Spelling mistakes that get me peeved

This has nothing to do with the putrid pundits that infest our airwaves (and cable lines) and much, much more to do with the crumbling state of America's education system.  America's institutions of learning, coupled with an "auto spell-checker" generation are threatening the very fabric of the English language.  I do not claim to have impeccable grammar or perfect spelling but I do expect at least that much from the news organizations that surround us.  

Recently, I have been unable to read an entire daily newspaper without coming across blatant errors ranging from the inability to differentiate between "affect" and "effect", to the misuse of phrases like the one I pointed out in my last post ("worse" and "worst").  If only newspapers still had editors who proof read submissions before sending them to print much of these problems would disappear.  

The fact that a google search for the term "worse case scenario" produces over 200,000 results is a testament to the fact that people do not think about what they write, nor do they re-read what they have written to make sure there aren't these mistakes.  Pause, and think for one moment about what "worse case scenario" literally means.

You got it yet?  Ok, take another 30 seconds and think it over...

Ok, time's up.  It means a "not as good" scenario, or a slightly more bad scenario.  That would be fine if that was what they meant to say, but clearly when flashing enormous graphics across the screen in an effort to terrify the public and stoke fears of Mexicans carrying deadly diseases, the message they were attempting to communicate was the very "baddest" of the bad scenarios....the "worst" possible outcome.

So where does this lack of ability to communicate effectively come from?  Part of it, I believe, comes from the laziness with which people enunciate these days.  If when you say the word "worst" you sort of drop the 't' at the end, soon you will begin to think you are saying "worse".  Now, I'm not saying that everyone should go around saying "ay-fect" and "ee-fect" but certainly the lack of proper enunciation contributes to the lack of proper spelling.  

The real problem is probably our complete and total reliance on the spell checker.  In that sense, Microsoft has become the grand authority on spelling and grammar.  After all, if you don't get a little green or red squiggly under what you write, it must be correct.  Too bad Gates and company were unable to figure out the user's intent in their writing.

As for a solution to this dilemma, I can not think of any actions that will properly affect the media industry to resume editing their work, nor can I think of something that can be done that will have the desired effect on the public and encourage them to enunciate clearly and correctly.  For now, I will continue to announce the most egregious errors here and on any forums available where the offending article is located.  I invite you all to do the same.

CNN's graphic's department needs a 3rd grade education

I'm hoping that I'll come across a picture of this at some point and be able to update this post, but CNN this morning had a segment on the economic ramifications of this Swine Flu business. Christine Romans was talking about the damage Swine Flu could do on the international economy and what the "worst case scenario" could be when a GIANT graphic flew across the television wall behind her that read "WORSE CASE SCENARIO". I think she noticed it because when she looked up from her desk at the monitor she paused a little while saying "worst case" and emphasized the 't' a little more than usual.

Well done CNN.

STOP REGION FILTERING FOR VIDEOS

Enough is enough! We need to come together and put an end to this nonsense of blocking streaming videos based on country of origin. The very same douchebags that gripe about China, Cuba, Venezuela or Iran blocking some websites from being displayed are also behind the commercial powers that cause so much content to be blocked based on where you are accessing it from.



I understand all the arguments for the blocks that exist today, and they mostly stem from broadcast licensing, but it is hurting the medium and resulting in diminished viewing of content to the detriment of the content creators.

While I have noticed this problem for some time, it only really started to bother me this past summer during the Olympic games when I was prevented from viewing the opening ceremonies as they were going on and instead had to wait until NBC, who had both the television broadcast and internet broadcast rights, decided it was time for America to see what the rest of the world had seen 12 hours earlier.

This archaic model of licensing out one company in one country to broadcast content makes some amount of sense in the television model, where the cost to broadcast is a fixed cost and the return on investment stems from how many people you can get to watch during the allotted time. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for the NBA to allow 3 or 4 networks to broadcast the final game of the playoffs because that would result in all the networks splitting the viewing audience of a closed market.

But we don't like in a quaint little "Leave it Beaver" world anymore. Times have changed, technology has advanced and the global audience deserves global content. Content providers should look past the short term money they can make by charging extra for country-specific exclusivity deals and instead look towards meeting the demands of their audience who want to view their content from a myriad of different sources.

Unlike Television, which consists of a fixed cost by the network to broadcast no matter how many people decide to tune in, internet streaming puts additional costs on the broadcaster for each user that is watching. In a way, this should be a disincentive to hold an exclusive online streaming license for content because it means that everyone in your market is forced to log onto your servers and add operating costs to your IT infrastructure. It's also conceivable that the servers of one particular company in one country might not be sufficient to provide high quality streams to all the people in the market that demand that content therefor causing the viewing of that content to suffer for the audience.

This petty blocking of streaming content across borders also degrades the consumer's ability to practice brand loyalty. When traveling abroad those viewers that would normally watch something on television are prevented from watching that same source as they travel and must instead hunt around for a local source, which may or may not exist.

Breaking down these licensing borders would be a strong test of our supposedly free market, capitalist system as it would allow the broadcaster with the highest quality transmission and production to attract the biggest audience. It would also enhance the global community by providing more shared experiences between people all around the world.

It seems that even as technology to deliver high quality streaming content has improved, the availability of content from beyond one's borders has diminished resulting in a dangerous regression that threatens both the sustainability for content providers to hold onto their increasingly fickle audiences as well as straining the content providers in the busier markets.

And while all of this may seem selfish on my part, the fact remains that the CBC just does a better of commenting on Hockey than FoxSports Atlanta ever will.

The ultimate in fuzzy math

Just read this article on the scurge of software pirates besetting the iPhone App Store.  Whenever I see these articles that talk about software piracy, or music piracy or any intellectual property piracy I can't help but laugh at the fuzzy math used in any such discussion.  According to the Business Software Alliance "the economic impact of software piracy is tens of billions of dollars." 

The problem with this bullshit is that it assumes that every single person with a pirated iPhone application would have purchased that application if not for the piracy, when in fact, most people with pirated applications get the pirated apps because they have no intention or capability to purchase the applications legitimately.  

The same is true the music world where the RIAA makes bold claims about the loss in revenue due to piracy when, once again, there's a lot of shit music out there that people only own because they got it for free and would never...EVER...EVER in a million years buy those crappy albums/songs.  And of course, movie piracy is no exception either.  

If anything, intellectual property piracy is one of the few examples I've ever pointed out that shows Adam Smith's invisible hand of the market doing its job correctly.  Clearly those products that are being pirated are worth much less to the people who get pirated versions, then the distributers of those products would like.  If they lowered the cost of their crappy products, maybe people would be willing to buy them.  But so long as people are willing to risk infecting their computers with viruses to avoid paying for content, the content must be priced too high.

Cheney says...oh wait who cares?

In a recent interview with CNN former Vice President Dick "the dick" Cheney asserts that President Obama has made America more vulnerable to a terrorist attack because he's treating the war on terror as a law enforcement issue.  Whether or not the very minor changes President Obama has enacted are actually making us more vulnerable or not, let us ask the more important question.  What really makes us more likely to be hit by a terrorist attack?  Not torturing people with little to no actionable intelligence, or creating tons more terrorists by inciting anger in the muslim world?  

Throughout the Bush II administration terrorist recruiting has been handed a number of boons from the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, to the revelation of torture of detainees.  These specific and enumerable acts have contributed far more to recruitment of potential terrorists than anything President Obama has done in his 60 in office.  Not only that, but Vice President Cheney's office also hampered the CIA (supposedly one of our frontlines against terrorists) by reveling Valerie Plame to the world as a CIA agent.

Now, the even more important question is why is CNN interview Cheney and giving him a mouthpiece to spew his unpleasantness?  After the damage the Bush administration did the country both financially and in regards to our image throughout the world, nothing Bush or Cheney have to say should be given any attention.  We've suffered through their moronic idealogy and actions for the past eight years and we should be spared any further injury that their words can cause.  

Don't touch our bananas

President Obama has just signed a new spending bill that eases some of the restrictions W put in place concerning travel and remittances to Cuba. Unfortunately it is still restrictive to those of us without family on that warm, beautiful and SAFE island. This nearly 50 years embargo on a tiny island country will most certainly go down in history as the stupidest, most ineffective and possibly most vicious economic attack on a civilian population in our nation's history.

After nearly 50 years of encouraging Cuban democracy through executive orders, the "Cuban Democracy Act" or the "Cuban Liberty and Democracy Solidarity Act" America has been the opposite of successful in bringing democracy to the island of Cuba. The executive orders and the official laws (passed in the 1990s) that have prevented Americans from traveling to Cuba or purchasing Cuban goods (like Cigars) have done nothing to end the Castro regime making it less effective than old age at changing a government.

The fact that this oppressive policy was born out of the greed of our fruit companies is even more embarrassing for the American people and shameful for the American Presidents that have maintained and at times strengthened this attack on civilians. Sadly, President Jimmy Carter was the only President to have the courage to not renew elements of the embargo that allowed Americans to go to Cuba and spend American dollars there until Reagan reinstated it in 1982.

It's time to end this pathetic bullying of a tiny neighbor that poses no threat to America and is no less democratic than one of our largest trading partners (that's China just in case you thought I meant Canada) and there are dozens of countries with dictators and without elections that Americans are free to travel to and spend money in. This policy is a joke and you must end it President Obama. Just think of how much Sean and Rush will cry when you do, it'll be a kodak moment.

Socialism and other scary words Part 1

While the windbags of the right continue to brandy about the "socialist" label on President Obama, they are either too stupid to remember the past or they are deliberately ignoring it. Take for example all the hullabaloo about taxes. President Obama is promoting the idea that we should roll back the tax cuts on the top income earners to what the rates were under Bill Clinton, that big pinko commie socialist. Forget for a moment all you've seen on FoxNews about how Bill Clinton was Lenin and Stalin's love child and look, intelligently and rationally at the fact that his top marginal tax rate was 39.6%. Under Republican presidents Ford and Nixon it was in the 70s. Under President Eisenhower, who it would be pretty hard to call a Socialist, the top marginal rate was in the 90s.

What this goes to show is what a farce it is to actually believe President Obama is a ramming his socialist agenda on America through a "massive" hike in the top marginal rate. President Obama is no more a socialist than Rush Limbaugh is a decent human being. I wish that we could get ourselves a real progressive candidate into the White House one of these days, but unfortunately, there are so many ignorant, uneducated piles of garbage voting these days that still get goosebumps when they hear words like Socialism because they don't realize that Socialism doesn't mean the government spying on your phone calls; kidnapping and torturing people in secret prisons; or even coming between you and your doctor concerning medical matters.

No, those are all things that are happening and have been happening during that oh so capitalist President George W. Bush. Socialism means your kids can finally go see a doctor when they cut their foot on some rusty metal in the trailer park, or you can go and start that business you've always wanted without worrying that your family might get sick. It means you can send your kids to school and they'll get a good education and you won't have to sell your house to afford it. It's time that America got over its irrational fear of the S word and started fearing the real bogeymen like Rush, Sean and all the others who shout about standing up for the little guy that they then proceed to piss all over.

President Obama is not a socialist, but I really wish he was.