Category: Personal

Adam Greenfield is a noted user experience designer and futurist who’s worked for large and small clients around the globe; heck, he even has a decent-size biographical article in Wikipedia. I mention all this just to establish credentials.

Earlier this year Greenfield published Everyware, his first book, a manifesto to raise awareness among designers of the issues which should be accounted for as their products increasingly become part of the ubiquitous computing environment that even now is emerging. Structured as a set of 81 theses, Adam works his way through from a statement of concerns, definitions and history, conditions, opportunities, assertions of appropriate underlying principles and, finally, a warning of the challenges “ubicomp” poses to all of us if those involved in bringing the technologies to market do so blindly and disconnected.

It’s not a long book and many of the theses are four pages are less but, as one Amazon reviewer wrote, “I have to stop and think. And think. And daydream. And read a passage over again, and dream a little more.” Because the topic addressed is truly profound and far-reaching: Everyware is Greenfield’s name for the emerging aspect of our modern age, that computing power has become so cheap and useful that every product is, or soon will be, designed to incorporate.

But not just that everything will have some computing power; that all these things will be connected through pervasive networking. You can see simple examples today in the RFID tags Wal-Mart requires its suppliers to attach to all shipments, in Internet-connected refrigerators and TiVos, in greeting cards that allow one to record a message that’s played when the recipient opens the card.

True story: As I was almost finished reading I had a checkup with my doctor. He saw the book, asked what it was about and, after I told him, mentioned that his catalogs are starting to include products (like blood pressure cuffs and thermometers, I guess) which have a wireless option to automatically send measurements to patient records.

Adam’s book is targeted to designers but you should understand that he includes in that group everyone who works for companies that make these products. Not just the people who design the physical appearance or specify the internal workings but marketers, executives and all those who have a say in what gets made and how. Seems reasonable to me, especially given the current political and business environment where almost any information that can be collected is collected and then aggregated and analyzed by whoever can make a case for getting their hands on the data.

recommended

John Grisham is perhaps the reigning master of legal thriller fiction, running faster down the path that Scott Thurow opened than Thurow ever managed and selling books near the Tom Clancy volume level. For awhile it seemed like Grisham got bored, or perhaps just caught in a rut, but trying his hand at other forms seems to have reinvigorated the man.

The Broker, though it will never be confused for high literature, is an amazingly readable, off the track confection. Think of it as a dessert like Death by Chocolate because its so addictive. I bought it in the airport on my way back from Seattle and barely put it down except for sleep until I finished the 420 pages two days later.

Six years ago Joel Backman was the second most powerful man in Washington, the lobbyist uber alles, but when he and his partner, the former Senator from Texas, got too greedy over a prize that dropped into their laps the Senator got dead and Backman was sentenced to spend the next 20 years in solitary confinement in a federal prison. On the evening before the Presidential Inauguration, the outgoing incumbent is deciding on which of the last minute rush of pardon requests to sign when he comes across one for Backman that originates from the legendary Director of Central Intelligence, a man with a Hoover-like history.

Teddy Maynard never believed Backman’s assertions that he’d told all he knew about the stolen prize. Even if that was so, Maynard knew that the mysterious origins of the technology could be revealed by seeing who came after the lobbyist if he was set free, hence the pardon. Backman is released and the terms of his pardon are that he be relocated outside the United States with a new identity, never to return to our shores or contact anyone from his past life. Not if he wants to live.

Sent to Italy, Backman quickly surmises the danger of his situation. How he gets out alive is the treat Grisham delivers. Plus the subplot of our hero adapting to life in a new country, where he only gradually learns the language and the pace of the places, is really well integrated.

definitely recommened

Krugle Blog: ding-ding-ding! We have a winner!

How nice is it that besides getting code I was looking for in futility for months, Krugle‘s sending me a nice prize too? Suw-weet!

I’m pretty sure My Circle On Trial is the kind of fake character blog Scoble et al have been calling out lately. I found it via a blog ad on LVPD Shocked by Murder of Officer and Its Own Inexperience, a fairly serious article about the on the ground effect of Scalia’s decision about police and exclusion of illegally taken evidence.

Since there are more anti-corporate class action lawsuits these days than you can shake a stick at, I had to read quite a bit of Claudia Lake’s reporting on this so-called “Trial of the Century” before realizing the site is a joke. Call me funnybone-deficient or thick as a brick for not recognizing the intent immediately if you like but the whole thing in no way makes me more likely to switch to Alltel, the cellphone company behind it.

If anything, I agree more with Robert and Steve Rubel that such sites are wasted energy that can be much more productively used to directly engage customers and potential customers.

Cliff asks:

Any word on three sequels:

1. Van Helsing. This movie made (I think) around 160-175 million at the box office and a lot more in DVD’s. Heck,thats more than the recent Mission Impossible III flick made by 30-40 million bucks! Has there been any mention of a sequel?
2. X Files Movie. Again, made decent money on the first film and have heard rumors over the years of a sequel.
3. And of course, Raiders of the Lost Arc. What is the holdup on making a 4th movie of this blockbuster series?

My answers:

I wish I had the definitive answers for you but here’s my best understanding:

1. Not going to happen, though of course in Hollywood if the right two people get it in their head then any movie can be made. But Hugh Jackman is probably happy elsewhere and Steven Sommers, though quiet lately, has four unrelated projects listed for the next couple of years in IMDB.
2. There are stories from some of the principals, including Frank Spotnitz and Ducovny, that this will happen but there’s still no approved script or production plans.
3. Similar status though maybe closer to production–one or another of the key players have rejected scripts written by very successful writers including Frank Darabont. IMDB lists it as a 2008 release but I’m sure that’s no more than a guesstimate and they don’t give a specific day or month, just the year. OTOH if they wait too much longer Ford will need to do it from a wheelchair 😉

Bonus info: Cinematical pointed me to the stunning trailer for The Prestige, a movie coming this fall starring Jackman, Christian Bale and Michael Caine and witten and directed by Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, Memento, Insomnia).

I think tonight’s meeting showed JHTC is starting to get back to the level of community we had in 2003-2004. A terrific speaker in Eric Benhamou, 50+ people in the room and lots of small group conversations before and after the main event.

Eric gave an energizing hour long presentation title “Business for the Soul,” discussing the role of social action for corporations and how that translates into venture philosophy, using as a case study the terrific success the Israel Venture Network, which he chairs, has had in six short years. He then took questions from the group for 25 minutes.

As I announced at the beginning of the meeting, our next two meetings are already set:

• Sep. 12 – Ofer Ben-Shachar, A Pragmatic Serial Entrepreneur
• Nov. 14 – Barry Kramer and Candy Mirrer, Venture Capital and M&A for Startups

Thanks again to Fenwick & West for the use of their great conference space!

Here are a couple of photos, one of Eric and one with him and me:

Thanks to new source code search engine Krugle I finally solved a silly little PHP coding task that had boggled me through about a half dozen previous tries, with the very first result: Clint Ecker’s opmlParser.php.

The 64 games finished today with, of course, the Italian Blues beating the French branch of the color. The game was pretty decent, not a complete defensive afternoon, but there are plenty of news sites to dissect the play so I won’t go into detail. I’m glad of the result and felt the winners had the better of the play.

I just want to capture my complete mystery, even seven hours later, on why three time World Footballer of the Year and hero of France’s 1998 World Cup glory Zinedine Zidane went nuts only minutes before the end of extra time and got tossed for lowering his head and blasting it into Marco Materazzi’s chest. Already commentary is saying this incident, in what is supposedly Zizou’s last professional match, will overshadow one of the best careers of this era.

The 2010 tournament in South Africa is only four years away! Just enough time to get the American team shaped up.

I had lunch Thursday with fellow TextDrivers Jason Speck and Mark “Mr sIFR” Wubben at a little Mexican place to celebrate Mark’s arrival from the Netherlands for a summer internship with JotSpot. Mark took a semi-decent shot of Jason and me:

My wonderful friend Pam is turning mumblety-mum years old Monday so TS1 and I met up with another couple, her and her husband Henry tonight for dinner at VILLAGE California Bistro and Wine Bar in Santana Row. We had a terrific time and a pretty good, albeit expensive, meal.

Since neither of us had been to this fancy new development before we decided to go a little early and explore. I even picked up my first Moleskin notebook at the Borders, since Garret and others wrote so favorably of them.

Santana Row is an upscale integrated development, stores and restaurants on the ground level and housing on top. How upscale? Let’s just say that the Mercedes, Lexii and Porsches complimented the Ferraris and the stores strongly reminded me of Madison Avenue in Manhattan.

No surprise then that the restaurant was a bit above our normal range. We really enjoyed the food, spring asparagus with goat cheese and vinagrette, risotto with mushrooms and banana split (with carmelized banana, chocolate and caramel sauces made in the kitchen). And the company, of course.

That reminds me. Have you checked out her CD yet? Eight lovely songs she wrote, sings and plays (piano, with a studio band) for a measley $12.97. Buy yourself a copy and make her birthday even happier 😉

Over at BMR I posted write ups tonight of most of the movies seen the last couple of weeks:

• Superman Returns
• X-Men 3: The Last Stand
• Fun with Dick and Jane
• Alien Nation
• High Art
• Bobbie’s Girl

Still to come: An Inconvient Truth, which I’ll be giving a 5 (out of 5).

118 minutes of unbreakable defense on both sides and then boom, two minutes from the end of OT the Azurri get lightning strikes from Grosso and Del Piero. Italy hand Germany their first loss ever at Signal Iduna Park in Dortmund (14 previous matches over 71 years) and move on to the final against the Portugal-France winner. Major props to Fabio Cannavaro, who stood hard at the center of the Italian defense, my choice for Man of the Match.

For a change in this tournament the referee, Armando Archundia of Mexico, did not take the game away from the players. Much as I dislike Marcello Balboa’s commentary he was right to compliment Archundia for allowing play to flow and not buy into most of the diving.

A beautiful, beautiful match with a classic ending between two historic rivals. Hard to fault the players or coaches on either side and the 65,000 fans made the grounds rock with passion. Rumors have US Soccer ready to approach Jurgen Klinsmann to replace Bruce Arena but I think the German Federation would be foolish to let him leave. Germany is a pretty young team outside of Jens Lehmann and will surely be even stronger in four years.

Will Italy win their fourth championship, France a second or Portugal break through for the first time? I’m done with predictions and will be rooting for Portugal tomorrow and Italy Sunday.

Jack Weatherford, professor of anthropology at Macalester College in Minnesota, has written a highly readable mainstream book on a historic figure greatly misreprented in the Western canons: Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. In it we learn that Temujin, the man’s given name, was not the barbarian monster we were taught (because 18th and 19th century European academics wrote of him as such) but instead the last great nomadic empire builder.

(Academic review by Timothy May claims that the book is riddled with technical errors, though none singled out IMO discredit the core claims.)

Weatherford spent a great deal of time in Mongolia with a native team revisiting many of the locations where key events occured and bringing out previously obscure and hidden documentation. I considered myself extremely well educated on world history but this book filled in a huge gap.

Ghenghis Khan (the Persian form of his title, more likely Chinggis or Chinggiz Khan in the Mongolian of his times) was born the second son of an outcast impoverished family; he became primary provider at age nine when his father was killed, and he spent several of his teen years as the slave of a nearby clan. These early experiences drove him throughout his long life to seek safety by striking first against external threats. Indeed, he was in his mid-20s before taking any sort of leadership role beyond his immediate family and past 50 before launching his first attack beyond Mongolian lands.

Yet from then until his death in 1227, and continuing for several decades after, this man–with nothing resembling an education in anything except traditional hunting methods–built an army and government that captured more territory and people then anyone before or since. If not for petty academics anxious for any lever to prove the superiority of their culture kids would undoubtedly hear him counted in the rightful company of Alexander, Caesar and other great conquerors of the past.

Coming from a people who worshipped the Great Blue Sky and scratched only a meager existence from the Asian steppes, Temujin was a pragmatic who used what worked rather than rules handed down by an elite and thus was free to adapt his strategies to changing physical and cultural conditions. He also learned early in life to judge and trust people on their deeds rather than familial relationships, breaking one strong tradition of his people.

Weatherford surfaces a key aspect of the Mongol Empire’s strength rarely mentioned in the West: that it was sustained as much by an innovative and protected commercial framework as by military might. Which is not to downplay the incredible military success but to give the birth of modern multinational trading its proper regard. Even as the empire broke apart into four still sizable separate, ocassionally warring kingdoms when the great Khan’s grandsons refused to respect his wishes–Kublai Khan’s China, the Persian Ilkhanate, the Golden Horde of Russia and Mongolia itself–the family preserved the hugely valuable economic interconnections.

It was only when the Black Death decimated Asia before following the Mongolian trade trails into Europe that the system fell apart completely. Even after the plague passed through an area, fear and lack of tradable excess production prevented the system from rebooting. Still, across all the centuries, our mutual conversation reverberates with the echoes of Ghenghis Khan’s development of globalization and religious tolerance.

Making of the Modern World is not a textbook, not a dense compilation of dates and facts. If anything, the author’s lack of solid dating throughout is my biggest complaint. At only 300 pages including end notes and glossary Weatherford delivers an exciting, well-told story of a great man.

recommended

Christopher Buckley has by now long grown past the shadow of father William F. Buckley, Jr. His satires are consistently funny and topical; I’ve read and enjoyed Thank You For Smoking, God Is My Broker: A Monk-Tycoon Reveals the 7 1/2 Laws of Spiritual and Financial Growth, and No Way to Treat a First Lady and plan to get the remaining two, The White House Mess and Little Green Men, soon since MVPL has both.

Published in 2004, Florence of Arabia plays off our current (though pre-Iraq invasion) misadventures in the Middle East. I started reading it just before heading to Seattle last week and finished it my first morning there–I couldn’t bear to put the book down at the end and was almost late for the first sessions. Buckley creates real characters and compelling conflicts, mixed with humor that arises out of their combinations and, of course, an educated sense of reality; he did go to Yale after all.

Florence Farfaletti is a career State Department functionary, specializing in Gulf State relations after having married and divorced a minor prince of Wasabia (a barely fictionalized version of Saudi Arabia). The action kicks off when she gets a late night call from the youngest wife of the Wasabian ambassador, paniced after having an auto accident at the gates of CIA headquarters, and Farfaletti’s attempt to save the princess fails spectacularly.

Out of her anguish she writes an outrageous plan to use TV to stabilize the region by liberating women from the Koran-inspired yoke. Immediately vetoed by the ‘wiser heads’ at State, Florence is approached with funding and other resources by a mysterious man assumed to be from the CIA or a similar unit. Taking a geek from her department at State, a PR star (trained by none other than Nick Naylor of Thank You for Smoking and No Way to Treat a First Lady) and an ex-CIA/Special Ops hunk, she convinces the Sheik and Sheika of neighboring Mattar (an exact match for Qatar) to approve TVMatar.

And away we go! After shocking everyone with an Oprah-like talk show the gang blow everone’s minds with a newscast that broadcasts footage of the traditional Islamic punishments meted out to misbehaving women. Remember that the House of Saud’s power is heavily based on the ultra-strict Wahabi sect (Wahabi, Wasabi, get it?) and that Buckley takes little liberty with reality. To use the language of Farfaletti’s grandfather–who proudly served under Mussolini back in the day–mamma mia!

hilariously recommended

Overall Gnomedex was terrific, I learned a lot from the discussions and we spoke with many people about RawSugar, almost all very positive.

The most interesting discussion Saturday for me were Ethan Kaplan and Phil Torrone. Kaplan works in the web group at Warner Brother Records and on his own runs the top REM fan site, so he had a lot of good information on how record companies and bands do, can and should use the web. Torrone, senior editor of Make Magazine, gave a fascinating, rapid fire presentation on open source hardware and how entusiastic amateurs (helped by a few far-sighted companies like Roomba and Lego) are creating a new round of homebrewed electronics.

While I wish him nothing but luck, Chris Pirillo’s closing session on whether his TagJag tag metasearch service should get funding (angel, venture or sweat equity) was a sad waste of time. Since he knew this would be happening weeks ahead of time and is friendly with quite a few knowledgable investors and entrepreneurs–Chris had Rick Segal, Jeff Clavier and Michael Arrington on stage for the discussion–his preparation was surprisingly inadequate.

No quantitative information at all from the use of Gada.be, the predecessor effort and little more than a handwaving at how many people, other resources and time needed to build his vision. Nothing more than a hope that the underlying search engine companies would waive their stated terms of service for him. Despite the polite answers from the three investors he would have gotten the boot long before finishing if this had been a real funding meeting.

I had a great flight back from Seattle Saturday night, very empty and no one else in my block of three seats so I could lie down the whole time. TS1 overcame her fear of night driving and picked me up–thanks sweetie!

Sunday morning was nowhere near as enjoyable because my contact lenses were getting protein buildup again from some kind of allergic reaction; I had to put on my two year old, no longer correct prescription, glasses. Watching France beat Brazil, even though I knew the results, didn’t make things better. I do recommend catching the new Robert Plant episode of Soundstage if you get the chance, he and his band blast classic Zeppelin and Plant solo tunes through brand new, African-inspired arrangements.

Fortunately, we had our annual eye checkups this morning. The doctor found that the allergic reaction is also causing a slight corneal inflamation. I have to wear my old eyeglasses for at least 10 days to let it clear up and even after that I might only be able to use daily wear lenses. If true, that’s really annoying since I was totally getting used to life without glasses.

Happy Fourth to you all!

This is just a dump of rough notes about the first day of Gnomedex and not in anyway an attempt to be complete or comprehensive. I was especially impressed by Sen. John Edwards but then you’d expect that even if I didn’t more or less agree with his political positions. People don’t get to his level of political success without being personally impressive.

Chris Pirillo’s welcome/opening

Goofy plane safety video. Had Dave Winer read out the proclamation from the governor of Washington declaring today and tomorrow RSS Days.

Michael Arrington

Muddled message but says there will be new media sites based around the network effect but not many of them. Some needling back and forth with Scott Rafer ex of Friendster.

Dave Dederer

Former member of rock group The Presidents of the United States of America, now runs a PR agency for non-corporate entertainment organizations. Opened with a couple of Velvet Underground songs including Waiting for the Man, then lists a bunch of ways recording musicians can make money.

His band’s first record sold 5M copies, then they got the rights back from Sony and make more money from iTunes than anywhere else.

Brings people out of the audience to describe their companies business model. First is Ted Reingold, monetizing passionate communities by bringing advertisers into the conversation and selling subscriptions on Dogster.com and Catster.com. Next is Shannon Clark.

A woman from IODA PromoNet, independent online distribution alliance, group of independent record labels that provide licenses for bloggers/podcasters to use their music legitimately. Only need to include a BUY link. Over 12,000 songs from 2500 label and more every day.

Brian Dear’s (now Yahoo! property) eventful.com has a subsite that allows fans to ‘demand’ local performances from their favorite bands, writers and other performers which is gaining community as well as attention from performers.

Marc Cantor rips on Apple, saying they control ~80% of the paid download market and exploit it unmercifully, and suggests that it will be very difficult to wrest this control away.

Someone from Warner Brothers Records, claims to be not evil, says the notion of what it means to be a major label these days is changing. Think of it as a collection of 120 businesses, some are successful Madonna, some have a built-in success like Paris Hilton, but the point is find the next successful business. Using the internet is making the business two way.

Other people seem to have okay wireless access but for me its barely working even with graphics turned off.

John Edwards

Considers the interactive nature of the web to be a meaningful change for American politics. Strong supporter of net neutrality. Allows more people to be involved in a more substantive way, where politicians can no longer just speak at the people/voters.

Marc Cantor, third gen red diaper baby, asks when Democrats will grow “some balls” and take the Republicans to the mat. Edwards: If Democrats what to lead this country we need to stop the mealey mouth weasal words, such as on Universal Health Care.

Q: Can you hear it in your own voice when you slip into slick politcal speak? A: We’re so trained and so conditioned for so long that it isn’t easy to stop doing. Some politicians just won’t get out of this, their comfort zone. I can hear it, on a personal level I try not to do it but its hard in an environment where reporters are asking questions and fast responses are required.

Q: How does politics deal with geographical dispersed ‘local’ interest groups? A: We created One Corps, an online community with members all over the country, to help support local Democratic candidates and bring their issues to local polity.

Got into his perspective about what really drives national, presidential elections. Mostly about the person and personality, not language or issues. Battle for control of democratic party between centrists and those who want to drive big issues (which includes Edwards).

Someone suggested to put a video blogger on the campaign bus to expose much more of the reality of politics, which Edwards seemed to think is good.

What about paper trails for voting machines? Also good.

Werner Vogels, Amazon

Opening section is a presentation on net neutrality (find details/slides) and the recent political history. There is no network neutrality now and if the telcos/cablecos get their way there never will be. People who want a content-neutral internet need to understand the politics and oppose the lobbying power.

Today’s Cringely is on topic. Wikipedia has a good entry with rich linkage.

I asked him if this issue wouldn’t have the same legal problem as the CLEC/Telco battle of the ’90s, that SCOTUS said it was unconstitutional, but neither Werner nor anyone in the audience had a response.

Steve Rubel

7 person group within Edelman called Me 2 Revolution, mission is to help clients become more conversational, rather than the old way of controlling the conversion.

Boris Mann suggested that permalinks, personality and passion are important to authentic web marketing.

Marc Cantor discussion

All about open standards. but what do vendors do to differentiate and therefore have a value to build a business on?

Susan Mernitt

Her blog post about this presentation. Product manager for Yahoo! Personals. Sex and relationships. Every blogger she knows has a secret blogroll of sex, relationships, rants and other nominally private activities. Finds blogs on which individuals post regularly about difficult personal situations and their life journies special and compelling.

Discussion gets into what happens when people’s real life collides with anything nasty, sexual or demeaning they posted or was posted about them on the web. Some think soon enough it won’t matter because of a maturing society or that everything is always potentially being recorded and available on the web.

My boss Ofer and I have made our way to Seattle for Gnomedex 6.0. I’m really looking forward to an unconference couple of days since Chris Pirillo and Ponzi have developed a reputation for putting together a very different kind of tech event–this year even has a theme song from Derek Miller. Plus cool parties are on for Friday and Saturday nights, making me wish I’d thought more carefully before booking a return flight right after the event ends Saturday.

John Edwards, Kerry’s running mate, is giving the keynote but promises to speak about the political implications and uses of technology rather than a standard stump speech. Also sure to be interesting are Amazon’s Werner Vogels, Susan Mernitt, Pud “Fucked Company” Kaplan, Chris Messina, Blake Ross of Mozilla, the lively and helpful Jeremy Zawodny and Halley Suitt.

Mr. Scoble will be making his first post-Microsoft appearance–dude, Half Moon Bay is beautiful but I sure hope you enjoy slow driving over long, twisty, one lane mountain roads. Scott Beale is also up from the Bay Area so we’re sure to get tons of good photos.

Of course I miss my sweetie.

Quick hits:

• Hey Argentina and Ukraine teams, 1974 called and they want their hair back!
• Speaking of Ukraine, could their game with Switzerland been worse? Both teams played negative football but Schevchenko’s boys went forward so rarely it seemed like they thought their passports were needed to cross onto Switzerland’s side of the field, and they’d left the passports back at the hotel. The Chocolatiers made a total hash of the shootout, though, and will go home having not allowed a goal the entire tournament.
• Italy should not have been gifted the penalty kick at the end of their match against Australia, one more terrible decision by a referee in a Finals which has seen a monsoon of them.
• Ronaldo may be out of shape but he passed Gerd Mueller with a lovely early strike against Ghana this morning for his 15th career goal to move atop the World Cup all time scoring list. Kingson had no chance one-v-one.
• Ronaldinho hasn’t yet been much of a factor but Brazil has dominated every match anyway. One thing that I never really noticed about him before is that he really doesn’t do much on defense.
• Ghana are down 2-0 as I’m writing, an hour into the Brazil match, but despite missing leader Michael Essien from yellows, the Africans are energetic and powerful and not giving up despite being down to the World #1s.

Eric Wynalda, one of the first American international stars, in the immediate post-game commentary said “The fans were great, the players were okay. I’m more concerned about the managerial position of the United States national team… I’m going to be the first one to say that Bruce Arena screwed up this World Cup for the US team.”

What were Arena’s mistakes according to Wynalda? Public bashing of his own players. Not putting players in the positions where they can be successful. He did not make the right moves in today’s game, leaving us in a 4-5-1 formation until far too late when we needed another striker more than the extra defender.

Once again we suffered from horrific referee decisions. The worst was awarding the penalty kick in first half injury time against Onyewu for what was clearly a non-foul–the defender’s hands were out to his sides and back, nowhere near the Ghanian–as the player simply slipped, something that happened constantly during the match. At least this fool didn’t use red cards like prizes at a bingo parlor.

Still, the American players could have won with a better effort. Set plays were wasted throughout, typified by a free kick just outside and left of the 18 yard box: Landon Donovan kicked the ball yards high and over the goal. With clear height advantage in a crowded scrum a decent ball could have been put in the net to tie up the score.

Several times the Americans had clearances that became counterattacks but as soon as the player went over the midfield line he pulled back to dump the ball to Reyna (before he went out injured) or Donovan. Damarcus Beasley was wasted again, positioned inside of Eddie Lewis rather than on the wing where his speed could be unleashed; as a result DMB never got into the game except the one time he raced upfield and supplied the ball to Clint Dempsey for our only offensive goal of the tournament.

Time to go home. Time to replace Bruce Arena.

Final question: How can ESPN name Dempsey as man of the match? He scored our goal but wouldn’t a player from the winning team, either Draman or Essien, be the real, unbiased selection? Ghana not only beat us, they beat world #2 Czech Republic and in the tournament’s biggest upset so far will move on to meet (presumably) Brazil in the Round of 16.