Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

Mic Berman of Mozilla is looking for people to work with Mozilla, specifically on creating Canadian and French Canadian versions.

I use Mozilla products every day and couldn't get along without them. Think of this as your chance to change the world.

For the next week I'll be guest-blogging over at the Communitech Blog, as soon as we can get some technical details ironed out. Communitech, the Waterloo Region Technology Association has put together Entrepreneur Week, a full week of events geared to helping folks get started creating their own companies.

My first event will be BarCampWaterloo on Saturday, and several StartupCamp events will walk you through the startup process including getting an idea, figuring out how to pay the bills, avoiding dumb sales and marketing mistakes, and other things you haven't even imagined yet.

If you think you've got what it takes, or even if you'd just like to know what it takes, get to as many events as you possibly can. You can check out the calendar here. And if you see me, stop by and say hello.

Okay, not as a candidate.

Last night I acted as moderator for an All Candidates debate for candidates in the upcoming Ontario provincial election. Though there was some theatrics at a similar debate earlier in the week, this time the full slate of eight candidates kept their differences in check and graciously answered my questions.

I had a great time, and I might have even learned something.

The Canadian and the U.S. dollars may be at parity right now, but that didn't change the fact that my local bookstore was charging $25 for a book with a U.S. list price of $19.95.

And it isn't just books; cars are tremendously more expensive in Canada. In fact, as the New York Times notes, even with the dollar equal, products are priced about 24% higher in Canada:

A report released Thursday by BMO Nesbitt Burns, a unit of the Bank of Montreal, estimates that products are priced 24 percent higher in Canada than in the United States despite the Canadian dollar’s steady five-year march to parity with the United States dollar.

I also note that even as the currency rose in value, the price of gas hasn't changed a bit.Of course Canadians are just used to it:

During the three-decade slump from which the Canadian dollar just rebounded, Canadians became accustomed to paying more.

I never thought I would see a New York Times article critical of climate change, but Joe Nocera's Talking Business column on Saturday actually did it. In discussing a petition to the Securities and Exchange Commission to force companies to disclose their "climate change risk" in their statements, he had this comment:

I realize that many of you have just put down your morning coffee in order to nod your head in approval. But I would ask you, please, hold the applause. Putting aside the fact that both the Ceres petition and the Cuomo subpoenas are feats primarily of environmental grandstanding, the real problem is that these measures, appealing though they may seem at first glance, are misleading and disingenuous. To put it more bluntly, they are an attempt to use regulation and litigation to force companies to toe the environmentist party line on global warming, and to change corporate business models in ways that are more pleasing to the environmental community. It’s environmental tyranny disguised as public policy.

He explains the potential outcome:

And why is he doing this? For the same purpose that Mr. Spitzer used the Blodget e-mail: to force an industry to change its behavior. See, once he has the messages in hand, he can brandish them before the court of public opinion to “prove” that Peabody Energy is hiding the truth about the risks inherent in building coal fired plants. Of course, at least part of the risk facing Peabody Energy is the risk of being sued by environmentalists — who will use Mr. Cuomo’s “evidence” to do just that. It’s lovely the way this works, isn’t it? You investigate them for not disclosing risk, even as you’re creating the risk through your investigation.

And he points out the reasoning behind this:

In the end, both the Ceres and Cuomo efforts are little more than sideshows — but telling ones nonetheless. They presume that all right-thinking people should believe what they believe about global warming — and that therefore public policy can be built around those presumptions. They assume that the big, bad corporations must be brought to heel even as the rest of us continue to buy our S.U.V.’s and sixth iPod.

Finally, a shred of reality.

And he asks a favorite question of mine:

Question for William Safire: why did the phrase “global warming” morph into “climate change?” Just wondering.

I'm pretty sure that I know the answer to that one.All too frequently global warming proponents have been faced with bothersome issues like falling temperatures and unfortunate things like snowstorms (see the Gore Effect). When you change to the term "climate change" you no longer have to deal with the pesky requirement to provide proof of warming. Suddenly everything - drought, snow, early frost, and the like - are all proof of your hypothesis.

As I mentioned a while ago, I've started a blog on personal development, aptly entitled Larry Borsato's Personal Development Blog. It will be chock full of the kind of tools that are helping me to define what I want to do next with my life.

I hope that you enjoy it and find the information useful. Apologies for the esthetically-challenged layout for now, but all things in good time. For nowjust the ideas are good.

Fresh from pulling their content from iTunes, NBC plans to make money by offering "free" downloads of its shows:

NBC Universal said yesterday that it would soon permit consumers to download many of NBC’s most popular programs free to personal computers and other devices for one week immediately after their broadcasts.

Of course for NBC, free has a somewhat different meaning:

But the files, which would be downloaded overnight to home computers, would contain commercials that viewers would not be able to skip through. And the file would not be transferable to a disk or to another computer.

The files would degrade after the seven-day period and be unwatchable. “Kind of like ‘Mission: Impossible,’ only I don’t think there would be any explosion and smoke,” Mr. Gaspin said.

The programs will initially be downloadable only to PCs with the Windows operating system, but NBC said it planned to make the service available to Mac computers and iPods later.

Now as a TiVouser I can watch NBC shows as often as I want without downloading them, and I can skip the commercials if I like. So can anybody with a DVR or video recorder of any kind, or even a PC if they choose. And I can move that video to my iPod if I like. It's wonderful that NBC is going to let me download shows to watch on my PC, with commercials of course, but I just can't imagine they would be stupid enough to pass up the revenue from iTunes sales.

The networks just don't get the concept of customer choice.

As Mark Evans notes, TimesSelect is now free:

It took awhile but the NYT finally got it that charging consumers to access certain parts of its online content isn’t economically viable.

Now I'm a New York Times subscriber, so this doesn't affect me at all. But this is what they told me in an email:

Since we launched TimesSelect, the Web has evolved into an increasingly open environment. Readers find more news in a greater number of places and interact with it in more meaningful ways. This decision enhances the free flow of New York Times reporting and analysis around the world. It will enable everyone, everywhere to read our news and opinion - as well as to share it, link to it and comment on it.

So in the past year or so, the web has evolved into an increasingly open environment? Was it closed before that?

Yes it is once again September 19th, which means it is "Talk Like a Pirate Day". So arrr matey, and shiver me timbers, and whatever else good (bad?) pirates say.

Three Pirates of the Caribbean movies and you thing that by now I'd know more pirate-speak than that.I see it is even being observed at Flickr this year, but seemingly not at Google.

When Google was starting out they didn't constant issue press releases about how much better they were than AltaVista. They just put themselves out there and people realized they were better. The rest is history.

Not so with Powerset, a natural language search engine. Given the fact that you can't even try their product yet, they seem to be in a state of perpetual hype, including their appearance today at the TechCrunch40. If you're seriously better guys, then stop telling me you are and show me.

Natural language searching sounds like a great idea, but the truth is that over half of searchers use one- or two-word queries, hardly the stuff of natural language. And Google does an admirable job when you type in a natural language query already.

Wanna be a Google-killer? Show me what you've got.

I'm always amazed when I'm watching a movie and the characters synchronize their watches, seemingly by pressing a single button.

My watches never seem to have that feature.

As long as I've used Facebook I've been bothered by the fact that your status must start with the word "is". While "is" may occasionally be appropriate, as in "Larry is watching tv", I may also want to use a different, and perhaps less passive verb.

Shouldn't I be allowed to do that? Why can't I create my own status line?

I guess I'm not alone, because there is now a Facebook group called "Campaign to lose the mandatory 'is' from status updates." Ah, the power of the internet to bring people together for a common cause when they are frustrated.

It's 10 am on Saturday morning and I've already received my first telemarketing call from a company that wanted to sell me new windows. My answer was a polite "I'm not interested."

Honestly, how many people get a call like that and think to themselves to make a spot decision to replace their windows? Though I'm sure that people with that problem already might be pushed over the edge.

If only Canada, like most other countries, had some form of "Do Not Call" registry so I wouldn't be bothered by these people. The only reason I bothered to answer the phone this morning is so it wouldn't wake up every one else.

I do not appreciate being bothered by telemarketers at any time.

Update: I've now had two telemarketing calls before 10:30 am.

Techdirt sums up why the "pay by usage" bandwidth model is bad:

However, the bigger problem is the transaction costs it introduces for users. Suddenly, internet surfers really need to see any particular website or service as being worthwhile. Just the act of making them debate whether or not it's worthwhile to pay up to do something represents a mental transaction cost that will slow down adoption of new services. Furthermore, as bandwidth has increased, many of the newer innovative services have come about to make use of that bandwidth -- which only drives further investment in more bandwidth, driving more innovative uses. It's a virtuous circle. Yet, by metering broadband connections, slowing down adoption of these new services, you slow down the innovation and hold people back from trying out or even creating new, innovative and useful services that would require more bandwidth. It's a recipe for slowing innovation online.

Just think of who benefits if a "pay per use" model is introduced. The phone companies make a lot more money/ For now anyway, until people just stop using high-bandwidth applications.

And Hollywood and the record companies would be incredibly happy because people would just find it too costly to download anything. No more digital distribution. But wait - CD sales would still be declining with no other revenue to make up for it.

No more YouTube. No more Joost. No more new innovation. So no need for more bandwidth.And pretty soon, when people stop using all those bandwidth-intensive applications, their "pay per use" cost will probably less than they pay for flat-rate pricing now.

Law of unintended consequences, right?

Well the funny movies anyway:

A 17-year-old boy accidentally shot himself in the leg while standing in line at a McDonald's restaurant and now he faces an illegal weapons charge.

The boy was fiddling with the .25-caliber pistol tucked in his waistband when it fired, wounding him in the upper thigh shortly before 9 p.m. Wednesday, city police Sgt. William Gorman said.

Try explaining that one to your friends.

Were it not for Michael Geist, a Canadian law professor, people might not know that the Canadian government was holding closed door discussions on eliminating citizens' right to privacy on the internet:

Public Safety Canada and Industry Canada have quietly launched a semi-public consultation on one element of lawful access. The new consultation, which concludes on September 25th, asks for comments on the provision of customer name and address information by telecommunications companies to law enforcement. The consultation has not been posted on the Internet and I was asked not to post it online.

Now that they've been caught, they have decided to open the discussions up:

The Public Safety and Industry Departments have been conducting a limited consultation, which was scheduled to end Sept. 25, on potential changes that would make it easier for police to get customers' personal information from Internet providers without a court order or other legal justification. Those invited to participate in the consultation process received a letter, and no information was made publicly available on any government Web site.

Now, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day's office said it has decided to post information on the department's Web site and lengthen the consultation process by at least a few weeks to allow the public, as well as privacy and civil liberties groups, to have a say.

It concerns me more than a bit that the government clearly intending to change privacy laws without bothering to consult anyone who actually cared about privacy. I know that it is incredibly naive to even say this, but don't these people work for us? Why is it that as soon as someone gets into power, they forget that basic fact?

Seth Godin mentions a company that claims to be able to purge bad stuff about your company from Google:

Jeff points us to Done, an SEO firm that claims it can quash bad reviews from showing up in Google. Sort of a reverse SEO play, they offer to take angry customer rants or riffs on sites like Consumer Reports and make them less likely to show up in a Google search. MSNBC reports that they point to success with companies like WebLoyalty.com. (Typical search here). Marketers love this story. They love the idea that SEO could be done in reverse and that unfair and unjust besmirchments can be made to disappear.

He points out the fallacy behind this story - people will just write more negative stuff - and notes that the best plan of course is to strive to do the right thing: The real answer is simple: be transparent, do good work, answer your legitimate critics in the same forum or through your actions.

That led me to wonder though. Which do you find more believable? A positive comment or a negative one?

Do we assume that a negative comment must be sincere and accurate because the writer must have used the product and found it lacking?

Do we assume that a positive comment must have been created by some corporate shill?

Just how do we determine the validity of a particular review if we haven't used the product and don't know the author?

And as a company, do you want it to be know that you hired the services of a company like this, rather than making an honest attempt to fix the problem?

Just because a bad review no longer shows up in Google, does that mean that the conversation is over?

I live my life in front of a laptop. Most of the time. I also carry a notebook when I write, because I often like to write first drafts in longhand on paper. I also carry a little Moleskine notebook that I can put in my pocket so that I can jot down ideas and things I want to remember.

So when I leave the house I have to gather a few things. If I just take the laptop, then it is less convenient to jot things down, though it is possible. It's also possible to write on the laptop; it just feels strangely more limiting than paper.

This works for me most of the time but I can't help but feel that there may be a more elegant solution.

Among other positions I've held, I've been a Product Manager for more that a few years. I often see people suggest that the Product Manager is a lot like the CEO. Yes, a good Product Manager is concerned with the same kind of things - customer satisfaction, revenue, profitability, and time to market come to mind - as the CEO.

But then in the very same article I see comments about getting features into the product and delivered on time.

Here's the thing. Nobody buys features.

Oh sure, in the sales cycle the customer may say "If only your software sorted by word length, we would buy it." Don't rush out and add the feature, because they still won't be buying.

You've just encountered an objection, and it isn't the real one. In truth, they may not like the salesperson, or they don't like your company, or their CEO plays golf with your competitor.

And don't drop your price. That isn't the problem either, even if they say it is.

In short, the customer either believes that your solution can potentially remove their pain, or they don't. If they believe, then they also know you'll get around to adding all of those little features, and the price won't be such an issue because they see the benefits clearly. If they don't believe, you're pretty much out of the game, regardless of what you promise and for how little.

Take a look at all of the software you use right now, whether it was freeware or you paid for it. As a simple test ask yourself, are there any features that those products don't have that would make you stop using them or switch to something else.

I'll bet that you chose that software because it solved a problem reasonably well, not because it had every feature you wanted. And while there may be some nice-to-have features, you probably will suffer along with the software. All of your customers think pretty much the same way.

Wanna be more like the CEO? Worry less about features and concentrate more on making sure you solve your customer's problem really well. Deliver when you say you will. Encapsulate the value and the benefits of your product so that your sales force can make customers believe, and so that they can sell more faster.

After all, CEOs tend much more to be former salespeople than former product managers.

The college student demographic is a powerful one. They have cash to spend and their purchases are primarily driven by word of mouth from their friends. Facebook was an ideal mechanism to share their lives with their friends, and a great channel for word of mouth. And the high attention that demographic gave to Facebook made it a very valuable property.

But when Facebook becomes inundated with adults - like your mom and dad - then it begins to lose favor with that younger demographic. And kids certainly don't want to be on the same network as their parents. What could be further from cool? Do you really want your parents to see what you and your friends are doing on Facebook? And mom and dad, would you have enjoyed your parents reading your diary twenty years ago?

Those adults aren't driven to shop and make purchases in the same way either. Instead of using Facebook as a way to communicate with friends, they subscribe to the sudden explosion of Facebook applications to send BoozeMail, or to send werewolf, vampire, or zombie invitations. My Facebook page is awash in pointless notifications; time wasters that don't drive communications or commerce.

So what do college students think about Facebook now? Focus groups at Columbia Records [Times Select, from New York Times Magazine] produced comments like this:

They told us that MySpace is over, it's just not cool anymore; Facebook is still cool, but that might not last much longer; and the biggest thing in their life is word of mouth. That's how they hear about music, bands, everything.''

As Geoff Moore would say, Facebook is now seeing the late adopters, a sure sign of a mature product. Does that mean that Facebook is almost over?

At first this sounded like a joke, but a Conservative group in Britain suggests eliminating Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in favor of something even better:

The group will also suggest scrapping Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of the nation’s success in favour of a model that measures people’s happiness drawn up up by Friends of the Earth.

Unfortunately I think that happiness measure will drop quickly when they implement the rest of their energy conservation plan:

THE Conservatives will propose banning plasma screens and other energy-guzzling electrical goods in a report to be unveiled next week.

The proposals target white goods like fridges and freezers, as well as TVs, personal computers and DVD players that use too much energy or operate on stand-by.

There's no better way to make people happy than by eliminating household appliances and all forms of home entertainment.

Tip of the hat to small dead animals.

Robert Scoble suggests that Microsoft is getting back into the search game:

Sean Earp, of Microsoft, is one of a few people I’ve seen gushing about a new version of Microsoft’s search engine coming soon (they have a search press event coming on September 26th).

Is Microsoft about to get back into the search game? I can’t wait to see.

Seriously though, don't you have to be "in the game" before you can "get back in the game"?

A New York Times business article on Tim Hortons' (a Canadian coffee chain) push into the US, they noted that one third of Canadians surveyed felt pretty strongly about the chain:

A survey this summer by a group promoting Canadian historical literacy found that 40 percent of Canadians under 34 consider Tim Hortons’ miniature doughnuts, the Timbits, a national symbol.

That seemed a bit odd, but seemingly correct:

The annual Dominion Institute survey for Canada Day, conducted from June 14-17 by Ipsos-Reid, found 26 per cent of Canadians believe they belong, first and foremost, to their province. This is up from 1990 when only 16 per cent of people surveyed in an Ekos poll identified first with their province or region.

[...]

As for the most recognized symbols in the Canadian identity, most in the survey said they felt attached to the Maple Leaf, 87 per cent; followed by the beaver, 74 per cent; hockey, 73 per cent; and the "Mountie," 72 per cent.

The canoe was somewhat less popular as a symbol, with 39 per cent support followed by 31 per cent of Canadians who said they felt attached to the Tim Hortons "Timbit."

So hockey, the Mounties, and the beaver are pretty much neck and neck as cultural icons. That makes sense. But the Timbit? I would have bet my money on the Tim Hortons coffee cups. Those things are everywhere. Timbits are nice, but you can't go anywhere in Canada (especially hockey arenas) without seeing numerous Tim Hortons cups.

Perhaps if they put pictures of maple leaves, beavers, hockey, Mounties, and Timbits on the cups that might change.

Facebook is opening itself up to search engines:

"Starting today, we are making limited public search listings available to people who are not logged in to Facebook," said Facebook engineer Philip Fung in a blog post on Wednesday. "We're expanding search so that people can see which of their friends are on Facebook more easily. The public search listing contains less information than someone could find right after signing up anyway, so we're not exposing any new information, and you have complete control over your public search listing."

Doc Searls doesn't think that this is a good thing at all:

Translation: If you’re a FaceBook member, your ass is now online.

[...]

But this is a significant shift. The walled garden called Facebook is declaring itself a public space where suddenly all its members have name badges visible by default to the world.

David Weinberger thinks that the process should be "opt-in":

FB could make this right with about two lines of code: Make exposing your FB info to search engines a matter of checking a box. What part of "opt in" does FB not understand?

Seriously though, you're on Facebook, so your information is already publicly available to any Facebook member. As a member I can search for a person, and see everyone with that name or a similar one, as well as all of their friends. I can't see their profile though, and neither will search engines.danah boyd suggests that profiles will be public but I don't believe that to be the case. That would be a completely different situation.

I understand that your personal information is quite a bit different from you web page, but if everything was opt-in by default then the internet wouldn't be a very useful place as search engines wouldn't be able to find and index anything.

If you are joining a social network like Facebook - heck if you are doing anything on the internet - then you are exposing public information, unless your agreement specifically states it. Does anybody read the Facebook privacy policy? While it states that you control what personal information people see, it says nothing about your name, and you already know that any user can search for you. Facebook is quite clear:

Unlike most sites on the Web, Facebook limits access to site information by third party search engine "crawlers" (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask). Facebook takes action to block access by these engines to personal information beyond your name, profile picture, and limited aggregated data about your profile (e.g. number of wall postings).

So if you want to be anonymous, stay off Facebook. Stay off the internet. That isn't even enough. Keep your name out of the newspapers. Even birth announcements make it to the internet.And read the privacy policy.

I started this blog a few years ago essentially as a catalog of bookmarks of stuff that interested me. It also gave me a change to editorialize on those bookmarks. Not that I'm opinionated (yeah right - Ed.) but there are things that I wanted to say.

So my best friend recently pointed out to me - over drinks of course - that perhaps I'm a writer. No, I said, I'm just obnoxious. But he persisted and suggested that I write non-fiction magazine articles, which I am currently doing.

Oddly, another friend of mine suggested that I'm really an artist at heart, even though I'm an engineer by trade.

So perhaps I'm a writer.

Of course, my best friend also told me that 90% of the population thinks that they can write, while some miniscule number actually do. So for now, I'll be part of that 90%. And we'll see if I actually do.

George Santayana said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But what if you never learned a particular aspect of history?

Daimnation asked this question today:

When Clarkson refers to Wolfe and Montcalm, I wonder how many Canadians under 30 know what he's talking about?

While I can't remember the specifics of Wolfe and Montcalm, I do recall having learnedthat piece of Canadian history in school as a kid. Yet a good friend of mine a couple of years younger than me told me that she didn't learn Canadian history when she was in elementary school. How can that be?

Now Canadian history is nothing like American history. We have no Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, or Lincoln. In fact, we have no standout kind of leaders as I recall. There was no revolution. Canadians apparently don't go in for those displays of strength. We mostly plod along, eventually getting to the same point, but without the violence.

As my mom always says, the British won the battle on the Plains of Abraham, then shook hands with the French and everything went right back the way it was.

So really, if you don't learn this kind of stuff in school, where do you learn it? I'll occasionally pick up a book on someone like Benjamin Franklin, but what of the 58% or so of people who haven't read a book since high school?

Do we need a History Rock (you remember Multiplication Rock, right) for adults?

I currently live in Waterloo, Canada, a small community with a fair-sized technology sector. But there are not a lot of people locally who blog, and most of those who do lean toward politics.

As part of some work I'm doing with local technology groups, I'd like to know if there are any tech bloggers in the area. If you are, or you know someone who is a tech blogger, please let them know that I'm looking and have them get in touch with me.

Thanks!

For me, Labor Day has always been the psychological end of summer. I know that the weather generally continues to be pleasant, and sometimes even gets warmer that August, but that isn't the point.

When I was a kid I used to go to the beach all the time. But the day after Labor Day the beach was deserted, the sky was overcast, and the water was rough with mean looking breakers.

So today, like every year, I lament the end of summer.

I've too have been spammed with requests to join Quechup, apparently a new social network that apparently gets members by spamming your email address books.

With the proliferation of social tools, it now has become necessary to Google any new tool to see what it is all about, and what early impressions of it are. With Quechup it immediately became obvious that this was not the kind of network I wanted to subscribe to.

With the exception of the Quechup site itself, all of the Google hits were essentially apologies to friends for having spammed them with invitations.

A new site gets one chance to make a first impression. That first impression should not be "Stay away at all costs!"