#Nymwars: Content is King, and King is Content.

My patience has ended. 


I'm just about to pull the pin on Google+ so that I can take some time and think about my reliance on other Google services. The entire debate tells me that for whatever reason, google as a corporation has jumped the shark and I do not feel comfortable investing my social capital in it.

And if that social capital were not valuable, they would not be locked in a death match with Facebook over data-mining futures, and governments would not be petitioning them for their databases.

Oddly, my decision is not based on whether I have anything to hide. I have always made the point of never putting anything on the Internet that could put me at risk, and I make a point of distancing myself from those who do.

"Content is King, and King is Content." The reality of the Internet is there is always someplace else - and moreover, wherever you are will cease to be anyplace sometime in the future.  One SURE way of ensuring that the interesting people will leave is to send out invitations to the "bridge and tunnel set," the sort of people who think that the Luxor casino is even better than the actual pyramids of Egypt.

This is about investment, and where my time is best spent and to what ends. Google, at the moment, seems like a very poor investment for my social capital and I shall be investigating other social investment vehicles.

You see, I'm a fucking punk;  I understand the difference between civility and civilization. "Civility" is being careful about the words used to boast about raping a peasant wench.

"Civilization" is a condition in which it's considered wrong to rape peasants, and a right and proper outcome is to bring rapists to justice, regardless of their station in life.

If that distinction is unclear to you - and it seems to me that it is - a discussion about "civility" as being a way to make things "better" will create no better thing that I care to participate in.

Free the iPhone : Support wireless freedom!

If you've ever accessed the web with your phone, you have probably realized two things: it's ungodly expensive and of dubious utility - in part due to carrier choke-points and built-in incompatibilities. It's not the web you get, per se, it's "the mobile web."

Here's a thought; what about some radical entrepreneur - possibly named Branson - coming up with a truly portable device that could surf networks, possibly on a pay as you go basis? Possibly one that would sort through competitive bids for access, taking the ones that match user priorities. And what if it could actually browse the whole web?

Free the iPhone : Support wireless freedom!: "Apple touts the iPhone as the “Internet in your pocket” — but it’s not. You can’t use it without signing on with AT&T, and once you do they cripple services, limit what you can do and restrict where you can go on the wireless Web.

We need Wireless Freedom — and our elected officials are the only ones who can give it to us: the freedom to use all Internet devices on any wireless network in a market that offers true high-speed Internet and real consumer choice.

Take action today. Demand that the FCC and Congress free the iPhone — and future gadgets like it — and put the Internet in the hands of everyone."