How many situations like that arise? 
That may explain the planet a  little better but it’s not helping me.  The question that I would like to have answered is this.At which point do I benefit from everyone else’s communication skills? E.G.; it seems like addressing the correct audience is a one-way-street.
In other words I [...]

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Please let me know if you see anything weird!

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Swine flu creates controversy on Twitter – CNN.com

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At the moment these are things that interest me.

Mobile web,     the kind of world that emerges when  resources are too costly to move people to and from places of work,education  as a matter of course,  educating our toddler, thinking of alternate ways to make a scrapyard profitable and dare I say green?     Locating items which are truly innovative and not just this year’s restatement of the past with  a couple of features , aka  the marketing departments mega pixel effect were more is better, cough bullshit.

Go Daddy Christmas party.

Last night  saw Joan Jett at  the companies  Christmas Party, aka Go Daddy.   We got home around 1am and bought her last CD,   Sinner by Joan Jett  which made up for  the other two acts Sinbad  ,  the last syllable is devastatingly accurate,   and 38 Special ( I was ignorant of their oeuvre ) and  I had to leave my own   38 special at home  this being a work event and there being drink and all:) 

We also had to forgo hearing Patrick Lauder    sing the national anthem at the Coyotes vs Redwings game , for which is were we would have been  barring the party, but instead  had  Lillian Garcia   sing which , no offence to Patrick,  is physically prettier but   he wins out on overall delivery    Still Lilian was really good  and way better than the  usual  histrionic warbling  and  3 or four notes when one would do  from singers that may have  the impression that singing the song’s more about their performance.   Yep I’m glad nowadays when the longest held note contest is a separate event:D.  

That’s  all very cool  but what’s even  better is the message  given by our CEO, Founder and lover of things two wheeled and  European  , Bob Parsons who,  after riding  up to the podium on a Ducati let us know that we  had our best year ever,  are  not an example of the kind of company, institution that  promoted dud loans, built too many car or houses.  The company gives a lot of time  , via staff, and money   to charities and this is the annoying part coming up. Since when do you have to justify success in the USA?    Understand I am not getting at those justifying but the people asking the question in the first place. 

 Many companies curtailed their  parties because of the   business climate and  to them , I say  hum bloody bollocks bug to you.   The number of staff to  cater, provide entertainment, services etc   that’s money going to real businesses, same with the shoes,    clothing and other accessories.   The money that the staff won    guess were most of that is going too?       I don’t often post on work related items because  it’s a difficult balance  to not come across as a gushing fan boy  which as anyone that knows me  would find hard to reconcile with my  cynical daily demeanor.  The latter is a relative scale   , seriously in the UK  I was pretty much on the optimistic side:)     So celebrating two thousand people, their families  and the charities, venders and stores  that benefit from Go Daddy’s existence  is something that should NEVER be apologized for at any time  and certainly cheered my holiday up.The laser and fireworks finale would have been  perfect toddler material but it pleased my inner toddler greatly will post some pics as they come in.

[The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

Oh I nearly forgot..   moobies!

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I posted on the phrase on my other blog that I would like to extirpate this phrase  from the English language or at least the workplace. Rather than do an original one I’m running a semi ok off  post.  I’d prefer people would say ” it’s this way because”  which gives an indication that they’ve looked at the issue rather than just accepted it on a prima facie interest.

“it is what is is” 

Today I heard it several more times and  it didn’t have a calming effect , quel surprise? I needed to look further into what irks me so much about this new catch all.

It is what it is” means what it means. Depending on context, it can be a statement of resignation or of defiance, but in neither case does it connote the optimistic good humor of “It’s all good.” If anything, it expresses the absence of emotion, the abdication of feeling. Although it seems to imply value-neutrality, that misses the point; it’s not so much that something is neither good nor bad, but rather that its quality simply isn’t relevant, that it’s not worth the energy to make a value judgment.

To put it another way — it doesn’t matter what you think about it because you can’t do anything about it anyway. It was in this spirit that Al Gore invoked the phrase after winning the popular vote and possibly the electoral tally as well: “I strongly disagreed with the Supreme Court decision and the way in which they interpreted and applied the law. But I respect the rule of law, so it is what it is.”

Flak Magazine: It’s All Good vs. It Is What It Is, 06.11.03

and

Radar, Oh really ? It is what it is… Welcome to tautology Thursday.

One of the colloquial phrases, ok  maybe it’s not just AZ but I hear it more here, that’s been annoying me is the Popeye school of    “it is  what it is” as a cover all for  ill conceived, poorly implemented or ineffable solutions that have wandered onto the radar.This verbal chaff that’s tossed up in the air , rather than  fixing a location onto the problem , obscures the problem and by the time all the flakes have landed , or given up and go home,  there’s still the small matter of a  missile  bearing down on you. As a bonus there’s now less time and fewer options to react with.  

tautology – Definitions from Dictionary.com
1. (logic) a statement that is necessarily true; “the statement ‘he is brave or he is not brave’ is a tautology”

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In short  it’s  a set of  rules  for the relationship between creators, promoters and fans  around  Sci Fi / Fantasy conventions which can be extrapolated to  most commercial  interactions. E.G   Are we customers, consumers, data points  or people that  want to get things done?

When you have a “voice” for a corporation engaged in social media  maybe it’s a good idea to think about the above because the mode of address you choose in 3/4 cases is going to be wrong

Can a corporation really be your friend?   Does this  construct sound real?   X is out buying yummy things  his  company make  ,  Y is out  watching their Movie  etc  Does this sound remotely like a relationship your engaged in?    If it doesn’t it’s for the obvious reason that it ISN’T. 

I love dealing with people from companies,  hate dealing with  company names that have a rotating cast of interchangeable  responses that would make Turing dance with glee. I can’t tell them apart from a machine or human either. 

Wer in ur boahdroomz wutchin yu wit intrst

*invisible pink unicorn  peace be unto her hooves.

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Or read Galt’s speech ?

The latter. Seems quicker

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Instead been Reviewing on Yelp , far more interesting interaction with people that leads to real world benefits. Yep my thoughts on how to organize society are completely irrelevant to most people. Been racking up time with Scrabble, reading books , Bonk being the most interesting

The most I can be trusted with is reviewing wings and Irish bars:)

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However, I would actually like to challenge you to really think about your job. If you did not have a manager who gave you goals/tasks, what would you do?

A popular answer I’m sure would be “nothing”, however, one must make a living somehow and afford a roof over their head and food on the table so one cannot just do “nothing”.

Discoveries and Epiphanies

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11 years into the mass adoption of the Internet and we still can’t get the basics rights. You know not losing data:(

The post I lost. Bike review, My newest malady ( Gout) and a suggestion to go watch Garagenight.tv which is a Vlog about the art of motorcycle maintenance, zen may be optional since it comes from my homeland. Still I have always found most American media on motorcycles to be lacking. Way too many nice reviews and seems to not reflect the kind of high jinks that Performance Bikes in the UK gets up to. E.g if the bike is dangerous piece of crap it’s called such. The same bike in the USA is of course just fine.

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Happy new year, at least one of  the many calenders that are out there. I prefer the dragons and fireworks
myself to  the irony of the “timeless”  Dick Clark looking like didn’t go down
to Georgia, but over to Switzerland instead and lost a watch building contest
with “Old Harry”, but I digress. Let’s start out 2008 with a positive message. 

I am positive that elections are a great excuse to get more people blog, vlog
, ne demagogue  this upcoming  election with a torrent of user generated content
seeded by MSM sources ( Oh dear I’ve gone negative early… )

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 I had at work today re what I enjoy about blogging it turns out it’s the headlines  nearly all the puns and jokes I’m proud of are  stuck in the titles which suggests that most of the time I’d be better off twittering a link.

That’s not going to happen there’s still the mediocre part of me that will keep on doing this till every copy of “the cult of the amateur” ends up in a Fahrenheit 451 scenario and   the personification of the book immolated while bagpipe music  is heard nearby.

Little angry there:) Then  these gems come up so it’s back to my vigil in a wilderness of mirrors and another misguided attempt by the lawn arm of the law…

Daily Herald – Orem woman arrested, injured in lawn dispute

Perry said she learned a lesson as well.

“Be kinder. Be gentler. If the policeman tells you to stand on your head, do it,” she said.

What a nice lesson.  Actually it’s sadly a necessary and sane lesson , one that my lawyer friend is very keen on people following.  Being right , and  injured, isn’t much good and the time to address such ass hattery is after the fact. Challenging a law enforcement officer is  akin to coating your private parts in honey and wandering into a Bear’s den  shouting HONEY! I’m home   it’s not going to turn out well.

Taser’s aren’t just for Xmas they’re  for  8-80   and while I’ve changed my mind on the devices considerably I’m still worried about the operators behind them than the relative risks of being shot. Phoenix New times which is about the only investigative writing I’ve seen worth a crap in the Valley has a good series on them  and  like most technology there are good and bad uses for it. When it goes bad… it’s   “Why the fuck aren’t people out in the streets bad?”  then I look out our County sherrif ( Joe  Arpaio ) and realized that  if the FCC allowed it   we’d have prisoner’s being  abused for entertainment  on our local news channel. Ok  let me get this in proportion it’s not the one  cop that held the taser down for 84 seconds is nowhere near as scary as the support system that claimed that he was not wrong  in doing so.

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Meantime the odd missing link/ image is being chased down but I have work to do getting another blog out the door rather than this one..

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Campus killer’s purchases apparently within gun laws

Source: Campus killer’s purchases apparently within gun laws – CNN.com

I’ve written CNN many times over the years re their disregard for facts when it comes to the legal carrying, description and misuse of firearms they consistently  get it wrong to the point that  it’s not an accident.   Here’s a post   and comment series that’s quite interesting. Firstly  it’s a crime to lie on the form 4473 which you must fill out when buying a firearm , new or used, from a licensed dealer.   Then again so is homicide,  see just how useful our paper tigers are?  

 I think we’ve created so much  “crime” in the US that doesn’t rely on the need for there to be a  victim, or damages incurred that   resources are expended on controlling those that ordinarily would be of no inconvenience to the general population but are used to  demonstrate who’s in charge”   A good post on this  can be found here .  As much as I like annoying objectivists   the originator  Rand had some  great things to say on this subject  one of the most famous from  Atlas Shrugged being,

“Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?”, said Dr. Ferris. “We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against — then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power that any government has is to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted — and you create a nation of law-breakers — and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”

Put it this way  the local  Sheriff charges  about $70 to  book and  $130 a day to house  those arrested by other departments  for most crimes that result in  fines or action that cost way less than  the  system to arrest, process , try , pay for juries / judges  and the people then enforce the judgements.  The above quote seems rather ominous now?

I’m not sure I’m getting value for money  when there’s no one aggrieved. I don’t buy that  a victimless crime is a precursor to  serious crimes either.  Everyone at some time has HAD to speed  or was caught unaware  by a change in conditions yet we can avoid shoplifting, assault and fraud since  it’s in most people’s interests to not harm others , who wants to live in a world where you have to guard your  family , food, water  etc every minute of every day ?  ( You still should be ready to   but it’s thankfully not needed in most countries that have reached the Civ stage of telephone system:) note I don’t include  guarding against the state that’s another thing altogether )  

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Ok leaving MSM and wandering back to the MSB ( main stream blogosphere) I’ve seen a few entries, best summed up by this one, that  such a link is even considered between a technology and this event seems to be clutching at straws or

I said we hadn’t foreseen this use of the technology because, as utopians, we tend to look for the good stuff. I liked to think I had a balanced view, and could see where bloggers weren’t doing good, but I hadn’t seriously considered our tools used to further such a bad cause. 

What’s next? Isn’t it obvious — the latest and greatest stuff, Ustream, Twitter and mass murder. When you see a suicide bomber with a camera strapped to his or her head, you’ll know that the bad has caught up with the good.  

Source: Cho-TV, day 2 (Scripting News)

I can’t think that this would ever be a reasonable way to think and live your life trying to work out .  What cause is being advanced here that   couldn’t be leveled at the station  covering Oswald’s murder by Jack Ruby?  Maybe Zapruder was a nascent vlogger ?   Could  bic  and moleskine  wouldn’t be complicit in had  he been more into  good penmanship?  Were the murderers of Daniel Pearl vlogging?   Hopefully my argument ad absurdum is bugging you as much as it did for me to type it.

 I don’t buy this red herring  which is  reflected in my title   which ,I hope ,shows that   way too many groups are taking the foreground events and contextualizing , ne compositing it,  to fit  their own interests, agendas or regular subject matter. ( like I’m doing )  

To date  it doesn’t appear that  the murderer posted it to the myriad of  video sites,  blogs, a personal webpage of did anything other than use OLD methods  ( relatively in the case of Quicktime)   to MAIL  material.  Gee   let’s go after Franklin now for touting the post office not knowing the evil it could be used for….   His methods were akin to a PR agency which  may tell Bill Hicks fans more than they need to know

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Normal service will resume soon.,

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This is a list of all the items that are interesting but for lack of time, and in many cases understanding I’d prefer to just make you aware of them. It’s also the list I will  be using to justify my ”I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe”   comments

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You’ll have to mind your own damned business and take responsibility for your own actions. If the guy next door to you is a polygamist transsexual drug addict with a collection of .44 magnums who makes porno movies featuring donkeys, there’s nothing you can do about it.

You’re gonna learn to live your own life, without the government’s tongue permanently shoved up your arsehole.

Source: Did you bring the pre-whacked snakes?

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Ah I presaged the joy of this debate a few posts back, and indeed a couple of weeks back on my work blog but it looks like people that have the ability to gather some attention ( Oh we’re very “the Island” in a Huxley sense over here) have weighed in with a more weighty assessment on what was my visceral reaction to being sold on being sold to. One of the proponents of the SMR Chris Heuer appears to be having an interesting time rebutting these including this interesting reference to something that derails the Cluetrain so many of the SM group seem to be waving their ticket stubs in the air to show we’re all on the same track, that we are, sadly I don’t think we’re going in the same direction though:)

as a result, here comes the pile-on, where all bloggers are going to attack the PR industry – without knowing all the facts, giving more credence to that stupid “Attack of the Bloggers” article from last year.

Is this saying that bloggers are the coolest when their interpretation dovetails with our purpose of communication but otherwise are just not playing fair? Maybe, just maybe we see through PR and the idea that we need these modern day shapers to translate from the ‘king boardroom to the buyer is soon to be lost in the mists of time?
Grendel…. supper’s ready.

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New Zealand’s Timaru District Court has heard how a prostitute tried to get her own back on Christopher Malcolm Duane Muir, a farmhand on the country’s South Island, who didn’t pay after using her services.

Link to Sex dispute ends in tractor rampage – World – theage.com.au

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Chris Locke has an interesting psychic test which I am sure most of you can pass. You have to come up with your own title and lineage of super psychic authenticity ,probably print your own certificate too.   Anyway I think of my ex writing that book …

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Anway ..   St Bob   is still in …

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