BillSaysThis

Is there ThiefWare on your computer?

ThiefWare: Unethical use of Ezula TopText, Surf , Gator, and other Internet technology and software

ScumWare: Don’t click those yellow links!

Sum 41: punk rock’s Backstreet Boys?

Never heard of these clowns before but saw them on Saturday Night Live just now. What’s with the bouncing and the “you take three words, I’ll take the next three” vocals? I guess 25 years after the Clash rocked Brixton, we’re just as likely to get commercialized punk bands as anything else. But did the audience at SNL have to go quite so wild? Dayum!

On the other hand, Chevy Chase showing up on the Weekend Update segment as the Land Shark was great, excellent use of the tons of comic history SNL has made.

Gone long

I’ve never been a big baseball fan, the game just moves too slowly for me. But having grown up in the post-Maris era, there is a special place in my heart for the guys with the big hammers. So hats off and a big cheer to Barry Bonds and his 72 homers, which go nicely with the other two records he has smashed this season: 177 walks and .847 slugging percentage, both set by Babe Ruth. Bonds is 37 and you might think that Hank Aaron’s career mark, 189 away at 755, is out of reach for him but Bonds is in the best shape of his playing career and, barring injury, four more seasons are not impossible. All in all, this has been a season for breaking records, with Rickey Henderson moving past Ty Cobb with 2,245 runs and past Babe Ruth’s career walk mark. USS Clueless says Henderson is the greatest offensive player in the history of the game but I think we need to wait a few years and see how Bonds and McGuire finish their careers.

Boycott Disney

Sen. Fritz Hollings, at the behest of the Walt Disney Corp., has introduced the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act, a bill that will trample consumer rights into tiny little bits of dust. Criminal penalties for violations start at $500K plus five years as a guest of the Feds and go up from there. What’s the meat?

“It is unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies that adhere to the security system standards adopted” by the Secretary of Commerce based on input from industry.

Read the Open Letter to Michael Eisner, Chairman and CEO, Walt Disney Company from Don Marti in Linux Journal.

Join the boycott

Today’s book: Section 31: Rogue

The second of four Section 31 books (and for a change really worth packaging into separate books), Rogue shows us a Next Generation mission where Picard and Data, of the regulars, are called in to clean up when a Section 31 mission goes off the rails, on a strange planet whose populace is about to vote on whether to join the Federation or the Romulan Star Empire. Seems Section 31 wants them to join the Romulans, part of a deal with the Tal Shiar, but the Romulans have a little something extra up their sleeves. Picard and Data, along with First Contact’s Lt. Hawk (the first openly gay Star Trek character as far as I can remember), must foil the dastardly plans at great peril to themselves; Hawk is the poor bastard in the film who goes with Worf and Picard out onto the Enterprise’s deflector shield and is assimilated and then killed by Worf. Cronan Thompson wrote a Mystery Science Theater version of the movie, quite funny.

This adventure is mainly set six months before First Contact–it takes only a few days to unfold–but is wrapped in a post-First Contact prologue/epilogue for some reason. Decent pacing and good characterization for the non-regular characters.

BillSaysThis breaks into the Blogdex Top 10,000

Since this site is mostly about my ego, showing up anywhere in Blogdex, much less in the top 20% (more or less) is very nice. Am I still there? I am tied at (right now) #9226 with, among others, Billy Joel’s official website and BitterChick.

Holy Crapoli

Okay, maybe I’m just in a mood but those words were my exact reaction to Kay O’Connor in Women’s suffrage called ‘mistake’ by conservative Kansas politician. O’Connor is a Kansas state senator but does not believe that women should need the right to vote. She is paraphrased in the article as saying “if men were doing their job of taking care of women and children, women wouldn’t be required to vote.” See what I mean? Then again, Kansas is the state where politicians decided that creationism rather than evolution should be taught in the state’s public schools.

Waiting, I hate waiting

Just sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring, somebody calling back with a piece of information. But I need to go out, tick tock tick tock, getting anxious. Uggh, cannot wait call back. Sit on hold, wait wait wait. Finally, situation is cleared. Give me my coffee!!!

Talking Moose weds Britney Spears!

I’m not usually such a gossip, but this is too good to pass up! Moose, however did you win the little hottie away from Justin Timberlake? She must be looking to the mud bog as an oasis from the pressures of stardom; didn’t know she was into the au natural lifestyle, though. Cool, man, cool.

Seriously, this Mooselog is really titled “The weblog manifesto” and discusses the state of the art in weblogs and is the usual cool Moosepoop. But he does make the above wedding reference!

Beware of liquidation preferences

Jamie Earle warns those techies still looking for a piece of the IPO pie to Read the fine print before signing on. Looking to ensure returns in these post-bubble days, venture capitalists are seeking even more onerous terms than before. Earle specifically focuses on liquidation preferences, which gives an investor first cut at a predetermined piece of a sales prices. Nasty business!

United Airlines: Just trying to make a profit

In a NY Times article today, United Airlines execs are criticized by union leaders and a congressman for continuing to invest in a new venture valled Avolar. This criticism is ridiculous, undeserved, and incorrect but not surprising when thousands of the union’s members are facing layoffs. Avolar is United’s entry into the private business jet timeshare market. The company has already invested over $70 million in the venture–what does the union, which owns a majority of United’s shares, want management to do, throw that money away? Who would be helped by that? If Avolar is successful, it will only help United and its employees. Other observers have objected to this move because United is lining up to get government cash and loan guarantees but my answer is (a) they haven’t gotten any of that free money yet (and it won’t be free, the government will get equity) and (b) the losses the government cash is going to cover is for United’s existing passenger and cargo business. If the airline did not put more money in Avolar, would there be fewer layoffs?

Wired Magazine ran in-depth profile of market leader Executive Jets and this marketspace in it’s June 2001 issue: Hey, You’re Worth It (Even Now). Important note: Warren Buffett, widely acknowledged as the foremost investor ever, owns Executive Jets.

One solution: Partition Afghanistan

Carlton Meyer, editor of G2mil, a warfare research portal, looks at the Military Options in Afghanistan. He cites and analyzes five variants of military solutions and their costs in money and American deaths:

1. Cruise missile attacks ($4 billion – 0 dead)
   

2. Carpet Bombing strikes ($6 billion – 4 dead
   

3. Ranger Raids ($2 billion – 50 dead)
   

4. Send in helicopter brigades ($20 billion – 1000 dead)
   

5. Land several divisions and overrun Afghanistan ($100 billion – 6000 dead)
   

He ends the list with what is really a political option: partition Afghanistan along ethnic lines and join those sections up with the appropriate (parent) country: Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran (Here’s his map showing the partition. He estimates the cost at $10 billion but as opposed to the other options all this money goes to economic and humanitarian aid to make the scheme work.

Meyer’s final analysis: “As for the problem of Afghanistan, just partition it and the problem is solved with little loss of life.” Not a bad idea at all.

Springsteen is always popular, Scoble good too

Having a weblog entry that mentions Springsteen is always good for some Google hits. I was looking at the BillSaysThis referrers information just now and noticed nine hits from Google searches for Springsteen’s My City in Ruins. And eight hits from the Scobelizer too–and he linked to me, very nice, thanks Robert. Visitors are always welcome, I just love the ego boost!

Yesterday’s movie: 10 Things I Hate About You

Most teen movies go for the easy standard laughs. Writers Karen McCullah Lutz & Kirsten Smith, though, decided to see if they could transport Shakespeare into the mileau of the last days of the 20th century American high school. And they succeeded, I think; Colin Jacobson has an opposing opinion though. Julia Stiles and Larisa Oleynik star as the desirable but out of reach sisters and Heath Ledger and Joseph Gordon-Levitt play the boys who pursue them in this update of Taming of the Shrew. Larry Miller stretches a little to play the girls’ single father, an OB/GYN struggling to accept the departure of his wife several years before and accept that his daughters are becoming the same women as the young pregnant girls he sees in his office every day. Ledger, still with his natural dark hair (as opposed to the dyed blonde he’s worn since in The Patriot and A Knight’s Tale), is quite good and has a hilarious scene singing Frankie Valli’s Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You to Stiles accompanied by the school marching band in front of the afterschool athletic crowd.

Marshall Heyman, reviewing for the Daily Princetonian, makes a good point: “Nowhere in the film does any character account for 10 things he or she hates about someone else. In fact, nowhere in the film is the number 10 even mentioned.” There are lots of Shakespeare references though, including the girls’ family name and the prom theme.

Interestingly, some unknown person has put the complete script online, and so is Shakespeare’s original; for a laugh, see the ultracondensed version. Sidenote: this is another film produced by my non-relative Andrew Lazar

$20 Trillion in revenue available, sign up here

Michael Malone, a veteran tech pundit writing in Forbes ASAP, says that the next Internet can reboot America and bring in as much as $20 trillion in revenues to the companies lucky and smart enough to survive through the current consolidation/collapse. This revenue will cost $2 trillion to bring in, much of which would have to be spent by government on rebuilding and extending the nation’s 30-50 year old physical infrastructure, but will succeed based on the intersection of five trends: optical fiber, semiconductors, the Internet, online transactions, languages and interfaces (XML, SOAP, et al), and Real time enterprise computing. On the other hand, Excite@Home declared bankruptcy late yesterday.

Today’s book: Section 31: Cloak

In ST: Deep Space Nine, the Powers That Be at Star Tek World HQ introduced a creepy division within Starfleet named Section 31, which is authorized to do whatever is necessary to achieve UFP policy even though there are laws, rules, and ethics that preclude such action. The folks that do the Trek books decided they wanted in on such a gooey, morally ambiguous group too and have put out a four pack beginning with Cloak, in which Kirk and Spock have to deal with a mad scientist sponsored by Section 31. Interestingly, they tie the scientist into an extremely dangerous molecule called Omega which was first used (as far as I know) in the Star Trek universe in a Voyager episode. We also find out the origins of the group’s name, Section 31 of the Starfleet’s Charter, which refers to “an autonomous investigative agency.” Decent plot, a strong ‘guest star’ role (Jain Suni, also a fleeting love interest for Kirk), but the McCoy subplot gets thrown away with a backstage resolution.

This is the song, not yet released on any album, that Bruce Springsteen played on the Tribute to Heroes special. Lyrics only: My City Of Ruins. If you have an MP3 of this, please let me know. According to Backstreets, a Springsteen fan magazine, this is the fourth time Bruce has performed the song, and though many viewers must have assumed the song was inspired by the tragedy, it was actually written about, and performed the three previous times in, Asbury Park, NJ. Springsteen debuted the song at the 2000 holiday shows in Asbury Park.

Young Intelligent Hackers Against Terror

A group of U.K. techies does some freelance anti-terrorism work: Sudan Bank Hacked, Bin Laden Info Found. This is according to a German businessman and teen hacking prodigy named Kim Schmitz who claims the information has been supplied to the FBI. The FBI and other government offices have no comment, of course. Schmitz also notified the Sudanese bank. I have to wonder, though, why he is publicizing this now (other than for the obvious personal publicity reasons) since letting the opposition know of the success only helps them and does us no service.

Fantasy on a Late Suburban Afternoon

The Sun is sinking lower onto the horizon

Sending late rays of light straight in

Underneath the protection of the windshield visor

When I am stopped, once again, in the left turn lane

In front of me, there is a Toyota Corolla

Magenta, purple, deep red, just washed

And a flash of sunlight off the sideview mirror

Catches my eye, still waiting for the green light

I see a flash of long light brown hair while I look

Still turning my head, I see soft brown eyes

In the Corolla’s rearview mirror and a lipstick

That matches the car being applied to lovely lips

Using all the psychic energy at my command

Feeling the power inside thrilling me, pushing me

I send a burst of lust ahead to those mirrors

Hoping for a lucky bounce but the light turns green