We are almost done painting our house and most of the neighbor report it’s looking good to them.
We’ve gotten fancier than last time with 4 colors, the last two just for highlights. I’d started this because I thought we might be selling the place to buy the Nut Ranch – a cool old historic place just out of town, but I’m no longer enamored with that house.
OK, I’ve digested at least 50% of today’s Mashup University content, which means I’ll retain 10% and be happy.
The Higgens Trust Framework is very promising way to standardize personal information for use across multiple platforms. Yikes – that sentence means I must be writing from Silicon Valley. If I was in Oregon I’d say it “tells programs who you are”.
I tend to agree with those that think filling out yet another form is a barrier to participation, though the upside of such things is that they provide an incentive to make sure the content / program you are signing up to use is worthy of your time and attention *before* you sign up. Will this openup a new plethora of junk applications just fishing for clicks?
I’m at the Adobe FLEX presentation at Mashup U here in Mountain View. He’s talking alot about Flash, I think to make the case that FLEX adoption will be rapid and deep, which I assume is what most developers want to see to justify the learning time.
Thanks to Microsoft sponsoring a free espresso cart I’m already…. awake and alert.
The intro referenced John Musser’s excellent resource Programmable Web which is the best Mashup information site online.
I count only about 50 people here at the university, though they expect about 350 at the main event Wednesday and Thursday.
Dave from Toronto told me that they’ve got an active “Demo Camp” going up there that meets monthly, with about 100 people. They showcase projects and network. I’m beginning to think that these “camp” events are the future of how computer people stay informed and connected.
I have an aging Inspiron 5100. With extra memory it’s been an “OK” laptop but it’s always run very, very hot – often this appeared to slow performance significantly until I found a forum where some onliners had figured out – with little help from Dell – that dust accumulation and bad ventilation was the main problem.
Elevating the back of the laptop and blowing out dust seemed to solve that problem. However it’s always been too hot to sit on my lap for long, and the adapter too hot to touch – almost dangerously hot. Neither battery or adapter were on the recall lists for similar products so I can’t imagine how hot the bad parts get!
To Dell’s credit they just replaced my power adapter at no charge, but the new one heats up too.
Maybe it’s time for a new computer.
I love the USA, and not in that silly way many detractors talk about as in “I really love my country except that it’s a 200+ year imperial empire run by madmen hell bent on destroying liberty and freedom”.
I really think the founders launched what will be viewed for thousands of years as a fundamentally good and sound experiment in self management, freedom and economics.
However, I’m confident that the architects of our experiment would be troubled by many aspects of our modern manifestation of their bold experiment.
Here’s my presumptuous very quick take on how they’d view things on this July 4, 230 years after they started it all:
* Government: Far too large in scope and influence over citizens.
* Globalization: They’d love it. They saw it coming and would be pleased the USA is leading the way.
* Taxes: Far too high, though I think they’d like progressive taxation.
* Military Spending: Far too high and inefficient. They’d have wanted infrastructure and recognized that a global military presence is far more stabilizing when it’s backed up with much more diplomacy than we’ve seen in years.
* War on Terror: They would see us as creating far too much expense and international ill-will in our efforts to bring our democratic and economic sensibilities to the rest of the world.
* U.N. They would approve of the concept of an international body, but shudder at the bureaucracy and cost.
* Religion. They’d be alarmed at how much politics and religion mix and simply amazed how some 230 years later, religious intolerance all over the globe fuels so many conflicts and divides the USA on many issues.
Politics: They would note that in some ways election processes have not changed all that much, but would be alarmed by the influence of money and media. They’d be floored by the lack of citizen participation but would understand this is largely a function of the massive, bureaucratic government.
* Technology: They’d be thrilled with too many devices to mention, but it’s probably fair to say that Space Flight would be the most amazing thing to them. I can’t think of a more fitting tribute to Benjamin Franklin that today’s Space Shuttle launch.
Mashup Camp has moved to the new blog
Beware Blinko and all other ringtone providers. I recently discovered a 7.99 charge on my son’s part of our many paged cell phone bill. He’s a clever guy and insisted he’d been very careful about avoiding sign ups for paid services, so it appears he was either scammed by a ringtones provider or we were slammed with a ringtones subscription. Sprint actually confirmed that we had not downloaded anything with the service and – incredibly – could not tell me the company that had signed us up.
After getting Sprint to remove last month’s charge another appeared this month. Texting 42222 appears to have “unsubscribed” us from the service we never subscribed to in the first place and Sprint removed the current new charge but refuses to remove older charges I’d not noticed. I think I now got them to block the possibility of this happening again, but I’m very pissed that Sprints “default” position seems to be to assist these scamming Ringtone S.O.Bs.
I’ve learned that ringtones and downloadable phone content is a 4 BILLION dollar global industry (yes – four billion). Incredible, especially since so much of this industry is driven by teens who are either scammed into subscriptions or foolishly spending their parent’s money.
The industry is plagued by scams, the most common of which gets teens to sign up their phone for a ‘free’ ringtone but then have the account trapped in the fine print to pay a monthly charge. If this isn’t bad enough the phone companies, who are making huge profits themselves off this garbage, are not at all helpful in tracking down the scammers or applying appropriate credits.
UPDATE: Class Action Suit against Blinko:
Myles McGuire
Blim & Edelson, LLC
53 West Jackson Blvd.
Suite 1642
Chicago, IL 60604
Tel.: 312-913-9400
Fax: 312-913-9401
myles@blimlaw.com
UPDATE: Based on all the comment I recommend anybody affected by these Ringtone Scams contact the FCC commissioners as follows. Be sure to indicate your phone company and detail how they failed to address your complaints. In my opinion it should be illegal to bill these services without a written, signed authorization from the account holder.
Chairman Kevin J. Martin: KJMWEB@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: Michael.Copps@fcc.gov
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: Jonathan.Adelstein@fcc.gov
Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate: dtaylortateweb@fcc.gov
Commissioner Robert McDowell: Robert.McDowell@fcc.gov
| To Obtain Information via E-mail |
General information, inquiries & complaints: fccinfo@fcc.gov
Freedom of Information Act requests: FOIA@fcc.gov
Comments on FCC Internet services: webmaster@fcc.gov
Elections & political candidate matters: campaignlaw@fcc.gov
| To Obtain Information via Telephone |
1-888-225-5322 (1-888-CALL FCC) Voice: toll-free
1-888-835-5322 (1-888-TELL FCC) TTY: toll-free
1-866-418-0232 FAX: toll-free
(202) 418-2830 FAX on Demand
(202) 418-1440 Elections & political candidate matters
FCC Phone Directory
Maybe I’m just stupid but I’ve become experienced enough with domain issues that yesterday’s mildly threatening letter from America Online’s legal firm “Arent Fox” was more interesting than scary. The last time it was the New York Times’ firm which had one of those really fancy long names with something like ten lawyers in the firm. They told me I needed to turn over “GolfDigest.net” which I’d registered in conjunction with an expensive Golf Digest magazine advertising buy for the tourism group I worked with. In that case they actually withdrew the request and let us keep using the name when I pointed out that Golf Digest had approved our ad using the URL which was in a huge font in Golf Digest magazine. They could hardly claim we were trying to pull one over on them.
However, with a name like Arent Fox you’ve GOT to be good, so I have replied to them as follows:
Yesterday I recieved your letter dated June 19 asking me to turn over WINAMP.INFO to AOL because you feel it violates their service mark and I’m competing with them by placing some search information at that domain.
I think I agree that I should turn this over to AOL – I was unaware they owned a mark for the WINAMP name. But I do want to clarify a few things first:
* This was registered to me by the .info registry only AFTER all copyright holders had been given ample notice and time to register domains they felt they were entitled to – why didn’t AOL do this?
* Since AOL appears to think they should have registered this domain at the time but did not, it only seems fair that I’d be compensated in modest fashion for the time and expenses of registration and renewal. Are you empowered to offer any reimbursement. It does not seem reasonable that I’ve been paying AOL’s domain bills for several years.
It's great to see CNN and FOX covering this story live at the press conference though unfortunate that commentators are more interested in the cash and personalities than what this means to global health.
37 Billion to Charity = Thirty Seven Thousand … Million dollar donations. This appears to be history's greatest act of philanthropy. CNN suggests this is true even if you look at Carnagie and Rockerfeller's huge giving and adjust for inflation. Also important is that those early foundations did not focus on third world problems where the money can be far more effective.
Buffett and the Gates' may prove to be the most powerful global welfare partnerships in history as Buffett, with his remarkable ability to evaluate companies, joins the Gates on the board. For the many who see corporate America as a threat to the welfare of humanity this should also be a wake up call. Gates and Buffett are redistributing wealth from the richest to the poorest far more effectively than any Government progressive tax scheme could ever dream to do, and they are applying their substantial abilities to solving the world's most significant problems.
I'd suggest that Governments and taxation plans tend to redistribute from wealthy and moderatly weathly to the middle and lower middle classes – ie it shifts wealth a few notches down, rather than the far more desirable type of redistribution which moves money from the richest to the poorest as this type of philanthropy tends to do.
Melinda Gates explains that the gift is "unprecedented" and that the new funding will allow the foundation to expand their priority list of diseases so they can fight more than just the "big three diseases" Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV / AIDS.
Buffett said he's always expected his billions to go to charity but originally thought it would be his wife who would distribute his wealth after he died. However his wife died first, and his friendship with and respect for Bill and Melinda Gates has inspired him to start giving away his money during his lifetime, feeling that they, and a few other foundations his money will support, have created great mechanisms for distributing his wealth where it will do huge social good.
Bravo Warren Buffett, Bravo!
Joe Duck 