How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Entries Tagged as 'technology'
Chipping away at our sanity, byte by byte
In the overall scope of human history, we are a prosperous people, us Americans living right now. Yes, the rich are getting richer, the economy is looking bleak, and there are sit-ins and protests around the country — the world could always stand a few straightenings — but if you take a moment you realize we have more, and more access to, things than anybody else ever has. With apologies to the diehard pessimists and the political gain they hope their pessimism brings about, Americans have it pretty good. [Read more →]
Weird sex objekt: how to enjoy Kraftwerk’s Electric Cafe
Like many people I enjoy the music of Kraftwerk and think that their reputation as musical pioneers is entirely justified. Indeed I would choose to listen to Trans Europe Express or The Man Machine over anything by The Beatles any day. Come to think of it, I’d listen to their 2003 album about riding bicycles over anything by The Beatles any day, but that’s another matter. I enjoy their dry humour, their minimalist, retro-futurist aesthetic, their decades-long dedication to pretending they are robots… and of course, their music.
And yet, there is a problem. And if you know Kraftwerk then you will know its name: [Read more →]
Eleventh hour in the Fifth Age
Sir John Keegan’s modest, mighty book contains five chapters, each describing a separate age of human warfare. The first is a primitive state where monkeys who threw their shite at one another have descended and stood straight(er) to hurl spears and stones. This has its roots in predation and animalistic defense of territory. The Age of Stone begins when a few of these hominids, sick of being attacked or doing the attacking, begin to lay one stone on another and another and another and another proto-man comes and another and also lay stones until there is a wall. Fortification was the great weapon in the Age of Stone. This continued until the Age of Flesh; that would mean horseflesh mostly but also the Age of Flesh involves the invention of something you could call an army. Warriors at the command of a chief would include far more than his cousins. With hordes of this size and mobility the siege became possible, starving out the fortress masters or breaching their walls in massed attacks. Fourthly comes the Age of Iron, not meaning iron weapons although the era is about right. Rather this is the coming of iron discipline; think Greece, the Macedonians and Rome. The modernization of fighting comes naturally with the modernization of life. The art of fortification is mated to iron-willed and stone-hearted defense, counter-attack and long-ranging strategic forces executing sophisticated political solutions to domestic problems, often involving wealth and power being in the wrong hands. The Fifth Age, the one we inhabit now, is the closest they come to being well yclept. The Fifth Age is The Age of Fire. [Read more →]
Road madness: Irresponsible NJ family drives 2,000+ miles without TV, DVDs
(From wire reports)
RIVERTON, NJ–Annoyed authorities have confirmed that a NJ family, in defiance of modern rules of common sense and maybe some real rules as well, took their three children on a driving vacation of 2,137 miles without an in-car DVD player or TV. [Read more →]
Smartphones: Bad for the economy?
The amount of knowledge and ability a smartphone offers on the move ranks it as one of the most influential breakthroughs since the internet. But, in a stunted economy, has anyone considered that maybe smartphones are too good, versatile, and convenient? [Read more →]
Kids and texting: Shooting arrows around corners
I don’t know how you even count such things, but one prediction states that in 2011 the world will send seven trillion—nope, I have to write it out: 7,000,000,000,000—text messages. [Read more →]
Privacy may not be dead, but your brand needs a little work
In this great, big social-media-ish world of ours, just where do we draw the line between the personal and the professional? Do you tweet an article in your field and then bitch about your wife? How about friending somebody you met an an industry conference, who will then have access to your vacation photos? It’s a challenge sufficiently daunting that Big Names like David Brin, Scott McNealy, and Mark Zuckerberg have declared privacy to be dead. Maybe that’s true — or maybe, it’s less true than the fact that we have to be a bit more honest with ourselves about how we market our personal brand to different audiences. [Read more →]
Internet kill switch forever!
Bioethicists – the people who specialize in deciding the thorniest moral issues of this ever-changing world in which we live in – all agree that, if genetic testing reveals the propensity of a patient to develop a life-threatening catastrophic disease, that patient should not be told. The burden of such knowledge is too great for people to handle.
This is basic common sense, of course, and human beings have known this since time immemorial. One needs only look at the Bible, in which Adam and Eve are admonished by no less an authority than God himself to not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Too much knowledge, you see, can be a dangerous thing. Even if you are in a crowd of merely one or two people.
Upgrade blues: The screenager vs. the teacher of argument
One trait of being a “screenager” is the love of upgrades. In a bit-based world governed by the never-ending promise of Moore’s Law, they live for the next best device. My daughter has been campaigning for a new cell phone to add to her growing list of devices, including a one-year old cell phone that she has lost… no, more on that in a moment. [Read more →]
Technology, the progressive mind, and a white suit
One of the things I’ve often wondered is why the left sometimes seems to be against technological progress. In my short lifetime, I’ve seen leftist movements against all sorts of technological innovations that have absolutely changed the world. Stretching from the Luddites of the early 1800’s to today’s Green movement and its war on just about everything, the liberal left has displayed open hostility towards much of the technology that I think has made the world a much better place, but the why of the problem is never mentioned.
Why do “progressives” hate planes, anything bigger than a Soapbox Derby car on the highway, Wal-Mart’s efficient and low cost management plan, incandescent light bulbs, and just about every other major modern marvel or innovation?
Mark Zuckerberg: TIME magazine’s person of the year
TIME magazine recently announced its selection of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as its “Person of the Year.” Below is the complete text from their essay on Zuckerberg and why they chose him:
Many years ago, perhaps as many as 100 years ago, a dead white person made an astute observation about human nature. That observation was vague enough that it could be applied to anything, and I am applying it, now, to TIME’s “Person of the Year” selection, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. [Read more →]
Groundhog day at Panera Bread
I’m thinking about buying myself a coffee pot. I’ve been resisting doing so, not because of the expense but because I think of coffee drinking as a social event. I live alone, and the idea of getting up in the morning and pouring myself a cup of coffee just has no appeal. To my mind, drinking your AM coffee alone in the kitchen is the first step towards drinking your evening scotch alone in front of a TV. [Read more →]
A junior-Army of global Davids
I like to think about media effects and generally find those effects to be more positive than negative. Case in point: Today’s college students “… are as likely to say that they are citizens of the planet Earth as they are to say they are citizens of the United States,” according to Zogby International president and CEO, John Zogby, in this Chronicle of Higher Education piece. He says that the current generation of college students is the most globally aware group of students in history, referring to them as “America’s first global citizens.”
Why is this a “media effect?” Because it’s largely attributable, I think, to the rise of social media and the World Wide Web. I think it suggests that the current generation of 18-30 year-olds – having spent a great deal of time during their formative years navigating an environment, albeit virtual, that is borderless, anarchic, and free of national, racial, or ethnic requirements for membership has developed its own culture — one not suffering the xenophobia of past generations — a junior-Army of global Davids defeating hate and prejudice without the help of the culture police.
The credit for this development, I think, goes to free-market capitalism, not multiculturalism. It was capitalism that spurred the growth of the World Wide Web and the evolution of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter that have connected the world’s youth, not Al Gore or Maya Angelou. It’s an excellent example of the beauty of spontaneous orders and what happens when people are free to act in voluntary cooperation.
Digital technology is destroying the language. Or not
Although it may seem otherwise, people care a lot about language. Everyday people who mash words together without a second thought will get all defensive and downright purist when the discussion turns to proper use of English, especially if there’s some perceived threat. And a big threat to language has been looming: digital technology. [Read more →]
Going parental: iPad — Magic Slate in disguise?
I recently got an iPad for me and my girlfriend. Our laptop was on its way out and we have a new desktop that works perfectly. I didn’t want to get another laptop so I settled in the middle and got the iPad since all we really wanted was easy access to the Internet when we were lounging around. I’m not going to lie. This thing is awesome. They have apps for everything. I’m pretty sure there’s an app that will tie your shoes and do your laundry for you — for just $9.99! Anyway, all was going well with our new toy. We bought a fresh black case for it and a screen protector. We’re careful about where we put it — ya know, the way you are with your baby the first few weeks of its life. And then it happened. [Read more →]
