OK, Google+ is the shiny new tech tool out there that all the kids are talking about.

I finally got an invite (thanks A.B!), and last night was the first time I fired it up.

I understand that the Google+ of today is probably a work in progress – so is Facebook, but Google+ in a different way. They’re just rolling it out; some missing features are probably already written and are just waiting for complaints/comments to roll in and stress testing to complete.

That said, first impressions are important; here are my first impressions of Google+:

• This is not a different type of social media (as is the case with Facebook and Twitter). This is pretty much a Facebook clone. Don’t believe me? See the screenshots below – just different skins and some rearranging, for the most part. If you are familiar with Facebook, you can easily use Google+.
   



• Right now, there are not a lot of people on Google+ – Google’s doing the slow roll out so there are as few “Fail Whale” Twitter outages as possible. Good idea. But since there aren’t many people on the service – and so few of my friends – it’s tough to get a real feel for the flexibility and robustness of the site. Yeah, I know, be patient.
   
• The Circle feature is brilliant. Basically, a circle is a bucket into which you add a friend. Relatives, Friends, Workmates – build your own buckets, and put people in one (or more). In that way, when you post/share, you can target only people in whatever bucket(s) you want. People at work might want to know that I’m messing with Google+; relatives won’t. Relatives would want to hear about the niece’s birthday party; workmates won’t. It’s brilliant. And the drag-and-drop interface to adding friends is HTML5 sexy. Very slick.
   
• Hangouts is another outstanding feature that kicks Facebook’s ass all over the place. It allow video chat (via your webcam) with more than one person right in your browser. It’s free video conferencing. I believe the Facebook/Skype agreement allows video chat, but only one-on-one. Very interesting feature – but, from the little I’ve played with it, the least polished.
   
• On Facebook, it’s the News Feed (the Wall on your profile); on Google+ it’s the Stream. And on Google+, you can switch between viewing everyone’s posts in the stream or filter to view only posts for one Circle. Currently, you can only filter by one Circle – you can’t view College Friends and Workmates at the same time. I expect this to change moving forward.
   
• Sparks are areas of interest (movies, cycling and so on). They are populated with articles, but it’s unclear to me how that data gets there. For example, I selected the Movie area in Sparks, and there are headlines/blurbs with links to ABCnews.com, YouTube and so on. Who’s curating these areas? It’s really not spelled out here. I’m guessing it keys off the (fairly) recent “+1” button from Google, which mimics Facebook’s “Like” button. But if that’s the case, how does Google classify a +1 click? How does it know it’s a tech or movie article/YouTube clip? Some of it could be site-specific, such as all articles from TechCruch are tech, but what about movie reviews from CNN? I just don’t know. Oddly, I don’t see the +1 button in the wild right now. I wonder if it’s overwhelming Google, or they’re doing something with it so they have just turned it off. Hmm…
   
• I really don’t have anything of interest with regard to Google+’s privacy. Seems to be structured a little better than Facebook’s, but I didn’t pay that much attention to it. Could suck; could be pretty damn good (feels like the latter).

OK, that’s my initial reactions. It’s a very well made site, very intuitive, and the Circles concept it so obvious it’s a wonder it’s never been used before in a social networking site (or has it?).

I guess the real question is the following: Will people use it?

I don’t see Google+ as a threat to Twitter at all, but it’s a full-on salvo at Facebook.

But Facebook has 700 million+ users. Are these users going to throw away years of postings on Facebook to jump to Google+? Doubtful. Will many users maintain both accounts? Sure. But at the end of the day, both sites are so similar that one will, inevitably, be posting – for the most part – on just one.

Which one will that be?

I guess we’ll have to see how Google+ evolves and if it gives users a compelling reason to make Google’s offering a user’s primary social media site (for this type of social media).

At the same time, this’ll keep up the heat on Facebook to continue to evolve and give its millions of users a compelling reason to stay put for the most part.

One final thought: If Google were to buy Twitter and somehow embed that in Google+, that would be compelling. Google’s got the money, but Twitter doesn’t seem too interested in selling.

Still, that would be a juggernaut!

So, I have a backup box running Microsoft (MS) Windows 7. Yesterday, I installed the first service pack for the OS. No biggie.

The first time I fired up the Windows Media Player, however, things got odd.

The service pack must have updated the player (I can’t find the version – there is no “about” link), so I had to again agree to use this as default for videos/music etc.

*Sigh* – but, again, no biggie.

But the default option – selected – included sending song/music info to Microsoft. FAIL!The custom setup (that I chose, of course), had sending music/video to Microsoft checked as default. The notes said the info would not be associated with me blah blah (wish I had taken a screen shot; I can’t replicate the preferences), but yeah. Want to bet?

You think at some point MS will get a subpena from the RIAA, the MPAA or the police, and suddenly what I’ve listened to/watch will go through this filter, and I might get nailed. And I could get nailed by mistake – the checksum of some video/song I played matches that of a piece that is, in some way, illegal (pirated, for example). If that happens, at the end of a legal battle I can’t win, the worse-case scenario for the subpena wielders is they go, “Whoops. Our bad.”

But my reputation and bank account will have been trashed at that point.

I don’t pirate music/video, and I understand MS’s reason for wanting to collect this info – to see how the player is being used so they can put their efforts for the next version in the places it will matter.

But make that data collection opt-in, not opt-out.

That’s just evil.

Evil Deux: Let’s gaze upon these nuggets from an MG Siegler techcrunch article: Microsoft’s Android Plan: Evil Genius Or Just Evil?

Buried in all the intrigue surrounding the Nortel patent auction was an interesting tidbit: Microsoft did not have to bid on the patents, but they did anyway. Why? As far as I can tell, it’s one of two reasons. One is evil. The other is evil genius. Either Microsoft really wants to kill Android. Or, if Android continues to thrive, Microsoft wants to be the ones that make billions of dollars off of its success.
…

Microsoft’s intent here is pure evil genius. “It’s not like Android’s free. Android has a patent fee. You do have to license patents,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said last year. What he didn’t explicitly say is that you’d have to pay Microsoft and not Google for those patents. Think about this for a second: it’s entirely possible that Microsoft is going to end up making more money — perhaps significantly more — from Android than Google will. A year ago, such a statement would have seemed like a joke. But now it’s becoming reality. And it must be the ultimate nightmare for Google.

This is another reason for cleaning up the patent system.

And another reason to call MS evil. I know it’s just business and maximizing revenue for your stockholders, but geez.

Innovate. Don’t litigate.

WATCHING:
Black Swan
Starring: Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis

Wow. One weird little film.

Natalie Portman is the ballerina who wants perfection. Her mom – Barbara Hersey – is living her life through Portman’s. Very unconventional mother/daughter relationship.

What is real – and what is not real – both in the movie and to viewer is essential to the film. At end, what really happened?

Portman gives an Oscar-worthy performance as the woman-child who slowly dissolves under the pressure of the “White/Black Swan.”

All movies

For reasons that need not be explained, I was making some updates to this WordPress install (that powers this blog) this week.

And I broke, well, something…

It took some work to figure out what I had done (and to script periodic backups), but the end story is this: While WordPress is, in some ways, an arcane CMS, it’s an awesome CMS.

This is the first time in a year or so that I really got my hands dirty with WordPress code, and – knowing more about CSS/PHP than I did a year ago – I’m impressed.

I have an older version (v2.x) of WordPress, and I’m sure some of the arcane issues have been resolved, but – overall, once you wrap your head around it, it’s infinitely flexible and extensible. I’m a PHP programmer, so I disagree with some of the design decisions (example: non-standard installs assign the main stylesheet to a weird area), but that’s probably just my ignorance. Good stuff here.

I’m no fanboy or WordPress flack. Just a user of a great, free product that I use for blogging.

Did I mention that it’s free?????…

mySpace was once the hot social site.

Then Facebook came along and smoked same.

What comes next? That’s what keeps Zuckerburg (Facebook) up at night.

The retrial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich ended today, with the jury returning guilty verdicts on 17 of the 20 counts, including finding him guilty of trying to peddle former Senator Barck Obama’s senate seat.

He was found not guilty on one other change, and the jury was deadlocked on the remaining two of 20 charges.

Coupled with the guilty charge (lying to the FBI) from Blagojevich’s previous – almost completely hung – trial last year, the former governor could be looking at six to eight years in prison. Obviously, he can still appeal. I don’t know if that’s viable, however. He has a number of charges he can probably serve concurrently; even if he gets a couple of those tossed, he’ll still have to serve the time for the others. So I really don’t know what his options are.

Blagojevich follows another former Illinois governor – George Ryan – who is still in prison.

And you thought Wisconsin politics were crazy.

Blagojevich is the son of a Serbian immigrant who was a POW held by the Germans in World War II; he came to America and worked in the steel mills.

His son – Rod Blagojevich – was born in Chicago and rose to be governor of arguably one of the the most powerful states in the country.

Now he’s a just another felon.

This week in weather brought either “micro-bursts” or tornadoes to my burg (Mount Prospect, IL). (See photos, many just blocks from littleghost.com central).

Without power for almost a day; without internet access for about 2 days (and then both went up and down periodically; expected but frustrating).

Wow. The lack of electricity was compelling: Now what do we do? Can’t watch TV, DVD, listen to the radio, mess with the computer (offline or not), and – at night – not even see stuff.

Ouch.

Yet when the power came back on – but not the internet – it was particularly painful.

I’m jonsing for some slanted internet news; I want to post stuff.

I’d dead in the water.

For me, off the grid is not an option. Interesting.

For the record, one upside of the power outage was that – since there wasn’t anything powered to do – I got about halfway through a book I’ve been wanting to read for years (Daniel Boorstein’s The Seekers; I’ll review once I finish it). Reading is always a good thing.

Via cat blogger (Kevin Drum at Mother Jones), another damn list!

This time, top nonfiction books.

I guess The Guardian (UK) recently compiled a list of the 100 greatest nonfiction books, and so the NY Times did a similar, more casual listing – they asked employees to submit list of five favorite nonfiction books (results here).

As Drum notes, some interesting results from the NYT list:

• There was a four-way tie for first place (not ranked; just how many times mentioned). There were 33 lists submitted and the top overlap were books on only three lists. That’s all over the place. With movies, half of the lists would have had “Gone With the Wind,” “Citizen Kane,” “The Godfather” and/or “Star Wars” before wandering off somewhere.
• Virtually all the books listed were written after 1900. Really? Virtually nothing good before that?

I guess part of the problem is what is a “best” or greatest” book. I have my own list of Top Ten [everythings], including a list of Top Ten Nonfiction.

Yet I realize that many of the books I listed were my favorites, not necessarily the greatest nonfiction ever. I loved both The Song of the Dodo and The Making of the Atomic Bomb, but I realize that, a hundred years from now, few will be reading the former (a shame!), yet the latter will still be relevant. It’s the best book that I’ve read about the subject – and that subject will never get old.

Shouldn’t the Bible – whether you’re a believer or not – at least be on just about all lists? Then how about the Koran and so on?

And shouldn’t Origin of the Species and Das Kapital at least be on the list? What about Walden? The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire? Alexis de Tocqueville’s brilliant – and unbelievably prescient – Democracy in America? Plato’s Republic? These are not necessarily easy books, but – once read – they stick with you for life. None are on the NYT list.

Friday Night Lights, is, however. Go figger.

Ah, lists. They never fail to inspire ire and spark conversation. Good!

READING:
Punching Out: One Year in a Closing Auto Plant
Paul Clemens

This story – about the closing/taking apart of a large Detroit stamping press had such potential.

It could have looked – more deeply – at the people affected; it could have been a metaphor for the demise of industrial America; it could have woven the tale of, to some extent, the decline/end of unions and middle class existence.

Instead, is was just the story of the tearing apart of presses, told in a very non-linear fashion, all the while layers on top of a somewhat chronological progression.

Some good insights, but, dude, get an editor!

To be fair, this book would probably have meant more if I was from the Detroit area or was from a manufacturing background.

Still, I read the intro a couple of months ago and was intrigued: Very disappointing.

All books

This past Monday – June 13th – saw the first real Republican Presidential debate (it finally had most of the expected candidates). And it was, sadly, politics as usual:

• Michele Bachmann wants to eliminate the EPA, and she thinks that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape, incest or if a mother’s life is in danger. ‘Cause, you know, “every sperm is sacred.” [quotation from Monty Python, not Bachmann]
• Mitt Romney finds it immoral to direct disaster-relief funds to, well, disaster areas without finding offsets to pay for this relief (because otherwise our kids will be paying for our christian character wasteful spending).
• Unlike Bachmann, Herman Cain (CEO of Godfather’s Pizza) has some use for federal government: He wants the FDA to inspect food. But at some other point he clarified his remarks on not having Muslim cabinet members: He said he said that because he was just thinking of those Muslims that want to kill us. Yeah Herman, and other folk’s irrational fear of blacks is just because they are thinking about the blacks that want to stick it to The Man. I’m sure you understand, Herman.
• Ron Paul basically wants the federal government to do just about nothing – to be fair to Paul, he seems the most consistent and non-pandering of the Republican bunch. He’s also seems more well-informed on matters on which he speaks.
• Newt Gingrich seems to think loyalty oaths are both meaningless and can uncover some bad guys. Let’s bring back HUAC!

OK, first debate, but, still: This entire pack has moved pretty far right. McCain touted cap-and-trade in 2008. Hell, he wouldn’t get past South Carolina today with that kind of attitude.

On the not-so-much politics as usual side of the coin, there was the small business of New York State’s Senate trying to pass a bill to make same-sex marriage legal.

To pass in the state senate (the measure is apparently more likely to pass in the state house’s other chamber, the Assembly), it needed some Republican votes. And, traditionally, same-sex marriage has been anathema for Republicans.

But then Republican New York State Senator Roy McDonald stepped up and spoke his mind:

“You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn’t black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing,” McDonald, 64, told reporters.

“You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, fuck it, I don’t care what you think. I’m trying to do the right thing.

“I’m tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I’m trying to do the right thing, and that’s where I’m going with this.”

— Read more: New York Daily News

Just awesome.

I’ve read snippets of what the iOS5 announcement means.

Basically, everything in the cloud (one disappointment to me: no streaming music. Huh.).

Google’s trying the same thing.

But Apple is relying on its apps on its own hardware; Google is betting on “all apps in the browser” approach.

You can argue both sides – Apple’s approach is betting on native apps; Google hopes the browser (on any platform) and Google Docs etc will render the traditional desktop obsolete.

Interesting arguments.

Notice how Microsoft is positioned in these arguments?

Not a factor (in the enterprise, yep; Mom and Pop, no).

Interesting.

Update 6/8: Cringely agrees with me about Microsoft’s continuing descent into irrelevance: iCloud’s real purpose: kill Windows

Update 6/9: The more I think about this – Apple’s whole product roll out and how it boxes in both Google and Microsoft (in different ways) – the more I think this is a huge freakin’ deal. As big as the iPhone, which changed that entire market (smartphones). A game changer.

WATCHING:
Messenger, The
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, Ben Foster

I’m not even certain what this movie was meant to mean, but it moved me.

The movie was – at base – about the individuals (Harrelson/Foster) who notify the next of kin (NIK) about the death of their soldier son/husband/etc.

I don’t know; I’d rather be in Iraq being shot at than having to – day after day – deliver this news to the relatives of those who were shot at and not missed. And – of course – the relatives of soldiers who open the door and see the two officers…these relatives already know what the news is (but emotionally refuse to process same; completely understandable).

And the movie showed the cost on the messengers – this should require battle pay. Hard to watch at parts, and is was FICTION.

This is not the movie I expected; it still stuck with me. Harrelson, especially, is brilliant here.

It’s not an anti-war movie, but it does bring down to the human, day-to-day level, the cost of war. Powerful; complex.

All movies

Small roundup of some recent political news I found interesting.

Anthony Weiner’s self-immolation

After accusations of crotch-shot posting on Twitter, Weiner said he’d been hacked. Then that he wasn’t completely sure it was/wasn’t a picture of himself.

With the news that more pictures/details were about to emerge, Weiner held a painful press conference in which he said, basically:

• All the current accusations are true; the picture uploaded was him and he uploaded it.
• He lied about being hacked; he lied to everyone but is now going for full disclosure
• This wasn’t an isolated incident, he admits he has corresponded “inappropriately” via social networks a handful of times over the last three years, including after he was married.
• He apologized to just about everyone in the world, his wife especially.

He fell on his sword, and I give him props for that. He says he accepts all the blame; it was not a “drunken” or isolated incident; the females he corresponded with are free to say what they want, and he will not comment and so forth.

For someone who has just ‘fessed up to some really dumb (and potentially career-ending) behavior, he showed remarkable class. Took full responsibility, and had nothing negative to say about anyone but himself.

I liked Steve Benen’s take-away on Weiner’s press conference:

On the Political Sex Scandal Richter Scale, I’m still not altogether sure why this even registers at all. Given what we know, Weiner shared adult content with women he met online. They were adults and the interactions were consensual. He didn’t commit adultery (Ensign), he didn’t hire prostitutes (Vitter, Spitzer), he didn’t solicit anyone in an airport bathroom (Craig), he didn’t pretend to be someone else in order to try to pick up women (Lee), he didn’t abandon his office for a rendezvous with his lover (Sanford), he didn’t leave his first two wives after they got sick (Gingrich), he didn’t have a child with his housekeeper (Schwarzenegger), there’s no sex tape (Edwards), and no interns were involved (Clinton). He’s not even a hypocrite — Weiner has never championed conservative “family values,” condemning others for their “moral failings.

I agree – to a degree (it’s still a “judgment” issue that Weiner repeatedly failed) – with Benen, but I don’t know if the press will agree.

All in all, a remarkable press conference.

Florida Gov. Scott signs law requiring welfare recipients to take drug tests

This issue – which was floated by Utah Senator Hatch last year – is odious, on so many levels. Hey, let’s say you do have a drug problem: Better you die (no welfare = no food)?

And what’s next? Have to prove you haven’t molested any children to get welfare/building permit?

And this is a Republican – you know, loves small government – governor. How is this getting out of peoples’ lives?

Also, Scott’s old company – a health-care firm – could profit from this. That’s a lot of drug tests.

Still, Scott defends this act as providing “personal responsibility.”

Boehner says the revitalization of the American auto industry is “nothing to celebrate.”

President Obama has been touting the recent success of both GM and Chrysler as proof that the automotive bailout was a good choice – good for America, good for jobs and – yes – a good Obama/Democratic talking point.
All three automakers (including Ford, which didn’t ask for funds) are turning a profit for the first time since 2004 and adding job unseen since the Clinton Administration.

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), through a spokesman, doesn’t see it as that big a deal.

“The administration’s auto bailout is nothing to celebrate,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican. “The model the White House should be touting is Ford, which, instead of relying on a taxpayer-funded bailout, saw trouble coming and made the tough decisions necessary to preserve jobs and weather the storm.”
– Washington Monthly

OK, I can see the Speaker of the House – a Republican – not wanting to high-five a Democratic president, especially with elections coming up, but still…

At least say something like, “good, but Democrats have not done enough to create jobs…” or whatever.

And the Ford message is total bullshit – Ford testified in front of Congress to get GM and Chrysler dollars. Yes, Ford wanted to keep its competitors afloat!

Why?

Because if GM and Chrysler went under, the entire automotive supply chain would have collapsed, taking Ford – which, yes, had made better choices in the past – down along with GM and Chrysler.

Should GM and Chrysler have made better choices in the past?

Sure.

But President Obama was dealing with what was in front of him: Allow GM and Chrysler to default and effectively end the US auto industry. Or prop up GM and Chrysler and, well, hope for the best.

The best happened. All three turning profits, adding jobs, opening new plants.

Yeah, nothing to “celebrate”…