Microsoft should consider replacing Steve Ballmer with Fake Steve Jobs.  While Steve Ballmer is giving interviews and talking about "attack vectors" and "mama don't let your phones grow up to be PC", Fake Steve Jobs is giving insight on hybridized content:

New technology spawns new ways to tell stories. That's the really exciting thing here. Not the tablet itself, but what it means for news, for entertainment, for literature. Gasp. Geddit? Is the fucking light going off yet? This is what Anton Chekhov meant when he said that the medium is the message. This is why the Tablet is so profound.

There is no point in moving to digital readers if we're just going to do what we did on paper. That's why Kindle is such a piece of shit. All they did was pave the cowpath. And that's why we've held back on our Tablet -- not because the technology wasn't ready, but because the content guys are such fucktards that they still can't create anything that makes it worth putting the Tablet into the world.

FakeSteve.net: Tablet Part Two: The true significance of the Tablet
Techcrunch.com: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: Chrome And Safari Are Rounding Errors

From CNN.com: Secret Service investigating Facebook poll on Obama

The social networking site Facebook on Monday pulled a third-party application that allows users to create polls after a site member built a poll asking if President Obama should be killed.
...
The possible responses to the poll were "yes," "maybe," "if he cuts my health care" and "no."

This is appalling but not surprising.  The anonymous nature of the internet has created a culture of people saying anything without consequence.  You can see this in any comment section of any article.  It's a coarseness and disagreeableness that's carrying over into everyday life.

UPDATE 9/30/09:
From primebuzz.kcstar.com: GOP Cong. Trent Franks calls Obama "enemy of humanity"

Do they Republicans have anything useful to add to the discussion besides rabble rousing?

I saw the Season 2 premiere of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse and it's starting off with a bang.  Dollhouse took a while to get going, but I think it's one of the most intriguing and intelligent shows on TV.  As an added bonus to Battlestar Galactica fans, the season 2 premiere guest starred Jamie Bamber (Lee Adama).

If you're new to Dollhouse, it's essential to start with Season 1.  Keep in mind that the first 5 episodes are moderately interesting, but the show starts to pick up quickly after that.

Reviews and info about the Season 2 Premiere:
LATimes.com: Dollhouse' premiere: 'Vows' not broken
LATimes.com: 'Dollhouse': Jamie Bamber talks about his marriage to Eliza Dushku's Echo

From Arstechnica.com: Viagra spam brings bulging returns of more than $4,000/day

Pharmaceutical spam can generate more than $4,000 per day in sales, confirming that spam continues to thrive because of those gullible few who click through and ruin it for the rest of us. And that's not just an estimate: a security researcher from Sophos have combed through sales logs as part of his investigation into the growth of spam networks, noting that Russian affiliate partner networks--also known as "partnerka"--are responsible for some of the largest Canadian pharmacy spam businesses.

Well, this pretty much explains why we get SPAM.  As long as people keep making money from SPAM messages, it'll never end.

Huffingtonpost.com: Ford China Plant: Automaker Will Build $490 Million Facility

The factory, to be built in the central Chinese city of Chongqing, will make the next-generation Focus compact car, which Ford plans to sell globally.

It's one thing if you're making cars in China for the growing Chinese market, it's another if you're making cars in China to bring back to the United States because of cheaper labor costs.  Is this another step towards the end of U.S. auto manufacturing?

From sportsillustrated.cnn.com: Mogul's Nets bid criticized in Russia

Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov's bid to buy the New Jersey Nets was called "unpatriotic" by a member of his country's upper parliament chamber's sports committee.
...
Prokhorov, Russia's richest man worth an estimated $9.5 billion by Forbes, reached a tentative deal Wednesday to invest $200 million to acquire 80 percent of the Nets' shares and fund nearly half the cost of building a new arena. Prokhorov, who owns a share in the prominent Russian team CSKA, says he wants the deal partly as a way to get access to the NBA's training methods and educate coaches on how to improve Russian basketball.

If you want to improve Russian basketball, the first thing to do is to stay away from the New Jersey Nets.

Here's a short video of the Eiffel Tower flashing on the hour.  I was taking the photo below when the Eiffel Tower started flashing.  It actually surprised me even though I had been in the tower while it was flashing in the previous hour.  I was inside on the second level getting a snack and studying a map trying to figure out where we'd go next when I noticed some flashing lights.  It never dawned on me that the entire Eiffel Tower was flashing until I saw it again from below.

Here's a picture of the Eiffel Tower lit but not flashing.
Here's the tower flashing.
Video and photos all capture with the iPhone 3GS.

From USAToday.com: Halloween park display mocks deaths of Steve McNair, Sahel Kazemi

A Halloween park in Ohio revealed plans to display skeletons portraying murdered former NFL QB Steve McNair and his late mistress, Sahel Kazemi, during its upcoming season.

WLWT-TV reported that the Kings Island's Halloween Haunt included the gruesome scene among its push to include dead celebrities for more shock value.

Park spokesman Don Helbig told the station organizers wanted to include "authenticity" in this year's Halloween display, which also included humans hanging as slabs of meat.

I'm definitely not proud of this occurring here in Cincinnati.  This is totally classless.

UPDATE 9/24/09: Kings Island has apologized and has pulled the display
WLWT.com: Kings Island Apologizes For Celebrity Skeletons

This is one of my unintentionally amusing photos that I took.
What's so amusing about a giant statue of a nude woman towering over the Palace at Versailles?

Walked by this pub in Oxford, England.  Unfortunately, it was Saturday or I would have gone in to watch "Heavy Metal Karaoke" night.  I wonder if there's a lot of smashing of air guitars.

The Paris city government spends a lot of time and effort to keep the streets clean.  I'm not sure if it's due to the fact that quite a few Parisians don't pick up dog poop, but the street cleaning really makes a difference compared to U.S. cities.  Sidewalks and plazas are hosed down by trucks, but many streets have water sources built in to flush debris into the sewer system.

I wondered how environmentally friendly this is, but I read that it's a closed system for recycling non drinkable water.  Paris has two water lines, one for drinkable water and one not.

Reuters.com: Body Worlds plans cadaver show dedicated to sex

German anatomists plan a new show dedicated solely to dead bodies having sex as part of the Body Worlds exhibitions.

I think people should realize now, that these cadaver shows aren't about education, but are modern day freak shows designed to shock and entertain.

I wrote about this extensively last year when a different show, Bodies the Exhibition was here in Cincinnati.

 

We saw these street dancers in Paris on the the Champs-Élysées near the Arc de Triomphe.  We were walking around and caught the tail end of a performance from the back of a crowd and decided to wait around for their next performance.

The dancers saw that I was shooting video with my iPhone 3GS and definitely played it up for the camera.  It's four dancers, each with their own unique style.  It was a great performance.

The video, especially the sound is pretty amazing for being shot on a cell phone!

From Yahoo News: Ex-CEO backs limit on leaving passengers on tarmac

 A former CEO of American Airlines on Tuesday backed imposition of a three-hour time limit on how long airlines can strand passengers on airport tarmacs, but he also warned of unintended consequences.

Even three hours waiting on a tarmac seems too long.  But, at least this would prevent those horror stories of people being kept on planes with no food and overflowing toilets.

One thing about taking a vacation is that there's always a pile of work waiting for you when you return.  Makes it a little difficult to get back on schedule.

I took a ton of pictures while in London and Paris and I'll be posting them over the next couple of days.  I was a little rushed to to get to the airport and left the two cameras I was planning to bring at my office.  I ended up using a slightly older digital camera that I borrowed from my sister who dropped me off at the airport and my trusty iPhone 3GS.

First picture up, a walk button to press when crossing the street in Paris.  I love that the guy has a cane!

Sorry for the lack of posts these last two weeks.  I was on vacation in Europe, visiting London and Paris.  I had my iPhone and was planning to blog, but long days of walking and sightseeing combined with the relative lack of free WiFi made me change my mind.  Sometimes it's good just to get away and stay unplugged.  So, what's going on in the world?

NYTimes.com: The Write Stuff

This article brings up an interesting point.  Why do they teach cursive in school?  It's something that most people never use in the real world.  The authors suggest an italic as an alternative and show how to use it. 

I'm not a big fan of wallpaper, but then I've never had wallpaper like this!

Obey Giant Shepard Fairey Wallpaper at Curio Wallcoverings

From ApartmentTherapy.com: James May's Life Size LEGO House Underway

2 million bricks and 1200 volunteers.