OneMind

Telecrapper 2000 is apparently an actual piece of open source software that enables you to drive telemarketers insane. Check out this Flash animation of an actual “conversation” between a telemarketer and a computer running the software. Then go to the software site where the program is described and apparently downloadable.

This is a scream but it also seems like a great idea!

The good news is another government is switching the bulk of its computer and education platfrom from Microsoft’s proprietary technology to Linux.

The potential fly in the ointment is that the state, Kerala, is ruled by Communists who have long had a negative feeling about Microsoft’s commercial and monopolistic practices. That dulls the effect of the switch somewhat and gives open source foes another arrow in their quiver of reasons to oppose such switches.

Still, it’s another step in the direction of adovcating and supporting Open Source, a move I favor on the whole.

I don’t get the broadcast TV industry. According to this report, TV execs are alarmed over the rise of do-it-yourelf video services like YouTube. But why doesn’t some smart network exec cut a deal with YouTube and/or one or more of its competitors to put top-ranked videos from those sites on network TV and pay the creators of the videos for the privilege?

Isn’t that a win-win? Wouldn’t that be a great way for a network to get original content already proven to be popular and interesting? Sheesh. Someone with a brain and a digital outlook on things needs to get into this process.

It’s not a huge deal, but FactCheck.org has uncovered a bit of a double standard in the way MoveOn.org deal with GOP and Democratic candidates differently on the same issue.

After accusing several GOP candidates of voting for legislation that lined the pockets of war profiteers, the liberal group endorsed Democrats who had voted the same way. I say it’s not a big deal because the ads in question aren’t lies. They don’t reveal the double standard MoveOn.org has applied here, but I think we all assume that any partisan political group is going to be prejudiced in this or similar ways.

Still, I would like it better if the organizations I support played a little less loose with the truth and at least owned up to this kind of behavior.

This piece on WSJ.com outlines 10 big myths of the NFL and debunks each of them. I found it largely well-ploughed ground but there were a couple of interesting insights.

I think the author overlooked an important factor as he discussed Myth No. 3, “A turnover is a turnover.” While it’s certainly true, as he says, that an interception is far more likely to be returned for a TD than a recovered fumble, it is equally true that fumbles almost always lead to better field position than an interception. Most fumbles happen at or behind the line of scrimmage whereas most interceptions take place 10+ yards down the field. In fact, while I don’t have the figures to back me up, I’d say that most picks take place 15+ yards down the field, which means fumble recoveries give the defense 15 or more yards better field position.

Still, an interesting piece.

The rampant speculation is about to build in earnest. As Microsoft approaches its September target to release a version of its new Vista OS for businesses and Apple cranks toward the planned Spring release of Leopard, the pundits are starting to beat the drum of competition.

Fuhgedaboutit.

People and companies don’t buy operating systems, they buy applications. And on the application front, Microsoft’s Windows OS is simply too entrenched for Apple (my personal favorite) to gain any significant market share. And as desktop Linux becomes more important, growth will probably come at an equal cost to Redmond and Cupertino.

The problem is switching costs. Moving from Windows to Mac — or vice versa for that matter — entails not only changing machines, but buying or at least installing new applications. That’s a tough sell. It factors hugely into the calcuation of TCO (Total Cost of Ownership, the real issue in the business marketplace at least). Microsoft is better at designing and creating applications businesses buy and use. Always has been. And now, even if Apple gets as good as MS at such app development, the switching costs will remain a barrier.

A small percentage of people at the margins of both Mac and Windows users will consider switching and may even do so based on some OS feature or set of features. But the vast majority of users of both systems are not likely to switch. The highly touted “OS War” isn’t even a good skirmish.

In his first pre-season game against the Bears, Alex Smith looked great at QB for the Niners. In his second game last week, he looked pretty bad against the Raiders. This week, he was so-so against the Cowboys. That’s about how I see his season going: sort of 50-50.

Meamwhile, the Niners’ defense stinks. The Cowboys, admittedly a powered-up offensive unit compared to last year, just had their way with the Niners on their first three possessions before the scrubs took over for the Boys.

I’ve been forecasting a near-.500 season for the Niners this year but if their defense doesn’t jell pretty soon, they won’t reach that pinnacle. Smith is going to be a lot better than last year, but he’s a season or two from being a solid NFL signal-caller assuming he ever reaches that level (and I think he will but I’m in a distinct minority there). That means the D has to pick up the slack. So far, they are the slack.

A young Seattle man was sentenced to three years in prison for creating a virus that caused widespread damage to computers at a hospital, a school, and the Department of Defense.

The judge said she wanted to send a message to “all those youth out there who are squirreled away in their basements hacking.”

I guess it could have that effect. I’m a member of the community service school of discipline for white-collar crime, though. I think giving this guy a few thousand hours of supervised and unpaid work in which he would get to see the good done by people like those he harmed would have a doubly beneficent effect. Jails should be reserved for violent felons, not white-collar criminalss and hapless drug users.

Every once in a while I find — or a kind sould sends me — a link to a place of great serenity and beauty. Here is one of the nicest of this kind of thing that I’ve seen, courtesy of an old colleague and now dear friend from the days when I was part of the online community business, Teiwaz Abdur-Raheem. Thanks, Teiwaz!

I’ve long thought that voting electronically had so many advantages that it was only a matter of time before it would become de rigeur around most of the country. Thanks to the greed, incompetence and/or intentional fraud on the part of Diebold and some other voting-machine manufacturers, I must now sadly align myself with the Luddites who want nothing at all to do with voting any way but with paper ballots.

This unmitigated disaster could have been avoided easily. It was a perfect place for open source software and hardware development to take center stage and produce a fully open, testable, and as close to hacker-proof solution as possible. In fact, the OpenVoting Consortium set out to do exactly that. Demonstrations of early prototypes, some of which predate the emergence of the consortium, demonstrated the feasibility of the approach.

But where there is a chance to make a buck or control an election, politicians and their big-business buddies will find a way to take unfair advantage. The situation is now hopeless for this generation. Nobody in their right mind will trust an electronic voting machine. Time to stop the effort and return to paper ballots, which, while far from foolproof, are at least “known technology.”

The bad guys win again.