Month: August 2005

Technology Burnout

Regina Linn at Wired[*1] is maybe too connected:

I’m guilty of disappearing without notice. By the time I realize I’m in burnout mode, I can no longer make myself e-mail my friends to say I’m taking time off from the keyboard.

And from the handful of “Where are you, are you OK?” e-mails and IMs I’ve received over the past week, I can see the effects of a frequent e-communicator suddenly dropping out.

People worry that something has happened to you, or that they’ve inadvertently offended you, when really you’re just sick of typing. Days slip by too fast and before you know it, you’ve gone weeks without reaching out.

Leave your cell phone, pager, etc., etc. at home every once in a while, go out to a park, lay down on the grass, and stare at the clouds for a while. Or, maybe, go to the State Fair, like Snookums and I are about to do. Just a suggestion.

Search engines: don’t sell those copyrighted keywords

Google’s AdWords underwent a policy change in April 2004. Until then Google had respected requests from companies that asked it to prevent their marks from being available for sponsorship. Now Google only takes action when a trade marked term is used in the text of an ad – i.e. the trade marked term can still trigger the ad.

The policy change has seen a flurry of suits against Google – including the action filed by GEICO.

Now we can get back to “saving a lot of money on car insurance” and watching animated geckos. Ooh baby.

The $100 wireless laptop

MIT[*1] contemplates the cheap, wireless future:

AMD, among others, has been working on very cheap, low footprint platforms for mass market wireless devices, but the latest concept that could shift the communications goal posts comes from Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, who has outlined the blueprint for the so-called Hundred Dollar Laptop (HDL), a first step towards even lower cost devices in future.

The HDL that Negroponte posits would bypass three expensive components of conventional laptops – Microsoft Windows, a traditional flat panel screen, and a hard drive. Instead it will be loaded with Linux and other open source software; its display will use either a rear projection screen or a type of electronic ink invented at the MIT Media Lab; and it will store one gigabyte of files in flash memory.

Now, put all of that computing power on a reasonably sized watch, and you’ve got something.

Money CAN buy you happiness

Researchers discover that yes, richer people are happier[*1] .

The results showed that the richer people were relative to their peers of the same age, the happier they tended to be.

Glen Firebaugh, from Pennsylvania State University, who led the study, said: “We find, with and without controls, that the higher the income of others in one’s age group, the lower one’s happiness.

Airliner crash in Greece-a weird one

Oxygen loss probed in crash of Cypriot airliner[*1] in Greece:

A man whose cousin was a passenger said he received a cell phone text message minutes before the crash. ”He told me the pilots were unconscious. … He said: “Farewell, cousin, here we’re frozen,” Sotiris Voutas said — indicating the plane was cold, a sign of decompression.

There are no good ways to die, but this sounds more horrible than most. Eerily reminiscent of Payne Stewart’s demise[*2] .

Europe notices it has a problem

OpinionJournal [*1] :

Absolutist interpretation of free-speech rights, with no injunction against “shouting fire in a crowded theater,” has protected extremists such as Mr. Qatada and Omar Bakri Mohammed, who recently fled Britain after two decades of preaching hatred and violence. Allowing Muslims to practice their religion freely is the act of a free society. But looking the other way while radical clerics praise suicide bombers in Israel and America and encourage their acolytes to attack their neighbors is an abdication of governmental responsibility.

For every right there is a responsibility. If you want to preach hatred, do not be surprised when the mob with torches and pitchforks (or, in Texas, shotguns) arrive at your doorstep telling you to shut up.

Gaza pullout begins

Israel begins removing settlers from Gaza[*1] :

Israeli troops fired in the air Monday to keep back hundreds of Palestinians, including a few dozen masked gunmen, who were marching toward southern Gaza’s Gush Katif bloc of settlements in celebration of the impending withdrawal. The crowd burned a cardboard model of an Israeli settlement, complete with an army watchtower.

I suppose it’s too much to ask that the Palestinians accept this Israeli peace gesture with some small amount of decorum.

Bush’s neighbors have had enough of Sheehan

Bush’s neighbor engages in some firearms practice[*1] :

While about 60 in Sheehan’s group held a religious service Sunday morning, a nearby landowner, Larry Mattlage, fired his shotgun twice into the air. Sheriff’s deputies andSecret Service agents rushed to his house but did not arrest him.

“I ain’t threatening nobody, and I ain’t pointing a gun at nobody,” Mattlage said. “This is Texas.”

Mattlage said he was initially sympathetic toward the demonstrators, but that they have blocked roads in the area and caused traffic problems. He said he fired his gun in preparation for the dove-hunting season, but when asked if he had another motive, he said, “Figure it out for yourself.”

No Government Cheese[*2] has it about right:

Heh.

Louisiana Libertarian[*3] has also had enough:

f you want the latest on that woman out in Texas who is disgracing the memory of her son to score political points, go somewhere else. This blog will not give her the platform her and her allies desire.

Henceforth and with appropriate hat-tip to Louisiana Libertarian, should I be forced to comment About That Woman In Texas and her far-out pals, I’ll use the acronym TWIT. Should you think that acronym is unseemly to use for a “grieving mother,” just go check out what TWIT has said about Israel, for instance. I don’t think losing a son in Iraq is a license to spew anti-Semitic rhetoric. Saying that, I’m not sure that shooting off a shotgun is necessarily a good idea either.

Little Green Footballs[*4] has everything you really need to know about TWIT, mercifully relieving from me the need to comment further. I’m outa here on this topic.