State of the Union address is like a "coolaid" ad

The President's State of the Union address is like an ad put out by a food company on its coolaid drink. The whole address is fraught with soothing soundbites, devoid of any substantial public policy discourse. Maybe it is intended this way. The State of the Union address may have never been a platform intended to explain, but rather to sell, to the people, the Whitehouse's policies. That is really sad. In these days, serious politics is so boring to people. Politics needs to be packaged, watered-down, and then carefully marketed. For ordinary citizen, it is impossible to tell what is the fact, and what is only marketing.

On the other hand, the Democrats rebuttal is kind of like a negative ad run by a competiting food company. That never works well.

Thinking back, Bush was elected (really?) in 2000 on the platform of compassionate conservatism. But all these years, I have seen plenty of conservatism in action, but compassion only in talks. Where is the compassion in Bush's radical unilateralistic foreign policy? Where is the compassion in cutting Medicaid, and student loan program? Where is the compassion in cutting small social programs in favor of spendings that benefit military contractors, energy companies, and pharmaceutic and insurance companies? Where is the compassion in Hurricane Katrina? Where is the compassion in locking up people without trials? Where is the compassion in Abu Graib? Where is the compassion in extraordinary renditions? Where is the compassion in secret prisons? Where is the compassion?

"Democracy" in middle east

We say we want to spread democracy in middle east. But can we really handle the kind of "democracy" in middle east. Now a test is coming. It appears that Palestinians are going to overwhelmingly choose Hamas over Abas. This is a pity. Because we really prefer the latter, and the State Department even threatened to pull away any financial aid to the Palestinians if they choose Hama. Do we need democracy there, or we need a friendly government?

If the so-called "democracy" was in Saudi, I think the Saudis might have elected Osama Ben Laden as their president. Do we want that?

Come on, let's be realistic. Quit the slogans. They do not help our credibility at all.

MacWorld: surprise surprise.

I thought the Intel Mac would be an iBook. And I also expected to see Mac mini adopt Viiv to become a media center device. But what we got instead were MacBook Pro to replace PowerBook, and iMac to replace the G5, both of which were just refreshed in Oct of 2005. Why Apple did not do anything to Mac Mini and iBook, both of which need refresh more urgently? My guess is that Apple wants to reserve the thunder for its 30-year anniversary, which is coming on April 1st.

But 14M iPod is an eye-popping number. Eight million video downloads in less than three months are also impressive.

Why HD-DVD will win and Blue-ray will lose

I think in the end, HD-DVD (a standard championed by Toshiba) will win out over Blue Ray, a standard mainly supported by Sony. The reason is simple. It is not about technology. It is in the name. Consumers can easily understand what HD means. But what the heck Blue-Ray means? I don't have a Blue-Ray TV. I have a HD-TV set. Of course, I am going to buy an HD-DVD player. This is what an average consumer may think. An average consumer may even wonder whether Blue-Ray DVD is compatible with HD-TV or not. If you have an HD-DVD player side by side with a Blue Ray DVD player, and you have got an HD-TV set at home, and you have no idea about these tech jargons, which DVD player you'd buy? I will go with the safe route, buy an HD-DVD player to go along with my HD TV set.

music download through wireless: a business doomed to fail

Yesterday Verizon announced a service to allow people to download songs over the cellualr network to cell phones, at double the price of iTunes. Several months ago, Sprint annoucement similar service.

I just don't understand what these companies are thinking. This type of service is doomed to fail from the beginning. How can they compete with iTunes, which is cheaper and much easier to use? Furthermore, why do you have to click through the tiny screen of a cell phone in order to buy a song, when you can easily do that on the comfort of a home PC. In what situation do you really need to buy a song right away on a cell phone network, and you can't wait to get home to buy it on a PC?

I think these companies don't understand the difference between content consumption and content acquisition and management. Cell phones, and other handheld devices (iPod included), are basically for content consumption only. PC is for content acquisition and management. For content consumption, you don't need many fancy features. Ease of use is the key. That is why iPod is so wildly popular. You can leave the complex functionalities to PC.

Cell phones are getting increasingly more complex. But 99% of the time, I only use it for making phone calls. I wonder how many people are using all of the features that are in the cell phones. To me, a basic voice phone, with embedded MP3 music player will be enough. I can use my PC to load the songs to the phone.

Cell phone operators want to fill up its excess bandwidth (they have got a lot of bandwidth with 3G). But without charging a high price, they won't be able to earn a sufficient return on per bandwidth. That is why they have to charge a higher price than wired song downloads.

Google PC? How do you deliver web content to TV

Rumors that Google will sell its own branded PC through WalMart are circulating in the web sphere. Many may scoff at the idea that Google making its own PC. But I would not be surprised that Google will get into the hardware side of content delivery.

So far the web content is mainly of text. But video content on the web is increasing exponentially. One drawback of video on the net is that you have to view it on a PC. But the best means of consuming video content is TV. That is why MSFT is so keen on IPTV and Media Center PC. Basically one has to figure out a way to transfer content from PC to TV, in a seamless way that should not take an engineering PhD to set it up. The web content in current form is not suitable for TV viewing from several feet away. One has to figure out a way to re-format the web content, particularly the video content, so that it can be easily viewed on TV. To accomplish this may involve tight integration of software and hardware. It looks like Apple has got both hardware and software to tackle this problem. Microsoft's Xbox may potentially be morphed into something that can deliver web content to TV. But Google, Yahoo and AOL do not have any hardware business. Yahoo seems to be partnering with TiVo and set-top-box vendors. But eventually it needs to make its own media gateway.

So Google may not be trying to make its own PC (that is easy. Google has made more complex servers for itself). But what Google is wroking on may be something that can transfer content from the web to your TV set.

Pirates of the Caribbean

We went to a cruise vacation last week during the Christmas. I will not go back again, for a long time. I just can't relax on the ship when I see the laborers recruited by the cruise company from the 3rd world countries working their butts off, scrubbing the floors, cleaning the tables around the clock. The cruise companies operate in international seas, under no jurisdiction. I am not sure whether the workers on the cruise ship are protected by labor laws of any country. The cruise companies are not paying any tax on its operating profit. They are truly "pirates of the Caribbean".

We flew independence Airline. We were fortunate to have come back last Thursday. If we'd come back this weekend, we would have been stuck in Tampa, looking for another flight to get home. I really like the Airline. It is sad that the company can't stay in business.