People all over the Western world started celebrating their love in the name of Money, which was more than occasional even more than their fragile relationships could handle. Women were corrupted into thinking that no gift is good enough for this “special day” and it made singles feel inadequate.

Satan leaned back and saw that what he created was good. “From now on, Valentine’s day will be my birthday”, Satan muttered satisfied.

Related: I hate Valentine’s day

Haseenah is often checking Facebook for new messages, so I could reach her through Facebook. However:

• I would have to start posting all messages into two channels (Facebook and Twitter)
• And I would have to open a Facebook account (and I don’t trust Facebook)
• Facebook is for girls (in fact it was actually girls-only when it was still called facemash)

And then there was “Selective Tweets”, an add-in to Twitter that reads your time-line from time to time to see if you posted a twee containing #fb. When it finds such tweets, it will automatically send the tweet to Facebook as well.

Getting started with Facebook, made me realize one important difference between Twitter and Facebook. Folks on Twitter can easily be unfollowed, not so for friends on Facebook. This is not because it’s technically not possible to unfriend them, but it might just bring relationships to the edge. It doesn’t matter how much blabberish someone post on their status, I just can’t unfriend them, because they’re e.g. family. And that’s really too bad.

A feature that Facebook should copy from Twitter is its lists. It allows you to add people to personal lists that e.g. represent a certain topic. Using these lists and adding the most interesting friends to them would also be a perfect possibility to do a 1st-level filtering of the amount of chatter. Unfortunately this feature seems to be missing, or just haven’t found it yet.

If this feature exists, but I haven’t found it yet, I think I am excused. Trying to get to understand Facebook was quite challenging. I’m amazed at how many of the basic principles of good usability design we’ve all been taught are violated by Facebook. It’s chaotic, non-intuitive, inconsistent, not easily predictible, visually cluttered, etc.

So, don’t expect too much fireworks from me on my Facebook page and I still find that it’s made for girls. So for now, I will only be using it as an extension to Twitter to reach out to folks, especially Haseenah, that I can’t reach through Twitter.

There you have it: my justification for being on Facebook and how I plan to use it.

Today we face an unprecedented patent bubble of poisonous software and business methods patents. Most patents are stockpiled for strategic purposes. These poisonous assets generate no measurable benefits or insignificant licensing revenue for their holders. Large industry is aware of a patent inflation crisis but it seems too hard to march to the beat of a different drum.

Soft patents are still land mines for software development and stifle innovators. Under the EU Lisbon treaty a new instrument is set into force, the European Citizens’ Initiative. The EU-Commission is now obliged to present a legislative proposal when a critical mass of citizens demands it.

Currently, a new platform is built to get a new directive which bans software patenting once and for all. I would like to ask you to sign this new petition on:
http://petition.stopsoftwarepatents.eu

So here are my reasons:

1. Developers are unhappy: Apple’s App Store is a mess for small and independent developers. Very few developers are making even a livable wage, and the approval process is a black box. Facebook developer Joe Hewitt, the man behind the immensely popular Facebook application for iPhone, said that he quit the project entirely on Apple’s tyrannical App Store approval policies.
2. Anti-competitive policies on the iPhone: Apple is disallowing applications because they “duplicate existing functionality”. This means that applications from competitors that offer similar functionaliy are automatically banned. What Apple does is 100x worse than what Microsoft does, although Microsoft also bundles a set of their own applications, at least Microsoft still allows other application to be installed. Recently, Apple lifted its ban for internet browsers.
3. Apple prohibits Voice-over-ip: Apple prohibited the Google Voice or other Voice over IP applications from being distributed on its iTunes application store with no public explanation of why, a refusal to offer any suggestions that could permit the application to be distributed, and no process for appealing the decision. Apple also removed third-party Google Voice-compatible applications by explaining that they violate a policy against applications that duplicate native iPhone functionality, despite this rule being wildly inconsistent in its enforcement. Again, Apple refused to offer any suggestions for how developers could comply with the guidelines, and offered no process for appealing the decision. Only very recently Apple has started to allow VOIP applications, provided that they use wifi only.
4. Telecommunications choice is gone: If you want to buy an iPhone and through the official channels, it is compulsory to do business with T-Mobile too (Or O2 in the UK, AT&T in the US).
5. Apple sues bloggers: Once Apple found out that there was a leak in their development organisation, they went to the extend of sueing the bloggers that were reporting the novelties. In their opinion online journalists have less rights than offline journalists. Fortunately EFF jumped in and Apple lost.
6. Exploiting trivial patents: Apple has filed and has been rewarded trivial patents, and isn’t scared of using a bunch of them to squeeze their competitors (yes a bunch, so that it will become very difficult for their opponent to invalidate all of them). They have 2,000 patents and if they want to start a battle, it’s quite likely that they can find a patent that applies. This also says a lot about the patent office that doesn’t care whether a patent existed before or whether there is prior act, but that’s a completely different story.
7. Apple violates statutory warranty: Apple ignores the legal warranty rules in The Netherlands, as it refuses free repairs or replacements of their products after a one year warranty term. It is said to reverse the burden of proof and tries to sell expensive extended warranty packages to give consumers what they are already entitled to by law.
8. Denying liability and trying to silence owners of exploding iPhones: Numerous press reports are claiming that iPhones are exploding or catching fire in the US, UK, France, Holland, and Sweden. If this wasn’t bad enough Apple managed to write one letter that both denies liability and offers an owner money to keep quiet. Even the European Commission has turned its attention to Apple and their mysteriously exploding iPhones.
9. Will all Apple products going to display compulsory ads?: Apple is seeking a patent for technology that displays advertising on almost anything that has a screen of some kind: computers, phones, televisions, media players, game devices and other consumer electronics. The technology can freeze the device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has dutifully noticed the commercial message. Because this technology would be embedded in the innermost core of the device, the ads could appear on the screen at any time, no matter what one is doing.
10. Apple is over-priced: It is a public secret that Apple devices are over-priced. Currently (19-12-2009) the iPhone is exclusively available at T-Mobile. If you want the one that connects to the 3G network, prepare to fork out €99.95 for 24 months. The 32MB version will set you back €4800 in the 24 months that you’re under contract. That’s the price of a small car!

A friend send me the following story recently, explaining the financial crisis in a way that everyone can understand.

John is the proprietor of a bar in Surfers Paradise. In order to increase sales, he decides to allow his loyal customers, most of whom are unemployed alcoholics, to drink now but pay later. He keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around and as a result increasing numbers of unemployed alcoholics flood into John’s bar.

Taking advantage of his customers’ freedom from immediate payment constraints, John significantly increases his prices for wine and beer, the most popular drinks. His sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic customer service consultant at the local bank recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets and increases John’s borrowing limit.  He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert bankers transform these customer assets into DRINKBONDS, ALKBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then traded on markets worldwide. No one really understands what these abbreviations mean and how the securities are guaranteed. Nevertheless, as their prices continuously climb, the securities become top-selling items because Lehman Bros recommended them as a good investment.

One day, although the prices are still climbing, a risk manager of the bank, (subsequently of course fired due to his negativity), decides that the time has come to demand payment of the debts incurred by the drinkers at John’s bar. But of course they cannot pay back the debts. John cannot fulfil his loan obligations and claims bankruptcy.

DRINKBOND and ALKBOND drop in price by 95 %. PUKEBOND performs better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 88 %. The suppliers of John’s bar, having granted her generous payment due dates, and having invested in the securities, are faced with a new situation. His wine supplier claims bankruptcy, his beer supplier is taken over by a competitor.

The bank is saved by the Federal Government following dramatic round-the-clock consultations by leaders from the governing political parties.

The funds required for this massive rescue are obtained by levying a new tax on all the non-drinkers. With the extra tax moneys, the banks will be able to maintain their disgusting system of greed, egocentrism and bonusses that eventually caused the financial crisis.

I couldn’t help adding the italic part to the story after the news came out about AIG and ING passing tax-payers’ money to their top-executives that should be kept liable for the financial crisis and perhaps should even be jailed.

With me, many people feel outraged with regards to these scandalous bonuses, which should immediately be eliminated and returned. Though politicians and high-ranked officers claim that this is impossible due to earlier agreements and contracts, I really doubt this and wonder if this isn’t just a political lie. If it is really not possible to prevent these bonuses from being payed, I would like to urge political leaders to implement new legislation that taxes these bonusses away and to get them back where they belong.

The CEO’s claim that the credit crisis should be blamed for these companies having a hard time. But is that really true? Could it be that the American car companies have been badly run for decades? It seems that they have been emphasizing marketing over products. Yes, it’s difficult for anyone to compete with Toyota, but the relative success of three Japanese companies, two Korean companies, three German companies and even Renault demonstrates that Detroit’s problems are entirely self-inflicted.

Paul Ingrassia, former Detroit bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, has an authoritative discussion of these self-inflicted problems this morning, entitled “How Detroit Drove Into a Ditch.” One excerpt:

In all this lies a tale of hubris, missed opportunities, disastrous decisions and flawed leadership of almost biblical proportions. In fact, for the last 30 years Detroit has gone astray, repented, gone astray and repented again in a cycle not unlike the Israelites in the Book of Exodus.

What it comes down to is that US car companies couldn’t produce the cars that customers want for a price that customers want to buy them for. Not only during the credit crisis, but even many years before. Foreign car makers have been able to fill that gap, even with cars produced in the US, under the same US labour laws that apply to the big three. Note that this lack of sight for what the customer wants has been covered up for a long time with what Wendelin Wiedeking (CEO of Porsche) described as “ruinous discounts and hugely subsidised leasing rates“.

So why shouldn’t the US government chip in to save the US car industry:

1. The US car industry doesn’t only consist of GM, Crysler and Ford alone. Paying their bills would be unfair to the other manufacturers that have setup production facilities in the US. In fact, these three Detroit-based companies combined no longer control the lion’s share of the American automotive market. Foreign-owned manufacturers account for over 50 percent of all new vehicle sales within the U.S. For better or worse, they constitute the core of the American automobile industry.
2. Using tax money to protect Ford, GM and Chrysler from their own incompetence will not benefit the U.S. car industry, or even these three companies. A federal bailout for Ford, GM and Chrysler would simply prolong the automakers’ – and their workers’ – agony. Ford, GM and Chrysler will have to shed jobs anyway. Bailout or no bailout.

In my opinion the better options are:

• Get the management of these companies to return a seriously large part of their undeserved bonusses of the last few years, maybe even decade. They are the only ones that can be blamed for mismanagement. Even though they might have so-called “deserved” their bonusses by making short-term goals, obviously they missed out on the really important long-term goals. And do note that their total earning are ~20 mln per CEO!
• Remove the management of these companies. They have shown their incompetence for decades and it it time to clear up the mess they have left. Perhaps have a couple of hedge funds to take majority control and maybe even have foreign or Japanese talent, to replace the management.
• Evaluate the constituent brands within the 3 companies, reconstitute the healthy brands as independent car companies and get rid of the unhealthy ones.

And if the US government, for one reason or another, still decides to grant the detroit car makers this loan, the US government should maken sure that it gets a large stake in these companies. And once it has this stake make the above still happen.

There will be pain. Lots and lots of pain. But sometimes the more painful the mistake, the more important the lesson. This is one of those times. Detroit can not be saved from the reality that they’ve studiously, callously, stubbornly ignored. Nor should they be.

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Previously, I have been a supporter of a fresh wind through the US politics, and though Obama would be able to accomplish that. But things seem to have changed.

Barack Obama has named Joe Biden as the Democratic vice presidential candidate. CNET offers an interesting article reviewing Biden