But Steven, the social tech companies are serving their customers

Steven Hodson made some excellent points in a blog post that he wrote this afternoon. He set down some thoughts that I have neglected to explicitly blog about, although I've referred to them a few times on Google+.

But here's a bit of what Hodson said:

As an overarching entity social media has been built around the very same idea as what the NSA is being condemned for. The constant collection of user information for use by companies and advertisers....

With social media though marketing companies have a real time firehose of consumer information that doesn’t cost them anything near what pre-social media methods did. Plus people are falling all over themselves to give away this “personal” information. From services like Foursquare to Twitter, pinterest to Instagram, and tumblr to Facebook the flow of free consumer information to marketers continues unabated.

I encourage you to read the entire thing here.

I only have one thing to add to Hodson's analysis. And this is a point that I've made several times in the past (here's an example).

Briefly, if you truly believe that social tech companies are your "friend," why don't you ask the social tech companies themselves? For example, before you plunk down over $1,000 a share to invest in Google, you may visit its investor relations page and read the answer to this question.

Who are our customers?

Google provides an answer that briefly describes its customers - over a million of them.

"John," some of you are saying, "you're getting your information from Facebook losers. Google has many more than one million customers! Last October, TIME reported that nearly 390 million people were using Google+ alone!"

Sorry, but I stand by my number. Google has less than two million customers. Here's how Google answered the question:

Our customers are over one million of advertisers, from small businesses targeting local customers to many of the world's largest global enterprises, who use Google AdWords to reach millions of users around the world.

I've made this point countless times, but it bears repeating because it is so critical to understanding how social tech companies work. Google, Facebook, Foursquare, and the like have to serve their customers - advertisers, venture capitalists, data purchasers, whoever. To serve their customers, the social tech companies have to obtain as much data from the users as is possible. The users are not the customers; the users are the meal ticket.

So how does this relate to the NSA? Actually, there's a parallel here.

Both Steven Hodson's Canada and my United States employ a republican form of government; this republican (small r) form of government is a multi-tiered system in which the people elect representatives who actually do the governing for the people. (For the moment I'll ignore the multiple levels of government - provinces, states, counties, cities, etc. - and just concentrate on the national government.)

Theoretically, the U.S. National Security Agency and the Canadian Communications Security Establishment operate on behalf of the respective country's citizens. But for all practical purposes, these agencies are directly controlled by the executive branch members that tell them what to do, and the legislative branch members that give them money. And in some cases, that control was not that rigorous.

And anyone with half a brain realizes that the U.S. government is not the only government that has been accused of spying on its own citizens. Consider this Canadian lawsuit by the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association:

On October 22, 2013, the BCCLA filed a lawsuit against the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) claiming that its secret and unchecked surveillance of Canadians is unconstitutional....

The BCCLA’s lawsuit argues that two aspects of the CSEC’s operations violate the Charter’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure: the interception of the private communications of Canadians and the sweeping collection of metadata information produced by Canadians.

So there are clear parallels between government spy agencies that don't necessarily represent the interests of their citizens, and social technology companies that don't necessarily represent the interests of their users.

However, I see one difference between the two cases.

If overly zealous government spying becomes public knowledge, then there are people within the government itself (such as opportunistic politicians from the opposition party) who will fight within the government to stop the controversial activity.

But if overly zealous tech company data collection becomes public knowledge, will there be people within the company itself who will fight within the company to stop the controversial activity?

I doubt it.

Aubrey Lee Price and the price of "freedom"

Back on July 6, 2012, the FDIC issued a press release regarding the failure of a small Georgia bank.

Montgomery Bank & Trust, Ailey, Georgia, was closed today by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Ameris Bank, Moultrie, Georgia, to assume all of the deposits of Montgomery Bank & Trust.

The FDIC press release didn't say WHY the bank failed, but a few days later, more information came out.

Authorities are investigating the disappearance of a South Georgia banker who is accused in a $40 million fraud case.

Aubrey Lee Price, 46, disappeared on June 16 after telling acquaintances that he had lost a large amount of money and that he planned to kill himself, according to a complaint charging him with wire fraud involving the embezzlement of $17 million from a Georgia bank.

Price was a director at Montgomery Bank & Trust, which was shut down on Friday. He controlled its investments before disappearing last month, the complaint states.

According to speculation at the time, some felt that Price was NOT dead, but was instead living the good life.

CBS affiliate WTOC reports that although authorities say they at first thought Price was suicidal, information now suggests he may have left the country. The FBI reportedly believes Price may be hiding in Venezuela....

According to the wire fraud complaint, Price has told acquaintances that he owns real estate in Venezuela and Guatemala. Price recently traveled to Venezuela and returned to the United States from that trip on June 2, 2012.

Although he was legally declared dead on December 31, 2012, authorities found a very alive Aubrey Lee Price exactly one year later, on December 31, 2013. But they didn't find him in Venezuela.

Authorities say Aubrey Lee Price, 47, was pulled over by police in Brunswick for his vehicle's illegally tinted windows on Tuesday and after a bit of questioning, they realized who he was.

And no, that's not Brunswick, Venezuela or Brunswick, Guatemala. That's Brunswick, Georgia - approximately 100 miles from the former Montgomery Bank & Trust.

And according to a claim by Price on Thursday while appearing in Federal court, that car with tinted windows WASN'T taking him to a mansion hideout.

Price told authorities he's been homeless for the past year and a half, and traveled around the country working as a migrant worker.

While there's a possibility that (GASP!) Price may not be telling the truth, it appears likely that at a minimum, Price wasn't enjoying the good life with millions of dollars in the Caribbean. Instead he very well may have been the bearded dude that did odd jobs for cash.

But he was a "free" man - until his tinted windows did him in.

Just assume that all of your accounts have been hacked and be done with it

First we hear that Target data was compromised.

Then we hear that the compromised Target data included encrypted PIN numbers. And yes, the PINs were Triple DES encrypted, and the hackers didn't get the key. Which means that hackers can never, ever, ever decrypt those PINs...right? Wrong.

Then the latest news - my favorite service Snapchat had its data compromised, and phone numbers and usernames were leaked. Well, the people who leaked the data obscured the last two digits of the phone numbers, and the full data with all digits is stored in various secure locations. Which means that hackers can never, ever, ever match the usernames to complete phone numbers...right? Wrong.

Of course, some are asking questions, such as "Why did Target retain the PINS after the transactions were authorized?" The answer is that Big Data needs all of this stuff. Take your average Android or iOS app - they ask for a ton of data. If Empoprises were ever to release an app that simply said "Beep," we would probably require users of the app to consent to the following.

By downloading the EmpoBEEP(tm) app, you grant Empoprises, our ISP, our telephone provider, all the temps who work for us, and their significant others access to the following information:

Your username
Your password
Your address
Your phone number
Your current location
Every location that you have visited in that past 365 days
Your Social Security Number
Your credit rating
Your bank account balance
All of your purchases for the past 365 days
All of your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and MySpace friends
The usernames, passwords, addresses, etc. of all of your friends
An audio and video record of everything that happens within 1,000 feet of your mobile phone, even when it is turned off

All of this information is needed, of course, to provide users of the beeping app with the full social experience.

And after all, what's the harm in it? Our systems are secure. They're protected by high quality software from RSA.

So sortabytes and sortabytes of data are collected in Big Data farms, just waiting to be taken.

And if you can't obfuscate the data, then your other option is to unplug.

It's funny. Back when I was growing up, Karl Malden did a series of commercials for American Express Travelers Cheques. In these commercials we were warned not to carry cash.



These days, it seems that carrying cash could be the safest bet of all. You may lose your cash, but you won't lose everything else.

And don't talk about Bitcoin - consumer Bitcoin accounts have been hacked also.

The sincerest form of flattery

I was on vacation last week, and one afternoon I found myself peeking at daytime television. One afternoon, I ran across a show on our local CBS affiliate that featured a group of women sitting around, talking about stuff.

Yes, it was afternoon, and I was watching CBS.

So I obviously wasn't watching "The View," which appears on ABC in the mornings. I was watching an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT show.

"Wonder how long this copycat will last," I thought to myself.

It turns out that the show is called The Talk. Notice the significant differences between The View and the Talk:

(1) They appear on different networks.

(2) They appear at different times of the day.

(3) While their titles refer to the five senses, the shows feature different senses. (NBC, Fox, and everyone else after left with The Touch, The Taste, and The Smell.)

Oh, the The Talk is in its fourth season already, despite the fact that this show demonstrates no innovation over the original.

Contrast that to a take on The View that did innovate a bit - "The Other Half." The gimmick of this show is that rather than having a bunch of women sitting around and talking about stuff, it had a bunch of MEN sitting around and talking about stuff. The men, all of whom were popular at the time the show aired, included Dick Clark, Mario Lopez, Danny Bonaduce, and a doctor who posed for Chanel. (Maybe Phil Robertson can tell me who Dr. Jan Adams is.)

Despite this innovation, The Other Half only lasted for two seasons, or half as long as its less innovative successor.

The business lesson here? Sometimes you can be successful by sticking to the same formula, rather than tinkering with it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to refine my pitch for a TV show in which amateurs sing songs in a competition.

Why you want to read this blog in 2014

Whenever I schedule a post (many of my posts, including this one, are scheduled), I always see the one scheduled post that you won't see for a while.

I'm talking about the post that will appear on Thanksgiving 2014. I talked about it here.

And yes, the reasons why I cannot publish the post now are still valid.

Oh, and on a semi-related topic, the next hearing on last year's criminal case is scheduled for January 24, 2014. As I said before, the defendant will hopefully be sentenced before he dies of old age.

Why not just pour food into our cars and kill two birds with one stone? (Literally?)

Many of us are ending the Christmas season, when we consume huge amounts of soy additives and high fructose corn syrup. Contrast this to the remainder of the year, when we consume huge amounts of soy additives and high fructose corn syrup.

I don't think I've ever written about soy, but I've certainly written about corn syrup, since everyone - except for observant Jews - seems to drink it. For example, I've noted that high fructose corn syrup and "New Coke" were not connected - Coca Cola had switched to high fructose corn syrup several years before New Coke was introduced. I also covered the attempt to allow high fructose corn syrup to be renamed "corn sugar" - the purpose was to "eliminate customer confusion."

However, I've never explicitly stated why we Americans use so much high fructose corn syrup and soy additives, and why Mexicans don't.

There's a simple reason - Congress doesn't provide subsidies to Mexican farmers. Only American farmers are subsidized.

Almost anything you can think of would be a better use of our tax dollars than subsidizing the ingredients in junk food, but every year more than a billion taxpayer dollars do just that.

The above sentence comes from CalPIRG, so it obviously goes on to talk about Monsanto and other evil corporations. But at the end of the day, Monsanto can't force a Senator to vote for corn subsidies. Another beneficiary of corn subsidies - ethanol - was recently defended by Senators from both sides of the aisle.

A federal subsidy of 45 cents a gallon for blending ethanol into gasoline and a 54-cent per gallon tariff on imported ethanol will both expire automatically at the end of [2010] without Congressional action. A bill introduced in April [2010] by Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, would extend the measures until 2015.

“Ethanol has proven its value as a homegrown, renewable fuel and, in light of the hundreds of billions of dollars shipped abroad as a result of foreign oil dependence, ethanol is a relative bargain,” Mr. Grassley said in a statement accompanying the letter.

The letter was signed by 16 senators, including Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, and John Thune, Republican of South Dakota.

And, of course, the reason why the Senators support these bills and accept these contributions is because they want to get re-elected by local voters. Somehow I suspect that the Iowa PIRG doesn't have a lot of success drumming up support to end the ag subsidies. (Although they try.)

Since people act according to their economic interests, it's doubtful that midwestern Senators will vote to end farm subsidies any time soon. So if you really want to battle all the stuff that's getting put in your food, one potential avenue is the tool of ridicule (not to be confused with the Rod of Ridicule, used by Michael O'Donoghue to berate fellow SNL writers). The next time that some shopping mall salesperson is encouraging you to try a food with "healthy corn syrup," simply respond to the person as follows:

Corn syrup? Isn't that the same stuff I put in my gas tank?

Heh.

Black Monday has nothing to do with Wall Street - well, maybe not

Not too long ago, everyone understood that Black Monday referred to a particular stock market crash. But today, many people understand the term as applying to the day after the end of the National Football League regular season. Specifically, it references coaches who will be fired on that day.

According to the latest reports, New York City's (well, New Jersey's) two head coaches are safe, despite less than stellar seasons. Rex Ryan will get another season, and Tom Coughlin has done too much for the New York Giants to be fired.

However, the team that Coughlin beat today - my Washington Redskins - appears certain to be ready to fire its head coach, Mike Shanahan. Even before that final loss, reports of Shanahan's imminent firing were circulating.

One person with knowledge of the matter said Sunday that Shanahan “definitely” will be dismissed and the only question is whether the move will come Sunday night or Monday.

Another person with ties to the organization said Saturday night the move was certain and is expected to come Monday.

Most football teams are run by individual owners with various eccentricities, and the Redskins are certainly no exception. One would think that even Dan Snyder, however, would wait until the day after the end of the season to lower the boom. But we'll see.

Our Internet algorithms are not perfect, the December 27 edition

As a publicly traded company, Twitter has a laser focus on getting it right. This website, like all other websites, desires you to spend 24 hours a day at this site and at no other site. Therefore, Twitter uses scientific analysis to look at the people you choose to follow, and find similar people that will interest you.

Hence...this?

For those who may not be familiar with Kanye West Puppet, he is another of Loren Feldman's creations, employed as a commentary on the idiocy of segments of the modern music industry.

For those who may not be familiar with Bank of America, it's a big bank. But they care because their social media experts told them to say that they care.

Kanye West Puppet is to Bank of America like Phil Robertson is to West Hollywood.

Unfortunately, I could not get a full picture of the entire suggestion, but it turns out that the reference to the Bank of America account is "promoted." This means that Bank of America has given Twitter gobs of money to advertise its Twitter account to everyone, regardless of whether the recipient of the ad is even interested.

In other words, it's old "push to everyone" advertising, like the three networks did before the real Kanye West was even born.

Twitter has collected tons of data on me, and on everyone else who views the Kanye West Puppet account...and they still make their money by ignoring all of this big data that they're collecting.

This is progress.

State laws should always be enforced - except when they shouldn't

The New York Times is having a field day with the silly people in the city of Los Angeles. You see, the Los Angeles Police Department is strictly enforcing California state law, including the portion that says that if you step into a crosswalk when the "Don't Walk" sign is flashing, you are violating state law - and can earn yourself a ticket of around $200.

Naturally, the city of Los Angeles is intent on enforcing state law, because that is what cities do. In a comment on a Facebook thread, the LAPD offered this advice to citizens who were angered about these tickets.

Our best advice for avoiding adding to our "revenue" is to not cross the street in violation of the California Vehicle Code. That way you are safe AND we have no reason to stop you.

Yes, the city is ALWAYS interested in enforcing state law...well, except when they aren't.

Under the terms of Special Order 7, if officers stopped an unlicensed driver who met several requirements — including having auto insurance, valid identification and no previous citations for unlicensed driving — officers could no longer invoke the part of the state vehicle code that allowed them to confiscate the vehicle for 30 days, a punishment that came with fines and charges often exceeding $1,200.

Special Order 7 was challenged (so far, successfully) by the police union, because the primary goal of the police union is to always make sure that state law is enforced. Always.

In reality, a police department, or any governmental organization, responds to business and political interests. If downtown businesses raised enough of a stink, strict pedestrian enforcement would go away. Look at what businesses did in Huntington Beach a few years back.

At a time when red-light cameras are proliferating across Southern California, Huntington Beach is bucking the trend.

The cameras have become a controversial part of the streetscape in recent years, taking photos of drivers who run through red lights and sending them tickets....

Some business leaders in town are ... speaking out against the traffic cameras, including some car dealers who fear the cameras might drive customers away.

This, of course, was a city law and not a state law. But the premise still holds - when strict enforcement of a law has negative consequences for a locality, the law is not enforced. If people were to say, "No, let's not go to L.A. Live. The police hassle pedestrians," the same thing will happen to pedestrian laws.

Or, perhaps, some one may find that the burden of pedestrian tickets falls heavily on the city's immigrant population. Then we'll see what Chief Beck says.

Thanks to Shaun Nicholson for alerting me to this story.

Priceless real estate speak - when Bob Lindsay joined Re/Max

Real estate agents, even the good ones, have a tendency to describe things in EXTREMELY positive terms. A house could be falling apart, and the real estate listing will say that it "needs TLC." An apartment the size of a closet is "cozy."

But the best example of real estate writing ever was publishing in NorthJersey.com on May 24, 2012. In this particular case, NorthJersey.com just re-ran a press release - not about a house, but about a realtor.

The story begins as follows:

WAYNE - Youssef Genid, owner of RE/MAX Legend Realty in Wayne has announced that award-winning agent Robert "Bob" Lindsay has joined his company as a broker-sales associate. Lindsay has been recognized over the years as the top producer for Coldwell Banker in Wayne but he looks forward to this new chapter in his career.

"Over the course of my 36-year career in real estate, this is only the 3rd time I've changed firms - in our industry that's infrequent. I'm not a person who likes to jump around," said Lindsay. "I had a wonderful experience over the years at Coldwell Banker but I achieved all my goals there and I'm moving forward knowing that the business model at RE/MAX is much more suitable for my skill set and how I operate. I am excited over the flexibility their systems offer and I am eager to show my clientele the numerous advantages I can provide them with this move. RE/MAX allows me to be directly responsive to my clients and allows me to tailor my service to their needs."

Some of you are already guffawing at Lindsay's discussion of his skill set and how he operates, and how Lindsay achieved all his goals at Coldwell Banker.

If you're...um, in the dark about this, check my previous post, Bob Lindsay - Energy and Experience? You see, it's alleged that one of Lindsay's goals that he achieved at Coldwell Banker was to have sex with a fellow real estate agent multiple times - in a client's home that he was supposed to be selling.

Uh, Santa tracking was militarized long before 2013

Quote of the day (actually, from earlier this month):

“We’re concerned about the inclusion of the fighter jets in the Santa Tracker this year. While adults might find that funny, it sends a troubling message to the young children who believe in Santa that he is danger from ‘bad guys’ — and that Santa may have to shoot back. It’s also a backdoor way of promoting the military to young children,” said Josh Golin, Associate Director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

Um, the very fact that Santa is being tracked by NORAD is a way to promote the military to young children.

Of course, Golin probably doesn't like the Internet Explorer logo on the NORAD Santa website either.

And Golin would have really been upset if he had been around in 1955, when Sears posted an advertisement allowing kids to call Santa. Unfortunately, Sears got the phone number wrong - which is how NORAD got into the Santa tracking business in the first place.

Bob Lindsay - Energy and Experience?

I had personally worked with two real estate agents in California, and know several others in California. All of the real estate agents that I know have understood that their primary duty is to represent their clients to the best of their ability.

Of course, real estate agents are not only found in California. Since real estate is all over the place, you can find real estate agents in New Jersey. Many of these agents, I'm sure, uphold their fiduciary duties.

And then there are others.

If you visit the website boblindsay.net, you can see his smiling face, coupled with his slogan:

Energy & Experience

I could not find a website for fellow real estate agent Jeannemarie Phelan, and the Trulia page associated with Phelan does not list her experience or skills.

However, she is alleged to be as experienced as Lindsay in certain aspects of personal relations, according to NorthJersey.com.

You see, a couple in Denville, New Jersey (the Weiners) arranged for Lindsay to sell their home. In December 2011, Lindsay, based upon his experience, said that the home would sell for $650,000, and promised to use his energy to sell the home.

By the end of December, the home still had not sold, despite Lindsay expending his energy and using his experience.

On Dec. 27, 2011, the security cameras in the Weiners’ home captured Lindsay entering the Weiners’ home at 12:49 p.m. and he was dressed casually. At 12:51 p.m., the security cameras show that Phelan entered the Weiners’ home and Phelan and Lindsay kissed and hugged in the kitchen. The security cameras further show that at 1:02 p.m., Lindsay and Phelan entered the master bedroom, undressed and proceeded to have sex on the Weiners’ bed....A while later, the security cameras show Lindsay and Phelan getting dressed.

Lindsay, presumably assisted by Phelan, continued to exert his efforts to sell the Weiners' home, and was exerting himself on January 23, 2012 when Mrs. Weiner happened to notice something on her home's security cameras. She called the police, who found real estate agent Lindsay pulling up his pants. Lindsay apparently told the police that "he was there to prepare the house for an open house."

So that's what the kids call it.

The Weiners are suing Lindsay, Phelan, and their employer at the time (Coldwell Banker, who has since severed its relationship with them). And Lindsay and Phelan, rather than being written up in New Jersey real estate journals, are being covered in places such as Gawker.

[UPDATE 9:10 AM: IN MAY 2012, BOB LINDSAY JOINED RE/MAX. I TALK ABOUT THE RESULTING PRESS RELEASE, AND ITS CLASSIC REAL ESTATE SPEAK, HERE.]

Announcing prjo

I have been mulling over a problem for a while, and I think I've come up with a possible solution - prjo.

But first, before I describe prjo, let me describe the problem that prjo may solve.

Whether you like it or not, your actions are constantly being tracked. The very fact that you are reading this blog post is being tracked somewhere. The very fact that you are reading a blog post that includes the words "refried beans" is being tracked. (I was going to include the words "pressure cooker," but I was afraid that - whoops, too late.) So you pick up your phone to tell someone about the weird post that you read - that phone call is being logged somewhere. Now completely freaked out, you decide that you should instead use a "pay as you go" phone, which you buy - with a credit card.

Some people worry that governments are tracking all this information. But even if the National Security Agency and all the other government agencies were to close shop, your information would still be tracked on a massive scale. Every company that gives you free stuff (such as Google) captures your data and sells it. Every company that charges you for its services (your phone provider, your operating system provider, your clothing provider) captures your data and sells it.

This is not an entirely bad thing. In the best case scenario, the people who capture the data will use it to provide you with benefits. For example, if you get your lunch every day at Joe's Seaweed Emporium, then perhaps on your next trip to New York, Foursquare will inform you of a really great lunch deal at Juanita's Seaweed Shop in Manhattan.

But there is the worst case scenario - for example, when your health insurance provider peruses your repeated Foursquare checkins at McDonald's, your Facebook pictures at the wine tasting, and your skateboard purchase - and puts you in a high risk category. I've discussed other drawbacks here and here.

So how do you derive the benefits from all of this tracking, yet avoid the negative consequences?

One possible solution is prjo.

The word prjo stands for PRoJect Obfuscation, or an overloading of your lifestream so that it will be difficult for people to use it against you.

For example, let's say that I'm getting my supersized meal at McDonald's, but I don't want my health insurer to use this against me. So, I use my handy-dandy Foursquare app to not only check in to McDonald's, but also to every other business in the area - the bicycle shop, the gynecologist, the morgue.

One drawback of this approach is that all of the other businesses will start sending you free offers. On the other hand, the obfuscation technique will perhaps render the real data to be useless.

So, what do you got on this Bredehoft guy here? Is he high risk?

Well, let's see. He went to a bicycle shop; that sounds good. But after that he went to a McDonald's.

Better check his credit card record - maybe we can figure out if he got a super sized meal.

OK, I'll check that. So after the McDonald's, he went to a Dr. Johnson, a...gynecologist?

You sure you got the right person?

The National Association of Adulterers is too busy to worry about Duck Dynasty

Last night, I wrote a post that discussed Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson's paraphrase of I Corinthians 6:9-10, and how those verses actually name a number of different types of people. I then said:

As far as I know, A&E Networks received no critical comments from the National Association of Adulterers, the Society of Slanderers, or the Drunk Dudes at the End of the Bar.

Now I made up those so-called organizational names, but then I began wondering if there truly is, say, a National Association of Adulterers. I'm still not sure about that, but there is a company that clearly and explicitly promotes adultery.

The company is a Canadian company called Avid Dating Life, Inc. Its most well-known website is Ashley Madison.

I was wondering if the Ashley Madison folks were petitioning A&E, asking that Phil Robertson be taken off the air. But it turns out that Ashley Madison is busy with its own problems.

“Life is short,” the Ashley Madison website coos. “Have an affair.”

Robert Schindler of Charlotte says his ex-wife did just that.

So, Schindler is suing her alleged partner in the tryst, along with Ashley Madison and its Canadian corporate parent, Avid Dating Life Inc.

You may ask yourself how Ashley Madison itself can be liable in such a case. It turns out that Schindler, a resident of North Carolina, can take advantage of that state's laws.

North Carolina remains one of only a half-dozen states that still awards punitive damages when a marriage fails and someone other than the husband and wife is to blame....

In 2010, a Guilford County jury awarded a wife a $9 million judgment against her husband’s mistress.

That same year, a Chapel Hill physician won almost $6 million from her former best friend, whom she had invited to visit and help her get ready for her first child and who had an affair with the physician’s husband.

In 2011, a Wake County judge handed down the largest alienation award in the state’s history – $30 million – after the former wife of a Raleigh business owner sued the current one.

This case involves a much lower amount - more than $10,000.

If I were Schindler's former wife, I'd be insulted at the paltry amount.

But perhaps Schindler doesn't want to be greedy...since that's condemned in I Corinthians 6:9-10 also.

Are sola scriptura Christians prepared to boycott A&E's corporate parents?

I'm not a big fan of boycotts, because they're fairly ineffective. Yes, I know that it was cool for people to say that they were "not gonna play Sun City" (a retirement community in Arizona), but boycotts are a really non-targeted way to make a point.

Allow me to explain.

I don't even have cable, but I've obviously heard about the Phil Robertson hiatus story. In case you haven't - there's a show called Duck Dynasty on A&E. One of the stars of the show, Phil Robertson, was interviewed by GQ, and in the course of the interview, he provided his paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. (For purposes of accuracy, it should be noted that bestiality is not explicitly mentioned in this particular passage.)

As far as I know, A&E Networks received no critical comments from the National Association of Adulterers, the Society of Slanderers, or the Drunk Dudes at the End of the Bar. However, other groups did complain, and A&E released this statement:

“We are extremely disappointed to have read Phil Robertson’s comments in GQ, which are based on his own personal beliefs and are not reflected in the series Duck Dynasty. His personal views in no way reflect those of A+E Networks, who have always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community.”

According to Variety and other sources, A&E Networks has placed Robertson on indefinite hiatus.

As I stated in a previous post, A&E, as a private company, has the right to suspend or even fire Robertson for something he said. And, by the same token, Sarah Palin and 999,999 other individuals have the right to boycott A&E Networks. The claim could be made that A&E Networks, while perfectly within its right to "suppress" people who quote from the Bible, does not reflect the views of the boycotters. So, rather than provide money to a company with whom they disagree, these people are going to boycott A&E Networks.

But is that enough? After all, A&E Networks is not a standalone company, but is actually a joint venture between two much larger companies. Therefore, the two parent companies also bear responsibility for suppressing the Bible.

And who are those two companies?

A+E Networks is a joint venture of Disney-ABC Television Group and Hearst Corporation.

Let's start with Rosebud. Take this article that talks about the controversy. Actually, don't take it. You shouldn't read it. That article appeared on the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, a Hearst-owned newspaper. If you read that article and look at the ads, you're supporting Bible suppression.

Which brings us to Disney. As I've previously noted, this particular company is famous for popularizing portrayals of sorcery, poisoning, and the worship of Greek gods. So it stands to reason that a Disney-owned company would punish someone for quoting from the Bible. And to top it off, we all know what happened to Hannah Montana.

Are those who are willing to boycott A&E also willing to boycott ALL of the Hearst newspapers, ALL of the Disney theme parks, and ALL of the college football bowl games that will air on ESPN over the next month?

After all, every touchdown scored by Notre Dame in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl is another six (yes, six) points against the Bible.

If Ayo Kimathi is in a duck blind, he'd better be a Fish and Wildlife Service employee

Normally, one would not cite Ayo Kimathi and Phil Robertson in the same sentence, since they have very little in common. The only thing that really connects them is that they have expressed views that are opposed by a number of people. Kimathi first gained infamy when people complained that a Department of Homeland Security employee was maintaining a website in his spare time that opposed whites and so-called "Uncle Tom" blacks such as Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey. Phil Robertson is a network television star who said the following in an interview:

Everything is blurred on what’s right and what’s wrong. Sin becomes fine....

Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men....Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.

However, in terms of their employement status, there is one very important difference between the two.

Kimathi, until recently, was a government employee. Robertson is not.

This is a very important difference in terms of their employment protections. As I detailed in an August 22 post, there are certain job protections that everyone has, regardless of whether they work for a government agency or a private company. However, as was demonstrated in the case of Michael Italie, a private company CAN fire someone for his or her political views. (Italie, a member of the Socialist Workers Party, was fired by Goodwill.) Kimathi, a government employee, had protections that private employees do not have, which is why it took several months for Kimathi to be separated from his position. And we still don't know if he resigned or was fired, or what the grounds for Kimathi's firing would have been. I've speculated that he could have been fired for lying about the nature of his website, not about the contents of the website itself. And Al Capone was imprisoned for tax evasion.

It took months to fire Kimathi - but A&E suspended Phil Robertson very quickly. Since they are a private company, they can take action regarding someone's political views - although if they were to try to fire Robertson rather than suspend him, Robertson may invoke religious protection.

This is not necessarily a war on culture - A&E would presumably suspend any entertainer who antagonized a portion of their audience. But Eric Teetsel has an interesting perspective:

.@AETV has every right to suspend Phil, because corporations should operate according to their values. Like @HobbyLobbyStore.

Now I'm envisioning what would happen if Edward Snowden were to go on Russian TV and say, "I swear to God, this Sochi discrimination against gay athletes just isn't right. And I want to buy a Pussy Riot album"?

And then, on the following day, Rush Limbaugh were to be interviewed on A&E and say, "I swear to Satan, drug users should not be prosecuted. And I want to buy a Prussian Blue album"?

Technology is bad. The #APMP has resigned itself to this.

This morning, I received holiday greetings via email from the Association of Proposal Management Professionals. The email contained an image that was supposed to be animated, but above the image, APMP printed the following message:

If you don't see snowflakes falling, view the animated card here.

The APMP figured (correctly, as it turned out) that for a myriad of reasons, some of the recipients of the message would not see it as originally intended. The APMP board identified the risk, and mitigated it.

This reminds me of something that Allan Barry Laboucan said yesterday:

I started working with computers 30 years ago, still shocks me how many simple problems with technology still happen daily, has to be a better way.

When I first read his statement, I initially thought that things weren't as bad as he presented them. Sure things are bad, but they're at least a little better than they were 30 years ago.

As I've thought about it, however, Allan is convincing me that he's correct.

Perhaps I should take Allan's investment advice.

Sewage treatment plants have met their match, according to Rice University (NDM-1)

This is a little sobering.

Tests at two wastewater treatment plants in northern China revealed antibiotic-resistant bacteria were not only escaping purification but also breeding and spreading their dangerous cargo.

Joint research by scientists from Rice, Nankai and Tianjin universities found “superbugs” carrying New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1), a multidrug-resistant gene first identified in India in 2010, in wastewater disinfected by chlorination. They found significant levels of NDM-1 in the effluent released to the environment and even higher levels in dewatered sludge applied to soils.

The study, led by Rice University environmental engineer Pedro Alvarez, appeared this month in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters.

“It’s scary,” Alvarez said. “There’s no antibiotic that can kill them. We only realized they exist just a little while ago when a Swedish man got infected in India, in New Delhi. Now, people are beginning to realize that more and more tourists trying to go to the upper waters of the Ganges River are getting these infections that cannot be treated.

“We often think about sewage treatment plants as a way to protect us, to get rid of all of these disease-causing constituents in wastewater. But it turns out these microbes are growing. They’re eating sewage, so they proliferate. In one wastewater treatment plant, we had four to five of these superbugs coming out for every one that came in.”

More here.

The superbug even has its own website, NDM-1. (No, the website isn't MANAGED by the superbug...)

Google will NOT need Amazon's air force to wage war

A recap for those of you who have missed recent developments:

First, as I noted early yesterday morning, the tech industry is gathering up military strength, with Amazon acquiring a drone-based air force, and Google acquiring (literally) a robot-based army as well as a barge navy.

However, by the afternoon, I began wondering if the tech world was all that unified. For example, Google and Oracle hold differing opinions on the activities of the U.S. National Security Agency. What would happen if Google's barge-based navy fought Oracle's yacht-based navy?

Today, via Shawn Rossi, I have uncovered further evidence that one of the tech companies may be preparing to go it alone in its military development. I've already noted that Google has an army and a navy; now, according to Fast Company, Google has acquired an air force base.

But Google may get to experience every Fortune 500 company's wildest travel dream next month: A $82 million jet center dedicated to executives' private planes.

In January, groundbreaking is expected to take place on a 29-acre facility featuring approximately 270,000 square feet of hangar space. The huge swath of space will effectively become a separate airport for Google executives and other tech muckety-mucks....

The facility itself is being carved out of San Jose's airport, and the Google folks will pay the airport handsomely.

It's uncertain how long it will take for the airport to be developed, and more importantly, how long it will take for Google to develop driverless plane technology to launch an assault on Amazon's Seattle headquarters...or at various military facilities of the United States of America.

Or perhaps the tech world is creating MULTIPLE armies - time for a business war?

In an earlier post, Our future tech overlords are forming a government - with a military, I looked at Google's and Amazon's recent moves at militarization and speculated that the tech industry, as a unified whole, may be about to overthrow our inefficient governments and replace them with a tech government. The (robot) army and navy would be provided by Google, and the robot air force would be provided by Amazon.

However, I should have realized that businesses don't always work in unison - something that Tom Foremski has pointed out.

Last week, Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Yahoo, LinkedIn, AOL, and Microsoft signed a letter critical of the NSA and bulk data collection....

It shows the divide in the US tech industry, missing are IBM, Cisco, Intel, Dell, Oracle, and many other tech giants. It's precisely these companies that have massive contracts with US government agencies.

So it doesn't appear that the tech industry will unite and form a single military.

It appears that something much scarier is about to happen - military competition between the techies. For example, Google's barges may have to battle Oracle's yachts for supremacy in San Francisco Bay.

Often people in business talk about "war." What's going to happen when real war breaks out?