How to tell civilization is ending

There's a commercial running for a Playstation game called "Mafia II."

A music track by Dean Martin plus game animation of people shooting each other with tommy guns, ending with a POV shot from a grave as dirt is being tossed in by mafia goons.

Coke is so phat, NOT

This bus signage "Coke is so phat" appeared in NYC about twenty years ago, as I recall, done by some tactical marketing outfit in a vain attempt to make Coca-Cola relevant to the Gen-Xers, or whichever alphabetized and lobotomized group was presumed to dominate then.

"Phat" is a term from the 70's, which I naturally despised the first time I encountered it, combining as it did antiphrasis in its clumsiest form with the purposeful misspelling common to the hip-hop underclass.

But more to the point, could anything be less sexy, less cool, less "in" than Coca-Cola, the most lowbrow fizz-water of the twentieth century?

its presence is so ubiquitous, its very existence so mundane, one cannot imagine how it could suffuse society more thoroughly short of a mandatory intravenous drip in every citizen.

But so profound is the conceit of large marketers that once having bought every GRP, having saturated every commercial venue, they desperately seek to implant their lugubrious pretenses of importance into the most primitive reptilian segments of the brain.

And their ad agencies, palsied with fear of losing the business, partner with the latest purveyors of marketing flimflams — assuming, that is, that the client hasn't already beaten a path to these thimble-riggers.

The mundane nature of a soft drink makes it impervious to becoming a social marker.  It is fool's errand to fatuously attempt to transform it into something other than a sugary substance to swill down.

~~~
n.b.:  It goes without saying that I loathe the very structure of this post's headline, tacking "not" on the end in a ham-handed attempt to connote sarcasm or irony.

"Ironic" itself is a term feebly appropriated by the young (most of whom would be hard pressed to properly define it) as their dominant weltschmerz.  The more accurate descriptor would be cynical.    

Obituary: MS dumps Kin phone after 2 months

When I saw the first TV ads for the Kin, I was intrigued by its attempt at cloud computing, seamless syncing, and winning the Gen-X crowd.

Still, it always makes for painful watching when Microsoft tries to be "cool." One imagines Bill Gates in his plaid shirt trying to boogie.

The early reviews pointed out enormous gaps in the device, and (oops) the fact it only connects at 15-minute intervals:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/194262/the_curious_thing_about_microsoft_kin.html

After MS killed it after just two months, the Wall Street Journal's obituary noted confusion over its purpose and the high usage fees:

http://online.wsj.com/video/digits-mossberg-on-microsoft-kin-demise/44138782-3925-4F33-A15C-A7B6CA9BF860.html?KEYWORDS=Kin+mobile+phone

Now MS is trumpeting their upcoming "Windows Phone 7" and hoping all the people who got stuck with these orphan Kims will just go quietly into the night.

And paradoxically, after all their failures in this specialized market, their plan is to even be more rigid at trying to fob a "Windows" experience onto the user:

According to Microsoft, hardware partners will not be able to replace the Windows 7 UI. So if you're a fan of HTC's TouchFLO user interface, which runs over older versions of HTC Windows Mobile phones, you're out of luck.

Will they become competitive this time around? Consider words of wisdom from MS head Steve Ballmer in the past:

"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance."

Ballmer on the iPhone

""We wouldn't define our phone experience just by music. A phone is really a general purpose device," he summarized. "You want to make telephone calls, you want to get and receive messages, text, e-mail, whatever your preference is."

Ballmer on the iPhone

Old cartoonist techniques

Opening boxes in the attic tonight, I found a cache of stuff from high school, when I was taking the Art Instruction ("draw the puppy") correspondence course.

BAesides assorted Strathmore and tracing pads, I found the now-extinct Craftint Doubletone illustration board. (Maybe there are even the chemicals for it in the bottom of the box.)

Somewhere I also have a supply of coquille board (for use with grease pencil for tone behind drawn or inked linework), a favorite of editorial cartoonists thirty to fifty years ago.

These are things nobody knows about nowadays, but in olden days were dark secret tricks of the trade for reproduction. Zip-a-tone hadn't event been invented, I don't think.

My attic is a virtual Smithsonian of graphic history.

If only I could charge admission.

http://huggy-lugnuts.deviantart.com/journal/28977327/

http://micomics.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Ink&action=display&thread=115

Also, on Roy Crane, the doubletone master:

http://books.google.com/books?id=sb374j7kI1sC&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=craftint+illustration+board&source=bl&ots=kCvRNbDyvc&sig=1jnhmoIarBIuHJc6L8uhCXSWMaI&hl=en&ei=FLEETMT4EpO4NrTfzDs&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=craftint%20illustration%20board&f=false

Kudos to the new Hewlett-Packard commercials

Some commercials are bulletproof. They work on some level, no matter how ham-handedly they're executed.

But others, often the most imaginative, are like soufflés. They have to be perfect, or they fail completely.

There's a charming new campaign for Hewlett-Packard wihere a Brit-accented fellow is questioning other characters, sometimes nonsensically, but always enough to engender a selling point.

The dialogue isn't haw-haw, just subtly humorous.

And it benefits from the most deft bit of casting I've seen recently, finding a guy who is the perfect equivalent of Eric Idle, the wink-wink-nudge-nudge guy in Monty Python, shown above.

The character is silly, bumptious, naïve, and ingratiating, all at the same time.

With the wrong —or even average— casting, the campaign would fall on its face. But it's executed perfectly. Which was the minimum requirement.

"Comments made in 1955" — silly errors

Shown below is one of those allegedly humorous/ironic emails that get passed around endlessly.

Obviously, nobody ever made these comments. But artistic liberty aside, why not get the facts straight?

As someone who peddled newspapers, counted pennies, and actually remembers prices from that decade, I note these fatuous fallacies:

Stamps were still 3 cents in 1955. They only went up to 4 cents in 1958, and weren't increased to 7 cents for many more years. 

Even in my hick town, haircuts cost at least fifty cents. (When I was in Germany in 1960, I considered 35-cent PX haircuts a marvelous bargain.) 

Language in movies in 1955 was as pure as it was in 1939.  There were no expletives or oaths.  In 1953, you had to be 16 to see The Moon is Blue, which used the words "pregnant" and "virgin." 

Nobody thought about putting a man on the moon except us science-fiction fans. There were no astronauts anywhere in 1955, let alone "peparing for it down in Texas." Sputnik didn't happen until 1957. 

Electric typewriters were not a novelty. IBM produced the first commercially-successful one in 1935. Almost everything that could be electrified in a kitchen was done so in the thirties, though nobody could afford it until the postyear years. 

And any moron knows that new cars didn't cost $1,000 at that time. A 1955 Ford cost at least $1600. (Actually, since there were no sticker prices in those days, it was a matter of what a dealer could get away with.)

Why do people insist on making stuff up instead of citing actual facts, which are often more vivid?

This is what I call the Retard Factor in the Internet (RFI).

The email as typically circulated:

Comments made in the year 1955! That's only 55 years ago! 

"I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it's going to be impossible to buy a week's groceries for $10.00." 

"Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won't be long before $1,000.00 will only buy a used one..." 

"If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. 20 cents a pack is ridiculous." 

"Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging 7 cents just to mail a letter." 

"If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store." 

"When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 25 cents a gallon. Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the garage." 

"I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying '****' in GONE WITH THE WIND, it seems every new movie has either '****' or '****' in it." 

"I read the other day where some scientist thinks it's possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas." 

"Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $50,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday they'll be making more than the President.." 

"I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They are even making electric typewriters now." 

"It's too bad things are so tough nowadays... I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet." "It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work." 

"I'm afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business." 

"Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to government." 

"The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on." 

"There is no sense going on short trips anymore for a weekend, it costs nearly $2.00 a night to stay in a hotel." 

"No one can afford to be sick anymore, at $15.00 a day in the hospital, it's too rich for my blood." 

"If they think I'll pay 30 cents for a hair cut, forget it."

Top Ten Ways to Spot Hoaxes, Urban Legends, and Bogus Emails

If you saw a man walking down the street with polka-dotted purple pants and wearing a fried egg on his head, you’d immediately suspect he was not to be taken seriously.

Similarly, a handful of warning markers define emails to ignore.

Any message with:

1) Lots of ALL CAPS or multi-colored text.

2) Multiple exclamation marks!!!!!!!

3) “This has never been reported in the media.”

4) “Pass this on to everyone you know!”

5) “We are collecting signatures."

6) “Warning!” “Virus alert!”

7) “This is a true story!” “This really happened!” “A friend told me...”

8) “This is not a hoax!” “This is not an urban legend!”

9) “This has been checked with Snopes.com, and is authentic.”

10) Any message without provenance; that is, one that does not cite a specific date and source, preferably in the form of an URL that can be clicked to verify its authenticity.

Here’s where I go to check bogus stuff:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/

Snopes.com

Truthorfiction.com

Scambusters.com

In my experience, only the first two have enough staffing to be as comprehensive as they should be. Unfortunately, there’s so much silly stuff flying around the net that it’s almost impossible for any one site to keep track of it.

Even so, the Urban Legends site will often reproduce the bogus items you've just gotten word-for-word.

But be aware that a few perpetrators will embroider a bogus items or jumble it together with another one.

What everyone needs most is horse sense, as elaborated in these references:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/urbanlegends/ht/urbanlegends.htm

http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/nethoaxes/ht/emailhoax.htm

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/spotting-email-hoaxes.html

this last one also has specific advice categories about

avoiding spam,

Nigerian scams, and much more:

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/

In my opinion, everyone should always check out the Urban Legends or Snopes websites before forwarding emails. Otherwise, we're just wasting people's time and contributing to ignorance.

I’m kind of a bear about this stuff. It dates back to the time when my company first got connected to the Internet, and immediately secretaries began filling our mailboxes with newbie-bait. (Chain letters, virus warnings, pleas for the mythical boy dying of cancer who was collecting business cards so he could get into the Guinness Book of Records, etc.)

This wasted our limited bandwidth (not to mention employees’ time), and as co-owner of the joint, I stomped on it real hard.

I'm also a real bear about plagiarism, but that's a subject for another post.

My iPad has landed

UPS delivered it at 12:13 p.m.

It immediately located my Airport WiFi network (along with one from a neighbor) and I set it to use mine. Perfect. No futzing around.

Setup was quite straightforward, although it led me into the woods for a while, trying to sync data from my MobileMe account (which I rarely use).

Once I stepped back and selected "restore from iPhone" data, it went busily to work. It downloaded videos, selected photos, music, apps et al plus all iCal info and 128 of my last Mail messages. (Why that number of messages? I've got to do some digging.) It automatically asked permission to access from other mail accounts,just like my iPhone did. Cool.

My main pain in the neck is that it's asking for passwords for a lot of apps. I'll get to that in a bit.

Right now I want to go through the built-in tutorial.

I'm a happy camper!

Waiting for Godot — and the iPad

My wife and I ordered a new car the week before last. But it's the iPad whose arrival I'm all a-quiver over.

And I'm not alone. There are thousands of blog and forum posts feverishly reporting on this "most anticipated tablet since Moses."

Does Steve Jobs know how to create a market, or what?

Bill Gates is crying softly into his pillow at this very moment.

To add to the freneticism, Jobs insists on making these product launches on a Saturday, even though they have to spiff the local carriers to work on a day they don't normally deliver.

Undoubtedly this is so Apple can get great video coverage of lines around the block, something they wouldn't get on a Friday when most people have to work.

But these Saturday launches can also be a pain in the wazoo. When Leopard shipped in October 2007, Apple demanded a signature for delivery. (Despite the fact I have standing instructions with UPS and FedEx to deliver without signatures.)

Some mutt doing the deliveries rang the bell once and then ran away with the package before I could even get down the stairs. This for a stinkin' $129 product! I had to raise holy hell to get the carrier to make a re-delivery that afternoon.

Paradoxically, some years earlier when I was commuting back and forth from Raleigh and arranged to have a new built-to-order G5 tower (a $5,000 item) delivered, it was unceremoniously dumped on my back porch and sat there for days until my neighbor lady, who had a key, moved it into my kitchen.

Apple must have got a lot of complaints, because this time when you get an email alert that the product has shipped, you get an option to pre-sign for delivery.

Now I only have to worry that a moron substitute driver can't find our Fawlty Towers.

So I guess I love Apple, even when I'm hating it.

Only the last half of that sentence ever applies to Microsoft.

How an iPad gets shipped

UPS tracking is cool. Here's the progress of my iPad, from China (where it was obviously assembled, if not wholly manufactured) to Anchorage to Louisville to Chicago to here in Minneapolis.

If I check this after 6 a.m., I should be shown as "on the truck" for delivery.

I pre-signed for delivery, and have enough signs at the front and back doors that only a moron would fail to deliver it properly.

Of course, I don't want to sell UPS short.

Location	Date	Local Time	DescriptionWhat's This?
MINNEAPOLIS, MN, US	04/02/2010	10:12 P.M.	DESTINATION SCAN
	04/02/2010	10:01 P.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
CHICAGO, IL, US	04/02/2010	8:44 P.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	04/02/2010	7:53 P.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
LOUISVILLE, KY, US	04/02/2010	7:40 P.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	04/02/2010	5:31 P.M.	IMPORT SCAN
	04/02/2010	2:07 P.M.	IMPORT SCAN
LOUISVILLE, KY, US	03/31/2010	2:25 A.M.	SHIPMENT IS HELD TO VERIFY COMMODITY DESCRIPTION WITH THE CUSTOMER FOR CORRECT CLASSIFICATION / BROKERAGE RELEASED SHIPMENT. SHIPMENT IS SUBMITTED TO CLEARING AGENCY FOR FURTHER CLEARANCE
	03/31/2010	1:36 A.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
ANCHORAGE, AK, US	03/30/2010	6:50 P.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	03/30/2010	1:01 P.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
GUANGZHOU, CN	03/30/2010	7:10 P.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	03/30/2010	12:43 P.M.	EXPORT SCAN
SHENZHEN, CN	03/29/2010	5:54 A.M.	ORIGIN SCAN
CN	04/02/2010	10:54 P.M.	BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Tracking results provided by UPS: 04/03/2010 1:31 A.M. ET