October 2009
43 posts
September 2009
28 posts
3 tags
1 tag
“The point of the system, he explains, was to guarantee an automatic Soviet...”
– Wired | Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine
1 tag
The Facebook Divorce →
We are witnessing the tabloidization of everyday life. Regular people are acting like mini-celebrities, announcing their every move in the way famous people once did in the gossip pages. - Amanda Fortini in The Facebook Divorce, for Salon.com
For all its usefulness, Facebook has largely become a burden. The social media norms are still in flux, the stepping on of toes is rampant, and there are...
3 tags
2 tags
2 tags
2 tags
On candy colors
Picture a bag of Skittles.
There’s red for cherry, orange for orange, yellow for lemon, green for lime, and purpole for grape. Pretty standard colors and flavors for candy in America.
Those colors and those flavors and almost a template for candy. Everything from LifeSavers to Runts to gum follows a standard set of color and flavor guidelines. It’s true that there are strays...
1 tag
“He’s not a very likable guy”
– Jon Hamm on his character, Don Draper, from Mad Men. Via Salon.com.
Something striking is taking place with the acclaim and fandom surrounding Mad Men.
With the Oprah interview, and the love of nostalgia, plus all the marketing, surrounding the show, it almost makes a fan wish for the old...
1 tag
The Ultimate Productivity Blog →
Via Mr. Gruber.
1 tag
“AT&T 3G MicroCell acts like a mini cellular tower in your home or small...”
– AT&T 3G MicroCell™
Translation: “Our Edge/3G service sucks, so you should buy this mini-cell tower and pay us extra to use it.”
1 tag
“So many — too many — couples spend far more time picking the song...”
– Michelle Singletary - WaPo’s Color of Money
1 tag
1 tag
“Where was the Tea Party movement when the tax burden was shifted from the high...”
– Working Class Zero - Timothy Egan Blog - NYTimes.com
I wonder the same thing - why people weren’t outraged like this during the Bush years. The big protests were over war, and war is protested by liberals. The “working stiffs” stayed at home, only to have the economic rug swept...
1 tag
Flower Power iMac named one of the Ugliest Tech... →
It’s true. Now I own one.
1 tag
“Meanwhile, have you wondered why, if the Mayans were able to pinpoint the end of...”
– Robert Ebert
1 tag
1 tag
iTunes 9 - Mini Player weird behaviour →
It’s probably not weird behavior, the more I think about it.
I wrote about it over at Newton Poetry - more of a frustration post than anything else. I’ve posted it to MacSurfer to see what kind of response the rest of the Apple/Mac community has.
The above link to the Apple Support forum post leads to a discussion about the iTunes 9 mini player behavior being a bug.
But really,...
1 tag
First & 20 →
Neat pics and explanations of tech-oriented folks’ iPhone home screens. Great way to pick up some good what’s-a-good-app-to-have ideas.
Via Daring Fireball.
1 tag
Ben Franklin rolls in his grave →
The very institution that Ben Franklin established, the first free, public library in the then-colonies of America, is set to close without emergency legislative funding. A goddamn shame.
3 tags
Das Auto
Behold a 2004 Volkswagen Jetta GLS, with a platinum gray exterior and slick leather interior, complete with a 2.0 L, four-cylinder engine and automatic (read: bummer) transmission.
It’s all mine.
I almost bought it Friday night, at this weekend’s big car sale, but gave myself the “I’ll sleep on it” treatment. Saturday morning, at about 11:30, it became...
5.9.39 « THE ORWELL PRIZE →
George Orwell’s diaries from the late 1930s. Fascinated look into everyday life.
1 tag
makeroom.jpg (image) →
From PostSecret.com.
Introducing zen-y.com
For a few years, I was a writing machine. Every week I’d post some screed on politics, religion, music, technology - whatever, I always had something to write about.
It used to be I kept that stuff on Myspace, back when I had a Myspace profile, and over the years I transfered my posts to my Blogger blog. Then my Blogger site became my primary writing platform, though every once in a...
4 tags
On CDs
By all accounts, physical music media is on its way out. The MP3 is the new king, and - arguably - has been since the late ’90s.
These days, the only way you can actually hold your music is with an iPod. Otherwise, it lives in binary 1s and 0s on a hard drive or flash drive somewhere. It’s hard to get romantic about the idea.
I grew up in the cassette age - a barbaric period for...
1 tag
“But it’s sobering to remember that a single device by a company with zero...”
– Before Apple introduced the iPhone… « counternotions