2012: Whap!

Holy moly—it’s the end of the year! And here’s me unprepared thinking that the whole Mayan apocalypse thing would obviate having to do a round-up of 2012.

My bad!

Looking back on the year there are a few experiences that stand out in my mind:

That whole nightmare with my health insurance cutting me off (without mentioning it to me) five days before I had knee surgery shadowed the entire year, I’m afraid. I’m deeply grateful that people I didn’t know stepped up to the plate to help me out of a serious pickle. I learned a couple of things from that: make sure your check clears the bank. And there are government functionaries who will do their job and make a megalithic corporation back down. God bless ‘em.

I made a commitment to post to this blog five days per week, which turns out to be a considerable effort. You might not think it takes anything at all to come up with the drivel I share with you, but it does. Some days the nonsense just flows. Others I have to Google randomly for hours to find something that either amuses or outrages me enough to share it with you.

However, the House of Windsor can usually be counted on to supply me with something.

Developing back pain that, on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being “shoot me now”) was hovering at an 8, and being severely restricted by having the crappiest health insurance it’s possible to pay into, turned out to lead me to a Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner. Not only did Dr. Woo take me from the 8 to a 4 on that scale at my first visit, he introduced me to the benefits of acupuncture.

Woo was the first chiropractor I’ve ever seen who didn’t start out by taking a flock of X-rays and then schedule me for three appointments a week until my insurance benefits ran out. He felt my pulse and checked my tongue; told me to lay off sugar, drink more water and get out and walk for 60 minutes at least a couple of times a week; and he’s given me exercises to do to strengthen my core muscles.

Until about October, I was exploring the various trails around here several mornings a week. It was pretty painless exercise, actually, and it got me out and about.

Since seeing him and running out of early morning daylight, I finally broke down and joined a gym. Okay, I didn’t join it until December, but since doing so I’ve gone there on average five mornings a week (except while I was in Sedona), cranking out 60 minutes of cardio exercise per visit. I’ve lost about four pounds, which may seem insignificant and indeed is a drop in the bucket compared to what I need to lose, but is still something positive

But I think the biggest thing for me this year was deciding to produce at least the first draft of a novel. As of this weekend I rounded the corner on 95K words. What’s really amazing to me about this is how much better I feel about pretty much everything since I started working on this. I find it a lot easier to deal with moronic recruiters (of whom there is a massive surfeit in this world), ADHD executive directors and the other vicissitudes of the Silicon Valley.

As with the blog, some days the prose flows and some days I have to Google randomly for a long time to spark something. But I’m really glad I took it on.

As for rounding up 2012 in general—I’ll leave that to Dave Barry; he’s been at it a lot longer than I have.

I particularly liked learning about the Predator drones and Waziristan.

Aloha to the honorable gentleman

I can’t tell you how sad I am to hear of the death of Daniel Inouye. The Senator who represented the people of Hawaii since 1963, died today at age 88.

The man served the people of the United States pretty much all his adult life. He lost his arm in action in Tuscany against the Germans in 1945 as a member of the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team. For his courage truly above and beyond, Inouye was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor (initially the Distinguished Service Cross). Following his recovery from his wounds, he earned degrees in political science and law, and began his political career.

Inouye absolutely embodied the concept of public service. In an organization marked these days for veniality, pettiness and rabid ideology, he never lost sight of the greater good. I can’t think of him as a “politician” when the term applies to the likes of our Congress.

Sadly, they don’t make them like him anymore.

Sandy Hook

In the wake of today’s shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the only comment I have is to reiterate what I said after the last major mass shooting, at a Sikh temple in Milwaukee (which followed less than a month after another mass shooting at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colo.)

“Let me just say that a whackjob with a gun doesn’t really need a cause to espouse or a specific group to hate; all he needs is the weapon(s), the ammo, the access & maybe the ability to go to full-auto.“

I was right, too—it didn’t take long for the next whackjob to target more victims for any or no reason at all.

Remembering

To mark Veteran’s Day, I’d like you to listen, instead of read.

NPR’s StoryCorps is starting a year-long project to document the memories of those who have fought our wars for us. Between Friday and Saturday, they have two installments you really should hear.

The first is from Harvey Hilbert, infantryman in Vietnam, who carries with him the sight and sound of a comrade who died in the field with him more than 45 years ago.

The second is from Justin Cliburn, who deployed to Bagdad in 2005 to train the Iraqi police, and met two little boys.

Listen, please. Listen to their words, and listen to their voices. And remember the price they pay.

Civic duty

I got to my polling place—the fire station down the block—at 0645 yesterday, but it turns out that polls in California don’t open until 0700. Well, blow me—in Virginia they open at 0600. Californians are pikers.

Anyhow, there was one person there ahead of me, a South Asian in motorcycle gear who said he’s a software developer and he doesn’t own a mobile phone. I almost high-fived him. (I have one, but I’ve always told employers I don’t. If they think you have one, they’ll only want to call you and annoy you.) He was carrying his gloves and helmet, and his sample ballot.

We talked about how more than half the ballots cast in this state for this election are expected to be by mail, but he said he likes the experience of voting in person. He’s right—it feels more civic to be handed your ballot by a really old guy with extremely limited English skills (but who I expect is a holy terror in Mandarin), and go mark it in a little plastic boothlet.

The ballot itself (which was actually two sheets, because of all the initiatives and referenda) was in English and Spanish, although the cover sheet was in the other three languages that election materials come in, so I’m assuming that if you’d wanted one in Mandarin, Tagalog or Viet, it would have been produced.

By the time the place opened up, there were maybe five people behind me, and a bunch more arrived before I left—at least 12 or 15, standing there with coffee mugs, babies and briefcases. I was outa there by 0712—all those ballot measures.

That’s one thing I love about California—every election has at least five grass-roots laws or proposed measures referred by the legislature to the electorate for approval. There’s almost always something about marijuana or prisons. This time there was no grass in the grass-roots, but there was the one on the death penalty and one on amending the three-strikes policy, so we had the penal system represented.

Also, there were two competing measures to raise taxes state-wide to pay for services/education that have been gutted by the economic crunch; one sent down from Governor Brown, the other framed and funded by a woman who was, for about 17 minutes, a childhood friend of mine.

When I left the fire station, I slapped that “I Voted” sticker on my shirt and wore it all day. It’s a good day’s work to vote.

Bring it!

Tomorrow is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. It’s Election Day, and there are a lot of things at stake. You’ve no doubt been barraged by TV campaign ads, robo-calls and a whole load of crap in your mail. If you’re like me, you were ready to cast your ballot and have the whole thing in your rearview mirror at least a month ago.

But it’s time to get past your disgust with pretty much everyone involved in politicking, from presidential candidates down to city councilors. Forget how much money the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson have poured into PACs and alleged “social welfare organizations” helmed by Karl Rove; or—if you lean the other way—the millions that George Soros and Ariana Huffington have donated to Democrats. Put aside the fact that your local and state office candidates are being funded by people who’ve never set foot in your fair community, but have a vested interest in fielding candidates who think their way get into your political offices. Draw a breath and disremember that once they’re in office all they seem to think about is the next election.

Leave all that crap aside and think about what a wonderful thing it is to vote. The Founding Fathers laid the framework for a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Their “people”, of course, were adult white males; but the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the Constitution rectified that. We are privileged to elect our governments—it’s a principle that tens of millions of people view with longing because they know it only in theory.

And this brings me to my point for the day: my fellow women—my sistahs: we have not had the right to vote for even 100 years. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers first went to the polls in the presidential election of 1920. To get that vote, generations of women agitated, educated, annoyed and became thorns in the sides of every civic, religious, political and business organization in the country. They suffered ridicule, legal prosecution, imprisonment, financial hardships and ostracism from family and community. In a very real sense, they went into harm’s way so that we can mark the ballot with our choices for those who will act as our leaders.

(Yes, fine—generations of men before them struggled for the vote, before democratic republics became the norm. You want to feel good about that?—post to your own blog. I’m talking the ladies, here.)

We owe it to the suffragists who won that vote at hard cost to themselves to exercise that right.

And consider the sistahs:

This election year has any number of themes that are categorized as “women’s issues”. In my opinion, this is a misnomer. The right to access to affordable healthcare (for all aspects of health), the right to make decisions about whom you’ll associate with in what relationships (First Amendment, anyone?), the right to be protected from physical harm in the home as well as on the streets, the right to a sound education that leads to economic opportunities so that your children don’t grow up in poverty—these aren’t “women’s issues”. They’re “human issues”. They affect us all.

But they’ve slapped the women label on them, so I say, sistahs: bring it on. Bring on those votes. Offer to drive someone to the polls who might not otherwise be able to get there. Urge your friends to vote. High-five anyone you see wearing one of those “I voted” stickers. Strut your vote. You talk the talk when you bitch about political leaders; now’s the time to walk the walk by voting.

This is only the 24^th presidential election we’ve been able to participate in—so vote for your man. One day your man may be a woman. But don’t stop there—vote for your Senator, your Representative, your Governor, your state reps, your initiatives and your referenda. What the hell—do not stop voting until you’ve run out of ballot. (If you need guidance on issues, consult your local chapter of the League of Women Voters. These broads know their onions and they give you the straight scoop. They are not the Junior League.)

My sistahs—I’m as cynical as they come about politicians. But your vote matters.

Think about this, my sistahs:

And bring it.

The Ecstasy of Ada Lovelace Day

Here it is again—Ada Lovelace Day, a global celebration of women in science and technology, past and present. (A nice change from the subject of women being in the literal and figurative crosshairs for displaying any reasoning skills beyond those required to work out a recipe for stew or darning a sock.)

Lovelace (1815-1852) was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, and had a flair for mathematics that led her to a key partnership with Charles Babbage’s proto-computer. She might be considered the Mother of Machine Languages and is certainly well qualified to provide a hook for a day of recognition of the achievements of other scientifically-minded women.

In past ALD posts, I’ve discussed Admiral Grace Hopper, the mother of modern computing languages (including inventing the term “debugging” for the process of fixing logic errors); Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine for her work in developing radioimumunoassay (RIA);and Joan Strothers Curran, a physicist who invented the radar-deflecting countermeasure known as “window” or “chaff”, which played a key role in confusing the Germans about the intended D-Day invasion location.

All these women devoted their lives as well as their careers to technology advancement and scientific inquiry. My subject today…well, not so much.

But still.

Were it not for Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler Mandl Markey Loder Stauffer Lee Boies, you might not be hauling out your Verizon smartphone to Google who the hell this person is. She and her inventing partner, composer George Antheil, were granted the patent for frequency-hopping “secret communication system” on which many wireless communications systems are based.

Ah, forget the Google search: I’m talking about Hedy Lamarr. (And it’s interesting to me that in writing this, apparently Microsoft Word spellcheck doesn’t recognize either name. Seriously? WTH?)

Lamarr is better known as a movie star—from back in the days when a star was a studio product—than an inventor. She started out in her native Austria, was “discovered” by Louis B. Mayer and brought to Hollywood in the 1930s. She took to the glamorous life and bought into MGM’s publicity about her very early on. As far as I can tell, after reading a couple of bios about her, she couldn’t get enough money or adulation.

But she also had a bright mind, and she apparently picked up a lot of bits and bobs from the conversation at social events hosted by her first husband, arms manufacturer Friedrich Mandl. Guests at that table included high-ranking Nazis and table talk often turned to business of what’s nowadays referred to as C3—command, control and communications.

In 1940, Lamarr was kicking things around with a Beverley Hills neighbor, Anteil—an avant garde composer known for mechanistic pieces that involved (among other things) coordinating multiple player pianos. Lamarr was primarily interested in the possibilities that glands might hold for enlarging her breasts, but somehow the conversation turned to radio-controlled torpedoes—as, of course, it would.

Lamarr had an idea for what she called “frequency hopping”—moving the control commands around the broadcast spectrum in such a way that the enemy couldn’t jam the signal. Antheil proposed that the rapid frequency changes could be managed the same way he’d coordinated his player pianos in his “Ballet Méchanique”.

The patent for this protocol was granted in 1942, but wasn’t applied to weapons during WWII. In 1957 those crazy guys at Sylvania Electronic Systems translated the player piano rolls as programming media to electronics as a basis for secure communications. The technology was used by US vessels during the 1962 Cuban blockade; but by that time the patent had expired.

However, the story didn’t end there. The Lamarr-Antheil concept is the basis for modern spread-spectrum communications technology, enabling signals to mostly bounce around the spectrum and allowing us to enjoy incredibly banal conversations shouted into mobile phones and dodge texters staring into their hands on sidewalks of pretty much every country on the planet.

Lamarr didn’t earn anything from the patent, which probably really ate her lunch. (She had an unquenchable greed and kept a lot of lawyers busy, though not necessarily in the chips. She filed lawsuits the way most people file paystubs, but did not like paying for legal or any other services. Her six husbands in particular discovered that she was high maintenance in every sense of the term.)

As a human being, I wouldn’t rate her particularly well. And as a technologist, she was a dilettante. But, for one brief moment, she crystalized overheard conversations, found just the person who could deliver a practical application, and gave us communications capability that has forever changed the way we connect with one another.

Social atonement

G'mar hatimah tovah.

And I guess we could see it coming: people using social media to issue blanket apologies on Yom Kippur in this year 5773.

(You know—the Day of Atonement, when Jews acknowledge and ask forgiveness for the wrongs they’ve done to others during the previous year. Kind of like Step 9 of the AA program, but with Yahweh looking on.)

It kind of defeats the purpose of atonement to just fling out a “Hey, my bad, everyone.” But I do understand why, given the choice between a face-to-face serial apology and a mass parallel operation, the twit-set would opt for the latter.

Not sure whether that really clears the slate, though.

Also, since Yom Kippur also involves a fast until sundown, I’m wondering how the people who Facebook their atonement get around that little requirement? "It was only pork rinds; that doesn't count, silly!"

Meanwhile—I found this via Twitter, from @TheTweetofGod:

Interesting that some Children of the Book know how to take a joke.

Global merriment

With all the turmoil going on for the past week or so—Muslims rioting about a whackjob video with nonexistent production values, Chinese rioting about the Japanese buying some islands, the Twitterati going ballistic about #MuslimRage and #RomneyEncore…

Am I the only person humming this oldie?

Really alarming how so many of the problem spots sung about 50 years ago are still trouble spots today.

Arrgh!

At this point in the year, and in the election cycle, we could all use some time out. And, given that both business and politics drown us in obfuscation and verbal obliteration, perhaps it’s a really good thing that today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

The folks who thought it up ten years ago have helpful hints on pirate-speak pick-up lines, since apparently a whole lot of TLAPD revolves around places of booze.

If you otherwise need help translating, there are one or two sites that will oblige. The UX is what you’d expect from people too busy with downing grog and shivering timbers to bother with features and functionality.

BTW—you need to distinguish the type of pirates we’re talking about here from the ones on Wall Street and in Congress. Just be sayin’, matey.

Death in Benghazi

I’ve been thinking about the four Americans murdered in the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi this week. There’s something about the violation of diplomatic privilege (one of the foundations of international law and therefore of civilization) that really bothers me.

Yeah, I know—embassies and consulates can be hotbeds of propaganda, espionage and all kinds of other chicanery. But civilized nations basically turn a blind eye to that sort of thing and agree that we’ll all focus on positive activities, like exchanging cultural icons instead of artillery shells.

And the people who work in those compounds—well, some of them may well be carpetbaggers or political appointees (in fact—most ambassadors are both; the posher the posting, the bigger the presidential campaign contributor and the greater the likelihood that the incumbent is a buffoon); but the rest are in it because they believe they can do some good, or they want to experience different cultures, or both.

Especially in backwater or dangerous postings like the ex-Soviet Bloc or much of Africa, they aren’t there to make a quick buck, score a trophy spouse or smuggle diamonds. They work long hours processing travel visas, bailing Americans out of local jails and facilitating commerce. In a lot of these places they struggle with a lower standard of living, trying not to transgress local customs and convincing their kids that their lives haven’t been ruined forever just because they’re spending their high school years in Kinshasa instead of Kansas City.

Christopher Stevens, our Ambassador, was a career diplomat who had already served twice in Libya. That place would never be considered a garden spot, and Stevens had experienced it as Deputy Chief of Mission under Gadhafi and as Special Representative to the National Transitional Council last year. Other assignments included stints in Jerusalem, Damascus and Cairo.

Stevens was Bay Area born and bred—well known, well-liked and well-respected (from what I’ve seen in local media). Between earning his BA in history from UC Berkeley and his law degree from Hastings, he volunteered with the Peace Corps to teach English in Morocco. He gave up what must have been a very comfortable practice as an international trade lawyer to join the Foreign Service and take not-at-all cushy postings.

If anyone could have been said to be a friend of Arabs and Libyans, Chris Stevens clearly was that person. He was a stand-up guy.

Sean Smith was an Information Management Officer for the State Department. You know he could have been making shedloads more money doing IT in the private sector; see above about the higher standard of living. His assignments included Baghdad, Pretoria and The Hague.

In addition to his Foreign Service work, though, Smith was well-known in the universe of online gaming. Under the name Vile Rat, his persona was of a senior diplomat in the sci fi world of EVE Online. Being a consummate geek, Vile Rat kept in touch with his EVE swarm, even while under fire in Baghdad.

On Tuesday, he was likewise on Jabber, IM’d “GUNFIRE”, and then was gone.

One of Smith’s EVE colleagues posted this obit. I have to say that I don’t understand a whole lot of the MMORPG lingo. But I do pick up on the shock and sorrow and sense of utter loss. And; I get the feeling that Smith was a mensch.

We don’t really know about the two security guys—the Washington Post reported the name of one of them, but evidently (at the time of writing) the State Department hasn’t confirmed him. It looks like they were both employees of a private security firm, and you could argue that they were thus compensated very well for their work. Probably. They had to know that an assignment at Benghazi carried its risks. And if it was a gamble for them, they paid full freight.

On Wednesday, there was a gathering of Libyans in Benghazi. It was a peaceful protest against the attack on the consulate, and the people carried signs instead of RPGs:

I imagine that coming out in daylight, with hand-made signs, in that country was not without risks and I am moved by this.

But I’m still really disturbed by the attack, and genuinely saddened by the waste of men who were bent on nothing but trying to make the world better.

Dragons' teeth

The seasons following the Arab Spring aren’t looking so prosperous or fertile for anything except violence, bigotry and extremism. The attacks Tuesday night on US diplomatic posts in Cairo and Benghazi are probably not the culmination of the savagery; sadly, I expect we’ll see more.

Frankly, I don’t know what to make of a culture that seems to prefer international outlawry to working within rules, and that favors a return to the Good Old Days of the 8^th Century—only with 21^st Century weapons.

But I really hope world leaders figure out what to do about it. Because it’s evident that an Arab Summer is going to be long and hot; and an Arab Winter may well be nuclear.

Laboring under no illusions

I pretty much said all I can say on the subject of labor in my post for Labor Day last year. So this time around I’ll just point out that it’s not looking good for those of us who have to work for a living.

There are a lot of people facing layoffs in the coming months, from companies ranging from HP to Food Lion. These figures only cover private sector jobs; these folks will be joining thousands of government workers on the unemployment line.

Think about this when you cast your vote in a couple of months.

Olympic ring

As a final (I hope) salute to the Olympic Games 2012, I give you a series of infographics produced by artist Gustavo Sousa:

It has nothing to do with the actual Games, really. Sousa uses the Olympic rings (can I say that without IOC or LOCOG siccing their lawyers on me) as a framework for giving statistics on social issues like global population, obesity, carbon dioxide emissions and Coca-Cola consumption.

He purposely left out a key, so you’d have to ponder for yourself which ring represents which continent; but here’s a spoiler: yellow = Africa, red = Americas, blue = Oceana, black = Europe, green = Asia.

Run through it a few times. It’s really quite thought-provoking.

Olympic protection

You’ll recall that there have been stories about the IOC and LOCOG getting all sniffy about enforcing the exclusivity clauses regarding their sponsoring corporations’ products. LOCOG’s Supreme Sport Lord even announced that you could be refused admission to an event if you, a paying ticket-holder, showed up in apparel advertising a sponsor’s competitor.

(Hey—maybe that’s why there have been so many empty seats at the various venues: those no-shows were banned for wearing Nike instead of Adidas; or a jacket touting Jaguar instead of BMW.)

But apparently there’s an official London 2012 prophylactic; and some wag has, er, salted the Olympic Village with a competitor’s party hats. Which naturally got tweeted and set the LOCOG brand Gestapo into overdrive trying to gather in all the contraband condoms.

Yes, there are to be no rubbers except those supplied by Durex, and I suppose a brand called Kangaroo Condoms (tagline: “For the gland downunder”) just really doesn’t speak to the Olympic Spirit.

What I find interesting is that, as a measure of its corporate largesse, Durex has already supplied 150,000 condoms to the 10,000 athletes, and they still have a few days to go. If they’ve already run out of prophylactics, then we really have to salute their energy and endurance. If past Olympics are any guide, 150,000 was kind of a lowball. US target shooter Josh Lakatos commented on the 2000 Games at Sydney: “I’ve never witnessed so much debauchery in my entire life.”

(Condoms have been supplied to Olympians ever since 1992. At the Beijing Games, they were printed with the Olympic motto, “Faster, Higher, Stronger”.)

Let me also say that, as a UCLA alumna, I’m relieved that at least the interlopers weren’t Trojans.

About those shootings...

Okay, this time I do have words.

In the wake of Sunday’s mass killing at a Sikh temple outside Milwaukee, there’s been quite an international outcry about American racism and violence; a lot of uproar about our weapon-packing whackjobs targeting particular religious/ethnic groups. But may I remind you that we the people have a rich and varied history of non-discrimination when it comes to mass shootings.

In support of my contention, let me present a sampling from just the past few years:

July 2012: gunman kills 12, wounds 58 at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado.

January 2011: gunman kills six, wounds 18 (including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords) at a mall in Tucson, Arizona.

November 2009: gunman kills 13, wounds 29 at Fort Hood, Texas.

March 2009: gunman kills ten (including his mother and four other relatives) across two counties in Alabama.

April 2009: gunman kills 13, wounds four, commits suicide at an immigrant community center in Binghamton, New York.

February 2008: gunman kills five, wounds 18, commits suicide at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

December 2007: gunman kills eight, commits suicide at a mall in Omaha, Nebraska.

April 2007: gunman kills 32, wounds 17, commits suicide at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia.

February 2007: gunman kills five, wounds four at a mall in Salt Lake City, Utah.

October 2006: gunman kills five Amish girls at a school in Pennsylvania.

July 2006: gunman kills one, wounds five at the Jewish Federation in Seattle, Washington.

March 2005: gunman kills nine, wounds seven at Red Lake, Minnesota.

March 2005: gunman kills seven, wounds four, commits suicide at a worship service held at the Brookfield Sheraton, Brookfield, Wisconsin

They slaughter in churches, hotels, schools, shopping malls, military bases, temples, universities, offices, fast-food restaurants, homes, movie theatres. They target immigrants, tourists, students, politicians, shoppers, grandmothers, babies, close relatives, complete strangers, soldiers, co-workers, Christians, Jews, Muslims, who-knows-what. Their victims are every color of the rainbow.

The murderers are soldiers, ex-soldiers, students, unemployed, immigrants, farmers, city folk, Christians, Muslims, who-knows-what. They shoot and run, shoot it out with the cops, shoot themselves. They give us multiple reasons or single reasons or no reasons at all for their sprees.

Let me just say that a whackjob with a gun doesn’t really need a cause to espouse or a specific group to hate; all he (and the examples above were all men) needs is the weapon(s), the ammo, the access and maybe the ability to go to full-auto.

So, back off, world. We are completely equal-opportunity when it comes to this kind of mayhem. You don’t like who got shot this time? Wait ten minutes; someone will go after somebody else.

God help us.

Retail Olympics

Okay, you understand that the Olympics aren’t just about athletic achievement, right? Aside from badminton teams competing to throw their early matches by playing with all the skill of 11-year-olds, there’s merchandise. Lots of it.

Evidently people are lining up seven across at the main official tschotschke store to buy everything from tea towels to track suits at Olympic-sized prices.

However, I like the competition that’s arisen between non-official tote bag manufacturers. First there was the bag sporting the statement, “I’m Renting My Flat to a Fat American Family”. Back snapped a bag with “Proud American family renting an overpriced London flat from snooty Brits with bad teeth!”

It’ll be interesting to see how this progresses through the various rounds.

Another #NBCFail

Definitely getting a kick out of the reaction of—well, pretty much everyone on the Internet—to how NBC is covering the Olympics.

Because it’s a lot more engaging and immediate than the network’s actual, you know, coverage. If you want a sample, just Google #NBCFail. That hashtag took over from the #ShutUpMattLauer one. Or maybe it subsumed the latter.

It’s not just that they’re not broadcasting anything in real time. Or that they’re spattering commercials throughout like they think this is their last chance to appease advertisers because ad companies are going to shut down in 18 minutes. It’s that they can’t even fully present what they’re showing without inserting spoilers.

The biggest example (so far) is the break before showing the women’s 100-meter backstroke final. NBC ran a promo for yesterday’s Today show interview with the 17-year-old, shrieking, “When you’re 17 years old and win your first gold medal, there’s nobody you’d rather share it with.” And they included a photo of her holding up her gold medal.

I like Andy Borowitz’s take in The New Yorker. Sad thing is—if someone did offer a “NBC-free” stream for $29.95, people would sign up.

As it is, many tech-literate (and even not so literate) folks have hooked into VPNs to be able to watch coverage from other broadcasters. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m really enjoying seeing the BBC’s offerings. Not only are they minus the NBC fatuous commentary, they’re showing sports I’d never have seen courtesy of the broadcaster that’s supposed to be serving the American viewing public.