MooPig Tech Coroner :: "Licensing Content Makers"

The Free Run is Over; too much Freedom?
Mashed articles by Pat Darnell  |  Feb 11, 2014  |  Bryan TX

[Picture LINK] Google Tips Boynton Beach Police To 2 Child Porn Images Attached To Draft Email | Story by Scott T. Smith

Is this claim by PC Magazine true? " ... And let's face it, right now the whole Internet scene is a mess. How could regulation be bad (JOHN C. DVORAK. JANUARY 29, 2014. LINK) ...?"

We at MooPig Think Tank disagree; we like the chaos of the Internet.  FCC wants to be a player, and protect its radio and TV turfs. We think that is what they do best, but licencing Internet Content? C'mon! Really? All of it?

The Next Phase of the Internet: Licensing Content Makers | John C. Dvorak | PCMag.com: "This moment in time represents a true golden age of the Internet but such ages are always thwarted in one way of another. For close to 10 years I've been saying that at some point in the future, the Wild West of the Internet will be clamped down and you'll need a license to broadcast content over the Internet. I do not see any trend that does not point in this direction. For a perfect example, look at the debate over net neutrality and filtering or throttling streaming content from the likes of Netflix and Amazon over various mechanisms such as your PC or Roku."
'via Blog this'

Here's a licencing nightmare for you:

" ... Google Images is a search service owned by Google and introduced in July 2001, that allows users to search the Web for image content.[1] The keywords for the image search are based on the filename of the image, the link text pointing to the image, and text adjacent to the image. When searching for an image, a thumbnail of each matching image is displayed. When the user clicks on a thumbnail, the image is displayed in a box over the website that it came from. The user can then close the box and browse the website, or view the full-sized image (wiki. LINK)..."

Wiki goes on to describe Google Images: " ...In 2001, 250 million images were indexed. In 2005, this grew to 1 billion. By 2010, the index reached 10 billion images. As of July 2010, the service receives over one billion views a day. Google introduced a sort by subject feature for a visual category scheme overview of a search query in May 2011 (wiki. LINK).... "

Think about it; a billion visits per day on Google Images alone, on 10 billion images with all their content. MooPig knows it gets all its domestic and foreign visitors from Google Images. So if FCC gets its way and licences all the content of the Internet, we will cease to exist. Big boy corp's and hogs will then take over the Internet.

CONCLUSION
" ... Signal/RF interference problem does not exist with the Internet, where millions of blogs, podcasts, and video networks can and do co-exist. Thus, some other rationale will eventually be determined to limit access in the same way access was limited to the real radio pioneers (ibid. DVORAK.) ..."

" ... There is already talk about clamping down on various forms of hate speech online. Who determines what constitutes hate speech?
Under the guise of anti-bullying all sorts of real attacks on free speech are now common. "Think of the children" will become the rallying cry as very smart people manage to lock down the net for once and for all using every trick imaginable.
I personally do not think there is anything we can do about the eventual draconian regulation of the Internet by government authorities. It won't be tomorrow (I hope not anyway), but it is coming. Enjoy what we have while it lasts.
I'll be waiting to fill out some forms. I think I can get a license.(ibid. Dvorak) ..."

_________________Reference
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2430020,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03079TX1K0000585
http://www.cbs12.com/news/top-stories/stories/vid_13123.shtml
^ Zipern, Andrew. "A Quick Way to Search For Images on the Web." New York Times. 12 July 2001. Retrieved 13 September 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/12/technology/news-watch-a-quick-way-to-search-for-images-on-the-web.html

MooPig Tech Coroner :: "Google TV Is Dead"

No, it's not Totally Dead...
Retrieved by Pat Darnell | Jan 12, 2014 | Bryan TX

[Picture LINK] In a post-Google TV era, Hisense takes a first stab at defining Android on TV

Before the turn of the century, some folks predicted that Television as it is would be totally gone by 2045. We may be on schedule for that. Television is still a huge conglomerate with the most subscribers of any media system. It is to me, an enigma, that is, a puzzle that keeps changing its outcome.

When Google started Google TV, it was ahead of its time. That is kind of typical of Google and its offerings. After three years Google TV is just really getting started:

" ... Google TV leverages many of Google’s existing products. Google TV’s operating system, a customized version of Android, provides the underlying foundation, allowing developers to create applications that extend the system’s functionality. Google’s Chrome browser provides a gateway to the Internet, allowing consumers to browse web sites and watch television, in tandem.

" ... Consumers can access HBO, CNBC, and content from other providers through the Chrome browser. Android and Apple smartphones and tablet computers may be used as remote controls for Google TV. Google TV products ship with wireless remote controls with a full QWERTY keypad. An update in November 2011, allowed access to Google Play and enabled search to find content from live TV, Netflix, YouTube, HBO GO, Amazon, and more. ... A future Google TV 4 update will have casting support from supported apps, the same as the Chromecast. (y ikki peed ya. LINK)..."

Google TV Is Dead, Long Live Google-Powered TV | Will Greenwald | PCMag.com: "These days, Google TV is all but forgotten, and surprisingly that signals not that Android is leaving home entertainment, but that it's finally starting to show up. HDTV manufacturers are turning to Android for their connected HDTV interfaces. I saw four different companies at CES 2014 with their own spins on Android to power their home entertainment devices. (Will Greenwald. January 10, 2014. LINK) ..."

"But Google TV was plagued with a long list of problems, one of them being the strict requirements Google put in place for its hardware partners. For example, the first generation of Google TV needed to include a full traditional QWERTY keyboard, leading to unwieldy and confusing remote controls. (Janko Roettgers. JAN. 15, 2014. LINK)."

'via Blog this'

But the customization nature of Android is a boon for HDTV manufacturers looking to move into the budget and midrange HDTV market as the more prominent names set their sights on big, expensive, advanced screens. As companies looking to get a foothold in the North American market explore ways to make their less expensive screens more feature-rich, we could finally see Android become a big force in home entertainment. It just won't be Google designing or tweaking it.

CONCLUSION
Google TV did not make much of a splash when it was introduced, but now it is on track as a suitable base for many companies who want to expand on the television experience. If you own an iPhone or an Android, you are already compatible with Google TV. You might want to look into the possibilities of linking up to streaming TV and other services.

[Picture LINK]

_____________________Reference
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2429393,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03079TX1K0000585
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster_(pay_service)
http://code.google.com/tv/faq.html#android
http://gigaom.com/2014/01/15/in-a-post-google-tv-era-hisense-takes-a-first-stab-at-defining-android-on-tv/
http://bgr.com/2010/05/20/google-tv-gets-official/
http://gigaom.com/2014/01/15/chromecast-porn/
https://plus.google.com/+GoogleTV/posts
http://googletv.blogspot.com/
http://www.lg.com/us/lggoogletv/index.jsp#page=qanda

MooPig City Desk :: "Xbox 720 Specs Reportedly Leaked"

retrieved by Pat Darnell, rumors by Others  |  Jan 25, 2013  |  Bryan TX

[No PHOTO yet]

How many of us get our hopes up that something huge, miraculous and material will happen to us? Well, it happens to us every December 25th, when we wake up and look under the tree. Yes?

This Christmas, 2013, may be one of those earmark years. The successor of the XBOX 360 may become available for discretionary spending in 2013. Like it or not, we at MooPig Economic Development Department and our Twelve Days of Wisdom Department will help spread the rumor starting now and all the way up to the rumored event. Yes, we might see the XBOX 720, the next generation of XBOX, emerging in November '13.

Since MooPig Enterprises tends to recognize things long after they have run their course of usefulness, we thought 'this time we will get in on the beginning of the rumor mill. Yes, MooPig has lifted itself out of the flea market category, and into the mega blitz marketing of gaming consoles.

MooPig recently took courses to help it re-fashion its image. Did you know there are self-harm groups for web-sites? Yes, there are.

Okay, it turns out, the rumor mill announces the XBOX 720 ... and even shows a diagram of its 'architecture.' What they are saying is that this console plus a big screen will have to get you through the next decade.

Xbox 720 Specs Reportedly Leaked | Maximum PC: "The first reports about the Xbox 720 (or whatever Microsoft’s next-gen console ends up being called) began appearing as early as 2006, even prompting Microsoft EMEA (European, Middle East, and Africa) vice president Chris Lewis to plead for “a chance to catch a breath” when asked about the Xbox 360’s successor during an interview in October that year. Now that Microsoft has had more than enough time to do so,  people are growing restless. And when that happens, the rumor mill experiences heightened activity."

'via Blog this'

The VGLeaks rumors also say the "Durango" codenamed Xbox will feature a high-end Blu-ray Disc drive as well as Gigabit Ethernet connectivity.

In other previous reports just prior to the E3 2012, a Microsoft executive, Yusuf Mehdi, wrote in a blog about the Xboz 720 saying: "We've got ideas for making all the entertainment you love more personal, interactive and social across the devices you love—and on the phenomenal Windows 8 devices that are to come."


_______________________Reference
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/xbox_720_specs_reportedly_leaked_and_other_rumors800
http://www.christianpost.com/news/xbox-720-specs-release-rumors-suggest-features-will-include-8-core-processor-8gb-ram-88834/
http://gnli.christianpost.com/video/xbox-720-review-8297

MooPig's Tech Coroner :: "The End of the x86 Era"

by Pat Darnell | Jan 8, 2012 | Bryan TX

[Vectra VL420 server type Pentium 4]


The End of the x86 Era | John C. Dvorak | PCMag.com: "All this was due to the x86 juggernaut and established mind share."

The Article says the usual gang of suspects are to blame for demise of the x86 structure. Suspects like fussiness, marketing, public relations, appliance envy, general laziness, and computers as toys, are killing the past work-horse PC architecture. But mainly "the x86 era is over because the public stopped caring about it when Apple introduced the first poke-and-shove GUI on the original iPhone in 2007. (Dvorak, John C. Jan 8, 2012)"

The general group of suspects includes the consumer who really "doesn't care how anything works." It was the dream of the ambiguous consumer that " ... Computers would be so simple that anyone could use them with little fuss ... "

Arguments divide "x86 architecture" into "speed freakism," and "brainiacism."

" ... It marked the victory of those who felt that extra performance was best achieved not by constantly upping the processor's clock speed, but by going for ever more parallel systems with much finer control of performance versus power consumption. (Rupert Goodwins, ZDNet.co.uk, 28 July, 2006 LINK)"

During the lifespan of x86, other architectures were tried by companies like Intel; they experimented with "Ada" and then with a "neural network processor" only to see them not make it into the public consciousness.

Chances are that we never fully use our x86 type Core 2 Duo type processors with our everyday work-play of Apps and software. If you are not mapping the floor of the ocean, or modeling the earth's crust with seismic readouts, you are probably using only a small part of your x86.

Therefore, the whole push for x86 over the decades has been to fine tune with macro-fusion, and micro-fusion, by recognizing instruction parallels. Intel then established ways to speed up the flow in the pipeline structure of the cores. This was done by recognizing at least one in ten instructions can be combined with another instruction, such as a mathematics comparison. Then, Intel limited the power usage for their cores by shutting down areas that were not being used. Intel got its parameters from studying all kinds of softwares.

For instance, what has powered the blog MooPig? Until this December 2010, it was a Vectra VL420 server type Pentium 4. It is a great machine ... for ten years ago. It was all I needed to post and blog and repeat. It quit working, so I replaced it with this Intel CORE i5 Vostro by Dell. The only difference is that I can do three times the posting, blogging and repeating as before.

That is why I feel sort of goofy when I read about all the power spinning in this new PC. What would happen if I ever tapped that resource? What more could I do?

What does the future hold? If you ask an American author, scientist, inventor and futurist -- Kurzweil, -- the future of computing is that all this you see surrounding you now, will be gone. The aspect of information gathering\processing will be part of our human bodies; some sort of nano-tech cells in our neural network. The future is body enhancement; tatt's and inserts. His inventions include optical character recognition... so that tells you a lot.

Kurzweil is more saint than doomsday prophet as his main industry has been to make the blind see, deaf hear and mute speak. Like a hearing aid, which by the way is very delicately hand made, a person wearing one doesn't care how it works -- he just cares that he can hear. That is the future of x86 architecture, does it work?

We cannot be lulled to sleep with ludicrous predictions doled out by research companies. We cannot be subdued by "battery life so we can sit, giggle, poke, and shove icons on a screen," as John Dvorak says.  Rather keep an open mind, and a fervent agenda, so that when the "Singularity happens, it will be ‘very obvious’(LINK)..." But it will not come without demise of the x86's.

'via Blog this'

[Intel CORE i5 Vostro by Dell]
________________Reference
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398301,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03079TX1K0000585
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/lpv06569/lpv06569.pdf
http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/d845gvsr/sb/cs-008824.htm
http://www.kurzweilai.net/

MooPig Site Review :: "PC Magazine Tells All -- Only Four Big PLayers, Y'all!"

Retrieved for Ed Porpoises by Pat Darnell

[SOURCE]
Unless the government steps in, we'll see what the wireless carriers want us to see.
Google's deal with Verizon to give up on wireless net neutrality shows that the phone carriers want to have an absolute lock over the way the mobile Internet will run. And unless the government steps in, they'll run it for their benefit, not yours.
There's a ton of commentary on the Net about the Google/Verizon position on net neutrality, but let's just focus on wireless: basically, the two companies said that the wireless Internet is what carriers say it is. Carriers should be free to speed up, slow down or block any traffic they want. Implied in that, floating in its penumbra, is the desired right to lock phones, block applications, or install un-deletable bloatware on your phone.
This is a far cry from the utopian dream Google's Erick Tseng described to me back in January. The Google Nexus One Android phone, he said, was the beginning of a new era for U.S. wireless. You'd soon be able to get a Nexus One from any carrier, he said, and even switch them between carriers. Google would provide a retail channel to challenge the carriers. (For more on this see my column, "Nexus One: Google's First Step?") Android was freedom!

Google Acknowledges That Verizon Owns Your Internet

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By: Sascha Segan

• 08.11.2010

That was nonsense. Google realized it was more profitable to play along with the wireless carriers than annoy them, so they never really marketed the Nexus One and only sold a handful of phones. The announced Sprint and Verizon versions of the phones never appeared, and Google killed the whole project after less than a year. Meanwhile, Android is becoming every wireless carrier's operating system of choice for smartphones, largely because of its flexibility in creating completely carrier-customized phones. Tseng has left the company, and there will be no Nexus Two.

The wireless industry likes to say there's plenty of competition out there, and the four big players are cutthroat on some things - for instance, they're building 3G and 4G networks like maniacs. Problems arise when they start agreeing on things that aren't customer-friendly and acting like a cartel. As a consumer, I see that danger in fees for "preferential access" to their networks.

The Myth of the Unlocked iPhone
Yes, the Copyright Office recently said that you can unlock or jailbreak your phone, but that's a smokescreen, because the Copyright Office didn't say carriers have to support those phones. You could find yourself with a happily unlocked phone that no carrier will activate.

Once again, the specter of the iPhone floats in the air here, but in a slightly different way than it did in December 2009 when I said that "Google is not the messiah." Way back in 2007 when Apple introduced the iPhone, pundits speculated that Apple might start their own wireless carrier to show the industry how things should be done. They didn't - they signed a perfectly conventional contract with ATandT.

Yeah, yeah, sure, Google (or Apple) could have entered into a wholesale contract with a 3G provider to offer service under their own name, but don't fault them for not doing that. No wireless reseller has made money in U.S., because the spectrum-owning carriers structure the contracts to prevent wholesale customers from skimming off their most profitable users.

Because there are no requirements for reasonably-priced 3G roaming or wholesale contracts, companies like Apple, Google, and my "10 Small Carriers With Great Phones" can't jump into the national scene and challenge the big boys, and the big boys like it that way.

The biggest threat to the major wireless carriers' business models comes from mid-sized spectrum owners like Cricket, who last week declared a $55/month smartphone service plan. Since Cricket owns their own network, they're not beholden to the bigger guys. But even Cricket is now potentially in danger; to go national, they signed a wholesale agreement with Sprint that could potentially let Sprint turn the screws on them down the road.

Starting to Feel Marginalized?
Cricket is a renegade on pricing, but they stick with the party line in terms of freedom. They control your access to the Internet. Like all wireless carriers, they say they're doing that to protect their network from predatory users who might download more than Cricket is comfortable with. I don't want to single out Cricket, of course - everyone does this.

There are reasonable traffic concerns involved. Carriers seem to be spreading the idea that their networks are horribly fragile, gossamer things ready to collapse at any minute under the load of desperate Internet users. That's why Verizon overpriced the Microsoft Kin into oblivion and why ATandT has been lowering their data caps.

I think that after six years I can tell the difference between greed and fear, and the whole data-cap thing looks like fear. They're not price-gouging as much as they're just trying to keep their pathetically overburdened networks from collapsing. It's a sad statement about the inability of these companies to provide the Internet capacity Americans demand.

Epilogue
But there's a world of differences between purely traffic-related restrictions and content or hardware-related ones. The Google/Verizon proposal reserves to Verizon the right to define what gets to be seen on the Internet, who we can see it through, and for how much. If we want any kind of wireless freedom, we can't look to the carriers; the FCC has to step in.

iPHONE 4 UPDATE :: "You Could be Waiting for GODOT ..."

Title: How to Get Over Apple iPhone 4 Envy
By: Dan Costa | 06.25.2010  |  PC Magazine
[SOURCE, Excerpted]


Envy is not a pleasant quality in humans. It might make someone do something that they regret for the rest of their lives.... as Dan Costa prescribes some Rx for easing your pain in envy ::
Retrieved by Pat Darnell and the iHerd

" [ ... excerpt] You Need a Physical Keyboard
This is probably the most obvious reason to avoid the iPhone. It's an excuse often used by millions of BlackBerry users like PCMag's editor-in-chief, Lance Ulanoff, who has to justify lugging around his BlackBerry Bold.

You're Pissed the iPhone 4 Doesn't Support Flash
Purely in terms of geek credibility, this is a great excuse. No one really understands why Flash is so darn important on the iPhone, but everyone seems think Apple should support it.

You Have an Ideological Problem with Apple's Closed Ecosystem
This excuse is best implemented by lawyers, Poli Sci majors, and digital libertarians, but if you can grok the concept, your passing on the iPhone can be instantly transformed from clueless move to principled stand.

You Think ATandT's Coverage is Terrible
The only problem with this justification is that is isn't exactly true.

You Are Waiting Until the iPhone Comes to Verizon
. Just bear one fact in mind: Verizon may never offer the iPhone. You could be waiting for Godot.

You Hate iTunes
Sure, iTunes provides a nearly effortless way to acquire, manage, synchronize and enjoy music and videos on your iPhone, but what if you're a Zune customer?

"[ ... ] Careful readers will note that all of these justifications were just as true of the original iPhone as they are with the iPhone 4. And yet the iPhone is a runaway success. The ugly truth for us non-iPhoners is that, the iPhone has been the best smartphone on ATandT for years now. The updates to the iPhone 4 are going to keep that trend going. The Sprint Evo is a great phone and the Motorola Droid rocks on Verizon, but the rest of us need to keep a stiff upper lip in the week ahead. And if you're already an ATandT customer? Just suck it up and buy an iPhone. ... [ Read entire Article by Dan Costa HERE] "

MooPig Site Review :: "Facebook -- Privacy Enemy Number One?"

The Modern Marvels of our Time and FACE"
retrieved by Pat Darnell and Nar Cissie, Est

Article by By: Dan Costa,    4.22.2010,   [Retrieved HERE]
EXCERPT...

... "Facebook's notable announcements this week range from a holistic vision of a seamless, semantically-enabled Web of human relationships, to a simple "Like" button, which will soon be omnipresent on the Internet. The moves are ambitious, giving even fast-moving rivals like Twitter reason to worry. Still, the simple fact that gets lost in the rush towards ubiquitous social connectivity is that Facebook users still don't know what they are sharing, with whom, or why it matters. In short: Facebook remains a privacy minefield. ..."

"During the event, Zuckerberg described what he calls the "Social Graph." It's basically a map of all of our social relationships and the things that we care about. It isn't just about who you know, but also what you want. Sharing photos with friends is great, but sharing camera recommendations is monetizable. This is the promise of the Semantic Web, a collection of links and objects that can be easily shared and repurposed among sites; except on the Social Graph, all the lines eventually run through Facebook. ..."

"Sure, there are lots of ways to indicate that you like a story online: Digg, Buzz, Twitter, Reddit, and countless others, but those are mostly about getting people to read something. What if you just, well, like something? A book, a movie, brand of peanut butter, or a shortstop for the New York Yankees. Until now, the most granular measure of our human intent has been our search terms, and Google has done an exceedingly good job of connecting that intent with advertisers who want to capitalize on it. By integrating personal and profile information through third party sites, Facebook is making its database of intention social. .."

Read Entire Article by Dan Costa HERE ...

[NOTE: Soon we will MOOT Pig .... pd ]

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MooPig Site Reviews :: "John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine"

Read the Entire Article HERE, our Favorite Opinion-ator .. John C. Dvorak
retrieved by Pat Darnell

Where is My Zune Phone?
By: John C. Dvorak
04.28.2010

EXCERPT  |  "Microsoft can deliver an iPhone competitor, so long as it does what it does best: copy and improve.
I want my Zune Phone. Bad. It would be the coolest phone to own, period. People would want to see what kind of phone Microsoft could create when left up to its own devices. Fact is, the Zune was never a crummy MP3 player. It just had a funny name and came in brown. They've since dropped the brown one, which is too bad.
"The problem with Microsoft is the fact that it is the world's largest company with no real VP of marketing. Although I would never call Microsoft an engineering company, it sure is run like one. The company has no marketing skills. That's fine when you are a monopoly. It's not so good when you have to compete with Apple. And as far as I can tell, Apple has nothing but marketing people.
Because of this, Microsoft is unable to develop and market a Zune Phone as a "have to own" device. Instead, the company keeps plodding along with Windows Mobile and never quite understands how it would benefit from making the un-iPhone. Yes, the company recently introduced the Kin, but that's just an updated Sidekick. It's no iPhone.
[ ... ]
"Microsoft's key to success with a Zune Phone would be the addition of all sorts of screwball features. An easy way to do this is to do what Microsoft has always done: copy other people's work. In this case, the handset should come preloaded with 100 apps. It wouldn't take a lot of time to find out the top 100 iPhone apps. Clone them and pre-install them on the Zune Phone—or make them a part of the phone's basic functionality.

I'm baffled by what has happened to Microsoft over the years. The company was notorious for copying and extending other people's ideas, as long as there were no patent restrictions. Heck, in some cases that didn't even matter. But now the company seems dead in the water. Why hasn't Microsoft copied the iTunes App Store? It can copy and then improve it. I'm still baffled by the fact that Microsoft hasn't deconstructed and cloned Facebook. How hard can it be? It's a Website, not machine code for a lunar lander.

"Microsoft can start its road to recovery by rolling out a Zune Phone packed with weird features. Hire the top designers in the world to make it fold into a cube. Do something interesting, boys. You can do it, if you want to. And keep the Zune name. It's not bad if it gets associated with the words "zoom" (as in fast) and "tunes" (as in music). Or how about just sticking with the "Z?" The Zune can be the music player only. The phone can be the zPhone. The zPad will be next on the agenda. Okay, you'll have to play with the words, but it could work.

Also, make the thing out of tungsten. Drop it, and it would break the floor. Tungsten has a great finish. People will ask, "wow, it's actually made from tungsten?" These ideas are out there, Microsoft, just put on your thinking cap.

The company has to realize that, unless it gets a buzz going soon, all of that money it's spending on Windows Phone 7 will fall by the wayside, as more and more people associate the smartphone with the iPhone and Android OSes.

"There is an irony here. Microsoft actually invented the smartphone—but its vision was myopic and remains so to this day. When the company asked itself what someone would use a smartphone for, the answer it came up with was to store .doc files and do Powerpoint from the phone. Microsoft didn't come up with the idea of scanning in bar codes for price comparisons over the Net.

It's simple. Admit that you have no vision and incorporate the vision of others into a device that is simultaneously derivative and unique. I know I'm asking the impossible from today's Microsoft, but it's worth a shot. And repeat after me: tungsten, tungsten, tungsten."
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REPRINT: for your Reading Pleasure

Part One: ADDENDED 1.08.2009: Tom Foolery and Burdens of being Clever as a Brick
by Pat Darnell

December 30: Urban Dictionary Word of the Day BricKberry -- a term for the old, outdated phone you have to use when your current phone breaks. Like this:
"It takes me ten minutes to type a TEXT message on this BricKberry now that my iPhone broke, but at least i get to play snake."

As bricks are thrown at us hourly, chronic pain is what we have most trouble with here at MooPig Studios. Some might say our pain is self-inflicted, but nights are long, and sleep comes at a premium: Pain.

For instance: Each of us has our stand alone personal computers and mobiles all loaded with different stuff, making it impossible to sort out a common "playing field" of operations. Linux, Windows, Mac, AIM, aol, yahoo, google web 2... picasa, micasa, iolo or voodoo... reader, bleeder, spammer, hammer; skype, Wii, ATT... "it is a zoo, don't pet the animals, it's a human zoo. (Pribek)"

On top of that, we have aversion factor 100% that tells anyone tampering with our status quo in our cubicle homes will be treated as a horse thief and put to death.

Recently MooPig's architectural project manager, Tom Foolery, resigned. When we searched his left behind PC desktop, we found literally "nothing, zilch, bofaddo, nada." Not even a megabyte to chew on. How dare he leave us with just a blinking cursor for evidence! You be judge: Do we follow our Psalters that wrongly turns lack of evidence into evidence of absence?

Tom Foolery's Exit Interview report also suggests that because the genetic sequence of the Benghazi Dubai strain found in some Auto/CAD PC's is different from any logged in public databases, there are grounds for suspecting foul play. "That's tosh," says MPW's TQO, Weissguy.

HR Manager, Montagonizer agrees, pointing out that "...the recumbent virus was a new nocturnal natural recombinant of a highly infectious strain common in Central and West Moldova, which has replaced most other strains in the region over the past few years."

Then we forced a read, restore, and nothing was there. It occurred to us for Tom's past five years he was just sitting there with a depressed look on his face. And we now know it was not the look of creativity, but actually depression. I suppose he did not spend six years getting his architectural license to be part of our Diderot race of blade-ing into the future of creative works on a blizzard blinded trail of artistic expression. We are failing: but we like to fail, it's artistic. See, even Cadillac's have to be re-painted periodically.

But that shows ya' how discombobulated the fraternal world of desktops has become. Is it toward team expression of One Web / One Voice? Not likely: most of that rot leads to viral marketing.

Solution? I don't know. It is a subtle condition of microcosmic shifts from Lessor Information Age to Maximum Information Age, and beyond. No one knows. But the answer is looking more and more like a choice between a virus, or a brick, or a shoe.

We follow discussions at PC Mag, Ziff Davis Publications, and others looking for Optimum decision-making tenore di grazzia. It turns out, it's a dog eat fish condition, dog choke on fish bones, sort of an Old Man and the Sea monologue... if you get the drift.

And then a brick falls out of the sky from a Hamas jackass standing behind a human shield, and goes right through your skiff... you sink, we sink.. We all have conversations with ourselves, in other words, alone and in a dark way, spreading Hope without Harmony.

Although there is no countdown to a verdict, if you good persons know some thing about that which we seek -- TEXT us -- fill us in -- or just throw us a brick. It's all good.

"Let me put it bluntly: This won't work" (J C DVORAK)

Newspaper Publishers Are Idiots
by John C. Dvorak

So now we hear that The New York Times is contemplating the notion of becoming a subscription-based Web site, where you only get to read it if you pay real money. What a quaint idea.

Let me put it bluntly: This won't work. It will completely sink the publication faster than it's already sinking.
[... Read the Entire PC Magazine Article HERE]
So should the newspaper go the way of the buggy whip? No, it just needs to return to its roots, and focus on providing densely edited and directed information of importance as decided by a trustworthy source. And it should leave the fluff to the Internet.

For too long newspapers have taken on the role of cultural arbiter and distribution channel for popular culture ideas. That is all over and can never return.

That said, nobody has nailed the new model for the old newspaper. These publishers are out-and-out idiots. They see something online and immediately try to do the same thing in print. "We want color ink and more stories about celebrities!"

I was doing research at the University of California Newspaper Library, which has a tremendous collection of microfilmed old newspapers from every era. If you want to see the heyday of the newspaper business and quickly see what would work today, look at a 1954 edition of The San Francisco Examiner. It's so dense with news stories that today's papers look as if there's nothing in them. It is extremely compelling.

The point is that there are good ideas already out there, and they just need to be rediscovered. But for now the panic-stricken bosses seem to be heading down the same abyss in the same direction. It's the direction that created the abyss in the first place.

Print on Demand goes to Press

Retrieved by Pat Darnell

PC Magazine Goes 100% Digital | 11.19.08
by Lance Ulanoff [SOURCE]

An Open letter to PC Magazine (Print) Readers,

The January 2009 issue (Volume 28, Issue 1) of PC Magazine will mark a monumental transition for the publication. It is the last printed edition of this venerable publication. Of course, as with any technology-related enterprise, this is not the end, but the beginning of something exciting and new.

...



This open letter a few weeks ago from PC Magazine announced it ceased publishing its print magazine, after 27 years of covering the technology industry. These days it simply doesn't make economic or environmental sense for us to print a magazine, load it on trucks, and send it across the country when the same information can be delivered instantly online via PCMag.com. At about the same time, my girlfriend gave me a love letter: a paperback book she made herself with glossy pages, full-color photos, and a production quality that would make any magazine art director salivate. How can she afford to print a single book when big publishing companies lose money selling hundreds of thousands of copies? Welcome to the world of print on demand.

How publishing-on-demand will transform the publishing industry.
by Dan Costa
(1996-2008 Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc.)

I suppose we all knew this would someday be our unfortunate condition. I had a PC Magazine subscription in the '80's. It helped me to find a niche in the burgeoning PC\IT surge...

Will there always be a need for printing? And now that it is over, no more magazines laying about the doctors' office... no more books in libraries... only books to hold down the picnic blanket... books for boll weevils to eat...?

NO more Web Presses?
Hey Warren,
[SOURCE]
Speaking of paper rolls being dropped, here's a story you might not have heard. Before I came to Bethel, the night watchmen in the factory used to carry guns. You probably know that much of the paper the Society bought came from Canada in boxcars. It was often quite cold when it was unloaded, so they would stack it up on end, several rolls high (20'-30', depending on the ceiling height) and leave it there to reach room temperature so it could be run through the presses. As the paper would warm up, it often made cracking noises.

One night a particularly skittish watchman was walking through one of the storage floors at night. It was dark, and the rolls were warming up and making noise. I am not quite sure just how it happened, but shots were fired into the paper rolls. That was the end of the guns.

Tom