Archive for 2009

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Google Voice, iPhones, And SpyPhones

[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 8, 2009 by admin in Technology

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

Google Voice is amazing. And creepy.

I just got an invite to try Google Voice, and after giving it a quick test run, I was left a little uneasy. I’m not really a tin-foil hat type, but I’m often reminded of William Burroughs’ remark that “A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on”. The uneasiness kicked in as soon as I clicked on the “accept” link, and had to decide whether or not to use one of my existing G-Mail accounts. Should I use my business account? My personal account? I knew that to test the service, I’d be entering both my mobile and land line numbers. Which meant I’d be linking pieces of my Google search history with my e-mail content, two phone numbers, and my name. And storing it all in one place on a Google server. I opted to create a new G-Mail account. In spite of Google Voice’s amazing features, I’m going to have to ponder exactly how to put it to use, because the same things that make it cool make it creepy. You can record calls, transcribe them to text, do conference calls, and even pick up as someone leaves a voice message, just like an answering machine. All in one place. Which is exactly the issue. All in one place. On a Google server. I know we’ll all eventually have shaved heads, a number instead of a name, and be constantly under surveillance like in the George Lucas movie THX 1138. For now though, especially given the random Google privacy blunders that have already occurred, the insidious behavior of AT&T, and the way Google is invading every aspect of our lives, I’ll hang on to the last shreds of my illusions of privacy. Speaking of AT&T and Google: although Google’s already found a workaround to being blocked as an iPhone app, we should be thankful that AT&T and Google are still competitors. Remember. AT&T’s a telephone company. Not a communications company.

The Bad News Is That Good News Isn’t Free

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on August 7, 2009 by admin in Popular Media

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Rupert Murdoch wants his two dollars, and my hometown newspaper is better off dead.

Rupert Murdoch’s plan to start charging for online news is an interesting test of the theories laid out in the recent bestseller Free: The Future of a Radical Price. I think most consumers feel that given the quality of journalism over the past decade, the price of free news is just about right. It’s interesting to me that Murdoch would choose to monetize online news at a time when real-world papers are failing at an epidemic rate; I’m of the opinion that his massive media empire is simply unable – much like the music industry – to adapt to the evolving market. And apparently Gartner Research agrees. Unfortunately, with the current trend of blogs-as-news and Twitter-driven media, the problems created by completely profit-driven journalism (outlined nicely in the book The Elements of Journalism) are replaced with new ones, primarily a total lack of professionalism and ethical guidelines. I’m sorry to say that in the supposedly media-hip town that I live in, I did little grieving over its recently failed newspaper. It was an awful publication. And while I had some hopes for its online/hybrid replacement, they’ve created what many already feel is a failure of epic proportions. It’s hard to tell how bad the content is; the interface is so awful you’ll never find it! Likewise, even savvier attempts to infuse online news with a degree of journalistic professionalism and integrity – like The Faster Times – end up falling short in a number of ways. Maybe if the government somehow supported and regulated the news we could find a balance. That always turns out well. See you in the funny papers!

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Remembering Hiroshima

[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 6, 2009 by admin in Politics

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

As far as I’m concerned, the only good thing that came out of World War II was the 80′s song Enola Gay by OMD.


The Bikini Atoll Test

Albert Einstein, whose letters to FDR are credited with inspiring the race to build an atomic bomb, later said “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones“. Manhattan Project director J. Robert Oppenheimer, upon seeing the results of the Trinity Test, said “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds“, quoting the Bhagavad Gita. Ken Bainbridge, the test director on the project, is quoted as saying “Now we’re all sons of bitches.” None of this stopped the actual dropping of the bomb on August 6, 1945. And scientist and Truman advisor Karl T. Compton’s 1946 Atlantic article If the Atomic Bomb Had Not Been Used – while a realistic assessment – probably did little to absolve any of these men of their guilt and remorse in the coming years. I’m just glad a generation has been able to grow up without the ever-present threat of Mutual Assured Destruction, a concept that definitely drained my enthusiasm for living until my mid-twenties. We live in a much hipper era now, one in which we can play games to pick our own apocalypse, and in which the Mayor of Hiroshima can call for support of an ‘Obamajority’ that believes in nuclear-free world. Until that day comes – if it ever does – I think we owe it to ourselves to keep fresh an awareness of the horrifying devastation of nuclear war. Boston.com has a compelling photo collection documenting the bombing of Hiroshima, and the widget below lets you pick a city and see what affect various nuclear weapons will Read the rest of this entry »

What Are The Odds?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 5, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Although 72.3% of all statistics mentioned in casual conversation are inaccurate, I’d say the odds of you commenting on this are less than 1 in 30,000.

I’ve always said that 72.3% of all statistics mentioned in casual conversation are inaccurate. I’ve also always felt that paying attention to statistics is silly, because in spite of all the sophisticated math, there’s no way to tell when and where that 1 in 10 million chance of being attacked by a shark will occur. For instance, In 1985 NASA estimated that the probability of an accident occurring with the space shuttle was 1 in 100,000. But the 25th shuttle launch exploded after take-off, and the 113rd mission exploded on re-entry. Does that mean the next 198,998 missions will be accident-free? I just wasted an hour of my life at NationMaster.com, which has an amazing array of facts and statistics, and cross-references them in a way that I’d say creates a 33.3% chance that you’ll spend at least ten minutes on the site. Like, did you know that Russia has almost twice as many judges and magistrates as the United States, while the United States has 8 times as much crime? Or that America has the most McDonalds restaurants per capita, AND the highest number of obesity-related deaths? Coincidence? You decide. The NSC has some dry but interesting stats too. It’s hard to Read the rest of this entry »

So You Wanna Be A Rock & Roll Star – Part II

[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 4, 2009 by admin in Music

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Well, since your music probably sucks, you might as well plan on getting naked.


If you play your cards right,
you could end up as happily
successful as this fellow!

If you really have an interest in succeeding in pop music, there’s one way to avoid having to do many of the things we’ll suggest in this piece: be an absolutely f***ing brilliant songwriter with solid musicians to play your broadly accessible music. Then some top-notch management will find you, and your only battle after that will be not getting screwed by all the deals you’ll be offered. Since you almost certainly don’t have that particular set of attributes in your possession, ask yourself a few more questions about why you’re seeking to promote your music: Do you want to make a living at it? Are you convinced for some reason the world just needs to be exposed to your genius? Do you think you might have some reasonably marketable music, and wouldn’t mind getting paid for it? Have you been hitting the crack pipe pretty hard again? The fact is that even the established music industry has one of the highest failure rates of almost any business, and you’ll be entering one of the “noisiest” markets on the planet, alas, with a “naked” product. For some interesting thoughts about the new marketplace, check out Digital Music Can’t Be Marketed, which points out that you can’t really package and Read the rest of this entry »

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