Governments always find reasons to do censorship or to publish cooked data and if they don't some companies will do for them (or lobby for it). Groups like Lulz and Anonymous will achieve to show that our government doesn't represent, protect and serve the best interests of it citizens. They don't represent their citizens when they are influenced by lobby (the banking lobby for instance, or the closed source lobby), they don't protect us because they don't secure our id data amongst other things and they fail to serve us by the latter but also by being utmost nontransparent to us about it also. So as long as the government and other high profile organisations are not confronted about this they will not change their behavior.

So talking is a good option, but if that takes ages to progress and with a lacking sense of urgency it doesn't help either. In a way the government is waiting for the inevitable. if Anonymous or Lulz will not do it, maybe some Chinese sponsered better equipped hackergroup will do it (or is doing it already without us knowing it). So I think the means maybe dirty to and end, but what alternative? I think none. And I am not a cracker, but I think digital actions are allowed since our digital rights are very badly handled by government. And also this kind of actions can give us insight to things we would never get exposed using the old school spionage way. I just stick a thumbs up for it.

Kudos to Anonymous, Lulz please shake up some feathers!!

amen

“This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I’m stepping through the door
And I’m floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today

For here
am I sitting in my tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do
Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles
I’m feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much (she knows!)
Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear....

Slashdot is dead

I use open source in my own company for everything, for me it paid out handsomly. But what I do question is how much Microsoft was willing to cut of its price to Germany just to get this PR. MS is known for giving huge price cuts when a government wants to move way from Windows. I guess moving back was worth a lot more. But how much more?

Yeah whenever a scientist says X or Y are possible within 30-40 years, then most of the time it takes much much longer, for example Artificial Intelligence. But despite of that we could probably say 100% renewable energy is definately 100% possible in 4500, but the question is: since how long. These are always PR bullshit stories to raise investment. Because how do they know it's then on the marktet, or do the same scientists there also know how the market works? Very clever, because even the economists don't know how it works.

"All Sony boxez are belong to us"

To quote wikipedia on the lemma disintermediation :"A prime example of disintermediation is Dell, Inc., which sells many of its systems direct to the consumer — thus bypassing traditional retail chains. In the non-Internet world, disintermediation has been an important strategy for many big box retailers like Walmart, which attempt to reduce prices by reducing the number of intermediaries between the supplier and the buyer. Disintermediation is also closely associated with the idea of just in time manufacturing, as the removal of the need for inventory removes one function of an intermediary".

Micheal Dells credo was in fact: "cutting out the middleman". This intensively competative low-margin business is a race to the bottom. And on the bottom you will find the only way by becoming the producer, as the only option left to maintain profitable margins. This is a shift from the traditional of Dell's think in one part, but at the same time also cutting your self out as a middleman. There are indeed problems with it, such as keeping inventory turnover low. However I think this is still managable and in some way the direct sell to the customer business model can be maintained, so there is really no middleman left.

But again I disagree that it's Dell who suffers. The suffering will be at the Intel side, because most likely if Dell takes over AMD they will become Intels direct competitor and Intel will lose Dell as a middleman of its products. Intel is dependant of middleman and it does lack the succesful operation of Dell's e-tailing. Dell is not depandent of middleman, they have cut them already out. I expect the same heavy lobbing from both competitor if Dell indeed takes over AMD, so the end result of that will be uncertain for now. But I am already curious what Microsofts position in this lobby would be. Don't be so sure about who wins in the lobbying end, not just yet!

More and more phones are fashion accesoires or cool gadgetry. I was a typical loyal Nokia user. I just wanted a 'dumb' phone which I just could call with. I liked also from Nokia they had a relatively "simple" consistent user interface so it was easy to sends sms, add contacts and reminders. I was always interested in the "smarter" phones, but their criple functionality and user interface didn't promised a complete solution and browsing (remember WAP or CHTML?) was also an expensive and utterly cumbersome experience. I was already looking for other devices when Nokia decided to leave the consitent user interface idea and was horribly faling with their graphical clumsy interfaces. So why did I buy my first non Nokia device?

I wanted a smartphone HTC Desire HD(Android) because it very easy to make a call and also did browsing well (flash), it has a easy user interface and is much less a non-walled garden then say Apple. My wife bought one as a fashion accessoire. And now even in Africa people have more and more an appetite for smartphones, even the ones from Apple.

So Nokia has been dead since the Apple IPhone, and probably earlier when they didn't innovate enough or at least not into the direction the market is heading now. Smartphones. Nokia still makes very robust and reliable phones, but the majority doesn't think of Nokia anymore when it comes to phones. Both their marketing and their lacking product vision has been a contribution to that. It's not just the war about ecosystems, where Elop speaks about, because before that even happened they already lost it. It is simply too late for Nokia to enter the current market, their just a zombie Dinosaur.

So now they partner with Microsoft. They too have a similar faulty product vision (much centred around cheap devices) and is also not on the retina of the market. Also they have thrown away all their earlier investments in their own developed operating systems. They in fact give the signal, we don't know how to do software. This lacking view about software will not help them to get an ecosystem but certainly explaines why they partnered with Microsoft. It's these dinosaurs that lack any creativity and innovation when it comes to phones. Both Microsoft and Nokia have large marketing budgets which somehow still doesn't help to make their products more tasty. And I think also it was the most stupid idea of Nokia to get Elop there, since Microsoft has been dead in the phones market for a long time. At least get someone from Google or Apple (Steve ? ;)

So it's a double whammy to Nokia for not being able to innovate in the proper direction and see how user needs change. The partnership with Microsoft will not payout. This is not only my view, investors did ditch the Nokia stock when the news came out about the partnership, it lost 9%.

Obama: "Oh what a nice big red button, drool. They have gave my desk a nice upgrade. It's next to the other big red button, but that one i need some freakin ket for... wel. " "Hmm what would happen if I push it.... Uhoh too late. "

James: "Good day Sir President. Good you are in office.. Some very excited gentleman, with the name something like Brian Moynihan or so, of the Bank of America says... he wants one too??? He was overly exciting I couldn't make up what he was talking about... And then there was also some gentleman claiming he is doing the work of God and he wants the same one but in yellow... Must be something very very important... "

President: "Oh no not Brain again.. Brain Moynihan sucks.. And he knows it, and in a childish eruption he bought even all the domainname brainmoynihansucks.com and the like. And still people are wondering why our big banks are in trouble..Morons.. Ok give that phone I will give him audience."

Brain: "Hi Obama.. I want I want I want one."
President:"You want what?"
Brain: "A kill switch"
President:"huh?"
Brain: "for likiweaks"
President:"for what"?
Brain: "uh i mean wikileaks.."
President:"You know we have a taskforce for something like that. Why calling me for something arbitrary"
Brain:"no we already have a taskforce. It's called WTF"
President: "Hmm. Why am I not surprised?! And you were saying?"
Brain: "national security, an internet kill switch please"
President: "oh no, the previous time you bought all the last ipv4 ipadresses to host your funny domainnames"
Brain: "pleeeease?"
Obama:"You can't have one. National security. Bye"
Tringtring.

..... Sharks with lasers strapped on

Large amounts of cans, rope, microphones and speakers an a dailup modem. On each point a can, with builtin speaker and microphone and that connected to an old 56K8 dailupmodem. Cross talk might be an issue, but that will probably very easy to fix ;)

They should give the diplomats and foreign intelligence also these devices and change the name to youtubeleaks. Than we at least have some nice footage to see the gory details of what is done in the name of the US citizen..

The show had an unprecedented less is more approach to quality. It baldly went beyond to the edge where even Uwe Boll wouldn't dare to go. This level of film-crap-nirvana is cult. You either love it or (most probably) hate it. Though I think it would be nice if they would cast Noo-Noo from the Teletubbies (a vacuum cleaner with eyes) and give him the voice of a Daleks. Maybe some characters from other SyFy series to have a guest role (in their role of the series they belong too) as a way to make commercials for the other shows.. And put a celebrity also in it, like they do in the muppetshow.That should revive interest a lot;)