Well, the 2011 racing season is done, and the clock just struck 2012 everywhere. Well, everywhere except NASCAR land, where they continues to work on their 1960s inventions and machines, proudly being as ungreen and unclean as the come.

First 2011: The only hilight of the year is Tony Stewart winning the cup. Let’s just say that “anyone except boring Jimmy Johnson” is a plus, however Stewarts team runs the same cars and engines as Johnson’s Hendrick team, and Hendrick cars made up the vast majority of the players in the chase. No surprises then! 2011 also goes down as a year with continued weak attendance, and the media getting excited when the TV ratings were as good as the previous year – which was way off peak anyway. The first 26 races leading up the chase as safe as houses cruises for the top teams, as they generally just work to “finish well” each time and cruise into the championship round, and the start and park crew out back assures us plenty of open space on pit road by the first caution, as upwards to half a dozen of them retire with various mystery ailments.

Now 2012: Hold onto your hats, NASCAR is jumping forward into the 21st century for technology. No, not really. They are jumping forward to the 70s, dumping the carburators that have fueled the cars for years and replacing them with high tech, high end throttle body fuel injection. Yup, the same concept that was in the 1976 Cadillac Seville is now the leading, bleeding edge of NASCAR. Oh my! Talk about a leap forward. Teams are closing down, with Rousch down a team, Red Bull pulling the plug on both of their cars, and even some of the start and parkers are calling it a day. At this point, even Jayski’s enthusiastic pro-NASCAR chart only shows about 32-34 full time teams, and many of them have big question marks in the sponsorship and driver areas.

One of the announcements for 2012 that caught my eye is that Dover raceway is expanding seat width to make fans more comfortable. Well, at least, that is the story they are working with. Actually, Dover is one of many tracks in the NASCAR family that expanded rapidly as the series grew, and kept adding seats to their venue. But some less than spectacular races, the slowing economy, and the downturn in the fortunes of NASCAR has meant they have been hiding significant numbers of seats under banners to try to make things look fuller, and still they couldn’t sell the place out. The place can seat a mind numbing 140,000, and with announced attendance at about 82,000 for each race this year, the place has looked empty. The “widening of seats” addresses that by dropping the available seat count down to 113,000. Cover a couple of sections over with ad tarps, and they could get back to a “full house” scenerio by only putting a few more people in the place. NASCAR could use to run at some venues that look full, because running in front of half empty grand stands isn’t doing the image any good.

Further, the racing in 2011 for the most part wasn’t that good. The two car tag team drafting at the large tracks is a joke, it is truly sad to think that having the fastest race car still makes you 10 mph slower than a tandem team. The first 26 races featuring some truly uninspired point driving, with teams less worried about the win, and more worried about getting the proper precentage of points out of the weekend of the make the chase. They play it so safe now that you can DVR the race, skip the first 475 miles, and just watch the last few minutes and get the whole story. In the case, things were a little heated up, but only another manipulation of the point system and chase system conspired to make it close. Tony Stewart won half of the chase races, there is no reason it should have been close.

Looking forward to 2012, it looks like more of the same for NASCAR. They will diddle with the rules trying to limit the tandem drafting, they will try fuel injection, and they will attempt to smile and say “43 is only a number” when they get to the 5th or 6th race of the season and have only 39 entries – which will grow to 43 entries when the “big” teams roll out specials to fill the grid for a few laps.

Try to enjoy NASCAR 2012 – I prefer it on a video game myself!

NASCAR The Game 2011

I can remember when Hotbot and Lycos were considered the big search players, and I can remember when an AOL hosted website was still considered somewhat cool, as was having a geocities page. I remember when ICQ was that new hot idea that nobody had every seen before, and I can remember what Yahoo was a place you absolutely wanted your sites listed. The truth is that change is always in the cards, it never goes away. Rather, change is the constant that makes the internet what it is.

Facebook has certainly been one of the fast rising stars. While My Space may have been there near the start of the social media revolution, it is Facebook that has truly defined it, as hundreds of millions of people have signed up for accounts, spewing their pictures, their mindless comments, they inner thoughts, and sometimes the stupidest stuff you will ever see. It was a place where university students could meet and plan their lives, and it became a place where older people met back up after years apart, tracking down old school friends, girlfriends, and perhaps making amends with the enemies of our distant pasts.

It was great. Keyword is was, at least for me.

I met back up online with all the people I wanted to meet back up with, and found in many cases there were reasons why we were apart. I found an old girlfriend with 4 kids and knocked up with number five from baby daddy number 3. I saw my high school reunion and discovered there was nobody there I wanted to reunite with. I have some good friends online, and I have chatted with them often and even developed some good friendships. But alas, even those have waned as each of us keep at our busy lives, understanding that we are in this position of not being friends before because we just don’t have the time or desire to maintain the relationship.

Once it is all done, and everyone has said hi, and everyone has caught up, there isn’t much left to talk about. There isn’t much going on. So I, like millions of other people, have gone forward to close out and delete my account from Facebook. Simply put, I am all socialed out. My thoughts are that Facebook is already heading for it’s slow downward spiral, with more and more companies going on Facebook and more and more normal people heading for the exits, turning into perhaps another My Space or whatever you may have. It was cool once, but then again, so were mullets. Thankfully, we have all grown past that point, and we no longer have to go back there.

For those friends I leave behind on Facebook, don’t worry, it isn’t because of you. Well, it is – because Facebook is a wonderful tool that has let me relive my schooldays, and I enjoyed doing it. But I can’t ride that ride every day, and it’s time for me to move along. Perhaps in another 20 years we can all jump into our star trek teleporters and enjoy a coffee in Rome and look back and laugh at Facebook. But for now, don’t laugh too loud, because many people haven’t yet gotten the joke.

What a weird world we live in. Since President Obama became the candidate for President of the US a few years ago, there has been a group of people who think he that he wasn’t born in the US. These so called birthers are the mouth breathers of US politics, a group that makes Sarah Palin supporters look bright. They ragged on about the birth thing, called Obama a Kenyan, pointed out his middle name is Hussein (trying to paint him as a hated Muslim, which he is not), and so on. They were a persistent, annoying circus, egged on by the Republican leaders and conservative media types who would sidestep the issue and by their silence, encouraged the wingnuts to keep up their crusade. Donald Trump, seeing this as a chance to ride the wave, took the concept very public, and attacked Obama about his failure to release a birth certificate.

Of course, all of that changed a couple of weeks back when Obama’s Birth Certificate was released. Suddenly, the birthers were left out in the cold, Trump was busy eating his words, and the nut jobs didn’t have anything to rag on about anymore. The more extreme went into the last defensive position that it took 2 years for them to fake the birth certificate, and in the end, the release of Obama’s birth certificate pretty much shut up the birther movement and made them useless.

Skip ahead a few days, and Osama Bin Laden gets taken out by US forces. Now it’s a double down time for Obama, not only did he shut up the birthers, but he accomplished the very mission that Bush and the Republican’s could not do, taking out the biggest terrorist target in the world. What does that get us?

The birthers were reborn, this time as deathers. Yup, now that Osama Bin Hiding is now Osama Bin Killed, the wingnuts are on the warpath, alternately claiming that Bin Laden isn’t dead, was killed for no reason, was killed illegally, or was in fact killed years ago and that Obama is just trying to get a boost by killing his ghost.

Some people will never be satisfied.

As a long time racing fan, you sort of get use to the ebb and flow of racing series. They have good years, and they have bad years. The people running various racing series either make really great decisions, and advance their sport, or they make incredibly stupid decisions that leave their sport in tatters. Just ask the brains that split CART into the IRL and Champ Car, or the brains that ran Trans Am into the ground.

NASCAR faces a significant cross roads. They find themselves on the back side of their meteoric rise from little southern sport to national (and even worldwide) events. They went from running on local TV channels, TBS, and as short clips on ABC’s Wide World of Sports into a property that has 3 major networks tripping over each other to toss money at the door. But the last few years have been painful for NASCAR, with attendance down, sponsorships drying up, field quality suffering, and all that against hugely increased costs to actually run in the series.

2010 was a year where the squeezing turned into pinching, and the pinching turned into pain. Tracks that have historically sold out every race (places like Bristol) now have huge sections of grandstands covered over. California didn’t attract enough unique fans over their two events in 2010, to the point that they will have only one event in 2011, and it will be a shorter race. The 2010 Rookie of the Year didn’t even run all the races, and when he did, and he did only because of a nonsensical top 35 rule that allowed his car owner to cash the checks and let him run around sometimes 10 MPH slower per lap than the rest of the field. Not surprisingly, Raybestos, one of the real long term players in NASCAR, cancelled their commitment to the ROTY program. In 2011, there are apparently no rookies lined up to drive the full season.

The grim news for NASCAR continued on the viewership side of things too, with races often down 10 – 20% in viewership, some even more. Changes to rules, restarts, going from wings back to spoilers, and pretty much every other trick NASCAR could think of didn’t change the trend. Having the same Champion 5 years in a row can be painful for any sport, and having one as incredibly dull and lifeless and Jimmie Johnson doesn’t help. Outside of the NASCAR races, there isn’t anyone in the media lining up to interview this guy, to include him in anything. He has the media profile of an also-ran, while at the same time dominating the series through a rich owner and a crew chief who isn’t scared to push the rules. JJ in the 48 has turned into the sleeping aid so many people need to get a good afternoon nap on a Sunday.

So 2011 comes around, and it’s starting to look like do or die for NASCAR. The last TV deal was signed in 2005, which covered 2007-2014. Basically, the deal was signed at the very top of NASCAR’s game. Now with attendance down, viewership down, and fan interest sinking, NASCAR needs a great 2011 in order to be able to renegotiate in 2012 to continue the TV deals. That deal is 600 or so million per year (4.8 billion for 8 years). If NASCAR isn’t improving in the ratings, continues to show a decline, and continues to show a loss of fan interest, it is likely they will end up on the downside of the marketplace during the next negotiations. That could lead NASCAR back to being a cable only series, as network may be less interested to carry programming.

The costs to the networks are significant. Fox / SPEED have pretty much had to turn their cable channel into a full time NASCAR channel to try to recoup their expenses, and now you see superbowl length pre-game shows for every race event, something I personally think leads to even more fan fatigue. Every practice, every qualifying, every everything is covered, almost all live. Every attempt is made to squeeze every penny out of this, because right now, the networks are probably hurting running NASCAR. If the Networks come back and say “Starting 2015, we will only give you 300 million per year”, NASCAR could find itself no longer to live in the Champagne style they have grown accustom to. It’s only a matter of time before someone has to pay the piper.

NASCAR is trying, at least a bit. Apparently drivers will have to commit to a single series for championship points for the season, hopefully killing the old “busch whacker” mentality that has lead almost all of the champions in the last decade for what is currently the Nationwide series being cup regulars. It doesn’t help that they have won more than half of the Nationwide races in that time frame, and an even higher percentage in the last couple of years (only 1 or 2 races in 2010). The noses of the cup cars have been “improved” again this year, getting rid of the support braces. There is even rumors that fuel injection might replace the ancient carbs that still run on these cars. Some race distances have been cut, and races moved to other tracks. Most fans on chat boards seem to be less than impressed. 2011 will tell the tale, by this time next year, NASCAR could have had it’s palace coup.

ACTA is a trade agreement and treaty between many nations (most except the usual suspects), which seeks to define and redefine the nature of copyright works, distribution, and such. It’s a complex subject, best covered in this article. It has far reaching implications, and the one that has the vocal minority of moochers and file traders upset is provisions for a “3 strikes” or similar structure that would require ISPs to be a little more diligent about what their networks are used for.

In simple terms, the current internet is a wild west scenario. Everyone has a horse, a gun, and a covering over their face so nobody can recognize them, and many choose to use this to steal from others. They will say it isn’t stealing, just “copying”, but in the end, they have something of value without having either paid for it or having the rights to it, which in most people’s worlds is either stealing or receiving stolen property. Either way, there is a small but vocal part of the internet user community that is concerned that ACTA will pull away their masks and leave them exposed, suddenly unable to do all the “free” things they have been doing before.

News flash for the freeloaders: If you cannot do it in the real world, why the heck should you be allowed to do it online? You cannot carry your laptop into Best Buy, open a DVD, and make a copy for yourself and leave, why should you be allowed to do it online? Worse why should you have anonymous protection to do it online, with the ISP standing in the way shielding you? It is insane to think that basic acts which would be illegal in person in the real world should suddenly become legal because you can do it remotely.

Too bad for those who would mooch everything and pay for nothing: The free ride may be coming to an end.

As I mentioned back in April, it was getting clear that it was time for Larry King to Retire. While I am sure that my blog entry made not a wit of difference to the old guy, I think that time and reality have finally caught up to Mr King. He announced this week that he will be retiring from his show after 25 years (about 10 years too many, many people think), and will only appear on the air for special events and whatnot.

The bad news is that, just like that persistant old person fug that must be in the air of his studio, Larry King will linger until November, effectively killing CNN in the rating for another season. Instead of being a gentleman and stepping down before the start of the new broadcast season, he will linger on, much to the delight of Faux News and MSNBC.

Replacement? Well, the one tapped at this point as likely to get the job is Piers Morgan, currently a judge on Americas Got Talent. This of course assumes that CNN will continue to run a 9PM snoozer interview show, forever damning their viewership to drop. I am personally hoping that if they go with another interview / talker show, that they push it later and stack it up against Leno and such, giving us perhaps a more news oriented talk option at 11, and allowing stars like Anderson Cooper to bring their in depth news coverage into prime time where it belongs.

Illegal file sharing fans are in a funk the last little while following the Grokster decision and rulings against major player The Pirate Bay, and now they have more to be concerned about. In a decision handed down in US Federal Court this week, Judge Wood ruled Lime Group, parent of LimeWire software maker Lime Wire, and founder Mark Gorton committed copyright infringement, induced copyright infringement, and engaged in unfair competition.

This decision is a real key for music and movie industry types who have been fighting mostly a losing battle against torrents, file traders, and sharing sites. The Grokster decision from the US Supreme Court pretty much set the scene for this ruling, making it clear that sites or companies that encourage or induce people to violate copyright are themselves responsible. The LimeWire case goes one step further in a sense, making the founder mark Gorton personally responsible, and not protected by his LLC that actually distributes the software.

This is an interesting case also because it confirmed that the Grokster decision can stand next to the original Betamax Decision, which declared VCRs and similar devices legal because they had signfiicant non-infringing uses. While P2P can be uses for non-infringing activities, such as sharing unix distributions and WoW patches, the reality is that pretty much every torrent or P2P gudie site is packed full of obviously infringing materials.

These rulings may also have an effect long term on the outcome of the Viacom v YouTube case. Clearly, YouTube has claimed their stake on the internet with very lax rules regarding use submitted content, but they have also moved (after other cases) to put in filtering and are fairly prompt to handle DMCA notifications from copyright holders. But many also feel that YouTube grew from nothing to the largest video sharing platform by using copyright violating materials, and items submitted to the court shows that YouTube founders were apparently aware of this and may even have encouraged it to grow the site. The use of clips of popular TV shows like Family Guy and other prime time staples were common in YouTube early years.

With a Surpreme Court ruling and now the LimeWire decision in a Federal Court, it appears that the pendulum is swinging back towards rights holders on these issues. Will it stay that way?

While he is mostly not wrong (such as with the problems of illegal immigration in the US), his last few years have been marked with repeat returns to the same themes, often appearing to fill quiet news days with illegal immigration outrage stories that were often puffed up to make them bigger than they seem. Some people have suggested this has come as CNN has tried harder to compete with Fox news on the “strident shill” level, which is something that more liberal media seems very poor at doing. Instead of coming out as the champion of the average guy, Lou Dobbs started to come across to me more and more as someone with an axe to grind rather than a series of solutions. Certainly, his inferences that President Obama may not be American enough to be President didn’t win him any fans.

Lou Dobbs hasn’t said where is going to next, but he will still be on syndicated radio and is “looking at his options”. Some have suggested that he might end up at Faux News, where a strident axe grinding attitude seems to go over better. Read more of the story here.

It’s almost a traditional thing now, the Tom Cruise dead rumors seem to come up about two or three times a year, more often when he is doing something nutty. Recent stories have peopel from inside his camp reporting on his weeks of trying to use his Scientology powers to dominate door knobs and other inanimate objects. It’s sort of up there with his classic jump around on Oprah thing. Whatever the deal, there is no truth to Tom Cruise having a heart attack, Tom Cruise falling off a building, Tom Cruise falling off a cliff, or Tom Cruise dying in some other manner, at least not yet.

Xenu must wait another day, I guess.

It has sort of made the last 10 days or so a living hell for Cramer, who has had his very confident and very secure exterior covering ripped on in the media, and his appearance on the Daily Show last night has done him no favors. Stewart threw all sorts of slings and arrows, and Cramer got hit with most of them without much of a protest. Running cats and dogs on the screen behind the interview was a nice touch.

Read more about it here.