There’s nothing, at this time, to do in Ping.
— Dave Winer, assailing Apple’s new music-oriented social network, which lacks functionality and can only be accessed from within iTunes.
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
The New York Times reports on the fallout from the British tabloid phone hacking scandal, in which the private phones of celebrities and royals were illegally hacked by desperate tabloid employees. “Getting a letter from Scotland Yard that your phone has been hacked is rather like getting a Willy Wonka golden ticket,” declared Mark Lewis, a lawyer who won the first settlement. “Time to queue up at Murdoch Towers to get paid.”
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
Blumenauer: I strongly oppose any effort to privatize or weaken the Social Security
Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer recently issued a statement in a response to a New York Times article written by Matt Bai which misconstrued his views about the future of Social Security.
[T]here were red flags already by the end of Obama’s first week in office that led me to offer the following advice to the new administration: Tell the story of how we got in this mess or you’ll own it. Tell a coherent story about deficit spending. Re-brand government because there’s only one story out there now (Reagan’s), and it’s not one that supports a progressive agenda. Never let attacks go unanswered, because doing so only emboldens your opposition and leads the public to believe that you have no answers to them. And if you throw a bipartisan party and no one comes, don’t throw another one. All of what followed has been as predictable as it has been unfortunate.
— Drew Westen, writing for the Huffington Post (What created the populist explosion and how Democrats can avoid the shrapnel in November)
If I had been Editor John Hillkirk (who is not among those I’ve heard from) I would have led the entire news staff walking out in protest. If such a stupid decision is ever made again, I hope that will be the result. That would leave those who apparently don’t understand what a newspaper is to try to put one out without a news staff.
— USA Today founding executive Allen Neuharth, in a scathing letter to the paper’s current publisher, blasting a decision earlier this summer to make a Jeep ad the entire front page.
Friday, August 27th, 2010
false belief in weapons of mass-destruction led the United States to a trillion-dollar war. And trust in rising home value as a truism as reliable as a sunrise was a major contributor to the catastrophic collapse of the economy. At its worst extreme, a culture of misinformation can produce something like Iran, which is run by a Holocaust denier.
— New York Times columnist Timothy Egan, in a must-read blog post entitled, Building a Nation of Know-Nothings
Thursday, August 26th, 2010
The fact that e-books involve no printing, binding, shipping, distributing or taking back and shredding unsold copies ought to save you something. And it’s outrageous that that you can’t sell or even give away an e-book when you’re finished with it. You paid for it; why shouldn’t you be allowed to pass it on?
— The New York Times’ David Pogue, assailing the high cost and digital restrictions management schemes slapped onto “e-books”
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
Big Brother is watching you: Did Facebook just move us closer to 1984?
Jon Orlin takes a critically refreshing look at the launch of Facebook Places, another opt-out “feature” that disregards user privacy by design.
Monday, August 23rd, 2010
[A]long came micro-blogging – and, with a finite amount of time and effort available, the blog generation turned into the Twitter (or Facebook) generation. A million blogs withered and died as their authors stopped taking the time to process their thoughts and switched instead to simply copying and pasting them into the world, 140 meaningless characters at a time. The result: a whole lot of sound and mundanity, signifying nothing.
— An excerpt from Paul Carr’s Thnks Fr Th Mmrs: The Rise Of Microblogging, The Death Of Posterity
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
2012: A scientific reality check
NASA debunks the myth that the world is going to end in 2012, patiently deconstucting conspiracy theorists’ wild claims about the supposed forthcoming end times.
How the Museum of Flight plans to display a retired space shuttle orbiter if NASA sends one to Seattle (via collectSPACE)
Bit by bit, Facebook is revealing its sinister and controlling side. Let this be a warning, along with every other one the NY Times and other media outlets continually sound, that facebook and other “social networking” sites are corporations who are only in existence to make money from their users’ data. They are not loving, warm, touchy-feely wirtual coffee houses. They will use you and your personal information to line their own pockets. Buyer beware.
— New York Times reader John F, commenting on the launch of “Facebook Places”
Saturday, August 14th, 2010
I’ll fight with everything I’ve got to stop those who would gamble your Social Security on Wall Street. Because you shouldn’t be worried that a sudden downturn in the stock market will put all you’ve worked so hard for – all you’ve earned – at risk. You should have the peace of mind of knowing that after meeting your responsibilities and paying into the system all your lives, you’ll get the benefits you deserve.
— President Barack Obama, vowing to put a stop to any effort to privatize Social Security, in his weekly radio address.
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
Saturday, August 7th, 2010
To close a budget gap — the [Colorado Springs] voters, many of whom favor smaller government, turned down a property tax increase in November, and a taxpayer’s bill of rights [I-1033] makes it hard for city officials to raise taxes — Colorado Springs has stopped collecting trash in its parks, stopped watering many medians on its roads and reduced its police force.
The sprawling city of roughly 400,000 at the foot of Pike’s Peak — which covers 194 square miles — made national news when it auctioned off its police helicopters. But less-heralded police cuts could have more impact: the force, which had 687 officers two years ago, is down to 643 and dropping. At any given time, the department estimates that there is a 23 percent chance that all units will be busy.
So it has reduced the number of detectives who investigate property crimes, cut the number of officers assigned to the schools and eliminated units that tracked juvenile offenders and caught fugitives. Officers no longer respond to the scene of most burglaries, at least if they are not in progress.
— New York Times article about devastating cuts in Hawaii, Georgia, and Colorado Springs. Aren’t you glad we voted no on Tim Eyman’s 1033?
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