Funny, Funny guy

→ Louis CK’s Shameful Dirty Comedy
[Via Marco.org]

Frank Chimero:

It always feels like there’s a comedian willing to address contemporary concerns with insight and honesty for each moment in time. All the greats had their focus: Richard Pryor and Chris Rock had race, George Carlin had absurdity, and I think Louis has hit on some sort of subterranean undercurrent of emotion that I didn’t realize might be swelling until I listened more closely: shame.

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“Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy.“

I’ve written about him before. His latest innovative method for selling his comedy has made lots of waves.

Not to everyone’s taste but I think the article hits on something. We often recognize that when Louis CK is complaining about what someone is doing, it is because he was the one doing it. He recognizes the universality of complaining about planes because he does it.

But, because he is a good comedian, he is introspective enough to realize how to juxtapose his complaining in a way to make the complaints shameful.

He is right. We live in an amazing world but, people being people, we shamefully complain about it. Louis CK reminds us that we can laugh at that.

Because we are human.

Watch the outtake from his recent self-made video that has made over $750,000. If you like his stuff, buy the video. Costs $5 and has no DRM.

If only America was more like China, Iran, the UAE, Armenia, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Burma, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

MPAA says SOPA-style censorship works in Yemen and Syria
[Via Boing Boing]

The MPAA believes SOPA’s censorship mandate will solve its problems, and it has presented research to Congress to support this position. As evidence, it cites the efficacy of similar censorship mandates in China, Iran, the UAE, Armenia, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Burma, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

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Sure will be glad when our corporate overlords have transformed us into those hotbeds of entrepreneurial capitalism such as China, Iran, the UAE, Armenia, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Burma, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

Maybe then we can also have their civil rights records.

You know, these guys are plainly un-American and they have paid for a Congress that is un-American also.

 

Just read this article about Jobs

The price of greatness: Three takeaways from the biography of Steve Jobs
[Via O'Reilly Radar]

As the first Christmas approaches without Apple founder Steve Jobs, it’s worth pausing for a moment to appreciate what he has left behind.

In addition to an astoundingly healthy business with $80 billion in the bank, recent analysis by Andy Zaky of Bullish Cross suggests that in the current holiday quarter, Apple will record its largest earnings blowout ever.

This is on top of unparalleled customer loyalty and brand recognition, not to mention a potent halo effect generated by Apple’s iPhone, iPad and Mac products.

Yet, according to analyst Zaky, Apple remains the most undervalued large cap stock in America. It’s almost as if Apple is saving “one more thing” for the holidays; this one, a stocking-stuffer for investors.

I bring this last point up because the notion of Apple still being undervalued (and under-appreciated), despite the accomplishments, accolades and attention, suggests something about the human condition; namely, that when faced with an exceedingly bright and brilliant light, our minds naturally filter it down a bit.

But true greatness, the kind realized by Jobs in his life, and by Edison, Disney and Ford before him, is best appreciated without filters, for it is something that is experienced perhaps only once in a generation.

With that in mind, I want to share three takeaways from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs that spotlight both the greatness of the man and the price that greatness demands.

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Very good points . He created tremendous wealth after he began dying from cancer. Being a jerk has no relevance on the achievements he made. And his focus on details while maintaining a clear vision of where he wanted to go.

Apple and privacy vs Google and open source

by *Micky

There Is a Flip Side
[Via Daring Fireball]

Dave Winer, on trying to convince Joe Hewitt to switch to Android:

Anyway, he thinks the iPhone is great. He doesn’t want to use Android. But I want him to use it, for the same reason I use it. Which is the title of this piece.

Right now it’s the only open source mobile OS that has a chance against iOS. If there is no alternative to iOS then Apple will have exclusive control over what makes it to market. That is a future none of us should want to live in.

The better iOS is relative to Android, the more you have to worry about.

I enjoyed this piece a lot. To me, this is an honest and reasonable perspective.

But, to quote Neil McCauley, there is a flip side to that coin. Winer’s perspective is that Apple is the bigger threat. A different perspective would be that Google is the bigger threat, and that using Apple products is a way to better protect our privacy and personal information.

Fear of Apple is about losing control over the software on our computers. Fear of Google is about losing control over our privacy.

Me, I use an iPhone simply because I think it’s the best. But it fits with which company I’m more worried about, too.

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Apple’s customers are the people who use its products. Google’s customers are the advertising clients. The people who use their products are simply tools to gain better access for the advertisers and more money for Google.

The incentives, particularly those for dealing with our privacy, are very different. Users have direct effects on Apple. If they do not like something Apple does, they will stop buying them

But if Google does something that hurts the user but is great for its ad revenue, it’l screw the user. The user’s control of Google is indirect at best.

I’d rather deal with something I have direct pushback on. It is a very added benefit that the tools Apple provides are so great.

The best single sentence comparing Google with Apple

Getting Fed Up With Google
[Via Daring Fireball]

Another difference between Apple and Google: as Apple grows more successful, they make their users happier, with better-designed products; as Google grows more successful, they annoy their users with ever more intrusive advertising.

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This is why I love Gruber. From a comparison of the price of gold via Google or via Wolfram, he comes up with this pithy sentence.

And that is why Apple works with Wolfram first on any Siri request. I just asked Siri what was the price of gold. I got the answer from Wolfram of  $1586.93. It took less than 2 seconds.

Partly why I love Siri – it gets me answers without ads.