Archive for 2010
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »Google’s Chrome OS Takes All Your Computing To The Cloud
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on December 8, 2010 by admin in Technology
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010Awesome. But why the heck would you want to do that?
The tech industry was abuzz the last few days with talk about Google’s introduction of their Chrome OS and notebook on Tuesday. If this means nothing to you, Wired has a good in-depth look here, but in a nutshell, Google announced that they’re launching their cloud-centric operating system and web-based software store in conjunction with a lightweight laptop that has no hard disc drive, comes with a 100MB a month Verizon wireless data plan, and essentially runs all your software and stores all your files on the web. A true cloud computing experience. While I must confess to being a bit of a Goldilocks-like would-be early adopter, always pouting “this porridge is too hot” or “this porridge doesn’t have USB“, I have to say that I have absolutely NO IDEA why they’re pursuing this strategy. Well, actually I do, and suspect it’s based on some of the same trickery that Apple used to get us excited about their new device (the iPad) when what they really were selling us was a platform to buy more stuff from them. What I don’t understand is why you or I would want to follow them down this road. Or up this sky, as the case may be. The selling points that Google highlights in cute videos – like instant web, same experience everywhere, always connected – are great. But underlying all of this “don’t worry about your files and software, we’ll take care of that for you” approach is something that still troubles me. I’m sometimes accused of being a little paranoid, and forced to pull out the old William Burroughs line that “A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on“. But here’s the thing. While cloud computing makes a lot of sense for a variety of enterprise scenarios, why on GoogleEarth would you want ALL of your software running on a Google server somewhere, and more importantly, all your PERSONAL FILES? The recent US government-mandated shutdowns of WikiLeaks from providers like Amazon and PayPal should be a potent reminder that if you want to keep control of your stuff, don’t give control of it to a large corporation. And perhaps especially not one whose CEO has such interesting views on privacy. Or one that has such a curious relationship with a company like Verizon. Or that wants to take your CAPS LOCK key away. But seriously, in spite of my perpetual tech cynicism, I’m intrigued to see where Google goes with the Chrome venture, enough so that I’m signing up for their pilot program in the hopes of being a test user. See Google’s introductory clip below.
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Best Politician Of 2010
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on December 7, 2010 by admin in Politics
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010Help us pick a winner. We thought we had one in Tom Delay, then he went and got CONVICTED, so this year we’ve opened the contest to international entries. The race is still tight with Gaddafi and Kim Jong giving Obama and Lieberman a real run for the money.
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This is only the second year we’ve selected a “politician of the year”, so we haven’t sorted out all of the ground rules yet, but we assumed one rule would be that the same politician couldn’t win two years in a row. So Joe Lieberman and Barack Obama were originally not nominees, since they shared the award last year. Well, we’ve reconsidered. Since Obama keeps acting more like Bush than Bush did without even having Dick Cheney around to goad him on, and since an Australian hacker provided more transparency in government in one weekend than Obama has in almost two years, Obama’s back in. And Joe Lieberman’s sudden decision to appoint himself Lord Master of the Internet means he’s back in the running too. We thought we had a sure winner with Tom Delay; his gallivanting around on “Dancing With The Stars” while awaiting sentencing on money laundering charges was the most politician-like behavior we’ve seen since John Edwards got caught whoring around while his wife was dying of cancer. But then Delay went and got convicted, breaking the most basic rule of politics: Break any law you want if it means winning, just don’t get caught. So in the end, we decided we were limiting ourselves by only considering American politicians for the award. It’s like reaching into the same basket of moderately rotten apples hoping for a really wormy one and always being disappointed. This year, the award is going international, and we’re open to suggestions. We’ve presented some candidates below to get you thinking.
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Science Friction Part II – Resistance Is Futile, With Proper Lubrication
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on December 6, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Monday, December 6th, 2010And for the sci-fi resistant, comedy can ease your entry into the genre.
We recently pondered why science fiction doesn’t find a broader market, and suggested a few exceptional and overlooked films from the last few years to help the sci-fi impaired give the genre another chance. But the fact is that even if you think you don’t like sci-fi, there’s a good chance you’ve watched a sci-fi film and enjoyed it, without even realizing it. Back to the Future
WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange Arrested?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on December 5, 2010 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Sunday, December 5th, 2010Maybe in the development of his interpersonal skills, but his character flaws give us an important glimpse into the collective psyche of the entire human race.
I used to jokingly say that I loved the human race, it was just the dirty little specks that make it up that I wasn’t always so crazy about. I think this is something most of us share to some degree; we may be much more particular about whom we allow into our more intimate circle, but “the crowd” is okay enough that we’ll go watch a football game with them, even if we favor opposing teams. I’ve been thinking about this a lot as the whole WikiLeaks drama has unfolded over the last few months. I find myself having some conflicting thoughts, first being gung-ho about the information being leaked, then pondering if Assange has ruined the future of this kind of transparency with his celebrity, and then thinking that perhaps having his face on the organization is the only way it could all work. But when Tea Baggers start calling for the CIA to kill Assange, and party-hopping, self-interested plutocrats like Joe Lieberman intimidate Amazon.com into refusing to host WikiLeaks’ content, I become convinced that regardless of my or anyone else’s personal opinions about Assange as a public figure, he’s playing a crucial role. Apparently Daniel Ellsberg (of the Pentagon Papers fame) agrees, and with much more integrity than I; he actually canceled his Amazon account. We live in an era when an oligarchical corporatocracy runs a government that’s comprised mainly of wealthy team players that put on an exceptional dog and pony show to maintain the illusion that they’re representing a populace they’ve divided straight down the middle with peripheral issues while they midwife the birth of the full-blown corporation state. And that glimpse into the collective psyche I mentioned? It’s first of all very telling that a lot of Wikileaks’ insiders departed as soon as the heat started rising a little. His harshest critics are people in the same field; the founder of Cryptome.org criticizes him in the tech media, while on the Cryptome site they call WikiLeaks “cowardly” for too much redaction of the documents. It smacks a little of the kind of quiet rage you expect amongst young hackers who are jealous of each others’ accomplishments. But it’s even more telling that a government that taps our phones, places bomb conspirators in our places of faith, and demands full body pat-downs when we travel doesn’t want US to know what THEY’RE doing. In the end, I think this is all really about the almost universal assumption that deceit is a fundamental requirement of human interaction and governance. Personally, I don’t think it is. And I think (or at least hope) that whatever happens to WikiLeaks in particular, that this could be the dawn of a new era in journalism and information sharing. Mark Pesce of ABC (the Australian one) takes an interesting look at that idea here, and the Associated Press acknowledges their implication in the leaks in this piece, in which they talk about the cooperation between WikiLeaks and The New York Times, Le Monde in France, El Pais in Spain, The Guardian in Britain and Der Spiegel in Germany.
Celling Your Soul – The Staggering Global Impact Of Cell Phones
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on December 4, 2010 by admin in Clean & Green
Saturday, December 4th, 2010Forget your CARBON footprint, what about your KARMIC footprint? We have barely begun to assess the devastating environmental, social, and ethical effects of the life cycle of mobile phones and other electronic devices that rely on rare earth minerals.
The other day a friend was rather pridefully showing off the Prius they had just bought. I thought it was pretty cool that this person (who travels quite a bit) was actually excited about getting greener. We started joking about their carbon footprint, because they fly regularly, and obviously it’s hard to offset that by simply buying a car, which we acknowledged with a little humor. But then I said “what about your karmic footprint?”, which drew a perplexed look. I explained that as cool as a Prius is regarding energy consumption, it’s loaded with electronics and rare earth metals, and its parts must be made in at least a half-dozen countries. What about the labor conditions? The fuel used for transport? The environmental impact where the rare-earth metals were mined in China? My friend is a shamelessly ruthless capitalist, and although the biggest part of my carbon footprint is probably my cigarette smoking, I’m more of a hopeful realist than a teary-eyed treehugger, so the conversation got pretty interesting after that. We shifted the focus to other products, especially electronics, and agreed at the end that there was one product that packed more evil per pound than anything else in the world of consumerism: The Cell Phone. From the beginning to the end (and perhaps especially in the middle) of its life cycle (which is far too short) the cell phone does more human harm than any product ever imagined, with the exception, of course, of those produced for the military, which are intentionally designed to cause death, destruction, and suffering. This all sounds like hyperbole, but although the hard facts about environmental impacts aren’t in – and may never be unless China stops selling us rare earth minerals and we start making the things here – some basic numbers about volume of production and consumption are available, and they’re staggering. Just look at the figures below. If there’s someone you want to kill but you find the thought of ending a human life abhorrent, get over it. The impact of your lifetime cell-phone usage will probably accomplish the same thing, but at the expense of a total stranger. Read the rest of this entry »