FTC and online marketing

Sad, sad, sad. That’ s what this article is. I understand people are swindlers and are looking to make a quick buck, but to need pages of rules and regulations explaining what free means is just sad. I suppose the need to regulations in the often annonymous world of online commerce is espeically useful, but I guess I hoped that with the advent of social networks and more investigative reporting that things like this would be less needed, not more.

But, what’s interesting to me, is that with all the media craze surrounding email scams (nigerian emails, ebay fraud) the two biggest scams going right now are both wall street related – Madoff and the Stanford Firm. Both are old fashioned scams that appeal to peoples greed and ego – and Madoff had nothing online. It was propagated at parties and golf courses, suggested by friends and sold with faked documents.

I am going to live in a cave.

Circular Logic

Ok – disclosure. I am currently looking for a cheap laptop so that I can install Ubuntu and see what all the fuss is about. It’s not GNU, but along the same lines. I am sympathetic toward the cause.

So – my issue with the whole open source movement is this: It’s all too utopian. It goes on the theory that if we take the money and greed out of software development, that the world will be a great place. But – and this is my problem with a lot of academics as well – people are greedy! And a lot of smart people with good ideas are greedy. And they want to make money and be compensated for their work. I think,  like most things, that the key is balance. You need the people who want to work and develop for profit and love of the project. Both sides can work together – and probably need to. Otherwise you can end up with bloated software that has no personality to it, or you can end up with software that has very little practicality.

Remediation Article

When it comes to new technologies, various experts seem to want to claim that “this is the future” while ignoring that no communication tool has ever completely replaced the old technology – either just augmented it or improved the same technology. Since written word was invented, no technology has replaced either the written word or the oral tradition of story telling. All communications technologies that have come along since then have enhanced and allowed for wider and faster distribution. Printing press, typewriters, word processors, personal computing, networking of computers - the basic stays the same. The only difference I see with the Internet and our modern technology is the convergence of these formats. Print, video and audio are all available via one tool – the PC. It’s not the old technology is going away that we should focus on, its the fascinating and new ways we can harness information and knowledge that the technologies allow us access quickly and easily.