A Halla from Halla

Steve Davenport, CEO of TeleSouth Communications has had the good sense to take the ranting lunatic and absolute moron Mike Savage off of the air in Mississippi.

Effective immediately, Michael Savage and his Savage Nation Radio Show has been canceled on all Super Talk Mississippi stations. Michael Savage's comments about Autistic children were beyond inexcusable and are unacceptable. Super Talk Mississippi and the Gallo Radio Show have assisted numerous Autism organizations on the air in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Autism is a serious condition affecting children and adults in Mississippi. We appreciate our many listeners who notified us of Savage's comments, especially those listeners who have autistic children. Steve Davenport, CEO Telesouth Communications, Inc.

Read more about this update on getting Mike Savage off of the air at Think Progress.

This has to be the most fascinating article I've read in awhile:

Rabbi Unveils a Secret About God

I'm not about to get all mystical or religious on y'all, but the article is definitely worth the read.

Yesterday on his radio show, right wing talker Michael Savage said that autism is “a fraud” and “a racket” and that “in 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out.” Savage then asserted that all these “brat[s]” need as a father to tell them to “stop acting like a putz“.

You can read about this on Digg, which links to a transcript of Mr. Savage's comments on Media Matters, at http://digg.com/politics/Conservative_Radio_Host_99_of_Autistic_Children_Are_Frauds

As the father of a young son with autism, I am outraged at Mr. Savage's verbal assault on helpless, disabled children.

I have opened a formal FCC complaint and demanded inquiry into this matter, as well as punitive measures to be taken against Mr. Savage, his radio program, and the stations which carry his program.

Please see FCC Complaint 08-C00036602 for details.

I strongly encourage all readers of Digg and my blog - be they on the autistic spectrum, a relative or parent of a person with ASD, or simply educated individuals who wish to defend persons with ASD, to follow suit and open their own formal FCC Complaints.

FCC Complaints can be opened online at: http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm

The process takes less than 10 minutes. Let's work together to take ignorant megalomaniacs like Mr. Savage off of our airwaves. People who attack children - especially disabled children - have no place being on our airwaves, or for that matter being in America.

The Tuaw article on Datacase mentions that it's ability to allow your iPhone to act as a harddrive works not only wirelessly, but will also provide FTP and HTTP capabilities.

I wonder if I could use my iPhone as a web server? How crazy would that be, to be running a PHP or Rails app on my damn phone?

This image is so scary; IndyMac customers making a run on withdrawals at their local IndyMac branches after the bank collapsed and was taken over by the FDIC.



I remember seeing images like this in history books growing up, in the chapters dealing with the Great Depression and WWII.

After being spurned in their first takeover bid for Yahoo!, Microsoft toyed with the idea of acquiring just Yahoo's search assets. Then the whole deal collapsed, only to be resurrected recently with Carl Icahn's interest in pushing out Yahoo's board.

MS' problem with Search isn't technical based, however. It's an issue with their brand. Users trust Yahoo more than Microsoft, just as they trust Google more than Yahoo.

Google earned that trust through fast, accurate search results free from invasive advertisements, and has kept that trust through solid performance over the years. The second-tier search engine providers - Yahoo, Microsoft, and Ask - offer up search results that are roughly equivalent to one another, and at times more relevant and compelling than Google's (more the case for Ask than Yahoo or MS). Again, the problem lies not with technology - for what it's worth, Ask has a very technically compelling user interface and results page for searches, even more so than Google.

It's all about brand perception. MS just isn't trusted. This may stem from the 90's anti-trust debacle; it may stem from users inundated with MS software at work (Outlook, Office, MSIE) who just want a change when they're online; it may stem from MS' recent woes with Vista, previous missteps with Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000 or XP; it might be the shitty job MS does in filtering Spam from its free Hotmail accounts (which Yahoo stinks at filtering as well... really only Gmail keeps its users safe from Spam); it may be a combination of these and myriad other factors.

The point is, simply buying Yahoo or acquiring Yahoo's search assets won't fundamentally change anything for Microsoft's positioning in the search arena. If MS purchases Yahoo's search assets, they'll re-brand them under the MS moniker. All Yahoo would have to do at that point is acquire Ask, and it would continue to be the #2 search provider. Yahoo has a brand that is perceived in a more positive light than MS.

MS' best option would be to either cede the search business altogether, or to quietly acquire another less visible search provider, keep the connection between that 3rd party and MS very, very quiet and maintain the branding separation. For instance, MS could acquire Ask, and keep the Ask branding on that search portal, but push it forward with additional revenue, to expand Ask's indexing and increase its speed. Buying Yahoo, Ask, or any other search property and re-branding it under the MS name basically kills it.

Unfortunately, MS is a technology company run by technologists. They don't understand branding; never have, never will.