Hey… quick update, I’ll still be posting personal stuff here, but wanted to say that I’m also posting on dvorak.org. Mostly on scams, crime and odd news so if you have anything odd/funny you want to share, send me an email.

Here’s a link to recent posts: http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?author=805

Yeah, this is worth a flight to Korea…  Check out The Home Based for a gallery of photos - NSFW so open with care.

This was on the Dvorak Blog as well, but I couldn’t resist posting here…

Taken at the entrance to a “beautification” project in DuBai. Work being done by the Bin Ladin Construction Company.

Cartoon with a singing toilet - what’s not to like?

I wish we got this show in the states.  Don’t you love YouTube?

This is great. Montel Williams totally goes off on Fox News in this interview. I didn’t realize he lost his job over this.

Fox News refers to Michelle Obama as “baby mama”

Can’t wait until those idiots have to start calling her, “First Lady” (that’s if they’re able to get an interview with her).

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Some interesting comments from Outside the Beltway

Alex Knapp I don’t usually weigh in on this sort of thing, but I have to disagree with my colleague James on this one–Fox’s caption on here is enormously disrespectful. I wholeheartedly agree with this portion of sci-fi author John Scalzi’s take on the matter:

Calling Michelle Obama a “baby mama” isn’t just Fox News have a happy casual larf; it’s using urban slang to a) remind you the Obamas are black, b) belittle a woman of considerable personal accomplishment, and c) frame Barack Obama’s relationship to his wife and children in a way that insults him, minimizes his love for and commitment to his family, and reinforces stereotypes about black men.

If we still had such a thing as civility and manners in this country, Michelle Obama would be referred to in the media as “Michelle Obama” or “Mrs. Obama”. Even if there was no racial intent on the part of Fox News, using the phrase “Baby Mama” for the wife of the Democratic nominee for President just shows no class, decorum, or manners.

Click on the link to see the flickr photo set of a replica of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine that was on display earlier this year at the San Jose Tech Museum. The giddy looking fellow in the photos is my husband.

I’m not going to try to understand what the heck this thing is (as this, “The Difference Engine was designed to tabulate polynomial functions, and as both logarithmic and trigonometric functions can be approximated by polynomials, such a machine is more general than it appears at first.”) is any help. Here’s the article from Wikipedia (from which that gobbly sentence was taken).

Flickr Photo Stream

Apparently you can get Al-Qaeda videos on YouTube - who knew? And here I’ve been watching What the Buck and Perez Hilton all this time.

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According to multiple news sources including Slashdot the videos “show assassinations, attacks on US soldiers leading to injuries and death, and weapons training, ‘incendiary’ speeches, and other material“.   What channel is this?! YouTube was asked to remove the videos and, while it removed some, most were allowed to stay because “they did not violate YouTube’s community guidelines.”

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So here is my question - and it is also a challenge: Just what do you have to do get your video thrown off of YouTube?

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Comments with links to your YouTube “submissions” welcome.

Kennedy tumor article on front page of cnn.com today, meanwhile buried within the site, “Agency says 120,000 kids have month to live” Didn’t Stalin say something about this? Oh yeah, “One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.” Lovely to hear senators were crying (crying?!) over Ted K. I feel worse for the kids though. Call me crazy.

Marc Andreesen wants you to know two things:

1.  He’s sick of reporters getting it wrong when it comes to his quotes

2. He likes to blog in his under ware (don’t we all?)

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I have nothing more to say on this.  I just thought I’d jump start your Monday by forcing you to think of one of your fellow industry guys sans pants.  After all No Pants Day falls in May.

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Links: Andreessen’s blog, Wired Article on this topic

After June 15, for the first time since 1993, I will no longer be working in corporate communications.  As I’ve mentioned in this blog, I had some surgery earlier this year and I’ve decided to make some changes which, for now at least, include taking a break from having a heavy workload.  So, next month I’m going to say good bye to IBM and take some time off.

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This does not mean I’ll fall off the earth completely and you can count on seeing me update this blog and my twitter feed with my thoughts on anything and everything -sarcastic as usual. 

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I do want to publicly acknowledge and thank my coworkers, bosses, and friends at IBM who  have been wonderful to me through out my time there but especially this year while I’ve had to deal with a tough surgery recovery.  There is no company I know of with a better ethic for how it treats its employees.

This week I saw two disturbing things that have become more and more common lately; reporters whining about being contacted by media relations people, and PR people spamming bloggers and press.

I’ve got messages for both of you.

Reporters: Suck it up. The last reporter to generate her own stories without the help of any media relations people was Lois Lane and that’s only because she was sleeping with Superman. Unless you’re prepared to beat the street and find your own news (and with today’s tight deadlines I doubt you have that luxury), I suggest you be kind to your sources. And remember, given the state of the publishing industry, the flack you blacklist on your website today might be the guy who you approach for a job when your magazine lays you off following the next merger.

PR people - the anger from reporters and bloggers is not coming from nowhere. If someone was spam-bombing me, I’d be tempted to react as well. If you don’t want to end up on someone’s shit-list or have your email posted on a website of naughty players, don’t spam. Pitch carefully. Better yet, if an editor doesn’t want to be pitched, take him or her off your list. There are plenty of reporters out there competing for stories. If someone doesn’t want your story, someone else will, just pass them by.

For those of you publishing blacklists - you’re messing with people’s livelihood. Cut it out. It amazes me the behavior people blithely engage in today just to boost hits to their websites.

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Links and Resources

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PR 2.0’s far more diplomatic post: “The PR Professional’s Credo: 7 Promises”

BlogworldExpo 2007: Should bloggers blacklist PR Firms?

I’m not posting links to the blacklists for obvious reasons.

Brian Solis has put together an excellent list of reporters / influencers on Twitter.  I’m posting the list here, but please visit his blog for the whole post which has additional info you won’t want to miss.

http://www.briansolis.com/2008/05/micropr-personalizes-pr.html 

Some honest guidelines for PR and marketing people from the Queen of Spain blog. Forget all those PR guidelines with flowery prose about “get to know my publication even better than I do and somehow pitch me without ever calling, emailing or sending a release, bla bla bla” Queen of Spain boils it down to what 99% of product reviewers are probably really thinking:

“Be personal in your approach, be generous with the free shit, even be my friend.

But if the product you are hocking blows-I’m either making fun of it or I am ignoring it.”

Read her post, I am only going to say this once, here and get ready to hit up your product marketing department for some “free shit” to send to your favorite editors.