About face

 

In about 326 b.C. Alexander the Great reached India after having created the mightiest empire to date. He had built that empire based in his will and determination together with the support of his military commanders in less than10 years since he succeeded his dad as King of Macedon.

After having overstretched his resources and capabilities beyond any conceivable limit, he had to face that India was too much, too complex, to far away, too powerful per se.

Alex did not realize this, and in fact he launched the invasion.

But his up-to-then-loyal commanders understood better their own limitations in front of India, and made their own U-turn and headed home.

This lack of support forced Alex to head back too… and in less than three years, he was actually dead.

His generals ripped the Empire, split is into fiefs and Macedon’s ruling on the mightiest empire on earth was over for ever.

The once almighty empire of RIM has reached India… and commanders supporting yesterday’s success are realizing that their India is too much for their Alex…

 

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At least they bark…

 

Casually seeing in a sidewalk or in a park a small dog standing up at a bigger one, actually challenging it with a lot of noisy barking is not something readers are unfamiliar to, we’d say…

So here we have the small dog standing up…

But…

Where dos the small dog go when the big dog blows back?

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Flies against windows

 

Springtime is a lovely season… flowers, trees, weather…

Insects and bugs pop up in Spring too, don’t they? So it is not really strange to see flies behind windows (precisely!) glasses bumping once and again their heads not realizing there is a thick glass barrier which prevents them from getting out.

“Bump”… “bump” again… and so it goes until some monstrous human ends up smashing them precisely against the barrier they could not overcome.

And here we have our Perspiration Champion once more bumping and bumping… and not really able to get out of the windows …

Even after trying, in a desperate move, to engage with his former fellow Elop at Nokia, still he bumps and bumps once, twice… and still not realizing what is going on.

Probably it is a matter of time that the fly swat in the hands of the market’s common sense will be wielded mercilessly… Hopefully by that time, Apple, Google, and even Palm (sorrysorrysorry, HP) are strong enough by themselves to prevent WWF declaring flies a protected species…

 

 

Luke 6:39 in the Bible

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Faust 3.0, cleverly disguised.

 

So finally the eternal promise will make it to mere mortals… Oh, yes, Palm will finally put his tablet in the market, and make it available to mere mortals.

Palms tables, under Palm’s OS, will be sold starting this summer, at $499.

Cleverly disguised as HP’s, naturellement, as mortal sin was cleverly disguised as an apple (precisely!) when the Devil, cleverly disguised as a Snake, offered the fruit to Eve (“bite it, and you’ll be like God”)…

We can figure Léo Apotheker, cleverly disguised as Faust 3.0, handing on a tablet to a mortal sinner… (“buy it, and you’ll be like Jobs”)…

What makes us think that the apple in the logo should go to HP more than to Apple actually…

 

And… who is talking about the great loser? We mean, of course, Todd Bradley… SVP for Personal Systems Group, declining… against the rising star, Palm head, Rubinstein… Was Todd not a former CEO at Palm?

 

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Ballmers in the mist

 

Humans are not that far from apes, Charles Darwin said… so close apes are to humans, that they can even be trained to imitate human behaviour.

We are sure any reader might recall dozens of examples or jokes about this.

It is nice to see, however, that now readers may enjoy one more example… though, honestly, we cannot imagine Steve Jobs carrying Ballmer in his arms as Sigourney Weaver did with her trainee…

 

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Faust 2.1

 

Angels were created, according to Christian and Hebrew tradition, before men and women. Angels were far more perfect, and certainly less tied to human limitations.

However, in the beginning of times, one of them rose against his creator. Against God Himself.

He was the most beautiful of them all, and claiming his own merit based on that, he led nothing less than one third of the angels supporting his rebellion. He would not accept to bow down to mankind after having discovered God’s plan of salvation. He would not accept being second best to creatures not so perfect as him, to Sons and Daughters of God.

Men and women were not perfect, after all.

Now we have our own version of Faust dwelling into these troublesome and difficult waters… and moving one step ahead. After all, he is not unfamiliar to Hebrew traditions, we suppose.

He will not launch a product which is not perfect…

Leaving aside any definition of what perfect exactly means in his mind, should we understand that when WebOS is out there it will really be perfect? Will the tablets or smartphones that run there really achieve that?

Several million people all over the world may have something to say about that… and the same wrongly understood sense of pride which ultimately led Lucifer to rebellion floats in the atmosphere, as Satan’s shadow floated over Faust through Mephistopheles, according to the German legends that our dear 21st-Century Faust is probably not unaware of.

Lucifer is also know as The Fallen Angel… if he continues the trend of the stock value of the company he is leading, he will soon match the same “perfection” as the former.

 

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Teenagers buy too

 

Political systems that determine what party holds government for a certain period of years are based on people’s votes. Every number of years, elections are set up, and the party that gets the higher number of votes holds government until next election.

If voting age starts at, say, 18, a significant portion of voters in elections happening in year 2020, for example, will include a lot of new voters who were under age in the previous polls. Let’s use the US as an example.

When presidential elections come up in 2012, all the people who are today from 16 to 19 will be able to vote for the first time in their lives. So Republicans or Democrats that prepare those elections should consider all these teenagers as prospect voters and make sure they buy in even before they become actual voters.

And here we got another smart move from Apple, according to the report here… If the information delivered in it is correct, it would be a fact that Apple is not only selling well to current customers, but as well paving the way for maintaining and/or increasing its share in the smartphone and tablet markets at least in the future. The tablet market, predicted to grow real fast, will be based on current customers, but new ones that today are just teenagers that will have resources to buy stuff in the coming years.

Maybe they have to wait long for 6-year-old kids to be real customers, but the same principle applies to teenagers that will have enough money, or that can convince mom and dad to get one iPad or iPhone for them next year, or in 2012.

It is not frequent, for example, to find teenagers longing for a regular mp3 player, a specific Android phone or even a Zune or a Windows Phone 7 phone. But they actually do for iPhones, iPods or iPads. Not necessarily because of games… but more because of all the rest of things you may do with it in a recognizably “cool” way.

Skating, for example, is not that much about moving a certain distance differently than just walking or running. Is about stepping on a fashionable board and doing weird movements on it and with it while managing to keep balance and not getting hurt. Same with tablets or smartphones. It is more about how you do things on them than the actual things you do, which could be performed in a standard laptop or netbook.

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Wishing upon a star

 

Geppetto, the old toy maker from the Pinocchio tale, wished so much to have a son and has prayed so many times for it, that after having built his puppet, it was granted life. Lovely tale…

Lovely tale that came to our minds after learning that Microsoft might be seeing potential revenue in selling (licensing) their patents in smartphone technology.

It appears that the Big Ape has repeated so much his wish for “developers” that he finally has been turned into one of them. True that, after all, a software company is fundamentally a developer, but we are not that sure that the original idea was not to retain IP (Intellectual Property) for the core value of their software, and have other smaller companies developing stuff around that.

Video Games | | Steve Ballmer - developers remix

If one repeats something too many times, he might turn into that, it seems… | Nintendo Wii

Of course they can always keep on improving the patents… or making it for more patents… but others could too, and, isn’t this strategic shift revealing lack of confidence in their own product line?

Careful too about another aspect: Licensing IP via patents can be a big revenue stream, but it is too much of a one-shot business that would dry up relatively quickly, while the overall OS business through the expanding smartphone market would be more healthy and stable. Bad sign, in our opinion.

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Der Volkscomputer (II)

 

After WWII, once French automotive industry got rid from the German occupation authorities, they followed the Volkswagen concept.

Citroën launched its 2CV model, based on the same principles as the Volkswagen Beetle. It went even a bit further in its austerity. For example, it got just one headlight, for pure cost savings and simplicity. As the Germans in the 1930s, France after 1945 was in badly need for economical recovery.

If iPads or iPhones are the leading concept, the Volkswagen of our times, we guess we could say Citroën’s 2CV follow as the Androids came after the iPhones…

 

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Der Volkscomputer

 

Back in the 1930s, Germany was in the middle of its reindustrialization as a necessary step to get ready for the war that was already cooking in Hitler’s mind. Besides the reinforcement of the pure military industry, there was a strong recovery of the country’s economic infrastructure, what meant not only basic industry, but communications too. The plan for “die Deutsche Autobähne”, the German highways network was being deployed to.

In coordination with this, the German government of the time decided as well that the automotive industry should as well be a fundamental part of these plans, including the production of a cheap car that could be afforded by the average German family. That was the birth of one of the automobile industry icons: The Volkswagen Beetle. In fact, that is what Volkswagen meant: A car for the people, for the folk. Cars manufactured at that time were really expensive for an average German, who saw Mercedes, Opel, Maybach or BMW as unreachable items. The Great Depression of 1929 or the recovery from WWI were still too high economic loads for German citizens.

Incidentally, we shall mention that the industrialist awarded the necessary support to fulfill the project was Ferdinand Porsche. Curiously enough, we think nobody would associate the name Porsche to an average car for an average citizen in an average country, would they?

Despite the progression of WWII, still after the war the Beetle was there, and it did hit the right combination of price, market segment and product features. It was the right product at the right place in the right time to become an industrial success.

Not as powerful and fancy like Mercedes, Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Opel, Ford, Buick, Oldsmobile or Chevrolet; not as expensive either, it still was enough: Four wheels at a reasonable price that made the car acceptable for basic transportation needs, and was relatively easy and cheap to produce too. Factories were set up in Brazil, Mexico and China.

Later on, it even became fashionable: It’s typical and unique design (unchanged for decades!) came to a point in which it was perceived as cool, fancy and stylish. Not only it became an icon for the industry, but as well for a full generation of users. Even there have even been “revival editions”, special batches with this or that feature, that have been sold as limited series, with real high prices and margins.

It has been one of the best selling cars worldwide. To the point, in fact, that starting from the Beetle, a full line up was developed under the Volkswagen name, which, after having been a name designated to one specific car, has turned into a worldwide brand, and in fact, a worlwide industrial company. The Volkswagen brand is in fact one of the best recognized brands in the whole world, similar to Coca-Cola, General Motors, IBM or other. Under the Volkswagen brand, there are no more Beetles in production, but there are Golfs, Jettas, Passats, Touareg SUVs, trucks, minivans… and the industrial group own other brands such as Audi, Skoda, SEAT…

It looks that iPads are indeed repeating the Volkswagen story. For some, iPad turns to be the affordable Mac. If Mac is a Porsche, iPad is the Beetle… and Ferdinand Porsche himself has re-incarnated in Steve Jobs!

But as we write this, we even think the story goes further… we think the very first affordable Mac was the iPod/iPhone duo. That was indeed the very first Beetle, the first Mac experience for many people. As a matter of fact, would it be false to say that iPad’s success is based on the iPod’s or on the iPhone’s? And isn’t Mac Pros, Mac Airs as well benefitting from the halo of iPads?

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Apples to apples

 

We have read an interesting summary of an analysis made on smartphone users’ loyalty to the brand of their current handset.

The conclusions driven there seem reasonable, though we believe one should be cautious when drawing conclusions.

We think the smartphone market, booming these days, might change a lot in short time, so many things are still developing and reaching users as we write this, that today’s conclusions may be completely different in a few months from now.

If loyalty is a reflection of satisfaction, we’d still need to define how satisfaction is measured. We still need to be clear about what it really means to the user. It is not the same thing a professional that has been given a Blackberry by his employer, for example, to use it for professional email and SMS than a university student that basically might want his phone for chatting, web browsing and facebook logging.

To measure satisfaction, one would need to know the cost a given product has meant to the user, and the expectations he really had about what he got. If we were given a smartphone for the first time for free by an employer of ours, which allowed us to do email on-the-go (assumed our previous phone did not allow us to), we would be very happy with that, regardless the OS (Android, IOS4 or Symbian, for example), especially if it is our company that pays the bill. We would not be more loyal to the handset brand than however loyal our employer were.

As well, if we were to use a Windows Mobile phone after having had an iPhone or Android, our satisfaction/loyalty would be seriously reduced…

As well, there are many factors that can influence user satisfaction or loyalty which might not depend on the handset you are using, nor the OS it supports. What about the carrier service, possibilities or limitations? What about its service plan, the cost of it? For some customer segments, it might be as well important the brand perception or how “cool” might a given device look or feel. We know of many cases where teenagers ask mom and dad for a Blackberry just because mom or dad use one, or just because the most popular mates at school have one each, for whatever reason.

Hard to measure loyalty or user satisfaction, and hard to extrapolate results for predicting future volumes or sales.

We see the current smartphone market more like the case of the youngster that recently got his car driver’s license for the first time. The prospect of moving from being a bike user to driving a car on his own is so exciting to him that he will be the happiest person in the world to have his car, no matter if it is a brand new convertible Ferrari sportscar, or mom’s 20-year old Volkswagen, that she recently replaced by a new one. At the end of the day, both cars open for the kid a new world of possibilities, one way or another, that were so far inaccessible to him.

In a market so much subject to change in very short time frames, conclusions from this kind of surveys should then need to be very carefully managed and understood, we think, making sure one compares “apples to apples” to make those conclusions really valid or useful. By the way, those who prefer Blackberry might prefer to compare “berries to berries”…

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No Barbie doll for Christmas

 

We do not have a precise idea of how many Barbie dolls have been sold throughout the years and throughout the world. But we think millions of them. What means that for years millions of girls have played around with them.

The majority of girls might have likely used those dolls as sort of role models, making them act the way they would like to be after having grown up. The dolls turn then to be a representation of what girls want for themselves in the future.

It would be reasonable to think that this Christmas Santa Claus will be delivering to millions of girls in the world another big batch of Barbie dolls to millions of girls who will go on playing with them as well.

We are sorry for Steve. No Barbie doll for him this year.

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Cheap fuel

 

As long as cars need fuel, its price (as insurance’s, maintenance’s, taxes…) ought to be added to the total cost of owning one.

Cheap gas or lower taxes do not guarantee any given car is better than other using a different type of fuel or subject to higher taxes.

It’s the total ownership and driving experience what matters.

And, by the way, the fact that a given fuel type today might be cheaper than another does not ensure it won’t change in the future, once the car has been bought.

Not really sure smartphone users have really analyzed their potential expense on apps when they decide to buy one.

We do not therefore think this is necessarily going to provide any effective help to Windows Phone 7 in its struggle against iPhones or Androids… and we are not really sure this is going to make very happy developers, as their financials won’t have the same prospects as the ones provided by developing for Androids or iPhones.

 

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Criticism and pain

 

When facing his government duties, Sir Winston Churchill said once: “Criticism is as necessary as pain; it reminds us that something is not going well and needs attention.”

More than a mere critical opinion or a different point of view, facts can be a much louder or stronger criticism. As such, it should probably be paid, therefore, more attention.

And for the moment, Sony Ericsson’s decision to not introduce smartphones with Windows Phone 7 is a fact.

There has been a lot of opinions back and forth, for and against Microsoft’s phone operating system… but so far, besides it’s poor performance in sales (as far as we have known), we have not seen a harder one.

If the fourth largest worldwide handset manufacturer says “no”, this is a serious warning to Ballmer’s boys. Especially if they have androids there, as reported in the link above.

Opening new stores may not be enough.

Giving free tickets for pop concerts might be useless.

Playing Incrediboy might not suffice.

Not caring for your developers might backfire.

Leaving it all to a wizard at the end of a yellow brick road may mislead.

Taking everything for granted does not solve problems.

If one treatment does not work, it is useless to repeat it to heal the problem.

and, definitely, we would not put the solving of our pains in the hands of apes.

Too many pain symptoms to avoid facing them, we believe.

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Katie’s concert

 

The other day there was a great concert in Seattle. One of the most popular pop stars of the moment was performing, and all the youngsters in the area were dying to be there.

The place was fully packed, al the tickets had been sold out.

Wandering around, we saw very many teenagers and kids enjoying a lot being there. Casually, they were dancing, singing, and even sharing their experience.

Some of them took their iPhones and Androids to make pictures of the scenery, the public, their friends or even themselves. And we are sure before the song was over, lots of those pics were already posted in Facebook, YouTube and other social networks or blogs.

Before taking the children there, their moms and dads surely used their Nokias and Balckberries to check in Google Maps where the place really was, and verified as well what was traffic like. Kids would not forgive them ever if they had failed to take them to the concert on time.

As well we noticed some of them were texting like crazy: “Y’know, mom still carries one of those old phones with no internet”, one kid was telling his friend…

In a certain moment, we happened to run into Katie. Katie is the daughter of a charming couple who are friends of ours. She loves pop music, which she used to play all day in her old mp3 player, and recently in her brand new iPod she got for her 15th birthday. She had asked for an iPhone, but mom and dad suggested her to wait for her Verizone’s current contract to expire.

“Hey, Katie! What a surprise to see you here”, we said. “It must have been difficult to get tickets, so full the place is”.

“Yeah, it was a surprise for me too. We could not find tickets anywhere, but the other day mom came home with several of them. I think she told me she got them in a PC shop or something that had opened recently somewhere nearby, and they were being given away for free. But not really sure, in fact”.

“For free?”, we asked.

“Don’t really remember, but when I get back home, I can check for you if you want. We can search the internet in our Mac.”

 

 

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The Consul’s Legions

 

In the times of the Republic, Rome was ruled by the Senate. Senators were elected by the Senate, of course, but all men born within a senatorial family would be elected by birthright.

Senate had the power to declare war, and, therefore, it controlled the State Legions, the Roman Army.

Senate leaders (consuls, proconsuls, praetores or propraetores, province governors) therefore needed agreement and support from the Senate itself to use the Army for carrying on any war that sparked.

Commanding legions and succeeding at a military career was not an uncommon way to gain personal glory or reputation to step up for the commander. In many cases, successful political careers were based precisely in military reputation.

Therefore, political success required commanding legions, and commanding legions required support from the Senate. In other words, it was the Senate who controlled who could succeed in his political career by granting him command of legions, regardless the personal value as military leader of the commander.

If we look to the smartphone market, we see some parallelism with what happens to handset or operating systems manufacturers. Carriers do have a lot of power, and the success of this or that vendor depends quite much on this power. Carriers can, somehow, make or break success for this or that manufacturer. Much is being said, for example, about iPhones being distributed through Verizon, or about Apple’s relationship to carriers.

Successful Apples, Androids, LGs, Samsungs, HTCs, Nokias or RIMMs would depend on how “gracious” carriers might be when granting command of legions.

Back to Rome, we as well can see that if a given individual Senator was resourceful enough (ie rich and smart at the same time), he might enlist and equip his own legions, which would rival the State’s, controlled by the Senate. In fact this is what Gaius Marius did around 100 b.C. Thus, he became independent from the Senate to build his military and political career, pretty successful by the way.

We believe this is what Google might be doing, Rich and smart, they might be planning independence from senatorial carriers. And this might lead to a successful career, similar to Marius’, the only person in Roman History to be elected Consul nothing less than seven times.

Careful, Jobs… Androids might take this road to outflank you.

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Titanic effort

 

We do not believe the smartphones war will be a minor one at all. At the moment it looks like Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android-based alternatives are taking a clear lead, eons beyond historical kings of the hill, Nokia and RIMM.

The latter will need a titanic effort to recover and catch up, apparently.

It looks, however, that Nokia’s N8 model, expected to be the company’s flagship, did not really get what “Titanic” was supposed to mean, we’re afraid.

 

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By George, they did it!

 

One of the greatest musical milestones in classical movies is My Fair Lady, based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion.

Poor Eliza Doolittle, from lowest social extraction, is used by Professor Henry Higgins as an experiment about teaching English, in an attempt to prove his methods can bring such a low-class person to the ranks of Aristocracy. At least in what relates to speaking English properly.

Professor Higgins takes care of her completely, as she is poor and has no resources of her own besides selling flowers in the street for a living. She totally depends on his wealth while she receives her lessons.

Despite providing her all possible physical comfort, he is so much oriented to his own personal success with the language experiment he is using her for, he does not really care for being considerate at all with her, and actually treats her like a scientist would handle a guinea pig.

Naturally, she ends up completely fed up, and quits, disregarding and ignoring all the good he claims to have provided her with. She simply does not stand his arrogance and tyranny any more, and looks for alternatives that indeed could work for her.

By George!

We would say that “Professor Ballmer”, with all his wealth, power, aristocratic profile (well, this one under discussion), and methodologies, really can not stand up to all the Eliza Doolittles that so much have depended on him for so long, can he?

 

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Next Year in Jerusalem

 

In the times of Roman Emperor Hadrian, second century after Christ, Simon Bar-Kochba led one of the very last Jewish revolts in Judaea against the imposition of Roman religion.

This revolt when pretty much like previous ones: Three years combat, about half a million people dead, including leader Simon Bar-Kochba and the rabbi Akiba, the latter after great torture.

Emperor Hadrian built a new city, Aelia Capitolina, on Jerusalem’s ruins and barred all Jews from coming anywhere near it.

Since then, all over the worlds, Jews have mournfully prayed “Next Year in Jerusalem…”

Palm’s Rubinstein, in recent appearance at Web 2.0 Summit has claimed Palm’s birthright to have owned the smartphone market, should they have done a better job.

In other words, should have they cared for doing a decent job, their “Jerusalem” would have flourished and set as the smartphone reference. But a much stronger power, call it Apple, Nokia or Blackberry, has de facto imposed new rules in the market, and destroyed Palm’s “Jerusalem” with a lot of pain and suffering for the latter.

Ever since, it appears that Palm’s staff keeps on claiming, quite mournfully too, “Next Year in WebOS…”

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Dorothy’s smartphone

 

We have recently learnt Apple is adding The Beatles to iTunes… Good for them! No matter whether Google or Amazon were after the same deal, the UK band goes to Apple.

Easy to say that Apple’s taking The Long and Winding Road… but we prefer to think it is their competition who are going to have some difficulties on the road, and it is for them that the road might be really long and winding.

However long or winding it still looks as well, in our opinion, more like the yellow brick road. And if we think yellow brick roads, we couldn’t avoid thinking of Dorothy, could we?

So here we have Dorothy starting her way on the yellow brick road trying to figure out how to succeed with her smartphone.

First she gets a call from the Scarecrow, who asks her some help to add some brains to his berry-like smartphone… Willing to learn from his experience, Dorothy asks him to join her in her quest for success in the smartphone market.

A short while after, she gets a call from the Lion with no courage. “Hey, Dorothy, need some help here… Got the muscles and the fangs, but I am really afraid of getting out there… Maybe next year if I make it for WebOS 2.0?” So Dorothy invites him as well to join her and the berryphone Scarecrow in their quest for success in the smartphone market.

Later on they find the Tin-Man lacking of heart… “Oh, what a nice android”, they say. “Come join us to look for success in the smartphone market”. The Tin-Man replied: “Indeed I need help: So many versions I have, and so many handset makers I need to support, I do not really know where my heart is, if I have any”.

And so the little group went on looking for success in the smartphone market…

“We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Phones, because, because, because, because, becaaaaaaauuuuuuse… because of the magical things he does”…

And they indeed found the Wizard… in a black turtleneck and old jeans, wearing round glasses.

Up to the reader, by the way, to think who Dorothy is… (hint: sweats a lot!)

lovely classic, still, obviously, up to date!

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