I’m into the whole fortune telling scene. My wife bought me Madam Mortuus The Misfortunate Teller from Amazon. I did some checking and this thing is a real bargain at $14.98 as of this writing. Opening the package it comes with the following items:

- Fortune teller unit with a skull slot machine like handle. You ask it a question and then pull down the lever to receive your fortune in the window.
- A tiny Dark Carnival rolled up mini-poster, basically worthless.
- a piece of paper encouraging you to join clubmez.com for a lifetime membership fee of $40 which includes access to a top secret area where you can use your decoder ring to access exclusive member news and photos and free UPS ground shipping on all orders and more

Ok, enough of the review stuff, it was time to test Madam Mortuus misfortune telling talents by asking 10 questions:

1. Will Google be able to control the splog problem with blogspot?
Stare at this ball and catch a glance to see that you don’t have a chance

2. Will I be able to successfully purchase an Xbox 360 on launch day?
Stare at this ball and catch a glance to see that you don’t have a chance

3. Should I join this clubmez.com and does it rock?
Stare at this ball and catch a glance to see that you don’t have a chance

4. Is Skype doomed now that eBay has bought them?
Stare at this ball and catch a glance to see that you don’t have a chance

5. Will more Tablet PCs be sold in 2006 than were sold in 2005?
Ghosts and spirits are clouding my vision try again later and I’ll give you my decision

Watch the video here with these misfortunes being told!

6. Is Tablet Guy cooler than Channel 9 Guy?
Ghosts and spirits are clouding my vision try again later and I’ll give you my decision

7. Is Google a threat to life as we know it?
The question you inquire is a simple one to predict, the answer is yes, so stop pulling on my stick

8. Will Seattle Mind be a great networking and brainstorming event?
The question you inquire is a simple one to predict, the answer is yes, so stop pulling on my stick

9. Will Windows Vista be better than the hype?
Your question asked, my prediction made, the outcome will be favorable for your soul in trade

10. Are you just a piece of crap toy that gives random answers?
Your question asked, my prediction made, the outcome will be favorable for your soul in trade

Ahh, misfortune science at work!

A leaked internal memo from M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president for benefits, sent to their board of directors suggests several cost cutting ideas.

(subscription required)

To discourage unhealthy job applicants, Ms. Chambers suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for “all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering).” The memo acknowledged that Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, had to walk a fine line in restraining benefit costs because critics had attacked it for being stingy on wages and health coverage. Ms. Chambers acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart’s 1.33 million United States employees were uninsured or on Medicaid.

While this might sound scandalous, and certainly sounded that way if you listened to CNN talking about this (then again, CNN makes almost everything it reports on seem scandalous) I think it’s a good thing striving for a more healthy workforce. Wal-Mart could go further by providing their employees with health club memberships. These health clubs are popping up everywhere so why not be out striking deals?

Having healthy employees is a good thing, but the word “applicants” does ring ominously to me. I’m not sure by the Times article just what they mean by that.

No offense to Wal-Mart employees who are in shape, but I’ve seen several overweight, out of shape Wal-Mart employees. Heck, I’m overweight and out of shape. This is a real problem not just at the local Wal-Mart, but all over the world.

I’ll tell you who is fattest in the wallet at least: it’s the five heirs that make up the richest Americans top ten list.

Seriously, it shouldn’t just be employers that have a vested interest in their workforce getting into better shape physically, it should be the employees too. Making them pay a few bucks to do this might encourage them to use these health services. Wal-Mart can negotiate some great health club plans for their employees and should do so. Heck, they could build health clubs nearby so their employees could work out nearby.

Of course, a raise in pay to cover this increased health cost would sure be nice. Maybe Wal-Mart should look into that as well, if they aren’t already doing so.

Guess it sucks to have the word “blog” in your URL if you want your content getting through to some workplaces that are going as far as banning the word at the company firewall.

Filtering out every blog isn’t a completely feasible project (and, in fact, Mason says his company’s filter doesn’t catch everything), but the technology to censor the lion’s share of blogs is fairly commonplace. From installing simple URL filters and content scanners to blacklisting ranges of IP addresses, myriad methods for shutting out blog content are available.

I can see filtering objectionable material at work, but let’s be real: filtering blogs? I’m not sure how effective this would be anyway, because of RSS and the employee could get the RSS through another site that doesn’t have “blog” in it. Somebody is probably already programming an RSS proxy that will replace any instance of “blog” in content with some other user-defined word.

A company anti-blog policy makes little sense to actually curb content getting blogged after work or off premises. It might actually encourage it from disgruntled employees. Conversely, an open blogging policy which clearly defines the type of material that cannot be blogged might actually give the company some extra exposure and good will.

If an employee really wants to blog something they can blog it after hours or use their cellphone to get the word out, so there is no technology that can stop that.

Some employers really need to learn to trust their employees more. Yes, there are employees who abuse internet access at work but I’ve yet to see one compelling study that shows that these same employees aren’t using the internet to get work done off the clock. The internet at work is sort of like the telephone and most employers don’t block who employees can call, do they? They may have policies about personal calls at work and internet usage should be defined in a company policy as well. That’s wiser than going all keyword ninja on the firewall.

Wait, none of these employers who block the use of the word blog will be able to see this? Doh!

Unrelated but I was glad to see the local Y finally has open WiFi. Too bad it only works in the lobby and toward the front of the building. They need to get some repeaters and then I’ll literally be able to blog from the treadmill. Scary, huh?

Unlike the parents who named their child’s first name ESPN, at least the Kai’s made their new baby’s middle name Google — Oliver Google Kai — to be precise, via googleblog:

About this choice, Dr. Kai writes, “When we first knew that my wife Carol is pregnant, I said, ‘we will name our child Google.’ Everyone laughed and did not take me seriously. My brother said, ‘Yeah, name the next one yahoo fuji nikon.” And then, says Dr. Kai, the day came to make the baby official in the Swedish Registry. “I was with my friend Magnus Foss and my wife Carol, and I said yes, GOOGLE KAI. Carol knew how serious I am – she knows how much I adore Google services.”

Talk about an Oliver with a twist. This isn’t cool, parents, really it’s not. Don’t name your babies after products, services or websites. No Hmm babies, please!

Geoffrey Moore, author, breaks down early adopters into five categories: the enthusiast, visionary, pragmatist, conservative and the laggard. I’m definitely not the laggard, nor the conservative who’s preference isn’t change. The pragmatist is basically a lemming according to Moore’s definition, so no fit there either. I’m partially an enthusiast, but also feel Moore’s visionary definition fits:

[Geoffrey] Moore says. “Tech visionaries are more practical than enthusiasts, though. They look at how new devices will affect them or their business. “They’re thinking, ‘If I or my organization were to adopt this new technology, how would it change our competitiveness?’ “

I definitely look at most new websites, products, services and ask how it will enhance our business or personal lives. If the answer is not at all, or very little, it’s onto the next item. The neat thing about being a techie is that there are always new and/or updated things to look at and review.

On the Mac, for example, I recently came across a cool freeware app called Active Timer that keeps track of time spent in seconds using each application. I wrote earlier today that I’m on the lookout for something in Windows like this because I spend more time in Windows than on the Mac. Any Hmm readers have any hints/suggestions on this one?

Getting back to the article, what type of techie are you? Or are you not a techie at all?

Heard about this on CNN today and then went to Google News to find stories about it. IBM pledged that they will not use employees DNA to determine benefits elligibility and/or in the hiring decisions of prospective employees.

I.B.M., the world’s largest technology company by revenue, is promising not to use genetic information in hiring or in determining eligibility for its health care or benefits plans. Genetics policy specialists and privacy rights groups say that the I.B.M. pledge to its more than 300,000 employees worldwide appears to be the first such move by a major corporation.

Sounds like good news for those who work for IBM or might want to work for them someday. Wonder how many other companies will follow suit?

Saturday has become bowling day for the kids. All three of them are in a league now. I’ve been taking my Tablet PC along and using it to record the scores. I also have been working on a small little bowling program. Guess I can’t just only sit and watch, have to add a geek spin to the event.

Afterwards we came home and helped friends of ours clean one of their rental houses that was left completely trashed by the former tenant.

This evening we went shopping and ended up at one point at Wal-Mart getting salsa makings (their tomato prices are out if this world) and I saw the devilish Hellraiser sequel: Hellraiser Hellworld: Evil Goes Online

Oh yeah, had to spring for that! I have reservations that the movie will suck like many horror sequels suck but it’s on the menu tonight along with some tasty salsa and chips. NFL tomorrow, it’s a salsa weekend!

Also stopped by Best Buy and snagged my very first flat screen monitor. I know, I’m totally in the dark ages on not getting a flat screen monitor before now.

As mentioned in a prior post we’re going to be in the process of swapping out our CRT monitors with more energy friendly LCD flat screen monitors over time. Just couldn’t resist that price tag of $229 tonight (no lame rebates required either). Yeah, they tried to sucker on us on the extended warranty for an extra 49 bones, but we didn’t bite. An immaculate Mac-like white color. I’ll have to get some pictures of that up in a separate post.

Hope your weekend is rocking.

If you’ve been anywhere near the mainstream news pipelines lately then you’ve probably heard about the mystery flu that has had scientists concerned and even President Bush floating that scary word: “quarantine.” 84 have contracted the illness and 16 have died.

Reports made via CNN (TV) are now suggesting that the flu has been “contained” but that hasn’t stopped blogs and wikis from forming like the above pictured fluwikie.com. Hopefully they will find out what caused this mystery illness and how to stop others from dying from it in the future.

As a choice between life or death of course I’d go for the 12 year old lithium battery inside my body, but I sure hope they would at least give me a docking station port so I could hook up my computer to it.

Give credit to the Badger braniacs (I mean that affectionately) at UW Madison, Wisconsin for this new battery technology via Science Daily:

Designed to be extraordinarily reliable and work continuously for years, the tiny batteries are indispensable in everything from pacemakers to the electronic stimulators that help restore function in the brains of Parkinson’s patients.

Too bad these batteries need an operation to be removed and changed. Maybe someday they will have the technology that once they are depleted for them to eat themselves up and dissolve into the bloodstream.

Amidst some political commentary, Dave Winer wedges in a nugget about local newspapers:

Dan Gillmor says that communities are the losers as journalists are laid off at local newspapers. I say good riddance. These guys are so far from doing their jobs. We need a total house-cleaning across the board. This system doesn’t work. A few years ago I tried to engage Dan in a discussion of the conflict of interest the press has, it’s so huge it’s like an elephant in the middle of the room, but they’ll never write about it.

I’ve read these doomsday prophecies for local newspapers before and frankly compare it to the music and movie industry hopelessly fighting the internet. They can’t win. Won’t win. They need to start rolling with it.

What is that saying about the quickest way to defeat a foe is to befriend him? So newspapers should use this cliche to their advantage and highlight the things they do well while embracing their competition.

Some people, particularly older people, actually like newspapers. Businesmen and those travelling like newspapers. Like the convenience and sharing aspect of throwaway print. Coupon clippers? They are all over newspapers too. What about the comics? A virtual comic just isn’t the same as the Sunday funnies, sorry. People will continue to pay for the newspaper’s strengths. The wired bunch, myself included, will continue to enjoy print on some level until something that emulates the entire print experience, but is better, comes along.

I talked recently about how I enjoyed using the Tablet PC and Zinio for reading some computer-based magazines. I don’t enjoy Zinio for reading all magazines.

The internet hasn’t — and won’t — completely replace print. Reading a paperback can be an intimate experience that reading an ebook just doesn’t do justice. I’m talking about creasing back that book, cuddling up next to a warm fire and getting down to the story. People who love to read get the experience. There is something just, well, mechanical about reading an electronic book. I think that’s partly why ebooks, fiction at least, haven’t caught on as hot as expected.

There is some sort of bizarre business stranglehold that traditional media tries to put on their use of competing technology that is refreshing to see places like CNN’s The Situation Room bucking the trend. Fortunately, bloggers aren’t being kept silent from radio, where hosts are openly quoting blogs/bloggers. The local newspapers need to figure out how to incorporate blogs/blogging, podcasts and vlogs into their model like some of their counterparts and I believe they will — eventually. They have no choice, really.

And one big way they could start is by linking out to (blog) sources in their online stories.

The link is important respect for readers, because the publication shows that it isn’t afraid to lose readers to somebody besides advertisers, perhaps even a direct competitor. It clearly and unequivocally demonstrates that by linking out there is an opportunity encouraged for readers to develop their own opinion — and that includes strongly disagreeing — about how story is being presented. By not linking out, it shows the opposite, that the story in question might be presented as the only truth. The absolute truth, and that how dare you go to some other source and read differently?

And despite Winer, others, including my own blogging evangelism, I do not think traditional media will be overtaken by bloggers. Let’s face it, bloggers aren’t newsrooms. They are usually one or more people giving an often passionate opinion, sharing something cool, useful, interesting and/or venting about an experience. Sure, some blogs are like newsrooms and even receive press passes, but the vast majority of blogs are first hand accounts from the man on the street. The newspapers can’t emulate that, no matter how hard they try because they are mired in the editorial process — so they need to seek out these local voices, of which in the greater Seattle area alone there are many.

What Winer might think of or refer to a conflict of interest clearing house, I think is more about editorial responsibility, and liability concerns. Some of the things that bloggers write cannot be written in the local newspaper. Some blog writing is a step below even the journalistic integrity of tabloids. Certainly, Winer isn’t calling for that type of local newspaper, is he?

I applaud the local newspapers that are being progressive in their thinking and are incorporating the internet into their current and future marketing. These local organizations will not see a doomsday. Perhaps a format apocalypse, yes. Maybe the day will come when we read the news on our the back of our hands, or floating in mid-air as a hologram, but there will always be a need for local journalists.

The vast majority of bloggers — love ‘em, hate ‘em, like ‘em, whatever — are not going to work a beat like the local news reporter, nor live by the same editorial and journalistic guidelines and responsibilities because most bloggers have other jobs. The local fireman might have a really juicy, popular blog by night, but by day he fights fires. The truth will continue to be reported on and/or exposed by a combination of traditional media, bloggers/podcasters/etc and technology. Perhaps true professional bloggers — bloggers that make 100% of their income from blogging and do nothing else — will emerge as an occupation. I doubt we will see many of these people.

News reporters and journalists? Authors, writers, ghostwriters, etc? We’ll continue to see them. They aren’t going anywhere. And they will continue to fill blank pages in some format or other. Yes, the format may change, but the job will not.

I’m not even sure the term ‘blogs’ will hold its popularity for that long. Who knows what we’ll be calling this type of writing in 2025 since the term ‘diary’ seems to have fallen out of a favor. Using history as a lesson, ‘blogs’ certainly aren’t safe from the ravages of time.

Whatever they call it, health willing, I’ll still be doing ‘it.’