The prescience and quick wit of Norm Macdonald

The prescience and quick wit of Norm Macdonald
May 16, 2020, FrankPoliat©2020

One of the most celebrated incidents in the history of TV has to do with Norm MacDonald and film criticism, on “Conan” in 1997. His comment might serve as the most succinct doctoral thesis in history on comedic content and timing.

Conan + Norm Macdonald + Courtey Thorne-Smith, FILM CLIP, 1997
MOVIE CLIP w Carrot Top
https://youtu.be/aqhrPa_7LVA?t=229

“Chairman of the Board” (1997) stars Conan’s other guest, Courtney Thorne-Smith and co-stars Carrot Top. This was her first (second?) movie effort that Courtney starred in after leaving “Melrose.”

I’m a big fan of MacDonald and Conan. I have NEVER watched “Melrose Place” or, until watching this clip, never seen/watched/heard of Thorne-Smith. The clip has become a viral immortal. At this point, in the 1997 video-clip, she is responding to Conan’s meat and potatoes questions to her about why she had quit “Melrose Place” (1992-1999) in 1997 and also gives her a chance to plug her latest movie, “Chairman of the Board.” Meanwhile, Norm’s little mental cogs and wheels go to work.

Norm’s zinger is immortal. It’s plain, it’s obvious and it stops the show (figuratively).
But not only that, the movie being discussed may well be THE low point of Courtney’s possibly bumpy (I would not know) but financially rewarding career.

Herewith, the clip in question and proof that Norm’s quip/prediction was dead-on, you can see movie’s ratings and production cost below. Maybe it has garnered a few more bucks since this rating, but that’s probably mostly because of Norm’s feedback stirred interest. “COTB,” sank to the bottom of Hollywood bombs stockpile. Apparently, only Ed Wood and Russ Meyer could have made anything lower. I question whether Norm had even watched this movie, his comment is solely based on his opinion of Carrot Top’s brand of comedy.

Crowd Accelerated Innovation: another reason why Google Plus is and will be an important and vital tool

SHORTLINK: http://wp.me/p4njL-8F

Here’s a quote from this article, TED Curator Chris Anderson on Crowd Accelerated Innovation, Wired Magazine Jan. 2011.

BOLD EMPHASIS is mine.

“The absurd camp calls YouTube a festering swamp of adolescent distraction: narcissism, kitten videos, and fart jokes. The obvious camp thinks it’s old news that the Internet fosters communities and promotes innovation (and this camp may view online video as a relatively insignificant new contributor to a familiar theme).

Both camps have a point. But they’re missing the big picture. The true significance of online video has been mischaracterized and underreported.

Innovation has always been a group activity. The myth of the lone genius having a eureka moment that changes the world is indeed a myth. Most innovation is the result of long hours, building on the input of others. Ideas spawn from earlier ideas, bouncing from person to person and being reshaped as they go. If you’re comfortable with the language of memes, you could say a healthy meme needs an ecosystem not of a single brain but of a network of brains. That’s how ideas bump into other ideas, replicate, mutate, and evolve.

Several authors have recently taken on this subject. Henry Chesbrough warns companies to adopt “open innovation,” Eric von Hippel speaks of democratizing innovation, showing how, for example, the kite-surfer community outinnovated the manufacturers that were serving it, and Michael Farrell describes “collaborative circles,” demonstrating that throughout history the best creativity has happened when groups of artists, reformers, writers, or scientists connected regularly with one another.

So Crowd Accelerated Innovation isn’t new. In one sense, it’s the only kind of innovation there’s ever been. What is new is that the Internet—and specifically online video—has cranked it up to a spectacular degree.

The way I see it, Crowd Accelerated Innovation requires three ingredients: a crowd, light, and desire. Let’s take each in turn.”

Google Plus adds Tweet, Translate and Delicious to its Stream Post options… AND an ALERT to Delicious users.

New layout and functions — G+ New Functions in Posting in Stream

ADDENDUM: turns out this is a Chrome extension. But it’s great.

SHORTLINK: http://wp.me/p4njL-7x

As of this morning, several more functionalities showed up under posts in the G+ stream. Previously there was Plus1, Comment and Share. Now there are 3 more: Tweet, Translate and Delicious.

Apparently, not everyone has this functionality yet (same as with the advanced version of Hangouts). But I’m certain this one will roll our very soon to everyone. My page is http://gplus.to/quickdrawartist

This is significant on many levels, of course. One being that, as I’ve thought myself, Google+ will replace many things, but not Twitter, unless it buys Twitter. And if it does, it will probably have the same hands-off approach that it uses with YouTube. My perspective has been that Twitter has a special place and set of functionalities that “plays well with others,” including Google+. Twitter is clean, powerful and flexible and very well administrated. I have never been able to fathom why so many folks express the feeling that Google+ would replace Twitter. What was I not getting? At this point, I think it’s a safe bet that Google feels the same way about Twitter.

Very cool right? But Delicious? Why Delicious? Google already owns its own very good google.bookmarks.

DELICIOUS USERS, SEE THIS NOTE**

I think I know why, because Avos (owned by YouTube’s founders) has acquired Delicious from Yahoo and Google OWNS YouTube.*

As a long time fan of and early adopter of Delicious, this is great news on many fronts, to my mind at any rate. Delicious has some significant functionalities that Google.bookmarks does not. On the other hand, Google.bookmarks ties into the rest of your Google apps. So I think we’re going to be seeing a conflation of the two.

Lately, I have been bouncing miserably between Instapaper (it’s so fast and handy), Firefox bookmarks, and lately, with the advent of Google+, Google.bookmarks, while in the back of my mind wondering why I didn’t keep using Delicious. Probably because I’m allergic to Yahoo.

What would really even fantasticker would be for Google to also buy Instapaper and merge its sterling functionalities as well (and improve its folder function too, or replace it).

*http://www.avos.com/delicious-press-release/ YouTube Founders Acquire Delicious From Yahoo!

** This popped up for me this morning, so check it out if you have ever used Delicious: up “To continue using Delicious, you must agree to transfer your account information to AVOS by Friday, September 23, 2011. Click here to transfer now > https://secure.delicious.com/settings/optin “

Attention Delicious Users

Microsoft: One in 14 Downloads Is Malicious

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20110518/tc_pcworld/microsoftonein14downloadsismalicious

“The next time a website says to download new software to view a movie or fix a problem, think twice. There’s a pretty good chance that the program is malicious.

In fact, about one out of every 14 programs downloaded by Windows users turns out to be malicious, Microsoft said Tuesday. And even though Microsoft has a feature in its Internet Explorer browser designed to steer users away from unknown and potentially untrustworthy software, about 5 percent of users ignore the warnings and download malicious Trojan horse programs anyway. “

(original source of above copy unknown to me. FP)

Microsoft: beyond stupid, continues with Bing

Microsoft: beyond stupid and evil, continues with Bing

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-6q

Yes Virginia, there is such a thing as corporate culture. Until Bill Gates lets of of the reins (hmm, must be etymological relation between “reign” and “reins”), Microsoft will be the 1000lb moron gorilla. Remember how many years they insisted that the Internet was a minor part of the Scheme of Things? Remember all the Window’s Beta jokes? Well, I was just giving Bing a chance and learned that you cannot do any kind of advanced search for pages created in the last year/month/week. Is that beyond dumb? Beyond egregious? Feh! Unfuckingbelievable. Some comments from others about this (created in [probably my last]) Bing search: http://www.bing.com/community/webmaster/f/12248/t/652228.aspx . I can’t tell you exactly what my search terms were, because Bing does not show you that either; but something like “Bing search year month week”…. not actually put in quotes. Every cloud has a silver lining, I may not be as rich as Bill Gates, and I know he’s some kind of genius, but I would not change my brain, or any part of it, or my station in life, or any part of it, for Gates’. On a related note, the reins have changed over at Google in the last week or two. My prediction: it will not be pretty.

Amazon server problems affect Reddit, Quora and more

“Amazon experiencing troubles with cloud servers, Reddit and Quora among affected sites” http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20110421/tc_digitaltrends/amazonexperiencingtroubleswithcloudserversredditandquoraamongaffectedsites

I dunno, a day without Quora…. maybe I’ll go out and play with the other kids….

Facebook scam fraud alert

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-4W

Over the last few days several “alumni” who say they attended the same college that I attended have asked to friend me. The tip-off that something’s wrong was that they had no other friends. I then checked them out in the online directory of my college and none of them were listed (I have been approached by four “people” so far).

All four of them had only one other piece of information and that was an additional email address (hotmail or aol accts) .

This may be some kind of new scam. So if you have warm-fuzzies about some institution that you have attended, don’t let that be a reason to let your guard down. Don’t let people that you don’t know into your network w/o checking them out first.

Could Dior management truly have been ignorant of John Galliano’s rabid anti-semitism up until Feb. 2011?

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-4B

RE: Galliano video and Huffington post link

Could Dior management truly have been ignorant of John Galliano’s rabid anti-Semitism up until Feb. 2011? Is it possible that Dior (and other firms that he worked with) did not know about John Galliano’s anti-Semitism until Feb. 2011?

To answer my own question: only if Galliano was having a psychotic break…. and I don’t think he was.

As a sidebar, this is funny, in a dark way, since as a gay man, Galliano would have herself attended said death camp wearing a darling little pink triangle.

Clickable news map of Middle East

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-4a

(From http://www.washingtonpost.com, Feb 21 2011)

“Middle East in turmoil

Anti-government protests are spreading rapidly through the Middle East and North Africa. Use this chart to keep up with all of the demonstrations, day by day. ” Click on the country name tabs below the map to read more.

How cool is Quora?

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-41

How cool is Quora? Here’s a sample page with the question and answer to : “How smart is Mark Zuckerberg, academic-wise? Is he as smart as Bill Gates?”

What’s that bumper sticker? ” It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”

Well, it’ll be a great day when people worry as much about the size of their brains as they do about the size of their dicks or tits.

Is it all over for Gaddafi?

This is an unconfirmed report from AlArabiya news service that Gaddafi is OUT. If it’s true, it’s yet another confirmation of the stupendous power of the Internet remember a Twilight Zone episode from my kidhood, where salesmen and politicians could no longer lie. By that I mean, that with the incredible events of the last two weeks, maybe the people of the world are now empowered to FIGHT THE POWER.

Forum on best solution for hyper-local networking

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-3A

You are welcome to contact me directly at quickcard at gmail dotcom

This is a proposal for us here in the Neahkahnie area of Oregon, to come up with a FULL-FEATURED, EASY-TO-USE local online network to act as a community bulletin board for the Neahkahnie area. I’ve looked at Neahkahnie.ning.com and BBQ and I don’t believe that they meet criteria discussed here.

Now, WHERE SHOULD WE HAVE THAT FORUM about alternatives?  I created “Oregon Coast Network” in Facebook a while back. That could be one place. Or you can add your thoughts to this blog…..OR WHAT do you suggest? NOTE: at this point, I’m addressing WHERE/HOW to have the discussion ABOUT creating such a network.

I live in Nehalem, a very small community on the north Oregon Coast. We are neighbors to two other hamlets, Manzanita and Wheeler, also small. One is 2 miles north of us, the other two miles south, the whole are is called “NeahKahnie”. Our most popular “BBS” is called “BBQ” and is run by a very nice man. Here’s how it works, you send an email to bbq@nehalemtel.net and, if it meets the admin’s criteria, it will get emailed out to all the folks who have signed up for it.  Incidentally, few people use the Oregon Coast Craigslist precisely because it is NOT local enough.

Now the disadvantages of something like BBQ are obvious. At one point I emailed the BBQ admin about the possibility of collaborating on creating something less kludgy. BBQ has asked me not to quote their reply, but the gist of it was, why would I want to have something else when there already was BBQ?

(NOTE: I’m not calling for the abolishment of BBQ, but it since BBQ is the only online community de facto bulletin board, it would be nice if we could at least announce the issue there).   This was my response, I have edited it for clarity:

“… BBQ is great, and I’m sure it will be around for many more years. For folks who absolutely hate to learn anything “new,” BBQ will be all they will ever use. BBQ has the strength of having been here first and is of great benefit to the community. (but) BBQ, and services like it are basically a central clearing house for thousands of individual emails…It’s as if every time you had something to say to one (or just a few individuals), it had to be broadcast to 300 people, in the hope that those you were addressing would also see it, while 300 other people are doing the same thing. “  I believe that a lot of local people are left flatfooted. They do not like to use BBQ and yet, we cannot announce a FORUM to discuss ALTERNATIVES in the only CURRENT FORUM: BBQ.
Some of the disadvantages of the BBQ “technology”:

OVERSTUFFED EMAIL BOX. BBQ is not a listserv, so emails flood users’ email box, unsorted and before you know it, you have thousands of emails in your inbox, instead of their being on an outside SERVER, as in a genuine listserv.
SECURITY: If someone hacks into a mediated service, like BBQ, a hacker gets ALL the addresses on the list, and the entire membership is therefor vulnerable to hacking and viral attacks, spam etc. Saying that it has not happened yet is like saying you don’t need to use a safety belt because you’ve never had an accident.
Users are at the mercy of the provider taking a vacation, being ill, or just not feeling like forwarding messages that day, or YOUR message specifically. Social Networks (Facebook, Google groups, Ning, Yahoo groups etc) is AUTOMATICALLY ADMINISTERED, and not dependent on an individual’s health, presence, or mood.

THE ALTERNATIVE, should have NONE of the above disadvantages, and have the following features:

Hyper-local (but can be connected to other hyper-local nodes. So “our” hyperlocal would encompass from Manzanita area to Wheeler, for example.
Posting is INSTANT and not sent to an intermediary. This is comparable to the difference between having a phone as a party line and just being able to pick up the phone and call someone.
Listings can be SORTED during the posting process. You can find what you are looking for FAST and EASY, BECAUSE IT’S INDEXED (“threaded”).
LISTINGS ARE ON THE SERVER, NOT YOUR COMPUTER, NO NEED TO PURGE, EDIT, SORT CLASSIFY, USE UP MEMORY ETC

At any rate, in terms of there being a local electronic bulletin board, BBQ was here first, and has become the default superlocal networking site. BBQ has “First-mover advantage” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-mover_advantage). “First Advantage” is very powerful. In general, no matter how much better the second (or 3rd, 4th) contender is, people tend to stick with the “first-arrival.” eBay is prime example. Not a great company, I can testify to that, but the first one out of the gate.

Laughing at cats

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-3r

OK, now I really AM ROFL

Hosni Mubarak, no longer living in de- Nile

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-3k

DING DONG THE BITCH IS DEAD!!!!
I predicted he’d do it by Feb 9. I was a little off. Sudan still in the hands of ex-dictator’s right hand man. i dont think the Egyptians are gonna let anything like that happen to them, no mubarak jr, no usa/approved bullshit and whoever leads is NOT going to get Lumumba’d (new wrd). Inch’allah, there will be no Ford to pardon this asshole, but I don’t care, becos I don’t think he’s gonna be able to fly the coop w/ billions to Switzerland. Hundreds of lawyers and doctors flooding the streets of Cairo, wow, how cool. I made another prediction back when the Internet was a baby, that it was the most important event since the printing press and people looked at me like I was crazy. My hopes have always been that the Net would set the world free. Governments are gonna have a harder and harder time covering their pathetic scrawny ugly butts. The Internet is the AntiBigBrother. Now if we can just figure out global warming, overpopulation and the dying planet, we may look forward to the next 7 generations. VENCEREMOS!

I’m testing sales @ http://onlyafewdollars.com

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-3c

This looks like a great sales venue, my sales so far, my thank-god-i’m-an-atheist t-shirt, and an offer to do instant art. They site went up this january, and they are very communicative and helpful. I gave them some web-usability ideas which they jumped on. Very gratifying, that. My posts there: Thankgodimantheist T-shirt and Create Instant ART

What happens on the net STAYS on the net; is it the ultimate “Permanent Record?” Do we care?

ShortLink to this page: http://wp.me/p4njL-1W

William (Bill) Rheinhardt sent this to me via Facebook, and I’m replying via WordPress which I will then link as an answer.
Don’t u know my snide sense of humor, yet! I salute u for blabbing about controversial subjects and telling peeps how u really feel! I love to buck ‘the system’ and FB has become a corp. blue nose to ‘protect the children’. I have nudity in my photos and would love to post more obscenities. I just don’t want to be deleted for all the work it’s been putting up media I have shared. I have good friends who are Ludites (sic) and refuse to participate in the ‘double edged sword’ all the new tech has provided to distract us from ‘real life’ and sell us more junk. I’m mixed about the slippery slope all this social networking has become.

To which I respond:

Well put Bill. My sentiments indeed. I’m playing with various media as I’m pretty certain FB will grow ever more controlling. That’s one of several reasons why I’m answering via WordPress and then linking to FB. Ultimately, I’ll probably spring for a proprietary blog. I have lots of websites, but the WordPress tools are too good to pass up.

WordPress is “insanely great!”

No really… uh, wow.

Are there any good alternatives to iPhoto?

Are there any good alternatives to iPhoto? Write an answer on Quora

Are there any good alternatives to iPhoto?

Remove your personal data from people aggregation websites (Spokeo, Intelius, Whitepages >.com)

Joe Hage mentioned in Facebook: “There’s a site called spokeo.com where I can see your age, your spouse, the value of your home, etc. Remove yourself by searching your name, copy the URL of your page, then go to the bottom right corner of the page and click on the Privacy button to remove yourself. Copy &… re-post.”

Barry Hurd added: “There are many services like Spokeo. Unfortunately the people-aggregation business model is pretty massive, two local companies actually lead the industry with Whitepages.com and Intelius.com. Most of the techniques they use to gather persona…l data would be questionable in the sense that the common person has no idea where the info came from (estate records, tax info, census, drivers info, hotel lists, phone carrier, etc.). In my mind these services are like the spammy email lists of the 90s.”

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Microsoft: beyond stupid and evil, continues with Bing

Shortlink: http://wp.me/p4njL-6q

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