Saturday, January 28, 2012

He Says While Posting On His Blog

Here's something a gadget geek like me doesn't want to encounter on his travels on the Innertubes:

Study Finds Growing Up WIth Gadgets Has a Downside: Social Skill Impairment

The first thing that popped into my head reading this was, "But I didn't grow up with a lot of gadgets and I have terrible social skills." But I'm a gadget geek now. So I can't help but wonder if the reverse is more likely to be true. That is, perhaps poor social skills are part of what drives children to enjoy gadgets in the first place.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

The Daily Show on SOPA

You could face as a website, up to five years for streaming ten pieces of music.

When did Congress turn into Ogre?
What kind of douchebag steals other people's copyrighted work anyway?

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Friday, January 6, 2012

How the Sausage Doesn't Get Made

The thing that I love about The Daily Show is the way it just has a knack for encapsulating everything that frustrates me about the absurdity of politics. Last night for example....
Look at it Stewart! Look at it! This is how the sausage doesn't get made!

Saturday, December 3, 2011

So Where Do I Go From Here?

I haven't written much lately. Well, at least not on this blog. My Tumblr blog on the other hand has been fairly active by comparison. And of course I'm extremely active on on Twitter, somewhat less active on Google Plus, and I keep in touch with my family through Facebook. So where does Blogger fit in? In the past it was a no-brainer to put whatever I wanted on my blog but now there are so many more choices, many of them more convenient and faster than blogging. Twitter is amazing in this respect and Tumblr fills the gap nicely when Twitter falls short. Tumblr even holds its own nicely against Blogger in terms of longer form writing, something I never really did much anyway....

So here I am with my old blog writing a post wondering if it will be my final one.

Although the new revamped interface for Blogger does look cool once you get used to it. Maybe I'll play around with it a bit....

Thursday, July 28, 2011

A President's Job is Hard...

You're the most powerful man in the world but everyone wants a piece of you. You start out able to do no wrong but public opinion turns and you can't seem to do anything right.

Before—2008:
From Squeezing My Mind Grapes


And after—2010:
From Spock Is Not Impressed

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Remember When We Thought Computers Were Used to Educate People?

From the bowels of a box of stuff:

The disks were gone but the box graphics sure are pretty.

Endorsed by Alex Trebek!

Increase your SAT scores by 200 points!


Success Pack!


Step by Step. So many CDs.


A curriculum that covers third grade through college.


Knowing big words makes you rich!


Testimonials. (Which makes me wonder if anyone who actually used this program are actually reading this; if so, how was it?)


It even comes with its own diplomas!


Get a load of those system requirements. Note how much more memory the Mac version requires and the long list of add-ons required for the PC version. But also notice how much more powerful a modern smartphone is than a PC or Mac of that era.



Friday, July 22, 2011

Palm Pre Makes Yahoo's List of Phones Doomed to be Collectibles

The most interesting thing about this piece is that it lays the blame for the Pre's demise squarely at HP's feet. And I think they're right. Palm was putting out a new update every month, slowly but surely improving the Pre by improving webOS. And then Palm sold itself to HP and nothing. There was a lot of talk and a lot of promises but ultimately those promises were broken as HP made webOS the centerpiece of their mobile strategy but showed little interest in actually making new phones. And the frequent updates which Palm had been so proud of dried up.

The Pre's immediate successor, the Pre 2 is only available on Verizon and sales people tend to steer people away from it. The Veer, a tiny little phone which combines the best features of the Pre and Pixi phones with some nice, fast hardware is only available on AT&T and is similarly neglected. The Pre 3 which was announced in January has yet to debut anywhere.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011