January 2006
Tuesday, 31 January 2006
Fred Wilson: My State of the Union: “I am tired of the Bushes and the Clintons, the Kennedys and the Delays, the Gores and the Cheneys. I want them all gone. I want new blood, new ideas, a new state of the union.”
Thursday, 26 January 2006
Razr vs. Blade: Cloning Is Only Skin Deep: “But the Razr’s software quickly becomes the bane of its owner’s existence.”
Saturday, 21 January 2006
livingwithmusic.com: Dear Blue Note, Sony, Universal and EMI: “After many years of annoyance, today I have finally decided to stop buying your CDs.”
Archived Memepool Post: Jan 21, 2006
Steelers fans come in all shapes and sizes. (Posted to Games)
Friday, 20 January 2006
Falling back to earth, alone
Falling back to earth, alone: “In 1960, U.S. Air Force pilot Joe Kittinger flew 30km straight up into the sky using a pressurized, high-altitude balloon. This very nearly made him the first man in space. He then jumped.”
Sunday, 15 January 2006
Irrational Physics: Bounce. Bounce.
We think of matter as vibrating point charges, or possibly vibrating loops of energy. What if this is wrong – what if matter is a vibration. Not a vibrating thing – the vibration itself.
I’m not sure what that means, though. A vibration of space? A vibration of energy in space? Energy is space? If you have a bunch of cloth and part of it is rumpled, it seems like there’s something solid there, and you can move things around, but as you stretch out the cloth there’s nothing there.
Monday, 9 January 2006
Anonymous Internet Annoying Is Illegal
Anonymous Internet Annoying Is Illegal in the U.S.: “More importantly, what does it mean for our society when obviously stupid laws like this get passed, and we have to rely on the police being nice enough to not enforce them?”
Sunday, 8 January 2006
Adventures in Social Engineering
I just called Sprint about my mobile phone account. The CSR asked me for my password or the last four digits of my SSN. I gave her the latter. She thanked me and, without prompting, told me my password.
Saturday, 7 January 2006
Are Democracies Really More Peaceful?
Are Democracies Really More Peaceful?: “Like many skeptics of democratization, Mansfield and Snyder may overestimate the stability of the authoritarians. Young democracies can be bellicose, but it’s hard to imagine many regimes more threatening to their neighbors than Saddam Hussein’s. The authors also appear to strain their argument when they suggest that Milosevic’s decision to crack down on the Kosovars was driven by his anxieties over winning a future election, or that Iraq’s faltering experiments in parliamentary democracy helped drive its 1948 attack on Israel.”
Thursday, 5 January 2006
The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart
The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart: “If you know nothing about maintaining a mower, Wal-Mart has helped make that ignorance irrelevant: At even $138, the lawn mowers at Wal-Mart are cheap enough to be disposable. Use one for a season, and if you can’t start it the next spring (Wal-Mart won’t help you out with that), put it at the curb and buy another one.”
Archived Memepool Post: Jan 5, 2006
Only punk rock muppets will lead you to the awful truth: “Hi, this is Henry Rollins – TV’s Punky Brewster – and you’re watching Pancake Mountain.” (Posted to Music)
Tuesday, 3 January 2006
The curse of oil: “Unlike agriculture, the oil sector employs few unskilled people. The inherent volatility of commodity prices hurts the poor the most, as they are least able to hedge their risks. And because the resource is concentrated, the resulting wealth passes through only a few hands%u2014and so is more susceptible to misdirection.”
Monday, 2 January 2006
Joss Whedon Eyes the Future of TV
Guest Columnist Joss Whedon Eyes the Future of TV: “The networks will all be creating exciting, innovative new spin-offs of today’s shows. Approximately 67 percent of all television will be CSI-based, including CSI: Des Moines, CSI: New York but a Different Part than Gary Sinise Is In and NCSI: SVU WKRP, which covers every possible gruesome crime with a groovin’ ‘70s beat.”
Stop the Presses!: “The entire ability to sell an…
Stop the Presses!: "The entire ability to sell an ad-edit ratio of 75 percent was based on this deliberate ignorance. Ad agencies and publications alike knew that many – even most – advertising dollars were simply wasted, but it wasn’t in their interest to admit that, so they didn’t.”