The Other Super Bowl: Twitter vs. Facebook

Levi Sumagaysay

Siliconvalley.com's interesting reporter Levi Sumagaysay recently wrote about the "other" Super Bowl. This contest involves social media, with the world championship of the"Second Screen" at stake. The opposing squads are none other than Twitter and Facebook. Each has commanded an enormous number of participants during prior Super Bowls; this year will not be an exception to this trend. The two firms collect vast amounts of data during the contest, much of which is as thoughtful as "Whazzup." Selling into that revealing comment would challenge Don Draper, or, more likely, drive him to a pitcher of martinis.

This year's Super Bowl happens to correspond with Chinese New Year. That gives me an excuse to enjoy Chinese food and beer. So, during the "big game," I'll raise my glass to the Year of the Horse, dig into some fried dumplings, and root for the Seattle Seahawks. Gam Bei Fat Choy!

Scientists Note Past California Droughts Lasted Longer Than Two Centuries

Image: nytimes.com

In my recent visit to southern California, the landscape appeared very dry. It's well known, at least in the West, that the Golden State is suffering from a serious drought. There's justified concern that the water shortage may be prolonged, disastrous for the state's economy, and a profound hardship on its citizens.

According to scientists interviewed for a Mercury News article on the crisis, California has experienced droughts far longer than the current one. A consideration of geologic and botanic evidence suggests the state has endured dry seasons longer than two hundred years. That's right: longer than two centuries.

One surprising advantage to this situation is that beer might become cheaper than potable water. In that case, Baptists will have to look elsewhere for their idea of a "dry" environment.

Tom Perkins: "The Creative One Percent Are Threatened"

Tom Perkins
Photo: AP, from sfgate.com

Tom Perkins, something of an eminence grise among Silicon Valley's venture capital set, recently sent a controversial, three-paragraph submission to The Wall Street Journal's Letters to the Editor which managed to cause a media feeding frenzy. In his letter, Perkins alleged that progressive American political attempts to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans were analogous to the Nazi's anti-Semitic activities on Kristallnacht.

Perkins followed up this broadside with an interview on Bloomberg. His comments during the session were quite possibly more alarming than the disturbingly poor judgment Perkins demonstrated in his missive to the Journal.

His most revealing comments included his characterization of the richest Americans as "the creative one percent." I suppose that leaves over 195 million citizens of The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave as mindless cannon fodder for the wealthy's wizardry. In that sense, Perkins is very much in tune with big tech's data exploiters, who contemptuously disregard American citizens' right to privacy in the name of "creativity," "progress," and profit. "Creativity" generates its own rights that do not always adhere to the so-called rule of law.

Image: bn.com

Perkins felt strongly that the wealthiest Americans were the nation's principal job creators. At one point, he claimed Silicon Valley had created more than one million jobs. He did not mention the jobs that technological "progress" had wiped out, leaving many millions of Americans facing a diminished standard of living. Perkins did not allude to the tech industry's cynical focus on the globalization of production, which directly led to loss of American jobs to cheaper overseas labor.

Perkins' belief that supremely wealthy individuals generate new employment opportunities was shared by Michael Bloomberg during his twelve years as New York's mayor. This notion was a key conceptual hook in Hizzoner's drive to complete the transformation of classist Manhattan into a cross between Monaco and Las Vegas, while encouraging a Parisian Left Bank-style enclave in Whole Foods Brooklyn. How many jobs did these fabulously rich "citizens of the world" contribute to the Big Apple? Damn few, unless you count takeout delivery coolie labor and underpaid domestics as signs of economic "progress."

The Silicon Valley sage also stated his belief that Silicon Valley's psychological and material bubble was a very desirable state of affairs. Perkins felt that this wealthy, tech-centric, no-holds-barred playpen was essential to any sort of societal "progress." The inference was that high tech's engineers would lead the way into a certainly wonderful future. Other professions (such as medicine), a sense of communal initiative, and of course non-tech thinking simply did not register. What if you were a poet, a surgeon, a social worker, or a small business owner (of course, Valley enterprises are something more than just mom and pops)? Well, tough darts: you were just a ninety-nine percenter -- someone who would need the one percent's Midas touch to lift them into....well, just what?

And there's the rub. Perkins' vision of a just society revolves around getting rich in a world where libertarian ideals rule the day. While it's an alluring vision from the penthouse, it's an unappealing vista from the ground floor. Unfortunately for Perkins, the ninety-nine percenters are not buying his vision. I suppose if Perkins is looking for solace, he can call up Mitt Romney and compare notes.

Beard Growth Shaves Razor Sales

Image: fda.gov

A quick glance around airports, bars, or supermarkets leads one to conclude that fewer men are shaving. There's more stubble, fuzz, and beards walking around than in recent years. The fad for "casual" styles may contribute to this phenomenon. Other causes for the increase in male facial hair may exist, but I'll leave that exploration to minds smarter than mine.

Procter & Gamble, manufacturer of Gillette razors and other shaving products, noted this hairy phenomenon in a recent Financial Times report on the topic. Diminished use of razors has shaved profits from P&G's lucrative Gillette product lines. However, the consumer giant sees a new market for shaving -- "manscaping," a/k/a body shaving. As P&G's CFO told the FT, "'While the incidence of facial shaving is down, the incidence of body shaving is up, and we can take advantage of that and plan to do that as well.'" That sounds like P&G had one helluva senior management meeting. (The ad campaign for manscaping ought to be an interesting one.)

Meanwhile, Gillette has filed the trademark "Gillette Body." That puts a whole new twist to the concept of "a shave and a shower," don't you think?

Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In": The Movie

Sheryl Sandberg

Sheryl Sandberg, the adult in Facebook's corporate playpen, has caught Hollywood's attention. Sony Pictures recently purchased the film rights to Sandberg's prosaic assertion of female business empowerment, Lean In, according to a story originally reported by Deadline Hollywood and picked up by siliconvalley.com.

It's not unusual for a studio to purchase rights to a book. However, a post-millennial manifesto doesn't seem quite in tune for Sandberg's generational movie-going peers, unless the film becomes a pep talk about capital acquisition, technological "progress," and the pleasure of power. We'll see.

Interestingly, the rights to Lean In belong to Sandberg's Lean In Foundation. This is the same foundation that searched for an unpaid editorial intern, until Lean In was outed. Suddenly, money materialized for an intern. I wonder if that episode will make Lean In: The Movie's final cut.

Former Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi May Have to Perform Community Service

Silvio Berlusconi in his younger days,
when he was a cruise ship entertainer.

Classists such as Elizabeth Gilbert often project the idea that Italy is brimming with enlightened citizens who understand how to live well. This naive notion runs aground against Italian reality. Not so long ago, the boorish zillionaire Silvio Berlusconi was elected -- and re-elected -- to the Italian senate and became Italia's prime minister. Echoing the proclivities of Roman emperors, Berlusconi held "bunga bunga" parties that included hookers for his sexual satisfaction as well as for the pleasure of his political cronies.

According to a BBC report, the former PM is being investigated for witness tampering in a prostitution trial. Berlusconi, who was convicted last year of having paid sex with an underage woman, is not sweating the details. He's surviving in style on a northern Italian health farm with his young fiancee and presumably younger dog. Meanwhile, Berlusconi faces a four-year sentence for his illegal act. Given his age (77), he's unlikely to do time. However, the BBC story notes Italy's former numero uno may have to perform community service.

For someone equipped with Berlusconi's arrogance, the sentence seems to fit the crime.

Smartphone App Firm Lists Lamest Passwords

Image: splashdata.com

For those of us who lack clever password creation skills, the app company Splashdata recently released its cheeky annual list of the top 25 weakest secret phrases. According to a story in siliconvalley.com that originally appeared in PC World, the roster includes some (dare I say it) obvious choices, such as "123456."

Some of the funnier PWs? "Letmein" is a good start. "Letmeout" isn't listed among the top 25, but those who endure claustrophobia will appreciate it.

Proposed 2015 Calendar of the Seven Deadly Sins

Around the year-end holidays, consumers purchase calendars. Some of them feature popular travel destinations. Some showcase either domesticated or wild animals. Certain others flaunt the bodies of domesticated or wild humans. The calendars from non-profit enterprises tend to be dull commercials for their worthy activities.

However, I propose a new product for 2015 calendars: the Seven Deadly Sins. Here's a list of these universal vices:

• avarice
• envy
• sloth
• pride/vanity
• wrath
• lust
• gluttony

The Seven Deadly Sins and Four Other Things
by Hieronymus Bosch

Selected months or days would be associated with a particular deadly sin. My list is hardly thorough, but it's a start.

Avarice -- December. That's the bonus month for many firms, including some hedge funds, Wall Street banks, and private equity firms. Second place goes to the United States Congress. Images of individual members or a team shot are available for all 12 months of the year.

Envy -- Pick any repellent celebrity gossip television program, magazine, blog, or book for the usual and unusual suspects. Again, this delivers 12-month pleasure.

Sloth -- Summer months seem best suited for this vice. Local television newscasters provide ample subjects for this underrated vice.

Pride/Vanity -- The Academy Awards are made to order for the calendar's thematic concept. That takes care of March, when the Oscars are shown to a worldwide audience.

Wrath -- This is best associated with birthdays. Former vice president Dick Cheney, for example, celebrates his birthday on January 30th. New Jersey governor Chris Christie blows away birthday candles on September 6th.

Lust -- Bill Clinton has his birthday candles blown on August 19th. Former president Jimmy Carter, who once acknowledged having lust in his heart, will clebrate his 90th birthday on October 1st. And who could let a year pass without acknowledging Charlie Sheen's contribution to vice?

Gluttony -- Feel free to double down on Chris Christie's sins, thanks to his evidently excessive interest in food and drink. Also, movie director and XXXL fellow New Jersey native Kevin Smith receives "honorable" mention for his well-publicized hassling of Southwest Airlines in 2010 for its "Customer of Size" policy.

The beauty of the Seven Deadly Sins calendar is that each month brings a new, worthy member of vice's poster children to one's attention. Now that's much more fun than associating photographs of penguins or pinup models with a specific month!

The Seven Deadly Sins
by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

LinkedIn Launches Lawsuit Against Unknown Hacker Defendants

I know very little about American law and jurisprudence. My sketchy understanding suggests that a court case involves a named plaintiff and a defendant. (One exception is the concept of unindicted co-conspirators, first made famous during the Nixon Administration.) Today's twist from the land of the "rule of law" comes from (surprise) Silicon Valley. According to a Bloomberg News report picked up by siliconvalley.com, LinkedIn has initiated a lawsuit against unknown hackers. The suit alleges that the computer pirates created thousands of fake profiles, from which they scraped data from legit profiles.

One curiosity in the case in the connection to Amazon.com. The complaint charges the defendants "accessed LinkedIn using a cloud computer platform offered by Amazon Web Services." The report notes LinkedIn's intention to serve subpoenas on the AWS service, even though Amazon is not named as a defendant. It's an ironic position for the "world's largest retail company," don't you think? (In fairness, Amazon.com has always claimed it's a tech company.)

It's not everyday a subpoena is sent to an unknown counterpart via electronic communication. What's truly baffling in the Bloomberg News report is that no one thought generating subpoenas to unknown recipients was odd, unusual, or noteworthy. Is this really just another day at the Silicon Valley ranch?

TSA Kids Website Includes Children's Cartoon, Coloring Pages

Image: engadget.com and Getty Images

According to a story in the Los Angeles Times, the Transportation Security Administration has recently released a "TSA Kids" website. Its purpose is presumably to educate and entertain children on the virtues of airport security. I don't know how many kids will cozy up to the Federales' animated stories about suitcase searches and ID checks. However, the TSA is nothing if not hopeful: its website offers "printable coloring pages, including one of an airport scanner and an X-ray machine..."

Alleged DC Charter School Scam: Who Says There's No Money in Education?

The mantra about how "there's no money in education" keeps encountering inconvenient details which question the chant's veracity. Elements of the for-profit world, which has eyed the taxpayer funded education funding as so many chickens to be plucked, has entered the K-12 school arena. Its alliances with politicians, "committed" millionaires, and dim media reporting (The Today Show, come on down) offer formidable clout, especially against a fragmented collection of interested parties, such as local interest groups like the characteristic school district PTO.

According to a report in The Washington Post, attorneys for the District of Columbia Office of the Attorney General have filed new allegations against a local charter school enterprise. The filing claims corporate officers of Options Charter Public School (OCPS) "diverted more than $3 million from the Northeast Washington school for at-risk teens to companies they founded." The brief noted a parade of self-dealing including a school bus "ridership bonus" of $100,000.

J.C. Hayward
(Image: wusa9.com)

The accused apparently owned a firm called Exceptional Education Services (EES), which effectively served as a shell company designed as a collection device for skimmed funds. One key player in the OCPS/EES scheme was J.C. Hayward, a very visible DC television personality who happened to be board chair and part-owner of EES. The TV talking head's attorney has claimed his client had no knowledge of any illegal activity. That's a curious claim for someone deeply connected to DC's power structure and is presumably worldly wise.

LAUSD students using iPads
(Image: ktla.com)

The larger issue in this story goes beyond a cautionary tale of local corruption. The K-12 education "reformers" have made a case that strong CEO-style business management and teacher "accountability" would lead to improved K-12 education. All of this would be accomplished through increased online content, data-driven teaching and supervision, and relentless testing. The goal of redirecting the flow of public funds to private gain goes unstated. Meanwhile, the imperative to make technology and its products a key educational tool has gone forward without any serious vetting.The stampede into gadget purchases has led to some troubling situations, such as the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) purchasing hundreds of thousands of iPads at consumer market rates. At the same time, LAUSD did not buy keyboards for the devices. Oops...that would be "an extra expense," which the school district had to add on after the fact. Software? Well, various programs were sold as a three-year lease, after which LAUSD would have nothing to show for its rental costs.


Where was the strong CEO management in the LA and DC episodes? How did these initiatives advance the cause of K-12 education "reform"? Where was the senior management accountability? Where was the "community input" reformers are so keen to advance as one of their positive developments?

Image: mainepressherald.com

Bottom line: who says there is no money in K-12 education? The record suggests there's plenty of gold in the K-12 hills, and it's being mined now. The fact that the gold is taxpayer money, largely committed without genuine transparency or community participation is kept largely quiet. (Cory Booker and Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg's money to the Newark, New Jersey schools comes to mind as Exhibit A. It took a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain any useful information about this situation.) The understanding of the profit motive in the K-12 world could illuminate inconvenient details, the knowledge of which would interfere with profitable revenue streams that could continue for a generation. Now, who would want that situation brought to light?

Some Surprises From a Glimpse Into a Texas "Bookless Library"

Bexar County, Texas officials
announcing in January, 2013 plans
to build a "bookless library"
(Image: bexarlibrary.org)

An Associated Press story picked up in today's Mercury News reported on a "bookless" library in Bexar County, Texas and its principal city, San Antonio. What's meant by "bookless" isn't the same as "contentless." It's all about digital delivery and the presumed window into a library's not-so-distant future, brought to a presumably grateful population by high tech and its enablers. The Texas library staff's ironic aping of Apple employee outfits and assumed "helpful" behavior was not lost on the AP reporter. Neither was the opening of a "bookless" library in a downscale neighborhood where few people can afford Silicon Valley's "must have" gadgets and for-pay content.

What went unobserved was the quality of the library's collection, the "content" patrons wanted, and the materials unavailable at the "bookless" facility. Intriguingly, the removal of shelves was discussed as something of a positive feature. The AP story notes that a "bookless" library is cheaper to build and maintain than its Carnegie predecessors. And there would be no more silly fines, disfigured books, or wait times for an item.

The AP writer did not explore a print book's still-potent ability to elude control. A print book lacks traceable keystrokes, trackable "friends," searchable history. A printed book can be passed to others without a record of its antecedent readers. Those qualities make a printed book potentially "disruptive" and politically destabilizing. Far from being "old school," printed materials encourage independent, even revolutionary perspectives in tune with today's yearning for liberty.

Yes, "content yearns to be free" -- just not in the form tech's high priests envisioned. There's some pleasure to be taken from that ironic outcome and, more importantly, action undertaken with a printed book's advantages in mind.

Message in Bottle Gets Reply Two Decades Later

Twenty-three years ago, a 10-year-old British girl put a message in a bottle. She tossed her hope into the North Sea and presumably didn't think too hard about it. Much to her surprise, the now 33-year-old  woman received a reply, along with her original message. The BBC report on this event notes that the bottle washed up on a Netherlands beach. The Dutch couple who found the bottle wrote to the British message writer.

I suppose the moral of the story is patience. Waiting more than two decades for an answer is a long time. Even Ulysses didn't have to wait that long to return to Ithaka.

First Days and First Ideas

I experienced today what many people know when they intend to create something. Call it "the blank slate" syndrome. Essentially, the phrase alludes to facing an empty computer screen, a pure canvas, a score without notes. Suddenly, nothing happens. Ideas wander around one's mind like so many sparrows around an unfortunate tree. What's the first word? What's the initial idea? What are those first strokes, lead sounds, or initial framing?

When nothing happens, it's rarely a good feeling. I'm typically a counterpuncher in the world of ideas, and the absence of a motivating concept often leaves me unable to sensibly act. That realization struck me hard today, and called for a reconsideration of how to proceed. I know some writers who reach into the well of their memoirs, but that approach always seemed limited to the extent of the writer's experience and awareness.

Magnifying this sense is New Year's Day, a time of well-intentioned resolutions and splendid illusions. I shy away from New Year's promises; I do harbor plenty of illusions, but I do try to manage them. Still, today is as good a day as any to change from counterpunching to leading.

A.J. Liebling
(Image: nytimes.com)

I suppose the boxing metaphors are on my mind, as I recently finished reading A.J. Liebling's The Sweet Science. The late New Yorker writer wrote a splendid collection of stories in which his journalistic skill, wonderful voice, and enthusiasm for boxing shine. Sometimes, reading a strong book makes facing a blank page worth pursuing on first days, and days thereafter.