01.05.10
Posted in and yet true, tech talk, unbelievable at 11:23 pm by paul
“Maybe it’s awesome”
Props to Mr. Gruber for the perfect summary of Microsoft & HP’s tablet/slate prototype. Complete with stylus! That is just what the world is waiting for, two years post-iPhone. A stylus! Can’t wit for the demo.
OK so seriously, there are a few things missing from this demo:
- twitter
- facebook
- gmail
- flickr
- SMS
- chat
ie, everything a modern consumer cares about on their (mobile) computer. A couple inescapable conclusions from this information:
- Microsoft has had a skunkworks project for a new mobile operating system that looks nothing like any Microsoft product and specifically does not emulate any current features of Word, Excel or Outlook
- Microsoft has given up one the Office/Windows duet that has given them two decades of profitability
- this project has somehow seen the light of day, but hasn’t been released in any way shape or form
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09.11.09
Posted in and yet true, unbelievable at 9:21 pm by paul
For all the bits spilled on the subject of Michael Duvall, I have not been able to find anything about any potential penalties he may face.
Can’t one of our many fine publications let us know? Isn’t he guilty of an ethics violation for every energy vote he didn’t recuse himself from? Wouldn’t that be a lot for a sitting member of the “Assembly Utilities and Commerce” committee?
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05.12.09
Posted in and yet true, politics, unbelievable at 9:34 pm by paul
Props to RR: he signed the UN Convention Against Torture. We had our differences, he and I. But on this particular subject, we are in perfect agreement. I looked around for a reference to his signing statement and part of it is unequivocal:
The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today.
The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called ‘universal jurisdiction.’ Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.
I’m sold, except for the part where he says the US has the right to decide upon the competence of the Committee Against Torture to investigate torture in the US; it is analogous to giving the accused the right to decide the competence of the district attorney. But I’ll forgive him that par-for-the-course resistance to outside oversight that has been typical of US foreign policy for several generations in light of his opposition to the practice of torture.
I don’t know if Reagan ever thought about a “ticking time-bomb” terror attack scenario, but I am pretty sure he thought of that in a military context. Maybe he knew that, as happened with Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, we are as likely as not to deceive ourselves with our own lies when we do it.
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02.15.09
Posted in and yet true, unbelievable at 12:25 pm by paul
I’ve been a member of a credit union since returning to San Francisco, as opposed to using a standard-issue bank. There are pluses and minuses; the pluses being lower fees and rates (ie 12% on a credit card) and the minuses being less robust infrastructure.
The other day as I was taking some cash out of the ATM. It’s on the ground floor at work, which is very convenient, at least when I remember to get cash before leaving the office. Anyway, I noticed it was taking a little longer than usual to authorize my withdrawal. Then I noticed this on top of the ATM:
Cell Signal Strength
The set of LEDs at left are labeled “Cell Signal Strength.” This does not fill me with confidence! I mean, of course the data is all encrypted before it is transmitted on the red cable (never mind the cellular phone network!), which someone could plug into a $49 router they’ve hacked to copy and forward every packet/frame off somewhere? Right? Could never be any other way, right?
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12.03.08
Posted in offline, unbelievable at 9:43 am by paul
Elizabeth “Biddy” Russell was the mother of a trio of childhood friends. They lived down the street in idyllic suburban Westmount.
I haven’t seen or spoken to her in at least twenty years. Interpolating from my own memories and the news stories, the eldest two children have faced no small amount of challenge in their lives. The youngest, however, I believe is now a doctor.
Biddy was one of two Canadians murdered in Mumbai last week. She was traveling with the other, a man that due to ill health expected to die there, Michael Moss. He had a British passport though he had lived in Canada, as I understand, for several decades. Apparently the relationship was a bit hard to classify, though I do know they shared a duplex and traveled extensively together.
Being two degrees — albeit a long-broken two degrees — of separation from an attack such as this does a lot to open your eyes, maybe just a bit, to the awful amount of suffering that emanates from such a crazed attack. Multiplying what I expect the people around Biddy and Michael must feel by a hundred or a thousand — never mind a million — is simply beyond the capacity of my mind. Just trying to think and write about it invokes an avoidance response (clean your desk! make breakfast!).
While trying to process this I found three news stories about her.
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11.04.08
Posted in and yet true, politics, unbelievable at 9:51 pm by paul
Ralph Nader just went on national TV, on Fox, and asked whether Barack Obama would be (from memory here) “Uncle Sam or Uncle Tom to the corporate interests.”
Wow, Ralph. That was perhaps the most ridiculous thing I have heard this election, just a little head of Gov. Palin reading “all” of the newspapers.
It was nice knowing you.
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Posted in and yet true, politics, unbelievable at 8:42 pm by paul
Well, I’ve got to give props to Senator McCain for a classy concession speech. It was refreshing after he fought a dirty, underhanded, over-wrought campaign of fear, distrust, division and on occasion, outright hatred.
John McCain is a flawed and better man than all that. Flawed in that he let Steve Schmidt listen to Karl Rove and drive his campaign, primarily by naming is running mate. Better in that he knew it was wrong, and conceded as much in his speech.
I can’t say the same about the crowd in front of him. Asked, “What more could I have done to win this election”, the crowd answered “Reverend Wright”. Well, that was the perfect reference to all the things that went wrong with his campaign: he listened to his advisers and let them over-ride his instincts, and that was his undoing.
On the “concession call” they pledged to work together. Here’s hoping they can pull it off.
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11.01.08
Posted in and yet true, politics, unbelievable at 10:18 pm by paul
Our friends at CKOI in Montréal have just pulled a most marvelous prank, convincing Sarah Palin that she is speaking with Nicholas Sarkozy on the phone.
Initial reaction: well, anyone can get pranked.
After a painful listen, several things are remarkable about this:
- she repeats her talking points to the President of France
- she calls him “Niko”
- she gushes over him the whole time
- she ignores a reference to “Nailin’ Paylin’”, the Hustler-produced tribute porn
- she glides past his reference to how hot his wife is — in bed
- she misses two references to Canadian politicians (the Prime Minister of Canada and the Premier of Québec), both with the wrong names
I have been struggling while writing this to not hit the caps lock key. You may thank me now.
I wonder what portion of the American electorate will see this as I do (further evidence that she is not qualified for the office she is pursuing) and how many will see it as — well as something else. I can’t quite imagine what that something else is, but I’m sure they will find it.
Coverage is far and wide:
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09.30.08
Posted in Your Rights Online, and yet true, unbelievable at 8:35 pm by paul
As I left work today I spied this truck:
Just because
Now, those of us who are pathologically paranoid get our antennae up when a provider of internet connectivity puts a sticker reading “EYES & EARS” on the side of their connectivity installation truck.
Of course it was AT&T that provided unfettered access to all of our traffic histories to The Feds, in the name of protecting us from The Terrorists. But it does not inspire confidence to see a sticker that seems to cop to willingly spying on one’s customers. Even if it is a Comcast technician’s idea of a joke.
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09.24.08
Posted in and yet true, unbelievable at 6:50 am by paul
Such is my skepticism that I believe — not think, believe — that our officials (not leaders!) in Warshington have taken this awful crisis as an opportunity to offer a sword to the Democratic party. “Take this sword,” they say, “and shove it in to your abdomen before I use it to cut off your head.”
How did we get here? Proposing this enormous bailout is a construct only a game theorist like Rove could dream up.
Democratic Party leaders are left with a double-bind: approve the bail-out and participate in further enriching the same 1% that benefited from the Iraq war and the tax cuts and the prescription medication coverage (in the form of a subsidy to the pharmaceutical industry’s shareholders). Oppose the bailout and get blamed for the inevitable economic disaster.
What is toally upside-down about this situation is that the “conservatives” are proposing an enormous expansion of Federal responibility — stabilizing financial markets, and in a huge rush, natch — while “liberals” are preaching caution, prudence and oversight to compensate for the inevitable failings of a governmental first pass at, well, anything.
When it comes to what to do, my rational side fails in this circumstance. The situation is so complex, so unpredictable that even someone such as myself, who takes pride in understanding enough about just about anything to judge public policy on it, is completely lost. Normally, in such a situation, conservatives and liberals are at each other’s throats over whether to do something or nothing. When the consequences of action and inaction are both unknown, conservatives default to inaction (the markets are perfect and will tend to themselves!) and liberals to action (even if we are wrong, what about the little people?). So on this question you can count me as a conservative.
Oh and dear “conservatives”: where are your constructionist judges now? Surely they will not simply rubber-stamp this expansion of federal authority? Surely a plan this large requires buy-in from someone not in the midst of a re-election campaign?
My short-form opinion of the situation: Wall Street, you may now hang, from your own carefully-constructed pétard. It’s been real.
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