Hamm On Wry

Let me preface that I’m a huge fan of John Gruber, and a t-shirt-wearing member of Daringfireball.net, because I’m going to point out that in regards to his Apple-HTC Patent review he’s missed a significant point.

If you haven’t read that fireball, go do so now. I’ll wait.

Back? Good. Now, after reading that, and perhaps perusing the links within, you should have a good grasp of where John is thinking the problem lies — with the U.S. Patent Office, and their on-going foolishness where people and companies are able to patent ideas that science fiction writers have come up with, which is truly despicable, and yes, he’s right, it’s a problem, but it’s not at the heart of this particular debate.

At the heart of this particular problem is Nokia.

You see, Nokia sued Apple, claiming patent infringement, and Apple had to counter-sue to even the playing field. That’s what Apple has done with its patents, for the most part, until this week. And look at the bit about that:

Nokia’s just hit Apple with a patent infringement lawsuit, claiming that “all iPhones models shipped” infringe on ten of Espoo’s patents relating to GSM, UMTS, and WiFi. According to Nokia’s press release, the patents in question have been licensed by some 40 other companies, “including virtually all the leading mobile device vendors,” and Apple’s refused to agree to “appropriate” license terms. source: Engadget

Notice that “appropriate” bit in there? That’s where this gets interesting. Presumably Nokia has licensed the patents to HTC. For how much? Apple has stated that Nokia wanted a cross-licensing agreement on technology that would have given away the House of Jobs. They aren’t going to do that, and since Nokia took this battle to the courts, Apple is now forced to do the same.

In fact, the big thing that Apple will want to do is get a cross-licensing agreement with a major Android-based handset maker that is along the lines of the terms that same Android-based handset maker had with Nokia. There is no bigger Android-based handset maker than the one company that Google itself has chosen to work with, and Apple can’t go after Google, yet. Why? Google doesn’t have a cross-license agreement with Nokia for squat. That’s the only thing that HTC has that Google lacks, and it’s the heart of the issue with Nokia.

Ok, so yesterday, February 16, I wanted to watch the Olympics because I wanted to see Johnny Weir’s short program. There were technical difficulties at the local NBC affiliate, which, by the time I got to the time it was going to be shown, just added to my anger.

Technical difficulties suck, but they happen. The people at Beartooth NBC got everything back up and running, and I’m sure that having your prime-time broadcast frozen on the face of the Canadian gold-medal hope in Men’s Figure Skating is about as much fun as fisticuffs with a rabid badger.

Beartooth NBC, I’m sorry for seeming to blast my anger at you. You are all awesome. Sorry.

I’m not excusing my actions, because I know full well that if faced with the same situation, I will probably say the same thing. I will be sure to separate the anger at NBC from my frustration with the compounded issue of technical problems at Beartooth.

Aha, now we get to what really sucks about the Olympics.

Let’s go back to Apolo Ohno’s Silver-medal winning race. I found out he’d won the silver just as NBC was showing me the semi-finals where he won his heat. I was confused. I was not happy. I changed the channel and went about my day, tho, because, well, why still watch when I already know the outcome?!?

I didn’t realize that this was NBC being twits until last night, when going to watch Johnny, I was following along on Twitter. I turned on the Olympics only to see stuff that I already knew about because of Twitter. And then my Twitter stream was flooded with the Gays of the East Coast telling me how awesome Johnny’s performance was.

LIVID.

Can you imagine going home on Super Bowl Sunday to watch the game only to find out, from the friends on the East Coast, that it’s over? And the greatest play ever made is all they can tweet about? Spoilers are hard enough with serialized shows, but with sports, they ruin the whole thing.

Spoiled Games

I had no idea that the Olympics were being time-shifted for the time-zones. In my tweeting barrage with Beartooth I found out that yes, it’s time-shifted, so that we can still get nightly national and local news. Which I applaud, as news still needs to be delivered.

I’m still calling bullshit, tho. I know that NBC is perfectly capable of producing three hours that open and end vaguely enough to cover the events evenly and allow for a smaller amount of time-shifting to keep everyone in the loop of what’s happened really recently.

Because NBC has chosen to not do this a whole swath of the US has absolutely no reason to watch the games. Why? Because we already know who won! You’ve spoiled it by not keeping up with technology.

Here’s where it gets unbelievable

1. Twitter is a fact of life. Let’s be quite clear on that. Ever since events like the Iran election and the Miracle on the Hudson, Twitter has been the biggest, fastest news source for many of us.
2. NBC has been using Twitter all throughout the Olympics. Don’t believe me? Check out the NBC Olympics Site and you can see every Olympic athlete’s tweets. Notice that they aren’t time-shifted, they are live. I’m currently watching the qualifying races for the 1000M Men’s Speed Skating, and here’s NBC’s own tweet.



3. NBC decided to embrace this brilliant new technology but somehow missed how it would affect their broadcast.

NBC was projecting they were going to lose money on the Olympics, but given that they have destroyed all suspense and any reason to actually watch for millions of Americans, how much worse is it going to be? Don’t be surprised when the ratings absolutely tank in the DMAs that don’t get to see events live. This sucks because the Olympics need the revenue from the ads that run during the programming. NBC needs that revenue as well, and will suffer more immediately for this problem, but the Olympics will suffer because broadcasters will have a harder time justifying the budgets needed to do the Olympics at all.

Embracing new technology is scary, not always smooth, and there can be unintended consequences. And most of that is easily forgiven by the masses, because we get it. Especially if we barely understand the technology ourselves.

However, Twitter has been embraced by the masses. And when your job is based on the timely delivery of information but you don’t see that having tweets about who wins gold ruining your time-delayed broadcast, you’ve got serious issues.

And millions have no reason to watch.

[UPDATE] I’m not the only one who has issues with this. Wil Wheaton seems to have the same thought. You should totally take the poll. I did.

And you’d think that the very simple minds at the HRC could understand it, but apparently the martinis have taken their toll and dissolved whatever grey matter those idiots once had. But for the record, here’s the gig:

Publicly demand that President Obama take the lead in getting DADT repealed this year.

1) That means the President needs to state publicly that he wants Congress to repeal DADT this year; and

2) The President needs to take the lead in working with Congress to make sure the repeal happens.

HRC Front Desk: (202) 628-4160
TTY: (202) 216-1572
Toll-Free: (800) 777-4723

Some may say that there is little the President can do, or that this is up to Congress now. That is simply untrue. The President can send a powerful signal that he wants the repeal done this year. He can include the repeal of DADT in the Defense Budget he sends to Congress in the next few months. If the President is serious about keeping his promises to our community, now is his chance to prove it.

BLOG SWARM SPONSORS

Today’s blog swarm is sponsored by the following bloggers and sites, all of which will also be writing about this issue today, and urging their readers to contact HRC:

Joe Sudbay and John Aravosis, AMERICAblog
Pam Spaulding, Pam’s House Blend
Michelangelo Signorile, Sirius OutQ & the Gist
Markos Moulitsas, DailyKos
Andy Towle, TowleRoad
Joe Jervis, Joe My God
Bil Browning, Bilerico
Taylor Marsh, TaylorMarsh.com
Dan Savage, Slog

MOMENTUM HAS TURNED TO CONFUSION

HRC may argue that it’s already told the President it would like to see DADT repealed this year. Well, that’s not enough. And here’s why.

We’ve had an amazing few weeks of momentum on DADT repeal following the mention of DADT in the State of the Union, the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing during which both the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs both stated their support for repeal, and the unexpected support we’ve received from former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell and former Defense Secretary and Vice President Dick Cheney.

But that momentum is quickly slipping away. After talking to people around Washington over the past two weeks, Joe and I have found a vacuum of leadership that is leading to confusion. The Hill has no idea if the President does or doesn’t want them to move ahead with repeal this year. The House has already said that it’s waiting for the Senate to do something. The Senate is in turmoil after the Democrats lost a single seat in January. And the DADT proposals being discussed in the Senate are focused on every possible approachexcept full repeal this year.

As we painfully learned last year during health care reform, nothing happens in Congress unless the President leads. And when the President doesn’t lead, disaster is guaranteed.

Whatever HRC has been telling the White House about DADT, it clearly isn’t working. In spite of the President’s positive comments during the State of the Union, no one knows where President Obama stands on repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” this year. All the while, unnamed administration officials are telling the media that it could be years before repeal finally happens. The White House clearly didn’t get HRC’s message, and as a result, we are losing this historic momentum.

WHY HRC?

Why are we focusing on HRC? Because HRC is our community’s largest, best-funded gay rights organization in Washington, and they carry the most sway with the White House. In fact, HRC often boasts about their close working relationship with the White House. HRC’s President, Joe Solmonese, is so close to the White House that he gave the President political cover during the uproar over the administration’s brief in support of DOMA. It’s time HRC, and our entire community, got something in return for everything we have done for this President, this Congress, and the entire Democratic party.

It’s time to find someone to speak for us instead of the HR
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You won’t find a more cunning fluffball on the face of the planet. Evil and calculating, Agent Orange has valiantly fought an ongoing crusade to destoy a patch of carpet at the upper landing in order to claim ownership of what will become, to the best of my knowledge, a prefecture of North Korea.

I’ve borrowed mom’s carpet cleaner to remove the stain and return balance to the universe. I had to use Oxyclean, which works fine but causes me to spend the next several hours yelling out introductions of everything in my best Billy Mays voice. The cat isn’t amused.

While cleaning, the cat attempted to trip me by sneaking underfoot, causing me to fall backwards in the attempt to avoid making squishkitty. It was a great plan, and would have killed me if I’d been at the top of the stairs instead of in one of the bedrooms to better clean the carpet. I looked at the cat and got the distinct impression that if she could talk, she’d say something evil and twirl her whiskers ala Snidely Whiplash.

After a good scrubbing with Oxyclean the stain still reeked a bit and a friend suggested that I try white vinegar. I didn’t want to, really, as the scent of white vinegar is just as bad as cat piss. I had no choice tho. I’m not sure how, but I’m almost positive that the cat is sneaking chemicals into the house, consuming them and using the powers of the occult to conjure up a noxious spray that could remove the paint off the space shuttle as it orbits overhead in space. That stench couldn’t stay, so I tried it. Amazingly the vinegar seems to have removed a good portion of the smell, and another quick wash with Oxyclean and the carpet was back to fresh-n-clean.

After cleaning I left the machine at the top of the landing because I’m both lazy and practical. I knew the game wasn’t over, so why haul the machine down only to haul it back up immediately? AO took the placement of the machine to be the creation of a DMZ and therefore an escalation of the ongoing arms situation.

Oh yes, this is going to end well.

Agent Orange seemed to have recieved new orders and some new chemicals, and that night her counter-attack took place. The bigger problem is that the initial dispersal isn’t nearly as bad as what becomes of the whole area about 12 hours after the attack. Even the dogs, who will gladly lick the garbage and anything else normally considered gross, had darted by the stain without breathing. Well, Shadow has learned that breathing there is a bad idea, as she only did it once, and then retched so badly I thought she was going to toss up her own hind end.

Agent Orange had won most of the rounds up till this, but I’d had enough of going to sleep with a clean carpet only to wake up to a permeating stench attempting to melt the television while simultaneously attempting to choke me out. But what to do? Oh Billy Mays, help me with your cleaning powers!

And then I had a wild idea. A Fucking Brilliant Plan™, even. You see, Oxyclean is a powder that, when mixed with water, fizzes up and cleans stains. It’s the cleaning equivalent of Alka-seltzer. Or may Poprocks. (Anyone remember Poprocks?)

I cleaned the carpet again, and have run out of vinegar, so I just did the water pass then Oxy pass then water again and put the cleaner machine back as the sentry of the DMZ.

And then, I set a trap.

I sprinkled some of the dry crystals of Oxy on the area AO was most likely to hit that night.

Then I went to sleep.

Around 3:15 am I heard Agent Orange bound into the bedroom and jump onto the bed. (Yes, perhaps the funniest part of this us the cat’s need to be loved and protected by me while also continuing this war.)

I got up to check, and sure enough there was a small wet spot in the middle of the crystal-covered carpet. I think baking soda will work as well, and it seems that the chemical warfare stage of our battle is over.

Because now she sneaks up on me and bites my toe.