From outside the Lotus Yellow Bubble

March 13, 2009 by Leave a comment

Outside the Lotus Yellow BubbleAfter reading Bruce Elgort’s blog entry, and Ed Brill’s response I felt compelled to write as a person outside the yellow bubble.  I am not a business partner, ISV, VAR or any other acronym, I am C1SQ5EN (sorry, bad download site joke there) – simply a customer, user, designer and administrator of Lotus Domino, Notes, Sametime and now Quickr.  The message I am getting from these recent posts is that there is certainly some recognized turmoil in the Lotii ranks. My question is how will IBM/Lotus react, and by that, I don’t just mean Ed Brill.

Ed’s response goes a long way to at least explaining things, but one of the most vocal complaint I’ve seen as of late, is about the download sites.   First and foremost, I agree, as does Ed seem to, that they are horrible.  But the “it isn’t my department” response I seem to be hearing doesn’t bode well with what I saw at the Lotusphere comes to you event in  Palisades, NY yesterday.

Where is the guy or gal’s connections profile that says they are in the download site department?  Why can’t Ed ping them on Sametime, and talk to them on the UC2 technology?  Where are all the dogear links to the people complaining about this issue?  Maybe all this exists, but I just don’t see IBM practicing what they preach in this arena.

As for the the LCTY event as a whole – it was very good, but I question why there were only four business partners sharing two small card tables on hand.  Was this their way of protest?  I can’t imagine, that in the NY Metro Area only four of them were there.

The lab setup was good.  I had a nice discussion with Brendan O’Sullivan about Sametime, and spent some time with a few others there as well.  Good stuff there!

One other comment I overheard and found a bit off-putting was “there is only one door prize with this many people?”.  If you were there just for the give-aways, or as a nice day away from your office, with a somewhat extravagant lunch (that was a little overboard IBM!), I hope you get fired. There are plenty of people that would be more than happy to be employed and actually giving a shit.  Speaking of that, I really enjoy using that term lately thanks to this excellenet blog entry).

Yes, it would have been nice to win a little flip video camera but I see these events as a way to get to speak with people I certainly normally wouldn’t have access to otherwise and that is what I did.  The demos and presentations – 99% is online somewhere.

</rant>

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Like Son, Like Father – Part 2

February 21, 2009 by Leave a comment

Just like myself, who “returned to the scene of the crime”, my dad wanted to complete his documentation of the luncheonette trailers near the IMTT property.  So, on the day following his being asked to leave from the location of Nick’s East Lunch, he went and got the shot of the original Nick’s Lunch.

Nick's Lunch Trailer

No one was there to stop him, but that may be because there are no tanks visible in the photo.  I guess these folks have never seen Google Earth/Maps.  Here is the location, in all its glory, with all the Latitude and Longitudinal information:


View Larger Map

I do not understand what these “protectors of the free world” get out of harassing photographers.  Is it a genuine fear, power trip, lack of training, what is it about photography that causes this reaction?

Granted mine and my father’s run-ins were not a severe as recent news items like the MTA worker being arrested, Duane being arrested and now, sadly silenced, but it does really make me wonder if we are any safer with this harassment.

This problem isn’t just limited to the US.  Look at what is going on in the UK with section 76 of the counter terrorism act of 2008.  This is just plain dumb.  I can only imagine that similar legislation is wasting my tax money somewhere in the bowels of the US government under the guise of homeland security.

Anyway, enough of my rant about photographer’s rights for now.  If you want to check out some more on it, I recommend reading Carlos Miller’s Photography is Not a Crime blog – great stuff on this over there!

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Like Son, Like Father – Photographer’s (Lack of) Rights

February 16, 2009 by Leave a comment

Over the weekend, my dad called me with a story I was surprised by.  He too had his rights questioned while photographing something.  I didn’t “set him up” for this, but I did ask him to write it up, so here it is, a guest post by my father…

I am Joe’s Dad, and just like him, security personnel told me not to photograph a Bayonne historical landmark.

Here are some of my activities:

I would say that I am recording Bayonne for future historians.

Now to the incident.   Last Sunday (February 8, 2009) Joe, Katherine, and I returned from the Second Sunday Camera Show. We drove around Bayonne. In our wanderings, we came upon two trailers used as luncheonettes, Nick’s Lunch & Nick’s East Lunch. The day was not good for photography so we decided to wait for better weather.

Today (February 15,2009), I went out to do some chores and took my camera with me. I finished my chores and drove to Nick’s East Lunch. I parked my car by the side of the road, took out my camera and tripod, and set them up. I composed my shot and set the parameters, and took a picture. An IMTT pick-up truck drove up and the driver told me I could not take photos where I was.  I explained, “I am on a public road and can take photos of anything.” As he disagreed with me, a second IMTT pick-up truck labeled “Security” arrived. This driver also said I could not take any photos from where I stood.   I explained to him that I am on a public street and not trespassing. He replied that he would call the police and let them explain the Homeland Security situation to me.   I packed up my stuff and left.  Here is what IMTT feared:

Nick's East Lunch - a lunch trailer
Notice the “N” in NICK’S is different from the “N” in LUNCH.

It is sad when the various governments side with big business rather than citizens.   If the surroundings are that sensitive to national security, erect barriers to the public view (like they did during WWII) rather than trample the rights of citizens.

Carl Hoetzl

I’ll post my thoughts on this one a bit later…

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