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Many Windows 10 Users Unable To Connect To Windows Update Service.

Windows 7 Users Who Installed January Update Report Network Issues; Some Say the Update Has Also Incorrectly Flagged Their OS License as 'Not Genuine'.

Windows 10 Will Reserve 7GB of Your Computer's Storage in its Next Major Release So That Big Updates Don't Fail.

Latest Windows 10 Update Breaks Windows Media Player, Win32 Apps In General

Microsoft Resumes Rollout of Windows 10 Version 1809, Promises Quality Changes.

Microsoft's Problem Isn't How Often it Updates Windows -- It's How It Develops It.

More links to stories showing that Microsoft is VERY poorly managed:

Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." (Aug. 4, 2015)

Windows 10 shows you ads while you are trying to work. But, at least at present, you may be able to stop at least some of the advertising: 7 ways Windows 10 pushes ads at you, and how to stop them.

Microsoft's Intolerable Windows 10 Aggression (May 27, 2016)

Microsoft is infesting Windows 10 with annoying ads (March 17, 2017)

Microsoft, stop sabotaging Windows 10. (March 21, 2017)

Bill Gates still manages Microsoft: Two years ago, during a Jan. 17, 2017 discussion with Charlie Rose, Bill Gates said he spends "15 percent" of his time managing Microsoft. I interpreted that to mean that Gates is still extremely involved and very influential. Did Gates want the mess that is Windows 10?

From the transcript at that Charlie Rose web page:

08:42
"Bill Gates: I'm there about 15 percent of the time. And I get to work just on the R and D part, brainstorming with people, thinking, OK, how are we going to take this artificial intelligence and make it understand, help you use your time better. It's a very exciting time in software. There's five companies that are, you know, in a really strong position. Microsoft is leading in some really cool stuff so --"

It seems obvious that Bill Gates still has a huge amount of overall influence on the management of Microsoft, even if he mostly focuses on other subjects.

My understanding: Microsoft is an EXTREMELY poorly-managed company. I think much more attention should be given to that.

Microsoft trash talks Windows 10 LTSC -- again (Dec. 5, 2018)

Microsoft scrambles to limit PR damage over abusive AI bot Tay. (Nov. 30, 2017)

Guess what country sued Microsoft over abusive user data collection! -- Brazil (Apr. 28, 2018) Bad adjective: "beloved" Windows 10.

Apparently the present worsening management began with Ballmer-osis: Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book (May 23, 2012)

But Microsoft was always abusive, apparently: 'Crush Them': An Oral History of the Lawsuit That Upended Silicon Valley. (May 18, 2018)

Bill Gates still runs Microsoft: Two years ago, during a Jan. 17, 2017 discussion with Charlie Rose, Bill Gates said he spends "15 percent" of his time managing Microsoft. I interpreted that to mean that Gates is still extremely involved and very influential. Did Gates want the mess that is Windows 10?

From the transcript at that Charlie Rose web page:

08:42
"Bill Gates: I'm there about 15 percent of the time. And I get to work just on the R and D part, brainstorming with people, thinking, OK, how are we going to take this artificial intelligence and make it understand, help you use your time better. It's a very exciting time in software. There's five companies that are, you know, in a really strong position. Microsoft is leading in some really cool stuff so --"

It seems obvious that Bill Gates still has a huge amount of overall influence on the management of Microsoft, even if he mostly focuses on other subjects.

Lately, Windows users are not allowed to know what Windows updates actually do. In the past, for example, users were pushed to Windows 10, without giving their permission. So, now Windows 7 customers will be paying for updates that may be abusive.

Some of the many stories about Windows 10 indicate deliberate abuse of customers:

Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." (Aug. 4, 2015)

Microsoft's Intolerable Windows 10 Aggression (May 27, 2016)

Microsoft is infesting Windows 10 with annoying ads (March 17, 2017)

Microsoft, stop sabotaging Windows 10. (March 21, 2017)

Two years ago, during a Jan. 17, 2017 discussion with Charlie Rose, Bill Gates said he spends "15 percent" of his time managing Microsoft. I interpreted that to mean that Gates is still extremely involved and very influential. Did Gates want the mess that is Windows 10?

From the transcript at that Charlie Rose web page:

08:42
"Bill Gates: I'm there about 15 percent of the time. And I get to work just on the R and D part, brainstorming with people, thinking, OK, how are we going to take this artificial intelligence and make it understand, help you use your time better. It's a very exciting time in software. There's five companies that are, you know, in a really strong position. Microsoft is leading in some really cool stuff so --"

It seems obvious that Bill Gates still has a huge amount of overall influence on the management of Microsoft, even if he mostly focuses on other subjects.

Some of the many stories about Windows 10:

Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." (Aug. 4, 2015)

Microsoft's Intolerable Windows 10 Aggression (May 27, 2016)

Microsoft is infesting Windows 10 with annoying ads (March 17, 2017)

Microsoft, stop sabotaging Windows 10. (March 21, 2017)

Ugly problem: Billionaires must spend time deciding what to do with their money.

Who has a better life? A surfer who pays his parents $500 per month to live in their basement, or a billionaire? A serious investigation of all the associated details may sometimes indicate that the surfer has a better life.

Maybe the surfer is not doing anything that is destructive to other people.

Bill Gates said he still manages Microsoft: "I'm there about 15 percent of the time." Even though he is rich, Bill Gates spends his time managing a company that took advantage of technical limits (People can't change operating systems easily.) to abuse people.

Examples of abuse by Microsoft and Bill Gates:

Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC."

7 ways Windows 10 pushes ads at you.

Microsoft again forced upgrades on Win10 machines specifically set to block updates (March 12, 2018)

Abusing people is a really, really ugly life.

This is not correct: You said, "The open source community often would talk about the Bill Gates/Ballmer era tactic of embrace, extend, extinguish, and that's all well and good but neither of those people work at the company now."

Bill Gates said he still manages Microsoft: "I'm there about 15 percent of the time."

Microsoft has become EVEN MORE extremely abusive, in my opinion, and the opinion of many others. Two of many, many examples:

Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC."

7 ways Windows 10 pushes ads at you.

Microsoft again forced upgrades on Win10 machines specifically set to block updates (March 12, 2018)

One day there was noise in my kitchen. I went there and saw Bill Gates eating my ice cream. I asked him why he thought it was okay to do that. He said permission to eat my food was on page 89 of the Windows 10 license agreement.

I asked him why a billionaire would want to eat someone else's ice cream. He said it gives him a feeling of superiority.

Also, he said that there is a competition among billionaires to see who can be the most abusive. He still manages Microsoft: "I'm there about 15 percent of the time." The result: Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made.

Bill Gates said that Windows 10 spying, putting ads on Windows, making the Windows user interface far worse, forcing updates that are often buggy, and hiding the purpose of the updates makes him confident that he is more abusive than Google and Facebook.

Microsoft's history is filled with abuse:

One fact about Microsoft under Satya Nadella gives a useful overall view. Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." Nadella has been CEO of Microsoft since 2014.

The management of Microsoft by Satya Nadella seems, to me and many others, UTTERLY incompetent: CNET Editor Rails Against Non-Consensual Windows Updates.

Possibly Satya Nadella was chosen as CEO of Microsoft partly because he was the least socially annoying manager.

Microsoft has a long history of being abusive to everyone, not just customers. Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book.

Ballmer was worse?

Satya Nadella is apparently not as destructive as Steve Ballmer. Ballmer was rated the worst CEO in the United States.

Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today." Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)

Bill Gates still manages Microsoft:

See the Jan. 27, 2017 Charlie Rose TV interview, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Quoting from the transcript:

08:40 Charlie Rose: How much time do you spend at Microsoft?

08:42 Bill Gates: I'm there about 15 percent of the time. And I get to work just on the R and D part.

Part of "R and D" at Microsoft is Windows 10 putting ads on screens while people are in their offices trying to work. The Microsoft managers who participated in that are amazingly lacking in social ability, in my opinion.

Microsoft's primary location, Seattle, is a miserable place:

Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

Google is also badly managed.

To me, the management of Google seems less and less competent. Wikipedia says Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google was given that position in October 24, 2015. The reorganization of Google into Alphabet was completed on October 2,

Microsoft's history is filled with abuse:

One fact about Microsoft under Satya Nadella gives a useful overall view. Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." Nadella has been CEO of Microsoft since 2014.

The management of Microsoft by Satya Nadella seems, to me and many others, UTTERLY incompetent: CNET Editor Rails Against Non-Consensual Windows Updates.

Possibly Satya Nadella was chosen as CEO of Microsoft partly because he was the least socially annoying manager.

Microsoft has a long history of being abusive to everyone, not just customers. Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book.

Ballmer was worse?

Satya Nadella is apparently not as destructive as Steve Ballmer. Ballmer was rated the worst CEO in the United States.

Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today." Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)

Bill Gates still manages Microsoft:

See the Jan. 27, 2017 Charlie Rose TV interview, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Quoting from the transcript:

08:40 Charlie Rose: How much time do you spend at Microsoft?

08:42 Bill Gates: I'm there about 15 percent of the time. And I get to work just on the R and D part.

Part of "R and D" at Microsoft is Windows 10 putting ads on screens while people are in their offices trying to work. The Microsoft managers who participated in that are amazingly lacking in social ability, in my opinion.

Microsoft's primary location, Seattle, is a miserable place:

Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

Google is also badly managed.

To me, the management of Google seems less and less competent. Wikipedia says Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google was given that position in October 24, 2015. The reorganization of Google into Alphabet was completed on October 2,

See the Jan. 27, 2017 Charlie Rose TV interview, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Quoting from the transcript:

08:40 Charlie Rose: How much time do you spend at Microsoft?

08:42 Bill Gates: I'm there about 15 percent of the time. And I get to work just on the R and D part.

Part of "R and D" at Microsoft is Windows 10 putting ads on screens while people are in their offices trying to work. The Microsoft managers who participated in that are amazingly lacking in social ability, in my opinion.

See the Jan. 27, 2017 Charlie Rose TV interview, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Quoting from the transcript:

08:40 Charlie Rose: How much time do you spend at Microsoft?

08:42 Bill Gates: I'm there about 15 percent of the time. And I get to work just on the R and D part.

Part of "R and D" at Microsoft is Windows 10 putting ads on screens while people are in their offices trying to work. The Microsoft managers who participated in that are amazingly lacking in social ability, in my opinion.

who all responded, "Windows has a phone?"

 
Hey, I have one! Granted, I don't use it anymore since I have an iPhone, much as I detest iOS. Why an iPhone? The obvious, the apps. However, you might want to watch this interview with Dag Kittlaus on Charlie Rose during which he discusses the limitations of apps. Wading through even a small collection of apps on your phone is pretty archaic give the potential of even limited context awareness / AI, especially considering the fact that phones are always connected to the Big Sky Brain. Eventually Cortana / OK Google / Siri will be the platform, not the phone + apps. That's probably why Microsoft stays in the handset game. Cortana v. Sirir or OK Google is a better competitive position for Microsoft than the phone + an app store. If that's all there was in the future, the Microsoft board probably would have killed off the phone by now, and maybe never even bought Nokia in the first place.

Why do people don't get this more? The NSA/Military are (for the most part) carrying out the policies and directives set by their civilian over-seers.

Michael Hayden actually expressed this very clearly:

Former NSA Director Michael Hayden exemplifies this in a quote from late July: âoeGive me the box you will allow me to operate in. Iâ(TM)m going to play to the very edges of that box.â

I also find it interesting to know that Bob Lutz is an AGW denier, yet as a "car guy" really got behind this one and almost forced GM to get in the game. He's pretty impressed with Musk in this Charlie Rose interview - and so am I. This *was* the link which no longer works, at least if you have adblock, perhaps: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11984
.

But I'm also the type of car buyer that no-way will set down a significant chunk of cash and then hope the company makes the car I ordered the right way, and without going out of business, and by the time I need it. That's Tesla's weak point right now, everything else looks peachy. Yeah, they're expensive. Find another car as nice that isn't - as Elon himself said, I realize there's no shortage of exotic-expensive cars for rich guys, that's not the point - the point is, he has to sell those first expensive ones to make enough money to stay in business so as to make the ones we normal people can afford - looks like a good plan so far.
It's just that I, like many, know that there are actual and not always subtle differences between say, cars, or guitars - play or drive 3-4 supposedly identical ones if you don't believe that - and so I don't tend to order stuff like that - I gotta touch it first, the one I'm going to get.

That's a good point.

There's been a whole lot of good research done on the mechanisms of addiction, how brain chemistry is changed.. a lot of data suggests (common sense) that if you change your environment, it's easier to break patterns. Charle Rose had a really good series on the brain where this was discussed..

I _think_ this one is it: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10974 - the whole series is great though.

It'd be really interesting if they used some modern techniques to figure out what was going on.. like monitoring differences in brain activity in the different regions..

The full transcript of the interview is here. She never said a thing about body scanners on trains or transit, nor was she asked. She merely said that "we have to be thinking" about surface transportation security. You can read into that whatever you want, but the headline implies a comment that she simply did not make.

Yes, if everything was just this black and white.. If everything was binary and there was a simple cause for every single reaction.

The loans didn't need to be covered by the CRA, the CRA pressured Fannie and Fredie to purchase subprimes as a means to fund the CRA loans it covered. Whatch this for a little more about it.

PS, This isn't really a one sides you can blame a single person or party issue. There is a lot of blame that built up to a failing point which can be passed around.

So I found the interview and I don't hear him admit to left leaning bias.
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9019
In fact he said the opposite, that the network used to focus on serious news and now focuses too much on opinion pieces and lighter news segments for more appeal.

I always found a lot more "spiritual beauty" in masses of a pre-Vatican II nature myself--no audience participation, the whole thing in Latin, etc. On the whole, however, I prefer Symphony tickets. When you're down to defending the existence of religion based on its value as an art form, you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. If people were only in religion for the "spiritual beauty," it wouldn't be such a problem.

I have found this interview with Daniel Dennett interesting. Unfortunately Charlie Rose was on vacation at the time, and instead Bill Moyers repeatedly bombards Dennett with inane questions. Moyers illogically tries to make an argument for theism on the basis that people universally appreciate the "spiritual beauty" of (Catholic) cathedrals, and Dennett makes the hilarious rejoinder that he found Aztec temples quite moving as well. If only it weren't for all that human sacrifice...Dennett nevertheless attempts general apology for religion--in a futile attempt to appear non-threatening to the mainstream audience, I think--on the grounds that it gives people purpose, and mobilizes large groups in a way that secular institutions never do.

That's the best he can do, and it isn't even a particularly good argument. You know what secular phenomenon similarly mobilizes large groups of people? Nationalism. If people aren't convinced by rational arguments, I would argue that it is probably not a good idea to mobilize them in the first place. Science has shown that people aren't particularly good rational decision makers, but it doesn't follow that decisions made on an irrational basis are superior. "A social glue that can be perfectly benevolent," you say. Well, I could say the same about radical jingoism, but I don't see anyone around here advocating that.

There is a difference between tolerating religion, and respecting it. If one's religion has any meaning at all, it has to influence one's worldview. The moment this leads to justifying a position because [God said so], rationality has been abandoned. "Respecting" that is a violation of your scientific worldview; you are implicitly condoning the very worst sort of argument to authority. If all such positions can be and are justified on other grounds, however, then why bother with the religion in the first place? It's superfluous cognitive dissonance.

but I've yet to find any that actually show evidence of vote-rigging.

Well, on Charlie Rose, Hooman Majd indicated that his own relatives witnessed polling stations that ran out of ballots early on during the election, were only resupplied much later in the day, and then the results were announced just hours later. It is, at best, highly suspicious, and he questions whether large numbers of ballots were ever counted at all.

I'd like to make a safe bet that this research lab is going to be used exclusively to butter up Congress with tours for more bailout money.

I suspect that, myself. GM already had at least one battery research facility; Charlie Rose was taken on a tour of it, LAST YEAR.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9226 (Part 1, or maybe it was in Part 2)

Yes, the Nuremburg trials wer just "victor's justice". Regardless of the criminality of the defendants, when translators are allowed to intentionally mistranslate and make fun of defendants, you are dealing with a kangaroo court.

>>Well yeah, but the way the book is described, it sounds a lot to me like a way to excuse not trying at all. "Oh, I'm never going to get my 10,000 hours in because I don't have the good fortune of having a good computer terminal and the societal situation where my skills will be needed."

Actually, Gladwell says just that in an interview with Charlie Rose.
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9855

He surmises that the reason really smart people (people with high IQs) don't do noticeably better than merely smart people (IQs around 120) is that they know how much work it'll take, and choose to not do it. He says they are noticeably happier than the general population, so maybe that's the key.

I finished Outliers last week, and came away with it with the same impression that I get from all of Gladwell's books, which is that it's half insightful, half complete nonsense.

For example, his central thesis is that our heroic model isn't accurate, that Bill Joy and Gates are more the product of their times than anything having to do with their own skills, and that they just happened to be given the necessary 10,000 hours of training before anyone else had access to them, and since they were born at the right time to capitalize on the digital revolution, that's why they're successful.

Personally, I'd flip it around. I'd say, "Sure, training, skill, being born at the right time, and luck in general, are all critical elements of success. But why was it that Joy and Gates became the 'successful' people, when their compatriots, who also had the 10,000 hours of training, early access to computer systems, and were bright and ambitious, did not?"

In other words, Gladwell goes too far in destroying the idea of individual effort in becoming 'successful'. While we might often fail to consider the environment that produced these people, we also have to realize (which Gladwell doesn't) that these guys weren't, by any means, unique in their backgrounds.

I also take some exception with his notion of success, which is to use wealth as a sort of scorecard. I take Benjamin Franklin's point of view on money, which is to say that it's important up to a certain point, and relatively unimportant after that. If you have enough money to do whatever it is you want to do, that's all the money you really need. It's served me pretty well.

Perhaps Gladwell should have dug down a little more on those high IQ people that are "failures" (in the sense that they didn't go out and win Nobels at a significantly higher rate) and figured out why they are indeed happier than the general population, since, in my mind, that is the primary indicator of success.

For anyone interested, Jeff Bezos is scheduled to appear tonight on Charlie Rose on your local PBS station.

No doubt, he'll spend most of his time talking about Kindle.

I guess it's this one you're talking about: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9875

I haven't watched it start to finish, but Charlie Rose talks about an interview with Bill Gates [a few weeks ago]. Assuming no hash collisions...

No one actually cares about the truth here, any of the issues at play, nor the legality of any programs. Most make it a huge political issue, and is it any surprise that even the "leakers" have all had a political axe to grind with the Bush administration?

They just scream "unconstitutional" and rant about Bush, when the very mechanisms set up in our society to render legal opinions on actions of various components of government and to rule on issues of legality or constitutionality have judged certain things to be legal.

The issue is summed up fairly well by comments of DNI Mike McConnell (video) at Harvard's Kennedy School:

And I'll fast forward to a period of Watergate, when the community was used to do a lot of intrusive observation. Out of that came a bill called FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Here was the dilemma. We need this large, robust, wonderful capability to protect us in the context of the Cold War, but we can't allow it to conduct any observation of U.S. citizens. And our wonderful democracy, we want it both ways. Don't let anybody bother us, make sure we're safe, but don't do anything to look at anything that might reflect my activity.

So the law in 1978 said okay to observe foreign, but if you observe anything in the United States, U.S. person for a foreign intelligence purpose, you must have a warrant. That was the law of the land, but it was an analog law. Where we found ourselves most recently is it's one global network. And so communications overseas by foreigners - terrorists plotting to attack the United States - those communications were passing through the United States. If you go back to the old analog law, it said if you take information from a wire, even though it's a glass pipe called fiber on a wire in the United States, you must have a warrant. So the dilemma for us was we had a terrorist overseas plotting to attack us by speaking with a terrorist in another overseas location and the community was required to get a warrant.

The debate and the dilemma for us is how do you modernize that law for the modern age? And we debated. For two years we debated and we finally came to closure. The good news is when it was finally voted, two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate voted for it and here's what it says today: if it's a U.S. person anywhere in the globe, you must have a warrant. A judge must grant you to conduct surveillance and the purpose of the surveillance can only be for one thing, foreign intelligence. Now, why would you do surveillance of a U.S. person for foreign surveillance? What if it's a spy that's been recruited by a foreign agent and you need to know what they're giving away? You would then have a warrant for surveillance of that person for a foreign intelligence purpose.

The other part of the law is no warrant for a foreign target regardless of where or how you intercept it. And the third part of the law was in today's world it's digital, it's global - you can't do it without the help of the private sector and so the private sector was authorized to give us that help and provided a level of liability protection.

That's the kind of dilemma that we face in making sure we balance our responsibilities for conducting surveillance of foreign targets that might wish us harm and respecting the civil liberties and privacy of American citizens.

...and again in comments on Charlie Rose (video):

CHARLIE ROSE: Okay, wire tapping is necessary and it's okay without a warrant because? In your judgment.

DIRECTOR McCONNELL: Wire tapping is essential. It is now probably more than half of

You have stated a lot of unsupported opinions as if they are facts. Your are materially wrong on at least one of them:

2) On a similar note, if Byrne was aware of this "Sith Lord" who was apparently trying to bring down the global economy, what is his justification for keeping that information a secret instead of taking a concrete step to avert this crisis?

Byrne appeared on the Charlie Rose Program on PBS in March 2005 and talked, among other things, about manipulation of the stock price of Overstock: http://www.charlierose.com/guests/patrick-byrne

This does not count as keeping that information a secret. I saw this when it was broadcast and I remembered thinking that it was a really strange story. Yes, he didn't name anyone, but without hard proof it would be irresponsible to make that kind of a charge on national television.

I have no idea if Byrne is a nut or not, or if he is a competent business person, but it is clear that someone was skewing information about his company. Your attack could be an echo of this effort.

You should listen to a recent interview of Wendy Kopp (founder of Teach for America) by Charlie Rose. She cites a recent Gallop poll that says essentially what you've said, that parents are largely responsible for the poor performance of America's schools. However when she gives the same poll to young teachers (who were at the very top of the class in some of the best schools in the country) finishing up their time with Teach for America, they all say the same thing - the problem is centered around poor teachers and poor leadership at the local level. She then talks about several schools that against all other odds turn out extraordinary kids because they are run by talented and dedicated teams of teachers with real leadership. Her point is that the problem is really not the kids or the parents, it is with schools and the problems are local, which may be difficult to address from the federal level.

Lovins stated that nuclear power isn't that cost effective. If it were, the nuclear industry would have easily built more plants. Regulation isn't that big of a blocker. He didn't give any hard numbers and I have never seen them myself, but an interesting point of view, never the less.

I personally think the environmental excuse is just that: an excuse. The industry folks want to say something better than - we can't make enough money off of it - not PC.

The same goes for oil refineries. Refineries haven't had to work at full capacity, but the AM radio guys love to blame the "environmentalist whackjobs" for our gas prices.

Its still more than you get on the Discovery Channel anymore...

Which ain't much. The closest I've ever come to being informed was watching hour-long interviews on The Charlie Rose Show on PBS.

A random sampling of guests include Dr. Paul Nurse and Dr. James Watson, E.O. Wilson, Jane Goodall, Carl Sagan, Noam Chomsky, and Linus Torvalds. Many of them have appeared multiple times.

Natalie Portman is in there too, but I'm not sure how scientific an interview with her could be.

Its still more than you get on the Discovery Channel anymore...

Which ain't much. The closest I've ever come to being informed was watching hour-long interviews on The Charlie Rose Show on PBS.

A random sampling of guests include Dr. Paul Nurse and Dr. James Watson, E.O. Wilson, Jane Goodall, Carl Sagan, Noam Chomsky, and Linus Torvalds. Many of them have appeared multiple times.

Natalie Portman is in there too, but I'm not sure how scientific an interview with her could be.

Its still more than you get on the Discovery Channel anymore...

Which ain't much. The closest I've ever come to being informed was watching hour-long interviews on The Charlie Rose Show on PBS.

A random sampling of guests include Dr. Paul Nurse and Dr. James Watson, E.O. Wilson, Jane Goodall, Carl Sagan, Noam Chomsky, and Linus Torvalds. Many of them have appeared multiple times.

Natalie Portman is in there too, but I'm not sure how scientific an interview with her could be.

Its still more than you get on the Discovery Channel anymore...

Which ain't much. The closest I've ever come to being informed was watching hour-long interviews on The Charlie Rose Show on PBS.

A random sampling of guests include Dr. Paul Nurse and Dr. James Watson, E.O. Wilson, Jane Goodall, Carl Sagan, Noam Chomsky, and Linus Torvalds. Many of them have appeared multiple times.

Natalie Portman is in there too, but I'm not sure how scientific an interview with her could be.

Its still more than you get on the Discovery Channel anymore...

Which ain't much. The closest I've ever come to being informed was watching hour-long interviews on The Charlie Rose Show on PBS.

A random sampling of guests include Dr. Paul Nurse and Dr. James Watson, E.O. Wilson, Jane Goodall, Carl Sagan, Noam Chomsky, and Linus Torvalds. Many of them have appeared multiple times.

Natalie Portman is in there too, but I'm not sure how scientific an interview with her could be.

Its still more than you get on the Discovery Channel anymore...

Which ain't much. The closest I've ever come to being informed was watching hour-long interviews on The Charlie Rose Show on PBS.

A random sampling of guests include Dr. Paul Nurse and Dr. James Watson, E.O. Wilson, Jane Goodall, Carl Sagan, Noam Chomsky, and Linus Torvalds. Many of them have appeared multiple times.

Natalie Portman is in there too, but I'm not sure how scientific an interview with her could be.

In defense of network TV, Fox's "Terminator, Sarah Connors Chronicles" is actually pretty decent so far. Its the only network show I go out of my way to watch. I liked the new Battlestar Galactica early on but it faded fast. I like some of the things on History channel, Discover and the military channel but thats because I like history and facts over the bad fiction and reality shows which dominate the networks.

For good conversation PBS's Charlie Rose is hands down the best for thought provoking and informative, though it varies with the guest. Its entirely available on the web at www.charlierose.com

Bottom line is its not about the medium any more. Its all about whether people are producing interesting content whatever the medium. Big TV and record companies have enormous problems because their one and only motivation is to make a buck, and great artists have an enormous problem producing great art from within that kind of system. Their system worked when their were 3 network channels because people watched it whether it was good or bad because there weren't many other options in the old days. Now there are a whole lot of options.

For recreation I would rather play interactive games were I'm doing something and effecting the outcome instead of being a spoon fed vegie.

Here's an excerpt from Paul Simon's interview on Charlie Rose recently on his view of the evolution of the album as a form. The whole hour is definitely interesting viewing.

Paul Simon: I'm not heading towards an album, I don't know that I would make another album, the whole record business, as you know, is completely... it imploded and it's reforming in another way, and the idea of making a CD with...10 or 12 or 13 songs is..that may be an idea that's passed.

Charlie Rose: Because it's all MP3, it's all online?

PS: Well, when you put your iPod on shuffle, it does something to the way we listen, and then it becomes much harder to listen to one artist doing 11 new songs. The attention span has been shifted by that, in the same way our attention span is being shortened everywhere else, it's also been shortened there, and that may mean the end of that as a form. The CD, which came from the album, but what you do lose out of that is, it was a very nice form. Artists like to think of writing for a whole piece, it was enjoyable.

When it was vinyl albums and there was a Side A and a Side B, it really worked. I think that's because then one side was 20 minutes, 22 minutes, that's all it could hold, and then you stopped. That's a great attention span, 22 minutes. Then if you liked it you went on and flipped it over, played the other 22 minutes. When it got to the CD, that expanded to like 65, 70 minutes that you could contain on a CD, that's longer than your English class and y'know your attention span is not gonna go that long.

"support the person we wanted to take control of post-war Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi."

Charlie Rose had an interview recently with 3 Iraqi journalists, all of whom are currently in the U.S. studying Journalism, or really escaping the oppressive violence and smoldering pit that is their homeland thanks to George W, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Rummy and Wolfy.

One of them spelled it out, pretty much all the Iraqi exiles who swept in to take over Iraq after the invasion are viewed as "thieves" by the Iraqi people. Chalabi is at the top of the list since he is still under indictment in Jordan for a gigantic bank fraud.

One of facts about Iraq a lot of people seem to gloss over is there is a gigantic pool of oil riches in that country and the people who gain control over the government can enrich themselves and their friends with that control. EVERYONE jockeying for control there, Iraqi and American alike, is angling for control over its oil wealth because they know if they get it they will end up like Saudi princes. This simple reason is why the Shia have zero incentive to pass legislation to equitably share the oil wealth with Kurds and Sunnis and without that there is ALWAYS going to be a civil war there. I'm not sure you will every strike a deal everyone will consider fair.

A recent report suggests large quantities of Iraq's oil is disappearing in to the black market to enrich the people who have gained control over the wells or pipelines, who are mostly Shia in the South and Kurds in the north (though its also possible oil production is also being exaggerated).

I'm not really sure Iraq will ever find peace as long as there is oil wealth to fight over. The fight for control of oil is a source of strife everyplace it is found today. The original Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was for control of oil, and I'm not sure the corrupt Emir of Kuwait has any more right to control it than Saddam did. The genocide in Darfur is largely over the oil fields there. A key element in the coup attempt in Venezuela was over oil fields which were recently nationalized. In Russia a bunch of kleptocrats suckered Yeltsin in to giving them control of the oil and gas fields and they got rich, Putin threw the ring leader in jail and seized control of the oil for himself and his dictatorial government. The Saudi royal family rules Saudi Arabia with an iron fist to insure they get the lions share of the oil riches. Not much chance of real Democracy in Saudi Arabia because the Saudi royal family wouldn't get most of the oil revenue in a real Democracy. Iran is in the mess its in after an American backed coup threw out a popular leader who nationalized the oil fields at Britain's expense. The U.S. installed the Shah as dictator who gave U.S. companies control over the oil fields to Britain's dismay. The Shah was so hated he was overthrown in favor of the Ayatollah so there is a repressive theocracy there that hates the U.S. to this day as a result. Its kind of routine in countries on the west coast of Africa with oil wealth for the people in power to pocket much of the oil wealth while most of their countrymen starve.

Not sure you will find Peace in Iraq until you just partition the country, let the ethnic cleansing finish, and let each of the three factions control their own oil fields. The Sunnis were the odd man out but recent oil discoveries in their base in Anbar province suggest all three groups could have their own oil fields. The down side to this is Turkey will probably never tolerate an independent Kurdistan waging a guerrilla war to try to seize the Kurdish regions of Turkey.

Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present There's also his Charlie Rose interview on Google video.

" and that's where the big ad money is"

Well its also extremely badly targeted as in most people don't want to see most of the ads they are bombarded with. Google's ad model is better because it targets the interests of the person looking at them. Internet video could likewise target their audience much better than broadcast can. I for example never buy prescription drugs unless a doctor makes me. I have ZERO desire to be bombarded with drug company ads and in fact find it offensive to sell serious prescription drugs with serious side effect potential like soap, to create demand for them where there is often not need.

Not sure ads are really the only revenue model for Internet video. Google and others are charging a dollar or two to get video on demand, in many cases without ads. I've switched over to watching the Charlie Rose show exclusively through Google video, though granted when its free the day following its first airing on PBS. Charlie Rose is the best show around for intelligent talk. RocketBoom is also doing pretty well though I haven't watched it long enough to be sure its any good. Its kind of an exercise in an attractive blond talking head offering an alternative to conventional news broadcasts.

Relatively affluent people will in fact probably pay small amounts to get shows they like, easily, that they can watch when they want, where they want(on handhelds on a subway or in a carpool) and free of the curse of ads, or at least get targeted ads.

If you can reach a point where a large number of viewers can pay a small amount of money to support content that is interesting to them you could break down the horrors of network programming and TV being dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. TechTV is the best example I can think of programming most geeks loved but wasn't commercially viable in the broadcast model. It might be viable if a half million geeks were willing to pay a buck or two a week to support some of its better shows like Leo Laporte's.

"Good luck paying for all your high-speed bandwidth and priority handling"

Cringely had kind of interesting take on some of this last Friday. He was giving a talk to all the PBS affiliates and he proposed they each put a video server in their local telephone and cable office and target their local markets with video on demand that is cached closer to the viewer. His contention is there is a lot more bandwidth available between the phone and cable company office and homes, than there is between the phone and cable office and the Internet. In this caching model you would only go out over the Internet once to cache the video someone wants. Subsequent viewers would get it faster and without creating the bandwidth crunch on the wider Internet. Its kind of an Akamai caching scheme but geared towards video and much more local.

The biggest flaw in Cringely's pitch was his naivete that the PBS affiliates could just go talk to some guy in the local phone or cable office and drop a non profit video server there. Needless to say the big telephone and cable companies aren't going to just adopt non profit PBS video server, they are going to want their cut, but the idea is still a good one if you could work out a business model the broadband providers would like. It would be a lot better solution than tiering the internet, since the video bandwidth crunch is the rationale companies like BellSouth are proposing for destroying net neutrality.

I recall another Cringely article a while back about a guy who was making a business out of video servers for big apartment complexes I think where he would for example cache every copy of Star Trek on a local server so it was always available to the tenants. I think there is some way to do this which is or at least was legal. At the rate disk capacity is growing you really can cache a lot of video in a local server, maybe we will reach a point you cache more and faster than quality new content is being created that is worth caching.

Unfortunately, the Charlie Rose show charges $30 for a copy of the show on which Mitchell Baker appeared.

Transcripts are cheaper, but the Charlie Rose show does not guarantee the accuracy of its transcripts.

Lucas appeared in an hour-long interview with Charley Rose a few days ago. I'm not a fan of the Star Wars saga, but the interview was interesting enough. He made the comment that one of the reasons he took so long to make the Star Wars movies (and also why he had made so few movies in his career as compared with other directors) was simply that he enjoyed spending time raising his kids, more so than making movies.

Given his demeanor in the interview when he made the above comment, and the fact that he's now 60, it seems unlikely he'll be taking on new projects of any sort.

Responding to your sig: The worst Democrat is better at jobs and growth than the best Republican.

Here's another possible sig: Government data shows Republicans are corrupt.

I've done some research and provided links to reviews of 3 movies and 35 books saying that the Bush administration is corrupt: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

On Monday on the Charlie Rose show, author Graydon Carter was talking about his book, What We've Lost. He said something like, "I thought I knew a tenth of extent of the corruption of the Bush administration, but I found that I knew a thousandth." That's my experience, too. I believe that I have a reasonable overview of the corruption, and I discover a new pocket of detail that shows that it is much worse than I thought.

The most shocking thing I've learned in trying to tell people about my research is that perhaps one U.S. citizen in twenty has any idea of the extent of the corruption.

You know, I had one person tell me on a talk show, "You know, I just quit watching news," and I'm thinking, "That's really--that's a shame." Pick up the phone. E-mail, pick up the phone, call the network or call the news station and say, "I disagree." If only one person does it, it's not gonna make a difference. I pick up the phone constantly and call my local stations and say, "Why on earth did you just do that?" But if you do get a lot of people who are complaining, who say, "This is not the quality of news we need"--if it becomes a movement and if people realize that it's patriotic to speak out this way--this is true patriotism. Let's demand something that our Constitution protects for us. Let's demand it. And so pick up the phone, write letters, you know, write e-mails, and just say, "We want news that is far more directed towards everybody in this country and that's honest and truly fair."

How about it? Let's slashdot bad news agencies!

I totally agree with you. I only watch British Comedy and Charlie Rose. Most of the CR interviews can be found as Online audio, I will suggest anyone sample a few of them.

I totally agree with you. I only watch British Comedy and Charlie Rose. Most of the CR interviews can be found as Online audio, I will suggest anyone sample a few of them.

I have made a suggestion to Charlie Rose the excellent PBS talk host to maybe invite Scott Atran to discuss his findings.

Well who knows. I think it is important to try and shape the debate in a different direction, however little the impact.

They love to read; they spend time with friends; they do all sorts of stuff. So I swear by this: Television is a waste of time.

Get off your damn high horse. Television has plenty of crap on it, but that doesn't mean the medium sucks. There's plenty of crap published in book format too. People who argue this 'television sucks' focus on the crap and ignore the quality stuff out there.

It is akin to saying 'CDs suck' because the local Wherehouse music has a rack full of NSync. If you are unhappy with the programs you watch, find better programs. There are plenty of good, entertaining, moving, educational shows on television.

Crappy TV rots brains about the same amount as crappy romance novels, or teeny bopper pop, or Gigli. Don't identify the medium with only its dregs.

-Ted

Keanu is on Charlie Rose tonight (assuming you have tv and pbs station, but the show will be archived in Real I think)--saw a clip and I swear to God he's like talking about his [Neo's] awakening like its the Heart Sutra or something--Fishburne wants to see it in mythic heroic terms, but Keanu is like insisting on an enlightened reading. And like he glows when he says "Love" like he really enjoys being messianic--kind of embarrassing, good thing Fishburne is there.

Aside, all are of the actors reading from the same script? What if WB gave each actor a completely different reading list? Mmmm, postmodernism.

Back to this love business, it occurs to me the christians will see Love in the Matrix as Good News. Good for them. It's not like its bad news. But the Monitor seriously misrepresented Buddhism on this. It's kinda true that ignorance is the root of all suffering according to Buddhists, but not if you mistake Buddhist awareness for a state of mind. Mind is clutter, self-serving. Perfect wisdom is not divorced from compassion.