Early in 2009 Sirius XM interviewed Garth Brooks who was rebooting his career. During it he spoke of critics of Taylor Swift, "They shouldn't criticise her; in ten years she's going to be very good." Say what?! That's the most insulting compliment I've ever heard!
Taylor doesn't have the greatest singing voice in country music but she's a singer/songwriter! Most of the great singers are nothing more than instruments; they sing whatever is placed in front of them. There are also great songwriters but most can't sing in front of an audience. The great singer/songwriter is rare and Taylor is one of them. Yes, her songs are juvenile; she still is one. Would some prefer she write about things she hasn't experienced? She's less than a year older than my older granddaughter and less than two older then my younger one. Listening to her songs helps me to better understand my granddaughters.
She won twice as many Grammys in one night as Garth has done in his whole career. Yes, in ten years she's going to be better and compsing songs about the concerns of a thirty-year-old. I just hope they're not about a cheating husband or divorce.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Avatar vs The Hurt Locker
It's a common belief that Academy Award ballots are filled-out by the spouses of the members as the members are too busy working to see the films. As most members are men, if the belief is true that means women do most of the voting.
Avatar has grossed $2.47B in theaters so far but has gathered only 16 awards. It's a film many people love enough to see more than once. Despite the alien setting it has a pretty formulaistic plot.
The Hurt Locker has been getting a lot of notice for its director, Kathryn Bigelow, because it's unusual for a woman to direct a picture of its genre. It's picked-up tons (67) of awards already but grossed only $16.1M in theaters. The plot is anything but predictable but is also unrealistic: our military does not operate as shown in the film.
So if we assume that women are going to do most of the voting, which film will bring home the Oscar for Best Picture? Are women going to vote for an appealing film - Avatar - or a war flick with no women in principal roles - The Hurt Locker - due to its director? Or are they going to hang a left and vote for The Blind Side?
If I were to bet, I'd pick Avatar, but I wouldn't bet the farm.
Avatar has grossed $2.47B in theaters so far but has gathered only 16 awards. It's a film many people love enough to see more than once. Despite the alien setting it has a pretty formulaistic plot.
The Hurt Locker has been getting a lot of notice for its director, Kathryn Bigelow, because it's unusual for a woman to direct a picture of its genre. It's picked-up tons (67) of awards already but grossed only $16.1M in theaters. The plot is anything but predictable but is also unrealistic: our military does not operate as shown in the film.
So if we assume that women are going to do most of the voting, which film will bring home the Oscar for Best Picture? Are women going to vote for an appealing film - Avatar - or a war flick with no women in principal roles - The Hurt Locker - due to its director? Or are they going to hang a left and vote for The Blind Side?
If I were to bet, I'd pick Avatar, but I wouldn't bet the farm.
How Obama screwed-up on health-care reform
Advertising is the science of convincing people they need something they didn't think they needed or that your brand is better then the others. The White House forgot about that (or maybe didn't realize they needed to sell their plan). For that matter, did they even have a plan? It seems to me that Obama said to the House and Senate leadership, "Go ahead and cobble together a bill," without giving the slightest guidance. Did he think everyone knew our health-care system is broken and how it should be fixed?
The average American thinks that his health insurance is adequate and that his medical providers charge reasonable fees, but the average American has never had a serious medical condition. Sure, they probably know a family member or coworker who has, but they probably don't know the financial details. They sign-up for payroll deductions and forget about the premiums until the next open-season and even then probably stay with the same options. If they were self-employed and had to pay the entire cost of their health insurance they would be very aware of the rates. If no one was buying, the sellers would have to reduce their prices.
So the average guy is thinking, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Somehow Obama missed the boat on that. He should have been speaking about the problems for months before a bill was ever introduced into Congress. He should have had the American public begging to have Congress fix the problems. He should have anticipated the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) about costs increasing instead of decreasing the Republicans would throw at it. Republicans can't fight much if their constituents demand otherwise. He should have had his congressional friends co-sponsor his bill instead of coming up with a bill full of earmarks. He did it right on the jobs bill that passed the Senate 70-28 today. He's doing that now but it's too late; the damage has been done. Is it irreparable damage? We'll soon see.
The average American thinks that his health insurance is adequate and that his medical providers charge reasonable fees, but the average American has never had a serious medical condition. Sure, they probably know a family member or coworker who has, but they probably don't know the financial details. They sign-up for payroll deductions and forget about the premiums until the next open-season and even then probably stay with the same options. If they were self-employed and had to pay the entire cost of their health insurance they would be very aware of the rates. If no one was buying, the sellers would have to reduce their prices.
So the average guy is thinking, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Somehow Obama missed the boat on that. He should have been speaking about the problems for months before a bill was ever introduced into Congress. He should have had the American public begging to have Congress fix the problems. He should have anticipated the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) about costs increasing instead of decreasing the Republicans would throw at it. Republicans can't fight much if their constituents demand otherwise. He should have had his congressional friends co-sponsor his bill instead of coming up with a bill full of earmarks. He did it right on the jobs bill that passed the Senate 70-28 today. He's doing that now but it's too late; the damage has been done. Is it irreparable damage? We'll soon see.
Why do we still have spam?
Spam is possible thanks to oversights in the design of SMTP (Simple Message Transfer Protocol). It was too simple. So why after all these years is it still being used? Why is it still possible to forge "from" addresses? Why haven't the major players fixed the problems?
It is very easy to design a system that makes it impossible to send out spam without identifying the sender's computer. Sure, a spammer could still take over another system and use it to send spam, but the millions of bounce messages the owner of that system would receive would certainly alert them that something is amiss. By positively identifying the source of spam the offending computers could be blocked.
Transitioning to the new protocol (call it EMTP for Enhanced Message Transfer Protocol) would be easy: Have the mail programs start using EMTP and add an option to allow receipt of SMTP messages. If that option is not used, a bounce message could optionally be sent back saying, "Get with it and update your mail program."
Why oh why has no one done this yet?
It is very easy to design a system that makes it impossible to send out spam without identifying the sender's computer. Sure, a spammer could still take over another system and use it to send spam, but the millions of bounce messages the owner of that system would receive would certainly alert them that something is amiss. By positively identifying the source of spam the offending computers could be blocked.
Transitioning to the new protocol (call it EMTP for Enhanced Message Transfer Protocol) would be easy: Have the mail programs start using EMTP and add an option to allow receipt of SMTP messages. If that option is not used, a bounce message could optionally be sent back saying, "Get with it and update your mail program."
Why oh why has no one done this yet?
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