Retro Episode of Science Friday

Friday's Science Friday was a rerun of an episode from 1993. They discussed the nascent and emerging internet. This is the timeframe as it was moving beyond academia and military only users, and beginning to be embraced by the broader public. Definitely, this was an interesting program considering how important and central the internet has become to our entire culture: media, education, government, commerce, etc.

Novell's management dumps company

Yesterday, Novell's management found the buyer they have been looking for. Good luck to Hovespin and the rest of Novell's ex-management team. Now that they've put this computer BS behind them they can get into that really profitable business they've always dreamed of. Look for them to be selling Florida timeshares. Then again, they may be content to take it easy and lay of the beach for the rest of their lives. Afterall, they could be set for life and retire. It's a sure bet that management will get a big slice of the $2.2B sale price and the $450M from Microsoft.

This looks like Novell's final white flag. It looks like they flat out gave up and surrendered because they were unable to compete. Too bad their imagination is so limited. RedHat and IBM continue to see free software/open source software as a vehicle to drive sales of services. Let's see if new management can do something with Suse, or if it withers and dies. It's hard to say, because customer relationships are very important. If it is rough transition, then it could be a windfall for RedHat as Suse's enterprise customers exit in droves. It definitely looks like Attachmate could have overpaid, especially considering the big spoonful of bad will that spiked the deal at the end. Whatever good will was leftover from Novell's benevolent actions in SCO vs. "world" lawsuits has just evaporated.

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Aron Ralston on Radio West

Friday's Radio West was a rebroadcast of an interview with Aron Ralston in advance of the movie release. This is one of the best Radio West's episodes ever, absolutely compelling radio.

Warning: The surgeon general has determined...

Warning: The surgeon general has determined that cigarette smoking is hazardous to your health.

The sequence of events presented in the movie, Thank you for smoking are coming to pass. The congress is considering putting graphic pictures of cancers and tumors on cigarette packages, replacing the written warnings. Actually, this is a notch farther than the "captain hook" skull and cross-bones (for poison) logo which was debated in the movie. Canada already has graphic warnings on their cigarette packages. This was discussed on a recent episode of On Point.

The real question is whether the new warnings (if approved), would be more effective than the written warning. I tend to agree with Denis Leary's routine on No Cure for Cancer. This seems to be more on the mark,

It doesn't matter how big the warnings on the cigarettes are; you could have a black pack, with a skull and crossbones on the front, called TUMORS, and smokers would be around the block going, "I can't wait to get my hands on these fucking things! I bet ya get a tumor as soon as you light up!"

Another terrific TAL with the Planet Money Team

The "Planet Money" team has done some terrific stories on understanding the whole financial mess, going back to their first one where they explained the spaghetti of knots that tied CDOs (collateral debt obligations) together. Their latest story is the summary of their idea to buy a toxic asset and hope for the best. The reporters put down $1000 dollars of their own money to buy "Toxie", the toxic asset, a mortgage backed security. It was pretty much a roulette style bet for them. Actually, they had a better chance on red/black, because that is close to a 50-50 chance of success. The way that they tell their story makes the whole thing a lot more real. They discovered that their toxic asset was a microcosm of the mortgage crisis as a whole.

p.s. This American Life is great radio. The current week's show is available as a free mp3 download directly from their site. Here is the episode about "toxie," the Toxic asset. Also, I am not on iTunes, but it appears you can get back episodes there.

After Tax Vote, Ballmer set to cash out.

Here is my blogpost, hosted on another site.

Michael Caine Interview

Michael Caine discussed his extensive career, including over 100 films, with Dave Davies on today's Fresh Air. The clip from the Cider House Rules is the most poignant line from the film, and perhaps Caine's entire career. I went away wanting to see the other films mentioned, including Sleuth; I might have dismissed it based on its title alone- the clip gives it more context. His impression of director, John Huston was dead on, too.

The rest of the hour was very good, with one exception. Maureen Corrigan's dialog was as disjointed a piece of journalism as has been included on the program. Everyone's a critic, but really, back to the old drawing board.

Interview with Douglas Rushkoff

Douglas Rushkoff was interviewed on today's On Point. He was introduced as a "big thinker" about how humans are interacting with new technology, in the school of Marshall McLuhan.* I agree with his main assertion that networked computers (internet) is the biggest revolution since the invention of written text. He was also part of the Frontline documentary, Digital Nation. He reaffirms the assertions from that documentary and amplifies some themes:

Being born into the digital culture (immersion) does not automatically give the person a leg up on technology. It still takes work/desire to learn the things beyond the superficial layer.

Multitasking is not faster, even if the user believes he is very good at it.

Facebook (and other online social networks) do not exist primarily as a way to "make friends." Like any business entity, they exist to make money and otherwise "monetize" their online community. Rushkoff's explanation hit the nail on the head when he said that Facebook is asking users to build and to add to their known "consumer profile."

Update: 2011-01-26
I have been thinking over "Rushkoff's Rules" and I posted the following comment to the On Point discussion:

I found the program interesting, and I agree with many of the author's premises. He hits the mark on many points, especially about commercial entities like Facebook. However, I am not sure that his ninth rule is entirely on target. The digital nature of data with near zero cost of duplication and transmission dramatically changes the playing field. The internet allows anyone to self publish their work and cut out the middleman entirely. Some notable artist are onboard with the change and have given away creative works (Radiohead -> "In Rainbows", BF -> "Memento Mori", etc.)

There is valuable information that can be had for near zero cost. The wikipedia is the most prominent example of in depth world knowledge online and available to anyone with an internet connection.

There is also valueable software that can be obtained for no monetary cost. The free software and opensource software movements provide a working set of tools that can provide a set of baseline tools for accessing the digital world around us. Richard Stallman's GPL software license gives users rights that are unusual, especially in this context, where Rushkoff says that nothing is free. Stallman counters with these rights as part of his software license:

0. the freedom to use the work,
1. the freedom to study the work,
2. the freedom to copy and share the work with others,
3. the freedom to modify the work, and the freedom to distribute modified and therefore derivative works.

Ironically, Rushkoff is advocating studying the work (listed above as Freedom 1.) It seems like Rushkoff and Stallman should be more on the same page with one another, rather than Rushkoff's blanket statement that "nothing is free."