Blog @ MoreWhat.com

The mainstream media has fallen on hard times. You may recall it being the subject of another list of targets to ‘bailout’ as Washington politicians continue to spend money we don’t have. But it is understandable they would not want the only collective voice supporting their nonsense to disappear. How else would they be able to quote writers as their only argument in favor of that which is largely opposed?

This post is inspired by a random survey of articles in the first week of this year and has been hanging around in a bookmark file for some time. It had come to the decision point of write about it or delete it. And with a post here on the idea of using sources with no names entitled ‘Under Condition of Anonymity’ writing about it seems fitting.

The article from the LAT by James Rainey, ‘Freelance writing’s unfortunate new model’, did its job of drawing a reader’s attention. From that point it is anyone’s guess if that condition remains. His lament that tough times for the mainstream media translate into tough times for writers, freelance or otherwise, seems obvious. Talk about a case for trickle down economics. If the business supporting incomes for individuals encounters some degree of failure how are they to continue as before? If the business loses money so will those depending on it for an income. This ain’t rocket science.

After noting less than impressive opportunities for freelancers Rainey expresses the real reason this article stayed in the bookmark file this long.

What’s sailing away, a decade into the 21st century, is the common conception that writing is a profession — or at least a skilled craft that should come not only with psychic rewards but with something resembling a living wage.

Why? Where is it written that a skill you may have should provide a living wage? It is not necessarily true that if you build it they will come. And it follows that they may not be willing to pay for it. The problem may be the result of the audience or market realizing the product or service is not what it once was and are no longer as interested in paying for the privilege of using it.

Rainey suggests compensation for writing may have hit bottom. And he adds that little attention has been given to it ‘outside the trade.’ Is he aware that there has been a recession as well as troubling times for most economies around the world? His timeframe is a fair match for similar problems faced by just about everyone else. The economy stinks and money’s tight.

The last word for Rainey’s article (from here) suggests he may have it backwards. The quality and quantity of what passes for journalism in the mainstream media and elsewhere may be the real reason for hard times in the writing trade. An inability to deal effectively with a changing market and allowing public criticism of bias to be ignored may be the real cause.

As for what we will be missing if the trend he describes continues Mr Rainey might want to consider that ship has already sailed. Had journalism remained in the media hard times for the industry may have been avoided.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

In his own words at his own ‘unveiling’ of the iPad Jobs calls the iPad’more intimate’ than a laptop and ‘more capable’ than an iPhone. That translates to an item targeting the ultimate couch potato whose sedentary lifestyle does not even allow for the minimal effort required to operate a pc or mac. At the same time he disses his own iPhone as even less capable than this offering.

What more do you need to understand our technology wasteland?

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

When’s the last time a politician gave us what we wanted? When’s the last time your boss gave you what you wanted? To be fair, when’s the last time an employee gave you what you wanted? And finally, how often have you purchased a product or service that really impressed you in terms of utility, overall value and price or affordability?

In the ‘tech’ world there never seems to be a shortage of those willing to buy whatever is offered. Neither does there seem to be a lack of those willing to applaud the debut of each new item touted by vendors like Microsoft and Apple. This time a mild rant is presented on Apple’s latest ‘thing.’ The iPad has the same naming convention allowing a previous Apple bash on this blog indicating the ‘i’ in iPhone is for idiot.

The same applies for the iPad. Without benefit of manufactured memory this blogger’s own recalls a brief visit to Apple dot com to obtain an official press release. Would have dealt with images but Apple’s paranoia made that option excessively annoying as well. So the use of an earlier technology that has remarkable similarities to the iPad is the substitute.

Apple dot com listed a price of $499 for the iPad versus those near $700 at various sources around the net. The 500 dollar price may have been a bare bones version. And there were availability questions which caused some laughter. More laughter was generated by the details about what the fine device can do, or not. These debuts are so silly and the response to them equally bizarre it is all one can do to remain silent observing such nonsense.

Beyond the fact that this is another ‘device’ what the hell is so different about this one from all the others over decades? Oh sure, we’ve seen dial up move to broadband like they couldn’t have done that sooner. Oh my, we have wireless, sort of. The only reason there has been massive increases in memory and storage is to accommodate no technical advancements nor real reasons to purchase additional or replacement devices. Tech is stagnant.

Apple you are no more impressive than that other outfit…. Microsoft. Although you produce funnier advertisements. Speaking of humor, here’s someone else’s reaction to the news.

Tabula Rasa: Apple’s Press Release, Before the Editing
Genius Knows No Bounds
By Peter Jeffrey

For Immediate Release. (Apple employees: Thanks for keeping it under wraps. You may reclaim your first-born sons before the close of business Friday.)

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 27 — Apple Inc. announced today a revolutionary new tablet computer offering live HDTV, 3D movie downloads, 4G broadband Internet access from anywhere on Earth or low orbit, interactive multilingual color e-books, e-newspapers, e-magazines, an e-sense of purpose in life and e-anything else we have to do to blast our “competitors” back to the Sprocket Age.

And here’s a link to the Apple iPad press release, really.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Another reason for a Blog @ MoreWhat.com rant on telecom was exposed launched during the week. Google may have had an idea but it seems it has been reduced to a candidate for loser Letterman’s stupid human tricks segment. How many stupid humans will get tricked by this scheme? Hey folks, hurry out an buy a $530 cellphone or rope yourself into a T-Mobile version with contract for $180. For $80 per month you get 500 minutes with unlimited texting and web. That’s less than 17 minutes of voice phone time on average per day. And this is the latest offering for a phone?

Google’s Nexus One Pricing Details and Terms of Sale Leaked
Brennon Slattery, PC World

A day after Google confirmed its Android media event next week pricing details and the terms of sale were leaked for its highly anticipated Nexus One smartphone. Gizmodo broke the story with Nexus One site screenshots that show the phone on sale for two prices: a subsidized T-Mobile edition for $180 or an unsubsidized version for $530.

No one should really have to explain what’s wrong with this or the following story.

GSM is the most popular protocol for cellphone telephony on the planet, with billions of users worldwide. But the standard encryption procedure used by most GSM carriers is only 64-bit, and academic researchers had spotted flaws in it starting over a decade ago. Now, in an effort to get carriers to take security seriously, a researcher is publicizing a brute-force attack on the encryption that he expects will be combined with work on the GSM frequency selection algorithm to create a cheap and easy method for eavesdropping on cellular calls. Despite initial progress on the effort, the cellular industry remains unimpressed.

(There were subsequent reports about more flaws being exposed along with how to do it while this post was being prepared to be published.)

GSM, Global System for Mobile communications, is the dominant protocol. Why? Most likely because it suits the purposes of telecom companies and as is the usual case the consuming public rarely if ever applies due diligence to buying decisions. So what you say?

From electronics in general to information technology and gadgetware the consuming public allows themselves to fall victim to the gotta have it mentality. Vendors do a great job of manipulating the release of the latest and greatest. The typical consumer invests in a product or service and at planned intervals the vendors introduce subsequent versions that often diminish the value of the previous offering. Just a redux of the old planned obsolescence and most continue to play along.

The report above is a classic example. Previous posts published on this blog on the topic of telecom and/or IT regularly point this out. Rather than focus on the primary purpose of a product or service and delivering superior performance in that regard, vendors hawk the bells and whistles that distract from failure to provide real value for the consumer’s money.

Gotta love the wireless industry response to the report featured here. Ya, so what? Some have migrated to 128 bit encryption but that is not the point. Although the sophistication required to crack 128 bit surely passes 64 bit by a long shot how long will it be until 128 is cracked? Would proactive measures avoid such vulnerabilities?

This minor rant fits nicely into comparable current events and a broader concern. The latest exposure of US national security vulnerabilities came shortly after a TSA or DHS announcement of how wonderful the system is working. That was followed by DHS princess Napolitano suggesting the system worked in spite of a near tragic terrorist attack. And like the ho=hum response of the telecom industry to cracking encryption Napolitano, et al had an equally ho-hum response on what to do about flawed national security.

In business, government, politics and the public mindset we really need to address critical issues in a responsible manner. There are certainly those acting responsibly on this planet but those who are not are becoming commonplace. Screwing the public to earn a profit is not what free markets are about. Lofty rhetoric concealing public sector misdeeds is not good governance. And unfortunately, public response to such conditions is woefully inadequate. Most often tragedy strikes before the public responds and its effect is short-lived.

As an update to this post just before publishing, a member of the Google organization, Matt Dunne, is running for governor in Vermont. Does anyone else see where this is going?

No shortage of potential New Year’s resolutions in this post. But then like most years the chance for responsible action on critical issues will go the way of most New Year’s resolutions.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

The hacked emails and other docs that were published on the internet from a ‘leading’ global warming proponent source has raised some discussion. There is the expected shock and dismay that anyone would do such a thing. And there is some commentary on the real point of all this. As an interesting side note, of the 100 entries on the first page of a Google search, about five mainstream news sources cover the story. The NYT, WaPo, LAT, AP and the WSJ are there. But the vast majority of hits comes from lesser known sources. But then who cares what the MSM has to say about it?

The source of the hacked docs had this to say. “The selective publication of some stolen emails and other papers taken out of context is mischievous and cannot be considered a genuine attempt to engage with this issue in a responsible way,” the university said. A completely laughable response from a source who has engaged in dissemination of fake science and other unscrupulous tactics to promote an agenda that to date was suspected but largely hidden. BTW, these were ‘good’ hackers regardless of their intentions as they have exposed a sinister plot.

So what kind of material is in the hacked docs. The emails include discussions of apparent efforts to make sure that reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that monitors climate science, include their own views and exclude others. In addition, emails show that climate scientists declined to make their data available to scientists whose views they disagreed with. Imagine that, the United Nations is involved. There efforts and those of others involved in this sham have conspired to present only what supports their agenda. So who will now step forward to attempt a whitewash of this latest revelation in fake science?

It will come from people like this. …the director of the East Anglia climate center, suggested to climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University that skeptics’ research was unwelcome: We “will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” Neither man could be reached for comment Sunday. Opposing viewpoints in a discussion of science will be kept out somehow. That’s reassuring. So much for the validity of any information from the AGW crowd.

The people that will speak out for truth in science are more closely exemplified by this example. “This is horrible,” said Pat Michaels, a climate scientist at the Cato Institute in Washington who is mentioned negatively in the emails. “This is what everyone feared. Over the years, it has become increasingly difficult for anyone who does not view global warming as an end-of-the-world issue to publish papers. This isn’t questionable practice, this is unethical.”

That would be putting it mildly. If there was any question about the honesty of those supporting AGW on this blog before it is certainly gone now. AGW has been exposed for what it is…. fake science.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

As a post-script, the MSM was mentioned as well as a comment of who cares. Of the five listed specifically, this blog views the WSJ as credible and at one time held that view of WaPo. The others listed rarely get it right.

ClimateGate: Both sides of the pond demand probes into data manipulation scandal 

What is commonly referred to as information technology is a topic worthy of much discussion. There is no shortage of resources dedicated to this very theme. And there is no shortage of content lauding the benefit of all things techie including the bells and whistles offered by most vendors. But what is the state of IT in all its manifestations most notably the products and services offered?

The most frequent target of this blog when criticizing popular technology has been Microsoft. There are few who would defend the Darth Vader of information technology but the software giant is not alone with its failures. Just one passing shot on MS seems timely here. Even if Windows 7 becomes known as a reasonable operating system (no believers here) it does not reconcile the many years of marketing ripoffs that the vast majority of the consuming public willingly accepted. The view here is that even if Windows 7 is viewed favorably and for valid reasons it is a typical product life cycle strategy from Microsoft. Rip them off as long as you can and when that doesn’t work anymore give them something less annoying that may actually work.

The wireless industry is ripe for criticism but that will have to wait for a subsequent post. An accidental find in the news provides the perfect introduction to slam the so-called ’social networking’ phenomenon. The author of this post does not myspace, facebook or twitter or anything else social networking. Because social networking is not social networking. And who better to make the case in point than a co-founder of Twitter?

Twitter co-founder Stone, meanwhile, was called upon to defend his company against the charge that tweets are pointless musing while social networking sites are making people more isolated as they turn to their computer screens rather than meeting people in real life.

“I may send out a tweet that is seemingly of little value to most people like, ‘I am enjoying a beer at Logan International Airport in Boston’ and someone may say, ‘who cares?’,” Stone said. “But someone else who is walking through the airport and receives that tweet on their mobile in real time could join me for a beer, and we could come up with an idea for a company that is wildly successful and we will have turned that lead into gold.

“That is happening a million times a second because people are communicating publicly. It is untrue that we are becoming more isolated because of these tools, I think we are connecting more and we are finding new ways to do good.

What do you expect? When confronted with such a question a person in Stone’s position should be prepared to give an answer to support the marketing hype. So let’s analyze that statement from a practical point of view. How many ideas for ‘a company that is wildly successful’ occur every day? Given a ‘twit’ frequency of one million times a second you have a better chance of hitting the lottery than spawning ‘a wildly successful company’ by Stones own words. And the lottery is a losing proposition based on typical chances of winning.

Stone continues….

“A friend of mine asked me, ‘what do you hope people will say about Twitter in five or 10 years?’ and my answer to him, which I was surprised to hear myself say, was that I hope people will not consider Twitter a triumph of technology, instead that they will consider it a triumph of humanity.”

Does this marketing hogwash really require a response? Okay, here’s one.

Hey Stone, you and some others came up with yet one more way to attract enough traffic to a website for it to be successful. That’s it, nothing more. There is no redeeming quality to characterize this effort as anything else. In defense of this conclusion consider MySpace. Who did this enterprise benefit more, the general public or pedophiles? Yes, that appraisal may be extreme but the same can be said of Facebook or Twitter. They claim to be one thing and end up largely serving the benefit of those with less than altruistic intentions.

Most things IT simply carry an old philosophy in business. If they will buy it and you can sell it, go nuts. It has little to do with improving life through technology.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Terrorists Among Us (Right Truth)

Iran Has Nukes (Woman Honor Thyself)

Bill Ayers admits writing ‘Dreams’ to conservative blogger (Maggie’s Notebook)

The Witch Doctor (third world county)

Southern Border Status (Patterico’s Pontifications)

ABC News: U.S. Preparing to Bomb Iran (Flopping Aces)

Has General Petraeus taken a back seat in the Obama war room? (Sister Toldjah)

The year of living eco-sanctimoniously (Michelle Malkin)

Green Apples and Environmental Hypocrisy (Moonbattery)

Allies in Anbar Province Feel Abandoned by U.S. (Amy Proctor, Bottom Line Up Front)

Sometimes it’s hard to know who you can trust. It would be foolish to proclaim that businesses never mistreat their customers. And no one is likely to express complete confidence in government as a champion of consumers. So the old term ‘caveat emptor’ is still relevant these days. The burden of buyer beware is well placed. We all need to take responsibility for the choices we make. But when the options are severely limited rendering one’s choices to the ‘only game in town’ the choice is not really a choice at all. You either accept what is available or decline to participate.

Here’s the rare personal example for illustration. This blogger has not subscribed to cable, satellite or pay-tv for almost a decade. The short version of why goes like this. I used cable tv for years. The price continued to rise. The content quality continued to decline. The couch potatoes helped support the trend by paying anything to watch nothing all the time. You know, 57 channels and nothing on. And this blogger realized watching less tv was probably a good idea on its own merits.

Cable tv companies were essentially petitioned to offer channel by channel pay schemes which never materialized. Programming became redundant as one successful channel after another spawned new channels based solely on previously successful formats. The programming schedules became several hours in length followed by repeats of the same programs for the remainder of the day. It was no better than broadcast networks and getting worse. The plethora of channels offered increased by leaps and bounds while one was hard pressed to find a few that were useful in some way.

Wireless human to human voice communication followed a similar price/quality conundrum for the thinking consumer. Actually talking to another person on a wireless telephone was lost in the promotion of other meaningless or non-essential services or bells and whistles. As if telecom was focusing on an old description of top salespeople they were trying to sell the sizzle not the steak. Prices have increased dramatically with wireless communications and savvy entrepreneurs have exploited the ‘gotta have it’ mentality with picture phones, net access with wireless phones and even convinced some consumers that texting was practical.

This blogger’s response to the ‘telephone’ situation is also about a decade old. Perhaps before it was fashionable the land line was abandoned in favor of a cell phone. As the costs continued to rise and service continued to decline this blogger opted for a pre-paid disposable phone where one buys airtime with cards or online. So as with cable tv, this blogger while not eliminating the use of a phone has greatly minimized the use of it. And as for internet access I have opted for broadband at the lowest price/speed available for my needs.

So what is the point in all this babble? Up to this point this blogger was in favor of the idea of net neutrality as he understood it. It appeared to me the argument against it by telecom companies was feeble. It appeared as the anecdotes above this was one more consumer ripoff waiting to happen where quality takes a nose dive and prices inflate dramatically. It also seems that ISPs could tackle the problem of users who take more than their fair share of bandwidth through other means.

But all that or other views on the issue may be moot. Not until Barack Obama’s FCC guy publicly expressed net neutrality a good thing did I question my position. You may think that unfair but given the performance of the Obama Administration, his liberal legions and controlled Congress to date a red flag has been raised. So some new research and study will be required for a follow up post on the topic. Until then you can read the excerpt below and follow the link for the rest of the story. And feel free to submit comments to enlighten or inform this blog(ger) on net neutrality’s status and true intent.

Genachowski, a Harvard Law School classmate of President Barack Obama’s and a fundraiser for his 2008 campaign, has been a big supporter of net neutrality. An Internet venture capitalist, he helped write the campaign’s tech policy as an adviser, which included solid support of such principles.

Telecom corporations have often chafed at net neutrality. They have lobbied against similar limits placed in the stimulus package, saying they represented unnecessary regulation that could impede private innovation.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

It frequently happens and did again today. For reasons escaping this blog’s understanding, except that the net produces unexpected events, a couple of items here have garnered unqualified traffic.

A previous post on a Sean Hannity and Friends Video, Radicalism in America has received a boatload of traffic yesterday (August 10, 2009). The trend continues today. While I don’t spend much time trying to determine cause and effect on these anomalies suffice it to say it brings some pleasure. Not for the traffic but the public interest in the topic.

The other anomaly for these days concerns traffic on the category ‘Gabrielle Giffords’. From a news search it appears she fears for her life at August recess town halls and has her crew trying to sustain the idea that all opposition to POLS at these events are contrived and paid for by the political opposition. Ya, sure Gabby, we all believe that.

Funny since mentioning this blog’s form email requests at www.whitehouse.gov and the staggering number of replies only received since Obamacare began to tank that trend has stopped since the hashtag stories hit the net. So Gabby, tell me, am I now on the Obama enemies list?

Sure, it is reasonable to assume some attendees at the recess town halls are part of an organized effort to oppose Obamacare, etc., etc. But not ALL of them. For Dems by party and liberals in general to discount the public outrage over politics in DC one has to subject themselves to a lobotomy.

For the current administration and Congress to draw this much heat from public opposition to their various agendas only serves to renew one’s faith that the American public will only take so much crap before there’s a price to pay. Can’t wait for the 2010 elections.

Short ‘my thoughts’ edition as I have some 12 year old, single malt, Glenlivet to inspect. We wouldn’t want to neglect due diligence on products imported to the good ‘ol US of A. Gotta help the feddle gubmint out from time to time. And I am seriously qualified at this sort of thing.
Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

In just an hour or two the Google News search for has expanded from 18 listed stories to 31. At the time there were 18 indicated a visit to that link at Google displayed a count of 22. So what? C’mon, let’s be precise oh great purveyor of search. The story may be growing legs and may account for the nearly meaningless lack of count precision. A topic that was dominated by ‘techie’ sources has been gathering mention in the MSM from the likes of The Chicago Tribune, CNN, the Telegraph - UK and The Washington Post.

This blog has featured comments in the past on the relative merits or lack of same on all things referred to as ’social networking’. This story features Twitter as the black hat in the no saga, saga of tr.im. Some reports measure the quantity of ‘URL shortening services’ at a dozen and a half while others describe the count at ‘umpteen’. In this blog’s characterization of such things as ‘who cares’ or why does it matter one small concern may be noteworthy.

While Tr.im didn’t have anywhere near the traffic that Bit.ly and TinyURL had, it still had a significant userbase, as you can find millions of Tr.im URLs spread across Twitter. If Tr.im shuts down its servers, millions of links will simply die. Poof, just like that. Someone could even buy Tr.im and redirect all the links to spam, porn, or malware. Our bet however is that someone reputable buys Tr.im before December 31st. There is just too much value in those links for there to be no bidders.

Tr.im’s demise renews the debate over URL shorteners. What happens if Bit.ly or TinyURL were to be hacked or lost their URL data? An entire ecosystem of links would suddenly be swept away. Millions upon millions of links could suddenly vanish, leaving users confused and a possibly uncleanable mess.

The excerpt and link above suggest a component of all this social networking nonsense. Misguided attraction to less than worthwhile endeavors have a real cost. Proponents suggest a meaningful value of social networking on the internet or the electronic substitute for basic human interaction. That may simply be the marketing strategy of one more useless E enterprise duping the masses only for financial gain of the ‘players’. Not unlike snake oil peddlers of the past this new breed found the human vulnerability which allows otherwise ordinary people to rationalize this behavior as something it is not.

How about accepting this for a theory? Electronic social networking is the manifestation of narcissism on a massive scale. One can elevate their self-image and importance with the use of a fad activity. Furthermore it enables those unable or unwilling to pursue social interaction in traditional ways an avenue with low or no risk. That means you have nothing ventured therefore nothing (worthwhile) gained. There is no need to be genuine or honest and the whole matter is rendered useless other than to satiate narcissistic tendencies of all. You can define how wonderful you are by your participation and deluded measurement of your self-worth.

It’s not like MySpace or Facebook didn’t demonstrate how this sort of thing will evolve. So now, one has to be a twit to be fashionable. Funny how the promotion of these fads rarely include the downside until something happens to boost interest in the tabloid press. Even then it only serves to boost ad sales from the demographic that feeds on sensationalism.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Twitter Hammers Nail in Coffin for Tr.im

Tr.im Shuts Down; Is There A Business In URL Shortening?

Nambu shuts down its URL shortening service Tr.im

from Maggie’s Notebook……. you don’t want to miss this one.
Incisive Article by Thomas Sowell

from Conservative Thoughts….. more surprises from healthcare reform proposals

HR 3200 Not for English Speaking Americans pg 400

from Right Truth…… race talk and it’s not NASCAR

Racing to the Race Card: An Observation of Conflict Building

from Perri Nelson….. can you ever agree with Barack Obama?

Even a stopped clock…

from Third World County…… and we wonder why reform is a messy business

Krugman pwn3d on Healthcare “Reform”

from Woman Honor Thyself…… not the kind of story you might think

Beluga Whale saves drowning Diver

The posts above are truly good reads. Tired of the same old MSM? You should be ! Do yourself a favor and check out the list above.

Recommended by none other than Blog @ MoreWhat.com If you want more what you know where to find it.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

We, meaning all of us, do not spend enough time on the topic of security for information technology. Nor do we spend enough time, effort or money producing an effective, continuously advancing set of tools to combat malicious hackers and other cyber criminals.

So what should we do about it?

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

An attack on hundreds of web sites in South Korea earlier this week continues to clog websites in the United States.

Officials say cyber attacks have affected U.S. government Web sites including those of the White House, departments of Homeland Security, Defense and Treasury and the Voice of America.
The attackers do not appear to be interested in breaking into computers to steal information but to give the impression that something is wrong with the entire system.

“These attacks are causing targeted websites to slow to a crawl or even stop working altogether,” says Jayson Street, an informational warfare specialist for the website Netragard.com in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

South Korean officials suspect the attacks originated in North Korea but they have been unable to confirm their suspicions. Finding out who is behind these attacks may be impossible.

The masterminds of these attacks spread a virus from one personal computer to another which directs data traffic to the targeted Web sites.

“When 30,000 or 40,000 computers ask for the same information at the same time, this becomes a real mess,” says Street. Even if an investigation finds the owners of some of those personal computers it could takes years to find the computer that originated the cyber mischief.

What is it about that which can be characterized ‘popular culture’ or some sort of phenomena of civilization at any given time and its attraction for the masses? On the internet it may be MySpace or Facebook or Twitter. On TV it may be so-called reality shows like Survivor or Dancing with the Stars or American Idol.

Is it simply that those whose job it is to dream up money making ideas for television find a way to get millions of people to pay attention long enough to sell a great deal of advertising time? The same could be asked of internet geniuses who assemble online infrastructure to handle millions of users for who knows what valid purpose if one exists.

It may be fair to state that sporting or athletic competition in its well known forms of baseball, football, basketball, golf, tennis, racing, the Olympics and many others have helped strengthen the sense of community shared by those in participating locales. Aside from the periodic falls from grace of various sports stars as with any other celebrity group, role models and the positive outcomes from ordinary folks engaging in athletic training and competition as well as being spectators can encourage personal achievement and the development of enviable human qualities.

So what do these other popular culture phenomena have to offer? Where does MySpace, Facebook or Twitter offer some redeeming social value that trumps its obvious monetary benefit for those who control it? Certainly it is fair to say a handful of people have gained by competing on American Idol each year. And it is also fair to say that aside from the lure of a chance at great wealth they may be pursuing an honest dream to achieve a goal in the performing arts in some way. But where is that avenue for personal development with the others? Sure, you can network on social networking sites and it may possibly lead to assistance in reaching some reasonable goal like landing a job or something similar. But is that why so many are attracted to these current popular culture icons?

One Wiki definition offered for popular culture may expect too much from these ‘human activities’. Popular culture (or pop culture) is the culture — patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance …

Another definition from artconnected DOT org may be viewed as too critical of pop culture. The opposite of high cultural art forms, such as the opera, historic art, classical music, traditional theater or literature; popular culture …

But one from edublogs DOT org may be close. Cultural experiences widely enjoyed by members of various groups within the community.

Those definitions were simply found by using the define search on Google. But none of this answers the question of why some forms of popular culture do not appear to have any really useful value other than generating revenue. The only reason this point is raised on this blog is that it seems all the hype and talk about these current pop culture forms rests solely with the fact they are popular by virtue of the quantity of people attracted to them. How is that a measure of anything other than commercial success? How does it advance the species? How does this make us better? Is there anything about it which indicates a higher goal? Or is it just about money or being cool?

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Many reports have warned the public about the threat of tiered pricing for internet service. It may be falling on deaf ears except those who were exposed to the idea for real by Time Warner.  If you remember the days when AOL was one of the few ISP’s when all was dialup that did not require long distance charges this should get your attention.

AOL is owned by Time Warner.  Many who remember the less than inspiring service from AOL in the dialup days should not be surprised by their parent corp making this move.

Time Warner Cable says it’s trying to charge a small minority of customers for using a large majority of bandwidth on its network, while critics claim the company is restraining broadband Internet usage and trying to boost profits.

“Cable operators know it’s only a matter of time before broadband access reaches the TV set, and that could be a disaster for the industry under its current pricing model,” said Michael Greeson, president of The Diffusion Group, a market research and consulting firm. “Internet usage is skyrocketing, and consumers have grown accustomed to an all-you-can-eat broadband subscription, so the cable companies are looking for a way to put this genie back in the bottle.”

You can argue all day but the simple fact is telecom services whether voice, data or anything else mysteriously have similar pricing and it is all too much.  The single largest problem causing that is the reluctance of consumers to object to excessive pricing.  In this latest story on the topic the public has not been impressed.  That is largely an exception to typical consumer behavior which acquiesces to vendor pricing.

What adds to this insanity is government spending to increase broadband access to rural and other underserved areas.  To subsidize areas of lower population density and in this case lower broadband profit potential with public funding for private enterprise costs is another boon for special interest….top ISPs and telecom companies.

In the past cable companies were reluctant to serve sparsely populated areas for lack of potential subscribers per mile of cable installed.  Voice telecom is moving away from physical plant being wire and pole bound to wireless and cell towers.  The service has become less satisfactory and more expensive.  The same is on the horizon for other telecom services.

Rather than let the buyer beware or let competition set the price the sheep will be led to slaughter (figuratively speaking) as they have lost their way and no not how to influence the market or specially connected interests who control the outcome.

Time Warner’s claim that a few users consume more than their fair share of bandwidth as the excuse for tiered pricing is lame.  If it were true the excessive price charged to the remainder of subscribers would cover costs associated with the few they describe. And cable operators’ form of internet access is markedly different from non-cable ISPs.  Like other items described in the reference above maybe that is Time Warners real problem.

While conservative principles and a free market philosophy are noble ideas even Sean Hannity said on his radio program this week that not all business operators are honest but most are. No argument here but it does fit well in the ending note of this post.

This is one case where there are bandits in the marketplace. Without adequate public complaints all it takes is one vendor to introduce a bad deal and that becomes the standard almost overnight.  Then the option to take your business elsewhere becomes moot. All the prices are then essentially the same and there is no competition.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

related stories:

They’re gone! After outcry, Time Warner uncaps the tubes

Time Warner Scraps Bandwidth Cap Testing

What Price Bandwidth? Time Warner Cable Should Not Back Off

Even after a few days homosexuals may still be offended by a story about Amazon dot com. Depending on who you read or believe the only thing that seems clear is certain books were removed from Amazon’s ranking and/or sales feature and thus more or less fell off the map so to speak. Some (ABC) call the published works ‘gay titles’ and others (CNET) call them ‘adult’ books. And Amazon apologized for what they viewed as their own careless or bungling management of the book listings. Add to that a hacker who is taking credit for the episode.

But if you’re like many people you simply find this to be a humorous account of much ado about nothing. With all the critical issues on the table these days, this story is not one of them but is good for a couple of laughs. That is unless Amazon turns this situation into a policy rather than a glitch. Now that would be an accomplishment.

Ya, go ahead, whine.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Gay Titles Deep-Sixed at Amazon
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer, blamed a computer “glitch” for stripping scores of gay-themed books of their sales ranking, preventing them from appearing on the site’s best-seller lists. But a notorious Internet …

Amazon criticized for deranking ‘adult’ books
by Steven Musil Amazon.com recently delisted from its sales ranking system gay and lesbian book titles that it deemed “adult,” raising the ire of some who characterize the move as online censorship. Author Mark R. Probst wrote on his blog Sunday that …

Hacker Claims Credit For Amazon’s Gay-Themed Book ‘Glitch’
A hacker now claims he was behind the Amazon.com “glitch” that caused hundreds of gay- and lesbian-themed books to lose their sales ranks over the weekend. The hacker, who identifies himself only as “Weev,” posted a confession of sorts within a …