Unbelievable.

This makes me sick. Literally. I really feel like I want to throw up from a mixture of anger, incredulity, and sadness. Please, please read this article from the New York Times about the "bomb detector" that Iraqi security forces have been buying by the hundreds. I can't do the article justice in a summary, but basically, this "bomb detecting device" (the ADE 651) is completely ridiculous. There is no way in hell that it works at all, yet the Iraqi government has bought at least 1,500 of them at prices from $16,500 to $60,000 each (that's tens of millions of dollars total). There are about a thousand warning signs that the device is a complete scam (read the article), yet even Major General Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives, is whole-heartedly convinced that it works.

The ADE 651 doesn't have a power source. It has been independently tested and proven ineffective. The company that sells the device will not talk to any reporters. The company has refused to authorize any independent tests even when offered a $1 million reward if they passed. The device looks like a $2 plastic toy from China. It is primarily used by less-developed countries in the middle east and Africa. The technical explanation of its operation is mumbo-jumbo… I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

When I see cosmetics commercials with pseudo-science in them, I laugh. If people are silly enough to believe that bamboo extracts will make their hair springy like bamboo, then I think they deserve to lose $5 on some overpriced hair product. But in Iraq, on this enormous scale, with the dupes spending millions of dollars and entrusting millions of lives to something that would probably raise skepticism in even the average American consumer, this blatant deceit is infuriating. I cannot believe so many people are being taken in by this scam. It does not leave me with a lot of hope for Iraq; we are trying to let its people go back to governing themselves, but its leaders are still taken in by the crudest of schemes.

Mum Mum Mum Mah

Christopher Walken performs a poem by the great female poet laureate, Lady GaGa:

Advertising bubble. I'm calling it.

I mentioned this back in June, but I just wanted to get it plainly on the record so that if I turn out to be right, I can say, "I told you so."

I believe we (mostly the internet, mostly Google) are in an advertising bubble. (For anyone not familiar with overused financial metaphors, that means advertising is grossly overvalued, but we don't know it, and sooner or later, the bubble will burst, and revenue for people selling ads is going to come crashing down.)

I am no expert on this matter; I have no hard scientific evidence to back up this claim, nor have I even researched what the economists and financial experts have to say about it (but as we now know, they are terrible, terrible predictors of bubbles anyway). I'm simply going with my gut on this one.

I just cannot see how a company that is as massive and spendy as Google can possibly be sustained by producers trying to get gullible consumers to buy their products. Right now, it may seem to be a sustainable model. There are literally millions, probably billions of companies starting up on the internet, trying everything they can to gain a foothold in their respective markets. I don't know whether the bulk of internet ad revenue comes from these guys (the "long tail", millions of people paying ten bucks each) or large corporations (tens of people paying a million bucks each).

There are a few ways this bubble could burst. Here are the three I can imagine:

1. The little guys bail. The vast number of internet startups could dwindle as greedy, risky entrepreneurs realize that only a tiny fraction of sites will win big like Facebook and YouTube did (though this already happened in the "dot-com bubble"). Or, the modest entrepreneurs just trying to make a living on their niche hobby could give up when their ads just don't draw enough customers to turn a profit.
2. The big guys bail. Big corporations are scrambling right now to try to take advantage of the internet in any way they can. They are trying all kinds of new ways to advertise. It's a blitz, and I think they will eventually find one strategy that works and give up on the rest, or give up on all of them in favor of something else entirely.
3. The consumers get wise. If advertisers actually are making money from consumers who are enticed by their ads – and I'm not at all convinced that this is the case – then consumers are the most gullible group of people that I've ever seen. They could learn to ignore the omnipresent ads and only buy what they really want, not what someone tells them they want. Frankly, though, if they haven't already learned this, they probably never will. (I say "they" because I can't remember the last time I clicked on an internet ad, much less bought something because of one.)

I'm not really trying to convince anyone here. I'm probably completely wrong. I just wanted to publicly place my bet: By 2020, there will be a lot fewer things for free on the internet, because subsidizing them with advertising revenue is not going to work.

I have to learn French...

... so that I can force any kids I have to learn it when they are three, so they can be this freaking cute:



Does that cost me man points? I think I'm already running a man point deficit.

Theremin-Playing Cats

I looked at my Google Analytics reports a few weeks ago, and found (to my great surprise and delight) that several visitors to my blog had arrived by googling "metaphysical cats". Well, I'm craving some more bizarre cat-related traffic, so here's a music video from They Might Be Giants that very earnestly answers the question, "Why does the sun shine?" Where are the cats, you ask? The video stars a stop-motion animated cat who plays the Theremin. Awesome.



(I almost forgot, for those not familiar with obscure musical instruments, the Theremin is the thing that makes those ooooooo-weeeeeeee-oooooo UFO noises in old sci-fi movies. You play it without ever touching it. You just move your hands around it. My friend Paul has one. It's awesome.)

If you want to see a real cat playing a real Theremin, you can see that here, but the cat is not a very good player, and it's a pretty crappy-sounding Theremin.

Tonight's gonna be a good night, but not as good as these kids'.

I don't really like this song, nor do I think that this is a super original or ambitious film technique. However, this many people having this much fun puts a huge smile on my face. Thank you, students of "l'Université du Québec à Montréal". That looked like a good night, indeed.

The Array Mbira

The mbira does not get its due. What the heck is an mbira (em-BEER-uh), you ask? Exactly my point.

The mbira is a musical instrument of African origin. You might have made one when you were a kid, out of popsicle sticks. It's known by many other names, including the Likembe, the Kalimba, or (as you may know it) the Thumb Piano.

This is an mbira:



This is also an mbira (the mbira doesn't really take off 'til about 2:10. I know the sound quality on this video sucks, but it was the best I could find for this song, which is awesome):



These things sound beautiful. Why the heck do more people not play them? I have several theories:

1. People dismiss it as either a child's toy or an ethnic novelty instrument, because…
2. Most of the mbiras in existence suck. They have a tiny range and/or are poorly made and tuned. As far as I can tell, there is only one company that makes quality mbiras: Array Instruments (both of the above videos are Array Mbiras), and even then…
3. To play an Array Mbira, you have to learn a totally new key arrangement (which actually kicks ass from a music theory and fingering standpoint, but you still have to learn the new setup).

So, what do you think? Will the Array Mbira eventually become known and respected by serious musicians? Or am I just obsessed with tinkly, bell-type sounds?