Looks like Orwell. After all.

Pretty much from the start of this whole BushCo. nightmare I've been thinking it's not Orwell's vision but Kafka's we really need to be afraid of but now, as noted via a reference on Slashdot, comes Microsoft. And it looks like Orwell. After all.

The item is a patent application, filed in Microsoft's name, to make sure you look at the freakin' ads - or, in the somewhat more refined words of a bunch of Chicago shysters, a system to "attest consumption of advertising by a human, preferably a member of the target population." And that, Bunky, is you.

Because after all, say Marshall, Gerstein & Borun...

The value to an advertiser is not...in delivering the advertisement.... The value is realized when a human viewer consumes the advertisement and the particular message of the advertisement is conveyed to a user.

And isn't that so true.

Now in the spirit of fair play I hereby acknowledge I've flirted around with putting ads on 76003.1414, mostly just because it's a bloggy thing to do but also because I have no real objection to advertising in general and in its place, and besides, they add a little color to the joint. In fact there are several ads in the sidebar, cleverly designed as book recommendations (which are, in fact, book recommendations, as I've read or listened to the books myself in recent months and liked them, but - and this is an official policy of YAME, boys and girls - you are under no obligation whatsoever to look at them.

You are, however, of course, obliged to read the blog, no matter what Marshall, Gerstein & Borun say.