January 18, 2005
Friday Watch: No cancer risk for employees, IBM claims
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
Surprise! A study commissioned by IBM finds no increased cancer risk for employees in a Silicon Valley plant and two others.
Therese Poletti reports in the San Jose Mercury News that the IBM study seeks to reassure 126,000 employees at East Fishkill, New York; Burlington, Vermont; and San Jose, California.
Big Blue commissioned the study in 2000 when it was "facing lawsuits by former employees who alleged they developed cancer because of exposure to toxic chemicals while working at the company's plants," Poletti writes, noting that the study "has not yet been published by a peer-reviewed scientific journal."
Poletti quotes Joe LaDou, director of the International Center for Occupational Medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, who questions the methodology of the IBM study: "It is not acceptable science but it is often done by industry-supported researchers, and sometimes even by governmental agencies.''
Over the years, a bevy of experts and activist groups have warned that employees at chip factories and other manufacturing facilities in Silicon Valley face health risks from the toxic chemicals at the workplace. Leaks of these chemicals have poisoned ground water, too, threatening Silicon Valley residents who choose not to purchase bottled water for drinking and cooking.
Poletti notes that "In March, IBM settled 50 other suits filed by former San Jose workers," and that "The company also has settled two birth-defects cases in New York state. About 110 cases still are pending in New York."
Links:
IBM says cancer risk not greater by Therese Poletti, San Jose Mercury News, 5 November 2004
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition , activist and watchdog organization
Affiliate link:
OnlineJournalist.org edited by Doug Millison "on a need-to-know basis"
Posted by Doug Millison at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)
November 05, 2004
Friday Watch: Life goes on
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
It's been a tough week for Silicon Valley and the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Most of us voted for Kerry (over 80 percent in the city of San Francisco) and it's difficult watching Bush smirk and sneer as he enjoys his moment in the sun. There was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth on Wednesday. High tech executives remain unsure what opportunities may unfold, or slam shut, in the second Bush term, while California as a whole braces for payback after having voted for Bush's opponent, and for embracing lifestyles that infuriate Bush's right-wing, fundamentalist Christian supporters. But even as reality sinks in, Silicon Valley finds some reasons for hope.
Michael Moore - after sending out an email called "My First Thoughts About the Election" which simply listed the names of the American dead in the Iraq war - now offers "17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists." Numbers 14 and 15 are especially good:
14. Bush is now a lame duck president. He will have no greater moment than the one he's having this week. It's all downhill for him from here on out -- and, more significantly, he's just not going to want to do all the hard work that will be expected of him. It'll be like everyone's last month in 12th grade -- you've already made it, so it's party time! Perhaps he'll treat the next four years like a permanent Friday, spending even more time at the ranch or in Kennebunkport. And why shouldn't he? He's already proved his point, avenged his father and kicked our ass.
15. Should Bush decide to show up to work and take this country down a very dark road, it is also just as likely that either of the following two scenarios will happen: a) Now that he doesn't ever need to pander to the Christian conservatives again to get elected, someone may whisper in his ear that he should spend these last four years building "a legacy" so that history will render a kinder verdict on him and thus he will not push for too aggressive a right-wing agenda; or b) He will become so cocky and arrogant -- and thus, reckless -- that he will commit a blunder of such major proportions that even his own party will have to remove him from office.
The many groups that fought so hard against Bush during the election campaign seem to be gearing up to oppose his most egregious legislative and executive efforts - and watch for anti-war protests to start up again, too.
Links:
17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists by Michael Moore; scroll down for "My first thoughts after the election..."
Affiliate link:
OnlineJournalist.org edited by Doug Millison "on a need-to-know basis"
Posted by Doug Millison at 06:54 AM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2004
Friday Watch: Military intelligence in action---happy 35th birthday to the internet!
The internet grew out of work on the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. A key goal of ARPANET was to create a communications network that could survive a nuclear war.
If parts of the network were to be disabled due to nuclear blasts, messages could be automatically routed around damaged parts of the network to reach their destination. This continues to be a key capability of the internet, routing data packets across a variety of intermediate networks, to their destination.
It’s lucky that the DoD decided not to use the technology. Surviving a nuclear blast is one thing (cockroaches can do it)--surviving the script kiddies who send out worms and viruses is a lot more difficult.
Posted by Tom Foremski at 04:44 PM | Comments (0)
Friday Watch: "What you say on the Internet can affect your real life"
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
A blogger's nightmare come true: criticize the President, get the third degree from the Secret Service.
From the blogger's report on the frightening late-night knock at the door and subsequent interrogation:
A couple of weeks ago, following the last presidential debate, I said some rather inflammatory things about George W. Bush in a public post in my LJ, done in a satirical style. We laughed, we ranted, we all said some things. I thought it was a fairly harmless (and rather obvious) attempt at humor in the face of annoyance, and while a couple of people were offended, as is typical behavior from me, I saw something shiny and forgot about it, thinking that the whole thing was over and done and nothing else would come of what I said.I was wrong.
At 9:45 last night, the Secret Service showed up on my mother's front door to talk to me about what I said about the President, as what I said could apparently be misconstrued as a threat to his life. After about ten minutes of talking to me and my family, they quickly came to the conclusion that I was not a threat to national security (mostly because we are the least threatening people in the entire world) and told me that they would not recommend that any further action be taken with my case. However, I do now have a file with the FBI that includes my photograph, my e-mail address, and the location of my LJ. This will follow me around for the rest of my life, regardless of the fact that the Secret Service knows that I am not a threat.
Chilling.
Links:
a word to the wise, Live Journal blog entry from the target of the Secret Service investigation
Posted by Doug Millison at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)
Friday Watch: X-Ray specs
by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com
At the back of the comic books I enjoyed as a boy, the two advertisements that intrigued me the most were the one for a body-building course that would make me the object of admiration for a bevy of beach beauties, and the "X-Ray" spectacles that promised to let me see through my admirers' bikinis.
I never did bulk up like the Muscle Beach boys, but now it seems the school-boy dream of X-Ray spectacles has come true:
A third party developer in Tokyo, Yamada Denshi, has developed an add-on to Vodafone handsets, intended to be used as a night filter to allow Big Red's customers to take pictures with their phones in the dark.Unfortunately, the night vision camera has an unexpected side effect - in the right circumstances, it allows users to see a lot more than they bargained for. As well as taking snaps in the dark, the Yamada Denshi infrared filter sees through people's clothes.
When attached to a high-end camera, the device can give the effect of seeing through some garments – it depends on how easily infrared can penetrate the fabric in question - and is reportedly particularly effective on dark bikinis.
Answering your next question, the device only works with one kind of Vodaphone handset available only in Japan.
Vodaphone is, incredibly, insisting that they would never put on the market a telephone with the ability to view other people naked.
I expect they'll come to a different, more profit-minded judgement, after the discovery percolates for awhile in Vodaphone's new product development and marketing organizations.
Link:
Peeping Tom filter lets phones see through bikinis by Jo Best, Silicon.com, October 25 2004
Posted by Doug Millison at 10:27 AM | Comments (1)
Friday Watch: Technology moves fast but some publishers type slowly
Our good buddy Tom Abate at the SF Chronicle used to cover the tech beat in the early to mid-1990s before switching to biotech. And there was a wonderful billboard, in a very prominent position on highway 101—not far from Oracle’s Emerald City--celebrating Tom's talents.
It proclaimed in massive letters:
“Technology moves fast---Tom Abate types faster.”
It seems tech isn’t moving very fast these days. The publisher of the financial newspaper, The Daily Deal, and the magazine The Deal, recently announced it was launching Tech Confidential. A 32-page preview of the magazine has been produced with the press release saying:
"Tech Confidential is bound with the centerfold of The Deal’s November 1 issue…In 2005, Tech Confidential will be published every other month starting in May."
I can’t wait.
Tony Perkins, publisher of online magazine AlwaysON (and former publisher of the Red Herring), is also in no hurry to chase down the tech tortoise. He is launching a quarterly print magazine this winter:
"The AlwaysOn magazine will be a regularly-scheduled briefing on innovation in technology and media. The first issue will include breakout interviews with Bill Gates, Michael Powell, Jonathan Schwartz, Stratton Sclavos, and other top industry luminaries."
I can’t wait.
Posted by Tom Foremski at 03:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Friday Watch: San Francisco flacks flocking south of Market
Much of San Francisco’s PR community seems to be moving to offices down by the SBC ballpark. Bite PR are celebrating the opening of their new office there soon. Outcast Communications are in the middle of moving to that area. And I recently heard that Sterling Communications is moving there too.
And it is not because Cnet’s News.com is near by—it’s simply because the rents are dirt-cheap. “We can get great office space for under $2 per square foot, compared to $30 or more elsewhere,” says Elke Heiss, vice president at Sterling Communications. “Also, it has easy access for our clients coming up from the valley, and cheap $6 all day parking.” She adds.
With so many other PR companies already in that neighborhood—it’s reader suggestion time! In the early 1990’s with the CDROM and multimedia “revolution” we had an area of San Francisco called “Multimedia Gulch.”
Maybe it could be called the “Flack District” ala the Garment District.
Or how about “Spin City?”
Your votes and suggestions please.
Posted by Tom Foremski at 02:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Friday Watch: Earliest citation of Geek Beacon
I’m trying to get this term into WordSpy (see below) and into common usage:
Geek Beacon, the use of a bright display on a Treo or mobile phone to hail a taxi, or signal to others at night.And it works! I was using my Geek Beacon just the other evening and a taxi pulled up within seconds. The driver said that about six months ago he had picked up a guy that had been waving a device that flashed “taxi” using LED lights. This guy was from Chicago and was planning to market the devices for about $50 a piece.
That’s too bad. The Geek Beacon comes as a free standard feature on many “smart” phones such as my Treo 600.
Earliest citation: SiliconValleyWatcher.
Posted by Tom Foremski at 02:34 AM | Comments (0)
Friday Watch: the earliest citation of the term “screenager.”
I was ego-surfing again, testing out a few of the newer search engines and I came across this blast from the past on a site called WordSpy, which tracks words and their origins.
"screenager (SCREE.nay.jur) n. A young person who has grown up with, and is therefore entirely comfortable with, a world of screens, particularly televisions, computers, ATMs, cell phones, and so on."As an example of its use, it quotes a December 2002 article by Michael Snider using the term screenager.
The earliest citation of the word is in 1994 by guess who, quoting guess who:
"Meanwhile, new magazines are rapidly being launched to target the home market. Oakland-based Blast Publishing Inc. is preparing to launch a major national magazine called Blast, which, according to Publisher Doug Millison, will be a "lifestyle magazine aimed at 'screenagers', teenagers and twentysomethings that have grown up with PCs and video games."
—Tom Foremski, "Homes are prime PC frontier," The San Francisco Examiner, June 19, 1994"Here is the full entry from Wordspy.
UPDATE: Doug Millison adds that "screenager" was actually coined by Dave Pola, sales and marketing honcho for Morph's Outpost, Inc. (which published the pioneering magazine for interactive multimedia designers and developers, Morph's Outpost on the Digital Frontier, from 1993 to 1995) and sister company, Blast Publishing, Inc. which published Blaster magazine. (The magazine was originally called Blast, but that was changed to Blaster, for intellectual property reasons, by the time the magazine launched.) Journalist, Doug Rushkoff, now a professor at NYU, helped to popularize the term "screenager," beginning in the column that he wrote for Blaster.
Posted by Tom Foremski at 02:04 AM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2004
Friday Watch: Larry Ellison’s Favorite Paper? / Best in International Media & Public relations
The Pressclub of California hosted the First International Media Summit in Palo Alto last night (21 Oct.). Additionally, members of the Pressclub handed out the 2004 Awards for the Best in International Media & Public relations in the tech industry.
The Pressclub’s 100+ members, foreign correspondents from all over the world as well as numerous domestic reporters, voted “Best in International Media & Public Relations in 2004” the following:
1. Intel
2. Cisco
3. Sun Microsystems
Agnes Kwan (Intel), Ron Pivosan (Cisco) and Kristin Huguet (Sun) took home a good bottle of French (of course, monsieur) champagne. Cheers!
Named as the top 3 tech companies needing improvement in International Media & Public relations were:1. HP
2. Yahoo
3. Google
Apple received a special award: Simultaneously best and worst in PR. As several foreign correspondents have noticed in the last couple of years, Apple treats international reporters simply “not at all” or with arrogance. The local teams though (I can speak especially for the folks in Apple’s Munich office) are doing a great job. Too bad the key deciscions are made in Cupertino and not in Bavaria . . .
Another story on the side: Kristin Hollins, International PR Manager at Oracle, and also one of the Panelists on Moderator Tom Sanders' Panel on Best Practices in International Media Relations, mentioned what Larry Ellison’s favourite paper is: The Financial Times. Of course!
Enjoy the weekend!Posted by Jochen Siegle at 07:40 PM | Comments (0)
Friday Watch: Fantastic Voyage
Mike Langberg puts the "embedded" back into journalism in his San Jose Mercury News column, with a first-person tale of adventure that, well, made my skin crawl.
I'm rolling up my sleeve, ready to get injected with the VeriChip. That's the device cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this month as the first implantable electronic identification tag linked to a person's medical profile.Langberg's entertaining column explores the privacy and medical safety concerns of the device and offers five guidelines for federal laws he hopes will be adopted to avoid abuse of the devices.
As I was reading it, I couldn't help remembering one of my favorite, cheesy sci-fi flicks of the '60s, day-dreaming about riding inside the VeriChip, with Raquel Welch in a 21st century remake of Fantastic Voyage.
After all, it's Friday.
Links:Under my skin by Mike Langberg, San Jose Mercury News, 22 October 2004
Posted by Doug Millison at 08:23 AM | Comments (0)
Friday Watch: Voodo Goojoo!
Some playful Silicon Valley types are, no doubt, planning their migration north for next Friday's can't-miss event: Anon Salon's Voodo Goojoo!
Voodoo Goojo! is fruit of Mark "Spoonman" Petrakis' twisted mind. (Petrakis put together a mind-blowing evening's entertainment for the Morph's Outpost Art Teco conference that marked a beginning for the emerging San Francisco interactive multimedia community back in '94.)
Just reading Petrakis' invite for next week's party wore this old codger out, but I'm confident the youngsters are on the beam, ready, willing, and able:
ANON SALON
oozes sum
VOODOO GOO-JOOB!
Cult of the Paranormal Hell-O-Ween
Sordid favors and human sacrifice!
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2004
@ Anon Gallery
285 9th Street (@ Folsom)/ SF
9 pm - late
$10 b4 10pm
$15 after 10pm: Possessed
$20: Neither here nor therehttp://www.anonsalon.com/hello04
Featuring...
BonEWiCkED GraveYard
• OBADAYO (ANON SALON)
• ALIA (13 MOONTRIBE)
• GARTH (WICKED)
• JENÖ (WICKED)CaVE of the sNeAKy MoNKEy
• LATE NIGHT SNEAKY (Illuminated Live Funk w/ Vocals)
• LUX (aka Rodman) (Laptop Loo-ping)
• STARLIT (Live Drum-Driven World Mix)
• SPACED COWBOY BREAK-FEAST (Kirk & Chip)
• RANDOM AMBUSH COSTUME CONTEST
* GOBLINS A GLO-GOPaGAN REz-ErEc-TING-LE
• HAUNTED GALLERIES/ FALLEN ANGLE INNER SANCTUMS/
• FRIGHTENINGLY TALENTED ART ATTACKS!
• DR. SPOOK / MAD VISUALZ
• VOODOO DOLL TRANS-FEARS
• 99¢ BRAIN OPERATIONS
• PAST LIFE READINGS/ EDITED FOR THE JUICY PARTS
• DIY POLI-TRICKY HEX-A-GRAM (Exorcise the White House)
(Pin the Bush on Laura)
• MICHAEL'S LIGHT TOYS
• DARK HEART TAROT W/ ANAHID
• RE-ANIMATOR MASSAGE
PLUS SPIDERWEB ROOF GARDEN
(RESPECT THE NEIGHBORS! NO DRUMMING, PLEASE)
* NEON PLUSHY ROOM / SECURE COAT CHECK
& more..
YR ANON-M-US HOSTS:
Joegh "Cadavah" Bullock & Mark "GrueSumSpoon" Petrakis
Link:
Anon SalonPosted by Doug Millison at 08:06 AM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2004
Friday Watch: The Geek Beacon wins (or steals) the taxi cab…
Here is some more testimony to the power of the Geek Beacon (the light from a Treo or smart-phone). I was trying to find a cab Thursday night on Geary. So I pulled out and turned on my Geek Beacon.
Most of the taxis were full but within a few minutes an empty cab pulled up. As I got in, I noticed that I had inadvertently “stolen” the taxi from a couple, who had been standing 10 yards ahead of me, trying to wave down a cab.
Alas, those people were Geek Beacon-less, and still standing on the curb. I was riding downtown, and feeling only lightly guilty--more of an "oops sorry," but what can you do? They had witnessed the simple effectiveness of the Geek Beacon and its mesmerizing effect on taxicabs. Try it.
Posted by Tom Foremski at 03:23 AM | Comments (0)
October 09, 2004
Friday Watch:San Francisco celebrates 1st Craigslist Day Sunday October 10
The local Geekerati will out in full force Sunday evening for the premiere of the documentary about the web site Craigslist.org, called "24 Hours on Craigslist."
I’ll be doing interviews live from the red carpet outside the Jewish Community Center. I hear that Craig will be wearing a Paul Smith suit and an original Blogger.com t-shirt (pre-Google), while his companion Eileen will be in a backless original Gianni Versace.
Larry, Brin, Jerry, and some of the up and coming geek princes of the Odessa Posse are expected. There will be a full report on the post-party here on Silicon Valley Watcher.
On August 4, 2003, a day chosen at random, eight film crews set out to record a day in the life of the Craig's List community. The following description, from the web site of the documentary about the web site, promises to reveal a side of San Francisco that challenges conventional stereotypes of the city:
“An Ethel Merman drag queen searches for the perfect backup band for her Led Zeppelin covers. A suburban professional woman assembles a diabetic cat support group. A couple seeks the perfect rabbi for their marriage. An aging, would-be mother finds her ideal sperm donor. Doors for sale, one night stands, compulsive roomates, transsexual erotic services. The mundane and the sublime, the ridiculous and the profound, all come together to paint a portrait of a thriving, humanistic community in the midst of an ever-accelerating culture."
Damn that ever-accelerating culture . . .I keep spilling my chai tea.
Support Silicon Valley Watcher affiliate link:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
Posted by Tom Foremski at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)
Friday Watch: A reader taunts Catholic God...lightning bolt expected
A recent item here, on The Watcher, happened to mention that the term for a group of priests is a "pontification of priests."
Dave Carpenter, a loyal reader, pointed out my mistake. The correct term he says....
...is a "pederasty of priests."
And Dave ought to know, as he produces a handmade book, written and illustrated by himself, all about groups. It's aimed at kids, and no, "pederasty of priests" isn't in it. See here for ordering info.
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The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy InactionPosted by Tom Foremski at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2004
Friday Watch: Nerdy club pickup routines...and other tales from the Geek Life
It’s about 10pm and I’m in the South of Market Fluid Lounge about a week ago, hanging out with geek engineers, late 20s. They are just starting their day, they’ll be coding at a local incubator until about 6am. But right now, they are having a cocktail and talking about how to meet women.
“What you do, is you leave an ATM receipt on the bar, and it has been faked to read as if you have millions in the bank -- that’ll impress the girls,” one says. The other one, spotting a monetization opportunity, says, “Yeah, and we can sell them on eBay for like, twenty bucks a piece!” They even figure that they won’t have to fake the ATM receipts, because their boss is worth hundreds of millions -- they’ll just fish out his ATM receipts from the trash can, iron out the wrinkles, and they’ll be the most popular guys in any club.
How are these hot women going to get a look at “your” ATM receipt? And if your ATM receipt shows you have millions in your checking account, you are showing yourself as a foolish manager of your money. Do you think that’s attractive, I asked?
“Well, you could ask someone to look at your ATM receipt because…you forgot your glasses at the office,” one suggested. The issue of the large amount of cash sitting in the checking account was less well addressed, but, hey, being dumb and rich has gotten a lot of people laid anyway, was the conclusion.
So, be warned, if anyone asks you to look at an ATM receipt … be very suspicious—or just play along.
How much for that Blogger t-shirt in the window?Buck is chatting with a guy, and Buck says he has an original Blogger t-shirt, in brown, and with no Google logo on the back (Google bought the publisher of Blogger.com). It's probably worth a lot, Buck says. The other guy agrees but trumps Buck, says he has an original Blogger hooded sweatshirt in blue from 1999. And it came from one of only three cartons of this type ever made (geek trivia note).
What would you let that Blogger t-shirt go for, I ask Buck? “I don’t know…..sixty bucks I guess.”
Sold say I! I reach out to shake on the deal, while my other hand reaches for my wallet. But Buck pulls away--and is now hesitant.
“Well, I didn’t say I would sell it…I just said it was worth a lot,” he says. Okay, okay, seventy five bucks, I say, it’s my final offer. But no dice, Buck has taken it off the market. And now he has changed the subject to RSS, and that because his company helped develop it, they are building a lucrative business around it, etc.
I’m half listening and wondering: what is an original Blogger t-shirt worth today? From early 2000, no Google logo on the back, in brown, with yellow lettering?
Damn, I used to throw a ton of that promo stuff away, or use the t-shirts to clean the car. I should have kept that stuff.
And I don’t blame Buck for not selling. I would not sell an original Blogger t-shirt for sixty bucks. This stuff is history, part of Silicon Valley lore. I’d sell it for seventy five though. (Buck--call me, it really is a good price.)
Posted by Tom Foremski at 03:49 AM | Comments (0)
