I'm over at:

www.mojodad.com

Hope to see you there.

The sickness got us all, one after the other. We're on the getting healthier side of it now, luckily. But, it also somehow jumped the biological-electronic divide-- the laptop went up in smoke (somewhat literally). :) So I found a bargain basement replacement and have been trying to get it up and running. Now, I'm finally internet capable again.

With time to ponder things, I decided to change my internet strategy. I believe I bet on the wrong pony. Yahoo 360 hasnt worked liked I hoped, and I have lost faith in centralizing with them. I could explain for a long time, but the basic problems are three.

1) Yahoo simply wont define a vision and execute it. I chose them in 2004 because it seemed they got that the vision could be "people over algorithms" or even "we R the social web." Alas, they have dithered around, unfocused. It's a company culture over-run by WAY too many MBAs and silo-ed fiefdoms. The people that love the craft and ideas and say that money will follow are simply not powerful enough to overcome the Ivy League types. All the great geeks I love in Sunnyvale are being stifled by a corporate culture that is more like a management consultancy or investment bank.

My free advice: screw the carbon offsets and such green puffery while you commute by airplane from LA, Mr. Semel, and innovate the internet instead! Establish a focus and let the natural geekery and good fun of The Valley do the rest.

2) Yahoo just doesnt give enough love to the geeky, first adopter types wanting to experiment with new internet ideas. Nor does it really identify its power users and make use of them. When I saw the revamped MyYahoo, I thought it would be great for the occasional-use mainstream customer. And I do support those users and that mission, but I thought there would be the ability to really uptweak things. Nope.

3) I still could have kept on keeping-on, but the deal-breaker is that Yahoo refuses any transparency, follows pre-Cluetrain Manifesto marketing, and just wont speak openly and authentically about their plans. I cant keep taking my lumps without some sense of where the whole damn thing is headed. Why does Yahoo refuse an open and authentic dialogue? See point #1.

My free advice: The marketing rules and "industrial secrets" stuff they taught you at Wharton or Harvard or wherever aint worth shit anymore. Now, if you want a relationship with me then converse, talk, dialogue. I'm not going with the Baby Boomer shit of pictures of pretty people and "It's all about YOU! (and certainly not the fistfuls of options for me!)" Its a brand new world, dinosaur.

The new strategy is going to take some time to get up and running and MOJOing will be in fits and starts, but it will now be over at:

www.mojodad.com

360 friends: I'll grab ur RSS feeds still. No worries.

Nothing in evolution takes away from God as Creator and Sustainer. Those roles are for questions like "why is there something instead of nothing?" or "is my very existence worthwhile and trustworthy?" The equivalent "how" questions are presumptive and out of our rational ken by the very definitions of the infinite and the finite, no? To wish the universe to function a certain way and then demand it of God is surely dangerous. We live in and explore creation as the only (so far as we know) beings able to reason and know right from wrong. But we dont get to make up the rules of the cosmos. Those are outside of our remit! We can only explain them. Yes, science is always provisional-- good point, that-- but it does not mean that science doesnt elucidate on nature quite well! Judging on whether God's cosmos is run the way we would like it? Not a good idea.

My strong suspicion is that the real battle here is the traditional battleground of theodicy. Evolution shows all beings, including humans, red "in tooth and claw", fighting and grasping, and suffering seemingly meaningless death in the tight, unbreakable grasp of uncontrolled, untamed, absolutely brutal forces. Its not pretty. Definitely not. Darwin's tears when he lost his beloved daughter were as much for his lost faith as for her. He definitely saw it. And I personally find theodicy the thing most able to seize me, and my hopes, into despair. I would love to say that nature was not so callous and that evil not so regnant. But, my creationist friends, the problem of theodicy was around long before Darwin and will be around long after us. Meaningless suffering, or, worse, the unjustified triumph of evil, will always be the great mystery. Evolution does not change that, even though it makes it brutally clear. The mythic answers (as in "deepest truths") for Christians are only to be found in the Theology of the Crucifixion. Not in trying to deny science and reason.

So read "On the Origin of the Species," and then ponder The Passion. Or the Book of Job. Or the Bhagavad Gita. The big questions have never changed.

A while back, I worried a bit about Yahoo not getting that companies have to be careful with politics. Or, at the very least, should not have a tin ear as to whether people see them as playing to a certain cheering section over another.

Here's another take on that kind of issue from TheStreet.

I want to give a hat/tip to the person who sent me the link, but I am not sure its the best idea? How about if I go "opt-in" on this one? Mr. Friendly Y! Guy, do you want the hat/tip?