Bill Watt’s Blog

I can’t believe that May is done. It has been a bit of a whirlwind with birthdays (my brother and nephew to name two), people having kids or finding out they will have one (Mai & Peter, Amelia and Ben, Jen and Chad, and more that aren’t announced yet), goodbye dinners (J Scott and Carol, several for Lily, Jonny from Current, Eric Nordby from Current, and many others), work projects, and Alice wrapping up work.

There are a few things I wanted to blog but haven’t had the time for unique posts:

• Work has been good. I can’t believe I’ve been there 3 months already! I’m learning tons, like the folks on the team and the commute isn’t bad at all. I even get to commute with a few folks so it feels like the time is more useful than it would have been. The hardest part is the hours in the office vs hours online when I get home and trying to be a part of the social scene while living so far away. At least I have people willing to get lunch and coffee with me so it is starting well.
• My AppleTV is getting more use these days now that I can rent movies and watch other content on our new HDMI-enabled TV
• I’m really enjoying the Dr Who series on SciFi while Torchwood is still taking some time to grow on me.
• I have an incredible appreciation for my friends. I was stressing last week about a work project and several of my friends stepped up and helped me out. Thanks especially to Kathleen and if anyone is looking for SEM help I highly encourage you to check out iProspect.
• While I have made the most of my meals while Alice is gone (can you say Korean BBQ 3x times week) I’m more than a little jealous that she’s eating at the Border Cafe tonight with Heather and Karen and tomorrow with Eric. No fair! (For those of you that don’t know, the Border Cafe has the best chicken fajitas ever and a good selection of margaritas.)
• I wish I bought a hybrid last year. The difference was only like $3k and even if it doesn’t make a huge difference it would have been something. I know… I know. A hybrid SUV is still stupid for me considering I usually drive myself. I’m going to get the bike tires pumped up tomorrow and see about riding my bike to the train station instead of driving.
• I picked up the book “The Post American World” and am really liking it. I’m not a person that thinks it is a forgone conclusion that America will lose it’s place at the head of the table but I do think that the rest of the world increasing in standard of living is a good thing. Heck, we’re always talking about exporting democracy… now that the rest of the world is catching on (in various shapes and sizes) how does it feel?

OK- that’s enough. Time to watch BSG and then get some sleep. Coffee with Alex @ 9AM is going to come very soon!

Have you seen this article about the right-wing cacophony that drove Dunkin Donuts to drop an ad featuring Rachael Ray wearing a scarf that was characterized as a keffiyeh:

“The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad”

The final paragraph of the article is craziness. I am happy to not know the crazy pundit they quote but this is a shocking level of pandering:

For her part, Malkin was pleased with Dunkin’s response: ‘‘It’s refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists.’’

Come on. Rachael Ray wouldn’t knowingly symbolize something related to a jihad. I think we all known this, right? Is anyone seriously calling her an apologist for jihadists?

Yeah yeah… I know after 8 years we’re all getting bored of discussing all the crap going on with this administration but apathy is the enemy (ok, one of many enemies) that keeps us from being shocked into action. How does this stuff keep happening? Because we let it. This week marked the 5th anniversary of the “Mission Accomplished” debacle. At this point my assumption is that we’ll be learning of the ways that this administration considers itself above the law for years to come.

I think it all started when went into Iraq to punish Al Queda… the two weren’t linked but this is what the government used as the justification for the action they wanted to take. I’m just glad Bush doesn’t have a grudge against CA or I might be living in a post-Katrina style refugee camp.

Check out this post called, “Congratulations, America … Children are Being Tortured in Your Name” and then tell me what you think. Here is the text of the post:

Congratulations, America … Children are Being Tortured in Your Name

Over the last 24 hours, news about U.S. torture has been leaking out:

• A former prisoner testified to Congress that he was beaten, hung by his arms for five days, subjected to electrical shocks and, “They stuck my head into a bucket of water and punched me in the stomach,” he said. “I inhaled the water. … It was a strong punch.”

• The FBI was so disturbed at what they saw at Guantanamo that FBI staff created a “war crimes file” to document accusations against American military personnel at Guantanamo. For example, the head of the FBI’s national security law unit wrote in July 2003: “Beyond any doubt, what they are doing (and I don’t know the extent of it) would be unlawful were these enemy prisoners of war”

• The U.S. military not only tortured prisoners for themselves, but also did the “dirty work” of “softening up” prisoners for Chinese interrogators

The U.S. has also tortured prisoners to death in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

Not bad enough for you?

Well, the U.S. has imprisoned 2,500 children since 9/11 as “enemy combatants”, in violation of the Geneva Convention against classifying children as POWs.

Still not disgusted?

Okay . . . Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Seymour Hersh says that the U.S. Government has videotapes of boys being raped at Abu Ghraib prison (see also this and this).

This doesn’t come as a complete surprise, given that assistant deputy Attorney General John Yoo has publicly argued that the president can order the torture of a child of a suspect in custody – including by crushing that child’s testicles.

Congratulations, America. This is being done in your name.

If you’re not sick to your stomach by learning that your government has been killing and torturing people - including children - then you are a psychopath or a pervert.

Don’t try to tell me that torture is a necessary evil. It is well-known by professional interrogators that torture doesn’t work. Experts on interrogation say that torture actually interferes with the ability to gather useful information.

Side note- I still don’t understand how Guantanamo Bay still exists in the current form.  How are we, the leader of the free world, allowing American run prisons to exist on foreign soil specifically to prevent the rule of American law? It makes it hard for me to criticize China, Egypt and others when our country claims to be the standard bearer and then does the exact same thing. That kind of hypocrisy has to make it worse.

Also- please don’t miss out on the irony of the recent senate hearings where American companies that respect foreign law in the countries they do business are coming under fire. Cisco, Yahoo, Google and others are being grilled for turning over documents to the Chinese govt in accordance with the local law. It is a complex issue but where is the protection for Americans in America when the Bush administration asks phone companies for records and recordings of our calls?

Ugh… I just get so crazed when I think about this crap.

Yeah, I’ve had a little bot to drink tonight so this may sound like an, “I love you man!” moment but bear with me. This has been an interesting week. I’ve been enjoying work even though I’m completely behind and crazed, Alice is going to Boston for the week (including our anniversary), Jason and Carol moved to ATL on me, my little brother turned 37, and we just had a dinner sort of celebration for Lily who is winding down her years at eBay.

I’m not a big fan of change and yet none of this has flustered me. I’m really enjoying my life these days. My family is all doing well, my friends are having fun, starting families (go Chad & Jen, Amelia & Ben, and others who are not yet named ), I’m making good friends at the new job, and Alice is starting a new adventure.

My favorite thing is catching up with people over a meal and wine. I don’t know… I’m just enjoying life and thought I would share.

I was reading Rolf’s post “ten tech trends for tomorrow” and wanted to respond. I’ve just picked a few that I disagree with to comment on here:

1) cloud computing - it’s important, but not so much for the end users, biz will start adopting but initially it will be used just for cost savings. I believe we’ll start to see the “outcome” of this only _after_ the 3 to 5 year period

I think we’re already seeing the benefit on the consumer side. What you mean when you say cost savings I’m assuming you mean for companies that outsource but I would argue that we’re seeing companies starting and growing only because they can take advantage of these cloud computing resources. The world of startups was already changed due to globalization of the labor market and now the fact that smart programmers can build out pay per use infrastructures means more scale. Have a read of the book The Big Switch and let me know what you think.

And this:

2) mobile web - here’s a biggie, the iPhone and its imitators will finally start to show people the light; we’re seeing massive adoption of search on the iPhone, no reason why well-tailored mobile apps can’t enter that realm. (also, we’re starting to see more more emphasis on data plans, expect competition around the “$99 all-you-can-eat” voice/data plans coming out now)

Don’t take too much of a US centric view… I need to find the stat I heard but it was something like 1b new users would join the internet this year who’ve never seen a computer. That’s got to be driven by developing countries adoption of mobile devices and they’re not all buying $400 iPhones.

I think the promise of the mobile web is upon us… but not in the US just yet. Where other countries have already worked out how to pay from cell phones and smart cards the US market isn’t there yet.

Then there was:

3) Facebook/MySpace - important, but not because of themselves; neither Facebook nor MySpace will see adoption YoY growth like we’re seeing now, again. what IS important is how the newest generations will weave it into their life as a communication tool; the first web/mobile communication suite, if you will.

So- this is fascinating but I think the really interesting piece here is how the next gen of people coming up don’t use email. They post on these sites and have public discussion where we have been using email all these years. Granted, I twitter like a fool so I get it to some extent but email is still my main communication mechanism.

And then this:

6) broadband / tv-on-demand / DRM - consumers becoming more and more comfortable not owning massive libraries of physical media as streaming really does begin to work; DRM less and less bothersome/noticed as long as things “just work”, expectations around what you “can” do with media changing as newer generations never expect to OWN anything, just ACCESS it. (Netflix just debuted “on-demand” box for $99, no extra charges, we’ll see if AppleTV becomes the video iTunes everyone expected it to be)

Yeah, I really disagree with this (at least for me). I like to own and I am perfectly happy to buy multi-terabyte drives if need be to store it all. I hate all these service fees for unlimited monthly consumption. And I know you won’t pay for cbl so you must agree with me on some lvl. Streaming just doesn’t get the job done because I want portability and I hate DRM. Maybe the generation after me is as you say (my gut tells me they don’t expect to own because they don’t want to buy) but this is one area I’ll be happy to fight for a long time. I like ownership and using the stuff I buy in any way I like.

The camera work was really choppy on American Idol. I guess it must always be but with the large number of stars and the top 12 there were many many opportunities to swing and zip and twirl around the cameras. I felt like I was watching the Blair Witch Project.

I am really hating this show. I think it is becoming even more of a joke as time goes on.

• half the singers aren’t even trying to sign during the little canned numbers (I liked Amanda but man, she’s mailing it in)
• the dancing is horrible (sorry Brooke, you stand out for needing to sit down)
• and we have the triple threat of Jason Castro

Ok… those are the performer issues. Here’s the rest:

• The overly long Love Guru promo? (funniest part was sitar hero)
•  David Cook’s guitar hero commercial a la Risky Business
• All the many many performers who sit there and play along (what was ZZ Top doing there?!?)

And my favorite American Idol moment is still the time Ace Young murdered the Queen song We Will Rock You by flipping it into an R&B number and Brian May said, “I can’t do that to my song.” Mariah and Dolly and all the rest go one and smile while their works get butchered but I respect Brian above all those folks. Granted, I understand the creative process has to have people interpret other people’s works… I just don’t think they need to sit there and take it.

Ok, this is becoming a live blogging event for me. Now they brought out the crazy little dude who sang the “brothers till the end of time” song. They also brought out a full on marching band with cheerleaders to play behind him. He couldn’t keep pace and they had to start the commercial music to get him off stage.

PS- Paula needs to watch the top of that dress. We were close to a Janet Jackson moment when she started to bust a move.

See this interview with Jupiter’s Bobby Tulsiani. I like that he ends with, “Give (users) what they want, when they want it and how they want.” He speaks the truth!

Happy birthday Jim!