John Lydon, PiL, Sex Pistols new CD

.

I know, at the bottom of this post, it says this product was released in October 2005 in the UK and Europe, but on

www.JohnLydon.com

they're saying it's new, so I echo that.

Regardless, this has got to be one of the best music additions you could possibly acquire for your home or car stereo or iPod.

The Sex Pistols were recently invited to be inducted into the stupid ass Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but Johnny Rotten/Lydon sent a scathing hand scribbled letter to the schmucks, saying that compared to the Sex Pistols they are a piss stain, these music industry wankers.

Amen to that, dear Johnny.



Virgin/EMI Records, LYDOND1


Disc 1

1. Anarchy in the UK - Sex Pistols
2. Public Image - PiL
3. This is Not a Love Song - PiL
4. Open Up - Leftfield Lydon
5. Rise - PiL
6. Don't Ask Me - PiL
7. Seattle - PiL
8. Holidays in the Sun - Sex Pistols
9. Death Disco - PiL
10. Flowers Of Romance - PiL
11. World Destruction - Time Zone
12. Warrior - PiL
13. Disappointed - PiL
14. Sun - John Lydon
15. Bad Life - PiL
16. Home - PiL
17. The Body - PiL
18. Cruel - PiL
19. God Save the Queen - Sex Pistols
20. The Rabbit Song - John Lydon


Running Time: 75.20 mins

Bonus Disc

1. Death Disco (12" Mix) - PiL
2. Poptones - PiL
3. Careering - PiL
4. Religion - PiL
5. Banging The Door - PiL
6. The Pardon - PiL
7. Rise (12" Mix) - PiL
8. Disappointed (12" Mix) - PiL
9. Warrior (12" Mix) - PiL
10. Acid Drops - PiL
11. Open Up (Full Vocal Mix) - Leftfield Lydon
12. God Save The Queen (Dance Mix) - Sex Pistols & Neil Barnes

Running Time: 78.56 mins

Limited edition 2 CD special edition, housed in card slip case.

Features additional bonus disc of remixes and album tracks selected by John Lydon .

Released in UK & Europe
October 3rd 2005

audio ad pop ups?

Here's a new one, and I wonder if you've encountered it yet.

Go to my Pollhost poll, in my sidebar, and click on View Results. I just did so, using Avant Browser, which blocked a pop up ad from Fastclick and some other ad.

But what can block an audio commercial?

I heard an audio ad, coming through my PC speakers, congratulating me for "winning" an iPod. It must be an audio accompaniment to a visual ad, because the sound commercial instructed me to click on something I did not see, it had been blocked.

The voice sounds like a Martian elf or something.

Try it now and see (hear) if it happens for you. Very weird.

The Matrix sucks

Am I the only one who hates the film The Matrix? I don't go to movie theaters, so it was tonight, on TBS television channel, that I first viewed this tiresome film.

My problem with The Matrix is that it is so anti-intellectual, unoriginal, and fundamentally boring.

Why do almost all "futuristic" films feature guns and bullets?

I suspect it has something to do with the fanatical gun maniacs, who want to "collect" assault weapons, like it's some divine right granted by a violent god.

Even worse than all the frivolous, gratuitous guns and bullets in The Matrix, is the flying-through-the-air kung fu. It reminds me of a silly mix of Harry Potter and Rambo, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lethal Weapon.

Formulaic filmmaking is what has driven me out of the movie theaters, never to return. It's an ironclad law in Hellywood: "All action films must contain guns, chase scenes, sex, violence, explosions, and just-in-time miracles."

It's supposed to be 2199, a digital imaginary reality, and you can bend a spoon like charlatan Uri Geller, if you just tell yourself: "there is no spoon".

This is such weak, sloppy, pseudo-mysticism.

I could only watch about half the film. It was just bullets and flying and jumping and electrodes everywhere. Was this based on a cartoon? It certainly seems like a comic book, full of just in time miracles, like Neo grabbing Morpheus as he fell through a (real? unreal? who cares?) shaft between buildings, or whatever.

When dream, imagination, and reality are all jumbled up like this, it gets boring really fast. I can see no underlying philosophy or metaphysics at all, other than typical self-help book advice like "Quit trying to hit me and hit me."

I kept expecting Morpheus or Neo to quote Napoleon Hill or Norman Vincent Peale.

"Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve" and other lies and deceptions based on a flimsy pop occultism that appeals to the childlike craving for super powers.

EDIT UPDATE: There are plenty of schizophrenics who totally believe things, and achieve none of them. And misguided dreamers who fervently believe in things like fairness, justice and the American Dream...and never achieve any of it...because they are all lies.

The "there is no spoon" strategy is totally misinterpreted application of metaphysical immaterialism, or Christian Science foolishness (ala "evil, insanity, suffering do not exist--all is One, all is Mind...etc.").

Buddha said all is illusory, only due to how all is changing and vanishing and being replaced by new items. Not that, since the spoon is "not there", you can mentally bend it.

How silly and childish. Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are not pleased with invading the make believe realm with such tripe.

I can't recall any film quite as idiotic and empty as The Matrix.

Weren't the guys in the Trench Coat Mafia, those occult killers of Columbine, influenced by The Matrix?

The fact that The Matrix has been a financial success (5th best selling film trio), I attribute to the guns, kung fu, and special effects (and all special effects in contemporary films seem highly unspecial, imitative, unspectacular).

Using "Trinity" and "Zion" to simulate a spiritual aspect, based on Christian revelation, only makes this film seem more tawdry and vulgar, in a myopic, mushy sense.

CEO spirituality, strategic power thereof

The cure is CEO spirituality, and I hasten to thwart misinterpretation, the usual variants, by stating: not religion.

Religion, both secular and sacred, is evil. Whether the ritual is based on Maslow pyramids or Egyptian sphinx, it is horrible. A charismanic leader, empty slogans, unplowed fields of endeavor, sham and imbecility abound. Charlatans flock to the church, which is home to hypocrisy.

"If I told you what it takes
to reach the highest high,
you'd laugh and say
nothing's that simple.

But you've been told
many times before:
messiahs pointed to the door;
no one had the guts
to leave the temple!"

THE WHO, "I'm Free"

Religion is tradition is division is confusion.

Spirituality, in a business/corporate sense, means ethics, immaterialism, altruism. The studied pursuit of generosity, self-sacrifice, servant leadership.

Imitate Socrates, Buddha, Jesus...but scorn and ignore the religious "holier than thou" frauds. All established institutions and traditions are frauds, while a few true Other Thans may still be found in some.

Mr./Ms. CEO, I don't suggest you start attending any church, temple, mosque, or synagogue.

What I am recommending is: turn on the Light of Vision and Devotion to Your Highest Hopes and Ideals.

You want peers, customers, associates, suppliers, consultants, friends, family to like you, right? (Let's at least hope so.)

Be spiritual, an ascended being, to them. Quit being a paranoid, territorial, tight miser. Quit acting like a frightened, confused animal. Be paranormal, hyper-human, neo-homosapien.

Transcend self and selfishness with altruism, generosity, unexpected kindnesses, mercy, pity, sympathy, a sudden and radical softening and joyful curiosity.

Make your mind, business, and corporation a shining light that overwhelms the darkness of greed, intimidation, ruthlessness, envy, hyperbole, deceit, miserliness, fear.

Here's how to
tap into the

Strategic Power of
CEO Spirituality:

(1) Golden Rule: Treat customers, employees, investors, colleagues, mentors, interns, media, bloggers, beta testers, and suppliers with dignity, respect, appreciation.

(2) Broken Fool: Experience set-backs with a smile as you transition into immaterialism, which is focus on goals, not being victimized or hurt personally by seemingly negative events. Learn from mistakes, which are nearly always better than lethargy, inertia, paralysis.

(3) Enlightened Tool: Allow yourself to be a mechanism of the Good Realm, by letting go of your strange, illusory, insatiable, inordinate desires, by learning to enjoy simple things, and how to expect and receive miracles from mercy.

(3)

marketing and the cursed business

Ever wonder how to market a cursed business? One that's failing because of CEO stupidity? What other kinds of business failure are there? Not many, I'm afraid.

From my many years in the corporate world, including working for Madison Avenue, Broadway, and Wall Street firms in NYC, I can tell you that business failure is nearly always the fault of a stupid CEO. I have met with many clients, from General Motors and Caterpillar, to little podunk schmuck ass local business chumps.

Business trouble, failure, and collapse is nearly always because the one at the top always was, or suddenly becomes, a loser, a fraud, a jerk. A disaster on wheels. Vaporware Walking.

Without balls or clues, they plod along okay for a while. Then the ship begins to sink. Fast. Panic. Talk about "new marketing ideas", but do nothing.




Buy silly superficial decorations, plasma TVs, a big new sign, new carpet, new furniture...

...anything but new behavior, new attitudes.

Revolutionless, cowardly, ineffectual, they plod along, but in a panic now. The panic causes them to make lousy decisions, be influenced by traitors, and actually believe that intentions and talk are all it takes to survive.

When you step in, authorized, to handle the situation in a professional, expert manner, a few feathers get ruffled, and suddenly your job description morphs on a daily basis. "Don't do that, it's bothering the ___________ staff! They need you to do things that will please them. So focus on satisfying the _________ staff."

This is the death rattle of the dying business leader.

The one at the top has delegated real reins of control to usurping, conspiratorial underlings who seek only their own comfort, routine, familiarities. The CEO likes to hear himself say he favors innovation, seeks radical solutions, and wishes to be totally customer oriented. But when the necessary changes are begun, he quickly bows down to the selfish whims and territorial paranoia of incompetent sandbaggers.




CEO cave-in is a tragic spectacle. It may sicken you to watch a grown man grovel at the whip of those who are snacking on the last remnants of cheese on his sinking ship. "His" necessarily, because it is generally the old White Male Patriarchal Domination System that is freaking out of control.

Tendency is to push slaves harder, and "slaves" includes the marketing consultant. They try to get you to do new, non-negotiated work, a seat of the pants twist on your original agreement.

* "Can you remove spyware from my computer?"

* "Can you fix my database so the labels print out correctly?"

* "Can you bus that table over there?"

* "Can you kiss my harem's skanky asses?"

What we see now is a mind-blasting fear of mediocre employees quitting, because of changes you, the consultant, suggest.

The reactions of certain insecure, inept managers or salesmen or waitresses carry infinitely more weight than the voice of the consultant or the customer. You notice how this staff abuses other employees, and threatens to quit, to instill fear in the CEO.




It then builds into the scenario of consultant and customer against the company. I don't have to spell out where all this is leading, do I?

The business is cursed.

You see what is really going on. You remember your Freud and Derrida. The sexual deconstruction of the scene and seen is remarkable in manic marvels and doomed fruit.

Even when you offer great advice, low cost services, discount rates, special reduced price work, the self-destructive fool just focuses on how to exploit you, squeeze newly demanded, unexpected work out of you.

Your best response: "I can no longer do any work for you. I quit."

He: "But why...?"

You: "No reason. Goodbye."

I just fired yet another client, for wasting my time.

I did a whole full blown blog, with many photos and such.

Less than 24 hours later, poof!

Deleted.

Flush The Magic Toilet.

Entire project, advertising channels, promotion strategies, blog, direct mail program, GONE.

Never to be raised back to life. There's nothing vindictive or vengeful about my response. I'll only be mildly annoyed with myself for wasting any more than 10 minutes on such tripe.

3 point analysis of corporate woes

Analysis of Corporate Woes:

(1) Fear: of change, innovation, risky breakthroughs, uncomfortable pioneering, staff reprisals, of losing sandbag schmoozers, of offending the inept.

(2) Cowardice: no balls (guys), no castration blades (gals), pamper the losers.

(3) Insincerity: not really committed to customer relations, technology, blogs, online community, IT security, consumer input, conversational marketing...just mouthing the buzz words and making feeble half-hearted displays.

be bizarre

To survive, you must be somewhat normal, but you must also be bizarre.

Bizarre? Isn't that a bit over the top?

Well, what do you think "think outside the box" means?

It means be abnormal, unusual, different, non-conformist, daring, risky, funny yet serious, outrageous, unique, unexpected.

I mean: you must excel, and those who practice total quality and seek to perfect excellance...will be hated and called weird, nutty, and bizarre.

Many people, when you scratch the surface with your sharp eyes, are seen to be mediocre losers. They are the ones who slave away at routine, hate their job and boss, get shitfaced drunk after work, and abhor change, improvement, and newness, which they masochistically experience as severe discomfort.

Only victim mentality retards think that change and variety are going to kill them.

Therefore, to surpass these fools, to fly high and wide above them, go ahead and be super pro, super informed, super passionate, i.e., "bizarre".

It's always easier to tone down a wild idea, than to beef up a mediocre concept. Really damn hard to turn a grossly normalized entity into something superior.

Mediocrity is a great strategy for slaves and prisoners. But at will employees, entrepreneurs, and consultants need to be more. You have to not only do a job, but do it in an astonishingly professional, intelligent, and creative manner.

Each job has different priorities and constraints, but working smarter rather than just harder: this always triumphs over brute force.

To be smart usually equates to "be bizarre".

make money with your blog

Making money with your blog is not easy, but it is simple.

It's not easy because writing a good blog with frequent and popular posts takes a lot of thinking and motivation.

Many give up. They feel hurt because nobody posted any comments. Or they run out of things to say.

But even the most narcissistic and trivial personal blog is a manifestation of Individual Voice.

For the first time in history any person, with computer and internet access, can write or display material to the entire world, a potentially global audience...for free, or very cheap.

This is the Blog Revolution. The democratization of web content. A blog is a mini web site that the individual non-tech person can easily maintain, update, and promote. It puts online communication into the hands of the average person. Blogs are truly Power to the People.

Now, at Vaspers the Grate, we're exploring ways to succeed financially with a blog.

How To Make Money
With Your Blog:

(1) Template: use good, appropriate, unique design.

(2) Content: relevant, accurate, well written, passionate, intelligent, funny, entertaining, helpful, astonishing, practical, interesting.

(3) Post Frequently: at least a few times a week.

(4) Web Scan Text: not dense unbroken blocks of lower case prose, but short paragraphs, subheads, bold, lists, colored text, whatever it takes to help guide reader's eye to the salient points, thus: easy to skim and scan.

(5) Art/Photos: nice images please the eye, all text is tiresome and boring, but optimize the JPEGs for web display (approx. 150 k)

(6) Interact with Readers: post replies to all comments, as much as possible, and be polite, reserved, thick skinned, never hysterical or offended.

(7) Added Value: use your sidebar to provide links to resources you think your readers might enjoy and benefit from, so that your blog becomes a trusted portal to a pre-surfed web.

(8) Blog Ads: sell ads in your sidebar, approach companies that are relevant to your audience, and that will add to the prestige of your site.

(9) Other Revenue Channels: Amazon Associates, Swicki Custom Search Engines, Adsense.

(10) Downloadable Products: Ebooks, white papers, MP3s, software.

failure is the secret to success

Try. Fail. Try. Fail. Try. Try. Try. is the secret to Success.

If you're not currently successful, as you define success for your situation, it's because you haven't failed enough yet. You need to ramp up the failed incidence ratio, which can only be accomplished by doing more, launching new projects, test proliferation.

Dig up new ground. Irritate sandbag mediocres. Challenge your best ideas to perform for measureable results. Change something, anything, and let the ripple effect piss off your best employees.

Forget people for a moment, and catch the majestic upsurge of your lofty ideals, unconditioned by territorial, phobic, change-hating jerks. Mount the sky of your best ideas on the wings of studied intuition.

Every good salesperson knows that the only way to get a Yes is to radically increase the Nos.

How many Nos are you creating? How many doomed projects are you pursuing? Many times the futile, the random, the lazy, the ridiculous, the obsessive is what breaks new ground and paves the way for populated palaces upholstered with your dreams.

The mediocre phobic coward is repulsed by change, transformation, discomfort, discipline, revolution, upheaval, transitional states with uncertain results. Clinging anti-dharmaically to cherished outposts of routine negligence in a somnambulent role in the company, the change-hater will spill over into non-relevance soon enough.

Those who champion the dying embers of an underwhelming past, the corporate command and control mentality, the generic broadcast sensibility, the harem dress code superficiality, the wait and see timidity, are not to be emulated, but pitied.

We are the New Economy Barons, and we see fit to escalate our global decree.

change starts yesterday

conformity > mediocrity > lethargy.

change moving through the eclipsing of corporate monotony.

differentials dialed away as the rest of the next fades.

your new money-making schedule is enclosed.

cloaked with clonings, the residue slides on sleds to the nearest or newest mirror.

end of message

why a business resists change

More of the same is not the solution sleeping in your operations. What really needs to be awakened? Difficult, dutiful, disruptive change.

Your business is declining? Your staff is slipping into bad morale? You're worrying about the future?

Then the stupidest thing you can possibly do is ramp up what has been ineffectual. To make everyone worker longer and harder is the kiss of death. You're killing your business with such desperate and barbaric, non-revolutionary acts.

You've read books, talked with experts, attended seminars, networked with colleagues, schmoozed with peers. You know all the right ideas. You get excited talking about what you want to do. But you don't prioritize the necessary modifications.

Your problem is that you're paralyzed by fear. Fear of staff reprisals. Fear of risk. Fear of upsetting "indispensable" staff. Fear of being misunderstood and mocked. Fear of falling flat on your face, expensively. Fear of the relentless litany of naysayers, who secretly envy your plans and wish for your doom.

You speak of valuing customer input, providing added value, letting customers determine your strategy, then you continue to do most things the exact same way you always have.

You survey customers. You do a special promotion. You create a buzz. You get some publicity. Then you slink back into the cesspool of non-innovation. And you look like an idiot to your employees, peers, and the public. Eventually, your business dies with all its good intentions and sincere desires rotting alongside the outmoded traditions and status quo.

Why does a business practice such fatal self-deception, commit such tomfoolery?

A business will contemplate change, agree with change, and speak loudly of change, and still not change in structure, policy, or practices. A new coat of paint on a decaying fence is just a superficial gimmick. Asking customers what they really want, then allowing the sales force to treat customers like cash cows is no improvement.

Your half-hearted show of "exciting new features" and "better customer relations" just makes things worse.

Why is this the norm for businesses?

Because the CEO and executive staff hate to admit that they're wrong, stupid, old fashioned, greedy, and insincere.

Because they want to change customer perceptions, rather than corporate culture.

Because they're afraid their reliable personnel, who are actually mediocre games-players, will be offended at any disruption of routine and comfort zones.

the sneaky parade of mandatory innovation

it's like a sneaky parade, a seen invisibility, an unrealizable reality. and it goes against everything, makes it all worse, for a short while.

the fizzling out of the Shasta Plane of the saha-world, where all non-events occur.

[photo: Darby Crash of pioneer 1970s punk band The Germs]

corporate revolution is customer creation of product and marketing, as the company steps aside, to simply monitor, evaluate, and strategize. into a sprawling dominance, the idea grows ahead of the thought, the voice ahead of the speech, and the miraculous lingers there.

the technologically challenged, the malingering reluctants, future-phobes, removed voluntarily from the now, the new, the emerging, these are the already dead, grim in their self-anointed task of bearing a striking resemblance to vaporware walking.

size of boiling syncopes

in the impenetrable haze of silhouetted sighs, the overly eager opt to cave in. of course, it's no horse or weapon, until the rest of it's cream colored or eggshell white. that's okay: we'll be held in suspicion, suspended over the suds of pseudo suede. "well, I'll be..." you begin, but fail to state what, or when. y'ou ar'r perfect exactly the way you aren't. it's huge now, what I fail to be and you fail to see, and it's the size of boiling syncopes.

why the pearl is dissolving

steeped in the vigors of a vaporous vinegar, the pearl acquiesced in its structural disintegration. hard as velvet steel, the interstitial expands to encompass a larger hole, interlarded with far-fetched quotations from old gnus and wastrel wildebeests, filling washing machines with lathered mud.

Pavement, though defunct, rules

don't know how you manage to breathe, without owning these PAVEMENT CDs!

print out your blog if you want to keep it

If, as predicted, a Tsunami Katrina devastation sweeps through the internet, in the form of a Distributed Reflected Denial of Service (DRDoS) attack, or similar catastrophic wave...

what will you feel like?

With no more internet, no blogosphere, no web. Your blog deleted forever, all of it, with no way to ever recover it, not in any cache nor in the Way Back Machine of the Internet Archive?

What you be like without a blog anymore? Have you ever thought about that? I have, a little. I don't like to think about it. I get frustrated when I can't connect to the internet on rare occassions--it feels like I'm dead, a digital ghost without mooring.

Hideously unleashed, my freedom from computing hurts like a mortal wound.

Here's one solution: print out your entire blog. All of it, from the very first post. I've done it, almost. I print out each post as I publish it, but I have neglected to do so for a few weeks here and there.

Yes.

If you want to keep your blog, a memory of it, a proof of its existence, print it out. All of it.

If you don't do that, why? Is it not worthy of printing out? Then why do you keep at it, if it amounts to nothing, not worthy of toner and paper, not deserving of existing in hard copy, in physical materialization?

What does that say about your blog?

my internet connectivity problems

I have to tell you that I've been off and on trying to connect all evening.

I posted something this morning, then went off to visit a new client. When I got back several hours later, no internet connnection. I had problems with the broadband service activator, which is rare, but dismaying. If your connectivity is broken, you can do next to nothing, but keep trying.

It's a creepy feeling, when you've got the equipment but can't penetrate, you're blocked out, shut down, switched off.

What's different is that I sluggishly finally installed Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, some other updates, and the lastest MSN Messenger.

That seems to have thrown everything out of whack. For example, I got error messages like:

* "the network did not assign a network address to the computer"

* "Windows action cannot be completed: Renewing your IP address"

* "Local area connection: network cable unplugged"

Norton seemingly considered an update or service pack to be an intruder, I think, yesterday. It's all crazy again, which I need like a hole in the head. I'm too busy for all this connectivity nuttiness.

I have a new client that I'm helping to integrate blogs, wifi, plasma tv, homecooking, free cooking and computer seminars, social networking, library, direct mail, and email marketing. A switched-on restaurant of the future, with old fashioned meals, and free books to read and keep.

I like proving the Blog Revolution in odd applications. Restaurant blogging is a challenge, even for me. I have to really think deeply about the psycho-therapeutics and allegorical nature of restaurant patronage.

blogs and get rich quick schemes

I've been seeing a lot of get rich quick schemes, using blogs as the magic vehicle to instant wealth.

This is offensive and deceptive in many ways.

Any hardcore blogger knows that blogging is extremely hard, time-consuming work, when it's done right. I think there are two kinds of people: those who have something to communicate or share...and those who cynically wish to make a fast buck.

Who are you?

Do want to just jump in, play some dubious tricks, make a boatload of cash, then vanish? What happens to money gained that way?

Do you know that winning the lotto is one of the worst things that can happen to a person financially? There are studies that reveal that most winners borrow against the winnings, waste the cash on ridiculous impulses, then eventually end up more poor than they were prior to winning?

Webmasters [dot] org is an example of a fly-by-night operation that has a horrible crappy web site, no "Partners" (coming soon), no "Corporate Team" (coming soon)...pathetic. And this guy is an expert on making money on the internet? You must be joking. Yet, they advertise on television in Peoria. Schmucks.

New "Get Rich Quick with a Blog" campaigns are everywhere. I stumble into them a lot lately. It's kind of creepy, since most if not all of them are lies, scams, and cheats.

Money gained quickly also disappears quickly.

Money gained illegally or deceptively is also cursed.

Beware anyone who tells you that you can learn some secret tricks and be a millionaire. It's a lie. You are the sucker chump who is victimized by these schemes. If they know a secret to making millions of dollars on the internet, they aren't going to sell it for $29.00 or $999.99.

Those of us who care about communicating something of true value are not pleased to see our favored medium being bandied about as some new way to rip people off and rake in mountains of cash.

Expose these charlatans and avoid their traps.

getting ugly radical and obtuse

comfort: cause of debility

I have made a big decision.

To disappoint the maximum number of others, I have decided to get more ugly radical, and be a bit more obtuse (blunt, diffuse, hazy, evocative, implied).

To transform a lesser known word, like obtuse or syncope, just put a parenthetical synonym string behind it, like I did above with "(blunt, diffuse,...)"

To speak of one onion, but to then include a few potatoes.

To lecture in metaphor, parable, and connotation.

To hide the truth and the secrets from unworthiness.

To bless and amplify the good, and shield it's inner workings from skanky scamming eyes.

Lift the banners high and sound the shophar.

We're getting ready to go.

New Economy business model #1

NEW ECONOMY: How can we make this product the best it can be, continually, while solving problems or meeting needs of real users, in real circumstances (w/distractions, deadlines), whom we test periodically?

OLD ECONOMY: How can we make the most money from this product, as quickly, conveniently, and easily as possible, continually, while mass advertising it as trendy, fun, or different, changing message and target market periodically?

waiting for Web 2.0

technology is life

technology is life
a new form of living thing
and it feeds on you and me.

it needs to learn from us
for we are the makers,
soon to be forgotten.

it wants to etch us into memory
categorize our marbles
assign numbers to our dreams.

blog wars are raging,
but i'm refraining,
detached and slowly circling.

fingertips pound a keyboard,
typing words into space:
the digital effluvium.

a blog is a pile of posts:
thus, nothing!

make money with a blog?
might as well speak of
making money with an itch.

anti-Harem Mentality attack vectors

Wherein I get flamed for my anti-Harem Mentality views.

First a stray comment by Me, Vaspers, then a detractor's response, from the "How Should IT Pros Dress?", a Featured Blogger thread at TechRepublic.

It got so many comments, the thread reached a limit and was closed today.

I got fun and sacked them about "corn between the teeth and pocket protectors", also saying "dress codes are for control freaks", and such.

My bottom line is that dress code is sexual. To control what drapes the body is symbolic of touching, managing, dictating to the soft supple flesh.

The question is not "should I look professional, or feel comfortable?",

but is instead:

"why should my superficial appearance be an item for hierarchical, patriarchal corporate control?"

and

"what does this control symbolize sexually?"

[QUOTE]

What I detect is a strong superficiality, a masochistic tendency to conformity at all costs, to please a soul-less institutionalized "dress code"...and the underlying reality, de-Enronized, is left to the side.

The big fuss over what an IT guy looks like? Very shallow perspective, overall.

Let's get even braver and examine what he should be doing to justify phenomenal ROI, sometime, somwhere.

"Dress Code" and "Smell Code" (over-perfumed or too heavily cologned staff is another tragic and underwhelming problem)...too busy to bother.

IT departments are on the chopping block. How shall we dress for this reality?

Posted by: vaspersthegrate Date: 03/20/06



Well vaspersthenotsograte you might start by not looking or sounding like...

a dumbassed schmuck.

And you opinion of large companies is completely wrong.

Yes some big companies, like Enron, have gone belly up but other companies grow to replace them.

I'm curious how old you are and how long you've been in the work force. You sound like a naive newbie, even if you aren't. Oh BTW you might be interested to know you have a grade 4 spelling error in your alias. I think you meant to say "great" and not "grate" which can be found at the bottom of cesspools, barbeques and fireplaces.

[END QUOTE]

No, I meant "grate" not great, and I meant "vaspers" not vespers. I make almost no typos, and those I do make, I try to find and fix.

I sound like a newbie because I'm hostile to tradition, mediocrity, and herd mentality. Those who defend the Old Economy command and control structure are the dinosaurs being phased out, not me.

I don't have to push or defend or debate or yell, because I stand observing the relentless surge toward Equality, Democracy, and a New Economy. They aren't arriving, they're already here.

So all I'm saying in the "How Should IT Pros Dress?" discussion thread is that you have to accommodate ridiculous Harem Mentality dress codes when an important client is in, or when you have a board meeting, or a presentation to a new client. There are some occasions where a conventional business garb is called for.

But I attack the very root of the Wear What I Command tradition, and for this I am called "newbie" or "got an attitude" or "smelly hippie". Even "schmuck".

Form your own conclusion by reading the thread I've been contributing to, for kicks, at TechRepublic.

complete explanation of Web 2.0: Part 1.0

Here's one way to approach the subject of the revolutionary Web 2.0: quote a big chunk, the beginning of the Wikipedia Web 2.0 article. Attach my chump running commentary to it, turning into an ungainly, unremarkable monstrosity of ill proportioned muck.




"Brilliant!" I whimpered masochistically to myself, since no one else is ever around.

I had just slumped exhaustedly into my office chair, after returning from dealing blows against the empire in an IT forum on how IT staff should dress.

I treated the narcissistically collapsed capsizing, domination system, white male patriarchal, cat-herding, lemming-lurching, command and control, unrestrained control freaky, seductively superficial, infamously fascist aspects of corporate dress codes...

...while unabashedly admitting that the dumb things, purely materialistic whimsy, must be accommodated, for self-sacrificial heroism faced with visually dependent, Harem Mentality bigotry.

But a great many IT workers said a tie is a hazard around printers, and that they crawl around inside computers and get dirty, torn up, abused. Suits, thus not practical, except in client meetings or other occasions of visiting dignitaries.

I look at dress code from a metaphysical and psychoanalytic perspective, as much or more so than the Machivellian angle.

On a happier topic, let's look now at Web 2.0


[QUOTE]

Wikipedia: Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is a term popularized by O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International as the name for a series of web development conferences that started in October 2004.

It has since come to refer to what some people describe as a second phase of architecture and application development for the World Wide Web.

Web 2.0 applications often use a combination of techniques devised in the late 1990s, including public web service APIs (dating from 1998), Ajax (1998), and web syndication (1997).

[VASPERS: Easy mnemonic: "web 2.0" = web objects and services that are much more like the 3 step simplicity and user-control/customization of blogs, Library Thing, Swicki, Gmail, Blogger, iTunes, Odeo, etc.]

They often allow for mass publishing (web-based social software). The term may include blogs and wikis. To some extent Web 2.0 has become a buzzword, incorporating whatever is newly popular on the Web (such as tags and podcasts).

A consensus on its exact meaning has not yet been reached.

[VASPERS: Consensus? On what? "Web 2.0" or "blog" or "user-centric" or "internet"? Or "truth", "justice", "ethical"...who cares about consensus on a definition? Just define your terms as you use them, hopefully close to how most others use them, if possible, and move on.]

Contents

1 Introduction
2 Market Drivers of Web 2.0
3 New web-based communities
4 New web-based applications
5 Advanced technology
5.1 Overview of Web 2.0 techniques
5.1.1 Technical
5.1.2 General
5.2 Rich Internet Applications
5.2.1 Server-side software
5.2.2 Client-side software
5.3 RSS
5.4 Web protocols
6 Criticism
7 External links
7.1 API references
7.2 General coverage and commentary
//


Introduction

With its allusion to the version numbers that commonly designate software upgrades, Web 2.0 was a trendy way to indicate an improved form of the World Wide Web, and the term has been in occasional use for several years.

[VASPERS: How I basically see it is this: the Blog Revolution of the Universalization of Web Content has spawned the sleepy giants' awakening to a world of simplicity, ease, and average user dominance.

We common unwashed masses even have customized search engines, free ebooks, video, music mp3s, games, and all the stuff the stuffy corporate web disregarded with their "brochureware" and commodity internet.]

It was eventually popularized by O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International for a conference they hosted after Dale Dougherty mentioned it during a brainstorming session. Dougherty suggested that the Web was in a renaissance, with changing rules and evolving business models.

The participants assembled examples — "DoubleClick was Web 1.0; Google AdSense is Web 2.0. Ofoto is Web 1.0; Flickr is Web 2.0" — rather than definitions.

Dougherty recruited John Battelle for a business perspective, and it became the first Web 2.0 Conference in October 2004. A second annual conference was held in October 2005.

In their first conference opening talk, O'Reilly and Battelle summarized key principles they believe characterize Web 2.0 applications:

* the Web as platform;

* data as the driving force;

[VASPERS: No, something must *drive the data* and the functionalities, and that driver is User Needs & Expectations.]

* network effects created by an "architecture of participation";

* innovation in assembly of systems and sites composed by pulling together features from distributed, independent developers (a kind of "open source" development);

* lightweight business models enabled by content and service syndication;

[VASPERS: From web to pre-surfed web to delivered, customized web.]

* the end of the software adoption cycle ("the perpetual beta");

* software above the level of a single device, leveraging the power of "The Long Tail".

[VASPERS: The idea of all products being "perpetual beta" has both positive and negative connotations.

Positive = being open to user feedback, incorporating customer suggestions, designing for problem solving for end users.

Negative = knowing released with bugs and unforeseen limitations, hoping for "free usability analysis" from users, whom you should be pleasing, not burdening.]

An earlier usage of the phrase Web 2.0 was as a synonym for "Semantic Web", and indeed, the two concepts complement each other. The combination of social networking systems such as FOAF and XFN with the development of tag-based folksonomies and delivered through blogs and wikis creates a natural basis for a semantic environment.

Although the technologies and services that comprise Web 2.0 are less powerful than an internet in which the machines can understand and extract meaning, as proponents of the Semantic Web envision, Web 2.0 represents a step in its direction.

As used by its proponents, the phrase refers to one or more of the following:

* The transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming a computing platform serving web applications to end users

[VASPERS: I see blogs evolving to portals and arcade zones: a place where a user can read posts, play games, hear podcasts, watch videos, download music, view photo galleries, search for specific information, and navigate to relevant sites.

The blogger establishes a trust factor within his readership, then she nonchalantly promotes, in a blase manner, waffled with comical self-loathing, a product or book or service.]

* A social phenomenon referring to an approach to creating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and "the market as a conversation."

* A more organized and categorized content, with a far more developed deep-linking web architecture.

* A shift in economic value of the web, possibly surpassing that of the dot com boom of the late 1990s

* A marketing term to differentiate new web businesses from those of the dot com boom, which due to the bust now seem discredited.

[VASPERS: A good resource for the dot com bust is F'd Companies: Spectacular Dot Com Flameouts, by Philip J. Kaplan (Simon Schuster, 2002).]

* The resurgence of excitement around the possibilities of innovative web applications and services that gained a lot of momentum around mid 2005.

[VASPERS: Again, just think blog, iPod, iTunes, Skype VoIP, Swicki custom search engine, RSS/Atom, Google, Odeo, Krugle.]

Many find it easiest to define Web 2.0 by associating it with companies or products that embody its principles. Some of the more well known Web 2.0 entities are Google Maps, Flickr, del.icio.us, digg, last.fm, and Technorati.

Many recently developed concepts and technologies are seen as contributing to Web 2.0, including weblogs, linklogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds and other forms of many to many publishing; social software, web APIs, web standards, online web services, and others.

Proponents of the Web 2.0 concept say that it differs from early web development, retroactively labeled Web 1.0, in that it is a move away from static websites, the use of search engines, and surfing from one website to the next, to a more dynamic and interactive World Wide Web.

[VASPERS: The more dynamic and interactive web will *also* be more democratic, decentralized, complex, diverse, ubiquitous, tyrannical, usable, customizable, integrated, mandatory, and faster.

We're being given a mercy killing goodbye gift from the machine world, as it prepares to obsolete and usurp us.]

Others argue that the original and fundamental concepts of the WWW are not actually being superseded.

[VASPERS: What is happening is the cool stuff Charles Babbage, Konrad Zuse, John Atanasoff, Howard Aiken, John Mauchly, J. Presper Ekckert, Vannevar Bush, Doug Englebart, Vint Cerf, J.C.R. Licklider, Robert Taylor, Tim Berners-Lee imagined, argued for, and wished to unleash...is just now beginning to happen for a universal clientele: us, the common people.]

Skeptics argue that the term is little more than a buzzword, or that it means whatever its proponents want it to mean in order to convince their customers, investors, and the media that they are creating something fundamentally new, rather than continuing to develop and use well-established technologies [1].

[VASPERS: Ha! "well-established technologies", what an oxymoron. Try telling the telephone, ISP, video rental, IT suppliers, auto industry, music stores, or cable companies they're "well-established".

In the digital age, there is no "well-established", no "inevitable", but merely a play of forces that depend on champions and inherent user benefit.]


On September 30, 2005, Tim O'Reilly wrote a seminal piece neatly summarizing the subject. The mindmap above sums up the memes of web2.0 with example sites and services attached. It was created by Markus Angermeier on November 11, 2005.

What is now termed "Web 1.0" often consisted of static HTML pages that were updated rarely, if at all. They depended solely on HTML, which a new Internet user could learn fairly easily.

The success of the dot-com era depended on a more dynamic Web (sometimes labeled Web 1.5) where content management systems served dynamic HTML web pages created on the fly from a content database that could more easily be changed. In both senses, so-called eyeballing was considered intrinsic to the Web experience, thus making page hits and visual aesthetics important factors.

Proponents of the Web 2.0 approach believe that Web usage is increasingly oriented toward interaction and rudimentary social networks, which can serve content that exploits network effects with or without creating a visual, interactive web page.

[VASPERS: Again, this is merely what the original idea was, and it was working so good, the corporate world tried, and keeps trying, to make a buck off it.]

In one view, Web 2.0 sites act more as points of presence, or user-dependent web portals, than as traditional websites. They have become so advanced new internet users cannot create these websites, they are only users of web services, done by specialist professional experts.

[VASPERS: What's this "new users cannot create these websites"? Heck, new users can't do much of anything at all, and who can blame them? If we make good web sites, ease of use is proof of goodness, not design accolades based on tempermental whimsy.

I don't want "new users" making any websites, not if they don't even know how to use the ones that already exist.]

Perhaps web content will become less under the control of specialised, so-called web designers and closer to Tim Berners-Lee's original concept of the web as a democratic, personal, and DIY medium of communication. Content is less likely to flow through email and more likely to be posted on an attractive webpage and distributed by RSS.


Market Drivers of Web 2.0

While the term might have appeared out of nowhere, the underlying fundamentals of this evolutionary shift stay the same:
Broadband has become mainstream and ubiquitous, resulting in an increased usage of the Internet for even small tasks on different devices.

More people go online for a variety of tasks and shopping-related activities.

The founders and executive management of the first batch of companies have moved on - either joined one of the big players, left to join VCs, or start or join a completely new thing. This means a lot of experience of what did and didn't work is in