Anger Management

Stalin Battles Hitler

I was sent an absolutely hilarious link to a Russian comic about a fight to the death between Stalin and Hitler.

Though it's funny without translation (I read it that way the first time) there is an English translation under the comic panels. Also supplied are droll and informative footnotes.

Lust for Lucre

Though I am out of work, and pinching pennies, I'm not seriously asking for your hard earned cash. I put the box on the site for three reasons. First, I think an effective mechanism for micropayments is an essential enabling technology for all sorts of cool Internet commerce (and non-commercial) ideas. Second, I have been trying to tempt my friends into co-authoring this blog, and I told them they could split the proceeds from the "paybox" equally - if they would only post. Finally, the Amazon Honor System allows me to insert humorous sayings all along your way through to actually making a payment. You can click on the box below, and see the first of those statements for free. If you are willing to throw away a buck, you can see the second statement, and you will receive a humorous email from yours truly. One dollar is the minimum, so by all means, give twenty. 8)

On any payment, Amazon takes 15% plus 15 cents. So for a dollar donation, the site will net 70 cents. This currently doesn't have to be further split up, since no one else has posted. Still, I'm not sure if this the whiz-bang enabling micropayment system I had in mind, with that kind of overhead. Sure, sure, credit cards charge more, and their minimums are a lot higher. But these rates are a hangover from the days when transaction costs actually represented a higher percentage of the rates such instruments charged. It is possible with today's Internet to lower the costs to nearly zero, I'm convinced, leaving the rest as pure profit for the intermediary. Thus one could charge a much smaller percentage, and enable much smaller payments, while making up the difference and more in increased volume. Alas, no competitor implementing this approach is likely to arise until demand recovers from the crash.

SPAM Promise Unfulfilled

New Look

There was nothing wrong with the old logo, but I was bored with it. The new layout is designed so the ads can fit on the right-hand margin. (If your browser is too narrow they will float down to the bottom of the page and you won't see them. Lucky you.) I've added the ads here, on the EGBOK main page and on the sudoscript page. I don't expect to make any money, but I think Google is cool, and I'm interested in what they serve up. On the EGBOK and sudoscript pages, they currently show ads for Linux consultants. This a small awkwardness, because I am a Linux consultant, and I'm looking for work. I could block those particular ads if I wanted to. But it's more interesting following the links to see what the competition is up to. Here on Anger Management, Google is serving political ads. Again, this is a little awkward because I don't agree with most of the slants those ads display. However I'm a tolerant sort. And besides, I get paid if people follow the links irrespective of whether I agree with them or not!

It should be clear from the forgoing that the interesting thing about the Google ads is, they are based on the content of the page they live on. Google does a special crawl of your site once you put them up. Almost instantly, the ads change from public service announcements to targeted advertising. That means that you, my putative blog reader, should be predisposed to click on one of the links at right. Go ahead, click on one. I'll wait ..

If you are interested in doing this on your own site, just click on the "ads by google" link. If they annoy you, just ignore them and read all the other good stuff here.8)

Update, 21 July: Well, they served up an ad for Micheal Savage. I blocked that one. I guess I'm not as tolerant as I thought. 8)

CNET Anger

In the first place, sweeping someone like Savage under the rug is counter-productive. Suppressing despised speech is one way to cement its influence over those who are susceptible to its message. Ideas, even odious ones, are apt to evade restrictions placed on them by censors. Second, there's the principle of free speech. The bill of rights prevents the U.S. Government from abridging the right of free speech. It says nothing about corporations. Encouraging a corporate sponser to pressure a news organization in order to influence their content is a bad, bad idea. There is already enough of that kind of pressure, either implicit or explicit.

In his article, Cooper quotes an unnamed Microsoft representative answering a question about why they hired a guy who ".. regularly insults nonwhites and foreigners". The answer: "We have stated that we don't agree with the views of Mr. Savage. However, we do respect his right to freedom of expression and the independence of MSNBC to put him on the air." A laudable position, about which Cooper says "Up to a point, that made sense." But he had earlier dismissed a Microsoft press release stating that policy as ".. boilerplate mush." And he goes on to say that the answer ".. also avoided any deeper examination of where and how to draw the boundary between the software company and its own cable channel. There are red lines, and undoubtedly, figuring out the exact geography is a tricky exercise." Now, Microsoft's categorical statement that they will not interfere with the editorial decisions of MSNBC is not shallow, but merely succinct and inflexible. And if deciding when to take the extraordinary step of vetoing a hiring decision by those editors is a ".. tricky exercise" to Cooper, then I'd say he's complicating a rather simple issue because of his obvious distaste for Micheal Savage. Another sign of this is his praising of Microsoft for keeping hands off MSNBC when they were being flayed by the press in general, and MSNBC in particular over the antitrust trial. Editorial independence is fine with Mr. Cooper when he approves of the editorial line, but not when he doesn't.

One could attempt a reducto ad absurdum of the argument I have made here by postulating some hysterical violation of public safety or journalistic integrity by editors. Then wouldn't a corporation with a controlling interest be bound to interfere to protect the public good or maintain their reputation? I have two answers to this (hypotherical straw-man) question. First, I would think that the proper response by a corporation to that sort of situation would be to sell their interest in the offending journalistic organization. Second, nothing so serious as the putative threat to public safety was going on in this instance. What we had here was a garbage-mouth oaf of a shock-jock being hired by a network that is desperately trying to compete with Fox. Push came to shove when Savage went over the top. MSNBC promptly fired his ass. That was a good editorial decision following a poor one. But neither one were any of Microsoft's business! I rarely give Microsoft any credit, but in this case it is due. Hooray for a sane policy with respect to journalistic properties you own, Microsoft! And shame on you, Charles Cooper, for trying to talk them out of it.