Not even all that much down — but it is remarkable how much. Instapundit, that is.
If you need to know what’s going on and, of course, exactly what to think about it, the Instabackup site is here.
Archive for the ‘Nuvo-Techno’ Category
Global warming true after all, just not this globe
Posted by Ron Coleman on August 2, 2009
Pow!
TRYING TO FIND THE TRUTH BEHIND the Jupiter impact. “Something invaded our solar system and whacked Jupiter, but professional astronomers were looking the other way at the time. Now, as the shock wave slowly subsides, astronomers are working around the clock to find out exactly what hit Jupiter – and why they didn’t see it coming.
Please do. But meanwhile, Dr. Scientist, please stop demanding more and more of your mathematically honed, rational and flawless control over politics, ethics, economics and the rest of life.
Nothing personal. Love your work, really. But if a measure of humility from the “rocket scientists” is in any way one of the results of this cataclysmic impact, then, why, we’ll know exactly why it happened.
Posted in Narcissus Rex, Nuvo-Techno, Scientificus | 3 Comments »
Everything you do is wrong
Posted by Ron Coleman on July 26, 2009
According to John Dvorak, the rise and fall of Microsoft is emblematic of not so much a lack of vision as a lack of blinders:
What’s shocking is that the cash cows, specifically the Windows operating system and the Office suite, have managed to finance all these idiotic efforts for so many years. While Microsoft’s profits and sales were way down this last quarter, it is only a matter of time before losses begin. Read more about the disappointing earnings.
The cash cows are dying of neglect. This company cannot keep its eye on the ball because there are too many shiny objects to distract it.
Posted in Futurama, Nuvo-Techno, Stragety | Leave a Comment »
Wand me through
Posted by Ron Coleman on June 28, 2009
Posted in Americana, Futurama, Nuvo-Techno | Leave a Comment »
I didn’t make him for you
Posted by Ron Coleman on June 22, 2009
Wired.com says the sky is falling because Apple is, surprise, letting business considerations govern who does and doesn’t get to sell stuff for iPhones, and under what conditions:
Free Press, a group that advocates the idea of an open internet — that is, one in which consumers have the right to browse the web and run internet applications without restrictions — is the latest of several organizations to call out Apple for its inconsistencies. Free Press alleges that Apple crippled SlingPlayer, a TV-streaming application for iPhone, so that it would only work on a Wi-Fi connection; the initial version worked with a 3G cellular network connection as well as Wi-Fi. The SlingPlayer restriction is inconsistent with Apple’s approval of the Major League Baseball application, which provides live-streaming of sports events on both Wi-Fi and 3G connections, the group said.
“That strikes us as odd and potentially nefarious because it really represents a carrier picking and choosing applications for consumers as opposed to letting consumers decide which videos they want to watch,” said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press. “It’s exactly the sort of thing you’d expect in an internet experience that’s controlled by the carrier.”
Yeah, it’s exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from a business that is in the business of, uh, business. Instapundit, seizing on the title of this piece, “How Apple and AT&T Are Closing The Mobile Web,” understandably says he “doesn’t like the sound of this” — which, of course, is exactly why that title was chosen. But it’s okay, Glenn. It just sounds like free enterprise. That’s a sound you like almost as much as a puppy in a blender!
The anti-Apple screed segues into a legitimate look about the real technological limits the mobile web is approaching, in terms of network capacity. But it completely elides the difference between “the Internet” and “the mobile Web” and “what you can put on an iPhone.” I mean, come on:
“If you’re going to allow video to stream on the 3G network, you can’t pick and choose which video services operate,” Scott said. “You have to let them all operate, otherwise that’s not the internet.”
You “can’t”? Otherwise, what again? Oh — “it’s not the Internet.”
What a bunch of babies it is, this “Internet” you speak of, Wired.
Posted in Gelt, Nuvo-Techno, Scientificus | 1 Comment »
Colors on my hip
Posted by Ron Coleman on June 14, 2009
Posted in Metropolis, Nuvo-Techno | Leave a Comment »
Not in the spirit
Posted by Ron Coleman on April 24, 2009
A little too friendly
This makes sense to me. Via Above the Law I found this item on something called “Facebook ghosting”:
One popular Facebook “ghost” was a blond female temptress, the site reports.
The team allegedly would use these fake profiles to get friend-level access to recruits’ information on the site. The thinking there is that if a team official spots a player in Facebook photos smoking dope or partying hard, the team might avoid a bad draft pick and a potential public relations problem.
The fake profiles are called “ghosts” because they disappear soon after they surface.
I wonder if this technique exists in other spheres of recruiting? At law firms? At banks? In other sports?
There’s no hard evidence the NFL ghost-profile incident is part of a trend, said Justin Smith, editor of the blog Inside Facebook, which tracks the social networking site.
It’s not only going on with athletes and prospective employees. I’m 99% sure that the rash of friend requests that I have recently received from essentially unconnected, untraceable young women claiming to be Christians but looking decidedly, um, different in their mode of dress is part of some attempt to get conservative bloggers of a certain level of prominence (like somewhere above the C-list, I guess) to do and say stupid things for later use.
Quite the dirty trick. Lucky for me I — well, no, it has nothing to do with luck. I’m just not stupid.
Careful out there, boys and girls.
UPDATE: A famous blogger friend passes along this link — all that “principles are for everyone” stuff is for political consumption, don’t you know. Duping righties is completely cool. It all depends on the ends!
Posted in Nuvo-Techno, O Mores!, Social networking | Leave a Comment »
Crime and punishless
Posted by Ron Coleman on March 12, 2009
What exactly do you have to do get put into jail for being a bona fide sex offender in Washington State?
When 13-year-old Alycia Nipp didn’t come home from a trip to Wal-Mart, her family had no idea where she was, but a tracking device was transmitting the location of her alleged killer. . . .
Darrin Sanford, 30, was one of several homeless people living near the field in an abandoned home slated for demolition, police said.
He was convicted in 1998 of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes and luring minors with sexual motivation; he was sentenced to probation, said a Clark County sheriff’s report. When he was released from jail in January, following a November probation violation, Sanford was fitted with a global positioning tracking unit on his ankle, according to the Washington Department of Corrections. . . .
Sanford was wearing the device seven weeks later when he tried to rape Licy before beating and stabbing her in a field a couple of blocks from the street where she lived, according to police.
Great work, Washington justice system. Maybe when he’s out next year you can give him two ankle bracelets. No, I’m not being fair:
Sanford violated his probation three times between November 2006 and November 2008, the DOC said. When he was released in January, he was required to check in daily with a probation officer, which he did the day before Licy’s murder and the day after her body was found.
(The day before.)
“Hey, Sanford, you gonna kill any teenage girls tomorrow?”
“No, no, I’m good. I mean, not unless they laugh at me.”
“Well, don’t try nothing funny, Sanford. See you tomorrow.”
(Two days later.)
“Hey, Sanford, missed you yesterday. You kill anybody? Your ankle bracelet looks okay.”
“Yeah, well, look, I was here the day before yesterday — what was I going to do, kill someone in between then and today? Gimme a break!”
“Yeah, right, what was I thinking. But don’t skip tomorrow, Sanford!”
It’s an awful story, and part of it is about a kid who wasn’t nearly scared enough of places and people she should have been scared of.
I don’t think that will be a problem in Clark County for a while.
Posted in Nuvo-Techno, O Mores!, Sisyphus | 2 Comments »
Only connect
Posted by Ron Coleman on March 12, 2009
Via Reuters:
One in every 11 minutes spent online globally is on networking sites. Between December 2007 and December 2008, the time spent on the sites climbed 63 percent to 45 billion minutes. . . .
The biggest growth in Facebook membership comes from the 35-49 year old set. Facebook has added twice as many 50-64 year old visitors as it has visitors under 18.
It’s really not surprising.
Online social networking is moving from a toy in the hands of adolescents to something grownups can understand and use. Well okay, not all grownups; I needed half an hour to talk my mother via Skype through the process of uploading a picture onto Facebook. But clearly its application has matured [UPDATE:] and, as Bill Scoble says in this article, there are separate FB worlds for grownups that have nothing to do with what “the kids” do there.
In other words, people like people.
They particularly like people whom they like.
That includes people they used to like, and with whom they may not have had contact for decades. Even more powerfully, it often includes people whom they hardly knew, and even some they didn’t like at all, but who now connect as adults with far more in common than once divided them, across the intertubes.
I guess you could really say that, well, the whole thing is very nice. Contrary to all our talk about alienation, atomization and polarization, maybe the very things that threatened to chill and isolate us could, with increasingly compelling levels of truly warm, personal interaction, bring us — back — together again. A great thing happens when we can lap at the milk of human kindness. Yes, it’s an absolute good to be reminded of how others care about us, remember after a generation good things about us we thought were ignored or didn’t even see in ourselves, or even build bridges over long-dessicated channels of separation. When spirits connect and share each other’s warmth, a lot of other harsh, stupid and ultimately meaningless things can recede to their appropriately subsidiary places in our lives.
What if, because of the Internet, the famous attention that, for so many of us of a certain age, “must be” but is not paid… can be? Even just a little?
Do pay attention.
UPDATE: Other are. Here’s a thoughtful article from a mature adult professor at William & Mary about how faculty members are using FB to stay in touch with the development of recent graduates; and Mashable, of course, is way ahead of everyone else.
Posted in Heart and spirit, Nuvo-Techno, Social networking | 1 Comment »
