The Devil's in the Details: Why Not Sue Everybody?
Scripting News aka Dave via John Robb: said "The RIAA, following its sue everybody strategy, is ready to go after the Librarian of Congress."
Hate to say this guys but... I told you so. I don't have a free account on Lexis-Nexis any more but I'd love to see Ernie the Attorney, Jenny our Information Maven or someone run an open search on how many lawsuits the RIAA and the MPAA have been involved the past say 10 years regarding protection of Intellectual Property. It could prove interesting to see just how litigious this pair can be.
3:00:43 PM
Charlton Heston Has Alzheimer's Symptoms
The media was quietly invited to a press conference today in Beverly Hills called by Charlton Heston, Oscar winning actor and activist. Normally when Heston calls a press conference, it's about the NRA or his other passions in life and there is plenty of pre-conference information. This time it was different. The press invitation was subtle and quiet, but there was a quiet sense of urgency which told those in the know, Be There. Mr. Heston has something to say.
Heston was not there, however in a taped statement played for the media and the public, which was not heavily edited, Heston reveiled that the doctors have told him, he is suffering from a neurological disorder consistent with Alzheimer's disease. Heston said, "I wanted to prepare a few words for you now because when the times comes, I may not be able to."
He stated that his reason for going public with this information was because he had lived nearly his entire adult life as an actor and public figure and said, "For an actor there is no greater loss than the loss of his audience. I can part the Red Sea, but I can't part with you, which is why I won't exclude you from this stage in my life."
He continued, "If you see a little less spring in my step, if your name fails to leap to my lips, you'll know why. And if I tell you a funny story for the second time, please laugh anyway."
Heston said his doctors had recently told him he had a "neurological disorder whose symptoms are consistent with Alzheimer's disease. "I'm neither giving up nor giving in," he said. "I'm still the fighter that Dr. King and JFK and Ronald Reagan knew, but it's a fight I must someday call a draw." He has vowed to continue being active and working as long as it is possible, however he has resigned his position as head of the NRA.
I've had the pleasure of meeting personally meeting Heston several times in my life. Those times he was bright, articulate and a very deep common sense thinker. He has always been a man of substance and principles, and even if you didn't agree with him, Heston was civil and a gentlemen. A rare thing these days. In my eyes he personifies the principles of the best of his generation.
It is a pity to see something like Alzheimer's Disease invade his later years and rob him the pleasure of a twilght years.
Okay Folks... time to get out of the city lights this weekend or sneek off the first part of next week. Space Weather is reporting: "METEOR SHOWER: The peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower is still days away, but sky watchers are already seeing plenty of shooting stars. In recent days, 15 to 25 meteors per hour have streaked across the northern sky during the hours just before dawn. Activity should intensify--perhaps impressively so--on August 12th (Monday) and 13th (Tuesday) when the shower peaks."
"VENUS AND THE MOON: The planet Venus is so bright this week you can see it before nightfall. (Skymap here.) On Sunday evening, August 11th, the slender crescent Moon will glide by Venus. Together the pair will be truly eye-catching."
My email box today pointed me toward a press release from CEA, the Consumer Electronics Association, about how they and other consumer groups are reacting to the FCC's recent mandate that all television sets manufacturered after 2007 must include a digital television tuner. For the record the FCC has rolled out the dates over several years, as explained here, depending upon the size of the picture tube.
As expected the masses aren't happy for a variety of reason, including how the cost of the new DTV tuner will increase the cost of a home television $200 for the average Joe-or-Jane on the street.
One other item is also on the endangered species list no one is mentioning is: Your VCR.
Yes I know many of you are interested in your Tivos. But in the real world of editing and packing away news and shows on the fly, there is NOTHING that beats the ease and economy of slapping a tape in the recorder and hitting RECORD. Remember... those TV types (AOL/TW, Disney, and the special interest groups including the major networks) are trying to make it impossible for you to be able to store and record your shows by infecting the signal you receive. This will make it impossible for you to recall and replay them later with something like a home DVD Recorder. If everything the FCC wants to do to you goes off on schedule the tuner in your VCR or any older device won't work with DTV either. Lovely huh?
3:08:52 AM
Collaborate
Dave pointed me to Sam Gentile's weblog on "How do we get people to collaborate?"
While I've never met Sam, I get the feeling Sam and I are on the same wavelength about getting people to use the new tools to collaborate on projects and information sharing. Sam is one of the people that got me to try Groove. Neat little project management tool, if I do say so myself. I don't know all the ins and outs yet, but I think it's something I could grow to like... and use.
I also agree with Sam that there are a vast number of people out there unaware of blogging and collaboration tools like Groove and others in the pipe. While the media is banging away at blogging and circling the wagons of mainstream media, business is walking around completely clueless about the collaborative toolsets that can unbridle their creative workforce and let them actually get work done from ANYWHERE people can get a connection.
However I have experienced just how hard it is to convince business people can actually be more productive not chained to their cubical, ala Dilbert.
Point in fact: I have been repeated asked to take on managing a large group of online communities for a major automotive service which resides in Santa Monica. I live in Diamond Bar 45 miles away. The client has been repeatedly unable to find a the right person, and keeps calling me back to reconsider. Repeatedly I've explained to the client that for the sum they are paying, I will not drive into their office to work 4-5 days a week, through the worst traffic known to mankind. I have also repeatedly explained I can do the entire job remotely from home for the same price. But still they don't get it. I've even said I would be willing to come in once or twice a week-- for meetings. Still they want me chained to a desk/cubical. But at my age and experience I can be far more productive here in my bunny slippers where I can do what they really need: managing and mentoring their staff and working on their communities. It isn't like I don't have the experience, nor am I a kid looking for a new way to screw off the day. In the end the client because they are unaware and unenlightened of the right collabrative toolsets available to get the job done loses the potential of having my experience to help move them along and prosper.
In essense: Business is clueless about collabrative tools and unwilling to unleash their people from their reigns. Until they get a clue, businesses are going to lose.
2:32:05 AM
On Call in Our Life
Ye Old Peanut Gallery talks about Answering the Call to Duty What does it mean to be on call? Does it mean you have a beeper? A cell phone? What's your response time? Having only a pager is next to useless. You know that someone wants you, but you don't know for what. Have you tried to find a pay-phone lately? What if you're driving? (NOTE: paging more than once in a 10-minute period will result in the pager being thrown across the room.) Having a text pager is an improvement, but still pretty much useless. You know that someone wants you, you know for what, but you don't have a means of letting that person know that the problem is insignificant. And so you receive page after futile page. Having a cell phone is a vast improvement. You can receive messages, even text messages, and you can respond. If you leave it on. Companies which issue only pagers to their staff don't have on-call support.
Let me see if I can answer that question in my our life. Since the SO is a Clinical Pharmacist and in charge of taking care of over 2000 patients, being on call means everyone in the freaking world as our telephone and cell phone numbers, from hospitals to nursing homes and assisted living facilities, including several dozen traveling nurses all over the Inland Empire all the way to Palm Springs. Being on call means he carries a cell phone and a pager, which never gets shut off for 24-48 hours at a time, even while in the charger. Calls come in at all hours of the day and night-- including those calls that make you bolt from bed at 3 AM. Most of the time the calls are mundane and can be handled by accessing a computerized drug vending machine from his laptop, (which also comes along with being on call,) to getting dressed at 3:15 AM and driving 15 miles to the pharmacy to mix and make an IV for a patient in need-- and get the Rx out and deliver it in less than 90 minutes.
Try doing this for two to three days in a row with little or no sleep.... and you see Doug become a very grouchy pharmacist.
Charlton Heston Has Alzheimer's Symptoms
Listen to a story about the Perseid Shower via 
