority, too--by leveraging new D.I.I. technologies and the power of individuals connecting and working togethrs as equals. This twin engine of the new economy is creating new ways all of us can live and work, leaving old systems for dust. Technology plus Democracy = Punk Captialism.

Combine Altruism and Self-Interest
Punk had high ideas--it looked aggressive and scary, but through its angry critique of society and subversion of it, it sought to change the world for the better. Punk capitalists are using the same techniques, subverting a world full of empty corporate gestures, manufacturing businesses and producst with meanings that attempt to inject substance bank into style. Punk injected altruism into entrepreneurship, a motivator of people long overlooked by neoclassical economics. Not only that, punk made the idea of putting purpose before profit seem cool to an entire generation. It menufactured new meaning in an area where it was really needed.

It's written by Matt Mason, an ex-Pirate DJ and journalist. It's well researched and offers great real world examples.

Here's a overview of the book:

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Tornado's, Storm Chasing and Walk-Abouts

2008-06-14T12:56:00.013-06:00

Every so often, it's important that you get out from behind your keyboard and drop off your usual grid.

I like walk-Abouts. Actually, it's more the American version re: Drive-Abouts. It's something I've done periodically for years and it takes the place of a planned vacation very nicely for me. Solitary, mind clearing and life re-affirming. You get in your vehicle, with no clue where you're going to end up, and you drive. I've ended up in NYC, biker bars in CA., deep in Mississippi's swamps and in the middle of Death Valley.

I also like storm chasing. Tracking down heavy weather and tornadoes is invigorating in ways I suspect is similar to how big game photographers must feel when stalking rhino's or lion prides. So, this week I'm dropping off the grid and mixing the two up by heading to somewhere in center of the country with my trusty little AWD, some video and still camera's, a GPS, CB/weather radio, a laptop with Swift WX and GRLevelX software(weather tracking/radar software) and a hankering for roadside diner food with no $5 a cup coffee shops within a 100 miles.

I'll also be bringing along a high level of healthy respect for wall clouds (above). I've done this for years now and, generally, it's a hit and miss endeavor. I'd say 1 out of 4 times to I actually get close enough to see a tornado, but man, it's like nothing you've ever experienced until you've done it (and I've climbed mountains, raced cars and skydived in my younger days). Oddly, it's the opposite of doing high adrenaline sports in that you, really, have no control over the environment.

It's both terrifying and calming.

I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but one things for certain, after chasing a tornado across the long flat plains of Kansas and actually catching up and having one stare you down, it puts all the other concerns, fears and hopes in a persons tiny little world in crystal clear perspective.