The Richter Scale^®

With all the rampant political correctness out and about these days, people are quick to try and not offend anyone at all because even one lone voice complaining about bias is too much. Pardon my obviously offensive question, but isn’t that taking things to absurd extremes?

According to a recent Forbes article:

BIGresearch estimates that 94 percent of midwinter holiday celebrators will observe Christmas, while only 5 percent will celebrate Chanukah. And of that 5 percent, more than half will also celebrate Christmas. Only 1 percent will observe Kwanza.

That means 96.5 or more percent of the American public celebrates Christmas. Maybe up to 3.5 percent don’t (but the study doesn’t say if they are militantly anti-Christmas or tolerant of others’ celebration thereof).

I’m not a religious person. Were I to join a church, it would probably be a Unitarian Universalist church (they are the ones with the fish symbol with legs and the word Darwin inside), which preaches one should question and not simply take things on faith.

However, I have a lot of friends of all faiths (and even some avid Atheist friends), and respect their right to worship (or not) as they see fit as long as they don’t force me to share their beliefs.

And this time of year, I always wish them all - Christians, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, Hindi, Buddhists, and store clerks with PC brainwashing training - a very Merry Christmas.

Christmas, while derived from religious roots, has transcended those roots to be a time one shares with family and friends, remembering all the good things in life, and simply relishing the presence and thoughts of those one finds dear.

At least that’s what Christmas is for me. This year I even had the ability to send small presents to a number of people who have helped me be a better person, and from whom I have learned over the years, and it has been a wonderful feeling to share a little with them.

Christmas is also a time for thinking of one’s fellow man. My wife and I have helped sponsor a Christmas party for a large group of the elderly living in a local home, donated to create Christmas gift baskets for the people running Bonaire’s foster home, donated food to a local church to help feed those less privileged than us, and done a variety of other small things in keeping with what we feel the Christmas spirit to be, and sharing that Spirit.

I don’t think you have to be a church-going Christian to love Christmas, or even be a purely good person, but you do have to love life and people, and be willing to share a bit of that love.

With the above in mind, bowing to the pressures of Political Correctness to appease the itsy bitsy teeny weeny minority (substantially less than 3.5% of the population per the above cited research data) and wishing people “Happy Holidays” just does not cut it for me.

So, to all of you, have a very Merry Christmas, and a most excellent and Happy New Year!

So, here I was, a couple of weeks ago or so, starting to get ready for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2006), mapping out all the things I want to see and follow up on, and the Consumer Electronics Association sends out a notice that it has pretty much discovered out all the cool products at CES 2006.

The problem with this is the show doesn’t even start for another two weeks, and even then, the CEA is basing its decision based on written and photographic materials submitted by the so-called Honorees, not actual product, as best I can tell. Better yet, entrants (who can submit nominations as early as August 29th) have to pay a program fee to submit their “innovative” product information - fees run from $225 to $950 per entry, depending on CEA membership status, date of submission, and whether the company will be exhibiting at CES.

The entries are judging in early October, and the so-called “honorees” announced on November 15th. Considering that most new products announced at such shows are not immediately ready to ship, this seems awfully premature. The whole process is suspect if you take into account the fee structures and submission dates.

But these are not the only Awards related to the show. There are others too.... For example, there’s something called the Technology Is A Girl’s Best Friend Diamond Showcase. Ahem?

And let’s not forget the “CNET’s Best of CES Awards 2006” (submission deadline of December 1st - a scant four and half WEEKS before the show even starts).

Used to be, you would go to a show, and then learn a week or two later what the best products shown were. Contenders for the honors did not have to pay fees other than exhibit fees, and judging could be based on tangible products instead of promotional puff pieces on paper. Not any more apparently.

The closest to a during or post-show award is the “Scientific American Innovations People’s Choice Award” for which attendees can vote on the show floor, but the rules page for this award appears particularly void of information (at least to me).

My suggestion to people who may actually care what the best new products are: Avoid all these pre-show awards judging farces, and wait for the post show summary from sources which: 1) do not derive revenue from submissions and 2) have also touched the products in question before issuing their proclamations of greatness for particular products.

This one is simple. While it’s interesting sometimes to see who else is being sent the press release I just received, I’d much rather not having to scroll through pages of addressees to see the press release or message I’ve just been sent.

Please learn to use the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) address line in your e-mail software if you are sending out a press release to a list of people. Friends don’t let friends mass e-mail on the CC: or To: lines of e-mails.

Perhaps this is a really an issue with all incoming e-mail, but when one gets hundreds of press releases and product announcements the information overload is significant. As is the data volume.

I want to quickly peruse an e-mail and figure out what to do with it. For that reason, as well as because of system security, I use Qualcomm’s Eudora e-mail software, with the Internet Explorer HTML rendering function turned off. I have seen too often with friends and clients and associates where using Microsoft’s Outlook and Outlook Express or Internet Explorer have resulted in them getting infected with a virus or infested with spyware or malware.

This also means, however, that in my e-mail software, I will not see any remotely referenced images (nor will my opening of messages automatically tell some marketer out there that I have seen their e-mail). Eudora also has very basic HTML rendering capability. While it will typically show me formatted (italic, bold, etc.) text, it doesn’t do JavaScript or embedded graphics, and HTML-embedded images with graphical text messages are pretty much completely non-viewable.

The benefit of this is I can quickly read an e-mail without having to wait for images to load. The downside is that if some feels that they need to present their material to me in a way which emphasizes style (pretty looking text and images) over substance (just the facts, using text), I won’t see it. In a way this is actually a good filter - if there’s no text I can read because the entire message is pure HTML, then I typically assume the sender has nothing much to really say and I ignore the e-mail. I also manage to avoid a lot of pr0n spam this way - I just don’t get to see the pictures because Eudora does not show them.

So, if you want to get a message across to me, do it in plain text, not with whiz-bang graphics and pizzazz - that is lost on me and my simple e-mail software. And, text messages are also much, much smaller - saves on storage and bandwidth. And if you really need to send me a product image instead of a link to a page with such content, then send me an attachment, and keep it small.

One of the biggest problems I see with press releases and press invitations is that the writer of said missives often presumes the recipient understands obscure acronyms and terminology. Maybe that’s fine when you personally know your target audience, but when you blast out a message to hundreds of media with a broad range of non-overlapping interests it’s plain foolish.

Case in point. An invitation to a press conference at CES 2006 I received yesterday stated

The DECT Forum, the international industry association embracing suppliers and operators of DECT based terminals, announces the availability of DECT6.0 - Interference Free Communication in the United States.

Searching further in the invitation for what “DECT” and “DECT based terminals” might mean, I found this nugget

The DECT Forum is the industry association with global reach, embracing suppliers and operators of DECT based terminals, systems, and networks. The DECT Forum represents the interests of the DECT industry and is located in Bern, Switzerland. Full members of the DECT Forum are currently: Ascom Tateco, Binatone, DSP Group, Infineon, Kirk, Panasonic, Philips, RTX, Siemens, SunCorp and Avaya-Tenovis.

Based on the list of members, I kind of got the sense that “DECT” had something to do with telephones. Nowhere else in the message was there any description or definition of what “DECT” meant. Fortunately the person sending the e-mail included a web link to http://www.dect.org, where, in the second paragraph, I learned that:

DECT stands for “Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications” and denotes a radio technology suited for voice data and networking applications with range requirements up to a few 100 m.

Gee. I guess that should have just been obvious. Although, I must admit the obtuse e-mail did actually get me to click on the link, but I feel cheated nonetheless, and as this is not a key technology area I’m following anyway, off the invitation goes into the “Not Interesting” box.

Every year since 1986 we have had a big party at our house, where ever we happened to be living at the time. It started as the “Wing-Ding-A-Thon” (due to my affinity for Buffalo Wings), then evolved into the “Yeah! It’s Summer! Party” (held sometime during the summer), and then into the “Yeah! It Feels Like Summer! Party” here on Bonaire (held on January 1st each year).

The party - whatever it’s called - is a potluck event. We supply the BBQ, a vast number of racks of ribs in my special Indonesian-style BBQ sauce, 30 pounds of marinated BBQ’d chicken, cases of beer and wine, lots of non-alcoholic refreshments, and a place to gather. Our guests provide the rest. And the party is open to one and all - it’s been a great place and time to make new friends and see old friends too.

So, that said, should you find yourself on the island of Bonaire on January 1st of any year, come join us. The potluck BBQ party starts at 3pm and goes until whenever.

Every January, hordes of technophiles swarm to Las Vegas to see the latest consumer electronics - this has been going on for longer than I can remember. My first CES was sometime in the early 1990s, and I went a few time. I went last year as well to do some research for a client, as well as get my feet wet with respect to being a regular journalist once again.

In a couple of weeks I head back out to Vegas and CES 2006 to cover the show for Jon Peddie’s TechWatch and my blog (The Richter Scale).

Being a registered media attendee has some benefits and some drawbacks. The benefits include free attendance, invitations to all sorts of interesting parties and shindigs, and the fact that no matter how boring you look, people in booths on the floor want to talk to you in the hopes of getting some “free ink” (in regular language “get written up via free editorial coverage"). The drawbacks are that you get inundated with e-mail requests to set up meetings and interviews with people offering every possible product under the sun regardless of whether the products being offered are of interest to you (in the hopes of getting some “free ink”, of course), and no matter how bored you look, people in booths on the floor want to talk to you in the hopes of getting some “free ink”.

I’ve held off committing to any interviews so far mainly because I’ve not been organized enough to figure out what my schedule will be during the show. I’ve started doing that now, and find I have over 180 meeting requests to parse through. These are being sorted into “Not Interesting”, “Possibly Interesting” and “Definitely Interesting” categories. “Not Interesting” is winning, but I see a few potential gems in the “Definitely Interesting” pile which I will share here in my blog in the coming days.

My daughter has been playing Kameo on the Xbox 360 for hours (with the occasional cry for help when she gets to a boss she can’t beat by herself).

Today, when she went to play Kameo, she discovered that all her work had apparently been wasted. The Kameo save game had disappeared. 

I don’t know if it was a software glitch, or something accidental her brother might have done when playing Kameo himself, but regardless, the save game for Kameo has gone missing. Poof. And my daughter is rather distraught.

I have Googled to see if anyone else has had this problem with Kameo, and found nothing. So maybe this is an isolated incident. Or maybe I’m the first to publicly post about it. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I guess I need to start instituting an Xbox 360 save game back-up policy. Sad that it has come to this. Yet another thing that potentially limits the market potential of more advanced console devices to tech heads instead of ordinary people.

UPDATE - 12/18/05: I’m glad to report that this is not a game problem. My son admitted at dinner last night he was trying to start the game when he accidentally deleted his sister’s saved game. Now the question is whether or not forcing him to play Kameo until he gets back to where his sister had gotten to is considered punishment or a reward for poor judgement.

I’ll admit right off that my on-line gaming experience on consoles is limited, mostly by choice. Most of the on-line gaming I’ve done has been on the PC (with City of Heroes/City of Villains being particular favorites). I tend to like cooperative play more than things like death matches, and I prefer typing my communications to my team members instead of speaking them (since my experience in voice-enabled console gaming is that many players are pretty crude, never mind I hate having to listen to people coughing, snuffling, and snorting among other things).

However, yesterday I found myself up at 4am for some reason, so after playing a bit of Perfect Dark Zero in solo mission mode, I decided to check out Xbox Live play with that game.

I should point out that I spent a couple of hours a couple of weeks ago doing Call of Duty 2 deathmatch play on the Xbox 360 and found the experience to be pretty horrible when more than 3 or 4 people were in the match. Performance got worse than sluggish and my character’s position kept resetting.

The PDZ Xbox Live deathmatch experience was MUCH better than that in Call of Duty 2, although it took numerous tries to get connected to a game in progress because I kept getting the commonplace “You Have Lost Connection to Match” error message. At one point there were about 18 of us playing a team deatchmatch game. Responsiveness was great, even on my relatively slow connection here on Bonaire.

I even got my headset out. Found that the Brits playing the game were a lot more likely to actually use the headset as a way to coordinate game play. But most people appeared not to use their headsets at all. It did make the game more interesting when the headset was used properly, but things deteriorated when the “cougher” came on-line.

If anyone’s up for some on-line play when I’m on, my gamertag on the Xbox 360 is “BonaireGamer”.

Last night we took advantage of a gift certificate a friend had given me for my birthday, and took the whole family to Bistro de Paris, a restaurant run by Patrice, a French master chef. While we have eaten there before several times, and always enjoyed our a la carte meals, Linda had read recently that Patrice had started offering “grill stone” tableside cooking and thought the kids might like that.

As we expected the meal to be big, we did not order any appetizers, although Linda did order some of Patrice’s excellent French onion soup as her main meal, while the kids and I committed to cooking our own food on the stones.

While we waiting for our meal to come out we were given bread with a sun-dried tomato spread - tasty. Patrice also brought Linda and I each a glass of Kir - a drink made with one part Creme de Cassis liqueur and two parts white wine (a Kir Royal is made with champagne instead of white wine). He explained that Kir is a drink named after the mayor of Dijon, Canon Felix Kir, who mixed his white wine with black currant liqueur to cut down on the wine’s acidity. Always nice to learn a little bit of history over dinner! It was a nice aperitif in any event.

Soon after, three plates loaded with thinly sliced beef, bacon, chicken, and pork as well as slivers of courgettes (small zucchinis), onions, and asparagus were brought out, followed by two alcohol-based burners and two very hot slabs of stone. Looked like granite, but I could not tell for sure. I should note we had to sit outside, as there was concern that smoke from the cooking could cause problems inside.

Patrice liberally sprinkled salt on the hot stones and explained that would prevent the meat from sticking (it did help a bit) and showed us how to best place the meat on the stones to cook. Accompanying the dish was a tray of sauces (a pink sauce similar to Russian dressing but without pickles in it which Patrice called “cocktail sauce”, a yummy garlic sauce, and sour cream) and a bowl of nice little potatoes seasoned with herbs and sun-dried tomatoes.

The stones cooked the meat very quickly, but even so, it took us the better part of an hour to cooking everything we had, and even them we took home ample left overs. The kids enjoyed the meal as well. And Linda polished off her soup too.

As it was getting late and both kids were tired, we skipped dessert, vowing to return to get some at a later date.

Cost for the meal was about $63 before tip, including 5 soft drinks. Very reasonable.

Based on this meal and past ones, I give Bistro de Paris an 8.5 out of 10.0 on The Richter Scale.

Bistro de Paris is located at Kaya Gob. N. Debrot 46 (that’s the road between downtown Kralendijk and the northern resorts). Phone is +599-7 17-7070, and e-mail is info@bistrodeparis.com.