Day One Hundred Thirty One

Dustin Diaz posted a photo: 131/365. Thank you, Mario... but our Princess is in another castle ~ Super Mario Bros. (NES 1985) I found this awesome belt buckle in a thrift store. Seriously, it rules... but I'd never "actually" wear it out "for reals"... or would I? But more to the point, did anyone ever play this game... and get to that point where you'd jump thru hoops and fire pits, dodge hammer bros, stomp turtles, run underneath dragons... only to get to some stupid toad to tell you "our princess is in another freakin' castle!!!" How nerve racking! Anyhow, more on the stuffs... that fancy watch was a gift for my birthday (last year). There is an inscription that says "console.debug(Date());" — that's JavaScript nerd talk for logging the date to your browser console. Lastly, this may be the closest thing I will release to the public that is almost a straight up crotch shot. For those seriously concerned with the techy details, read on... camera, setup, strobist info: see here

Chrysler dealerships worry about what's next

In the days after Chrysler's Chapter 11 filing, people are watching closely to see if consumers are still willing to buy cars from an automaker that's in bankruptcy court. The industry has warned that carmakers can't go into Chapter 11 like other companies, because people won't buy a car from a bankrupt automaker. But there's evidence at dealerships around the country that people are still willing to shop for Chrysler vehicles. Some are bargain hunters. Some are there out of a sense of duty, trying to do something good for their country. And others may just want a Chrysler, Dodge or Jeep and are ready to buy. Still, dealers are nervous. They worry whether they'll be around in a few months, once Chrysler gets around to closing some portion of its 3,200 dealers, a number it says it wants to trim. They worry that production shutdowns Chrysler has closed its plants for at least a month will leave them without anything to sell in a couple of months. And they worry, mostly, about the uncertainty of what's to come. Like any good salesman, though, dealers are trying to put an optimistic spin on the situation. "America loves an underdog," says Alan Wilson, president of Howard Wilson Chrysler-Jeep-Suzuki in the Jackson, Miss., metro area. "America has always rallied to people when they are down on their luck."Consumer website Edmunds.com says Chrysler dealers got an initial bump in interest after its bankruptcy filing. Web searches for Chrysler products jumped 15%, Edmunds says. "Maybe the Chrysler bankruptcy announcement attracted the bargain shoppers, who may think a bankruptcy is the same as liquidation with price-busting clearance sales," says Michelle Krebs, editor of Edmunds.com's AutoObserver. Dealers back that up. They say customers are coming into the showroom and making outrageously low offers, expecting dealers to take any price just to sell a car. Edmunds.com's most recent data indicate that Chryslers already were selling for an average of 18.1% below sticker price before the bankruptcy filing. The industry average discount is 15.6%.Some people are overly optimistic about markdowns. Gary Burnett, sales manager at Bill Luke Chrysler, Jeep & Dodge in Phoenix, says one buyer wanted a 75% discount."That's a $25,000 car right there," Burnett says, pointing to a shiny 2009 Dodge Journey. "A guy came in and offered me $6,000 for it, including tax and license. He said, 'Well, you guys are going bankrupt anyway ' " What does bankruptcy mean? Not everyone knows what it means for Chrysler to be in Chapter 11, which leaves some people believing cars will be sold off in a fire sale because Chrysler is going out of business. The truth is, there's a chance Chrysler could face liquidation. That would mean the Chrysler as we know it the U.S.-based carmaker that produces Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge brand cars and trucks would be sold off for its parts, possibly splitting the brands and selling off the factories and machinery. But we're not at that point. Far from it. The automaker is in court attempting to restructure its debt, something that doesn't affect the average consumer. It's closed its plants temporarily, but dealers are still selling cars, and the company is still operating. Chrysler is trying to get a judge to agree to let Italian automaker Fiat take control of its operations and to force debt holders to agree to take shares in the new company. Dealers will hear soon whether they've made the cut, but Chrysler hasn't said when it'll make the notifications. So far, Chrysler hasn't said how many franchises it seeks to slash nor revealed the criteria for deciding who goes. It's attempting to get through bankruptcy quickly, in 60 days or less, and last week a major hurdle to that was overcome. Dissident lenders who sought to strike a better deal than Chrysler had offered for their bonds gave up and disbanded. Chrysler will push the court to help it dispose of unwanted dealers, although dealers may fight back. Cutting dealer ranks could affect customers eventually if it means a dealer they've bought from in the past no longer sells Chryslers. When customers raise concerns about Chrysler's business woes, "You inform them there's different types of bankruptcies, and we're not in the bad one," says salesman Jonathan Prater of Canandaigua Chrysler in Canandaigua, N.Y.Still, all the unknowns are leaving dealers fielding questions they don't quite know the answers to. "Do you know if you're getting the new Challenger SE model V-6 with the five-speed automatic this spring?" Henry Pilichowski asked Bob Weiss, sales manager at Carman Chrysler Jeep Dodge in New Castle, Del. Pilichowski of Wilmington, Del., was waiting for his 2005 Dodge Magnum station wagon to be serviced last Wednesday."I don't know, buddy. Everything's up in the air," Weiss said. "Crazy time."Alan Wilson, president of Howard Wilson Chrysler/Jeep/Suzuki in Jackson, Miss., says he's worried about having enough cars and trucks on his lot later this summer. Last year, he scaled back inventory because sales were starting to fall. With Chrysler's plants closed, he's in serious danger of running out. He says he has about two to three months' worth of inventory on his lot."If my factories are down for two months, and it takes six weeks to get a car shipped, do the math: I'll be out of cars by August," he says.And will the dealership even be here in six months? That's something that nags at dealers even as they try to paint an optimistic picture. Larry Giacchino, owner of Carman Chrysler Jeep Dodge in New Castle, Del., says it takes him about 30 seconds to fall asleep at night because he's not worried at all about the business. Later, though, he acknowledges he fears he may get bad news in the mail soon, when Chrysler notifies dealers who they plan to close. Giacchino thinks he's well-positioned to survive with a clean, new building on a local highway and a full range of Chrysler vehicles. "I'm knocking on wood," he says.In Phoenix, Kim Carter, general manager at Bill Luke Chrysler, Jeep & Dodge, says he realizes some dealerships need to be closed. "It needs to be done," he says. "I hope ours isn't one of them. But there are too many dealers too much inventory."Despite worries and confusion, dealers have found one of their most important roles has become being cheerleaders for their staffs through the tough time and talking up the future. After enduring a tough sales weekend following Chrysler's bankruptcy filing, Jackson dealer Wilson told his sales staff to take their spouses out to dinner on him. "They worked hard, and it has been an emotional and mentally stressful time," he says. 'We have to sell cars' Wilson had a meeting with employees the day after the filing to pass on all the information he had about the car company's future, prospects for new inventory and how the dealership planned to carry on."I told them, 'The thing is, guys, we have to sell cars,' " he says. "We've got 60 employees here who have to take a paycheck home. What they do in Washington, D.C., or Detroit, Mich., I can't control."In Phoenix, Carter says he's had to reassure customers who are worried lifetime warrantees won't be honored or that parts might be unavailable if Chrysler folds. "We told them, 'Everything is going to be OK,' " Carter says. "And that was the truth, because we were told all along that what the press was publishing (about Chrysler's demise) was not the true facts." Now, he says, he's looking forward to selling Fiats, the small Italian cars with better gas mileage. Things will be especially good if gas prices go up again. "We're going to be a brand-new company now," he says.Contributing: Maureen Milford of The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal, Chris Joyner of The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger, Matthew Daneman of the (Rochester, N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle and Dennis Wagner of The Arizona Republic.

Businesses, phones & India

I am starting to believe that Indian businesses don't know how to do business on a phone. The large corporations (such as ICICIs and Godrejs and Pizza Huts) get the point to a reasonable extent. But, there are multiple issues.First, there aren't a great lot of large corporations in India. So, you are most likely going to encounter many small businesses in your life time in India for everyday requirements.Second, it doesn't seem like the large corporations are putting in a great lot of effort in getting their phone link to the customer right. I have first hand experience with Bank "A" and I know the main menu of their IVR by heart. But, everytime I have wanted to call them, nothing in the main menu seems to match the question I have in mind for them. And I begin to wonder. I know that if I keep pressing something, Bank A's IVR gives up on me and transfers me over to the first customer care person available. I subconciously know that once I get to a customer care person, things will start rolling. And, I am the best case scenario. I am in technology and I think I understand the phrase "Technology as an enabler". Wonder what percentage of people who dial up end up speaking to a service representative. If it is a huge percent, then the point of the IVR is lost.The worst case scenario is my mom. To begin with, she is perplexed by the idea of an automated voice system which is not a human being. Second, She is scandalized that if she presses a wrong button, the world might end and bad things might happen. She is also worried that this voice person will not give her any help. How is it that she can't ask questions to this computer voice?Also, folks at the call center want to put the phone down or transfer the call as quickly as possible to another department. It feels like "red tapism" except it all happens on the phone line and you are sitting. Your time isint anyone's concern. You are not running around, right?Lets talk about the Torso and tail, the medium and small businesses. The service stations, restaurants, Gas stove repair, flower shops. And it sucks quite a bit here. It is almost like customers who call up on the phone are second grade and do not require the same treatment as folks who show up in the showroom or shop. It is not like I am not going to pay.Atleast once, I have been asked to call back later because the person who picked up the phone was busy. She didn't even care to ask me what it is that I wanted. Because I am on the phone, I am not real? Other times, the person who picks up the call hasnt a clue. I called up a dance company and the person who picked up goes "Oh, you want to talk to my husband?". More often than not, it is someone's personal phone number which is listed on the internet. And when you call, the person gets infuriated about how you could call him at 8 PM in the night? I am expected to know his office timings, right? Cutting the call, Number busy etc. have happened quite a number of times as well. And these are all institutions that treat their customers normally when you visit them. What these businesses don't take seriously is, a bad user experience on the phone is a bad user experience about the way they run the business.Honestly, this doesn't come to me as a surprise. On the other hand, It is more of a wishful thought. 400 million phone connections isint a joke. We have virtually covered all people with any purchasing power. I wish our businesses understood the power of remote & voice communication. I am a believer that voice is the most natural form of human communication. And there just isint space in your jeans pocket for a keyboard and a mouse. The fact that 1-800 as a concept is not popular (Not sure what the reasons are here) itself is a standing symptom of how businesses arent embracing the telephone yet.Just like every other industry in India, telephony is fragmented, de-standardized and over regulated. Customer side phone revolution has already happened. Wont the businesses see this?

Google: The world's largest ad agency

I wrote a series over 3 years ago for iMediaConnection.com where I explored the advertising market in 2010. One piece of this predicted that Google would be the largest ad agency by 2010. So far, it looks like most of what I wrote is playing out. Heres a look back at that segment of the series. In the third of three parts, Dave Chase of the Altus Alliance predicts that in five years Google will be the world's biggest ad agency. Editor's Note: In part one of this short series, Dave Chase explored where interactive media and marketing will be in five years, and described the media consumption habits of a hypothetical married couple, Mike and Jill. Then, in part two, he discussed the backend technology that could serve ads to the couple. Will Google be the biggest ad agency in the world by 2010? In part one, I laid out a future of how internet-based advertising models will pervade the TV world. If you buy it, then changes will inevitably happen in the ad industry. I predict that Google will be the largest ad agency in the world by 2010. Dramatic industry shifts usually dont happen from obvious places. Ample evidence of that exists, whether you look at the music business, the encyclopedia business, the newspaper classified business, the retailing business or many others. Companies that too narrowly define their competition inevitably have their business cratered from unexpected places. Aggressive, growth-oriented companies -- Google and Wal-Mart are just two examples -- dont care about pre-existing industry dividing lines. If it weren't them, some other organization would gladly eat away at incumbents businesses, even though the leaders of the change are attractive bogeymen for those under attack. If you take a step back, the purpose of ads and search are to connect buyers with someone selling what buyers want (even if they dont know they want it yet). In both cases, fees are collected from the people who have something to sell for connecting them with buyers of those items. No one is rushing to categorize Google as an ad agency -- theyre in the search business. You dont have to study Google very hard to realize they arent limiting themselves to the search business, which is increasingly hard to define in any case. Its important to recognize that Google isnt charging for search: their income comes from advertising. As the old saying goes, if it looks and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. If they were considered an ad agency, theyd already be in the top five with a much stronger trajectory than any of the top five agencies. You may be saying, Wait a minute, they are more like a media outlet than an ad agency (which is largely true today), but withhold judgment for a moment and some interesting insights can be drawn. To begin with, they are already doing media planning if the business has a high volume of clicks and its highly likely they are working on ways to make that easier (and thus scale to smaller advertisers). If I walked into most offices of the leaders of the largest ad agencies in the world today and stated that Google/Yahoo!/MSN are their competitors, at best Id get a polite laugh. They may say that I dont get the ad agency business. Having been on both sides of the challenger/incumbent equation, I can say unequivocally that not getting it is usually an advantage for the challenger. The challenger isnt shackled by the current way of thinking or, perhaps more importantly, the current business model. Like virtually every other company (especially a public company), Google and their competitors are inspired by what will make them the largest sum of money. Today, Googles revenues are advertising-based, but tomorrow they may have increasingly more characteristics associated with the agency business. Comparing some of the assets that agencies have versus Google is instructive. Ill put these in context of some of the criteria I used to evaluate the ad agencies that I worked with when I held large ad budgets. 1. Efficiency with my budget: When my team owned the relationship/budget with an agency, I counseled them to look for padding and inefficiencies as the model shifted from a commission-based model (which had its own issues) to a salary multiplier. The latter seemed like a fair approach, based upon the number of people on the account. Furthermore, it was hard to know how well the agency negotiated with media outlets to get the best CPMs. With Googles Adwords, you bid on how much you are willing to pay for a click that can range from pennies to dollars depending on the term. Google has a great feature where if you bid $1.50 for a click and the next highest bidder is $0.75, theyll adjust what they charge you to $0.76. This looks like a more efficient way of spending my ad dollars and infinitely more trackable. 2. Consumer insight/research: Ive worked with some fabulous media buyers and account planners. Their ability to dive into various syndicated research to identify the media properties with the optimal demo/psycho-graphics often impressed me. However, when you combine the almost unbelievable volumes of click behavior -- across many thousands of websites -- it provides a robust picture of brand motivation and preferences. Its an approach that virtually any cold-blooded capitalist selling stuff would appreciate, and it is unrivaled by other means of capturing actual buyer behavior. 3. Ability to reach my target buyers where they live: Googles Adsense offering (i.e., syndication of their contextual search ads) has major implications and makes them look an awful lot like a media agency. Not only does Google serve up ads on their own high-traffic site, they are syndicating their ads to virtually every nook and cranny of the web. As an advertiser, it gives them an efficient way to reach into highly targeted sites that would be impossible to buy in a manual manner. Anecdotally, Im seeing Google ads on all kinds of obscure and relatively low traffic sites that happen to be highly relevant to me professionally or personally. 4. Ability to service local, regional and international markets: This has at least two dimensions: First, can you run particular ads for people who live in particular geographies whether that is England, New England or Boston? Second, is it easy to localize the advertisements themselves? Particularly on the first point, its much easier to do this with Google than the machinations an agency has to go through to make it happen (e.g., working with dozens of different media outlets around the country/world). On the second point, its comparing apples and oranges since localization of text ads is easy compared to localization of ads that involve more than simple text. That said, they cover many languages and countries today, so its a straightforward process. 5. Focus on driving results vs. their ego: Since much of the execution of a campaign on Google is strictly driven by machines, there is no ego involved. From time to time, one runs up against this dynamic with agency creatives where they are more focused on winning awards than selling your product. 6. Creative work: This is an area where it would appear that agencies have a clear advantage if for no other reason than that the creative palette is limited with Google today. If you look at some of the trends outlined in part one -- combined with increased bandwidth and broadband penetration in the next five years -- it seems inevitable that the creative palette Google provides wont be so limited. The advantage Google has in this scenario? Its cost to launch and test a new campaign is low, so creatives can refine their creative and copy while avoiding the high stakes and slow turnaround of typical campaigns of today. Such campaigns frequently get bogged down by approvals at the client level. This quick turnaround should shift creatives perspective from a) thinking of how limited their palette is to b) relishing the opportunity to get immediate feedback on campaign ideas that may be conceived of, executed and killed/expanded in less than a day. 7. Account service: This is an area where agencies should maintain a clear advantage for the foreseeable future, as people-oriented service is a core part of their value proposition. As Google and others gain an increasing share of their customers wallets, there will be an expectation of increased account service for large accounts. In a competitive market, Google will respond if Yahoo! or MSN try to offer better service. This factor can diminish the inherent advantage agencies have. 8. Media neutrality: Most agencies like to claim media-neutrality, but its virtually impossible to find in practice. The core obstacle is that the clients budgets arent media neutral. There are often different teams, let alone different budgets for different media -- print, online, broadcast, etc. This makes it difficult for agencies to be media neutral. The philosophy behind Googles technology is media neutral. It just so happens that its all executed on HTML web pages right now. Take the notion of delivering ads in the content you prefer to consume, on the device (PC, mobile device, etc.) you happen to be using at the moment and delivering the most relevant ad at the moment you consume it and extend it beyond online. Its not hard to imagine this happening when your TV and radio have their own IP addresses along with your more traditional computing devices (this is already in process). 9. CRM: Marketers and agencies working on their behalf spend large sums of money to create and maintain an accurate customer database that helps paint a picture of their customers behaviors, likes and dislikes, demographics et cetera. Its not unusual for a marketer to spend millions each year simply keeping their database up to date with basic information such as addresses. Meanwhile, Googles customers do much of the maintenance work themselves as their cookies capture every web search, links you clicked on and when you did it. One area that Yahoo! and MSN have a clear advantage over Google is a much larger database of demographic information via their email/IM users (certainly one of the drivers for Google launching Gmail to much fanfare). Combine the demographic information with the surfing and searching behavior, and there isnt an agency in the world that wouldnt die to get their hands on that rich picture of their clients customers. Conclusion Is Google explicitly out to get the agencies business? Unlikely. It just so happens that when you look at the natural progression of their activities, it ends up dramatically impacting the agency business. The ironic thing is that Google is -- with complete sincerity -- probably spending significant sales and marketing resources to cultivate agency relationships. Like many other successful businesses, over time they will have more and more channel conflict where parties who were previously 100 percent complementary, and thus start to step on each other's toes. In the end, Google wont look like an ad agency any more than eBay or Craigslist look like a newspaper classifieds business, but they will capture money from the same customers as the business that they are pilfering. Its the agency leaders that should ask themselves what facets of Googles business they need to develop or co-opt. Agency leaders would be wise to make sure they dont have blinders on regarding their current business and their partners, or they are liable to be victims of an inevitable force.

NORTH KOREA - TALKING UP THE THREAT

It is worrying that some members of the United Nations are making probably unhelpful pronounciation about the nuclear threat which North Korea presents to the world. Japan, for reasons which are not entirely apparent, placed some of her armed forces on alert to deal with what she and some other countries, including the United States, tried to convinced the world is an attempt by North Korea to test a misile system which could possibly be used to deliver nuclear weapons. These countries then attempted to talk up the threat of what North Korea was or was not intending to do. I find this to be both sad and worryinig, not least when we reflect on how the Bush Administration talked the American people and the 'coalition of the willing' into making an unnecessary and extremely costly war against the Iraqi people.Wise counsel should have prevailed, and countries such as America should have been open and honest in declaring that, while they believed that North Korea might have been planning and/or intending to develop and test a nuclear weapon delivery system, they have no confirmation or proof that that is what she is doing.World leaders should act in a way which inspires their people and others to develop trust in the accuracy and prudency of what they tell us. I believe that the Russians and the Chinese governments are dealing with the apparent North Korean nuclear threat, real and/or imagined, with the appropriate wisdom. It is dangerous to talk up a potential threat to the point of making it appear real or almost real, because then you have to propose and/or take real action which is warranted by the level of the threat you have just 'talked up', which can lead to further escalation of a situation which might not have escalated, had the original issue been dealt with more prudently. I believe that President Barak Obama is and will continue to do a sterling job in leading the American people and the world, although he must continue to consider the evidence of each major situation and the propose response and cost benefit analysis carefully.The North Korean regime presents a very big challenge to its people and propably the world, but it is a challenge which should be responded to on several different levels, short-term, medium-term and long-term perspective.Patrick14.04.09

Kate Winslet & Lucy

Ever the contrarian, I spent most of the recent holiday movie season uninvolved. I could care less about Kate Winslet's naked pursuit of her very own Oscar (Surprise! She won!) or Sean Penn's shrewdly narcissistic performance in a movie that is little more than a high-rent TV biopic.Much more appealing to me were two titles with pedigrees of a different sort. David Frankel's "Marley and Me" and Kelly Reichardt's "Wendy and Lucy" come from different ends of the cinema spectrum and would seem to be strikingly dissimilar. Ah, but look closer. Yes, both are about dogs - about Labrador retrievers in particular - but, more to the point, both deal with the wordless affection and trust that animals can (and do) bring to relationships, qualities of which humans are only vaguely aware.And usually when it's too late."Marley and Me," of course, is a family-friendly mainstream film adapted from the John Grogan best-seller. It's a movie that was ready-made for the cineplex at your local mall and, as such, was immeditately - and hastily - dismissed by the critics. Too bad. There's more than what meets the eye here. Frankel, ably abetted by his game stars Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, apparently was not interested in doodling some mindless romp here, but was driven by something more serious, commenting in subtle ways on the profound relationship that a person can have with an animal in general and with a companion pet in particular. (That's Wilson and Aniston, above, with canine co-star Clyde in a scene from the film.) It's a family film but a superior one, alternately endearing and disturbing as it shows scenes of family life, wherein a pet - first a little puppy, then a hulking giant - is always there, usually on the periphery of the action but, somehow, crucial to the action. His presence, casually taken for granted, is felt only when he is gone. Suddenly, life has ... changed. Sad."Marley and Me" earns its tears, largely because Frankel has given his film a generous exposition that's alive with many acute observations and details. And in Wilson and Aniston, he has two vanity-free pros who have chemistry to spare and play out their individual and shared foibles in a natural (and good-natured) style that would have been appreciated by Hollywood and critics of an earlier era. No pretensions here. Much smaller and spare, Reichardt's "Wendy and Lucy" is essentially a one-character piece about a young homeless woman named Wendy - Michelle Williams in a performance of aching stillness - headed from Indiana to Alaska in her Honda Accord with her dog Lucy in tow.She's looking for work - and a new life.The car breaks down in Oregon and Lucy is left stranded when Wendy is arrested for shoplifting.All this happens early on and, again, Reichardt presents the loss of a dog as something of a quiet, unexpected tragedy. Wrenchingly, Wendy spends the rest of the film trying to find Lucy. (Incidentally, Lucy, above with Williams, is director Reichardt's dog.) "Wendy and Lucy" is the kind of movie instinctively disliked my most moviegoers because "nothing happens in it." True. But you could say the same thing about Hitchcock's "Vertigo," in which Jimmy Stewart trails Kim Novak up and down the streets of San Francisco ad infinitum. These are movies that one reads - i.e., studies. You don't simply watch them. No, you observe them - and learn.The film is an acting exercise for Williams, whose performance inexplicably went under the radar during the recent awards season. Her work here is noteworthy for its simplicity, beauty and innocence.She is a pleasure to watch.Both "Marley and Me" and "Wendy and Lucy" are new on DVD. I can't wait to see each one again. And again. I wish I could say the same about "Milk," "The Reader," "Revolutionary Road" and "The Wrestler." But I can't.

Day Twelve in Vietnam

24 May, HueAM: Arrival Hue station at 8am. Transfer to hotel. The rest of morning will be visit to Imperial Citadel.PM: Boat trip along Perfume river to visit Ming Mang mausoleum and Thien Mu pagoda and Dong Ba market.The train to Hue is a dive. Ken says this is much closer to how the Vietnamese really travel; I say "no thank you." It's not one single thing: herky-jerky motion of the train, the non-functioning AC, the blaring loudspeaker (a form of torture?) or the grimly grimy berths and dubious linens or the sullen, imperious staff...but put this all together with the toilet which consists of a hole in the floor of the train, and you have a recipe for true grodiness.We find that there is a (relatively much nicer) toilet with an actual seat in it in the car next door, and I go to investigate. As I am washing my hands, I hear a loud grating noise. Hmm.... I try the door. It won't open. I try again...it is locked. I am trapped in the loo. I try knocking on the door, calling out, to no avail. For the next ten minutes I alternate between tapping out an SOS with my chapstick on the metal door and calling out, "Help! I am trapped in the the toilet!!!" but the noise from the train prevents me from being heard. It is really hot and the sweat pours from my face. Surely one of my party must figure out I am missing... or perhaps they will find my body days from now, a victim of heat exhaustion, or terminal grodiness. "If only she had not drunk the water!" Tragedy in the Loo: film at eleven. The innate humor of the situation keeps me from despair....after all, someone has to come by...another five minutes pass and I go for the big guns, banging against the door with my foot. Finally the door opens and an enraged train official is on the other side, yelling at me angrily in Vietnamese. I yell back: "The door was locked!" He is not mollified. I give up and trek back to my cabin to tell the sorry tale. I use the hole in the floor for the rest for the trip, which is not much better.And then, finally, when we reach our clean, luxurious hotel in Hue, it is like Heaven. Absolute heaven.

Police Hassle Political Blogger Meeting

During a press conference at the forum on Friday in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, Hsing Yun said that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one family. There are no Taiwanese in Taiwan and Taiwanese are all Chinese.”Most people see being a half breed something to be ashamed of. The Taiwanese though are proud of it (The Great One [former gate inscription at CKS Memorial] on Half Breeds) -- Kuo Kuan-yingThe Taipei Times reported on the incident of police visiting a perfectly ordinary and legal Taiwan blogger association meeting: Taipei City’s Department of Police apologized on Monday for interrupting a private gathering of political bloggers and promised to improve measures to respect people’s rights and privacy. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) and Yen Sheng-kuan (顏聖冠) criticized the department for sending two police officers to a private meeting held by the Taiwan Blogger Association on Saturday and intimidating the participants by asking them to show their ID.Yang Hui-ju (楊蕙如), a Web manager for former DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh’s (謝長廷) campaign, said the association had invited Hsieh and former vice premier Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) to a private meeting to commemorate Yeh’s husband, democracy movement pioneer Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕), who committed suicide in 1989, and discuss freedom of speech.Two police officers from the department entered the meeting and asked the association’s secretary-general to explain why they were there, while asking participants to provide their ID and cellphone numbers, said Yang, who was at the meeting.“The meeting was a simple and private gathering, but the two police officers abused their authority and undermined freedom of speech,” Chien said.Yen also accused the department’s Zhongshan branch of violating human rights, saying it had made several phone calls to the association before the meeting and shown up at the meeting to request more information.“The meeting was held at the association’s office and no illegal activity was involved. The police’s action was illegal,” she said.Hung Sheng-kun, commissioner of the department, later acknowledged the department’s poor handling of the matter and took disciplinary action against the director of the department’s security office, Tsai Wang-lai (蔡萬來), and four other officers.Political blogger Billy Pan has the story and photos in Chinese (h/t to the commenter who provided the link):5. ...the police further asked the name of the Secretary- General, so we gave it to him. They then asked for his ID number, but the Secretary-General balked, saying that was really too much. The police then asked for his date of birth, but we didn't give it to him. During this process of asking for everyone's personal information, city councilor Yen Sheng-kuan's (顏聖冠) office director appeared, and asked the police what law they were acting in accordance with, but the police refused to answer.If this type of overenthusiastic law enforcement keeps happening, sooner or later it is going to look like a pattern.Definitely looks like a cool organization, which I will have to find a way to join!

Home truths

A global alliance of the centre-left is (scratchily) back in businessTHEY govern in very different continents, but there is a degree of ideological kinship between some of the centre-left governments in South America, Europe and now the United States. All are trying to mix the economic efficiency prized by the right with the social justice championed by the left. Back in the days of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton this link was formalised in progressive governance get-togethers. These have been revived: the latest meeting took place in Vina del Mar, a Chilean seaside resort, on March 27th and 28th. Yet this time, thanks to the world recession, the differences between participants from north and south seemed wider. The leaders of Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and (less convincingly) Argentina reckon their countries have followed progressive policies more rigorously than their friends in the north. They expressed anger that the crisis has halted five years of rapid economic growth in Latin America. In an oddly racist comment, Brazils president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said it was all the fault of white, blonde, blue-eyed bankers. He added, even more bluntly, that three of his fellow-summiteers, Britains Gordon Brown, Americas vice-president, Joe Biden, and Spains Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero unfortunately carry most responsibility for the debacle.

Introduction to Non-Genetic Darwinism/Physics of Self-Organization

The Red Shift ← Older revision Revision as of 01:26, 15 April 2009 Line 62: Line 62: Now an interesting problem occurs when you can reach out and gather the spectra from more distant stars, and that is that the further away the star is, the deeper the frequency is shifted to the Red. What this seems to suggest, is that the Universe is expanding and the further away a star is from us, the faster it is moving away from us. As our telescopes get better, we can see galaxies further and further away, and detect deeper and deeper red shifts. Now an interesting problem occurs when you can reach out and gather the spectra from more distant stars, and that is that the further away the star is, the deeper the frequency is shifted to the Red. What this seems to suggest, is that the Universe is expanding and the further away a star is from us, the faster it is moving away from us. As our telescopes get better, we can see galaxies further and further away, and detect deeper and deeper red shifts. - The problem is that this doesn't jibe with our calculations of how fast the Universe should be cooling, and how quickly it should begin to collapse back into itself after the Big Bang. Either the Big Bang is wrong, or the second law of thermodynamics is wrong, or both. There could be a different interpretation there are so many other factors when we look at astronomical intergalactic distances, but the biggest things should follow the most basic laws more closely, if only because individual variation is lost in the details. + The problem comes from the fact that we can also detect from the dimness of stars how far the light has travelled to get to us. Distant galaxies are too dim for our current calculations of the distance they should be from us, even according to the red shift to be correct. Either there is some change in the speed that galaxies are moving now than they were then, that throws off our calculations, and indicates that the galaxy is expanding faster now than it did then Can Black Energy Exist? Scientific American April 9 2009, or all our calculations imply some sort of black energy that forces the Universe apart, something that is not found in our current physics. + + The problem is that this doesn't jibe with our calculations of how fast the Universe should be cooling, and how quickly it should begin to collapse back into itself after the Big Bang. Either the Big Bang is wrong, or some laws including the second law of thermodynamics is wrong, or both. There could be a different interpretation there are so many other factors when we look at astronomical intergalactic distances, but the biggest things should follow the most basic laws more closely, if only because individual variation is lost in the distance. ====Galaxy Formation==== ====Galaxy Formation====

Mateen's "One Shining Moment"

Yes, you're sure to hear this story at least once this weekend. Shit, you've probably already read it and this is simply beating the dead horse. However, we can all agree the signature moment of the NCAA tournament comes just after the nets are cut and drum roll...it's one shining moment. The thrills, chills, spills, agony and glory are delicately cut and spliced into a magical little montage. Well, who doesn't love that moment? Some more than others. And on the eve of the Final Four and yet, another Tom Izzo team entering the final weekend, this only seemed fitting. Izzo has forged the Michigan State basketball program into something beyond special. The win over Louisville was signature Izzo, heart and soul. And that heart and soul was forged from a warrior by the name of Mateen Cleaves.Along with Izzo, Cleaves helped to shape a new culture for Spartans basketball. For many, Magic Johnson will always remain the face of Spartans Hoops, but notching 1A on that list has to be Mateen. Everything you see from the Spartans of today was forged through Mateen's dream. Izzo preached this dream in his pre-game speech prior to the Spartans simply dismantling Louisville. And we certainly won't hear the end of Mateen's dream story this weekend, that's for certain.Shit, we'll probably even see Mateen sitting at Ford Field in one of his vintage sweaters. Regardless, I can't help, but sift down memory lane in appreciation. The Spartans went to three Final Fours and won a Championship in my time at Michigan State. The first Final Four trip incited riots when we lost to Duke. Nowadays, the Final Four just seems logical every single season for Sparty. A lot to do with Izzo, but also a lot to do with Mateen Cleaves. So, check out some nostalgia with this good link and back story from Mateen and Izzo, but also for all Spartan fans...relive the glory and hope for another "One Shining Moment" come Monday. Lord knows Mateen deserves to see another dream fulfilled. Sparty On!

'Half-Blood Prince' Release Date Moved Up!

No doubt you recall the dark days last August when Warner Bros. announced that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was being pushed from its Nov. 21, 2008, release date all the way back to July 17, 2009. Surely you still bear the emotional scars of those troubled times, and I apologize if my mentioning it has reopened old wounds. But you will pleased to know that Warner Bros. has heard your plaintive weeping and done the honorable thing. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is being moved up -- all the way from July 17 to July 15! That's two whole days sooner that we'll get to see Harry, Henrietta, Rob, Haggad, Prof. Mumblecore and all the gang do battle with Vadermort!Astute readers might notice that July 17 is a Friday, making July 15 a Wednesday. Those readers might also recall that pretty much ALL of the biggest summer blockbusters have been coming out on Wednesdays lately. Cynical readers might wonder why HPATH-BP was ever scheduled for a Friday in the first place, and if indeed it was the plan all along to "change" it to Wednesday as a means of drumming up a little extra publicity now, in April, when most people wouldn't be thinking about the movie otherwise. To those readers I say: You're probably right. Still, good news. A Wednesday release date means it's really coming out late Tuesday night, at midnight, maybe even 10 p.m. No word yet on when the pirated copy will be avilable on the Internet.

Greenlight gets brighter

Good news (for the people of Wilson, NC): Greenlight is now offering Internet-only service! Before Greenlight would come bring its blistering fast and fairly inexpensive Internet service to your door as part of a larger bundle of services. I'm upset over Time Warner's want to tier services. Why do I struggle with unreasonable upload speeds and minimal download speeds when I have equal service at the Outer Banks for less money a month and no caps via Charter Cable? Why do my parents, who happen to live in the Greater Phoenix Metro Area, an area much larger than RDU where environmental conditions make it 1000 times more difficult to bury anything, get 17 meg down and over 2 megs up on basic Interent service via Cox?This is just a money-grab by TWC plain and simple. TWC has an effective monopoly in the area and they are flexing their muscle around your neck. Why does TWC offer 15+ meg service (buried in the article) down in Wilson where they have actual competition? Is it any mystery?Why is Greenlight the only Interent service in the state that offers equal up and download speeds? If my office were 15 minutes closer to Wilson I'd move my household there by force if necessary just for Greenlight access.