These 2 Things were absolute garbage this Christmas...

OK....

Christmas is over, on to the dirty business of who did it badly.

My 2 top picks for crappiest Holiday observations are a tie  between Google's Holiday Doodle and TWIT's holiday (or lack thereof) spirit.

Let's start with the the Google Holiday Doodle...

In previous years We saw everything from adorable polar bears to a toymaker's workshop.

This year we got this....

(Cllick on the image to see it full size)


WTF Google?  

At least last year showed SOME creativity.  This year's collection of noncommittal  imagery not only was limited to just 3 days instead of the full week we used to get, but was so bland and uninspired that it could have represented any day of the year.  

The Holiday doodles evoked no Holiday spirit of ANY Holiday.  The only variance you got was whether you were in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere and even then the words, "Holiday" or "Christmas" were nowhere to be seen.  

Now I get why some overheated Politically Correct busybody may get his panties in a bunch over the whole "Christmas" thing but all we got was a hover text that said, "Tis the Season."

Tis the Season for what?  Boring doodles that inspire absolutely nothing.  No warmth, no spirit, no soul.  I've seen Heimlich Maneuver posters with more feeling.

Even Muslim and Jewish folks can appreciate the largely secular traditions of the Holidays and let's not forget that Google has done Easter, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah doodles in the past.

Are we so afraid of offending some jerk with a Google+ page that we have to screw it up for everyone else?

Who's going to sue over a picture on a search page?  Besides, you're Google, you don't fear courts...

You know, I'm not especially religious but I do embrace the Holiday season. 

I'd someday like to visit New York at Christmas time to see Rockefeller Center and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  I'm not looking for some religious epiphany.  These are just places that most American's would find as iconic to the Holiday as Time's Square is to New Year's eve.  It's a cultural thing and Google is getting lazy about it.

We already know that Google can serve up regional doodles for different parts of the world so the whole excuse about offending non-Christian nations is BS anyway.  Last I checked, we were living in the 21st century not the 12th. 

Regardless of what some radical groups may profess, I firmly believe the world to be far more sophisticated than flying into an uproar over the image of a Christmas wreath.

It's not about disliking the design, it's about the vanilla, shareholder friendly dogma behind it.

I won't belabor the point any more other than to say,  Google, bad form dude...

Now on to my second pick for worst example of Holiday spirit.

It's our old Friend TWIT!

What more can we say about the newly "downsized" TWIT operation.  We should have known there'd be no holiday spirit this year after the mass takedown of TWIT related videos on YouTube IN VIOLATION OF THEIR OWN CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE that damaged more than one YouTube content creator, myself included.

This year we get virtually nothing but a crappy panel show recorded December 1st with the few remaining hosts at the round ( err... make that oblong) table.  All of which suckle at the breast of the dying bovine that is TWIT.

Somebody puts on a Santa hat and calls it Christmas....

What?  No TWIT Holiday special with all of Leo's famous "friends?"  In fact no special Holiday programming at all.  Just a bunch of boring "Best of's" Which is a pretty tall order for a network so short on talent and now apparently ambition.

It's a glaring statement of disinterest.  

For proof look no further than the December 21'st Windows Weekly and you'll be hard pressed to see anything on set that would indicate we were mere days from the Holiday.  

Windows Weekly and Security Now are done from Leo's office.  A spot much more secluded and private than the Brickhouse.  Now more lair than set, if you're looking for the real Leo, look at that set. 

If it aint there he don't care. 

There isn't even a holiday bug on the edited shows!  (that translucent icon thing in the lower right corner.) For a guy so concerned with copyright you'd think that bug would be everywhere!

A heartfelt, "Meh" not only from viewers but the network itself.

If anything ever boosted ratings it was the Holidays.  Do something, anything special at the Holidays and you'll get eyeballs even if they're attached to a face that doesn't necessarily hold you in high regard.

But good old Leo can't be bothered even to feed the sycophantic TWIT fanboys ( yes, I stole that from Totaldrama ) 

Not even a  New Year's Eve special.  

Yes, I'll say it.  It was the one show that TWIT produced, aside from the Holiday Specials with John Hodgman and Jonathan Coulton that was actually worth watching.

Even if you hated Leo, watching it would at least give you the same sense of kinship with fellow geeks that normal people get from watching the Ball Drop in the aforementioned Time's Square

But we're not doing that.  We're sticking a Candy Cane on the set, putting a Santa Hat on the Channel Bug and calling it done.

Bad on Ya!

Neither Google nor TWIT has enough respect for their audiences to make anything but the most pitiful of efforts at the Holidays.

My rating for TWIT and Google's Holiday doodle's this year.

5 Heaping banks of Yellow snow....

Twitter Activism: Busybody Backfire

Adria Richards

By now you probably already know the name Adria Richards.  Well at least if you follow the technology press that is.  She's the polarizing tweeter who outed a couple of boys behaving badly. 

The cliff notes version of the story is that a group of men were sitting behind Richards at the PyCon conference (A conference for Python developers) making dirty jokes laced with sexual innuendo.  

Richards was specifically offended by remarks they made in response to a speaker such as "big dongle" and "forking repos" which apparently spurred her into action.

She snapped a photo of the two men with her phone and tweeted it with the following: " Not cool. Jokes about forking repo's in a sexual way and "big" dongles.Right behind me #pycon"

Mind you, they weren't talking to her or at her, in fact they probably didn't even notice she was there.  That was until everyone got fired.

The twitterverse went nuts over this.  Most of the response was negative as most responses on the Internet are.  What doesn't seem to fit is that anyone got fired over this or that it became such a big deal.

There's a part of me that likes to see a busybody get a taste of their own medicine and make no mistake, Richards is a busybody.  That she was so determined to ruin someone for behaving like an ass using twitter activism proves that.

People in the tech industry live on the Internet and feel no hesitation in laying open the entirety of their existence for the world to see.  That exposes them to a level of vulnerability that old men like me think twice about. 

So it should be no surprise that your actions in the virtual world have consequences in the real one.  All the parties involved knew that but Richard's decided to be a passive-aggressive activist.  She would likely have had a better outcome if she had just turned around and asked them to shut up.  Nothing muzzles a man faster than a woman calling him on the carpet.   

Should women have to be subjected to lewd and lascivious ramblings? Of course not but it's within your rights to be moron and nobody was talking to or even about Richards. 

It seems we're back to the age old problem of how men are different from women.  Generally,  most men would rather their world was like a weekend trip to Vegas while women would likely prefer something akin to the Lilith Fair. 

Unless Homo Sapiens suddenly become hermaphroditic  that won't change no matter how much you may

The Accused at Pycon

want it to.  It's not an excuse, it's biology.

Richard's job was described as a "Developer Evangelist"  I suppose that in this case she took the title in the biblical sense.  To that end her tweets ran against her job description of being " to build and strengthen our Developer Community across the globe."  A global community isn't always politically correct.  Besides, her followers were looking for information about a Python conference not a blow by blow of a couple of idiots.

It's not that she didn't have a right to be offended or to call these bozos out.  However, the way she did it was unprofessional and ultimately got her fired for the hate mail that resulted. 

Did she deserve it? To some extent yes but I'd draw the line at death and rape threats.  Unfortunately, the Internet can be a very violent place populated with uber egos and social retardation.  It's not right but it comes with the territory and we all know it.

Was firing the answer? I don't think so.   Surely there were other positions she could have been moved into. 

Did the knuckle dragging chauvinists (at least they were on that day) deserve to be fired? Probably not but they definitely needed some sensitivity training and maybe some potty training as well since they were obviously immature.  I've met plenty of people of both sexes who could use a refresher course in how to conduct themselves in public.

Still, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone", says the bible.  Richard's may have been justified in being offended but wrong in her actions especially considering her chosen vocation.  If you're getting paid to "evangelize" to a bunch of programmers you'd better understand that your audience may not be as progressive as you are.

It's no different than being a conservative politician who comes out in favor of a liberal agenda.  It's a pretty good bet that you're not going to be on team Red much longer.

If you're a guy, chances are you've been those two morons at some point in your life and may have even offended a few people.  If you're a woman you've probably witnessed it and wished looks could kill. 

Thing is, nobody ever tried to ruin your life over it.  People who run around the world seeking to remake it in their own utopian image are called idealists.  If they get enough power they're called fascists which is the secret dream of every busybody even if they think their intentions are pure.