The benefit of a blog is that 1. I am not obligated to post and 2. I don’t answer to anyone but the preferment record of my commentary on the Internet. That lasts a lot longer than a yearly review.

I received a blocked call today on my cell phone. One eyebrow raised I answered it:
“I’m [unintelligible] and I’m going to compete on American Idol, tell me if I’m good [starts to sing]”
I hang up.
Phone rings
“why did you hang up on me? Was I that bad? -[starts singing again]”
I hang up.

So, I have the phone in my hand after a few moments of reflection and I have a few thoughts. First, this could have been legit and I could have had an opportunity to lay into her (she was a terrible singer) with a bit of wit. Second, why did I waste a good opportunity in general to poke fun at someone who is actually ASKING for it. I am ashamed. Not only am I ashamed for not doing it but that I, for a moment, was enticed by the remote possibility that my momentary spotlight could reveal a bit of unique wit and I’d be made famous. Mind you this whole thought process from wonder to annoyed to regret and so on happened in a split second.

I think. No, scratch that. I know that this insta-famous for no good reason instant-gratification reality show sinkhole only furthers our complacency as a nation. It makes us more lazy and puts us more and more at a disadvantage.

All of this I gleaned from a prank call.

I may need to leave the house. Good thing I go to work in the morning.

It’s been a pretty amazing few weeks. My wife and I went to Scottsdale to play golf for a week with some good friends which will end up completely changing our handicaps. I do not think for the better. We played Troon North about 5 times. It never got old even when we played 36. It’s manicured like a supermodel. A 7500 yard long supermodel.

I managed to master making the perfect omlette which is hard when you dont know how to do it right. In fact, if you don’t know the method, it’s impossible. When you do, it’s still damn hard but the outcome it amazing. I recommend quickly sautees onions, Spanish chorizo and brie. Sour cream, lox and onions is also outstanding.

Porsche is about to unleash a 997 with a mid-model facelift, DSG and direct injection. People might make fun of the car that’s been effectively the “same” for 45 years but it’s still the car by which ALL other sports cars are measured. So, mock if you like but the flat 6 boxer hanging off the back still offers up the real deal.

IN other news, we might be moving. While South Austin needs people to keep it weird, we might have to head up to mid-town to lend a weird hand to the Allendale area. Being close to downtown works for me since most of what I like is there and it works for Wifey since she can surface-street to work. We found a pretty cool Realtor and a builder that makes some homes we’re freaking out over. Now we just have to afford it…

I’ve decided Last.fm is difficult to use and I like Pandora. Pandora plays music, last seems to want me to do stuff with it, like it’s a date. I don’t want a date, I want an Internet radio. Move along.

I managed to work in a new golf swing while out in Arizona, it’s working as long as I don’t try to “work” the ball. It’s just a woods swing so working the ball is, well, balsy. So, If I just give it a firm poke, it goes relatively straight and about 220 / 230 which is 20-40 less than I am used to but I now find my ball all the time so that’s a fair trade. My irons are also behaving and I managed to get a few 200+ 5-iron shots today off the tee, one of which was so flush and perfect I had to stand there for a few moments to reflect on the great feedback from the club. It also landed right in the middle of the fairway. We’ll not talk about the 4-putt that followed. The short game is a disaster.

Dirty Sexy Money is putting off new shows until the fall which is just killing me. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a good show. I can wait, I’m just happy it’s not canceled. It’s a little smart so the Nascar fans might not “get it” and you know how studio execs get when the philistines don’t “get” a show. I’m all for a channel that’s 24 hours of cops, judge judy and that “moment of truth” show for those people so the rest of us (sadly a minority) can watch things that, how can I say this nicely, don’t cater to the mouth-breathing vulgarians. Sadly, there is now a generation of self-hating bohemians who feel the need to flagelate themselves with a blog-shaped switch called “stuff white people like“. If that “stuff” is wrong, well, I don’t want to be right. And, happily enough, I’m not, so all is good. Wait, I don’t like Macs. Oh no I don’t conform to the non-conforming site. Crap, my universe imploded.

I checked Facebook today. Something happened. Everyone who is going to join did and nothing happened. Oh well. Time for a new meme.

Tomorrow might be the first normal day I’ve had in a long time. Only time will tell.

Oh the humanity. It’s so sad when people don’t even know they’ve been rick rolled until it’s too late and they already started dancing.

Cars are part of some of my fondest moments. They’re also part of some scary and downright dumb moments. For example, a new 91 Miata in a full sideways WRC-style slide down a rather small street, trying to find the speed governor in a Euro-spec Audi V8 and climbing a 45 degree grade in a new Pathfinder. The Miata lived, as did I. The Audi never divulged it’s top speed but it was faster than I was willing to go and the Pathfinder is no wimp.

As an *ahem* adult, I take my need for speed to the track or the monthly autocross which lets me be perfectly happy puttering around town like an old person. But, every once in a while, there is a moment when you see another driver on the frontage road or on-ramp area, in a competitive car and there’s this immediate “we will now battle for dominance” acknowledgment. For the most part, these are as harmless as a quick sprint to highway-speed plus about 10 mph for good measure, nothing dangerous.

Yesterday, there was such an incident. There I was, minding my own business, and suddenly an E63 Mercedes, rippling with it’s 507 HP appeared right in front of me, dad in front, 2 8-10 year old boys in back. The head movements in the E63 told me everything that was happening in the car and what was about to occur. This is what transpired:
“Dad, there’s a Porsche behind us. Is that faster than this car?”
“Oh no son, not a chance, this car has 200 more horsepower than that little Porsche”
“Are you sure dad? it looks fast”
“Ok kids, sit down in your seat and I’ll show you”
[Loud noises as the E63 hurls itself forward onto the Interstate]
“Dad, he’s still right behind us. Are you sure you’re pressing the pedal all the way?”
Silence, other than the roar of the V8

I happen to like the AMG Mercedes cars and would happily have a CLK63 or even an older CLK55. Nothing wrong with them, fast as stink and the interior is just gorgeous. It’s just not a sports car, its a sporty GT or sedan, which is not better or worse, it’s just different. It’s not meant to launch to triple digits like a scalded chimp, it’s meant to pull hard and cruise on the highway at 140 without complaining about crosswinds, road quality or ride quality. My car will happily complain about everything while giving you a frighteningly fun ride.

Name the reference in a comment. I dare you.

Yes, it’s happening, the galactic collapse of social media is happening. No no no, this is a GOOD collapse. All of these cool apps have been out there in the Internet tubes getting lots of peeps but until major parts and minor parts come together in better collections, it’s all a mess and kind of useless. For example, a house is made up of 2X4s sheet rock, shingles, doors, trim, paint, concrete, stone, brick, nails, you get the picture. If they’re spread out all over the place on the ground and around the neighborhood, it’s hard to track, things go missing, it’s not a house. It’s just parts. A lot of social media is that way but it’s starting to coalesce into areas.

Google has done a good job of snapping up properties like youtube, picasa, blogger, talk, docs, gmail etc. And, it all kind of, sort of, fits into iGoogle. I didn’t mention Orkut because, well, no offense but, I know no one who uses it. Hey, it’s probably good. iGoogle, like my.yahoo and other personal dashboards were great when they started but didn’t evolve a whole lot. Here and there widgets popped up but with social media being so hot, so diverse, so rapid in growth, people got caught up in their Twitters, re.dig-u-lose-whatever, mo-blogging, gps-enabled-cu-see-me, facebook stuff, they didnt pay any attention to the fact that they were going to have to track all this stuff and pretty soon invite-fatigue set in.

Invite-fatigue is a chronic disorder of social media participants who are constantly joining sites, inviting friends, setting up profiles and managing invites from other friends. It’s a job in itself to constantly track who might have joined facebook since the last time you let it fondle your Yahoo address book, AIM list, Plaxo and Linked-In accounts. Oh, and Outlook. I’m surprised everyone isnt just passed out at their keyboards with bleeding eyes and swollen fingers. Perhaps you are.

And in the midst of all of this amazing innovation, Netvibes, a dashboard provider or moderate popularity releases Ginger. Ginger hooks into just about all of the major social media apps and I’d be surprised if within 90 days, everything else in the long tail of SM apps are not addresses, wrapped up into widgets and festooning peoples private and public pages.

Now that’s a very cool thing there that almost went under the radar. In essence, you can now make a public “web page” (I hate calling it that) built on SM widgets, RSS feeds, web-page inserts, calendars (I included my own compiled 2008 road racing calendar) and then layer in tabs so you’re essentially making a destination site. How do you like that?

Netvibes is now way out in front of everyone else in this space. If they didn’t do anything for 6 months, they’d still be out in front. They’ve essentially created personal portals for all aspects of social media. The game has changed, I think that now everyone in the space understands what’s at stake and if they want to be a player they’re either owning the SM properties, building SM properties or applying metrics to measure the marketing / sales values of SM properties. Game on.

By the time something hits national circulation (Headline news, People, Time, Newsweek) whatever it is, is a was, and it’s old news, probably dead, and teenagers, tastemakers and anyone in the know has already been there, done that and sold the carcass on eBay at a profit to get out before the B&T people mung it up lest they be associated with the pasty faced philistines who are just now arriving.

I don’t fancy myself that far up at the bleeding edge but I’d be horrified to think that I just found out about something cool by reading a weekly magazine. I’m at least cool enough to not be there. I hope.

Julie sent me a note on Absinthe that was posted on Trend Central which I’m taking as Official Coolness Death Notice. Now we’ll see this in every bar until it finally, but assuredly gets to Applebees where ordering it would be akin to a scarlet letter of not cool.

Not so? How about the Mojito, Apple Martini, Caiperiena, Maxican Martini and espresso martini? All very cool little drinks that have made it beyond the cool membrane and entered the mainstream. Are you now acusing me of being an indie drink snob? Well, I might be. I favor the Modest Mouse of drinks rather than the Kelly Clarksons. That’s just me. Call me a snob if you like.

I’m the same way with beer, but beer is a slower burn and often you can stay underground for years. I like Kronenbourg 1664, a very nice French brew that is pretty much the Budweiser of France. It’s not fancy in any way, not some special hops or barley, nothing spectacular of note, just a nice Lager (could be a pilsner, I honestly don’t know) that I like and now can find at a few grocery stores. I’m also a fan of the Hogarden which is a great white beer and Shiner Bock (a bock… and the Bud of Central Texas) and Newcastle. The last two, not weird or indie or rare at all which is what’s nice about beer. It’s not as susceptible to being rought into an indie-beer mold. It can be, but beer is more ‘common’ even if it’s a ‘fancy’ Chimay. So, call me two-faced. I find it annoying that drinks go mainstream but I don’t care if beer does. I might not be able to explain that.

But back to absinthe. I’ve enjoyed an absinthe here and there for a few years and even bartered for some “artisan” hand crafted absinthe at Burning Man in 2001. I tried samples here and there in soft-spoken establishments in Europe where it’s been served, quietly, for almost 80 years. And now it’s legal and everyone knows. Good. Good for the brewers like Anchor in SF (who make an UNREAL gin, BTW) who will likely capitalize on this but we’ll also see it turned into something of a party trick and there will be lower-end offerings that just spoil any “interesting” aspects of it, rendering it pedestrian, boring and ultimately, a dusty bottle in the liquor store when people realize that it’s charm is in it’s craft and subtlty, not in the other hyped and silly aspects that are completely lost in 20,000 gallon stills. It will end up as a weird sister of Ouzo and thats sad, that the sun will be allowed to shine on it and that while it will be free, it will at the same time die.

So, in my quest to stay away from the boring drinks, I’m taking a hard right turn and embracing an old vet that needs a good shaking off, Mr. Harvey Wallbanger. Essentially a screwdriver with a good dash of Galliano. It’s a fun story, easy to make and very nice to alternate with a good Pimms. What’s a Pimms you ask? Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything.

Dammit dammit dammit… I need to stay ahead of this stuff better.

I can see how that’s enough to wipe out a bunch of zombies.

And yes, you just got rick rolled.

Well, that was awkward. I wonder if he left her a voicemail after the game “hey, it was a joke, hahahaha, LOVE ME!!!”

While people are being sues for downloading a few songs here and there in the US, IP infringement about 4X in magnitude is in full swing with our largest trade partners.

While the intended brand knock-off is obvious, it’s also obviously fake and probably not worth chasing people around to make them cease and desist. As if they would cease or desist. So we pick on US residents in an effort to take out corporate rage on someone.

What’s worse, www.nire.com.cn doesnt even work! What a scam.

I’m more of a cremation guy myself but if you’re going to be remembered, why not have your image immortalized on granite, with your car, in color, 8′ tall…

It seems that mid-90′s E-Class Mercedes are still very popular with Russian mobsters as in image of these cars seems to be standard issue on their tombstones. As are cigarettes, lighters, gold chains, and the requisite horrible font.

What scares me the most is the first guy looks like he could be on my father’s side of the family who are from that area of Russia. So, that’s why I secretly find this so appealing.

We got the message, thank you very much. HD-DVD is dead. There is no need to trumpet it over and over again, every single day from every hill-top. We’re clear on the concept, Sony won, there are lots of parties in Tokyo and the Big Machines of Industry are ramping up production. Everyone is calling for the impending price-drops around Blu-ray players and media. Yay. Not quite yet.

In all of the bloodshed we forgot why the formats were different and how Blu-ray is not exactly “friendly”. Blu-ray is about content control. I don’t need to spend too much time on this but it’s a matter of months before it’s cracked and Blu-ray rips are all over the torrents making the Interwebs even more crowded. It’s just a fact, lets not pretend it’s not going to happen.

That’s not what I’m interested in, I dont have any need for downloading 25GB movies, it’s just not worth it, VOD and Netflix are far simpler. What I do care about is the fact that none of the Blu-ray players support xvid / divx / dvd-mp3 etc. Since we all know that a $50 Philips DVD player from Walmart will play just about anything you throw at it, I could wonder why a $500 player doesn’t. But I don’t wonder. I know the reason, it’s control. It’s the same control that’s in play with Apple TV not playing other formats like Divx & WMV, they want to control how you consume media and that’s not good for the consumer. You see, I edit video and like to encode it into XviD for online and DVD distribution. So, I’m going to have to own 3 DVD players now? (XBOX, Philips & Blu-ray)? Thats just stupid.

So, here’s what needs to change:
1. Apple TV, allow more codecs (the ones people use)
2. MS, same deal, you opened it up half way but now you need to do it for the Extenders too
3. Blu-ray player makers, don’t alienate the consumer when there is a real legitimate need here

How legitimate is it? With all of the video recorders moving to MPEG4, many of which encode directly to divx, that’s how people edit and record their home movies. Video editing is making its way into the home at a rapid pace and people are sharing a lot of video. The players that work with the most formats will win over the ones that have the best Faroudja processors.

So, when I see a player that plays nice with my formats, I’ll upgrade my Netflix account, get that Mitsubishi Diamond 64″ 1080p DLP rear-projection screen and figure out which receiver I’ll be getting (probably the new Pioneer Elite).

Until then, my money stays in my pocket.

I like WordPress but I’m having issues… A bunch of the plugins are just not working and it’s making me completely insane. I can post and do the important stuff but little things like the social media bookmarking is wonky. The kicker is that these plugins are “supported” through the developers comment sections on their own WP blogs. If we needed proof that comments are just about useless for anything other than “commenting”, this confirms it. Have they not heard of VBulletin?

Having lived in LA for a long time I found that the bigger the car (SUV) +
more gizmos = distracted & bad drivers. It’s bad here too and I HATE to be
that guy but. people used to drive better before all those gadgets.

Full disclosure, I contributed to an O’reilly book on how to install a
complete PC in your dashboard and even had a touch-screen with windows XP in
the dash of my 04 Yukon. And you know what, it was completely distracting.
Particularly when the good parts of a movie were playing while on my morning
commute. Nothing like Ronin in the morning. I can’t imagine the cacophony of
a fully loaded media-laden minivan filled with squealing kids and SpongeBob.
It’s no wonder more people don’t wreck.

Since trading in the Yukon (which I truly loved and I still miss) I find
great pleasure in my noisy Carrera where it’s far too loud to be on the
phone and the car has (as most 911s do) few if any “convenience” features
(does PSM count?). My wife picked up a new A3 Sportback in October and it’s
just as bare as a 911 which is so nice. Audi does simple very well. The idea
of some silly I-Drive, NAV screen, dash-o-buttons is so repellant to me. And
I’m a full-bore gadget freak. It’s just that in the car there are some
priorities (for me at least); awareness of my surroundings, safety and the
sound of an engine barking behind me. IMHO, that should be enough, right?

I want to drive this. I couldn’t own it for fear of Greenpeace RPGs but the looks one would get driving down the street would be PRICELESS.

Super Tuesday ended up giving me a bit of hope. My fear was that we, as a country, have become so backwards that right-wing ignorance would prevail (fear, hate, willful-dumbness) and we’d see the posterboy for all things diabolical Romney get the nod from “issues” voters. In a shocking twist, we’re not all that bad.

It seems that people don’t want to go back to the dark ages with the Mit-ster. Glad to hear it. No surprise that he got 90% in Utah. Romney as president is a truly frightening thought. But it looks like we’re going to see him fade back as John comes to the front and while I support the left side, he’s not a bad guy and is a huge departure from the current wacko nonsense.

As fas as Clinton & Obama, I’m curious to see it play out. They’re so embroiled in trading punches they might make themselves look bad in the process.

By the 12th we’ll have a very good idea who will have the most delegates and we can move on to the fun part of naming VPs and a good race. I’m looking forward to the next 2 weeks, we’re in for some excitement.

People love to beat up the Hummer. I have no real opinion either way. They get low MPG but no less than a Yukon, so if the big GM super-SUV is bad, they all are. I think it’s more to do with the look what draws the ire.

I actually like the design but the interior is a bit cheap looking for what you pay. In what seems like an ironic branding exercise, I found mention of a Hummer scooter. Since the scooter is the ultimate economical motor-transit, it’s funny to see one dressed as a hummer.

Assume, for a moment, it got the same MPG as a Vespa. Would it still be evil? I don’t know, but it looks like fun. As long as no one I know saw me on it.

Not sure what hooning is but apparently it’s something people do on either snowboards or in 300hp 4wd rally cars…

Gartner puts out some great reports. They do, I have a bunch that are kind of old and still refer to them. That said, the report today that pronounces Blu-Ray as the format winner is a bit of a face-palm…

Perhaps I read the news on this stuff more than most so I knew as soon as WB broke up with HD-DVD there was another disk in their life. I’d like to see a WB – HD-DVD facebook defriending parody of that…

I guess some people didn’t get the memo. Those people probably don’t get most memos…

So I did something about it. I used to respond to each one, trying to tell my n00b friend that Bill Gates is not sending her $1000 to forward an email. But I’m tired. People get on the Internet every day for the first time and I get stuff from 1999 sent to me as if it’s the funniest thing evar!

So, I drafted a form letter. It tries to cover all the bases when you get a forward from someone that makes your eyes roll. Instead of getting mad, sent this:

Hello [friend / co-worker / family member / person who had my address from a CC]

I am responding to your recent email because I *care* and
I don’t want you to get kicked off the Internet for forwarding (one or more of the following)
- Bad Jokes
- Chain letters
- Wild claims / Amazing News – Facts
- Political propaganda

Please understand that I get enough of these kinds of emails that I found it more economical
To simply create a single catch-all that addresses the majority of cases.

The email you forwarded to me is / are:
- Urban legend presented as truth
- Unfounded claims about a political / public figure
- Old jokes from before the ENIAC

I, in no way, am trying to embarrass you or make you feel silly.
I am sending this response in an effort to help you not get fooled by
the myriad of silliness that goes on on-line.

Before forwarding any more emails, I suggest doing some research. You will learn new things, and help stem the spreading of misinformation.

http://www.snopes.com – This is the repository for nearly all urban / internet legends. What you sent to me may be listed in there. You’ll be amazed at what you may have thought to be true.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/ – This is the repository for nearly every question asked. Try there too.

http://www.google.com – Of course, a Google search will also likely help clear up any questions you have about the validity of what you just received and are about to send to a hundred or so unsuspecting people.

A few things to note:

- Not all “news” sites are real. Some are fake and just look real.
- Most “amazing facts” emails are full of things that are simply not true. I promise you Washington was the first president.
- Be suspect of anything forwarded to you that makes wild claims Like “Obama was sworn in on the Koran”
- Be suspect of anything that is “something for nothing” Like “Bill Gates giving you $1000 to forward an email”
- eBay, Citibank and PayPal don’t need to “verify” your account. If you are contacted by any institution asking you to “verify” information, call their corporate #.
- Never, ever, ever, never, ever, ever give out your personal information unless you KNOW the site is what you think it is

The Internet is a great place but it requires a bit of a cynical eye. Don’t take things at face value, so some research and you’ll have a better, safer and more enjoyable experience.

–

Or some version of that. That way, you just cut and paste, even better, make a special Sig with that and you can just add that sig to any forwards you respond to.

If only all my predictions would come true so quickly. Ginger, a new version of Netvibes is picking up where Plaxo was going before they decided it was time to put their company up for sale. They might have to take the sign out of the window since I think Ginger might beat them senseless right out of the gate.

With Plaxo and now Ginger, we’re seeing the first of what will be called “the great aggregation” and all of my far-flung social apps will come carpet-bagging to one central hub.

Will the existing, super-sites get right into a street fight to buy these new focal points? Only time will tell. One thing is certain, the universe of social sites is still expanding but the opposing forces are in play and we’ll soon see needed contraction. Now all I need is a private-beta password for Ginger

I had read this article in this months issue and while this is not my area of expertise, the idea that trends are truly random and come from anywhere is shockingly oversimplified in a way only a PHD could conjure up.

Trends are not total anarchy, the fact is there are people who can see patterns in places where most see noise and they can also get ahead of it sometimes. Perhaps this guy never went to high school where trends come from the “trendy kids”. And he never watched TV where things people wear / use etc in a video (do they even play videos anymore?), TV show etc tend to be pushed up to the top of likely hot things.

I think he’s way too focused on these “mystery” trends that come out of left field but the likelihood there is he’s so far intellectually and culturally removed from those trend epicenters, he can’t even conceptualize that there was a purposeful activity behind it before it became cool. That there are groups of people who are highly likely to be close to it and those that are not. Take for example New York City. Sample Forest Hills and the East Village. I will guarantee that more trends will come out of the East Village. That’s not random, it’s the fact that Forest Hills is not a place where things come from, the East Village is. That alone ruins the forest fire theory unless he also included some formula for particularly sappy trees that tend to hang out in the same place, wear skinny jeans and listen to indie-rock.

What I don’t find surprising is that this silly notion comes from a PHD in academia, which is where you find the people most removed from any semblance of real-world rules as opposed to their favored vacuum-based testing. I find this hypothesis to be somewhat typical of people who live in ivory towers of education. The real-world is too messy and unpredictable; it’s far less stressful to just apply a formula to everything, run some tests and file that problem away as a simple equation where it ends up being a general density of randomness and rules it as a permutation of chaos-theory. Plus, he gets his publishing credit which is their type of currency.

I won’t argue that there are some out-of-left-field trends that start like a SoCal brushfire but in most cases, it’s a weird kind of social-object meritocracy mixed with those ingredients of timing, right exposure, political climate and in some cases a champion / promoter (stylist). And even then, the person / people involved, call them “Trendy Patient 0” are, very likely, part of a segment of the population where likelihood of a trend starting with or around them is higher than most.

This quote almost sounds like people are completely hapless and clumsily bump into things:

“To succeed with a new product, it’s less a matter of finding the perfect hipster to infect and more a matter of gauging the public’s mood. Sure, there’ll always be a first mover in a trend. But since she generally stumbles into that role by chance, she is, in Watts’s terminology, an “accidental Influential.”

It completely dismisses the idea that there are people who are more likely to be in a position to spread or start, or spot the early signs of a trend. And that these hapless bumblers are the ones who generate these trends, advertisers have no option to just market their products everywhere in hopes that they’ll get the attention of these unwitting trendsetters. Since it could be anyone, anywhere. Like Publishers Clearinghouse, YOU COULD BE A WINNER.

It’s almost the notion that you, me, anyone could start something, and not even know it! It’s the new American Dream, instant popularity, fame, money, all without thought behind it. All without effort. Some simple thing I do today could be the next plastic bit of nonsense that plugs into the already heinous Crocks. Or I could be the next king of Pogs or Beanie Babies. I could be the next American Idol! Well, no. It’s not that simple. Sure, Pogs were random, but if the pimply fat kid was the one in the schoolyard playing with milk bottle caps (as I am sure there have been for a long time), we’d not know of Pogs. I would bet that an influential was the one who played with them and that’s where it started to take off.

This all reinforces the concept of influentials but it makes me think of what makes these people special. I suspect that these people are born marketing folk. They have an eye for what could be hot and have a knack for showing off what they like and what they don’t.

I guess this touches a nerve for me around my particular distaste for pontificating academics that live in cloistered communities where they never have to practice their theories in real life or suffer real repercussions when they don’t work. Theories are nice and all but on earth, we use methods that professors hate, like gut, experience, feel.

We might get one or two cool things from Forest Hills but it will never be the East Village. If you want to know who the influentials are, you have to look at where rich cultures live, where concepts are thrown around, where creativity thrives, you’ll find hot-spots. The same thing goes on on-line, in forums. 4chan is where so many of those funny photos we all pass around come from. It’s a disproportionate number, that and PhotoshopPhriday.

While it’s hard, if not impossible to predict if a singular item itself will end up as a trend, you don’t have to go too high up to get a perspective of where to look for them starting. That’s not random. That’s the point of marketing, and understanding the culture, the public, the markets, the existing trends and everything else that makes up our wonderfully interesting marketplace. It’s also not something that can be or should be explained with a damn formula.

AP: Istanbul, Turkey 03:20 GMT

Matt Corey, Commissioner of local TAR nerd conclave has refused to take any interviews since a Washing Reporter uncovered documents linking him with a number of off-shore TAR accounts, some with balances topping $11.79USD.

Travis County Assistant District Attorney, Dan Stenchmeister has issued a statement that Matt is only “a person of interest” in a seemingly unrelated open investigation relating to the disappearance of 3 Buggaboo strollers from a Cedar Park shopping center.

ADA Stenchmeister would not confirm if he believed that Matt was / is involved with an international organized TAR crime syndicate but did admit that Matt “might talk a little too much shit for his own damn good”.

Although Corey has left the country, his office has faxed in his official resignation to the home TAR Nerd offices, which will take effect immediately. His office refused several requests for an interview.

Matt’s wife Sandy was quoted as saying “Don’t expect me to pick up his slack, he’s just too lazy to do it and I hate Excel”. It would seem that the fate of future TAR events are up in the air until a new Commish is named.

According to the rules, a new Commish is named through a Rube-Goldberg-esque selection process that involves ping-pong balls, darts, 2 gallons of cottage cheese and 9 ferrets.

PETA is still reeling from the last election.

I can’t stop talking about how many invitations I’m getting from people on new social networks here and there. It’s just insane and I know I’m part of the majority of internet users who are experiencing the same thing.

The problem is, most of these sites are useful, have innovative features and add value to some degree. The frustration is, they’re all still disconnected and just managing them is a nightmare.

I found yet another one today, Dopplr.com which lets you publish your travel dates and locations so you and your friends / contacts can meet up on the road. Well, dammit, I like that. I think it’s useful. Crap. Now I have ANOTHER social networking site that I need to:
1. Make a whole new account
2. Populate a profile
3. Upload my address book
4. Invite a few hundred people
5. Manage ad infinitum…

But, it’s cool! Ugh. I’m reaching critical mass here. I didn’t sign up yet due to my ongoing social-network-participation-agony.

In 2007 we saw some very cool evolutions in social networking. That was the trickle, 2008 is the flood. I predict we’ll have about 16 months of merging, launching, crashing, hacking, mass-opt-ins, mass-opt-outs and general mayhem as some new kids come out of the blocks with Facebook-killers, new all-tie-in platforms (where it connects all networks together) and some old-timers either evolve or die.

Summer 2009, the landscape of social networks will be completely different than it is now. We’ll have seen more of the underbelly (bad people doing bad things to good people and it gets on the news), the mergers, the acquisitions, the IPOs, the busts and what is left standing will be likely about 3 major players that have sucked in all of the cool widgets, add-ons, functions and combined into social megaliths (Imagine Linked-In, Evite, ofoto, Dopplr, twitter, youtube, facebook and blogger in one. Then add some other junk in there and swirl it around).

The question was, how will they monetize? Funny thing is, these sites and where they will ultimately end up are the reverse evolutions of the ancient gated communities that made up the ‘net back in the early days. It’s just that the content is going to be more user generated. But the money, where does that come from? I know that having all these eyeballs in one place is important but I fail to see the revenue model beyond ad sales. If Facebook is worth $1B, I’d like to see the plan that shows how it’s going to support that value.

Comcast simply cut off a number of big bandwidth users a while back without notice. While I expect that sort of behavior from companies that don’t care about this things called “customer service” it does come back to bite them. The issue was a small number of people were hogging up all the pipes. I know a bit about networks and know that a few chatty systems can make the network suck for everyone else. So what they did might not have been all that bad had they simply had a policy in place that people would actually read, charge for tiers of service, and give notice if someone is maxing out their pipe thereby degrading the experience for everyone else. But, they marketed their service as unlimited and therefore, in effect, lied.

Time Warner seems to have learned a lesson from Comcast in that they are aware that certain people are jamming the pipes and that small group should have to pay for their usage. They may actually go about it in a smart way by changing their service to a tiered system where if you’re downloading 40GB a month, you pay for it. I see that as reasonable, hosting providers have done that since day one, you use X amount, you pay per GB at a certain level. It’s simple and I don’t see an issue there, you just have to be above board about it.

We all know exactly what traffic type is clogging up the pipes, its Torrents. People are downloading movies which is another thing altogether. When Comcast tried to play it down as “traffic shaping” they essentially used QoS to put Torrents at the bottom of the IP priority list which is effective but deceptive.

I believe that there should be QoS with voice and network services (ICMP, DHCP, DNS etc) at the top, then HTTP, chat, and everything else at the bottom. But picking one particular protocol or packet type is not the solution because Torrents will evolve and possibly pretend to be HTTP or even voice traffic and we’ll be in a world of hurt.

I’m willing to pay for specific services from my ISP like a dedicated IP, guaranteed bandwidth and more than anything else, consistent connectivity. If I’m subjected to rational QoS, fine. But playing with the network and lying about it is not ok.

I expect to see TW use this as a marketing tool to sell more bandwidth. If the demand goes up, someone has to pay for it and if a few hundred / thousand torrent pigs make my service suck, they need to pay more to subsidize infrastructure upgrades.