Licensed To (Speak) Ill

It's always difficult to talk about a person who has recently died.  We don't want to "speak ill of the dead" and in global media where the grieving family may see our words, we don't want to make their wounds any worse, even if we disliked the deceased themselves.

Thanks to an unfortunate wrinkle, this is how my copy of the KW Record memorialised Margaret Thatcher

We're seeing this problem played out with Margaret Thatcher.  She was a highly divisive figure, who raises a lot of intense feelings.  I can understand not wanting to come down too hard on her right now, even though I was not a fan myself.  But at the same time, you have to truthfully acknowledge the effect she had on people.

What makes it worse is that we're far enough removed from the actual events of her public life that many people today don't really understand them.  Thus we are inundated with unspecific praise of her steadfastness.  That's a pet peeve of mine: we're so used to wimpy public figures we end up praising anyone who holds to their convictions, and don't examine the convictions themselves.  Really, I think that a person who worked for specific ideals - rather than playing the political game for it's own sake - wouldn't want such generic praise.

Personally, Thatcher's effect on my life was twofold:

• The impact she left on British music (And in case you're wondering, no, they haven't forgiven her.)
• Being the main character in British satirical show Spitting Image.

And speaking of the latter, I recall they had a good spoof of celebrity deaths, which I found on YouTube.  But first, let me explain: 1) No, I don't know why the previous sketch involves Spock in Julius Caesar, and 2) Sid Little is a comedian.

This Post Is Important And Just For You

OMG!  Someone sent me important documents in an unaddressed envelope!  How do I know they're even my important documents.  But since they are confidential, I won't tell anyone else what's in my unaddressed envelope that looks just like the one everyone in my building got. 

I'm just glad they used the flag stamp to make absolutely sure it got to me.

What's The Word For My Mind Is Blown?

You know when a brand name becomes the generic name for something?  It's like how "Kleenex" has come to mean "facial tissue."  I'd always wondered what you call that.  It turns out that it's called a Generonym.

But here's the weird thing about it.  It may be called a generonym in academic circles, but I've noticed that whenever people have to describe this concept, they always resort to Kleenex, just like I did above.  So "generonym" is like "facial tissue" in that it's a technical name that normal people ignore in favour of a brand name.  For instance, if I had to describe how "Google" has become the generic word for searching on the internet, I could say that Google has been "Kleenexed."  So Kleenex has not only been "Kleenexed" as the word for facial tissue, it has been Kleenexed as the word for a brand name in general use.

16 By 9 Circles Of Hell

Let me tell you about my levels of frustration watching regular-def TV on an HDTV.  The problem is not the definition, but the aspect ratio.  That's the technical term for the fact that HDTVs (and movie screens) are wider relative to their height than conventional TVs.  Here are the problems:


Level 1: they show a wide-angle movie on regular-def TVs, so they have to leave the top and bottom of the screen black.  This is kind of annoying - and confuses some people - but what can they do.  Later they start showing regular TV shows in the wide format, which is kind of pretentious since most people didn't have HDTVs yet.

Level 2: you buy a wide-screen TV, but decline to pay $10 a month extra for the HD digital converter box, so you're watching regular-shaped TV using only the middle of your screen, with the edges black.

Level 3: you watch one of the shows mentioned in level 1, where they have to fit a wide-format show into a regular broadcast.  So it's got black across the top and bottom of the screen, and the sides of the screen.  You're watching something the right shape but wrong size for the screen.

Level 4: Only once have I seen this actually happen: the network had apparently taken a wide-screen ad, made a small-screen recording of it with the black top and bottom of the screen, then broadcast that as part of a wide-screen broadcast (with blacked-out sides) but when that was shown on the regular-def broadast they had to black-out the more of the top and bottom, and I was watching on a wide TV with the sides blacked out.  So with double blacked-out edges, the picture took up about the middle ninth of the screen.  That's like watching Hollywood Squares and only being able to see Paul Lynde.


So I'm looking forward to the day when this is all over and all we have is wide-angle HD.  And by then I'll have moved on to complaining that my 3-D TV keeps showing 2-D programs an inch from my nose.

Tech History (May) Repeat Itself

Facebook made a big announcement today about their new phone initiative.  They had long been rumoured to be working on a phone, and been denying they were working on one for just as long.  So some people thought it would just be a new app.  But they recently modified their Android app to remove all the suck.

It turned out both sides were sort-of right.  They announced a new "home screen" for Android, which will let people see their Facebook stuff without going into their Facebook app.  It will come standard on some new phones.  The reports I've read haven't been clear but I'm assuming you can also download it too.  But the fact that they seem to be stressing the fact that it comes on new phones makes it seem that they'd like to be a major part of your phone purchase decision.

Will it be successful?  My first thought is, no.  The whole thing makes me think of Microsoft Bob.  For you young'uns out there, Bob was a new, easier computer interface for people who found even the then-new Windows desktop too confusing.  Instead of the metaphor of a desktop with folders and files and a garbage can, it used the metaphor of a person walking around a house.  It sounds foolish to admit this now, but at the time I assumed Bob would become a standard part of computing, much the same way we became stuck with Windows whether we liked it or not.

Of course, it didn't happen that way.  Bob was soundly rejected, and came to be the tech industry's equivalent of the Edsel.  And that contributed to the widely-held notion that Microsoft can't create any new product on their own, and need someone else - usually Apple - to create the prototype.

Anyway, that's why I'm a little afraid that the Facebook homepage or whatever it's called might be something we're all stuck with, but also why I'm reassured that we won't be.  Having said that though, there are a couple of reasons why it might yet work.

In a Wired writeup on it, they emphasize that the Facebook phone will be seen as the easy way to use the Internet, since that is essentially what Facebook itself is: a simpler, easier version of the Internet.  That in itself is not a very convincing argument.  You know who else had that "Internet, but easier" strategy?  AOL.  And it worked for them for a while, until people got comfortable with computers and the Internet and found other options.  What's more, Facebook users - while not as young and hip as stereotyped - are not exactly the elderly tech-newcomers that were AOL's bread-and-butter.

But Wired's "Facebook makes things easy" article dovetails nicely with another article of theirs that illustrates the shocking disparity between Android and iPhone users.  It turns out that although there are twice as many Android users, iPhone users do double the web surfing.  That seems to play into the perception that iPhone users are looking for a device that does lots of things, while Android users just buy a phone and don't really know or care what it does.

In that case an Android phone that does things easily and without that fuss of downloading apps and figuring out how they work, could be successful.  Add to that the phone makers need for differentiation:  they love Android because it's cheap but popular, but they hate the fact that if you make Android phones, you're competing with all the other makers of Android phones making the same product.  They wish they could mark up the price for a well known brand the way Apple can, but really they're making the equivalent of a no-name phone.  That's why Android phone and tablets have the so-called "crapware": apps and widgets supplied by the manufacturer to try to make their Android phone seem different from their competitor's Android phone.  The Facebook homepage would be a great way to make your product to stand out, so you know manufacturers are going to give it the promotion it needs to survive.

On Canvas, From Los Angeles

I was just looking through the artwork from a Saturday Night Live art show in L.A.  As with anything that retrospectives the entire SNL history, I'm ready to get angry if they've over-emphasized something I hate (I just know there's going to be too much Mary Catherine Gallagher and not enough Church Lady.)  But in this case, I wasn't left angry, just surprised.  What did I learn?

• There's way less mythologising of the original cast than I expected.  (How could you not do a Samurai Tailor poster?)
• People really loved "Toonces the Driving Cat" and Matt "van down by the river" Foley
• And that one-off sketch where Chris Farley tries out for the Chippendales against Patrick Swayze made a big impact.  
• Stefon is the most popular current character, which is fitting because an art gallery that would have an SNL art show is just the sort of place he'd like.
• Christopher Walken is more popular than most of the cast members.
• Kind of off topic, but where was Father Guido Sarducci during the Papal change?

What Would Caesar Do?

When we think of countries declining, we might think of Britain and its end of empire.  Or we might look at the USA and its seeming ineffectuality.  Personally, I've always thought the exemplar of decline would be Mongolia.  They used to control all of Asia, now they have trouble putting a soccer team on the field.

But we have a new contender: Italy.  They've had a pretty bad century: Recently I've been following the WWII in Real Time twitter account (which is recounting the entire war, as it happens, 72 year later) and we're at the point where Italy is trying to hang on to Greece and the Balkans, and getting pushed back by Greek militias.  So in that battle of the has-beens, Greece is the easy winner.

What else has Italy done to embarrass themselves?  The legal system isn't helping - first they charge scientists with not warning of an earthquake on spite of that not actually being possible.  Now recharging Amanda Knox with murder, lets everyone on earth know they have no double jeopardy protection.

And then there's politics.  Electing Berlusconi looked bad, nearly re-electing him after all his indiscretions looks pathetic.  They also gave a quarter of their votes to a comedian.  Okay, I can respect that; but he turns out to just offer simplistic populist ideas not unlike the unrealistic policies of every opportunistic far left/right parties in Europe right now.  It would be like the Americans vote for a comedian and they pass up Jon Stewart for Jay Leno.

But the final blow is that the leftist party has come out and said that only a crazy person would want to govern Italy right now.  Normally I'd congratulate someone on their candour for saying that.  But as a party leader, he's essentially labelling himself as crazy.  It often seems like politicians are trying to out-crazy each other, but this is the first time I've seen it happen so openly.