ARTS & FARCES internet

Don’t be evil. That’s Google’s widely known corporate motto. Too bad it’s been rubbed away completely like button labels on a cheap remote control.

As the network neutrality debate has grown more intense, Google has stepped up its public relations machinery to pump out policy statement after policy statement advocating the benefits—no, the necessity—of transparency and free expression.

David Kravets, writing for Wired, cites a Google policy statement dated December 16, 2009 as saying, it was a “company that believes deeply in free expression” and that it was “determined to continue to do our part and make new, significant contributions to promote free expression in 2010.”

Because we must not have gotten it the first time, in a policy statement dated December 18, 2009, Google admits it hasn’t “always done a good job of talking about Google’s philosophical approach to privacy overall—or sharing our strong belief in harnessing data to create products and services that are useful for our users.” Google goes on to write that it’s spent the past several weeks talking with “policymakers, consumer advocates, think tanks, trade associations, and journalists” about Google’s approach to privacy. The company touts three major privacy initiatives for 2009: interest-based advertising, the data libration front, and Google Dashboard. “For 2010, we’re looking forward to taking even more steps to help users protect their privacy,” ends the policy statement.

So, a lot of us way out here on the left got caught up in the emotion of Obama’s oratory and sloganeering. He couldn’t have been clearer:

“Barack Obama will refocus our efforts on Afghanistan. He has a comprehensive strategy to succeed in Afghanistan with at least two more U.S. combat brigades, more resources and training for the Afghan Army, and a comprehensive development strategy.”

That’s one campaign promise he’s kept, and we should have been paying closer attention back then. Okay, we’ll accept responsibility for that one.

But how do you explain Obama’s failure to follow through on his other campaign promises:

• Not closing the Guantanamo Bay prison (and worse, moving it to Illinois)
• extending Bush’s state secrets privileges
• failing to allow five days of public comment before signing bills
• failing to restrict warrantless wiretaps
• failing to stop the use of torture
• failing to re-regulate Wall Street and turning the bailout into a gift
• letting the insurance cartel, PhRMA, and the healthcare providers write healthcare non-reform
• and probably worst of all, failing to close the revolving door between lobbyists and government

Demonstrating yet again that they have no gift of nuance, or even common sense, Congressional Democrats are proposing to cover the cost of kidney transplant drugs at the expense of dialysis patients.

Since 1973, Medicare has covered most of the healthcare costs of those with end-stage renal disease (permanent kidney failure) regardless of age, including dialysis and transplantation. The government-run healthcare program currently ends payment for transplant anti-rejection drugs—which currently run about US$3,000 per month—after three years. Only the US Congress could institute a policy that uncaring, stupid, and wasteful. People are dying waiting for a kidney. If they get a transplant and can’t afford to pay for the anti-rejection drugs after three years, they invariably lose the organ and go back on dialysis.

According to Kevin Sack, writing for the New York Times, “Medicare spends and average of $17,000 a year on kidney transplant recipients, most of it for the anti-rejection drugs, compared with $71,000 a year on dialysis patients and $106,000 for a transplant.”

A provision of the healthcare reform bill (.pdf; 3.3MB) passed last month by the US House of Representatives extends Medicare coverage for anti-rejection drugs for transplant patients for life, starting in 2012. Unfortunately the provision is paid for by setting a flat fee for dialysis treatments and related medications—called “bundling.” Some dialysis providers argue that the new flat fee won’t cover their costs. But dialysis providers are wildly profitable—to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars each year. They’re also wildly inefficient: Bill Peckham did the math last October (also take the time to read his comments to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on the proposed payment rule).

The latest entry in the sustainable online publishing business model derby is Huffington Post with embedded commercial tweets and comments. Is it just me or is each new derby entry dumber than the last?

Nat Ives, writing for Ad Age, notes “The biggest question is whether marketers and the Huffington Post can execute the program without marring visitors’ experience reading and interacting with the site.” Ives goes on to state the obvious: that users will probably accept the new attempt to attract attention so long as the ads are clearly labeled as such.

Ives cites Greg Coleman, Huffington Post president and chief revenue officer, as saying “a health-care company sponsoring a Twitter page around health-care policy might post a paid Tweet ‘to bring to fore the facts’ but in a neutral way.” As if a healthcare company—any healthcare company—will bring actual facts to bear in healthcare reform policy. And in a neutral way? Hah. Coleman tells Ives that these really new ad products—along with third-party traffic research and hiring four senior sales executives—“should more than double revenue by next year and expand it more than six times during the next three years.”

Huffington Post’s traffic is down only a little since Obama’s election, but the site is focusing more and more on the nonpolitical. Ives reports that nonpolitical articles accounted for 82% of pageviews in November 2009.

When my wife and I first got our TiVo—a Series 2 Toshiba with a built-in DVD player—we were nearly ecstatic. I selected this model because it was the only TiVo available that didn’t require a TiVo subscription. It had limits: most of the fancy TiVo features didn’t work and we could only schedule recordings for three days ahead. But it worked. For a while.

Within a few months it died. I opened it up and was surprised to find hand-installed jumper wires on the circuit board. It didn’t exactly inspire confidence, but I shipped it back to Toshiba and they repaired it. It’s been working ever since.

What I really want to do is transfer files from our various Macs to the TiVo. But since I’m not a TiVo subscriber, no can do. Bad TiVo, bad.

But then came hi-def and that was the tipping point. I’m in the process of replacing the TiVo with the following:

• Mac Mini with Snow Leopard Server
• Kanex Mini DisplayPort Adapter to HDMI 1080p Video w/Digital Audio
• Elgato EyeTV Hybrid with EyeTV 3 software (disclosure Mike Evangelist at Elgato provided this; many thanks Mike)
• Either Behringer Truth B2031A active monitors or B&W’s forthcoming MM-1 powered speakers

Yes, I know this is considerably more expensive than a TiVo with a subscription, but it’s capable of so much more. The Mac Mini will serve as an internal workgroup server and an external prototyping and staging server as well as a media server. There’s no longer any question of whether or not a given media type play; if it’ll play on one of our MacBook Pros, it’ll play on the Mini.