Reading isn’t comprehending: thought this was a sulk – don’t care if anybody reads it!

URL: Reading isn’t comprehending

We guess that’s what got us going: the distinction

between reading and comprehending; you can

measure comprehension, but not reading.

In a class, if a student tells us they’ve read

the chapter, book, the hand-out, the syllabus,

whatever… We can’t test that. An approximation would

be to test the material (comprehension?) before and after,

but even that could be …. invented; accidental; misleading,

in any number of ways.

So maybe what “don’t care if anybody reads this”

really means – it sounds like very very sour grapes -

is something like “You don’t understand it, anyway.

And even if you did, you couldn’t do anything about it.”

Which is probably why we reacted so, um, poignantly

to Scott Karp’s comment in passing.

Technorati on the spotti!

We’re reading Sifry’s Alerts about how many blogs there are and how many can there be, and the total population of the Earth, and whether Technorati wants Martians, Venusians, and other ET’s to claim their blogs. It’s really just a fog to me.

We notice that not one of the conversants, neither the original author or any commenters, have mentioned MySpace in this special way: all those kids are going to grow up, step by step. And one of the steps will be to create: A Real Blog.

So what does that mean? Let me think….

Well, let’s ask someone else for their opinion, or, here’s a first at Suppositious, get some facts. Well, a fact, then start supposin’.

 Fact: 4.6×10 to the seventh unique visitors to MySpace in June. That’s from Nielsen//Netratings. If only ten percent of those follow through with, for instance, WordPress when they grow up and move out of the MySpace/old-AOL mindset, that means that Dave Winer will get over whelmed with 5 million new users, making and abandoning blogs like little kittens in cardboard boxes. Or rabbits on Barwon Downs, if you’re Aussie.

So the blog might really be the inheritor of the radio talk show phenom (as they say in BillBoard and Variety). Think about this carefully. It’s the next action of the (typical? out of 50,000,000?) MySpace user that’s important now. And I hope they all go over to Sifry‘s house for Kool-Aid. ‘Cause he loves the little buggers, don’t he?

Meanwhile, there’s this:

Technorati Profile

 

later:

Suppositious has read an entry in the Snipperoo Blog with a great title: “Will MySpace eat its young?”. Their comments are interesting: widget strain’s bad, and they cite David Stern‘s guest blog at Silicon Beat – he says that it’s good but maybe difficult to ‘siphon off’ (his phrase) MySpace users.

And that’s all ok, but didn’t Suppositious make it clear that the model is NOT eBay or M networks (don’t know that well, but, see, that’s what ‘Suppositious’ means). The proper model is …. (ready?) (set?) AOL! (Yeah, we all know what LOL and all that means: read that, typed that.) And while we’re waiting for the applause to start, Suppositious is gonna try and call Dick Parsons and dress him down for not letting AOL BE the children’s network. It was all set up at one point. You couldn’t get on the *real* internet no matter what you did.

So now it’s all free or something and the central advantage of AOL’s insularity is gone. Gone, gone, gone. Next question: should MySpace start insulating? First guess: Yes! Second: Naw. Third: …

Is that a Mac in your pocket?

MacSlash reports that they’re starting to wonder if they should start supposing that Apple (the computer company, not the Beatles’ music company) will release an Apple-branded cell phone. Not us.

Very Suppositious supposes, verily, verily, that Apple (tcc, ntBmc) will release a cel computer, although exactly how soon is a little problematical. If there were only some gargantuan services company that could do all the calculations for Apple, they could just shrug off the internals of the computer, and just make a mint with cells. My uncle was a cells-man.

But Steve Jobs would probably want an Apple (tcc, ntBmc) Network of some kind. Geez, we just remembered: it could be a virtual network carved out of the existing cel and wireless networks! Wow!

So, we can suppose that almost the minute Bill Gates leaves the computer business, it starts being truly inventive again…

Gates wasn’t exactly the life of the party was he? It’s like storm clouds or something. Who was it that invented FUD? Oh, Gene Ahmdahl, according to Wikipedia (good enough for us). About IBM. And, later, MS… Well, LSMFT, eh? All three seem to be carcinogenic… Wait! we take that back! IBM seems to be curing cancer these days. We just checked out Netscape and found this story. And Bill Gates has left the room. He’s curing cancer, too. And Lucky Strike? Well, that’s so well known it requires no comment, we think.

But back to Apple (tcc, ntBmc). Isn’t it about time for the Beatles to sue them again? Or will their stock (symbol: AAPL) just keep moving up the charts?

Up the charts, if you ask us. Right into cell heaven.

The world in your pocket: It’s the phone, stupid!

Scoble, in a story on a story written by David Beers now has a comment from  sabadash trying to illuminate the kind of people that make modern computers and program them. It’s crazy to keep making these silly computers. Who wants ‘em? I’d much rather have a pocket full of phone calls, Google-searches, web sites, and …

 In that comment, sabadash sez that any kid’d like to have a new flashlight – well, he doesn’t say it, but it’s obvious, isn’t it?

And if you could make a flashlight communicator for the kids this X-mas, wouldn’t that sell?

And wouldn’t you like to have a pocket illuminator that could throw the image of Jenna Jameson on the wall in the middle of the night? Or in the middle of class!?!

I’m sure that the only really hip computer maker, Steve Jobs, is working on all this now. The only question is whether the Apple iFlash will be white or black. Oh, or titanium.

Ironically, Blake Ross is better at supposition than Suppositious is:

Ironically (or is it more pathetic than ironic?), Blake Ross is better at supposition than Suppositious is — Here‘s one of the current suppositions that Blake is posting at BlakeRoss.Com:

Taking a page from Google’s playbook, Yahoo will announce that its engineers need spend only 80% of their time on core company projects. The remaining 20% will be spent helping Iran enrich Uranium. After outrage erupts, Yahoo will issue a terse statement that “This policy is rigorously consistent with our moral code. Just last month, we bent over for both the U.S. and China.”

Blake is busy revising his 2006 New Year’s predictions. Well, I’ll say this: I predict that Blake will have more suppositious comments in the future. At least one, I’m sure of that.

 However, there are a couple of things in his suppositious comment that wouldn’t usually be seen here at Very Suppositious: first of all, no difficult language. We find the idea of “bending over” a little risque – not risky, that’s different. And it’s just not likely enough. I don’t really believe that Yahoo is enriching uranium. They’re too busy enriching themselves. But I do believe that Bush (43) will get into the atom business. It’s just too easy to top the oil boys when you’ve got atomic power, ya know?

Opportunity Rocks

I'm not sure how hot Paul Johnson's credits are. That's not a cut, more of a shirk, but I do know that Forbes Magazine's Current Events Column, that Johnson wrote, is a clear, clarion call for Bush to retire.

Not to retire right now. Nope, not until the time is ripe. You see, if Bush retires now – or is impeached or even impaired – he won't be able to continue his gadabout ways, convincing the world that nuclear energy is the way to go.

Bush seems to be selling Atomic Energy instead of Atomic Bombs. First North Korea, then Iran, and I really don't know how many other countries in between: perhaps India, Pakistan, and possibly there's an open offer to anyone who can credibly claim a nearly complete nuclear weapon. Put down your guns and we'll supply all the clean, natural, inexpensive nuclear power you can use.

We Aim To Please (You Aim, Too, Please)

There is no time like the present and there may not be much more time. North Korea is aiming a missle at …

Well, we don't know where it's aiming.

But what if someone does know. (I mean it's absurd to imagine that no one in the world knows where the thing is aimed, right?) And if one someone knows, then a couple of someones know, and then … Before you know it, even Valerie Plame will know where it's pointed. So here's what might be so – or the suppositious might think:

WE already know where the dang thing's pointed and exactly how it's supposed to get there. Now this'll be the best opportunity in the world to use our much vaunted anti-missle defense system and prove to everyone that we really know what we're doing.