American Madness

By Jason Ihle

The nomination process went mostly as expected (results here). No big surprises. I am impressed with myself, though. I got 39 out of 43 in the top nine categories (including animated feature). I missed 1 each in Director, Actress, Supporting Actor and Actress.

You guys all know i’m a big fan of numbers and statistics, so here goes:

This is the first time in 24 years (since the year of Reds, Raiders, Chariots, Golden, Atlantic) that Picture and Director match up 5 for 5. A stunning 14 of the 20 acting nominees are first timers. Incredibly, only 3 of the nominated performances are for characters who die during the course of the film. 10 of them are real historical characters.

William Hurt got his first nomination in 18 years.

Here’s an interesting stat: film editor Michael Kahn earns a 7th nomination (for Munich), putting him in a 3-way tie with Barbara McLean and William Reynolds for most noms in that category.

All-time leading visual effects artist Dennis Muren adds number 15 for War of the Worlds.

John Williams picked up his 44th and 45th career nominations, making him tied with Alfred Newman as the all time leading nominated composer, and second all time nominations - period - behind only Walt Disney’s 60 career nominations.

Woody Allen - who was already the most nominated screenwriter since 1997’s Deconstructing Harry - has added a 14th writing nomination (and 22nd overall) for Match Point. The biggest crime of the nominations is that Scarlett Johannson was not nominated for her performance in that film.

Every year I engage in the crapshoot that is prediction the Oscar nominations. The top 8 categories are usually not so difficult. Typically there are 3 or 4 sure-things and a 5th spot that could go to one of 2 or 3 contenders.

This year is really no different. I’d say the Supporting Actor category was the most difficult because there are about 10 performances, most of which have an equal shot at a nomination.

I’ve included some potential spoilers in the top categories. I’ve made picks in the technical categories just for fun, it’s nearly impossible to gauge how the members of the Academy’s Sound Branch are going to choose the 5 films with the best sound recording.

So here’s my list of nominees for all categories (excluding foreign film, animated short, live action short, doc. short):

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I love this one by Stuart Carlson! Hmm… How will public perception fall?

From its inception Google mission has been to organize the world’s information, however right alongside that mission was a corollary and necessary agenda to insert advertising into every aspect of a user’s online experience. Google is an advertising engine just as much as it is a search engine, and all those cool tools that Google comes out with are just so many more loss leaders meant to draw you in.

Google’s actions have shown that its long term goal is to merge advertising with all its product offerings. The broader vision here is that all media services should somehow be tied to advertising, including WiFi hubs, Internet content channels, even cheap laptop computers. I think that Google tools and services are great, but this vision of a universal big brother of advertising is kind of scary - kind of evil.

It is interesting to consider just how much information about its users Google actually stores and tracks. They are one of the main owners and guardians of what John Battelle refers to as The “Database of Intentions.” The database of intention is, according to Battelle, “the aggregate results of every search ever entered, every result list ever tendered, and every path taken as a result.” i.e. a whole hell of a lot of personal data about everyone. “It lives in many places, but three or four places in particular hold a massive amount of this data (ie MSN, Google, and Yahoo).”

In essence, the database consists of the sum total of everything any user has ever done on any of these web sites. These companies claim that personal information is completely dissociated from the data, but really that is just a point we have to trust them on. The potential for a company like Google to use this information for “evil” purposes is huge, and the public’s perception of just how safe their information is will determine how well potentially invasive services like GMail will succeed.

Google presents itself as just a bunch of good willed geeks that want to give the world great products and services for free. This is why they are currently “fighting vigorously,” subpoenas from the federal government for information on child pornography searches. Essentially they are fighting for our trust because, if they lose that they are pretty much fucked.

Google’s business model and the business model of most major Internet portals is predicated on users trusting that their personal information will be protected. If people didn’t have this trust they would stop using the services and ad revenue would plummet. Further, many new web services require an active role and a substantial investment of time and energy from their users e.g.(wikipedia, delicious, flickr, myspace, etc.). If users don’t trust the providers then these technologies have no chance of success.

Link to Joy of Tech comic by Nitrozac and Snaggy. (via reBlog: boing boing)

Google’s evil-meter has done well in the public eye. The perception has been that Google actually lived up to its “Do No Evil” motto. However, their recent choice to launch a Chinese version of the search engine with censored search results shows clearly that Google can be bought for a price. Google couldn’t sit by and watch billions of dollars in potential revenue evaporate along with their position as the world’s #1 search engine, this was their price.

They gave into Beijing and censored their search results, and by doing this they eviscerated their credibility with their user base, many of whom put time and energy into making Google what it is today. It doesn’t take much of a logical leap to see that if Google gives in to the Chinese government today, then it will probably give in to many other governments and powerful entities in the future. Your personal information is not safe with Google. They will sell out when the stakes are high, but it still remains to be seen how this fact plays out in the public consciousness. Will we lose the faith, or will we just shrug our shoulders and go on?

Roughly 20 protesters from Students for a Free Tibet — including a number of Tibetan nationals — gathered in front of Google’s headquarters last Wednesday to protest the company’s launch of a government-filter-compliant search engine in China. Link, more images here. (via: reBlog:boing boing: Telendro)

Yes, Google’s actions in regard to the Chinese government are evil, as are Microsoft’s and Yahoo’s actions. They represent the kind of pragmatism and moral relativism that has always personified the “evil corporation.” If Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL had formed a unified front maybe they could have pushed for more openness, but that’s not how business generally works. It’s about money and China has a lot of that to spread around.

In the end, “Do No Evil” is probably a bad slogan for a publicly traded company with such lofty aspirations for growth. Evil will have to be done. Sorry folks, that’s the unfortunate truth. The “Do No Evil” slogan just makes all the compromises and questionable dealings that much more painfully obvious.

Will all this evil come back to bite Google in the ass? I hope so! But, I’m too much of a realist to believe that they will pay fully for there sins. They are going to make boat loads of cash in China. I would have probably made the same decision, if I was CEO of Google. You don’t win by being nice or moral. You win by being evil, while convincing everyone you’re good.

Always make fun of the powers that be. Enjoy!

Bush At His Best

Last year was such a terrible year for hedge funds, and for many of the intermediaries that invest in them (called funds of funds), that Shakespeare was inspired to rise from his grave and paraphrase some of his earlier work:

Spoken in unison by two Funds of Funds:

Double, double, earn or fumble

Alphas fall, investors rumble

Fund of Funds 1:

Seed a fund and try to spark it

Measure it against the market

Equity was some mistake

Gave me quite the stomach ache

Changed my mind and chose distressed

Emerging markets, quite the mess

Spinoffs market ever humble

Lock-ups make the pensions mumble

FoF 1&2:

Double, double, pick and bumble;

Fees on fees ensure a stumble

Fund of funds 2:

Multi-strats crossed blackened cats

Arbitrage was killed on stats

Pension plans like losers acted

Health care perks are soon redacted

Unions, top hats, retirees

Are such a fickle crowd to please

Risky bets, so hard to measure,

Seldom lead to any pleasure

FoF 1&2:

Double, double, toil and trouble

Hedge funds roil, and markets bubble

My prayers answered, today’s NYTimes headline explains:

Supreme Court Steers Clear of First Abortion Case in 5 YearsApparently, major challenges are not that common.

That’s the opinion of Nicole Gelinas, who presents compelling evidence that Wall Street supplies the numismatic oxygen that allows New York City to breathe.

Gotham Needs Wall Street; Does Wall Street Need Gotham?

My job as a financial journalist links me rather closely to the fate of Wall Street, as in good times the Street’s increased budget for news and information trickles into my company’s coffers. In bad times, pricey subscriptions begin disappearing just as marketing and advertising budgets are slashed. Still, if Wall Street moved to New Jersey, the effect on my publication and livelihood would likely be unaffected. One can’t say the same for the myriad cafes and restaurants that make New York such a vibrant place.

My colleague Adam and many of my friends are desperately concerned that Alito and like-minded jurists at our high court will find some way to reverse Roe. Nevermind that a precedent shattering case would have to appeal to the court first, before any such decision could occur, or that for such a case to be eligible some lower court would have to overrule Roe. How often this actually happens, I can’t say, but is there no enterprising legal journalist out there to give an answer?

It can’t be too often that Roe encounters a legitimate lower court challenge, or I presume we would hear no end to it, first from regional and then national news services.

But even if a Roe challenge hits an Alito-infused court what is the worst case scenario?

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China has offered to give Taiwan two panda bears.

But Taipei has refused, saying it fears the mainland imports would scare the Taiwanese panda bear at the zoo by spitting into their food, blowing snot on the ground and ravaging them when they bend over to pick up the soap in the shower. (more…)

Moosejaw, Minnesota (Jan. 10, 2006)–Stooples Inc. Thursday reacted angrily to accusations from website, TheSmokingGun.com that James Frey’s best-selling nonfiction memoir, “A Million Little Pieces” was “filled with fabrications, falsehoods, other fakery.”

“He may sit atop the New York Times best-seller list. Oprah loves him. But we’ve been purveyors of poppycock since long before James Frey beat Sir Edmund Hilary up Everest and discovered the cure for polio while on a bad acid trip,” said an irate Stooples CEO and Chairman Donny Steintrumper. “Our latest catalogue, ‘Stooples: Office Tools for Hopeless Fools’ is simply filled with way more fabrications, falsehoods and other fakery. And we’re darned proud of it.” (more…)