PBS has an article on poll crashing, which interviews yours truly and Greg Laden about our curious penchant for sending mobs out to vote on silly online polls. They also interview some of the recipients of the floods…and no one seems to mind.
I’m afraid I just can’t take this seriously. Army intelligence analysts are concerned that terrorists might tweet each other. Or text each other. Or put Islamic wallpapers on their cell phones. Oooh.
Yes, they could. So? We’re living in a world where communications technologies are advancing rapidly and where people can talk to each other constantly over long distances. This is a neutral technology; bad guys can use it, and so can good guys, and so can boring ordinary people who just want to chat about the weather.
Latest threat: Air. Terrorists could use this medium to respire and fuel oxidative phosphorylation, providing extra physical energy to allow them to carry out strenuous evil activities. Plus, it keeps them alive. American anti-terrorist organizations must be made aware of the nefarious purposes to which oxygen can be applied.
I have been tempted many times by that over-expensive sexy slab of technology called the iPhone, so I don’t need Seed adding to the temptation with a list of science apps for the iPhone.
Fortunately, the strongest argument against the iPhone for me right now is that it’s closed and only supports one carrier…who does not offer good service in the wilderness of western Minnesota. If ever they opened the gadget up, though, or if ATT built a cell phone tower in my neighborhood, I’d have to rely on my wife’s ability to slap and shackle me to prevent wasteful spending.*
*Which is, obviously, a reason to hope for more flexible service plans even if I never buy one.
Look: you can buy me on Amazon now, for 99¢ cheap. It’s all through this strange new device Amazon is selling, called a Kindle, which is a fancy new e-book reader with some nice display technology and an absolutely evil business model. Now instead of buying books that you can do with as you please, you can lease them and get digital copies all bound up in DRM hindrances. The hardware is a step forward, the software lock-up of all the content is a big leap backwards, one that is going to doom it all to failure.
Kottke seems unimpressed, Business Week likes it, John Gruber hopes it flops. I’m with the nay-sayers.
Hey, is anyone reading this on a Kindle?
You would not believe what I just caughtSkatje doing — I am horrified at what my own child was perpetrating.
She was installing some abomination called “Ubuntu” on her computer.
My copy of Mac OS X Leopard is supposed to arrive tomorrow, and I am not going to share it with her. I may have to cut her out of the will.
The Seed editors asked us to reminisce about our quaint experiences with computing in the Old Days. Old nerds are so pathetic.
I’m much more enthused about an event in future computing: Leopard is coming out tomorrow! Laelaps has an anticipatory video of what Leopard is going to do to Windows — haul it up a tree and eat it for lunch.
Prepare yourself for the true religious wars: I’m asking for advice on a new laptop.
