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September 29, 2006

Firefox Portable; Post-Cluetrain thinking; Nice Italian Nike ads; Shameful terror bill; Bugs

Firefox Portable: Take your browser, bookmarks, extensions and saved passwords with you on a thumb drive.

Like having no hands: Doc Searls, whose Cluetrain quote, "Markets are conversations" approaches mantra status, wants to focus on what happens post-marketing, when we already know what we want. In a conversation with a minister over the meaning of another's obscure use of the word "gestures," Doc clarifies it as customer "intent" and calls for software to mobilize us:

We need to serve market (not marketing) relationships that arise from decisions customers have already made to buy something. They have money in hand, and the intention to book a hotel, or rent a car, or buy a basketball backboard, or whatever. Marketing's job is done.

What I want is for vendors in an open and free market (not a proprietary silo like eBay or Amazon or Travelocity or some other intermediator with a walled garden) to respond to the intention (or gesture, or expression, or whatever) of the customer. On the customers terms. I want to turn the tables on the lame customer management systems every big vendor has, and have no idea how to relate.

Until now the full burden of customer relationship management fell on vendors. I want to change that, from the customer's side, with a Vendor Management System under the customer's control that is so richly useful, and capable, that vendors have no choice but to relate to it.

We don't have that yet. I want to develop it. Which is to say, I want help developing it, because I'm not a programmer...

Of course this makes sense. (Ever spend a whole evening looking for the best price on anything at umpteen sites?)

Interesting: The blog item itself turns another relationship around: Lots of programmers develop an interesting technology, find a use for it and take it out there, but we may not need yet another music recommendation engine or synchronize-your-calendar tool.

Doc knows what he wants, but not knowing how to program is like having no hands. Who will help him build it?

(I feel the same way much of the time. I'm brimming with ideas I have no idea how to turn into instructions to a computer. The tools and interfaces available shape and limit what we all can do: Hammer, meet nail. How do we wangle a screwdriver and a drill and a thingamabob that doesn't exist yet?)

Really nice ads for Nike Italy. Some recall Art Deco posters of the '30s, but this is my favorite:

Click image to see a very large version

This comes via the stylish ComputerLove.

Have you no shame? Bush: Dems Have Become Obstructionists. AP.

Well, yeah, that's why they're called the opposition party. Our American system is built on a system of checks and balances, all designed to obstruct attempts by any body to seize absolute power.

At least it's supposed to work that way.

Among the provisions of the new "antiterrorism" bill that permits us to terrorize, selected from yesterday's Times list, are these new lows in American civilization:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

Democrats largely went along, out of fear of being branded unpatriotic or soft on (bad guys) in lurid campaign ads. Are they hoping to repeal it if they win?

Bugs: How HP bugged e-mail at CNet: "Hewlett-Packard employed a commercial service that tracks e-mail paths to bug a file sent to CNET News.com reporter, an HP investigator said Thursday."

Advocacy groups to Congress: Forget HP. What about NSA? -- also at CNet:

WASHINGTON--The spying scandal that rocked Hewlett-Packard's boardroom may be disconcerting to many onlookers, but Congress would be better served if it devoted the same sort of scrutiny to the Bush Administration's warrantless terrorist surveillance program, advocacy groups and some politicians said Thursday.

The remarks by politicos came at a daylong hearing convened by a U.S. House of Representatives oversight and investigations subcommittee to inquire about the legally questionable tactics, including fraudulent obtaining of phone records, used by the leading Silicon Valley firm to investigate media leaks.

Breaking: House approves warrantless wiretap law, 232-191.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House approved a bill Thursday that would grant legal status to President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program with new restrictions. Republicans called it a test before the election of whether Democrats want to fight or coddle terrorists.

There always seem to be only two choices, one blustering and one absurd. Does anybody coddle anything besides eggs and babies?

No matter. It's just campaigning:

...(Senate) Leaders concede that differences between the versions are so significant they cannot reconcile them into a final bill that can be delivered to Bush before the Nov. 7 congressional elections.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 12:48 AM | Permalink