So yeah, it’s been a while.  And I’m sure the two spam bots who stopped by the site were bummed with the lack of new content.  But over the past couple of months, life has been changing quite a bit and, frankly, I didn’t have that much to say that seemed relevant and/or blog-worthy.  Because that is reason I even maintain this blog – to post thoughts and ramblings whenever they hit me, regardless of the audience. It is my little space to rant and discuss ideas that I may have about whatever happens to be crossing my radar.  Sometimes I post about sports, other times about IP law, yet other times just to fill some space.  At one point I was told by quite a few people that I needed to create a “web presence” to serve as digital currency for my ideas, but the more I’ve been immersed in the web and the digital culture the more I realize I have to want to post because it makes me happy or fills me with a sense of something, not because it might give an employer some idea about my abilities or net a couple of links Twitter.  For lack of a better word, I need to post only when I am moved to do it, not because some invisible scoreboard says I’ve fallen behind.

I know, very enlightening.

So I’m not going to make any pledges about number or depth of postings, but I am going to revisit this site as a way to express my ideas more coherently than I used to.  Again, it probably won’t be perfect, but I finally feel comfortable with maintaining this site to some reasonable extent.  Keeping with the property analogy, I’m not promising a new pool and solar panels on the roof, but I plan on at least taking out the garbage and mowing the lawn a couple times.

If any non-bot is reading this site, please feel free to drop a note in the comments below.

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This was a diary entry I published at MGoBlog.com, and figured I should also include it on my personal site.  Enjoy!

Over the past few weeks, the University of Michigan football team has undergone some rather significant changes at the top, with Rich Rodriguez relieved of his position as Head Coach and replaced by former San Diego State head man (and former UM assistant coach) Brady Hoke.  Trying to wrap one’s head around the events and motivations behind this momentous shift can be daunting for a fully-functioning adult (or daytime sports-radio host), let alone the most impressionable and innocent amongst us – the children.  Thus, here is a guide with some helpful answers for addressing the coaching change to your littlest of loved ones.

Why was Rich Rodriguez fired as Head Coach of the Wolverines?

Well, there are many reasons why – mostly because he didn’t win enough, especially against UM’s little brother (MSU), that old man who always wants you to mow his lawn but then pays you a nickel (PSU), the fat guy next door who is always working on his car in the driveway in only his undershirt and the music turned up very loud (Wiscy), and especially that kid at the playground who always beats you up the jungle gym but who also eats paste (OSU).  He looked really fast and strong when he played against the smaller kids in the park, but when the bigger kids showed up he always was pushed around and didn’t look nearly as good.  Also, his defenses were really bad, he didn’t always pick the best kids to be on his team before the season, and used bad words like “fudge”, “shoot”, “mother fiddler”, and “read option.”  Some of the local kids got him in trouble by telling everyone that he was a cheater even though that wasn’t true and they were just being jerks, but he still got a bar of soap in his mouth and now everyone has to go to bed a half-hour earlier for the next 2-3 years.  Finally, some people wanted him to look more like the Wolverine’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and creepy grass-eating uncle, even though none of them looked the same either.

Why didn’t the Wolverines give him more than 3 years?  They gave that nice man who coached the basketball team 6 years.

Very good question.  Mostly because, again, he didn’t win enough games.  Also, people care more about football than basketball, and that nice man looked a little like a young Will Smith and dressed like a singer in the band Color Me Bad, a band your mother/father and I used to love listening to about 9 months before you were born.

So who decided to fire Rich Rodriguez?

David Brandon, the current Athletic Director and a former player for the Wolverines.  He was also the former CEO of Dominos Pizza.

Can we have pizza for dinner? 

Not tonight; I already made roast beef and broccoli.  Maybe this weekend.  Don’t make that face!

Is David Brandon a good guy?  You said he should pull his head out of his a…

Don’t you say that!  Yes, sometimes when a person gets really angry, he or she may use bad words to show how angry they are, but you shouldn’t. 

David Brandon is a good person who maybe made a couple of mistakes.  He’s only been on the job for a couple of months, and so it is hard to tell if he is really a good Director or maybe just good at being a boss as a company.  We will know more in a couple of years.

And no, it is not possible physically possible to do what Mommy/Daddy said.  Unless you are a writer for a local newspaper, in which case that is the only way they can do their job.

So who did David Brandon replace Rich Rodriguez with?

Brady Hoke, a former assistant coach at Michigan as well as Head Coach at San Diego State University and Ball State.  Now stop laughing just because I said “ball.”

Doesn’t Brady Hoke play for the Patriots?

No, you are thinking of Tom Brady.  He once played at Michigan, back way before you were born and when the coaches kept wanting a baseball player to play instead of him.  They were dumb.  Also, Brady Hoke was the guy who brought Tom Brady to Michigan from California.

Is Brady Hoke a good coach?

An important lesson you will learn as you grow up is that words don’t always mean the same thing depending on who or what you are talking about.  For example, I “love” you (and your brother/sister/wife/husband where appropriate), but I also “love” Michigan football.  When I say I love you, it means I’d do anything to keep you safe and healthy.  When I say I love Michigan football, it means I like to watch them beat other teams and sometimes when they don’t I throw things around the house and call people “bassbowls.” 

The same can be said about Brady Hoke being a “good” coach.  He’s definitely not a bad one – he’s won 47 games and had recent success at both schools before leaving them.  Also, he is well-respected by other coaches, has a reputation for being good at getting good players to play for his team, and has a plan about how he wants to run his team.  Also, he really wants to coach the Wolverines.

But at the same time, he also lost 50 games and is really old, like older than mommy/daddy.  He’s never played with the big kids before, so we don’t know if he’ll be able to keep up.  He says he wants to play the game differently than how Rich Rodriguez played, but people aren’t sure if he’ll be able to right now, since the players he has on his team all wanted to play like Rodriguez.  Finally, some people worry that he’ll be like the old guy that coached the Wolverines before Rich Rodriguez, only worse.

So I’m not sure if Brady Hoke is a good coach, but I do know that he is a different coach than Rich Rodriguez, and sometimes change is good. 

Do people like Brady Hoke?

Oh yeah, lots of people like him.  Everyone who writes for the newspapers like him, especially since he is not like Rich Rodriguez at all.  Lots of people who like the Wolverines all like him because he reminds them of other coaches they liked, kind of like how our puppy reminds you of Bo, our other dog who went to that farm up north to live on.  The one with all the rabbits and squirrels to chase.

Now, there are some people who don’t like him as much, but they are just grumpy people who sit in their parents’ basements all day and type on the computer.  They complain about him being not that good at his job and something we call a “safety option”, a word you’ll hear when you are applying to colleges and I have you fill out applications to schools you don’t want to attend, like that school Uncle Murray attended in the middle of the state.  None of them ever talk to girls, they smell because they don’t take baths, and only eat pizza and drink pop all day. 

Can I be one those of people who doesn’t like Brady Hoke?

No, no matter how awesome that sounds.  Almost all of them grow beards and like soccer, and unfortunately (pick one:  we have a medical thing that doesn’t allow us to grow beards/you are a girl and facial hair doesn’t look right on girls).

Were they are any other people who coach have been the coach for the Wolverines?

Great question!  According to Mr. Brandon, the only person he wanted was Brady Hoke, even though everyone knows he was fibbing and yes, fibbing is wrong and don’t you do it.  But sometimes when you are older, you need to say stuff that isn’t totally true so that you don’t look dumb or mean in front of others.  It’s like when Aunt Belinda asks me if she looks fat in her wedding pictures and I say she looked beautiful, even though I’ve told you before she looked like Shrek in a dress. 

But no, I’ve heard that Brandon asked a couple of other people if they wanted to coach the Wolverines, but all of them said they already had play dates lined up.  Jim Harbaugh, a former player for the Wolverines who is also a successful Head Coach at a school with a tree as its mascot, decided he wanted to coach in the National Football League.  He may have told Brandon that he planned on coaching the Wolverines and then used this to get a better job, which is something we call “leverage.”  It’s how daddy/mommy got that new flat-screen television after he/she stumbled on my Google search history. 

Brandon also apparently asked Pat Fitzgerald at Northwestern University, but he liked his job and didn’t want to move.  He might have also asked Les Miles at LSU, but he’s even older than Brady Hoke and likes to chew grass like the cat does when she’s sick. 

Did David Brandon do a good job looking for a Head Coach?

I always tell you that if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.  Well, this is an exception.  David Brandon royally screwed up this search, like how I forgot to pick you up after band practice a couple of years ago and Susie’s mom saw you walking alone in the rain and drove you home.  Except, I don’t think David Brandon can take every Wolverine fan out for ice cream and then buy you tickets to see Space Chimps.  Of course, he might be able to give everyone a free pizza.

Brandon said he was going to look everywhere for the best coach, but then he only looked at people in his Wolverine phone book plus the guy next door.  People probably won’t care that much as long as Brady Hoke turns out to be a good coach, but people also don’t like being lied to when everyone knows you are doing it.  That’s a good lesson for you know.  Also, always wash your hands after you use the bathroom and don’t accept candy from stranger.  Unless they give you Snickers – then they are just really nice people with great taste.

Will the Wolverines be better with Brady Hoke as the Head Coach?

Nobody knows for sure.  They were REALLY good last year at scoring points and REALLY bad at stopping the other guys from scoring them.  They should be better at stopping teams because all of the players on defense are older, and the really fast guy on offense with the dreads is coming back and should be good.  So they should be at least as good as they were this year, and will probably win a couple more games next year. 

In the future, though, I’m not sure if the team will be better.  We’ll have to see, especially as Hoke brings in more players that he wants and play the way he wants.  My guess is that they’ll win games but will disappoint me enough most years that I’ll be making many trips to the store to refill the bottles of adult drinks I keep in the dining room.

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I came upon this interesting case on Internet speech, privacy, and defamation at EFF.org and found the ruling rather interesting.  The case centered on a number of critical posts made to two Yahoo! message boards by anonymous posters, including the defendant using the avatar “Stokklerk”, relating to the company USA Technologies, Inc.  USAT (the company’s stock market acronym) is involved in “wireless, cashless, micro-transactions and networking services”, and since its IPO in 2000, the value of the company has plummeted from a high of about $400/share to its current selling price of $.66/share.  Perhaps not surprisingly, critics of the company and its management have emerged over the years, including the aforementioned commenter Stokklerk, who claimed that USAT was “legalized highway robbery” and that CEO George Jensen was “fleecing humanity”.  The anonymous poster also made references to USAT being a “soft” Ponzi scheme, claiming that it made outsized compensation payments to executives while failing to generate profits or otherwise show progress toward sustainability.  The tone of the comments clearly portrayed the company in a poor light, and while the actual credibility of the comments certainly is open to debate, the fact remained that the prominence and quantity of said comments on a major message board related to the company was not good for business. 

So in a surprise to no one who has followed Internet-based disputes, USAT brought suit against Yahoo! to disclose Stokklerk’s IP address pursuant to Securities Exchange Act of 1934, specifically Section 10(b) and related Pennsylvania common law defamation statutes. USAT claimed that by posting these negative comments about USAT on a publicly-accessible forum, Stokklerk and others were involved in a “scheme” to “enrich themselves through undisclosed manipulative trading tactics.”  In effect, USAT was claiming that various anonymous posters on a Yahoo! forum were involved in a remote cabal to undermine the value of the company’s stock.  So for those of you scoring at home, Internet bloggers were apparently a major contributor in USAT retaining a mere .17% of its initial IPO value. 

Well, the District Court of northern California clearly did not agree, finding that “the Constitutional protection afforded pseudonymous speech over the internet, and the chilling effect that subpoenas would have on lawful commentary and protest.”  The Court also shot holes in the notion that Stokklerk and others were involved in some coordinated assault against USAT and its stock, pointing out that “[USAT] does not allege any facts that defendant ever owned or sold any USAT stock or submit competent evidence that Stokklerk’s alleged statements distorted the market price for USAT stock, and that USAT was damaged as a result."  The gist of the Court’s ruling was that while USAT might not agree with the posts made by Stokklerk regarding USAT, these comments are clearly framed as the opinions of the poster and, if perhaps a bit hyperbolic, still should be protected as criticism and not defamatory.

Not surprisingly, I am happy with this ruling.  Commenting on social networks and public forums is a new frontier of public discourse, and while there certainly should be limits on what is deemed defamatory and not, making negative comments about an underperforming company and its management strikes me as well within the wheelhouse of free speech.  Stokklerk was clearly stating his (as the decision noted, the masculine form was accepted for convention in the brief, and does not necessarily identify the gender of the poster) opinions about USAT and its rather dramatic fall in value, and to be fair made comments that are rather tame by Internet standards.  True, if Stokklerk actively and knowingly spread lies and misinformation about USAT and (especially) its executives, I would be more accepting of this type of suit.  Because while I am a firm believer that anonymity on the Internet is something to be protected, that should not give carte blanche to post anything you want with impunity (we even have a term for those types of people).  Especially with respect to executives, there is a fine line between stating one’s negative opinions and openly attacking an individual, and one should be held responsible if that line is crossed.  That is why most legislatures have passed defamation laws that include striations of “public figures,” placing a greater burden on the aggrieved party show malice and intent to defame for public figures (either full or limited).   

Hopefully this will help to cement a precedent that free speech needs to be protected on the Internet, even at the expense of some nasty words being shared.  I’m sure that USAT felt that they had a viable case here, but some would argue that instead of picking a fight with some anonymous posters, USAT should focus its attention more on fixing the problems that the commenters highlighted.

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A real quick post since I haven’t made an entry in some time (due in part to ongoing Android development[read: cursing at Java books and Sun Microsystems]), but I thought this was an interesting article at Science Daily.  The article delves into the recent Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI) report that outlines the health of the U.S.’s science and engineering system via a number of markers such as total R&D costs and patent fillings.  The gist is that Asian countries, particularly South Korea, are starting to make a significant splashes in the global science and technology pool, and in a round-a-bout way at the expense of U.S. developers.  The article noted that “[a]nnual growth of R&D expenditures in the U.S. averaged 5 to 6 percent while in Asia, it has skyrocketed. In some Asian countries, R&D growth rate is two, three, even four, times that of the U.S.”  It goes on to say that foreign inventors seeking patent protection in America is on the rise from nations such as Taiwan and South Korea, though (somewhat) surprisingly is still relatively low in major countries like India and China.

At first blush, that sounds like the U.S. is losing ground, which would keep in line with the pessimistic outlook of this country’s future that has been circulating for some time.  As the U.S. becomes more of a “knowledge economy” driven by intellectual property and technological innovation, maintaining itself as a leader in engineering and science is essential.  True, the U.S. has not completely abandoned its manufacturing roots, and high-tech areas such as alternative fuel and defense development are likely to remain “in-house”, so to speak, for some time.  At the same time, though, if the U.S. expects to maintain its position as a leading global power, it must continue to be a leader in innovation and technological growth internationally, especially as Asian countries continue their impressive growth.

My issue with the article, and I guess the growing mindset that America is losing ground to other Eastern countries, is that most of these reports seemingly disregard the immense differences in the economies and growth patterns of the various countries.  While the U.S. is a mature nation with an established research base, nations like Taiwan, Korea, and even China are relative newcomers to the global technological stage, and all realize that to become a player they need to increase their production significantly.  That means more and more money being dedicated to research and development in order to spur on growth, but always with the caveat that most of the countries are still lagging significantly behind other developed countries in terms of innovation.  Without delving too deeply into the report (which can be found here for anyone who has a masochistic desire to skim 730+ pages of small text), the numbers show that while growth in foreign countries outstrips America’s, the total output by the U.S. still dwarfs the efforts from these rising nations.  So while it is still impressive to see 3x growth per year in some countries, the massive grain of salt is that they are based on much smaller starting bases.  And while the size of the countries should obviously be taken into account when analyzing the raw numbers, the fact remains that the U.S. should remain an innovation leader for years to come.

Of course, this position relies on a continued stream of high-quality engineers and scientists being produced by American schools and employers, which this report showed was eroding somewhat.  Less Americans are graduating college with degrees in engineering and the sciences than in years past, and even where there is growth it is somewhat minimal or due to classifications of “science” degrees that may not translate to real R&D growth.  And yes, the rending of clothes and gnashing of teeth over America’s struggles to promote science to a younger generation cannot be ignored.  But as others have noted, looking at raw numbers like graduation rates and total degrees being issued can be immensely misleading, since how ones defines a science background is obviously open for interpretation.  Also, quality of education at many of these schools is dubious at best, resulting in individuals graduating in a couple of years with degrees that are engineering degrees in name only.  So while the focus on science in America certainly needs to be reinforced (a position taken by President Obama both during his campaign and since entering office), the notion that America is about to be lapped in the server farms and laboratories by other nations is a bit premature.

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