Time for a kill

The world is topsy-turvey these days and it often feels that our lives are out of our control governed by unknown forces beyond our reach. A "Joseph K" feeling if you will. Then you hear of the latest hullabaloo over bonus payments from A.I.G. to the very group within the company that basically destroyed it and cost shareholders about $200 billion. At times like this I really miss some feral, third-world justice. People in the streets, being violant, being human, angry and expressing it. They say it is illegal to NOT give them the bonuses now because it was in the contract. Oh, the stifling respect for law and even more so to order. We don't need no order. We have too much of it. We need good, old  street-style beatings to discourage the execs from claiming bonuses. The answer to 'your money or your life' is such a welcome certainty in these times.

Oh well, we will all just watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and feel superior and move on with our stolid, inert lives.

Only 2 apps can run simultaneously

Windows 7 started edition will allow only two apps to be running on your machine simultaneously. Wow! Microsoft as finally reached a level of insanity that was hitherto reserved for...well, Microsoft!

Yes, the worlds leading favorite company has done it again. While the rest of the world is moving toward running many apps -- maybe in the 10s at times -- Microsoft Windows 7 started edition will allow only 2 apps to be running simultaneously. I cannot even believe this that is why I guess I got to write it twice. Where are we headed? Hopefully to a world without Microsoft.

Oscar Wilde to close

Another casualty of the financial crises they say. No, I am not speaking of the venerable author but the bookstore in New York.

I distinctly remember year ago when I was new to this country I was wandering the steets aimlessly with Puja and we happened to see this tiny bookstore. Those were the days when I was really high on his writings, his aphorisms and mannerisms. I was blown away to see a bookstore in his name. I promptly entered and started looking at the books. It didn't take long before I realized that it wasn't exactly the kind of bookstore I was expecting. No, no clear homage to Oscar Wilde in celebration of his plays or his writings or hosting of other authors in the smililar vein. No. This was a bookstore specializing in guy and lesbian books. Now, I have precious little interest in those topics specially in those days and even now my interest remains spotty, not that there is anything inherently wrong with that genre. I sped out promptly from the store almost feeling cheated. I had gone to see one side of Wilde's personality and was reminded that it was the other side that was really of interest to folks in my new adopted country.

Every day and every trip is a lesson.

Well, just read this in the Times this morning that the bookstore is closing. It cannot survive in the current climate of economic collapse. People have stopped spending money and specially on exotic topics and even more so at exotic bookshops.

The 'closing time' continues...

"...Like riding a tiger..."

It is quite reassuring to note that on a complete collapse of business ethics the United States does not hold a monopoly. Satyam, India's "premium" outsourcing company has shown the world and specially the United States how spectacular corruption can be done that would make the world take notice (made a big-fat headline on WSJ -- I don't remember seeing one on Indian business before). The petty corruption that has plagued India for years and earned it a bad reputation among the industrial ("civilized" world) can finally take a back-seat. Mr. Ramalinga Raju has finally created some sort of competition for Bernard Madoff, who, probably couldn't have come up with a gem like...

It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten.

Very impressive indeed. 

"I want to make money..."

I don't think there is any political, commercial or moral corruption that would surprise me. However, I am still quite surprised (even shocked) by the amazing stupidity that once in a while surrounds corruption. Take the case of the Illinois governor. I mean how stupid do you have to be to sell, of all the seats in the world, the president-elect's seat? And that no -- no ordinary president-elect but the chosen one! Did not occur to him once that the media and the people will be over this replacement anyway? And then you take a hammer and swing it full-force right on to your tiny toe. Very sad -- not the corruption -- but the incompetence. If Mr. Blagojevich expects rewards for his gross incompetence then maybe he should've been heading a Wall St. bank and not a state.

“I’ve got this thing,” Mr. Blagojevich said on one recording, according to the affidavit, “and it’s [expletive] golden. And I’m just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing. I’m not going to do it. And I can always use it. I can parachute me there.”

Why I love corporate America

Auto CEO's took private jets to ask for a bailout. I can understand why. If you've ever taken a private jet you would understand why you never ever want to fly commercial again. It costs, of course, but if you get used to it -- it is like cocaine.


Bet begging in a Bentley is unbecoming and going to a begging in a private jet is unseemly. However, this is one of those 'only in America' moments that one cannot help but enjoy. This is just brilliant. Thank you, America, for giving the world this wonderful gift. The world is forever indebted.

Microsoft does it again

No, they didn't steal people's music or create the single-most inefficient human experiment in history this time. Just that their new dig ads at Apple are created using a Mac!

It is as if the retarded ads featuring Seinfeld (who I generally love and who on the show used a Mac!) were not enough. 

Is Yahoo already sold?

So Yahoo shuts dooors of its DRM-based music store and guess what happens to any music anyone bought from their DRM stores. It is not going to be playable beyond September anymore when they shut their DRM servers down. Wow! Maybe Yahoo has already been sold to Microsoft. Maybe not in the way you think but in ideology. Microsoft just did the very same thing a few months ago. Amazing. Apparently companies will continue to sodomize their customers and then wonder why the customers ran away? I don't get it.

Another one bits the dust

The giant Barnes & Noble store on 6th Ave and 23rd street closed a few weeks ago. This is just another one of those things that I like that has ended unceremoniously. Most restaurants either stop serving dishes we like if they've not shut doors already. Most stores we like close doors. Most things we like deteriorate. Very strange how that works.

Anyway, this closing of B&N is particularly troubling. This was one of those places where I could go to after work once in a while and be just between books. No one but me and books. I could browse through, buy and just feel elevated in some snobbish but very real sense.

But of course, all good things (and even some bad ones) must come to an end. The big bookstore closed without much fanfare. I fear that it will be replaced by an Old Navy. It is strange how we want to put less and less inside our heads and more and more on our bodies.

I wonder kids will ever even know a bookstore other than Amazon ?(which I have nothing against but doesn't make up for B&N for ambiance)

Microsoft: Can a company be more useless?

Just read the following on the PVRBlog on Microsoft. Sometimes I think they are unduly targetted by a hateful public and critics. However, when I read stuff like this I really think that the world should sue the hell out of them and put them out of business.

"The first story is the shuttering of their MSN Music service. It was an attempt to take on the iTunes Music Store and offer paid music downloads. After a couple years of service, they've decided to close down the service but in doing so, they'll turn off the servers that authorize your music tracks so if you ever update your operating system or buy a new computer, your old purchased music files will not play. You would have to buy the songs again using the newer Zune store."

Just one word: Wow!

But that is not enough, PVRBlog goes on to describe another little nugget where the proverbial Big Brother really raises its ugly head.

The second story is about NBC shows coming to the Microsoft Zune media player, but with one feature NBC wanted added to the device: the copyright cop. If you buy a NBC show and transfer it to your Zune, a small application will check your Zune for "pirated" shows and movies that weren't purchased from the Zune store, and delete them. It's rumored that this is why the NBC/Apple partnership ended at the iTMS and they removed shows -- because Apple refused to build in this kind of capability.

I just don't know where companies get these kind of ideas from. I just don't know why businesses treat their own customers like jerks. Again, this is the reason that every knowledgeable Yahoo user shuddered at the thought of being acquired by Microsoft.

Yahoo! to No Microhoo!

Well, at least for now. This is one of those things that makes a lot of people (including me) very happy but also makes a lot of people (the shareholders of Yahoo) very unhappy. Better me than them, I say.

Sour

Mars buying Wrigley's is leaving a sour taste in my mouth. All mergers and acquisitions generally leave a bad taste in my mouth. Not sure why exactly. Not sure why I care. I seem to have a fundamental problem with mergers because I fundamentally believe that they erode choice for me.

Anyway, I keep feel sour while I wait for my Microsoft Milk Home Premium Organic Lowfat Edition 2008 SP3.

Misery sure loves company

What should two pathetic companies mired in loss do when both have no real chance of ever making a profit or ever making their customers or their employees happy? Merge, of course so that they can not only be the biggest company in their sector but the biggest loser at that. Delta and Northwest are reporting a combined loss of 10 billion dollars in just the first quarter! Good that they are becoming one. I am sure they will do much better now -- I mean somehow manage to lose even more money in the future. One wonders how does a company even manage to lose that kind of money?

Hollywood Heist

So apparently Hollywood just had a great year in 2007. I remember less than two years ago there was this hue-and-cry about how the Internet, file-swapping, Video games, TV, TiVo and everything they could possibly think of (someone even mentioned, gasp, books) that was destroying Hollywood movie industry. No one would watch films in theaters anymore. Articles were written in the papers (yes, those things that no one reads anymore, or so we say now) about how the industry is doing and how there was no hope. They had been left behind. There was no tomorrow (though Bond seemed to disagree) and it was all over.

So what explains the great 2007? The same thing that explains most of the economic and business discussion these days. It is all fickle and reactionary. Things are not things anymore -- they are precursors to chains of things. They are not complete within themselves -- they foretell stories. They predict doom. They tell us that an event is a trend or at least it predicts a trend.

To me it defies all logic but then emotions aren't about logic and unfortunately most of our public discussion has been taken over by emotion from reason. Hence the rise of the blog culture, the talk show culture, the youth culture and other such cultures that think from various organs all below the neck.

Of non-fiction and not quite

So once again there is much hullabaloo on a fake memoir (as if there is any other kind.) To me it simply exposes the naiveté of Western media, readers and editors. Editors, for trusting the authors, readers for trusting the editors and authors and for the media for trusting anything.

More than that is this perversely stupid idea that the terms 'fiction' and 'non-fiction' have kept their meaning while everything else has been morphing around them. For some, the terms seem to have, for some reason, circumvented the last few centuries and are still stuck in the age or reason (or darkness, take your pick.)

I for one have always been skeptical of non-fiction for it seemed too fictitious and fiction for being a bit too less so.

Sriram wrote about something similar the other day though on a slightly different topic but discussing, while on it, the fundamental issue that we need to be a little more awake. These days the terms Fiction/non-fiction aren't a basic classification of a human pursuit any more than sports/gambling are or news/entertainment are. It is all the same thing.

But everyone has the right to remain stupid. It is our fundamental right. Next only to suicide.

Someone please stop Best Buy...

So now a hard-disk box was found to contain dried beans! Of Course they are not going to refund the customer anytime soon. This makes such a pattern. Every few days someone buys something from Best Buy and realizes that the box contains something completely different (Tiles, older camera and now beans.)

There is no getting way. Why would anyone buy anything ever from them?

Walgreens - The Ministry of Truth

Photography is becoming difficult every day. Read this thread on Flickr. Apparently, if you tried to get Walgreens to print really good shots that you took -- they wouldn't do it because they wouldn't believe they'd be yours! You MUST be stealing someone's photos, you thief!

Wow!

What next? Should we be discredited of everything good we do?

In fact, now that I think about it -- something similar happened to me a long long time ago. I wrote a poem on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy in 1984 (now that year couldn't possibly be mere co-incidence) and my Hindi teacher admonished me for stealing it from somewhere. I tried to convince her that I wrote it myself but no sir she would not have it. The poem was too good to be created by me. I was only 11 years old. How could I be 'good'? She wanted me to admit to my error of judgment in front of the class. I of course would not do it. I cried, I was young. I wrote even more poems after that. Some good, some bad but I guess most beyond my youth.

Microhoo!

Can nothing good ever happen? Are we doomed to a lifetime of resentment and anger at thing that we cannot control but things that control our lives completely?

Microsoft buying yahoo would destroy the following for me:
- my primary email
- my photo sharing (flickr)
- my primary contact mgt app
- my primary calendaring app
- my primary home page app
- my ability to get email on blackberry
and several other things that I cannot think of right away.

oh, well. I guess it is time to move everything to Google...which actually sucks because they are not quite there in terms of products

You know its the holidays when...

...your stock broker (yes, broker) and not your high school pal you haven't spoken in years, sends you an innocuously online holiday greeting.

How does one opt out of this holidays "pain-in-the-assry"?

In case you must know -- here is the link to this dud from TD Ameritrade.

http://www.tdameritrade.com/apex_holiday_2007/

Best Buy is at the top (bottom)!

Good thing that CompUSA is shutting down shop. Specially good for Best Buy because they are now the undisputed worst in shopping experience. With CompUSA around they were only ever going to be the 2nd worst. They could never quite match the level of inefficiency and customer hatred mastered by the CompUSA employees and management.

However, Best Buy was sure catching up! Click here to read about how they refused to offer a refund when a guy got bathroom tiles in his hard disk box!

Ala Carte channels

I am not sure forcing cable companies to force customers into selecting channels ala carte is going to do much to make our lives easier. Yes, it may seem like a great idea. Why should I pay for the gardening channel or the obscure education channel that I never ever watch?

However, the reality is a bit more complex. One of my pet peeves is this push from companies to make consumers do everything themselves. I believe this self-service model sounds good but puts too much pressure on generally uninformed consumers who end up making the wrong decisions.

Think about it -- in the model we have today -- the companies build 3 or 4 plans and I choose one of them. This model is easy, convenient and looking at the plans for 2-3 minutes is enough to help you make a decision. The flip side is that you end up paying too much -- subsidizing channels you will never watch. The proposed model will make you go through all the hundreds of channels and select the ones you like. Each is probably going to have a different price. It is going to be a true Chinese menu problem. The proposed advantage is that you will probably end up paying much less overall because you get away selecting just 10 of the 200 channels. The problem is that there is nothing to force the cable companies to charge 10 bucks each for the most common channels and the other problem is that niche channels or the independent channels will probably just die. So, over the years we will not only have a few channels we will actually have very few channels to choose from.

From my perspective -- I don't want the hassle of picking and choosing individual channels. Give me my packages -- I have a hard time picking a pasta from a list of 4. Don't make me pick 50 channels out of 300.

So,

I am a bit ambivalent about all the issues Apple has been having with content providers for pricing on iTunes. Apple wants to keep the pricing model simpler. Same price for popular items as for obscure ones. I personally love that model and I know lot of other people do too. It is simple and it works and you are not constantly worried about whether you got the right price or not. The prices don't constantly change on you and make you look stupid if you bought something when it was popular. In today's cluttered world it is a welcome simplicity.

Content providers of course see their content as cash cows. If a song is big let me charge as much as I possibly can and make as much money with it as I possibly can because only about 10% of the content I produce actually makes any money for me and really subsidizes the cost of other unpopular stuff that may have a smaller but sometimes dedicated following. Also, after all it is my content so I should be able to sell it at whatever price I want to whether or not my intention is noble and I want to subsidize fringe stuff by cashing in on mainstream stuff or whether I am just a greedy bastard.

What iTunes is doing is similar in a sense to what Wal-mart does in its stores: pushing content providers (manufactures) to subscribe to its cost model. While Wal-mart's model is strictly about reducing prices Apple's model is about keeping prices consistent. Both models if I really think about it are an attempt to help the customer -- by either giving them a better deal or a less confusing experience. Both in a sense are stifling for the content providers and are dictatorial and both are practicing monopsony.

I love the Apple model and hate the Wal-mart model almost instinctively. However, thinking about it some more they are really doing the same thing and hence the ambivalence.

Those who thought Chrysler had no chance to survive even under a private hat should rejoice. Given the thickness of the wonderful leaders of business, Bob Nardelli the "headstrong" CEO of Home Depot crediting for making billions while the depot crashed on the street, is now going to lead Chrysler.

Mr. George Bush you need not worry. A Nobel Peace Prize awaits you.