Month: March 2007

Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

Before I Begin…

…Make sure you’ve read this article first.

The Ridiculous Star Trek “Nazi Planet” Episode

Please bear with me: I’m going to start with a Star Trek reference.

Let me recap the original Star Trek series episode Patterns of Force (a.k.a. “The Nazi Planet Episode”) . In this episode, the Enterprise is dispatched to search for John Gill, a prominent Federation historian who has disappeared on the planet Ekos whose society he was researching. Our heroes arrive on the planet and discover that it’s run by Nazis, and that the historian they’re searching for has installed himself as the Fuhrer.

After much adventuring, they discover that although Gill appeared to be the leader of this brutal and warlike society, he had become the drugged puppet of his deputy, a native of the planet with an ambition to become its supreme ruler. Kirk, Spock and McCoy defeat the deputy Fuhrer, and Gill confesses that his original intent was to help the planet’s society evolve from its backward anarchic state into a functioning civilization. His plan: model the Ekosians after what he thought was the “most efficient system the Earth ever knew”, the Nazis.

The premise of this episode always struck me as ridiculous. How could a respected historian (I’m assuming he’s respected, as they’ve sent the Federation’s flagship to go looking for him) ever come to the conclusion that he could fix a broken society by modelling them after the Nazis?

How could anyone think that a society that mimicked the Nazis down to the last detail — the swastikas, uniforms, SS, the “sieg heil” salute, technology, fascism, the obsession with order and a leader called “The Fuhrer” — would not end up duplicating the brutal, threatening and hateful aspects as well? Where did this guy get his history degree?

The Ridiculous MeanKids.org and Bob’s Yer Uncle Websites

It started with a debate over at Tara Hunt’s HorsePigCow blog in the comments for her More on Higher Purpose post. Some of the commenters who took issue with the thesis of Tara’s post — really, people, what’s wrong with having a higher purpose? — were getting out of hand, and Tara exercised her right to delete those comments. “They remind me of the mean kids in high school who used to draw pictures of me with zits all over and laugh at my expense,” she wrote.

Inspired by Tara’s reference to “mean kids”, Frank Paynter created MeanKids.org, where people who had a bone to pick with the current darlings of the tech blogsphere — Tara, Kathy Sierra, Maryam and Robert Scoble — could comment freely. It was meant to be, as Frank would end up writing in his online apology, “purposeful anarchy. I thought the people at MeanKids would create art and criticism, pointed and insulting satire”.

It’s a statement that’s as accurate as “The Hell’s Angels is a social club for motorcycle enthusiasts.”

MeanKids.org — don’t bother trying to visit; it’s been taken down — was a real-life online version of the “Burn Book” from the movie Mean Girls, a book in which the Plastics (the clique of mean-but-popular girls) write nasty things about everyone in school.

On MeanKids.org’s dismantling, Frank writes:

Misogynistic postings at MeanKids.org led me to try to moderate, but indeed the group there was of the “You Own Your Own Words” tradition, so moderating or central editorial control wouldn’t work. I tore the site down.

Feeling a need to keep the online “Burn Book” going, Chris Locke wrote in an incredibly obnoxious, ungentlemanly and self-congratulatory blog post that he created Bob’s Yer Uncle. The mean kids migrated there, and that’s where the really nasty stuff about Kathy Sierra appeared.

Here’s Where it All Comes Together

John Gill’s mistake — fixing a problem by following a terrible example — was repeated by Frank Paynter.

In creating MeanKids.org, Frank created a little online space that mimicked a high school “Burn book”.

And like John Gill, Frank got supplanted by a cartoonishly vicious, amoral deputy who took his idea and ran even further with it.

How could anyone think that a society that mimicked high school down to the last details — the put-downs, smack-talk from a safe distance and encouragement of adolescent behaviour — would not end up duplicating the brutal, threatening and hateful aspects as well? Where did this guy get his life experience?

I no longer think that the premise behind the Star Trek “Nazi Planet” episode is as ridiculous as I once thought.

Over at Global Nerdy, the tech news blog that my pal George and I run…

• 10 Things You Need to Ask Before Picking a Domain Name Registrar. In which I point to Tucows CEO Elliot Noss’ article which reminds us that with domain name registration, cheaper does not always mean better.
• That Reminds Me of a Story… Some links to a couple of articles talking about the impending demise of the dead-tree version of the newspaper and a story about the perceived influence of blogs.
• Big Content 1, Cablevision 0, Apple ? “Are things going so well in Hollywood that Big Content can take their cable-operating friends to court as well as their internet-based frenemies?”
• No Web Presence? It Might Hurt Your Job Prospects! Many recruiters and HR departments Google candidates, which means that if you don’t have a web presence, you don’t “exist”.
• The Downside of Having a Web Presence (or: Kathy Sierra vs. the Anonymous Web Thugs) It’s a cross-posting of this article — make sure you read it.

Wigu comic from February 20, 2002.

Barely minutes after I dashed off a quick post about how having a web presence can greatly improve your job prospects in the high-tech world, I found out about Kathy “Creating Passionate Users” Sierra’s article that reminds us of the downside of a web presence, especially if you’re a woman.

She writes:

As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I’m not. I’m at home, with the doors locked, terrified. For the last four weeks, I’ve been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that’s not what pushed me over the edge. What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs… blogs authored and/or owned by a group that includes prominent bloggers. People you’ve probably heard of.

What follows is her description of some very nasty threats made against her, and as a result, she’s decided to cut back on blogging, cancel her much-anticipated appearances at the O’Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference and call the police (and with good cause: remember, death threats are illegal, and hey, don’t dismiss ’em until you get one yourself).

I can only have the vaguest understanding of what it feels like to get a death threat. The warning that I got over the phone from the creepy guy from Quick Boys Moving and Storage — “Remove that comment. That’s all I’m going to say” — was somewhat unnerving. I imagine that getting death threats and seeing Photoshopped photos of yourself in gags is far, far worse.

I am reminded of a line from Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash — the one about the sexism in high-tech circles being a particularly bad case, since male techies often consider themselves “too smart to be sexist”.

I encourage all of you to speak out against these evil and illegal actions and do what you can to make sure stuff like this doesn’t happen again. And, if you’ve got the time and inclination, please leave a note of support over at Kathy’s blog.

Hang in there, Kathy. We’re all looking forward to your return.

Over at the Tucows Blog, we’ve got a new article by our CEO Elliot Noss titled Questions to Ask Before You Pick Your Domain Name Registrar. Here are the questions, each of which Elliot goes into further detail:

1. What is the registrar’s primary business model?
2. Does the registrar make transfers as easy as the rules allow?
3. Do you allow for easy locking and unlocking of domain names?
4. Does the registrar make it easy to opt-out of auto-renewals?
5. Do the registrar tie domains to its services?
6. Does the registrar offer Whois privacy? What are its privacy policies in general?
7. What are the registrar’s policies on compliance issues like litigation, ownership disputes and WDRP?
8. How easy is it to contact the registrar?
9. What happens when my domain expires?
10. Are the people selling you your domain name a registrar or a reseller?

If you’re thinking about registering a domain name anytime soon, this article is a worthwhile read.

Some of the terms and concepts covered in the article might be unfamiliar to you, but worry not: this week, I plan to write some articles explaining some of them. I hope that this will clear up some of the confusion about domain name registration.

One more thing: in the interest of full disclosure, I work for Tucows, a company that is a domain name registrar and for which Elliot Noss is the CEO.

Here’s an interesting ad for Snickers chocolate bars that shows how the world has shrunk. It was shot in Jeddah, the post-production was done in Amsterdam and the soundtrack is a tune by a hip-hop group from Kuwait (and apparently is in English):

Great visuals, but damned if I can remember what the product being advertised is.

Welcome back to the working week!

For today, the last Monday of the month, some Monday-related entertainment. First, here are some scans from The Executive Coloring Book. It may seem mildly amusing today, but it must’ve been downright subversive to some when it was first released in 1961 (here’s a review from Time magazine, dated Frdiay, December 29, 1961, in which it’s reviewed alongside the equally counter-culture Uncle Shelby’s ABZ Book, written by good ol’ Shel Silverstein.

Image courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

Continuing with the “Monday blues” theme, here’s the song of the week: Ween’s Push th’ Little Daisies, a classic that Rik “Please, the name is DJ Stinky Poo-Poo!” Young introduced to me during his sets at the Caribbean Club back in that wacky summer of 1992. As with all songs of the week, this will evaporate in a week [Update: A week has passed and the song is now gone]. Enjoy!