Bye-bye Office? 

I hadn't really been betting the "Office is dead" line in the short term, because I think IT departments will be as loathe to let it go as they were to accept PCs. However, the Massachusetts government ODF deal has been interesting to follow, and the prospect of the open document tools going into Google Pack make the day seem closer. I think it would be a good move for Google to make the offering altogether less Googly. "Send them away," right?

Plus, it seems to me they'd be better off with a suite of all online apps and move away from the desktop, except maybe for their own desktop stuff.

Plus (it's beginning to sound like I really don't Google Pack much at all doesn't it?), it seem like kind of a hodgepodge anyway, in which case going to all online apps might clarify what it is.

The trouble with all online is that it never seems as valuable as something you download and install. What is that about, do you think? It's more tangible? It's worth more if you have to work for it?

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Narrating the work -- in detail 

By way of Wired's Monkey Bites, the Bare Naked App blog spells out every step of the building of a new web application, while it's going on. Gutsy. Probably wouldn't have been as easy to sell if there was a client in the picture. Though MB does say investors are involved in the narration. Yeah, gutsy.

Huh! Adam Green hooks up with Grazr 

Adam Green decided to take a position in Grazr after all.

I wonder how they'll make money. I'd prefer to pay a small sum, like $10 bucks forever, to have it on my site, than to have ads in it. Maybe they'll do both. There might also be a smaller revenue stream from customized branding for larger websites. It'll be interesting to see.

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David, thanks for the tip 

David Handy tells about Fox going to iTunes for TV show downloads, and I slept through 24 last night. How serendipitous.

Later: I'm getting Monday's ep now. Though I'm sure I'll get it before my BitTorrent file ever gets here in 70 hours, it's taking foreffingever from iTunes. Maybe I should turn some things off.

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U.S. versus Canada 

Clever illustration of American arrogance.

Did choral music become associated with navies because of The Hunt for Red October movie? Or maybe singing always has been part of Russian and Eastern European seamanship. Volga Boatman and all that? Somehow it doesn't feel right to have sopranos in the chorus. Boatman. Seamanship. The lingo around boats is very male.

I love Russian choral music. It's so stirring. If I was a Russian during the revolution, I'll bet I'd have gone Communist in a heartbeat on hearing a few bars of

The Internationale.

^ The very first one listed on that page is the best, but it's one of the bigger ones so you will want to download it rather than playing it in your browser. That's the sort of page that ought to have BitTorrent options, isn't it? Maybe I'll put one up.

Later: I did make my first BitTorrent file and uploaded it. I was able to get it but I already had it! (Obviously, I'm not clear on exactly how this all works...)

There's a Pete Seeger version on the page. I suppose it didn't make it to the new Springsteen Seeger sessions album.

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