February 2010
“The largest lie is that everything the United States does is to be pardoned...”
– Howard Zinn (via azspot)
January 2010
How to watch 24/7 TV news after you've cut the...
—via ericmortensen:
France24 - A multilingual French international television news channel, France 24 is based in Paris and owned by France Télévisions.
RT - Broadcast from Moscow, RT is a 24/7 English language news channel focusing on international headlines, giving an innovative angle set to challenge viewers worldwide.
Al Jazeera - Al Jazeera English provides a unique perspective...
“Apple, Inc., owns the end-user device and much of the distribution platform for...”
– jhnbrssndn (via indieandyy)
“Control might be the goal of a typical politician, but the future belongs to...”
– Seth Godin, Is Control the Answer?
vruz: it’s not even the question.
Lawrence Lessig: The Principled and Pure Court? A... →
Salon’s Glenn Greenwald is just about the most persistent and effective critic of money in politics today. He is among the least starry-eyed reporters studying Congress. But his essay defending the Court’s judgment in Citizens United would have been better had he sprinkled a bit of the skepticism he has for Congress on the words penned by the Court. For the story of the First...
Steve Jobs: No Tablet, No PDA, No Cell Phone, Lots... →
M [Walt Mossberg]: A lot of people think given the success youive had with portable devices, you should be making a tablet or a PDA.
J [Steve Jobs]: There are no plans to make a tablet. It turns out people want keyboards. When Apple first started out, “People couldnit type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.” “We look at the tablet and we think itis going...
Steve Jobs at Apple Town Hall Meeting on Google,... →
—via shaneguiter:
Steve Jobs held a town hall meeting with Apple employees late last week following the iPad launch. Wired reports on what was said at the meeting by Steve Jobs. Two of the biggest topics included Google and Adobe. On Google, Jobs confirms the much-reported competition between the two companies.
On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the...
“The implication is clear. We need to face up to needed structural changes, and...”
– Paul Volcker, The New York Times
The Lamer Blame Game →
azspot sez:
Where I display umbrage in response to conservative blogger Reagan worship…
Steve Jobs and the Economics of Elitism -... →
—via shaneguiter:
Apple represents the “auteur model of innovation,” observes John Kao, a consultant to corporations and governments on innovation. In the auteur model, he said, there is a tight connection between the personality of the project leader and what is created. Movies created by powerful directors, he says, are clear examples, from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” to James...
What happens when corporations buy the last three... →
(via azspot)
RT @Slate: Jürgen Habermas @jhabermas has a...
—via planetnancy
“I wanted to watch videos of lolcats while laying on the couch”
– Hitler and the iPad
mash by sadiesmithereens
—via William Gibson
“And if one of the five titans that control almost all of publishing gets into a...”
– Cory Doctorow | Amazon and Macmillan go to war: readers and writers are the civilian casualties (via ericmortensen)
“With the Citizens United ruling, the court revealed the depth of its contempt...”
– Welcome to the Plutocracy (via azspot)
grammys, really? what's a grammy? a nickname for...
solution: Kindle Nexgen should go Android.
one Android that is to Kindle what iPhone OS 3.2 is to the iPad
and Amazon could benefit right away from all Android apps and developers community, just like the iPad can benefit from the preceding iPhone developers community.
porting the default Kindle apps to Android is not harder than having to develop a marketplace, SDK, community and all from scratch.
but maybe Amazon has bigger long term...
power law of web potatoes and the iPad
previously, on united colours of vruz, I reblogged this quote by Jay Rosen:
Okay, there’s one thing–and only one–I find interesting about the iPad so far: that it shifts back to ‘read only’ from the read write web.
Then I said:
it’s probably not an all-or-nothing thing. but it’s true that it’s harder to type in a virtual keyboard, and that many people will find friction having their voices...
i get why people are talking about j.d. salinger's...
—via duckbeater:ponymalta:
He was a great writer, blah blah blah (I actually don’t really like Salinger’s writing). But dude was a recluse. He could have been eaten by wolves years ago and none would have been the wiser. Isn’t it strange to mourn the passing of someone whose life stopped having an impact on you in any way forty years ago?
/end rain on your parade.
[…]
The...
“Okay, there’s one thing–and only one–I find interesting about the iPad so far:...”
– Jay Rosen
jonathan-deamer sez:Not sure I completely agree, but interesting thesis.
vruz sez: it’s probably not an all-or-nothing thing. but it’s true that it’s harder to type in a virtual keyboard, and that many people will find friction having their voices heard online. ...
Tea Baggers are our canary in the coal mine →
—via azspot:
However, there are three things that really stand out to me about the Tea Baggers in a broader context.
The first is the general political incoherence of their lines of attack and in what they claim to be for and what they claim to be against. The most retrograde or ignorant of McCarthyites in the 50’s or New Right activists of the 70s and 80’s would not have attacked...
“My great grandfather, Lazarus Cohen, came to Canada in 1869, to the county of...”
– Leonard Cohen, who will be will be honoured tomorrow with a Grammy lifetime achievement award, paying respect to his home country during a party last night at the Canadian consul general’s residence. From Leonard Cohen offers thanks to Canada - The Globe and Mail (via Dr.HGuy) (via whokilled)
“Wherever we stand in digital history, the iPad leaves me with the feeling that...”
– Alex Payne (via azspot)
vruz: steve says jump! and you jump…
Bunch Of Phonies Mourn J.D. Salinger | The Onion -... →
(via jose-doraz)
China's economy: Not just another fake
The similarities between China today and Japan in the 1980s may look ominous. But China’s boom is unlikely to give way to prolonged slump.
—via taitran:alexanderpf:
From The Economist print edition
CHINA rebounded more swiftly from the global downturn than any other big economy, thanks largely to its enormous monetary and fiscal stimulus. In the year to the fourth quarter of 2009, its...
The "Apple Advantage" is class signalling and... →
vruz: okay. I’m not the only crazy one out there who thinks like this.
via L’Hôte and feministing h/t notemily
Incidentally, people always say one of Apple’s biggest strengths is aesthetics. This is always weird to me. Aesthetics are subjective. Personally? I think the toilet-seat white plastic shell that has come to define Apple is the absolute apotheosis of whitebread...
Papercuts - The Thin Ice (Pink Floyd cover)
...
What if God Existed?
Friel: “What if God exists, and what if he has provided everything for you… life, health, food, trees, royalties… would he not have been good to you?”
Hitchens: “No. If that were true, I would have an eternal supervising parent who would never let me get on with my life, never let me grow up, and constantly be asking me to thank and praise him. It would be like living in North Korea and having to continuously praise the ‘Dear Leader.’ I think it’s servile.”
Friel: “If God created you and provides everything for you, does he have rights on your life?”
Hitchens: “No. I don’t accept anyone’s right to own me. I created my children and provide for them, but I don’t own them. Besides, would this mean that the sick and starving for whom God has not provided are not owned by God?”
Friel: “Um… next question… does religion really poison everything?”
Hitchens: “Yes. If I am someone’s slave, that ruins everything. The Bible calls for slavery and genocide, too, but that doesn’t make it right.”
Friel: “What if there’s a judgment day? How would you measure up to the Ten Commandments?”
Hitchens: “The first commandments are about pandering to God’s jealous and self-esteem. I’ve never obeyed those and don’t think anyone should. Same for the Sabbath. Murder, thefy, and lying… I don’t need a Bible to tell me those are wrong. As for honoring parents, it depends how well they treat me. And unfortunately the Ten Commandments do not prohibit child abuse, slavery, or genocide. Coveting, though, is a good thing because it leads to innovation. It’s good to want things, but of course not good to steal them.”
Friel: “Have you ever been angry, which is committing murder in your heart?”
Hitchens: “Yes, many times.”
Friel: “Have you ever lusted?”
Hitchens: “All the time.”
Friel: “Have you ever committed adultery?”
Hitchens: “None of your fucking business.”
Friel: “So if God saw you committing all these sins, would he send you to heaven or hell?”
Hitchens: “Not heaven, I hope. An eternity of praise and groveling and thanksgiving would be my idea of hell.”
Friel: “But if you’ve broken the Ten Commands, you’d be going to hell, right?”
Hitchens: “Not by the God of the Old Testament, no. There is no hell in the Old Testament. The idea of eternal torture of the dead for minor infractions doesn’t arrive until Jesus meek and mild.”
Friel: “What if it’s true that Jesus died on a cross to save your sins? Isn’t that the ultimate act of kindness?”
Hitchens: “No. I didn’t ask for a human sacrifice and don’t want it. I would’ve tried to stop it. It’s barbaric. I don’t want anybody to immolate themself for me. And I’m not bound by it. It’s an act of extreme presumption to say that ‘What I’m doing now binds millions of unborn children and takes away their freedom.’ It’s a tyrannical act.”
Friel: “Is it possible the reason you rage against God is that you want to live your own autonomous life?”
Hitchens: “That’s highly probable, yes.”
(http: //commonsenseatheism.com/?p=1560)
“Footage of every Republican sitting when Obama talked about bank tax is going...”
– A Democratic strategist quite pleased with the chilly Republican reception
thought: I may be a progressive conservative. I...
jhnbrssndn sez:
Things have never been simpler.
vruz: mmmmmmm I guess it all depends on the zoom lens we use. Yes, I agree that people and mainstream culture are simpler than I ever knew. But that’s precisely why there’s daunting complexity in finding ways to make sense of it all.
It’s the fight against entropy. Things are becoming more complex all the time, but people...
thought: I may be a progressive conservative. I...
Some thoughts on Haiti, and the funny lovely...
A few days ago I said:
we help a lot of people in suffering countries by adding a tiny lapel ribbon to your tiny avatar. raise awareness? who is unaware? or is it only heightening self-image?
I think it’s actually worse, but I just wrote that for the sake of brevity. Take for example the tsunami calamity… it’s only that bad when dutch tourists and hedonist english people...
“It’s much easier to wear a Chairman Mao button and shake your fists in the air...”
– Lester Bangs explains those Twitter Avatar phenomena. ‘The revolution will be made through slightly changing your little internet pictures!’
(via feastingonroadkill: rosamour)
vruz: also, we help a lot of people in suffering countries by adding a tiny lapel ribbon to your tiny avatar. raise...
“The main theoretical flaw in Kennedy’s opinion is different, however. The...”
– The “Devastating” Decision (via azspot)
“The Defense Department needs to get better at lying and fooling people about its...”
– via Wired. (via feastingonroadkill: Can’t these people even tell fibs effectively?)
vruz:SSIA. the really secret, secret ‘intelligence’ agency. really.
zing!
Jon Stewart: How many followers do you have?
Bill Gates: Uh...how many do you have?
Jon: I don't Twitter! I'm busy!
George Harrison, “Blow Away”
—via...
Greenwald's writing on Citizens United v. FEC →
—via notjenny:bthny:catbus:
I want to begin by examining several of the most common reactions among critics of this decision, none of which seems persuasive to me. Critics emphasize that the Court’s ruling will produce very bad outcomes: primarily that it will severely exacerbate the problem of corporate influence in our democracy. Even if this is true, it’s not really relevant. ...
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop...”
– Ray Bradbury, via francine
