Disqus - Latest Comments for Michael_Markman

Re: The Droid fails AS A PRODUCT when compared to Palm Pre and iPhone

Michael_Markman — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:18:01 -0000

Great post, Robert. But the Win 3.1 vs Mac comparison isn't instructive—unless you flip it. Mac didn't lose out to Windows. Far more humiliating, Mac lost to DOS long before Windows 3.1 ever showed up in the marketplace. The goal for Win 3.1 wasn't to supplant Mac (that game was over), but to replace DOS. Mac was and remained the challenger brand.

If you want to compare the relative market success of Windows vs. Mac to Droid vs iPhone... then the more apt analogy is to say that iPhone has the market clout of Win 3.1 vs. the challenger brands of Droid and Mac.

Re: The myth of perfection (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:19:35 -0000

I'll second Jay's wish for editing. Edits to existing tweets should propagate to other sites that display them (blogs, FF, FB, etc). I have deleted and reposted tweets n the past. But the echoes of the previous revs never die.

Re: There must be some way out of here, revisited (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 11:14:48 -0000

So, given the BSG timeline... does that make Bob Dylan a plagiarist? Or does it make him God?

Re: Squelching the editor

Michael_Markman — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:33:57 -0000

The most liberating thing I've read since... I can't be bothered to remember. (oops that got through uncensored.)

Re: Where you were when...? (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:45:10 -0000

I was in my college radio station, WKCR-FM when the teletype let loose with an unheard (by most of us) five bells. There was a progression. Shots fired at motorcade... President rushed to hospital... president dead.

We were stunned. Assumed we had no audience as people turned to TV or network radio. Switched to somber classical music like some state-run station behind the iron curtain.

Scrambled to convene a panel of professors from the history department, and went back on the air with a round table discussion.

That night. a bunch of us tried to escape reality by attending a screening of Walt Disney's Fantasia at the Loew's Tower East at 3rd Avenue and 71st Street.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/apple-iphoto-to-integrate-facebook.html

Michael_Markman — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:36:05 -0000

Would be? Apple has already stepped back from forcing you into MobileMe. iPhoto '09 shipped with buttons to upload to Facebook and Flickr as well as MobileMe.

Re: Another day banging my head against OAuth (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:53:35 -0000

Yes I did watch BSG. The intensity of this season is off the charts. An old Star Trek TNG was also on last night. By comparison, a total snooze. Our media tempo has accelerated enormously.

Re: Identity and Image

Michael_Markman — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:32:52 -0000

I never take memes such as 25 random things to be requests for an essential summary of who you are. it's just another topic to write about. Some people do well with these topics. Most don't.

I take the memes as opportunities to broaden your online self-portrait with a collection of non-essential details that you might not otherwise have a context to write about.

I take them as opt-in. Nobody's forcing you. And whether you do or not won't make much difference to anything.

Re: I'm in heaven (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:52:57 -0000

Fred is really a singer. All the top names who composed the Great American Songbook loved having Fred sing their songs. Really.

Re: Schvitz Etiquette…We Have Chaos!

Michael_Markman — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:16:33 -0000

So, then. behavior in the Schvitz is in no way predictive of success in business.

Re: Tech News for Everyone? (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:08:28 -0000

Could this just be a seasonal issue? Remember the crazy weekend meme-wars of yore? (My memory may be off, but I recall Scoble and Arrington were usually in the thick of them then as now.) At the moment we're in a two-week news drought because so many tech companies have forced vacations over the holidays. The simplest solution may be just to wait it out. Memeorandum seems to be doing much better than Techmeme at the moment.... because there's some actual news (mostly dreadful) to spin up.

Re: My brother Om (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:56:17 -0000

Bud Colligan once said something to me that resonates with Michael's notion of rubber balls and glass balls: "No matter how much you love your job, your job will never love you."

Re: Singin in the Rain (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:06:37 -0000

If we're opening the whole decade, I could be here for years. ;-)

Re: Singin in the Rain (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:05:57 -0000

Generations FTW.

Re: Singin in the Rain (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:04:58 -0000

Also Ninotchka, Wuthering Heights, The Shop Around the Corner (remade as "You've Got Mail"), The Rules of the Game, The Roaring Twenties, and--saving the best for last--His Girl Friday.

Re: The space between Twitter and FriendFeed (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 13:30:37 -0000

It wasn't Mac that kicked DOS's ass. It was Windows. (except in a few specialized fields and market segments).

I wouldn't place a bet on the niche you're describing. Simple text retains enormous appeal. Even teens and twenty somethings who speak fluent-audio visual and who live on Skype, YouTube, iPhones, and various live video streams remain loyal to SMS. They're arriving on Twitter by the minute. And they're quite content to use Twitter as an alert system to their various rich media presences.

IMHO the gap you see between stripped down Twitter and kitchen-sink FF isn't likely to draw much of a crowd.

Re: $7.7 trillion (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:37:36 -0000

Here's another way to think about that enormous number. A bloomberg article this morning pointed out that this is about half the total GDP for 2007--half the value of all the goods and services produced in the United States last year.

Re: louisgray.com: Introducing Exchange Rates for Blog Comments and Interactions

Michael_Markman — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:02:45 -0000

"Exchange Rate"? Where are the kiosks where I can turn in 10 likes on Friend Feed for an actual comment on a blog?

Re: Internet idiots (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:52:52 -0000

Hmmm. Any chance you've absorbed this message from the current round of "I'm a Mac" ads, where Mac tells PC to put his money into fixing Vista instead of trying to advertise around the problem? Funny that Apple decided to spend its ad budget to tell Microsoft to lay off the advertising. What's that all about?

Re: Vetting

Michael_Markman — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:50:48 -0000

And why is that? Is someone going to accuse her of pallin' around with satyrs?

Re: Why Evangelical Christians Should Vote for Obama

Michael_Markman — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:30:40 -0000

Vote on policy differences, I can respect you. Vote on a baldfaced lie tell me that a) that you are very gullible and b) paying attention to liars who shouldn't be believed. Now that Obama is elected, we'll have a very simple test on this matter. Just tune in to TV on Jan 20, 2008. If it turns out that no Koran is involved, will you apologize to us all for spreading lies.

BTW... supposing that he did choose to be sworn in on the Koran, why would that disqualify him?

Re: Prop 8 (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:42:50 -0000

And by "Californian" you mean a white, college-educated Californian in the bay area?

Re: Prop 8 (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:40:25 -0000

Exit polls corroborate the L.A. Times suggestion.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/...

Re: Prop 8 (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:30:36 -0000

Yes... Here are a few:

We flower poweroonies were never more than a small subset of our generation. No basis from these stats for calling us sellouts.

Look at some of the other segmentation.

CNN exit poll - Vote by Party
Group (%) Yes/No
Democrat (42%) 36/64
Republican (29%) 82/18
Independent (28%) 46/54

CNN exit poll - Vote by Race
Group (%) Yes/No
White (63%) 49/51
African-American (10%) 70/30
Latino (18%) 53/47
Asian (6%) 49/51
Other (3%) 51/49

CNN exit poll - Are you a college graduate?
Group (%) Yes/No
Yes (50%) 47/53
No (50%) 56/42

for more, see
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/...

Re: Opting-out of political smears (Scripting News)

Michael_Markman — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:29:37 -0000

BTW... on this issue... McCain has the same position regarding the coal industry as Obama. Here's a video that juxtaposes Hannity's shock and Palin's scorn with footage of John McCain on the Senate floor arguing for emission caps on coal burning plants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP6iqcrHvsE