Took a trip down memory lane, read the book "Red Star Rogue: The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine's Nuclear Strike Attempt on the U.S." by Kenneth Sewell. It was recommended to me by my optometrist. Having been a cold war submariner during a previous period of life, I found the book very interesting.
It certainly brought back lots of memories, both good and bad. The book is about the 1968 sinking of the Soviet submarine which had been designated K129 by the U.S. Mr. Sewell's theory is that the K129 sank while attempting to launch a nuclear armed missile at Pearl Harbor... bet that got your attention.
The official story (U.S.) of that sinking has always been that K129 sank because of an internal explosion from hydrogen buildup while charging batteries or (Soviet) it sank because a U.S. submarine whammed into it. Both are very real possibilities.
The charging of a submarine's batteries does indeed produce copious quantities of hydrogen, which if not properly vented, could cause an explosion or fire... fire on a submarine.... very, very bad. If your house catches on fire you can run outside. If your submarine catches on fire..not much of a place to run. Of course, flooding is very, very bad also. One continuing joke often told during the changing of the watch (new guy taking over the duties of old guy) was, "There was a small fire, but don't worry, the flooding put it out." Bubbleheads have a strange sense of humor.
The U.S. submarines of that era certainly spent a lot of time in trying to get really close to their Soviet counterparts, without actually touching mind you, but sometimes that happened too.
Mr. Sewell, doesn't really offer much verifiable proof for his new theory, but bases it on new interpretations of public info supported by quite a few quotes from unnamed/anonymous sources. That people who actually know the real story are not willing to be named is understandable. Anyone having anything to do with the submarine force during that time period (and I assume still today) at some point signed a non-disclosure document indicating you would be thrown two stories under the prison for the rest of your life if you said anything.
Having been thus restricted, the submarine community often substitutes information in place of what really happened. I once received a letter of commendation for something I didn't do, because what I really did was necessary to continuing our mission but not in accordance with the Navy's rules and regulations. I didn't go rogue, I did it with the full permission of my captain. What I did was a success and he wanted to give me a reward for doing it but he couldn't hardly say he had given me permission to break the regulations. Sometimes when you're out there operating independently, you have to improvise.
Overall, Mr. Sewell weaves a very convincing story. Looking back at that era I would say that his theory has a very good chance of being true. It's quite a chilling theory, but the really scary part is that it's difficult to believe that the essential nature of governments has changed. Today's government (collective mass) are just as likely to be just as devious...certainly makes me not want them to have any more power.
Speaking of rogue. I've noticed that Sarah Palin has a book coming out on Nov 17. It's called Going Rogue: Sarah Palin An American Life. Some apparently liberal publishing house is publishing, on the same day, a book titled, Going Rouge: Sarah Palin An American Nightmare. While I don't currently have any opinion of either book since neither is on the shelf at the moment, it would seem to support the idea that liberals hate book store clerks. Can you imagine the anger of someone with a conservative bent who accidentally picks up Rouge when they thought they were getting Rogue? Or even more so, a liberal thinking they were getting a book trashing Ms. Palin only to open it and find it actually had positive things to say about her...apoplexy would ensue. Note to any in Ms. Palin's publishing camp that happen to run across this... Kindle-ize please. The Rouge folks... don't bother.
If cold war era thrillers are your thing... definitely read Red Star Rogue, it's more exciting that any novel. If you don't have much background in submarine operations from that time, read Blind Man's Bluff first. BMB is a pretty accurate description of U.S. cold war submarine operations and a look has how I spent part of my life.
..take care... t
Friday, October 23, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Young' uns and some questions...
I find it interesting that in the last few days a couple of youngsters have shown up on the media-scape that passes for news these days.
One, the absentee UFO pilot from Colorado, is undoubtedly known to all the readers by this point. The other, a student from a local school who refused to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance, is probably less well known at this point.
I wonder if either of these boys would be known outside their immediate family's circle of friends if it wasn't for the technological advances in information distribution we have today. But this isn't really about that...
First, ET2. While this whole thing might be a publicity stunt dreamed up by the adults in the family (adult in this case being those that have reached the legal age of majority and not necessarily referring to any advanced state of mental processing), I see a more common scenario as the more likely possibility. A six year old boy hosed up while looking at an attractive nuisance, knew he has hosed up, was fearful of the consequences and did what six year old boys do in these circumstances... hid, hardly daring to breathe, hoping that he could hide long enough for the adults to achieve amnesia about the whole thing.
The biggest question is that why didn't the adults on scene at the house do a thorough search of the premises? Not the parents, they could be too emotional to do a good job. The arriving police though should have assigned each room or area to an individual officer, who would then search it methodically. Find the boy. Helicopter hovers over big balloon using prop wash to force to ground... end of story. If this did happen, what are the consequences to the officer assigned to the area where the boy was eventually found?
This of course is just conjecture because for all the airtime and words going out by the media this morning...no real answers are forthcoming.
The other lad, is currently the center of a small local debate. Seems that a student at the West Fork Middle School (West Fork being the small town closest to our hill), refused to stand for the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance. Apparently this happened for four or so days, the substitute teacher reportedly 'harassed' him to the point that he eventually made an insubordinate retort back thus earning himself a trip pricipalward.
Some comments I've seen in the local media seem to indicate that there are folks that want to make this into some liberal vs conservative type of issue. The odd part about that aspect is that the liberal/conservative roles seem to be a big reversed in this case. Usually, it is folks labeled as conservative whacking at public schools and their staffs while folks labeled as liberals are the ones saying the schools are fine enough that parents don't need any real choices in selecting which schools their kids attend...just go to the neighborhood one.
While details of the broader picture of this incident are lacking, my thoughts run more along the lines of... 10 year old boy, substitute teacher... kid looks as job description for 10 year olds, sees the plainly written clause of "cause as much grief as possible for substitute teachers" and properly executed his job description.
It was reported that he refused to stand because the U.S. is not fair to homosexuals and to say the words of the pledge would be a lie. It's entirely possible this it true. If it is then I have some questions... If the parents knew of this belief and what actions he was planning on taking in support of this belief, why didn't they hie themselves to the school house to let the teachers/administrators know what was going to happen? Seems like a little proactive parenting would have been a good thing. Gotcha type of parenting protocols with the school is about as productive as gotcha type of reporting with vice-presidential candidates.
Also, did he acquire these convictions, and stand (or sit) his moral convictions all during this school year, or did this burst of empathy occur coincident to having a substitute teacher? If he had previously been sitting through the pledge, did the teacher put that note in the substitute plans? Seems like a little proactive substitute lesson planning would have been a good thing.
Another question is that after he refused to stand for the pledge on the first day...did the substitute seek guidance from the principal about how to handle our recalcitrant young lad? Seems like a little proactive substituting would have been a good thing.
These cases seem to be good examples of the problem with information gathering...there never seems to be enough information if you actually want to think your way through the situations...of course going all knee jerk reactionary seems to work for those in the NFL hierarchy...so why not for the rest of us.
...take care... t
One, the absentee UFO pilot from Colorado, is undoubtedly known to all the readers by this point. The other, a student from a local school who refused to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance, is probably less well known at this point.
I wonder if either of these boys would be known outside their immediate family's circle of friends if it wasn't for the technological advances in information distribution we have today. But this isn't really about that...
First, ET2. While this whole thing might be a publicity stunt dreamed up by the adults in the family (adult in this case being those that have reached the legal age of majority and not necessarily referring to any advanced state of mental processing), I see a more common scenario as the more likely possibility. A six year old boy hosed up while looking at an attractive nuisance, knew he has hosed up, was fearful of the consequences and did what six year old boys do in these circumstances... hid, hardly daring to breathe, hoping that he could hide long enough for the adults to achieve amnesia about the whole thing.
The biggest question is that why didn't the adults on scene at the house do a thorough search of the premises? Not the parents, they could be too emotional to do a good job. The arriving police though should have assigned each room or area to an individual officer, who would then search it methodically. Find the boy. Helicopter hovers over big balloon using prop wash to force to ground... end of story. If this did happen, what are the consequences to the officer assigned to the area where the boy was eventually found?
This of course is just conjecture because for all the airtime and words going out by the media this morning...no real answers are forthcoming.
The other lad, is currently the center of a small local debate. Seems that a student at the West Fork Middle School (West Fork being the small town closest to our hill), refused to stand for the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance. Apparently this happened for four or so days, the substitute teacher reportedly 'harassed' him to the point that he eventually made an insubordinate retort back thus earning himself a trip pricipalward.
Some comments I've seen in the local media seem to indicate that there are folks that want to make this into some liberal vs conservative type of issue. The odd part about that aspect is that the liberal/conservative roles seem to be a big reversed in this case. Usually, it is folks labeled as conservative whacking at public schools and their staffs while folks labeled as liberals are the ones saying the schools are fine enough that parents don't need any real choices in selecting which schools their kids attend...just go to the neighborhood one.
While details of the broader picture of this incident are lacking, my thoughts run more along the lines of... 10 year old boy, substitute teacher... kid looks as job description for 10 year olds, sees the plainly written clause of "cause as much grief as possible for substitute teachers" and properly executed his job description.
It was reported that he refused to stand because the U.S. is not fair to homosexuals and to say the words of the pledge would be a lie. It's entirely possible this it true. If it is then I have some questions... If the parents knew of this belief and what actions he was planning on taking in support of this belief, why didn't they hie themselves to the school house to let the teachers/administrators know what was going to happen? Seems like a little proactive parenting would have been a good thing. Gotcha type of parenting protocols with the school is about as productive as gotcha type of reporting with vice-presidential candidates.
Also, did he acquire these convictions, and stand (or sit) his moral convictions all during this school year, or did this burst of empathy occur coincident to having a substitute teacher? If he had previously been sitting through the pledge, did the teacher put that note in the substitute plans? Seems like a little proactive substitute lesson planning would have been a good thing.
Another question is that after he refused to stand for the pledge on the first day...did the substitute seek guidance from the principal about how to handle our recalcitrant young lad? Seems like a little proactive substituting would have been a good thing.
These cases seem to be good examples of the problem with information gathering...there never seems to be enough information if you actually want to think your way through the situations...of course going all knee jerk reactionary seems to work for those in the NFL hierarchy...so why not for the rest of us.
...take care... t
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
No bling...
or more correctly... Nobel-ing.
Yep, I too woke up late last week, started a scroll through my iGoogle reader feeds and thought that I had inadvertently oversubscribed to The Onion. Obama and a Nobel Peace prize...really?
After mulling it over for a while, no actual mulled wine being involved but a Guinness or two might have been lubricating the brain cell during part of the mulling period, I discovered that I really don't care if he got it...good on Him.
I looked around a bit and can find no source that indicates that any U.S. tax payer money goes to fund the awarding of the prize and I certainly didn't send any dollars that way. Since it's not my money... I have no problem with it. They, being the they that actually funds the money that comes with the award doohickey, can spend their money on anyone they want.
I do have some small concern for teachers in the U.S. though. Since the standard has been set that you don't have to actually accomplish something to be rewarded for it, I fear that teachers throughout the U.S. will be inundated with students demanding A's for being able to tell the teacher about how great they were at doing their homework while not actually turning said homework in to the teacher.
It was a bit sad though... Norway only really had two things going for it and they've managed to devalue one of them. I will gladly change my opinion about this if anyone can provide me with a source of something He has actually done that made the world more peaceful or safer (those two concepts being inextricable linked). I'll even be generous and not stick to the February 1 deadline.
Don't talk to me about those speeches either. Not a single one of the dangerous folks in the world have made a single move to be less dangerous or more peaceful since He has been running around on the "America is scum, I'm here to save you" tour.
But again...their prize, their money...not my problem. There has been some on the interwebs that have suggested drinking was involved in the selection process. While I can find no evidence that this is not true...I really don't have a problem with it. I'm of the opinion that consumption of alcohol was involved in the creation of the greatest nation on Earth (I'm talking about U.S. of A for all you statist who have been drinking from His kool-aid cup). How else do you get a bunch of successful businessmen and farmers to put EVERYTHING (property, freedom, life itself) on the line for a vaporous concept such as liberty? Alcohol had to be involved in there somewhere.
So now it seems that Norway only has one thing going for it...their Jedi mind trickery seems to still be going pretty strong. Not much of a way, except by Jedi mind trickery, to be able to convince so many of the psycho-green statist that the Norway version of socialism is just grand. A brand of socialism that is funded for the most part on the Norwegians' ability and penchant for plopping down huge petroleum extracting mechanisms (more commonly known as oil wells) in an area that makes the ANWR look like a Brooklyn city park that has been taken over by drug addicts and sex peddlers.
I guess I really need to buy a program...can't tell the players without a program. It's apparently fine with the psycho-green statists that Norway can endanger the North Sea with their petroleum extraction because it's for socialism. Doing the same in the name of capitalism however is a whole 'nother story. Kind of like the film dipsticks that made a movie declaring that commercial aviation is currently the biggest danger to our planet...the same dipsticks that then plopped their fannies into commercial jets to all fly to one place to congratulate themselves on figuring out that commercial aviation was the biggest danger to our planet. They apparently decided their cause was important enough to endanger the planet....but yours is not.
So congratulations to Mr. Obama. Hopefully, he will be able to accept the prize while still on U.S. soil...just so Ms. Obama won't have to make the sacrifice of another taxpayer funded holiday in Europe.
..take care... tim b
Yep, I too woke up late last week, started a scroll through my iGoogle reader feeds and thought that I had inadvertently oversubscribed to The Onion. Obama and a Nobel Peace prize...really?
After mulling it over for a while, no actual mulled wine being involved but a Guinness or two might have been lubricating the brain cell during part of the mulling period, I discovered that I really don't care if he got it...good on Him.
I looked around a bit and can find no source that indicates that any U.S. tax payer money goes to fund the awarding of the prize and I certainly didn't send any dollars that way. Since it's not my money... I have no problem with it. They, being the they that actually funds the money that comes with the award doohickey, can spend their money on anyone they want.
I do have some small concern for teachers in the U.S. though. Since the standard has been set that you don't have to actually accomplish something to be rewarded for it, I fear that teachers throughout the U.S. will be inundated with students demanding A's for being able to tell the teacher about how great they were at doing their homework while not actually turning said homework in to the teacher.
It was a bit sad though... Norway only really had two things going for it and they've managed to devalue one of them. I will gladly change my opinion about this if anyone can provide me with a source of something He has actually done that made the world more peaceful or safer (those two concepts being inextricable linked). I'll even be generous and not stick to the February 1 deadline.
Don't talk to me about those speeches either. Not a single one of the dangerous folks in the world have made a single move to be less dangerous or more peaceful since He has been running around on the "America is scum, I'm here to save you" tour.
But again...their prize, their money...not my problem. There has been some on the interwebs that have suggested drinking was involved in the selection process. While I can find no evidence that this is not true...I really don't have a problem with it. I'm of the opinion that consumption of alcohol was involved in the creation of the greatest nation on Earth (I'm talking about U.S. of A for all you statist who have been drinking from His kool-aid cup). How else do you get a bunch of successful businessmen and farmers to put EVERYTHING (property, freedom, life itself) on the line for a vaporous concept such as liberty? Alcohol had to be involved in there somewhere.
So now it seems that Norway only has one thing going for it...their Jedi mind trickery seems to still be going pretty strong. Not much of a way, except by Jedi mind trickery, to be able to convince so many of the psycho-green statist that the Norway version of socialism is just grand. A brand of socialism that is funded for the most part on the Norwegians' ability and penchant for plopping down huge petroleum extracting mechanisms (more commonly known as oil wells) in an area that makes the ANWR look like a Brooklyn city park that has been taken over by drug addicts and sex peddlers.
I guess I really need to buy a program...can't tell the players without a program. It's apparently fine with the psycho-green statists that Norway can endanger the North Sea with their petroleum extraction because it's for socialism. Doing the same in the name of capitalism however is a whole 'nother story. Kind of like the film dipsticks that made a movie declaring that commercial aviation is currently the biggest danger to our planet...the same dipsticks that then plopped their fannies into commercial jets to all fly to one place to congratulate themselves on figuring out that commercial aviation was the biggest danger to our planet. They apparently decided their cause was important enough to endanger the planet....but yours is not.
So congratulations to Mr. Obama. Hopefully, he will be able to accept the prize while still on U.S. soil...just so Ms. Obama won't have to make the sacrifice of another taxpayer funded holiday in Europe.
..take care... tim b
Monday, October 12, 2009
Trip Report
A while back we noticed that the Naval Academy was playing Rice, at Rice. I wondered where that was and discovered it was in Houston. A couple of brain cells clashed together and I remembered that our good friends Joe and Rae live near Houston and wondered if they wanted to go see a football game. After a bit of coordination a road trip idea was born.
We launched off our hill and pointed south early Friday morning. Well, not too early, I planned for us to leave at 7:00, Cyrilee thought I said 7:30, so we left at 8:10, in the rain. It wasn't too bad driving in the rain, I had just installed new wipers on the jeep, so the windshield stayed nice and clear, much better to see our fellow travelers zip past us at about 20 miles per hour over the dry pavement speed limit.
It rained the entire trip, 513 miles without being able to turn off the windshield wipers one time. Just after we crossed the border into Texas I did get a bit worried. I thought I saw a bearded guy in a robe with a bunch of animals standing around him. I started looking around for a big squarish boat.
Finally arrived at Joe and Rae's farm in Magnolia, Texas. Actually, they are in Magnolia like we are in West Fork. Meaning that they live waaaay out of town and are only considered to be part of Magnolia because of the mysteries of the U.S. Postal Service routing system.
We stayed up way too late, but sincethe game didn't start until 2:30 on Saturday, we could sleep in a bit. When we got up in the morning we did some more catching up over a great breakfast then went for a walking tour of the farm.
They have some wonderful horses. I don't remember all their names, so I won't mention any of them in case the horses read this. Don't want them getting into a fuss because I mentioned one of their names and not all of them. They were very nice horses, though they were a bit intimidating when they gathered around us and started sniffing around to see if any of us were hiding treats in our pockets.
They also have some cows. About the only positive thing I can ever seem to say about cows is that they are tasty when someone grows one to a certain point then takes it to be whacked in the head and turned into hamburgers, country style ribs, and various configurations of steak. However, if there ever were a bunch of cows that deserved kind words while they were still in the pre-sizzle, butt you with their heads, dropping biological landmines all over the place state, this would be the bunch of cows deserving of those kind words.
Off to the game... it was a fun game, the Naval Academy won. It was a bit sad toward the end though because it was a pretty lopsided game. As Rae said, people don't really choose to go to Rice to play football. The end score was 63 to 14. Somewhere in the third quarter I started rooting for Rice inside my head. Being surrounded by a sea of Navy Blue and Gold, I wasn't sure how well cheering for Rice outside my head would have been received.
Stayed up waaay late again. Got up the next morning, ate a great breakfast, then got back on the road north. One of the interesting things about traveling around is finding new place names. When you move out of your usual environs you can find unusual and exotic names for places. All place have unusual and exotic names, it's just that after a bit those unusual and exotic names start to seem usual and mundane. Though, I'm thinking you would have to live in Cut and Shoot, Texas for a really long time before that would seem too mundane.
When seeing place names with adjectives in them that have a natural opposite (i.e. big/little) I always have a sudden urge to go find the opposite. Upon passing Big Man Lane, I really wanted to go look for a Little Man Ave, or better Little Woman Rd. We live attached to a town named West Fork, why isn't there other towns called East Fork and Middle Fork since there are similarly named branches of the same river.
...take care... t
We launched off our hill and pointed south early Friday morning. Well, not too early, I planned for us to leave at 7:00, Cyrilee thought I said 7:30, so we left at 8:10, in the rain. It wasn't too bad driving in the rain, I had just installed new wipers on the jeep, so the windshield stayed nice and clear, much better to see our fellow travelers zip past us at about 20 miles per hour over the dry pavement speed limit.
It rained the entire trip, 513 miles without being able to turn off the windshield wipers one time. Just after we crossed the border into Texas I did get a bit worried. I thought I saw a bearded guy in a robe with a bunch of animals standing around him. I started looking around for a big squarish boat.
Finally arrived at Joe and Rae's farm in Magnolia, Texas. Actually, they are in Magnolia like we are in West Fork. Meaning that they live waaaay out of town and are only considered to be part of Magnolia because of the mysteries of the U.S. Postal Service routing system.
We stayed up way too late, but sincethe game didn't start until 2:30 on Saturday, we could sleep in a bit. When we got up in the morning we did some more catching up over a great breakfast then went for a walking tour of the farm.
They have some wonderful horses. I don't remember all their names, so I won't mention any of them in case the horses read this. Don't want them getting into a fuss because I mentioned one of their names and not all of them. They were very nice horses, though they were a bit intimidating when they gathered around us and started sniffing around to see if any of us were hiding treats in our pockets.
They also have some cows. About the only positive thing I can ever seem to say about cows is that they are tasty when someone grows one to a certain point then takes it to be whacked in the head and turned into hamburgers, country style ribs, and various configurations of steak. However, if there ever were a bunch of cows that deserved kind words while they were still in the pre-sizzle, butt you with their heads, dropping biological landmines all over the place state, this would be the bunch of cows deserving of those kind words.
Off to the game... it was a fun game, the Naval Academy won. It was a bit sad toward the end though because it was a pretty lopsided game. As Rae said, people don't really choose to go to Rice to play football. The end score was 63 to 14. Somewhere in the third quarter I started rooting for Rice inside my head. Being surrounded by a sea of Navy Blue and Gold, I wasn't sure how well cheering for Rice outside my head would have been received.
Stayed up waaay late again. Got up the next morning, ate a great breakfast, then got back on the road north. One of the interesting things about traveling around is finding new place names. When you move out of your usual environs you can find unusual and exotic names for places. All place have unusual and exotic names, it's just that after a bit those unusual and exotic names start to seem usual and mundane. Though, I'm thinking you would have to live in Cut and Shoot, Texas for a really long time before that would seem too mundane.
When seeing place names with adjectives in them that have a natural opposite (i.e. big/little) I always have a sudden urge to go find the opposite. Upon passing Big Man Lane, I really wanted to go look for a Little Man Ave, or better Little Woman Rd. We live attached to a town named West Fork, why isn't there other towns called East Fork and Middle Fork since there are similarly named branches of the same river.
...take care... t
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Today's post is sponsored...
by the letters s, i, t, o, i, and d. I'm making this full disclosure to avoid running afoul of the Federal Trade Commission.
New technologies get abused...happens all the time, every time. When something new comes along there will be someone out there that will figure out how to use it a manner not prescribed by law, good sense, or for the betterment of society. While I can't find a record of it, I'm sure that it wasn't too long after automobile technology advanced to the point of cars being faster than horses that some bank robber clued in to the idea of a getaway CAR.
Before the wide use of blogs and Twitter, nobody told stories beyond two or three of their six degrees of separation because the connection gets too confusing. The cousin of a friend of my brother's tire guy told my brother's tire guy's friend's cousin that.... Now it's much simpler.. I read in a blog... or I got a text from Twitter....
It was inevitable that as soon as this started happening on a reasonable scale that some marketeer would realize that old marketing adage "giving people who disperse information free stuff will usually result in them dispersing positive information about the free stuff you give them" could be expanded into this new realm. Give these new information hobbyists (as opposed to the information professionals) free or discounted stuff and they will disperse positive information about the free stuff you give them.
Apparently this concept has caused more than one head to explode at the Federal Trade Commission. The explodees's compadres attempted several times to put the heads back together but they kept re-exploding. So they did what all government entities do...created a new rule. Apparently, the FTC has now declared that if you are a user of "consumer originated media" and you get something free or at a discount and you make positive comments about it in one of these "consumer originated media" then you have to disclose the free-ness or discounted-ness of the stuff. Houston, we have a problem...
A personal example... I'm on Twitter. I follow a mixture of local and national news sources, bloggers, ordinary folks, and local businesses. Sometimes these local businesses run contests. Sometimes I enter these contests and sometimes I win. I answered a trivia question by Eureka Pizza and won three large pizzas and 2 liters of soda.. It was pretty darn good pizza and I said so on Twitter. How am I suppose to make full disclosure of the free-ness of the pizza and tell folks how good it was in 140 characters? Same with the Tower of Power tickets I won from the Walton Arts Center..
And not to give them any ideas but will this concept be further expanded to include the free samples one gets while doing their grocery shopping? Seems to me this whole thing is a solution looking for a problem. Do people really go off and spend a lot of money based on the opinion of some blogger or twitterer that they don't know? I'm thinking if you go and spend very much money based solely on the recommendation of some person you don't know except 140 characters at a time or through a rambling diatribe...then maybe you deserve to have to put up with a crappy product. That'll learn ya...
Oddly enough there was already a 'rule' in place to cover these circumstances. A rule that was created when ancient latin was the franca lingua... caveat emptor (Let the buyer beware.)
Thank you for your attention to this matter... if you correctly arrange today's sponsors you might discover what I think about certain government rule creators....
...take care.. t
New technologies get abused...happens all the time, every time. When something new comes along there will be someone out there that will figure out how to use it a manner not prescribed by law, good sense, or for the betterment of society. While I can't find a record of it, I'm sure that it wasn't too long after automobile technology advanced to the point of cars being faster than horses that some bank robber clued in to the idea of a getaway CAR.
Before the wide use of blogs and Twitter, nobody told stories beyond two or three of their six degrees of separation because the connection gets too confusing. The cousin of a friend of my brother's tire guy told my brother's tire guy's friend's cousin that.... Now it's much simpler.. I read in a blog... or I got a text from Twitter....
It was inevitable that as soon as this started happening on a reasonable scale that some marketeer would realize that old marketing adage "giving people who disperse information free stuff will usually result in them dispersing positive information about the free stuff you give them" could be expanded into this new realm. Give these new information hobbyists (as opposed to the information professionals) free or discounted stuff and they will disperse positive information about the free stuff you give them.
Apparently this concept has caused more than one head to explode at the Federal Trade Commission. The explodees's compadres attempted several times to put the heads back together but they kept re-exploding. So they did what all government entities do...created a new rule. Apparently, the FTC has now declared that if you are a user of "consumer originated media" and you get something free or at a discount and you make positive comments about it in one of these "consumer originated media" then you have to disclose the free-ness or discounted-ness of the stuff. Houston, we have a problem...
A personal example... I'm on Twitter. I follow a mixture of local and national news sources, bloggers, ordinary folks, and local businesses. Sometimes these local businesses run contests. Sometimes I enter these contests and sometimes I win. I answered a trivia question by Eureka Pizza and won three large pizzas and 2 liters of soda.. It was pretty darn good pizza and I said so on Twitter. How am I suppose to make full disclosure of the free-ness of the pizza and tell folks how good it was in 140 characters? Same with the Tower of Power tickets I won from the Walton Arts Center..
And not to give them any ideas but will this concept be further expanded to include the free samples one gets while doing their grocery shopping? Seems to me this whole thing is a solution looking for a problem. Do people really go off and spend a lot of money based on the opinion of some blogger or twitterer that they don't know? I'm thinking if you go and spend very much money based solely on the recommendation of some person you don't know except 140 characters at a time or through a rambling diatribe...then maybe you deserve to have to put up with a crappy product. That'll learn ya...
Oddly enough there was already a 'rule' in place to cover these circumstances. A rule that was created when ancient latin was the franca lingua... caveat emptor (Let the buyer beware.)
Thank you for your attention to this matter... if you correctly arrange today's sponsors you might discover what I think about certain government rule creators....
...take care.. t
Monday, October 5, 2009
A few words on words....
I like words. They enable you to acquire cookies, more specifically, they enable you to acquire Fig Newtons (it's always about the Newton).
Lately, thoughts about words have been rattling around in my brain, occasionally bumping into a brain cell or two. This of course causes more words to happen and now I need to leak them out of my brain to create some room in there for more important pursuits like how to not glue myself to the PVC pipe when I fix the AC drain line in the next few days.
The word that started this was "liberal". I recently read Friedrich Von Hayek's 'The Road to Serdom'. In it he uses the word "liberal" 127 times (thank you Kindle search feature). Judging from the context in which he uses "liberal" it would seem that the definition of the word then (1944) closely resembles what we would call today a "free market capitalist".
I can't find any use of the word "liberal" in current writings that would come close to meaning "free market capitalist." In a mere 65 years the generally accepted meaning of a word has pretty much been reversed.
He also mentions the deliberate shifting of the usage of words was how the socialist in Germany created conditions that allowed the nastiest socialist of them all to be elected and carry out his atrocities. Yes, Hayek flatly states the Nazi regime was economically a socialist (state control of the means of production) regime using fascist political control to push acceptance of it's failing economic policies.
Another thought about words that keeps pushing to the outer edges of the spin cycle that is my brain concerns the reach ordinary people have with their words in today's world of blogs, twitter, facebook, and self publishing. This thought inspired by another book I finished recently, "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman.
Mr. Friedman discusses how technological improvements have made the world more even, or flatter. In the not so distant past, for an ordinary person to get their personal viewpoint out to the world beyond their family and friends required convincing a series of people to risk certain amounts of money to publish or broadcast some version of that viewpoint. This risk of money often allowed these people an editorial right over the final product.
Today, through the use of blogs, email, twitter, and the self publishing of etexts, a person of modest means can give access to their viewpoint to a world wide audience. This accessibility to a broader audience is starting to have consequences to the "professional" purveyors of information. In some ways this technological advance has brought us back to a time prior to electricity or the printing press.
Think about how news traveled prior to electricity or cheap printed materials. A person would meet up with someone who had just come from somewhere else and talk to them about the happenings in that somewhere else. Then the information would be passed on to others the person knew or met. Such information transfer was fraught with possibilities for inaccuracy and filtering but people managed to integrate the various versions they received and made decisions in their lives based on this amalgamated "truth".
Somewhere along the line, as printed material became more widespread, and more so with the invention of electronic information transfer technologies, classes of information workers developed. By the end of the 20th century we find the generally accepted belief that the only "real" news is that which has been gathered, washed, dried, fluffed, and folded by "professionals".
Then a series of endearingly nerdy brains, fueled by high caffeine drinks figured out how to line up electrons in a fashion that allowed ordinary people, or even cranky, hill dwelling libertarians, to take their viewpoint and news out way beyond who they could trap in a corner at a cocktail party or backyard BBQ.
This caused some, but by no means all, of the professional information workers to go to high freak mode. It doesn't take a very in depth perusal of traditional print or broadcast type of information transfer entities to find claims that these "amateur" information transferers are "inaccurate, lacking in context, and politically slanted." Which is all true... but probably no more so that these traditional information sources. Show me an information outlet that this doesn't apply to and I'll show you a radio station in east New Mexico who only programs the slow reading of PTA minutes.
These new "news" outlets seem to me to mirror how we gather and use information from sources more close to us. How do we gather information about things that happen within our circle of friends and family... we hear the story (or receive an email about it) from various members of our circle, each having a slightly differing viewpoint. We weigh each of the versions according to it's source (because we all know that Uncle Fred will always blame everything on the Democrats and Cousin Sally will minimize how bad things are because she "just don't like to think about things like that".) and make whatever decisions we need to make based on our amalgamated version.
Now news of the broader world can come to us in this fashion... from many different sources, each with its own perception, slant, and flavor. For those thinking this is a really bad trend, please explain one thing... How can any media outlet accurately and unbiasedly report the missteps of a politician that they are on record as recommending as the best person for a particular elected position? When information is passed through any human brain it is altered.
All the thoughts didn't quite leak out but I've noticed that my use of the word "few" in the title probably wasn't very accurate... Then those who know me know that "Migoi sure does like words...he uses a lot of them"..
..take care.. t
Lately, thoughts about words have been rattling around in my brain, occasionally bumping into a brain cell or two. This of course causes more words to happen and now I need to leak them out of my brain to create some room in there for more important pursuits like how to not glue myself to the PVC pipe when I fix the AC drain line in the next few days.
The word that started this was "liberal". I recently read Friedrich Von Hayek's 'The Road to Serdom'. In it he uses the word "liberal" 127 times (thank you Kindle search feature). Judging from the context in which he uses "liberal" it would seem that the definition of the word then (1944) closely resembles what we would call today a "free market capitalist".
I can't find any use of the word "liberal" in current writings that would come close to meaning "free market capitalist." In a mere 65 years the generally accepted meaning of a word has pretty much been reversed.
He also mentions the deliberate shifting of the usage of words was how the socialist in Germany created conditions that allowed the nastiest socialist of them all to be elected and carry out his atrocities. Yes, Hayek flatly states the Nazi regime was economically a socialist (state control of the means of production) regime using fascist political control to push acceptance of it's failing economic policies.
Another thought about words that keeps pushing to the outer edges of the spin cycle that is my brain concerns the reach ordinary people have with their words in today's world of blogs, twitter, facebook, and self publishing. This thought inspired by another book I finished recently, "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman.
Mr. Friedman discusses how technological improvements have made the world more even, or flatter. In the not so distant past, for an ordinary person to get their personal viewpoint out to the world beyond their family and friends required convincing a series of people to risk certain amounts of money to publish or broadcast some version of that viewpoint. This risk of money often allowed these people an editorial right over the final product.
Today, through the use of blogs, email, twitter, and the self publishing of etexts, a person of modest means can give access to their viewpoint to a world wide audience. This accessibility to a broader audience is starting to have consequences to the "professional" purveyors of information. In some ways this technological advance has brought us back to a time prior to electricity or the printing press.
Think about how news traveled prior to electricity or cheap printed materials. A person would meet up with someone who had just come from somewhere else and talk to them about the happenings in that somewhere else. Then the information would be passed on to others the person knew or met. Such information transfer was fraught with possibilities for inaccuracy and filtering but people managed to integrate the various versions they received and made decisions in their lives based on this amalgamated "truth".
Somewhere along the line, as printed material became more widespread, and more so with the invention of electronic information transfer technologies, classes of information workers developed. By the end of the 20th century we find the generally accepted belief that the only "real" news is that which has been gathered, washed, dried, fluffed, and folded by "professionals".
Then a series of endearingly nerdy brains, fueled by high caffeine drinks figured out how to line up electrons in a fashion that allowed ordinary people, or even cranky, hill dwelling libertarians, to take their viewpoint and news out way beyond who they could trap in a corner at a cocktail party or backyard BBQ.
This caused some, but by no means all, of the professional information workers to go to high freak mode. It doesn't take a very in depth perusal of traditional print or broadcast type of information transfer entities to find claims that these "amateur" information transferers are "inaccurate, lacking in context, and politically slanted." Which is all true... but probably no more so that these traditional information sources. Show me an information outlet that this doesn't apply to and I'll show you a radio station in east New Mexico who only programs the slow reading of PTA minutes.
These new "news" outlets seem to me to mirror how we gather and use information from sources more close to us. How do we gather information about things that happen within our circle of friends and family... we hear the story (or receive an email about it) from various members of our circle, each having a slightly differing viewpoint. We weigh each of the versions according to it's source (because we all know that Uncle Fred will always blame everything on the Democrats and Cousin Sally will minimize how bad things are because she "just don't like to think about things like that".) and make whatever decisions we need to make based on our amalgamated version.
Now news of the broader world can come to us in this fashion... from many different sources, each with its own perception, slant, and flavor. For those thinking this is a really bad trend, please explain one thing... How can any media outlet accurately and unbiasedly report the missteps of a politician that they are on record as recommending as the best person for a particular elected position? When information is passed through any human brain it is altered.
All the thoughts didn't quite leak out but I've noticed that my use of the word "few" in the title probably wasn't very accurate... Then those who know me know that "Migoi sure does like words...he uses a lot of them"..
..take care.. t
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