View from a Farley The Current Events and Opinion Weblog of Chris Farley

Lousy Wednesday

In John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday, Lousy Wednesday is the day before Sweet Thursday.  He described Lousy Wednesday like this:

Some days are born ugly. From the very first light they are no damn good whatever the weather, and everybody knows it. No one knows what causes this, but on such a day people resist getting out of bed and set their heels against the day. When they are finally foce out by hunger or job they find that the day is just as lousy as they knew it would be.

Today is a lousy Wednesday. It’s sunny, but rooms seem cloudy. The weather’s mild, but it feels like winter. This has been a crazy week and not in a good way. There’s always something else, another e-mail, or another person to talk to. Good things have happened (I won an election, for example), but I’m haunted by the shadow of what happens when I don’t do so well. It’s the middle of the week and there are still two more days left.

And then there’s the writer’s block. Writer’s block is more serious an affliction than small pox. Ideas that can’t be phrased are like free radicals causing damage, just kicking around. I’ve never experienced a case so bad that I literally cannot write. Sometimes it takes more effort than usual, but it’s always possible. But the result is painful. The finished product doesn’t seem finished. If I look at a piece of writing I did this week (maybe this one included) I would probably rip it to shreds. Sometimes I write better than other times.

Today is lousy because it was born that way. There was no particular event or catalyst, it was just the confluence of a bunch of minor problems.

But I always have to remember that Lousy Wednesday is followed by Sweet Thursday, “that magic kind of day.”

On a more serious note that’s not desperately trying to connect what I just said to the novel, I will be back tomorrow or Friday with real writing. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Negative Ads

Negative ads are not limited to political campaigns. In fact, this post does not reference any political campaign ads. I’m talking about regular, everyday PSAs. If I listened to everything I’ve been hearing from these commericals I would make the following conclusions.

• The world is going to Hell.
• Animals are being so often it’s become a sport.
• The summit of Mount McKinley will soon be waterfront property.
• TV ads have become so negative, we’re in a living Hell.

So I present to you exhibit A. This commercial is from an ad campaign entitled “Divided We Fail” because people don’t have enough to be negative about. This commercial is on television screens everywhere, courtesy of the AARP.

My biggest problem is the title. How about “United We Stand” instead of “Divided We Fail“? In essence they mean the same thing, but the ad would be a lot more powerful if the entire commercial didn’t end with the AARP logo reminding people that their healthcare is terrible. I agree that the issues they discuss in the “Divided We Fail” series are important, but for that very reason, it’s important that people watch them. Everyday we’re bombarded by sad, depressing news. If this commercial was positive, I think there would be more support for the issues it deals with. Sad and depressing is more of the same. Interesting and unique creates support.

This next ad is courtesy of the ASPCA.

This commerical is even worse! At least in the last commercial they waited until the end to give you the whole negative “Divided We Fail” message. This one starts off with music that should probably be played at a funeral and an image of a sad dog in a small cage shortly followed by a dog with one eye. Once again, this is an important issue, but I don’t think this ad is going to generate the kind of support this issue deserves. First of all, I think they should replace the music. I’m not suggesting they get Up with People to sing a special song, but something that doesn’t scream “MORE SADNESS!” would be excellent. Something with a warm and fuzzy tone would be good, particularly since we’re talking about dogs and people like dogs. Or I like dogs anyway.

The final thing is slightly outside my field. I’m not the marketing director for ASPCA or AARP so I can’t speak to their ad placement, but I think they’re choosing the wrong channels that reach the wrong audience. I saw the ASPCA ad for the first time while watching a Star Wars movie on Spike TV. The juxtaposition of science fiction and furry, tortured faces doesn’t exactly work well, nor does it work well with any of the other things that Spike shows. Perhaps they should try CNN, NBC, and the other major networks. Not to be sexist, but from an advertising perspective, I think they would do well to advertise on WE and Oxygen.

I look forward to the comments. Positive comments.

Intense Debate

On an average day, I hear about or encounter at least ten technology startups, but I usually don’t care most of the time. The Internet is saturated with good ideas and vast community of interested people make it easier than it otherwise would be to get people to use your product (see my previous post, The Trouble with Innovation). I usually don’t talk about the stuff that makes View from a Farley run, but Intense Debate is special, so it gets special attention.

Intense Debate, for those who don’t know, is a comment system for blogs. The major blogging engines like WordPress and Blogger come with comment systems but the comment systems are basic. Intense Debate completely replaces the standard comment system. I’ve never used Blogger, so I’m writing this from the WordPress perspective, but no matter what platform you’re using, after just one quick install, your blog has Intense Debate.

I can easily moderate and delete comments or block certain words and phrases. Users can even sign up for an Intense Debate account so their information is stored and they can access a whole world of features. For one, I can block a specific user if they are a nuissance, but on a more positive note, they can start to really interact with other users.

If you read any section of the post, you should read from this part down. Intense Debate is special because it takes several features that are available in other comment systems, improves them, and makes all of that available in one comment system. The first thing is reputation. As a user comments, (and they can comment on other blogs, using the same account) their reputation increases and other readers can rate their comments, which also gives them a reputation increase or decrease. People can reply to comments and start a thread. Intense Debate even has a feature that allows readers to follow the comments for one post or an entire blog through their favorite feed reader.

But even more important than just the features is the personal touch that they put on service and support. Earlier this week, there was a small glitch and comments weren’t working for a lot of people. I e-mailed support and got an e-mail back less than 20 minutes later from Michael Koenig, who works at Intense Debate. The issue was soon resolved and Michael was friendly and helpful.

So why do I use Intense Debate for View from a Farley? The answer gets at the heart of what I’m trying to do with View from a Farley. The views that I publish are certainly my own and are often opinionated, but I really want to get a lot of user interaction. Intense Debate is a comment system, but it says “debate” right in the name. I would very much like to start a debate in the comments or if you’d prefer to just e-mail me, that’s fine too. So don’t forget that you can always add your opinion or hit reply on someone else’s comment to respond.

And if you have your own blog, I couldn’t recommend Intense Debate more. Go to intensedebate.com to sign up. And I have it on good authority that there are exciting changes and new features coming, but shhhhhh!

The Trouble with Innovation

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a good idea, but I’ve thought, “If this was a good idea, somebody would have thought of it all ready.”  That is the biggest obstacle to innovating that I’ve experienced.  It’s not that the ideas I create are inherently bad or stupid, but most of the time, I put the idea in a drawer because I don’t think it will go anywhere.

The second problem with innovation is not knowing enough to accomplish a task.  My good friend Mark Temple had an excellent idea the other day.  Mark came up with an innovative way to remotely access contacts, but it was only a concept.  Where does he go from there?  Neither Mark nor I have the technical know how to further develop the concept.

I always thought the hardest part to innovating would be coming up with an idea.  But it’s not.  It’s putting the idea out there. So I’m challenging myself, and everyone reading this, to live by the philosophy that no idea is too stupid to talk about.  I wonder how many great ideas have been tabled before they’ve ever become a reality, simply because it’s assumed that someone already had the idea.  So I will dare to dream big.

And right now, I’m going to sleep.  That’s my first good idea that almost got shelved.

Time to Pay Some Bills

I love blogging and I love podcasting.  Every day I wish that there were no technical problems, I would have a full soundproofed studio with a Neumann microphone, a Mac Pro with Logic Studio for editing, a ton of luck, and a whole bunch of other stuff not listed here.

I’ve noticed that my ideal scenario isn’t going to work out.  There’s hosting, of course.  When it’s not causing me nightmares, it costs about $130 per year.  I’m getting a microphone, which will cost anywhere between $300 and $1,000, and there’s always room for improvement beyond that.

So, it’s time to pay some bills.  The wonderful people at MacHeist have set up a great deal.  If you buy MacHeist, which has tons of excellent applications for Mac OS X, View from a Farley will get $5.  Every purchase helps View from a Farley.  Just click the image below to be transferred to MacHeist.  You don’t have to enter a promotional code or anything, this is a special link that will let you buy it and support View from a Farley at the same time.

And if you’d rather not buy MacHeist, you can still support View from a Farley!  Barack Obama built an entire campaign on donations of $5, $10, and $15.  Of course, I don’t mind $10,000 either, but I’m a realist.  You can click the donate button below to donate through PayPal.  It’s extremely secure and you can use any major credit card.

 

 

So I hope you don’t think this post is in bad taste.  I’m not looking to make money from View from a Farley, but I am hoping to improve View from a Farley with the donations I get.  So donate what you can and help out View from a Farley.

GeekBrief TV Interview

 

So it turns out that not everyone in the world watches GeekBrief.  That’s disappointing, but it’s a matter for another time.  Last weekend, I had the opportunity to have breakfast with Cali and Neal.  Little did I know that they would also be interviewing me.  On the off chance that some people read View from a Farley but do not watch GeekBrief, I’ve posted the interview above, or you can see it here.

The interview was a few days ago and I’m just posting this now, so I apologize.

Copyright (Note: Don’t Copy this Post)

Note: I’m not a lawyer and this isn’t meant to be legal advice of any sort. This post references United States copyright law only, except where otherwise noted. Copyright law in other countries is generally similar (in the UK, for instance), but it does differ.

Copyright law is difficult(ish). By that I mean it’s not difficult to understand, but it’s very easy to break, and very bad if you get caught. I’ve spent 14 years with two copyright lawyers as parents (loved every minute of it, in case they read this). I have slightly more than a basic understanding (but only slightly), so of course I’ve taken it upon myself to figure out how to save copyright in the technology world. I don’t really expect it to work.

Copyright started in the Constitution. Article 1, Section 8 says:

The Congress shall have power…To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited time to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

It’s not exactly detailed, but it’s pretty clear. Personally, I wish they had further defined “useful” arts, but they probably weren’t thinking about rap at the time. Title 17 of United States Code was created to fulfill that Constitutional right. As it stands today, you own any “work” (sound recording, video, book, essay, etc.) that you create. You don’t even have to put a copyright notice on it to make it official. You can register a copyright if you want more protection for a modest price. (At the time, by the way, science was considered to be knowledge in general and useful arts are what we would consider a patent).

The difficulty comes with songs and movies. Artists create them and people decide they don’t want to pay 99 cents for the song, so they pirate it in any number of different ways. It’s basically the same with movies. I have very little patience for this type of crime. In fact, I have no patience. It is stealing and it is illegal. It is stealing just as much as people who steal TVs or cars. While the price of the individual download is not worth as much as a nice plasma, the sheer magnitude of the downloads cuts profits for artists as well as studios by quite a bit.

But that’s boring piracy. It’s clearly illegal and while those who only download aren’t generally caught (uploaders are the ones the RIAA and MPAA go after) it’s boring because there’s no gray area or middle ground. There are other scenarios that are more interesting.

So let’s suppose that I love The West Wing (which has the rare quality of also being true) and I have the whole season on DVD (also true). I can’t take my laptop everywhere, so I want to put it on my iPhone, my computer, back it up to an external hard drive, and I’d love to send season two, episode twenty-two to my friend because it’s just that good. I figure that I own the DVDs, so I download Handbrake and rip the whole series to my computer. (Let’s pretend my computer has enough free space for that). And then I realize that 17 U.S.C. 1201 says:

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title…

So it turns out that I should have paid closer attention to the little FBI warning that the beginning of the episode. I usually wind up being the copyright police at my school and everyone asks me why they can’t copy movies that they own to other devices. The answer is that the license granted in buying the DVDs is only for a DVD player and it is illegal to break technological protection. If it wasn’t, then that would completely do away with a rental model for iTunes and low prices for TV shows, songs, and movies. Even if technological protection didn’t exist, users would still have to contend with copyright law.

And it’s even harder for the independent podcaster who wants to play a clip of Yael Naïm’s “New Soul” on their podcast. They’re probably hoping it’s covered by fair use (17 U.S.C. 107), but probably not. They’re likely infringing on Ms. Naïm’s copyright. If her record label finds out, your friendly neighborhood podcaster would probably be better off playing the Law & Order theme song.

The thing that all of these scenarios have in common is that they hurt the artist and they hurt the recording studio even more. It is simply too easy to upload something and have it downloaded 100,000 times before the end of the hour. That’s 100,000 profitable transactions lost.

So this is what needs to happen. People need to stop pirating and they’re not going to do it unless there’s another easy way to do what they can do with piracy. Ultimately, it’s not going to be free, so there will always be some infringement, but we can reduce the number of people pirating works by changing the way people watch and listen things. The old music industry model is pretty much dead. With the advent of technology, artists don’t have to go through big recording studios who take most of their profit, they can go through smaller studios and even do it on their own because distribution is easier. The movie industry is trying to adapt by working on ad supported models such as Hulu and rental models through services like iTunes. That makes it quick and easy for people to watch things without having to pay a whole ton of money.

So that (sort of) solves the problem of The West Wing fan who wants to watch it on their iPod. They can just download one of the first four seasons from iTunes. It doesn’t solve the problem of the avid podcaster who wants to play “New Soul” shortly before the Law & Order theme song. The answer to that is making licensing easier. Right now licensing is difficult. You have to ask the right holder and pay them a fee that can be quite hefty. For podcasters, they either infringe the copyright just because it’s easier or they don’t use the song at all, depriving the studios and artists of good money.

It needs to be as easy as going online, finding the work you want to license, paying a set fee based on what you’re trying to use it for, downloading it, and using it. I finally found out about the PodSafe Music Network which is trying to do just that. You get the song and then you can use it in a podcast. The only other thing PodSafe needs is more participation. And I think there are only two obstacles to that happening.

The first one is easy. Every recording studio would want to have their own licensing service instead of outsourcing it to a centralized licensor. It doesn’t make it impossible for people who want to license the work, it just requires a bit more research.

The second is a little more complicated. Right holders want to control what their works are being used for. Yael Naïm and her record label don’t want “New Soul” showing up as background music for a porn video (not going to find a link for that one). Having this type of easy licensing makes it impossible to evaluate each individual request so that scenario could come true. So the only other way to make the easy licensing work would be to evaluate each person who wants to license a work, rather than evaluate each licensing request. This would work basically like Google AdSense. A person makes a request to be approved to license works, an employee of the licensing company checks out the podcast (or other type of digital media, I suppose), verifies that it’s not in violation of the licensor’s policies, then approves the person so that they can license whatever they want.

I think that we’re not too far away from that sort of set-up, as the introduction of PodSafe indicates. And the video industry has shown signs that they’re able to adapt quickly enough so they won’t be in the same situation as the music industry in ten years.

In the meantime, I think we’re all watching the slow demise of recording studios and the dawning of a new age where artists and writers don’t have to go through studios because we have the technology to cut out the need for a middle man. There may be a day when I can play whatever I want on View from a Farley!

Drug Companies

Spring starts and everyone rushes outside. Spring! Yay! It’s sunny and flowers are blooming. But then there are the people like me who tunnel indoors with allergies. I hide in my room with pills and sprays and eye drops. I’m not alone either. According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, 50 million Americans suffer from some form of allergies. I am lucky enough to have health insurance, but there are millions that don’t.

All of my drugs combined cost about $60 after insurance. But without insurance, it would be prohibitively expensive. A thirty day supply of Allegra-D is $124.92. One bottle of my nasal spray, enough for 60 days, is $105.26. One bottle of eye drops, also good for 60 days, is $99.32. The allergy season for me only lasts about 60 days, so if I didn’t have insurance it would cost $454.42.

And I imagine that it would be a lot worse if I had a problem that was less common or required more drugs. AIDS pills, for example, can cost $30,000 a year! So it occurs to me now that I intended this post, as the title suggests, to be about drug companies. Don’t worry; I’m still sticking to my plan.

So here’s the part that bugs me about the $30,000 AIDS treatment or the $450 allergy meds. It’s the companies themselves! The CEO of Aventis, the maker of Allegra-D made $3.3 million in the 2006 fiscal year. The CEO of Astra-Zeneca made $4 million in the 2007 fiscal year. Their companies are obviously not hurting for cash, so what the heck is going on? Why can’t they provide cheaper treatment for people? Ultimately, people don’t care about allergy medication, but couldn’t they lower the prices on AIDS drugs?

Theoretically, they could. Everyone looks at drug companies as the perfect example of corporate greed and taking advantage of people in need. These companies are in a tough position. They are corporations, not charities, so they need to look after their corporate interest. They need to make a profit and the bigger the better. But they are also dealing with an area where people need these drugs. They can raise prices 300% and people would still buy them because they need them. And they can’t be completely heartless because somebody is bound to get mad. They have to try to reach a middle grounds, but a lot of people feel that they’re still not doing a good job.

It’s worth pointing out, that $4 million is not an outrageous amount in the corporate world. Steve Jobs made $646 million last year. And it’s also worth point out that the pills are expensive to make. 100 tablets of Claritin costs $215, but the ingredients cost only $71. That seems to contradict my last sentence. However, one tablet of Claritin does not cost $0.71. That’s only the manufacturing cost. Pill 1 takes years of research and development. It’s conceivable that a company spend 10 years on one drug and then bag it because it fails in clinical trials. Here’s one fact: A new prescription drug (Claritin is sold in both over-the-counter and prescription doses) costs an average of $897 million to research and develop, according to Tufts University. And only 21.5% of drugs that make it to phase I clinical trials are approved. The $4 million salary isn’t looking so big anymore.

And when companies start taking a look at their annual earnings, they start thinking $4 million isn’t that big either. There have been incidences of falsified clinical trials and improper communication with the FDA. After years of working on a drug, companies are not inclined to eat their losses, so we wind up with cases like this.

I mentioned providing HIV drugs to Africa earlier in this post. That’s a whole different issue for a different post, but I do know that there are difficulties for drug companies and patients. They can’t act like a charity because they have a board of directors, not a board of trustees. The companies have the drugs and the patients need the drugs. There are other matters that complicate it even further. Although this is changing, HIV drugs must be taken at specific times or they become ineffective and drug resistant strains begin to emerge. Without a proper medical infrastructure, it’s impossible to make sure that people are correctly administering their drugs.

Of course, I’m not advocating that we stop helping people in Africa. There’s certainly hope. Most recently, Gilead Sciences and Bristol-Myers Squibb came to an agreement to provide a one pill a day HIV treatment that should go a long way to aiding medical efforts. For a while, companies had been combining only drugs that they owned, so people were taking only 3-5 pills a day. Not too bad in the modern world, but potentially an issue in Africa. This cross-company agreement will help when the pill ships.

So my point is this: Give the drug companies a break. The health system is a big problem, but I don’t think that pharmaceutical companies are the ones the ones creating the problem. They are certainly interested in making a profit, but they do have huge costs and undertake enormous risks. I also hope that they will not try to interfere with the FDA from now on. Trying to find a balance between providing low-cost drugs and delivering to shareholders is difficult, but drug companies do a pretty good job.

If you were patient enough to read the whole thing, please comment!

Mr. Farley Goes to Washington

School trips fall into a few categories.  There are the boring trips, the ones in modern art museums where you travel in large groups and listen to how an artist embodies his life’s work into a completely blank canvas.  There are the crazy ones where students in hotels stay up until the early hours of the morning.  There are the fun ones where everything is amusing in retrospect.  My school went to Washington and it was rarely boring, occasionally crazy, and completely amusing.

Most students want to sit in the back of the bus.  The teachers all sit up front and the minor crimes of students go unnoticed.  I decided to sit right up front.  I’ve found that the back of the bus is crazy and the front is amusing.  About an hour into the trip, the teachers start talking.  Most of it is hilarious because it’s like talking to another student.  It’s much more fun than eating enormous amounts of sugar in the back of the bus.

The trip itself was amazing.  The hotel was decent, the guide was excellent, but it’s only once in a while that there is a convergence of events that creates a great moment.  Teachers talking on a bus is pretty funny.  People in a hotel room is good too.  Monuments are impressive, but I enjoy just walking around.

Washington is an amazing city.  The power and history of the city and the monuments and the museum are just stunning.  So just walking around is enough.  This school trip was short and it’s not as though I haven’t been to Washington many times before, but I still had fun.  Awesome is a word I rarely use, but in this case, it’s apt.

VFAF #4 – Yahoo! and Microsoft

There are some episodes that I like and some episodes that I don’t like.  I don’t like this one.  I’m a perfectionist and while I don’t go absolutely crazy when something doesn’t go wrong, I definitely don’t like it when I do.  This week I didn’t provide the level of coverage that I usually like to and I made a factual error.  I say at one point that Microsoft sent a letter to the Board of Directs of Yahoo! this past week.  In fact, it was April 5th.

I promised to give you a link to the Microsoft press release that contains Steve Ballmer’s letter to Yahoo!.  You can find it here.

Spencer Claiborne made the new logo and I bought a block of pixels at PaidbyPixels.com to support Cali Lewis and Neal Campbell’s Big Trip.

I’m going to Washington, so this week might be a bit light on blog posts, but I’ll do my best.

Audio (4.1 MB)