LIVEdigitally

Ever read an article that makes you a bit nauseated, but mostly just angry? Here’s a gem on the millionaires of Silicon Valley. Dave Winer sums this one up pretty damn well:

You might as well live somewhere else and create, the network effect of being in the valley is negative. At least it was when I left, in 2003. It seems from the Times article that it’s getting worse. It’s great to see people on the east coast getting the message. Don’t live in the shadow of this place. There’s nothing there but people trying to make money, without a good idea why.

I’m no millionaire. I have no qualms against those who have made their money, be it by luck or by skill. But I have no patience - read NONE - for people who live not only better than 99.5 percent of Americans, but better than the top 99.999% of ALL HUMANS (oh, and better than 99.99999% of all humans who have ever lived), and have the audacity to complain about anything (and in public!).

“I know people looking in from the outside will ask why someone like me keeps working so hard,” Mr. Steger says. “But a few million doesn’t go as far as it used to. Maybe in the ’70s, a few million bucks meant ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,’ or Richie Rich living in a big house with a butler. But not anymore.”

It’s these same people that are setting these terrible role models for recent college grads who think they can come out of school, go start some company with a friend or two, and make a few quick million. Nobody seems to want to work anymore, just instantly be rich. And then to complain about it? No thanks.

/rant

note: I’ve really edited and re-edited this piece a few dozen times, it’s gotten me that riled up. I can’t tell if this is the best version or not, but it’s probably the most to-the-point.

updated: after a few hours sleep (two red-eyes in three days, nuff said) and reading Mark’s thoughts I decided to add one more comment:  It is disappointing that the NYT article is so one-sided in its decision to portray rich SV folks in such a shallow light.  Not that what they wrote isn’t true, and not that I feel any differently.  I just have a hunch there are at least a few people reading that piece, feeling frustrated that their charitable efforts, good work ethics, family values, etc are being ignored.  Unfortunately, I think the article was all-too-easy to write and the story they tell was all-too-easy to substantiate.

Maybe that piece (and mine, Winer’s, etc) can encourage someone else to go dig in to find if the bad really does outweigh the good?  That’d be the ultimate “win” from all this.  Until that happens however, I think the rant stands.

To the best of my knowledge, deregulation of utilities and services in the USA have generally led to price gouging. The cable industry in particular raised rates over 50% in the first six years since being deregulated in 1996 (source). Even with competition from satellite and phone companies, your living room TV is about the biggest cash cow companies like Comcast, Charter, Cox, Time Warner, and others have ever seen. Sure we’re seeing money flow to new services (see my buyshifting articles for more thoughts on that topic), and Joost (and others) are enabling free, or virtually free TV services. But that’s not stopping the cable companies.

The AP reported today that cable companies intend to increase rates by $2-3/month in 2009, blaming the FCC-mandated digital transition for the hike.

Time Warner Cable Inc. spokesman Alex Dudley said the company agrees with the cable industry’s stance that the FCC cable card rule is a “tax” on consumers.

This is a bad thing. Not just because they want to increase prices, which they are entitled to do, despite being either a network of monopolies or oligopolies, depending on how you look at it. Not just because despite deregulation over 90% of Americans only have a single cable service provider option. And not just because the cable companies have seen fit to exploit their entrenched position to impose rate hikes at a rate of over three times inflation.

Chris Murray, senior counsel at Consumers Union in Washington, said it’s convenient for cable companies to blame regulators when they’ve stalled about complying with the FCC rule for years. Cable operators also have had no problem raising rates regularly for various reasons.

“They raise rates three times faster than inflation every year, for more than a decade,” he said. “Cable companies want to have absolute control. We don’t think they should have it.”

Cable companies have known about the digital transition for years. It’s been delayed time and time again. They’ve had ample opportunities to build infrastructure and save the necessary funds to make the transition painless. Instead, they wait to the 11th hour, and then attempt to pass the buck.

Here’s an easy way to do something about it.  Click here to send a simple email to your legislator on the topic.  Note that this is focused on A La Carte cable, but joining into this campaign will most certainly be the best possible first step down a very important road.  Take 5 minutes, it’s worth it.

Ah, wonderful wonderful procrastination. I’m finally ready to do my system recovery, after which my Sony Vaio VGN-SZ460N laptop should finally act like the state-of-the-art computer it’s supposed to be - Sony only makes one ‘better’ laptop, and it seems to come down to the casing materials. In my last scan of links while completing my backup (my third, this one to my Seagate FreeAgent 160), I saw this article over on PC World.

Even now, I still won’t call myself anti-Microsoft or anti-Sony, but it’s amazing to me how two companies, the utterly dominant leaders in their respective industries, can so easily let their customer base slip away. I was told recently by an industry expert that Mac laptops now represent 10% of the laptop market. Personally, I don’t need to see another commercial to know how close I’ve gotten to switching. In fact, if I hadn’t been told by my office full of Macheads that Leopard is worth waiting for, I’d probably consider it quite strongly right now.

I predict that this January (if not sooner) Apple ships an ultra-thin laptop (along with 1-2 more iPhone models - iPhone Nano is a guarantee in my eyes). At the pace I’m going with my Vaio, I’ll
be ready to camp out in line for a few days to get one.

So I kinda, well, chickened out today. I did my entire backup - twice actually, once on my office Drobo, the other on my home Maxtor NAS. As an aside, I’d like to give a special big heartfelt “thank you” to the folks at Norton Security Center who found a way to protect me by preventing me from finding my NAS on my home network for an hour or so. The helpfulness and security I now bask in is wonderful. Yes, the sarcasm is at an all-time high right now.

Anyhow, I’m still in my awkward Vista stage, and was trying to get a video I captured yesterday for a friend of mine online. Windows Media Player is crashing on me, so I tried using one of the built-in Sony applications to preview the video clip I made. Here’s the error I saw:

Ok, fess up. I’m on candid camera, right? Right?

I saw my first Vista demo last summer during a partners briefing/demo day.  It looked awesome.  Sure it’s “inspired” by OS X, but the two have gone back and forth “sharing” for years anyway, and that’s not a bad thing.  Vista looked like a much-improved XP, with a focus on better security, better networking, and an overall better experience. 

I had absolutely no intention of doing an upgrade from XP, but figured I’d sooner-or-later get a new laptop with Vista pre-installed.  That’d make the perfect solution - I would get the best of both worlds. I figured, hey, when’s the next time I’ll be in Haiti?

My brand new laptop, as in the one that came with Vista pre-installed, shipped with out-of-date drivers.  Let me see if that point is clear enough here.  I bought a laptop, in the store, took it home, turned it on.  Wrong drivers.  Imagine buying a car, at a dealer, and they left the wrong tires on it. 

It’s taken me a couple of weeks, but now I can proudly say that my brand-spanking-new laptop no longer crashes when I close the lid, nor do I lose the right-mouse button for hours on end.  Anymore.

Clearly my productivity is at an all-time high.

Went out to have a coffee (read: beer) with a couple of office-mates today. 

Returned to my office, found my laptop, tablet PC, and digital camera were all stolen.

There were other people in the office at the time.

Watched the building’s security video, the thief left the building 1 minute before I returned.

Cops are skeptical about finding it.

This sucks.

The only saving grace is I had just backed up all my photos yesterday, and most of my other files about 2 weeks ago.

Cops said not to even bother calling pawn shops looking for it, as it’s likely being sold for about $100 to some “organization” that sends them overseas.

Did I mention this sucks?

Will probably get a new one tomorrow (any recommendations? please comment if so) - thanks to my Plaxo and my Drobo, I should be back up and running within 48 hours.

Sucks.

Disclosure: I am a former employee of Sling Media.

I thought it made sense to get that out of the way up front.  Was just reading an article at Ars regarding MLB’s latest feelings about that Slingbox company (nothing reflects better on someone who can’t even deign to get a company name right when quoted):

“Of course, what they are doing is not legal,” MLB general counsel Michael Mellis told The Hollywood Reporter Esq. “We and other leagues have formed a group to study the issue and plan our response. A lot depends on ongoing discussions. Plus, there’s no guarantee that Slingbox will be around next year. It’s a startup.”

I must say I enjoy picking apart quotes when given the opportunity.  And that opportunity is now.

“Of course, what they are doing is not legal” - if it were “of course” why would they need to …

“We and other leagues have formed a group to study the issue and plan our response” - shouldn’t it be obvious?  Maybe it’s not so “not legal” as he said up front?  Maybe??  Probably.

Additional Disclosure: I am not a lawyer.

“A lot depends on ongoing discussions” - good, that’s always good.  I wonder who’s in those discussions?

“Plus, there’s no guarantee that Slingbox will be around next year” - actually, unless the boxes are going to spontaneously combust in 2008, there is every guarantee they will be around next year.  Unless he meant the company, I guess, in which case it’s just as fair to say there’s no guarantee that MLB will be around next year, they might just go on strike, again.  Okay, I must admit I’m particularly bitter because I am a Montrealer, and lost my Expos to the insane greed propagated by MLB and the owners, particularly G.S. of N.Y. Washington.

“It’s a startup” - well, if it’s just a startup, and not even guaranteed to be around next year, then why get all fussy about it anyway?

Still more disclosure: I get all bent out of shape when I read such inanity.  So much so that I use words like inanity without even verifying if they are real words.

Also from the article:

At last year’s Digital Media Summit, MLB VP George Kliavkoff said that a San Francisco Giants fan visiting Chicago and watching a Giants game via his Slingbox is “stealing” from whatever Chicago cable operator has the rights to carry the game in the Windy City.

This is a very interesting point, one in which MLB has fairly, well, dead-wrong.  See, when I’m visiting Chicago, the local cable operator doesn’t really give much thought to me.  Hotel room TVs aren’t counted for local advertising.  So the provider there really ignores me.  On the other hand, my local SF affiliate loves counting my eyeballs every time they can (not mine specifically per se, although almost mine). 

I guess the part I most don’t understand is why they get quite so ridiculous about it.  It reminds me of Hollywood starting out all anti-VCR, which turned out to be one of the most profitable avenues the studios ever saw.  MLB’s response to placeshifting shouldn’t be to call in the lawyers and cry foul.  I’d like to see them, as they say, “man up” about this.  They should either:

• COMPETE with Sling - Provide an alternative solution that is more compelling than a Slingbox
• PARTNER with Sling - Find a way to leverage the Slingbox to generate additional revenue or business opportunities

MLB is a multi-billion dollar organization. Yup, that was with a “B”.  Sling’s raised a total of about $57 million.  Calling in lawyers to deal with this is like me calling Terminix to kill a spider in my house. 

Final disclosure: I do not work for Terminix.

Inanity!

History has shown that when it comes to technology, the fastest method to hamper consumer adoption is to have FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt).  In my limited lifespan, this dates back to the VHS-Betamax duel back in the 80s, and continues today in the BluRay-HD battles.  Nobody wants to buy the wrong thing, and consumers will often sit around and wait for a victor to emerge.

HP, a company I’ve liked over the years (and one where I have a lot of friends), decided that they wanted to get involved and, for lack of a more perfect phrase, screw with the HDTV industry by using the term “HDTV 2.0″. Shame on you, HP, for such an ill-timed, inappropriate, and unnecessary move.

Consumers today have enough trouble differentiating between 720p, 1080i, and 1080p when they try to buy a set (answer: the first two are effectively the same, 1080p is the ‘better one’ that you should be looking for if you are spending more than about $1500 on a set). 

They have enough issues trying to figure out if they should buy an upscaling DVD player or an actual high-definition player (answer: unless you have a very good set, you probably won’t really notice the difference, plus I wouldn’t buy until the format is settled). 

They have to figure out if they should buy DVI or HDMI or component cables (answer: it’s gotta be HDMI, no debate here), and once they’ve picked, have to then assess how much to spend on those cables (answer: now that I’ve learned a bit more about the cabling and the future of HD, if you are looking at a long-term investment in your HD setup, buy the expensive cables, there will be a difference).

Shame on you, HP. It’s not like a debate on what Web 2.0 (or 3.0) really is, where end-users can happily ignore the topic and just enjoy trying out cool new Web sites/services as they launch.  For a marketing organization to intentionally go out and cause additional FUD in an already confusing space is pure and simple a bad move.  Your job is to answer questions, not create them, and your job is to grow the overall pie, not try to cut out some small piece with such short-term thinking.  

Shame on you, HP!

Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we?  There was a time when you’d send off an email, and not have complete confidence it would reach it’s destination properly intact.  Web site developers/managers used to have to build multiple versions of their sites just to make sure the presentation was as desired.  Also, you may recall hearing about some new cool Internet company, but by the time you got home, can’t recall it’s somewhat goofy name.  Quick check, is it 10 years ago, or yesterday?

I really can’t believe how bad the state of email is.  There’s so much anti-spam safeguards in place that it’s now “the norm” to see an email from a very trusted source sitting in the junk box, or worse yet, killed by the ISP.  This problem is exacerbated for people like myself who have independent domain names, which inevitably get taken over by automatic spam “bots”.  I use the mass-BCC trick for sending my geek dinner emails, and each month one or two people send me a note telling me it got stuck in the trash.  It is absolutely pathetic that there is no way to guarantee emails between trusted relationships.  Shame on everyone from Barracuda to Microsoft to Google for not having a solution in place, or even on the horizon.  I especially don’t understand the 28 percent of users who say “spam is not a problem” in their worlds!

Next up: Web browsers.  There’s no doubt that Internet Explorer versions 4, 5, and 6’s near-complete dominance of the browser market had its down side.  But other than lackluster performance and a weak, outdated feature set, I’m not sure what it was.  The Web, for lack of a better phrase, just worked!  Now we have IE6 and 7 on the market, we have Safari (terrible), and Firefox, all with a distributed share of users.  Sure this sounds good - Democracy In Action, yay! - but all I know is I see more and more Web sites broken for one or more browsers, all the time.  I don’t know exactly whose fault it is, but at least when Microsoft ran the show building Web sites was straightforward and reliable.

Okay, that’s enough ranting for the day, but seriously - why are we (we being the technology industry as a whole) allowing the basics to drop into such a deplorable state?  Maybe we need a little less attention on the AJAX and Wikis, and a little more on the things that impact core productivity.  It’s analogous to the cell phone industry, building really pretty-looking phones that can capture and stream TV-quality video, but still drop calls and have terrible battery life. 

But I do have hope that by 2017 it’ll be a little better.  Not much, mind you, but a little.

As I’m still in the midst of my living room media center cleanup, I went to pick up a new TV stand.  My requirements were, I thought, simple:

1. Front doors, preferably see-through (need the doors for the arrival of babytoe)
2. At least four shelves for all devices (AV receiver, STB, Xbox 360, “hold for future”) - yes, I’m ditching all other products in the living room other than Slingbox and Sonos, neither of which really need their own shelf.
3. Easy access to back panels so I can add/remove devices without taking everything apart
4. Not ultra-modern looking

You’d be amazed how hard this combination is to find.  I eventually settled on the one you see pictured above (my inspiration), a $229 DIY special from Tarjay.  I measured everything, all was fine.  It was simple to assemble, only needed a screwdriver and hammer, took about an hour all-in.

This afternoon, I was all set to do th\e migration, I expected about 45 minutes with all the cabling and whatnot.  As it turns out, again visible in the picture above, the 16″ depth is accurate, but useless.  The inside is exactly 16″ deep, making it the exact size of my receiver and Comcast DVR.  Here’s how I feel about it:

I can’t confirm the stat (since I’m making it up), but I’ll go out on a limb and say TiVo’s product satisfaction rate probably hovers around 90%.  Echostar’s DVR is generally very well-liked by many of it’s customers.  Heck, even the tiny fraction of Windows Media Center Edition owners who use their PCs as DVRs claim it’s phenomenal.  And then there’s Comcast.

For HDTV DVR services, Comcast uses the Motorola DCT6412 set-top box, a unit that is simply plagued by defects nationwide.  Ask someone who owns this unit, odds are pretty good they’ll talk about their problems at length, and complan how much they hate it.  My friend Ryan was so frustrated by his unit (which is definitely defective) that he blogged about it.

I walked into my living room this morning to find my wife watching TV and when she pulled up the program guide, I noticed I’d lost about 1/8th of my overall screen space to a new “advertisement slot” (photos below).  Worse yet, I’ve lost 2 (of 6) lines of the visible grid area, meaning I have to spend roughly 1/3 longer than before just to scroll through channels.

What a terrible, terrible move.  Here are a few simple ways they could make this marginally better (assuming they won’t get rid of it):

• Reduce the height of the ad to the same height as a grid item, giving me one line back
• Only have it show up once every XX pages
• Use the “top area” where the Comcast logo is instead, since that’s pretty much wasted space already
• Make it slightly bigger, but then let me hide it once I’ve viewed it (it can reappear every XX minutes)

Or just give me the darn TiVo interface already - the one that was announced two years ago. Come on!