November 2005 - Posts

The persecution of Samsung
Published 11-30-2005 11:10 PM | Mark
Samsung is a great company, producing a huge variety of quality electronics at astonishingly low prices. I was saddened to see that it's being extorted by our government to the tune of 300 million dollars . One of the ten thousand commandments of Antitrust...
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XBox 360 impressions
Published 11-27-2005 10:35 PM | Mark
Chris visited us for thanksgiving and bravely forced some turkey into his formerly vegetarian gullet. And I owe him a special thanks for bringing his XBox 360, which he won in the mountain dew contest. My overall impression is quite good. I only got to...
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The true story of Thanksgiving
Published 11-24-2005 7:56 PM | Mark
The first Thanksgiving was not about a happy multicultural melding of Pilgrim and Indian, as a matter of fact. The Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth had set up a communistic government in which the fruits of the land were equally shared. The end result...
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Myths shattered by the Internet
Published 11-23-2005 11:38 PM | Mark
Turkey does not make you sleepy. Stress and spicy food do not cause ulcers. The foreskin is not unhygienic. This shattered myth, unfortunately, has not led to an end of male genital mutilation, and tradition (normalcy) wins a round against rationality...
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Birth of a new media, part three
Published 11-21-2005 3:59 PM | Mark
The revolution in publishing that I spoke of in part one has many facets. One such facet is the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. Outlets like OSM.org may not even ultimately be necessary with a good aggregation tool, such as google.com/ig . I use...
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Birth of a new media, part two
Published 11-21-2005 3:50 PM | Mark
OSM.org has been a little disappointing so far. I think they are trying too hard to present each side of the political spectrum. I would prefer editors who follow a clear vision, rather than just presenting us with every opinion regardless of merit. My...
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Birth of a new media?
Published 11-16-2005 11:15 PM | Mark
Open Source Media (formerly known as "pajamas media") launched today. The miniaturization revolution marches on: with weblogs, there is no longer any friction in publishing one's words to the world. The person on the street, who sees it going down, can...
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How to tell if a news organization has no credibility, part two
Published 11-16-2005 3:13 PM | Mark
They bring out "experts" who provide us with dire warnings of how many people will die of Avian flu (or SARS, or whatever disease of the week is going to kill us all) If you're concerned about Avian Flu, read this article by Michael Fumento, who makes...
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Extended outage
Published 11-16-2005 3:11 PM | Mark
I apologize for the 2 day outage. My upstream signal got a bit hot and I lost internet and digital phone service yesterday. Such are the pitfalls of digital phone...
Hugo Chavez is a blight on the world
Published 11-14-2005 10:09 PM | Mark
And after reading the content of one of his tirades (which are a mandatory broadcast in Venezuela's state-controlled media), I am struck by how similar he is to the villains of Atlas Shrugged. The only difference: Rand's villains were far more introspective...
Eddie Guerrero is dead
Published 11-13-2005 11:01 PM | Mark
Professional wrestling is a hard life. The fact that Eddie Guerrero died today while brushing his teeth at the age of 38 is evidence of that. I no longer follow wrestling, but when I did, Eddie was one of my favorites. There are three basic types of wrestlers...
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How to tell if a news organization has no credibility, part one
Published 11-13-2005 2:52 PM | Mark
If your news organization believes Jesse Jackson and/or Al Sharpton speak for a race of people, then it has no credibility. Check out this recent CNN story , in which Jackson weighs in on the Terrell Owens flap. First, how can a man be a representative...
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Bretton Woods blogging
Published 11-12-2005 2:02 PM | Mark
This is the first time I have blogged from somewhere other than work or home. Here I am at the lovely Mount Washington Hotel , blogging from a crappy DSL connection in my hotel room. Mary and I are here with some family enjoying the "food and wine festival...
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Gifts for rioters
Published 11-09-2005 7:24 PM | Mark
This ought to work out for the French. When someone torches cars and buildings and attacks police and rescue workers, offer them gifts : - the creation of an anti-discrimination agency with special officials appointed to be in charge of certain regions...
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Nine Inch Nails post-mortem
Published 11-09-2005 1:57 PM | Mark
None of us wanted to drive into the heart of Boston, so we agreed to meet up with Mike's friend Tom, who planned to drive us to Wonderland to pick up the T over to the Fleet Center. Unfortunately, we got lost in a confusing series of roundabouts, though...
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