To Boston,
In the immortal words of Agent Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch, "Here, educate yourself."
Best regards,
DepthsOfIgnorance
Soon after the debacle of Bostonians mistaking electric signs of cartoon characters for weapons of mass distruction, Boston has now taken to blowing up traffic monitors (the little black boxes, not the people.) Story and video here. That's right, it seems the traffic dept. put out a monitor to count passing cars and the bomb squad naturally saw that as an opportunity to set off some fire-crackers. What a bunch of nut-jobs.
***
Happy Birthday Texas! March 2, 1836 is when the Republic of Texas announced it's independence from Mexico, starting a war that would last, well, less than two months, really. It began with the siege of the Alamo, and we all remember that, right? It ended in April when General Sam Houston acquitted himself nicely at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto. This battle, which lasted less than 20 minutes, decimated Santa Anna's force while only costing a handful of Texan casualties. I'm afraid the boys were a might ruthless, though, being a bit riled from Santa Anna's take no prisoners approach at the Alamo. All the same, they only killed a little over 1/4 of the Mexicans and they let Santa Anna live. Mighty generous, all things considered.
***
A trend is beginning to show in the environmental debate. Along with the increasingly shrill voices seeking to stifle debate on the issue, more attention is being paid to the contrary view, of late. Most recently, National Geographic published an article on Global Warming from a Russian Scientist. He posits a theory that actually correlates well with the temperature record linking the Sun's activity temperature change. He is not some crazy lone wolf, either. A prominent Environmental Geologist from Canada promotes a very similar theory and has a boatload of geologic records to corroborate the theory.
Setting the contravening theory aside, this trend could be for one of two reasons (oh, there may be others, but two will do for now.) Either man generated Global Warming is, in fact, fact and it just makes sensational news to run contrary news pieces or, the holes in man generated Global Warming theory are tearing so wide that it is about to implode like a shredded balloon and folks are finally waking up to the valid contrary arguments. It seems like Global Warming is going the way of the Ice Age and Malthusian scares in the 70's.
Showing posts with label Boston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boston. Show all posts
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
February 10 - More Viral Marketing and the Price of Gary Powers
Yesterday I wrote that viral marketing seems wrong. It comes down to a matter of trust. We have an understanding of what the rules are in advertising. We know that an ad is a biased statement and we generally know who stands to gain. Even with something as potentially subtle as product placement we generally recognize it for what it is. With viral marketing, however, we often have no way of knowing. Viral marketing seeks to create a situation where the market has no idea that it is being sold to. It is fundamentally dishonest. I'd call it lame, like paying famous folks to attend your party, but it is potentially harmful.
Dissecting the Boston WMD party, though, I come to a different conclusion than most I've read or heard. First, the act itself of putting up those signs was no more than graffiti and should be treated as such. Perhaps less because not even semi-permanent defacement was involved. That the officials of Boston were not savvy enough to be aware of something that has been happening all over the world for over a year now does not make the guys who did it criminals. Some say that the guys had a responsibility to say something when they saw the panic. Now that we know it was a viral marketing campaign, I think we'll find that they were contractually bound to say nothing. I don't know this for sure, but I'd bet a Franklin it's so. Who was responsible to say something and fast was Turner, owner of the Cartoon Network that sponsored the event. I figure the $2,000,000 fine they were levied does not even come close to the costs involved. While I am generally a small government sorta guy, I hope that this is the event that causes the appropriate governmental entity to have a look at drafting legislation regarding viral marketing.
While working in the San Jose Bay area, I once saw a U.2. land at Moffet field.
We all know who Gary Powers is. Right? Well, for a re-cap, Gary Powers is the American Air Force pilot who was shot down while flying his U2 over Soviet air space. He was capture alive and held by the Soviets for almost 2 years. We got him back by swapping him for some other fellow named Vilyam Fisher, a KGB agent who the U.S. was holding. Actually the U.S. also got an American student named Fredric Pryor returned. So, Gary Powers = Vilyam Fisher - Fredric Pryor. Maybe not. Anyway, Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher was a classic cold war spy, trained for physical infiltration into the U.S. Probably a fairly good spy, too, as his capture came about when he was betrayed by his defecting assistant, not through any mis-step on his part. This happened in 1957. He is also interesting because before he was caught he was the handler for the couriers that carried the nuclear secrets betrayed by the Rosenbergs.
If you've ever wondered why we endured 50 years of cold war, why the concept of "Mutually Assured Destruction" became doctrine, then you have the Rosenbergs and a few others to thank. After W.W.II the Soviets did not have the bomb. Any significant aggression by the U.S.S.R. would have had the potential of serious ramifications for them. However, Klaus Fuchs and David Greenglass (Ethel Rosenberg's brother) of Los Alamos leaked construction details to Ethel and Julius. Folks who should, wondered why the U.S.S.R. was able to develop their own nuclear weapons so quickly and this was found to be why. The U.S.S.R., once on an equal footing with the U.S., felt more free to promote communism in the world, again.
The U.S. now had a powerful enemy that they needed to keep track of and began developing some of the most interesting weapons and systems we have ever seen. To this day, the U2 remains one of the most advanced airframes in existence and it still sees service, though not military. Anyway, as amazing as the U2 was, it still needed a pilot. So, on that fateful day, May 1, 1960, Gary Powers boarded his airplane at Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey and took off for a reconnaissance mission over the U.S.S.R.
Dissecting the Boston WMD party, though, I come to a different conclusion than most I've read or heard. First, the act itself of putting up those signs was no more than graffiti and should be treated as such. Perhaps less because not even semi-permanent defacement was involved. That the officials of Boston were not savvy enough to be aware of something that has been happening all over the world for over a year now does not make the guys who did it criminals. Some say that the guys had a responsibility to say something when they saw the panic. Now that we know it was a viral marketing campaign, I think we'll find that they were contractually bound to say nothing. I don't know this for sure, but I'd bet a Franklin it's so. Who was responsible to say something and fast was Turner, owner of the Cartoon Network that sponsored the event. I figure the $2,000,000 fine they were levied does not even come close to the costs involved. While I am generally a small government sorta guy, I hope that this is the event that causes the appropriate governmental entity to have a look at drafting legislation regarding viral marketing.
While working in the San Jose Bay area, I once saw a U.2. land at Moffet field.
We all know who Gary Powers is. Right? Well, for a re-cap, Gary Powers is the American Air Force pilot who was shot down while flying his U2 over Soviet air space. He was capture alive and held by the Soviets for almost 2 years. We got him back by swapping him for some other fellow named Vilyam Fisher, a KGB agent who the U.S. was holding. Actually the U.S. also got an American student named Fredric Pryor returned. So, Gary Powers = Vilyam Fisher - Fredric Pryor. Maybe not. Anyway, Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher was a classic cold war spy, trained for physical infiltration into the U.S. Probably a fairly good spy, too, as his capture came about when he was betrayed by his defecting assistant, not through any mis-step on his part. This happened in 1957. He is also interesting because before he was caught he was the handler for the couriers that carried the nuclear secrets betrayed by the Rosenbergs.
If you've ever wondered why we endured 50 years of cold war, why the concept of "Mutually Assured Destruction" became doctrine, then you have the Rosenbergs and a few others to thank. After W.W.II the Soviets did not have the bomb. Any significant aggression by the U.S.S.R. would have had the potential of serious ramifications for them. However, Klaus Fuchs and David Greenglass (Ethel Rosenberg's brother) of Los Alamos leaked construction details to Ethel and Julius. Folks who should, wondered why the U.S.S.R. was able to develop their own nuclear weapons so quickly and this was found to be why. The U.S.S.R., once on an equal footing with the U.S., felt more free to promote communism in the world, again.
The U.S. now had a powerful enemy that they needed to keep track of and began developing some of the most interesting weapons and systems we have ever seen. To this day, the U2 remains one of the most advanced airframes in existence and it still sees service, though not military. Anyway, as amazing as the U2 was, it still needed a pilot. So, on that fateful day, May 1, 1960, Gary Powers boarded his airplane at Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey and took off for a reconnaissance mission over the U.S.S.R.
Friday, February 9, 2007
Feburay 9 - The Sahara, Global Warming, WMDs and Viral Marketing
The Sahara is a desert. According to Wikipedia, it has not always been so. 7000 years ago or so, coincident with the ending of the last ice age, it seems, it was positively wet. Apparently, oddly, reduction of insolation (the amount of the sun's energy it is exposed to) actually caused it to dry out due to the effects on regional climate. This makes me wonder a bit if increasing global temperatures might cause the Sahara to bloom.
Speaking of which, the UN said today that there is a 90% chance that global warming has a human cause. Therefore, if you take that at face value, there is a 10% chance that it does not. I've noticed the pro -human caused global warming folks getting a might shrill lately. I so wish they would dis-entangle politics from this debate so I could develop some faith in the opinions.
In the aftermath of the Boston Electric Cartoon Character WMD fiasco, I learn that the "Bride Has a Massive Hair Wig Out" video on YouTube was another viral marketing campaign, this time by Unilever, a soap manufacturer. This viral marketing thing has got to stop. I'm feeling too inarticulate right now to say why, but my gut says this is wrong on many levels.
However, on the plus side, since that Democratic bastion that Boston is considered little electronic signs of cartoon characters to be WMDs, I guess it can no longer be credibly claimed that warheads full of Sarin and Mustard gas are not. Were they lying or just simply wrong when they shut down the city, costing millions of dollars?
Speaking of which, the UN said today that there is a 90% chance that global warming has a human cause. Therefore, if you take that at face value, there is a 10% chance that it does not. I've noticed the pro -human caused global warming folks getting a might shrill lately. I so wish they would dis-entangle politics from this debate so I could develop some faith in the opinions.
In the aftermath of the Boston Electric Cartoon Character WMD fiasco, I learn that the "Bride Has a Massive Hair Wig Out" video on YouTube was another viral marketing campaign, this time by Unilever, a soap manufacturer. This viral marketing thing has got to stop. I'm feeling too inarticulate right now to say why, but my gut says this is wrong on many levels.
However, on the plus side, since that Democratic bastion that Boston is considered little electronic signs of cartoon characters to be WMDs, I guess it can no longer be credibly claimed that warheads full of Sarin and Mustard gas are not. Were they lying or just simply wrong when they shut down the city, costing millions of dollars?
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