This morning I saw a tweet from Jan Wildeboer of Fedora. He was one of the first people to spot that Novell are facing an unsolicited takeover bid by bigtime hedgefund breadheads, Elliott. A quick Google shows that Elliott specialises in buying into struggling companies and enforcing radical changes in order to bring the price of their investment up.
I have to admit, i’m mostly ignorant about how these bid and takeover deals work. What I do know is that Novell is listed on the US stock exchange, and that means they are legally bound to look after the financial interests of the shareholders. Even if that is at the cost of the company, it’s values, employees or products. I’ve read about the valuations of the Elliott offer being in the Billions of dollars. An offer of that magnitude is definitely going to be a catalyst. The company is “in play” as the Americans might put it. The thing is, with one offer on the table, Novell’s management are obligated to consider rival offers. Which naturally leads you to consider the simple question, who?
HP have interests in Open Source and Infrastructure, and they could bid. Oracle are still digesting Sun, so are not in such a strong position, but IBM might try. I have wondered about Google, but somehow I can’t see it.
There is one possibility that gives me the shivers though. Microsoft. It would be a lot of hassle for them to get a deal past the US Anti Trust Laws. It would cost them a lot of money in an area of business that would be a nightmare to intergrate into their own. So much so that I wonder if they would bother. The answer that’s forming in my mind is they wouldn’t. SO where’s the logic? Well, despite what Boycott Novell might say, Novell push a lot of usefull stuff into Linux. I’m sure that if they weren’t contributing, the overall pace of Linux development would be slowed significantly.
So, is that what we might be looking at? Would MS spend a Billion Dollars to trip Linux up and slow it down? I think they just might.
The word “cunt”, is a fabulous word. With timing and judgement, it’s like dropping a nuclear powered stink bomb into a converstation. The problem isn’t the word, the problem I have is when the joy of using the word is eroded because it’s special status within language hasn’t been respected.
Let us put aside the discussions about it’s neo sexist connotation for a moment, the staffers and hacks can cover that territory ad infinitum. It’s pejorative meaning in the second and third person is just as problematic. If no-one were to challenge the validity of it’s use in spurious cases (such as an only slightly questionable decision by Ubuntu to change the default search engine), doesn’t that devalue the word the next time you need to express it’s meaning? For instance, if a guy opens fire with a machine in a packed shopping mall for no reason, he would be a murdering bastard. If they were to go one worse and open fire in a kindergarten school yard, you’ve got no cathartic language left. What are you going to call them? “That guy who shot my kid is a mudering [person who would change the default seach engine setting]“.
I’m annoyed at the lazyness of it. I realise that the Microblog format can be limiting. But isn’t that a challenge to be even more creative? Trotting out words like cunt thoughtlessly in instances like the one I’ve linked to above, reduces the speaker to barking like a dog. Without vocabulary and creative composition, then the only way to express anger is volume and aggressive, monosyllabic shock. In terms of the point of the communication, it’s also highly likely that poorly judged use is also going to be counterproductive. You may have a smattering of support from those who are similarly angered. But many who may previously have been receptive to pursuasion to your view, will recoil or even entrench themselves in the opposite opinion solely due to their perception of your agression.
You are of course free to hold and express any opinion you choose. The thing is, I feel the way this person has done it reflects badly on the community as a whole, of which I am part. So next time, please, be more imaginative.
I could almost see why there was some uptightness about not putting Gimp in the default Ubuntu disk image. I’ll concede thateven though I’m bored of the issue, I’m still not fully sure that Mono based apps are a good idea. Despite trying to be open minded about it, I must have missed the point in a huge way about the most recent issue on the Ubuntu community agenda.
Aparently, in an attempt to get some money in the door, Ubuntu are going to make a switch to the default browser search engine. From Lucid, the bundled Firefox browser will default to Yahoo. Popey says this can be changed to the engine of your choice with two mouse clicks.
Within moments, this seems to have caused more knicker twisting and microblog invective than ….uggh words fail me.
Let’s be clear here…
The situation in Haiti, matters.
Human rights in China, matters.
Surpression of Democracy in Burma, matters.
The aimeless occupation of Afghanistan, matters.
The changeable default search in Ubuntu? Doesn’t matter.
Last night I caught a train home. Rather astonishingly, it got lost. It didn’t get lost at a complex interchange or junction. It got lost given the choice of left or right. It should have gone right so it could stop at Weston Milton and Weston Super Mare. However, given odds of 1 in 2, somehow an elbow was mistaken for an elbow, and muggins here was taken on a magical mystery tour of South Somerset. I ended up well over an hour late on a 40minute commute. So this morning, I’m suggesting that the train company re brand itself to reflect it’s actual values and the realistic customer experience. The company is called “First Great Western”. The Western bit is ok, but it does kind of suggest some surety in their geographical bearings. Considering that last night, despite being on rails, they were more lost than Frank Spencer at a gang bang, they could dispense with that bit. The “First” and the “Great” are so obviously flawed, as to not require debunking. So they can also be ditched. Which begs another question. What do we call this company instead? What words quickly and succinctly summarize the public train services in South West UK? After much careful consideration, I think I’ve got it. Shit Trains. Sent from my BlackBerry
I make no bones about being Anti-Microsoft. Here’s one of the reasons that makes me biased against them. My own personal experience. There is an advert doing the rounds at the minute for Microsoft’s “Windows 7″ OS. The premise of the ad is that Microsoft care so much about making good software, that they fly a German Chap out to the US in order that he can test and approve Windows 7. Specifically how easy making Wi-Fi connections is in Windows 7.
I haven’t used Windows 7, so I’m not about to discredit myself by claiming the advert is crap based upon something I know nothing about. In fact, for the purposes of this post, let’s assume the Windows 7 works as well in real life as it works in the advert. If it does, one thing I do know for a fact is that they have significantly improved Wi-Fi performance since the last two versions of Windows. I had those two versions on laptops that used Wi-Fi, so I know it really used to suck very badly. So it’s great that it’s better now. But how come they didn’t put the improvements in an update to XP or Vista? How come you have to pay circa £80 for a an OS that works properly when the old ones should have worked properly?
Those adverts are the emperors new clothes. Don’t believe the hype.
Aparently, Sex sells. Ok, that’s not news, you already knew that.
But I’ll tell you something D&G, I like my Casio watch guys. And why do I like my Casio? Because it’s got nothing to do with this patronising piece of crap. What’s the message here? Are D&G watches more stylish than other watches you can buy? Are they more accurate than other watches? No. The message is “Phowarrggh, look at those attractive people, they’re shagging as a threesome! They’re wearing D&G watches! The one person in the ad ho isn’t attractive and isn’t shagging as a threesome, isn’t wearing a D&G watch!”.
Please, D&G credit me and the rest of the audience with a little intelligence. I like my Casio, because my faithful girlfriend in my truly fulfilling monogamous relationship bought it for me. Like many adverts on TV, it’s selling me a product I don’t need, in a way that cheapens me.
The problem with advertising isn’t just the ethics of what they’re selling and to whom. It’s also what they to the viewers environment during the process. That and how they treat and portray their viewers. The adverts for “webuyanycar.com” are one of the best examples of this.
I have absolutely no idea whether what is being advertised here is good, brilliant, terrible or indifferent. I have diliberately neglected to any research in that regard. In fact, for the purposes of making my point, I’m going to assume that whatever they offer, it’s a superb service. I’ll go one better, let’s say that what webuyanycar.com are offering is a blow job from Jennifer Aniston (or Brad Pitt if you’re not into women) and a free Brietling Watch. If they had to give me a slap around the chops before I got sucked off and claimed my watch; i’d be inclined to accept that as more than fair exchange and enthusiastically accept the deal. If the deal was to take 10 slaps? Ok, fine it’s a nice watch and well…. Jennifer Anison!! 100 Slaps? Maybe I start to check the small print. But if they told me i’d have to be slapped repeatedly for 45 seconds everytime I turned on the telly for months on end? Now hold on one cotton picking minute here?!
As good as the service may be, i’ll wager that it falls short of sex and a nice watch. But their advert is very nearly as unpleasant as being slapped repeatedly until you buy the product. I like dance music as much as the next man, but this is an abuse of the genre.
It’s similar to the shake ‘n vac thing. If there is no sense of irony, then an advert that is deliberately annoying in order to burrow it’s message into your psyche is abusive. It can’t even be equated to a nagging spouse, because this is a more intense delivery without mitigation.
I say boycott the product. If it were genuinely of any value, then surely the benefits could be packaged into a vehicle (sic) that sells itself on it’s own merit.
That’s my point until tomorrow. Why not turn the telly off and see if you can get Jennifer Aniston’s number?
We know that big corporate concerns have got out of control, and aren’t very good for us. We know that we have chosen to live this way. Maybe not as individuals, but as a society as a whole. What I think many people question, is why do we let the big corporations do so much damage? Why have we let Christmas become such an orgy of commercialism? Why do we so deeply desire so many worthless products? How are we more educated than at any time in our history, and yet virtually all of us are enslaved?
It’s because of advertising. I intend to spend the next month explaining why I think advertising is the work of the devil. The video above is a prime example. Most people in the Uk will remember it. If you haven’t seen it, take a good look.
You might be wondering what was so bad about it. The answer to that lies in two things missing from the video. Firstly, that advert was played to the UK public on a daily basis for 10 years. To me, this suggests that the product reied upon the advert for it’s sales. The message is pretty simple – put it on your carpet, vacuum it up and it’ll make your carpet and therefore your room smell better. So why did they keep pumping the message out to the audience for so long? Because it was a bullshit product, that’s why. The only way to sell that turkey overall the other bullshit room fresheners, was to hammer it into their psyche. And boy did the brute force message work!
The thing is, they even got the abused viewers to defend the abuse. The advertising industry polluted television for years with this crap, and yet it’s victims often look on it with affection. Citing it as an example of an advert that’s “so bad, it’s good”. An impressive feat. Watch it again, what about it is in any way good?
Over the coming days, I’ll be looking at other more recent examples at how our leisure time is invaded by this tat.
Ekiga is very similar to Skype. Only it's free. Open Source and more Flexable. It's compatible with Microsoft Netmeeting if you have Windows. If you have Linux you can use Ekiga, Pidgin, Linphone or Gizmo.
This morning I saw a tweet from Jan Wildeboer of Fedora. He was one of the first people to spot that Novell are facing an unsolicited takeover bid by bigtime hedgefund breadheads, Elliott. A quick Google shows that Elliott specialises in buying into struggling companies and enforcing radical changes in order to bring the price of their investment up.
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