MacSaber rattling only reaction to Valley fantasy salaries

Net Results: What a week for moving from the sublime to the ridiculous. The only problem is figuring out which is which - as that is going to depend on individual perspective.

My nomination for the sublime is MacSaber. Or maybe that's the ridiculous one? Whatever.

Let me just say that it has been a long time since I have seen an application that so perfectly shouts "nerd".

These are the reasons why:

1) it works on the brand new Mac laptops which come equipped with motion sensors;

2) it is free;

3) it has a Star Wars tie-in;

4) it requires you to do foolish things with your shiny new laptop that you could, in a slippery-fingered moment, later badly regret;

5) it makes cool noises;

5) it is totally useless.

MacSaber is a download that enables your Mac laptop to make noises just like the light sabres in Star Wars when you swing it around (as you do).

Or, as the application's author explains: "It senses speed for the light sabre movement sounds and acceleration for different levels of striking sounds."

You can read more (and download it) here: http://tinyurl.com/h2o7k.

You will also see that the application went viral - that is, spread across the internet in about three nanoseconds.

Well, of course it did, for the five reasons noted above, but also because so many of the more widely read weblogs linked to it.

But wait, there's more. Now that people have the soundtrack, they wanted to produce the visuals as well.

Pay a visit to www.youtube.com and enter "Macsaber" into the searchbox, choose "video", and look what comes back.

Some people have a lot of time on their hands. Well, that and a MacBook Pro, apparently. If these don't make you laugh out loud, nothing will.

As for the ridiculous - though for those pocketing these sums, they undoubtedly think it is sublime - this week, the San Jose Mercury News revealed that Silicon Valley tech execs hauled in a third consecutive year of double-digit pay increases, a 27 per cent increase on the year before.

Given that many of these salaries don't just border on the obscene but are the very definition of it, and given that neither inflation nor (generally) turnover rose in line with such increases, one wonders what possible justification there can be for the $2.6 billion (€2 billion) that squirrelled its way into the bank accounts of the Valley's tech mighty.

As the San Jose Mercury News noted: "Topping the charts is a global salesman who cashed in $288.9 million from options he was awarded after signing on as employee number 12 at a start-up.

"Next up is a former Hollywood studio chief who turned around a teetering dotcom and took home $183 million.

"Then comes the founder of a software giant who added $75 million in pay to a net worth that already ranks him as the 15th richest man in the world, according to Forbes magazine." Those three, in order, are Omid Kordestani of Google, Terry Semel of Yahoo and Larry Ellison of Oracle.

Of 749 top execs included in the survey, just 10 account for one-third of the remuneration, or $918 million (which includes stock options, salary, bonuses and other perks). And the top 100 account for 75 per cent of the pay.

From that perspective, it's a little less disgusting. But not really. The average individual compensation for those 749 executives is still 51 times what the average Valley worker makes, as the San Jose Mercury News points out.

And what does one person do with $288.9 million made from stock option sales in a single year? You'd have to ask Kordestani that, of course, but the mind boggles.

One thing I can note is that very few of those top 100 have bothered to establish charitable foundations of the type Hewlett and Packard of HP pioneered way back when.

Indeed, most of the big names in technology that do have foundations only set them up when their net worths moved into the three-figure million range, and with some, not until the high three-figure million range or even billion range.

Maybe that isn't surprising for an industry that in many cases is still focused on making huge amounts of money very quickly, and where often the maths make no sense at all when looking at share prices and market capitalisation.

But still, it makes for depressing reading when Valley workers are feeling the pinch of the post-downturn era and many lost jobs they haven't got back.

There's still plenty of empty office space and, while things are looking better across the industry, it doesn't look like a 27 per cent pay increase better than it did last year.

No wonder people up and down the Valley are swinging their Mac laptops around their offices and making light-sabre sounds.

When the execs are so ludicrously well compensated, you might as well keep your sanity by acting like a loon.

klillington@irish-times.ie weblog: http://weblog.techno-culture.com