According to Valleywag it seems that Jimmy Wales, creator of Wikipedia, has entangled himself where so many have been entangled before: in the gaze of the just slightly right-of-Hitler Rachel Marsden. While few of us were paying attention, Marsden happens to have vaulted her career from falsely accusing SFU’s swim coach of harassment after allegedly stalking him for months to a brief but uninspiring career at Fox News.

How the man smart enough to give us the crowd-sourced encyclopedia of everything was dumb enough to become caught in this web is beyond me.

Note to Jimmy: dude, you’re the starchild of Silicon Valley’s tech culture — lots of smart, good-looking women will probably sleep with you, I’m sure of it. There’s no need to dip into the looney bin.

Wherever Miss Marsden goes, trouble is sure to follow. When she arrived at my alma mater, Simon Fraser University, it didn’t take long for her to enmesh herself in the campus’ greatest controversy in its history. After reportedly stalking the swim team’s coach, Liam Donnelly, for months she accused him of sexual harassment and molestation, also claiming that they’d had a relationship for months. At the same time, Donnelly had been confiding to friends that her aggressive and persistent advances toward him were concerning, and that they jeopardized his position with the school.

In the end, the controversy culminated in the embarrassment of the University, the resignation of the University’s President, a lengthy RCMP investigation, a formal inquiry, and cash settlements for both parties — a blight on the institution.

We newly shamed SFU alumni thought that she would go away quietly, but boy were we wrong. Here’s a chronology of the good times as they keep on rolling:

• 1997: Rachel accuses Liam Donnelly of rape, harassment, and whatever else she can think of. Heads roll. Student body embarrassed. But apparently this started in 1993, when she was a teenager and he demoted her from the neighbourhood swim team.
• 1999: SFU threatens to evict Rachel Marsden from the campus residences for continuing to stalk Donnelly, for harassing and stalking SFU’s Harassment policy co-ordinator Patricia O’Hagan (leading O’Hagan to quit, change her number, and move) and also SFU Criminology Professor Neil Boyd, who takes his case to the RCMP. Clearly a woman with no sense of her own irony.
• 1999: Rachel Marsden’s father, then 56 years old, is suspended for inappropriate conduct toward his female students, reportedly having taken a student on dates, and showing up at the student’s workplace to give her gifts.
• 2000: Rachel Marsden’s father, Claude Arthur Marsden, is found guilty of professional misconduct. “Mr. Marsden engaged in a sexual relationship with a sixteen year old female student.”
• 2003: Marsden becomes a “Babe for Bush”.
• 2004: Marsden is fired by BC conservative MP Gurmant Grewal, where she was working under the alias “Elle Henderson”, after it is revealed she’s facing harassment charges in a BC court.
• 2004: Marsden is convicted of stalking and harassing Michael Morgan, a Vancouver radio host with whom she worked (or tried to) at radio station CFUN, according to some reports from 2002-2004.
• 2005: Marsden remakes herself as a conservative pundit with a blog, columns in the Toronto Star, and fleeting appearances on the O’Reilly Factor, plying her trade as a sort of bargain basement Hyper-Coulter.
• 2007: Marsden is escorted from the building by her new employer, Fox News, after the infamous Salon piece and after some rumours (propagated by her, it seems) that she had begun harassing the host of “Red-Eye”, Greg Gutfeld.
• 2007: Marsden accuses Tony Backhurst, an Ontario police officer and unsuccessful Tory MP candidate of “leaking security secrets to her” after he files a complaint of harassment against her and the RCMP launches an investigation.
• 2008: Marsden gets dumped by Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia, so she leaks some of their email and instant messaging conversations to Valleywag, and sells some of his stuff on eBay (I’ve preserved the auctions in PDF here and here).

The real irony is that Jimmy, apparently, had read the warning label on this explosive device but chose to meddle with it anyway — we men are so stupid. According to his own reports he had altered the Wikipedia entry for her after her repeated requests that the god of Wiki gods do so — obviously, with her notorious past following her every move, spin control was and remains a major priority.

At present, Marsden appears to be living in New York and promoting her new web site Grand Central Political, evidently a job board for conservative spin doctors and other politicos. Vexingly she continues to appear on CNN to comment on everything from the War in Afghanistan to NAFTA. But it’s quite astonishing that this tarnish hasn’t prevented her from continuing to get air time. What exactly does one have to do these days to discredit oneself in politics?

If Marsden is any precedent then clearly, other notorious right-wing political figures like Tom Delay, Michael Brown, and Linda Tripp are sitting on a goldmine of endless punditry possibility — they just need the right sort of publicist. Huzzah! According to Marsden’s personal web site, she is up for the task: “If you are looking for Public Relations or Communications/Media services, click here to contact Rachel“. Far too late for Slobodan Milosevic, I am afraid.

Obviously I’ll be updating and referencing this page for years to come. Keep up the good work, Rachel!

So no surprise then that CBC Marketplace has taken the boilerplate “bust a mechanic” TV camera entrapment scheme and used it to go after the 21st century’s answer to the auto mechanic — Geeks. In this video they busted Geeks On Call Nerds on Site (thanks to the Geeks On Call pseudo-lawyers for clarifying this), Geek Squad, and the nerds in VW Beetles from a number of other smaller organizations making all kinds of wacky diagnoses of the planted problem (albeit a persnickety one) of a damaged RAM DIMM.

I for one am disappointed they didn’t show more. From my experience with (fellow) geeks, I’m surprised there weren’t even more hare-brained recommendations than the $2,000.00 “clean room” in London, Ontario.Like grease monkeys, the geeks are becoming used to dealing with customers who revere their “talents” (read: dubious obscure knowledge) and over-simplifying problems to aid in comprehension. Also like auto mechanics, the temptation to exploit this gap in understanding is tough to resist.The difference is that in the automotive world, most of us have fled to the eager arms of dealer-affiliated repair shops. The reason is the feedback loop: if we feel ripped off, if we are concerned about the qualifications of the mechanic, or if we doubt the merit of their diagnoses these can all be addressed with the regional office of the manufacturer or beyond, and the mechanics know that.

But in the Personal Computer world, the reps that are being busted are exactly the people we’re used to trusting: technicians affiliated with major retail, software, or hardware brands. And while the feedback loop appears as though it might be there, these large companies have done a much better job than the auto manufacturers of insulating themselves from the petty concerns of their customers.

What the CBC has really done is expose the entirety of the business model associated with the mobile computer repair business: the upsell. They exist largely as a customer retention program for retailers, so that the first sale becomes a platform that results in a total lifecycle of sales as your computing equipment “matures” into planned obsolescence. Of course they’re just TV reporters so they didn’t really clue into that, so there’s little about this story that will surprise any of us within the industry.

Still, it’s fun to watch self-important geeks who 30 years ago would be wiping the grease from their hands as they waxed poetic about the ailments of our family cars, come up with a plethora of totally overblown and completely irrational conclusions. That said, a blown memory DIMM is difficult to diagnose, especially if the computer boots (which is not clear in this report).

Fortunately, there are a lot of geeks out there who can fix this kind of stuff, and you probably know one. If you do, then certainly the personal accountability feedback loop will probably do more good than any corporate accountability feedback loop. Just don’t call me — my Volkswagen is a Jetta. 🙂

-Ian.

Arrogance of empire Paul Foot Wednesday August 20, 2003 The Guardian

In hospital last month for a (literally) nerve-wracking operation on my back, I was lucky enough to have with me an advance copy of Robert Harris’s novel Pompeii. At one level, the book is a thriller that kept me going through the entire sleepless night before the operation. At another, it is a thinly disguised satire on the arrogance of an empire that extended itself by force of arms so far across the world that it ignored elementary social and environmental problems at home. The fact that Pompeii before the eruption of Vesuvius was home to the richest Roman exploiters adds to the irony.

At the beginning of the book, Harris quotes, quite irrelevantly so it seems, the statistic that ancient Rome provided itself with more water than New York City did in 1995. Whether he chose this city by chance I do not know, but over last weekend, just a week before Pompeii was published, millions of citizens of New York and other US cities were plunged into darkness and chaos. They were obliged to suffer at least a tiny fragment of the agony of the people of Iraq, similarly cut off from electricity.

The Iraqi mess is the direct result of old fashioned US/British imperialism. The misery in New York and surrounding cities was caused not by terrorism – as many people there hastily assumed – but by capitalism, in particular its historic failure sufficiently to invest in unprofitable services that most people need. For a fleeting moment, likely to be repeated in the future, the citizens of Iraq and the US simultaneously became victims of the reckless greed of corporate America.

Thank heaven such horrors could not happen here. More than half a century ago, a Labour government nationalised gas, coal and electricity. Doggedly the Labour ministers responsible, led by a wild-eyed revolutionary called Hugh Gaitskell, staved off the Tory attacks on these measures. It was, those ministers argued, nonsense to talk of competition and “free enterprise” in the field of fuel and power, on whose regular supply the entire nation depended – and which were more efficiently and fairly run by publicly accountable monopolies.

Such arguments were denounced in the US as communist, and the supply of power there stayed in the hands of free enterprise. Some of the results of that were on show at the weekend in New York, Ohio and even in poor old semi-social democratic Ontario.

Is this just a North American problem? Among the harassed electricity company executives who stammered in front of television cameras on the night of the power cuts was Bill Edwards, president of Niagara Mohawk. His company supplies electricity to more than a million people in upstate New York. For six awful hours, many of them were cut off from power. Mr Edwards said he couldn’t comment on the suggestion that Niagara Mohawk had caused the blackout, at least until after a full investigation. In the meantime he warned his customers to turn down the air-conditioning and turn off unnecessary lights.

Now you might think that Niagara Mohawk is an American or a Canadian company. But you’d be wrong. Niagara Mohawk was bought in January last year for £2bn by the National Grid company, a private firm in Britain. National Grid plc merged last October with the Transco/Lattice Group, thus forming a monopoly that provides everyone in England and Wales with all their gas and electricity. More and more of the efforts of the new monopoly have been devoted to buying up power companies abroad – it has spent nearly three times as much on buying companies in the US as on capital investment in power in Britain.

How did the stale old socialist power monopoly created in the late 1940s to provide British people with gas and electricity become a brand new dynamic capitalist monopoly snapping up not altogether successful power companies abroad? Simple. Among the first and, for the City of London anyway, the most profitable of the great Thatcher privatisations were gas (don’t tell Sid) and electricity. At a stroke, parliamentary responsibility for these crucial areas of public concern was transferred to private boardrooms, whose jumped-up executives, revelling in their new power, awarded themselves fantastic salaries and bonuses.

The Labour party was outraged at the proposal, and threw itself into furious opposition. In December 1988, Labour’s young frontbench energy spokesman denounced electricity privatisation. “We are proud that we took the industry into public ownership,” he said. “When we come to power, it will be reinstated as a public service for the people of this country, and will not be run for private profit.” The young man’s name

SARS has become a bone of contention between the world’s two most closely tied trading partners, the US and Canada. Fears of unchecked growth, and a slow moving Office of Public Safety in Ontario have fueled the flames of paranoia and created significant impediments to Canada, particularly to Toronto.

These are the figures for the US: http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/sars.htm

These are the figures for Canada: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/pphb-dgspsp/sars-sras/cn-cc/numbers.html

Despite the early clustering of cases in Toronto, the primary outbreak of SARS was quite easily thwarted within the Canadian health care system, which offers protection and treatment with no-questions-asked to all. In a country like the US, where illegal residents are plentiful (particularly in the Asian community) and where one fifth of the nation’s population has no access to health care, will SARS cases necessarily be treated? Or worse, will any substantial number of these cases even be reported? Most illegal aliens in the US are loathe to seek medical treatment, even from the spartan public hospital system, for fear of deportation.

Could this be the straw that breaks America’s back on the Health Care issue? You wouldn’t know it to read the news. The CDC in the US has published numerous statements that SARS is under control in the US, and so the US Media have focused on the outbreak in Toronto, thus exacerbating Canada’s economic woes.

But with 60 million people in America without healthcare, does the CDC really have a handle on the problem, or is SARS — or another virus like it — a time bomb waiting to explode?

-Ian.

Happy Holidays To All Of You And Your Families… have fun in 2003!

-Mr. Sappy.

———–

Not only is the Canadian government treading into uncharted waters with a tax on a medium that they are ill-equipped to understand, but they’re merely serving to further entrench a music industry that has steadfastly refused to accept change.

This is the same music industry that has inhibited Canadian artists in their quest to find worldwide audiences for decades because of their own assumption that all Canadian musicians benefit exclusively from the 30% CanCon rule to a much greater degree than their own talent.

In the era of digital convergence what IS or ISN’T a “music playing device”?? I can guarantee you that this language in law will be clumsy and open to vastly varying interpretations. Those loopholes in definitions will be used by the RIAA to punish everyone from PC makers to Set Top Box manufacturers to car stereo manufacturers.

How much of this tax will get back to the artists who are supposedly being victimized by the technology? Probably none: it’s a win-win deal for government and the RIAA — the bureaucrats get to line their wallets and the RIAA gets to further inhibit the growth in diversity in how we access music.

I think it’s fair to say that the RIAA and Artists ARE losing money because of digital replication technologies. But it’s appropriate to ask whether this is because we as consumers have malicious intent in copying music for free or whether this is because we as consumers want to explore music through diverse media and the industry steadfastly refuses to alter their ideology to meet that need?

The music industry, powered by its own arrogance, thinks that it rules the market. MP3 and other media are examples where the consumers have voiced their discontent with the music industry’s definition of “choice”. Perhaps we ought to let RIAA members, and Artists who work within that system, starve under rampant piracy until they learn that their model of distribution and copyright is fundamentally broken. Only then might they adopt strategies that reflect the desires of the music-consuming public.

-Ian.

———- Forwarded message ———- Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 08:56:38 -0800 (PST) From: Salim Virani Reply-To: me [at] salimvirani [dot] com To: info [at] digitalconsumer [dot] org Cc: webmaster [at] digitalconsumer [dot] org Subject: Canadian Content

It seems that we Canadians are paving the way for the RIAA and others. If you havent heard already, the Canadian Government has legislated a new tax of $21CDN ($13US)/GB on non-removable storage in music playing devices.

Of course, with enough attention, this can be reversed. They are entertaining reactions until May 8th.

Read: http://news.dmusic.com/article/4580

And please make this information available on your site as well as adding a Canadian option to the Get Active section. If the site could fire off an email similar to the fax you have prepared, that would be a great start.

The Canadian Government contact (from the link above) is: CLAUDE MAJEAU Secretary General 56 Sparks Street, Suite 800 Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0C9 (613) 952-8621 (Telephone) (613) 952-8630 (Facsimile) majeau.claude [at] cb-cda.gc [dot] ca (Electronic mail)

Let me know how it goes. Thanks.

Salim Virani

—— End of Forwarded Message

———- Forwarded message ———- Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 09:46:35 -0800 (PST) From: Salim Virani Reply-To: me [at] salimvirani [dot] com To: majeau.claude [at] cb-cda.gc [dot] ca Subject: New Media Tarrifs and Fair Use Rights

As a constituent and an ardent consumer of digital media, I write today to urge you to support a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights, and to express my concerns about the recent trend toward allowing one-sided copyright laws to eliminate my Fair Use rights. I am also writing to oppose the new levies and tarrifs placed on recordable media, specifically those placed on hard drives and flash memory.

These tarrifs have not been thought through. They will simply remove our rights as consumers in the short term and shift the portable music hardware industry to more tax-sensible media in the long-term. For instance, the Rio Volt stores MP3s on a CD so I can lower the tarrif I pay by simply storing MP3s on a CD instead of a hard-drive-based player. Or wait a year, and you’ll see hard-drive-based player being sold with no hard-drive at all. You can just pick up a tarrif-free hard drive at the computer store and plug it in. This approach in ineffective. All you are doing is slowing innovation in the media industry without making a dent in the piracy problem.

Historically, our country has enjoyed a balance between the rights of copyright holders and the rights of citizens who legally acquire copyrighted works. Generally speaking, rights holders have the exclusive right to distribute and profit from artistic works. Consumers like me who legally acquire these works are free to use them in most noncommercial ways. Unfortunately, this balance has shifted dramatically in recent years, much to the detriment of consumers.

To prevent further erosion of my rights, I would like to add my voice to support the consumer rights supported by DigitalConsumer.org in the U.S. in calling for a “consumer technology bill of rights”. It is simply an attempt to assert positively the public’s personal use rights. These rights are not new; they are historic rights granted in previous legislation and court rulings that have over the last four years been whittled away.

Under the guise of “preventing illegal copying” I believe Hollywood is vilifying their customers – people like me – and using the legislative process to create new lines of business at my expense. Their goal is to create a legal system that takes away my long-cherished personal use rights and then to charge me an additional fee to regain those rights!

I understand the intention of your approach. Apply a tarrif on media in the player to cover an (alleged) loss of income from copyrighted material. First of all, if you take an unbiased look at the data, you will find evidence indicating that sharing services increase legitimate sales. Until this trend is clearly reversed, these measures are premature.

But even if we assume it is true that this new technology is causing the media companies to lose revenue, it is their business model which is outdated. In this case, these new tarrifs can only be considered progress if you also force the businesses out of their old model. You must then allow copyrighted material to move freely, knowing that the compensation is taken care of by the tarrifs placed on the player. You cant charge me twice for the same thing. I’ve already paid for the album at the CD store so I shouldn’t have to pay for it again just to listen to it while I’m jogging. That is my right.

Do not allow the media companies to rest on their laurels at the cost of my Fair Use Rights. Every other industry is adopting new technology and innovating. They are improving the way they do business and evolving with the Information Age. The media industry is asking you to let them be an exception. Why should they be? And why at the cost of consumer rights?

Copy protection, especially to prevent overseas piracy for illicit sale, is an important issue. But before you consider yet another change in the law at the behest of the copyright holders, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to protect my Fair Use rights.

Thank you very much for your attention to this important matter.

—

http://www.salon.com/travel/food/feature/2000/03/10/bardo/

For the already ordained, Krispy Kremes are the guilty pleasure of millions of otherwise health-seeking Americans, and the trend is sweeping the nation. The two main ingredients (lard and sugar) have positioned the humble Krispy Kreme as the Moped of cuisine — divinely pleasurable but outrageously embarrassing.

And yes, I will admit, they’re good. And yes, they’re coming to Canada.. the beach-head for the assault having already been established at the buttresses of Tim Horton’s Eagle’s Nest of Mississagua, Ontario.

Is Krispy Kreme truly the next Starbuck’s?

-Ian.

——

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/feb2002/nf20020228_4105.htm

FEBRUARY 28, 2002

STREET WISE By David Shook

Chewing Over Starbucks and Krispy Kreme

Investors are finding both outfits plenty tasty. In the long run, however, they may find more dough in java than in pastries

In the wake of Enron’s collapse and accusations of financial shenanigans at many other companies, investors these days are looking for balance sheets and business models they can easily grasp. So what could be more appealing than coffee and doughnuts, or Starbucks (SBUX ) and Krispy Kreme (KKD )? The two companies share some important similarities. Both have become icons for America’s quick-fix snack habits, hooking millions of consumers on their products. Both have benefited in the past year from being in recession-proof businesses. As stocks, the two have also been hot-growth names that occasionally get pummeled as investors bail out (Starbucks, now at $23, has actually done better year-to-date than Krispy, now at $37.50).

As investments, however, they have some major differences — in growth prospects, competitive position, and valuation. Especially in this rocky climate, Starbucks likely has more advantages for investors to consider. A MATURE BREW.  Their most significant divergence is that the two companies are probably at very different stages in their life cycle. In many ways, Krispy Kreme, which went public two years ago and launched a bold expansion strategy using the proceeds, looks like Starbucks 10 years ago. Back then, Starbucks had as many doubters as coffee fans. Critics said its $4 gourmet lattes would be a ’90s phenomenon. Now, it’s clear that Starbucks is more like McDonald’s in the ’80s: Well-liked by consumers worldwide and found on every street corner.

Starbucks’ strategy of selling premium coffee with piped-in jazz music, comfortable seating, and well-trained staffers has clearly paid off. In its most recent quarter, which ended Dec. 31, 2001, sales increased 26%, to $910 million, up from $722 million for the same period the year earlier. Net earnings for the quarter were $68.4 million, or 17 cents per share, an increase of 40% (including a $13.4 million gain from the partial sale of Starbucks Japan), compared to $49 million, or a split-adjusted 12 cents a share a year earlier.

And just like with ’80s-era McDonald’s, international growth seems to be next on Starbucks’ list. It’s jumping into Mexico City, Tokyo, Athens, and Hong Kong, along with many other European, Asian, and Latin American markets. It already has more than 650 coffee shops outside the U.S. and plans to open 100 more this year. Moreover, the coffee brewer still sees plenty of expansion opportunities in the U.S. Starbucks has 3,154 stores in North America and plans to open 525 more this year.

SQUEEZED SHORTS.  Krispy Kreme, by contrast, is still trying to prove itself. It’s a much smaller company, although its rapid sales growth has already given it a 118% market gain over the past year. Its sudden rise has brought doubters out of the woodwork — short sellers who love to bet against it, figuring a rocket stock like Krispy Kreme has to fall eventually.

However, since the company’s initial public offering less than two years ago, short-sellers have been squeezed repeatedly. Krispy has continued to defy critics as the stock climbs steadily, buoyed by robust earnings growth each quarter. Comparable store sales jumped 13.1% in its most recent quarter, vs. 2% for Starbucks.

Now comes the hard part: It’s still unclear just how far Krispy can take its concept of providing sugary, fat-laden doughnuts for the masses. It has 218 stores and expects to have 59 new full-service bakeries and 10 to 15 smaller shops this year, all in North America. Systemwide sales for the fourth quarter ended Feb. 3 increased 46%, to $183 million, according to the company’s preliminary estimates.

And Krispy expects to meet earnings estimates for the 2002 fiscal year when it announces bottom-line profits on Mar. 8. It aims to report earnings of 44 cents a share for the 2002 fiscal year and 61 cents a share in the 2003 fiscal year.

GOLDEN BEANS.  That’s attractive growth, but investors have already priced it into the stock. Starbucks, which is up 17% this year, has a price-to-earnings ratio of 42, while Krispy Kreme, which has slid 15% year to date, has a p-e of 96. That leaves room for a lot more downside if the doughnut maker can’t deliver on its ambitious targets.

Starbucks is also the more financially sound of the two — an important consideration in this skittish business climate. The Seattle-based coffee king ended the year with more than $300 million in cash and virtually no debt. Also, it consistently posts free cash flow — a measure of how much more money a company makes than it spends each quarter.

Krispy Kreme, by contrast, has just $45 million in cash and about $9 million in debt. Nor has it been able to post free cash flow every quarter. “Starbucks has always been cash-flow positive. The company just has the model down right,” says Doug Cristopher, analyst for Crowell Weedon & Co. DIXIE SHOWDOWN.  Finally, Starbucks benefits from less competition than Krispy Kreme, analysts say. Small gourmet chains such as Timothy’s World Coffee, a Canadian company with stores along the East Coast, haven’t been able to compete with Starbucks in the U.S. Timothy’s closed its U.S. operations in January, citing the sluggish economy.

Meanwhile, Krispy Kreme’s main competitor, Dunkin’ Donuts, a division of British food-and-spirits giant Allied Domecq, has been pushing into North Carolina-based Krispy Kreme’s home turf — the American South. Massachusetts-based Dunkin’ doughnuts says it plans to open more than 300 new stores south of the Mason-Dixon line, setting itself up for a head-to-head run against Krispy Kreme.

While Starbucks can rely on overseas growth, Krispy Kreme doesn’t have a clear global strategy. The global doughnut market, with more than $5 billion in annual sales, is almost entirely contained in North America, and it isn’t clear how much of an appetite Europeans, Asians, and Latin Americans will have for Krispy Kreme, says Greg Schroeder, analyst for Fulcrum Global Partners in New York. “Outside the U.S., there just isn’t a big market for doughnuts,” he says. “Coffee on the other hand is a global commodity. Europeans and Japanese drink more than we do.”

While 2002 is likely to be a strong year for both companies, regardless of how quickly the recession ends, the fact remains that coffee and doughnuts don’t represent the same value for investors. They may go hand-in-hand in the morning — Starbucks serves Krispy Kreme doughnuts in many of its java joints — but just as caffeine-addicted weight-watchers might buy the coffee and shun the doughnuts, Starbucks may also be the wiser choice for investors.

I saw “Titanic”. They can have ‘im.

-Ian.

——– http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010502/ts/space_tourist_dc_2.html

Wednesday May 2 4:50 PM ET NASA Chief Raps Tito, Praises Filmmaker Cameron

By Deborah Zabarenko

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – NASA chief Daniel Goldin criticized cosmic tourist Dennis Tito on Wednesday for causing stress at the U.S. space agency, but praised aspiring amateur astronaut and director James Cameron for delaying any trip until the time is right.

“The current situation has put an incredible stress on the men and women of NASA,” Goldin told members of a U.S. House of Representatives panel on space and aeronautics.

“They are dedicated to safety and Mr. Tito does not realize the efforts of thousands of people in the United States and Russia that are working to protect his safety and the safety of everyone else, taking extraordinary means,” Goldin testified.

Tito, a 60-year-old California multimillionaire, paid Russia some $20 million to travel aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the space agencies of Europe, Japan and Canada objected to Tito’s flight, saying he was inadequately trained and might dangerously distract the station crew.

Lofted into space last Saturday, Tito arrived at the station on Monday. He will stay for about six days, then return to Earth aboard an older Soyuz that is about to be retired.

When Russia said they would launch Tito despite the objections, the global partners got Tito to agree to pay for anything he breaks in the station, to stay in the Russian sections unless escorted and not to sue if he is injured.

So far, Tito has followed the rules and has not broken anything, according to Bob Cabana, NASA’s manager for international operations for the space station.

“I’ve received no reports of any problems; everything’s going smoothly,” Cabana said. “The agreement we had pretty much laid everything out, and I think everything’s going fine as far as that’s concerned.”

In response to congressional questions about the cost — in money and lost research time — of Tito’s voyage, Goldin said this would be assessed after the mission ends and that Russia had agreed to reimburse these costs.

Unbidden, Goldin brought up Cameron’s push for a ride in space, contrasting it favorably with Tito’s and calling the director and producer of the hit “Titanic” and other films “an American patriot.”

Cameron Approached Nasa In 2000

“I’d like to make a contrast here, because there is an American patriot who understood how to do this,” Goldin said. ”That gentleman’s name is James Cameron, who approached me some six months ago and asked about going to space.”

When Goldin told Cameron there was no protocol for screening or training or even a known time when he might fly, Goldin said the director told him, “I’m going to wait until the partners work things out, and then at an appropriate time, when the ops (operations) tempo isn’t high, maybe it’s appropriate to go.”

Cameron, who was born in Ontario, Canada, has undergone preliminary testing in Russia to determine his fitness for space travel, and passed, according to Rae Sanchini, president of Lightstorm Entertainment, Cameron’s production company.

“He is hopeful, he’s very interested,” Sanchini said in a telephone interview, referring to Cameron’s space aspirations. She denied reports that Cameron was within weeks of signing an agreement with Russia for a space flight.

“He’s got different goals in mind than Mr. Tito,” Sanchini said from Los Angeles. “He wants to go into space to capture imagery … that can excite the masses about space exploration and the efforts of NASA and the Russian Space Agency and furthering that cause.”

Russia’s Mir was ditched in March in the South Pacific. Tito had originally agreed to travel to Mir and was switched to the International Space Station when it became clear Mir would not be available.

Blackberry picked to be the American I-mode By Om Malik Redherring.com, December 05, 2000

Michael Dell has one, Marc Andreessen does not leave home without it, and it is a must-have accessory for every Wall Street investment banker. It’s not the American Express Platinum Card; it’s a lowly two-way pager, which also sends and receives email.

The esoterically named Blackberry — a cross between a personal digital assistant, wireless email device, and pager manufactured by Research in Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) — is one of the hottest devices in North America, with more than 200,000 sold, mostly to on-the-go corporate types. And those sales have happened primarily through word of mouth, a marketing coup that might be considered the hardware equivalent of Napster’s success.

At a recent Churchill Club gathering in Santa Clara, California, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner John Doerr — arguably the second-most powerful man in technology, behind Bill Gates — described the Blackberry as “the I-mode of North America.” (I-mode is the popular wireless service from Japan’s NTT DoCoMo; with handsets that resemble the smallest American cell phones, I-mode devices are the most common method of accessing the Internet in Japan.)

Mr. Doerr was pretty much on the mark. Soon, with America Online (NYSE: AOL) and Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) pushing the consumer version of the device into the market, the Blackberry is likely to become a household name. Last week, AOL said it will use Research in Motion’s hardware and customize it as the AOL Mobile Communicator series of handhelds. AOL subscribers can purchase the device for $329.95 and pay a monthly $19.95 subscription fee to access the wireless service. Given AOL’s reach, that could add a few hundred thousand Blackberry devices into the market. PC makers Compaq Computer (NYSE: CPQ) and Dell Computer (Nasdaq: DELL) have signed up to push the device to their customers for a piece of the action.

For Jim Balsillie, chairman and co-CEO of Research in Motion (RIM), these are the salad days. For nearly 12 years, the Waterloo, Ontario-based company has struggled in anonymity, hoping that one day it would become the darling of the Silicon Valley crowd.

His wish has been granted. RIM stock has been on fire for much the year — rising 44.6 percent, giving the company a market capitalization of about $5.3 billion.

COMPETITION HEATS UP The Blackberry created a market that everyone else is chasing. Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is hoping for similar success for its new Timeport pagers. But even its neon colors, lower price, and Hollywood push (MTV veejay Carson Daly is a pitchman for the product) may not be enough for Motorola to combat its Canadian rival. Palm (Nasdaq: PALM) and Handspring (Nasdaq: HAND) are also adding such features to their products, but RIM has a nice head start.

Looking to expand quickly, the company has just expanded into Europe. BT Cellnet, a subsidiary of British Telecommunications, is going to sell the device in England and Europe. All this expansion is, of course, going to take a big bite out of the company’s profits.

While sales are expected to rise to $189.3 million in fiscal 2001 (ending February 28, 2001) from $85 million in fiscal 2000, RIM will report a loss of $9.7 million for fiscal 2001 versus $10.1 million in net income in fiscal 2000, according to Merrill Lynch estimates. Merrill analyst William Crawford predicts that by fiscal 2002 RIM will be in the black again, posting a net income of $9.5 million on sales of $344.4 million.

Red Herring recently caught up with Mr. Balsillie and talked about the future of RIM and the viral marketing of the Blackberry pager.

Q. Can you explain what makes Blackberry so hot?

A. There are two reasons why Blackberry has become so popular. First of all it, is always on and always connected, so you can get your email anytime, all the time. Secondly, it is an extension of your desktop. Everyone else wants you to have another email address, while Blackberry does not require [it].

Q. Why are you simply focusing on the hardware device and not offering services on top of your platform?

A. Part of our value-add is that we do not contend or compete with the existing player. If it is an Internet service provider (like AOL) or a portal (like Yahoo) we simply extend their platform. We do one thing — the hardware — and we do it very well. I think the embedded antenna, long battery life, and ease of use are because of our focus.

JAVA IS KEY Q. So what are the new applications currently under development that will give more oomph to the Blackberry?

A. Since we use a Java virtual machine at the core, half a million Java developers can develop applications for Blackberry quite easily. More than 10,000 of our software development kits have been downloaded so far. So you will see people like Aether Systems (Nasdaq: AETH) and ETrade (Nasdaq: EGRP) develop stock-trading applications. Others are developing a personal wallet for the device. Of course, Yahoo and America Online are offering their own services (such as instant messaging).

Q. Java seems to be the key here.

A. The developers do not know what environment to write for, and they are confused. I think that is why a lot of wireless devices are embracing Java, so that developers can write applications which can run anywhere. We were the first, and now other wireless devices are doing the same.

Q. You must be coming under a lot of competition, especially since Palm and Handspring have started offering their own wireless services and are working with the wireless ISP Omnisky (Nasdaq: OMNY). And they seem to be cheaper.

A. I think the comparison is unfair, because we are a personal information manager, wireless email device, and pager all rolled into one device for $399. Now if you took the others and added the cost of a modem, their solution is more expensive than us.

Q. What about Motorola, which has new two-way pager-wireless devices on the market that are being touted by Hollywood celebrities?

A. Motorola is selling a pager, a very simple device, which runs on a legacy network and has limited functionality.

Q. What’s next for RIM?

A. I think with the America Online and Yahoo thing, the consumer push is a huge area. Secondly, we are about to start integrating with Lotus Notes. These are two major developments for us, and of course there is the expansion into Europe.

Apologies to Mom & Dad. You’d never toss cabers.

-Ian.

——– Original Message ——– Subject: Re: Marketing Meeting Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 00:21:11 +0000 From: Ian Andrew Bell To: Fenella Tigner

Fenella, you said you needed a better bio for me. Here goes:

Ian Andrew Bell was born in the bonny bluffs of Oak Hill, Ontario, Canada to a Scotsman and his wee lassie. Sadly, his parents were killed at an early age in a disastrous caber-tossing incident and he was raised by the famed Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen Brigade at Bonnydoon, otherwise known as the West Side of Vancouver, BC, Canada.

As a Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksman young Ian learned to farm trees and grow hemp (both of which could be smoked if one had the incl- ination and a big enough match), as well as the fine art of Scottish Highland Dance. As a youth Ian also learned to hunt and fish with the local Indian band, the Fugawis. The Fugawi people, in addition to being excellent trackers, are credited with inventing the early steps and moves which later came to be known as breakdancing.

The Yaksmen, steeped in the traditions of highland dancing, railed against young Master Ian’s newfound love of dub poetry and break- dancing, and the boy was torn asunder — his heart ripped between that which he now loved, and that which he had always known. This choice between Michael Flatley and Jam Master Jay would prove to be pivotal for this strong-minded youth.

And so it was with heavy heart that Ian Andrew Bell turned in his kilt and sporran and headed down to the local Canadian Tire(tm) to purchase his first 4-foot by 4-foot piece of ruby red linoleum: a rite of passage that lives on in infamy for the clan of the Kilted Yaksmen and in triumph for the breakdancing elite of the Fugawi people.

Soon Ian ascended the throne as the breakdance culture evolved into the hip-hop movement as we know it today. But the transition from sgian dubh to adidas had its own perils, as Ian’s epic battle with producer Suge Knight for supremacy of the hip-hop world spilled onto the streets in an ugly East-Coast vs. West-Coast battle that killed, injured, or jailed more than two dozen rap superstars and their entourage.

It was only with the triumphant unification of both the Bell and Knight camps at a 1998 performance featuring rap superstars Chuck D, Kool Moe Dee, Eric B. & Rakim, and DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince in New York City’s Madison Square Gardens that peace entered into Ian’s life.. The sellout crowd roared as Suge Knight was wheeled out onto the stage and was embraced by a teary Ian Andrew Bell, who followed the peacemaking with a well-oiled breakdance routine to the rhythms of Fatboy Slim doing a live remake of Bootsy Collins’ classic “Bootzilla”.

Ian has never forgotten his roots as a Kilted Yaksman. He contributes $1 million annually to a fund for parentless victims of caber-tossing accidents, and maintains a sheep farm outside of Auchenleith, Scotland.

-Ian.