Why? Because.

 

I confess: I do use facebook

From George Takei, from whence comes all the funny:

Twitter’s April Fool . . . right?

Starting today, we are shifting to a two-tiered service: Everyone can use our basic service, Twttr, but you only get consonants. For five dollars a month, you can use our premium “Twitter” service which also includes vowels.

Still funny.

The presses shut down on a big one

Newsweek. Newsweek will cease print publication at the end of this year and become all digital. And there will be a pay wall.

We’ve seen this happening with lots of publications of course, but this is really huge. And there will be more to follow I’m sure.

When I worked in magazine publishing, which I did for many years, I did business with a number of the offset plants around the country who also printed Newsweek and Time. They were big companies those printers. No doubt in recent years, fewer plants and fewer personnel have been involved, so the damage won’t be as widespread as it once would have been, but damaging it will be to vendors of all stripes. Even today, Newsweek has been printing a million and a half copies every week.

Good news for the trees though.

 

 

The angry gods of the interwebs came for me today

First WordPress shut me out of multiple functions, something that’s been building over the last few days. I couldn’t even access the WP help forums and found no solace in outside forums. Deeply frustrated, I turned away and decided to make some calls.

Uh-oh. Dialing yields only a dial tone. I unplug and replug, I reboot, I turn off, I turn on. I change clothes and even re-comb my hair. Nothing. Nada. Sorry. Have a nice day.

So it was on to MagicJack live chat help – for a 53-minute long chat. That’s 53, as in fifty-three. They sent a few updates and did some remote resets. Once again there was much unplugging and replugging and even more rummaging around in Device Managers and such.

But they did it. Those sweet sweet kids in Bangladesh or wherever, fixed it. I am grateful.

So now one thing is fixed, but the WordPress problem sits there, waiting. More tries but it was just hitting a wall.

And yet here I am. Posting - because I decided to try the desktop. And voila! Everything works fine over here!

So the problem is in my laptop somewhere. And it is something beyond my ken. This may require a visit from the good Todd, he who fixes all things.

It is now four hours since I sat at my desk, four lost hours.

I’m going to have a Diet Coke.

I know. So last month, but still . . .

Well, there may be someone left who hasn’t seen this (266,000,000 hits on youtube right now) . . . I love the damn thing on every level, but ask – if you can bear it – that you take another look. Aside from the pure entertainment value, isn’t the color wonderful? The clothes, the backdrops, everything – wonderfully brilliant, almost neon colors. This is a palate I’m rather fond of.

Yeah,, but did you know . . .

Upworthy is a new shared site. I really don’t know how it works, but I like it a lot. The stuff that pops up there takes a bit of a sideways look at “content that is as fun to share as a FAIL video of some idiot surfing off his roof.”

But, they add:

. . . we believe the things that matter in the world don’t have to be boring and guilt-inducing. And the addictive stuff we love doesn’t have to be completely without substance.

Here’s something important from over there that’s rarely  mentioned outside the usual wonky sites. Nice to see it somewhere younger people might visit:

We already know that 90 percent of the media is controlled by six companies, 37 banks have been consolidated into four, 307 types of corn have been reduced to 12, and these 10 companies own practically everything else. What’s next?

Subscribe. It’s fun.

Nothing blog-whore-ey here. Absolutely not!

This is the image I used in my own ‘tanning lady’ post - back when she was still a story. It turned out to be quite popular on teh google and lo, thus did those seekers-of-wisdom-and-truth come right here, right to Whatever Works. And lo, they left their delicious digital signatures, and lo, they did cause my May site stats to soar and climb to a great big number. (It was an outlier. I know. I know. But still . . . )

So now, as an experiment – only an experiment of course, there is nothing blog-whore-ey about it – I’m re-posting that very picture (or ‘gooble-bait’ as I call it) to see what happens.

I myself see this as important research that must be done, so yup, I am so doing it.

I knew (well, I remember) Vice-President Gore. And you, Gov. Romney, are no Al Gore.

Romney was at an auto company yesterday, speechifying:

“I pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy, and . . .  the companies got back on their feet . . .  So, I’ll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry has come back.”

As liberals gear up the outrage over that one, the push back will be ‘but Gore said he invented the internet’!!! Which, of course, he never said. And what he did say  was true.

To wit: as we now know, Gore was one of the first inductees into the Internet Hall of Fame cuz:

[he] was ”Instrumental in helping  to create the ‘Information Superhighway,’ Gore was one of the first government  officials to recognize that the Internet’s impact could reach beyond academia to  fuel educational and economic growth as well.”

Too bad they didn’t induct the late Sen. Ted Stevens, who took the iniative to create the word “intertubes”

Politico has the story:

Former Veep Al  Gore is now getting a bit of credit for his infamous 1999 claim that “I took  the initiative in creating the Internet”: He’ll be one of the first inductees  into the Internet Hall of Fame

The names were announced Monday at the Internet Society’s Global INET 2012  conference in Geneva, Switzerland, and Gore was placed in the “Global  Connectors” category for having “made significant contributions to the global  growth and use of the Internet.”

The group’s description of Gore states: “Al Gore, the 45th Vice President of the  United States, was a key proponent of sponsoring legislation that funded the  expansion of and greater public access to the Internet. Instrumental in helping  to create the ‘Information Superhighway,’ Gore was one of the first government  officials to recognize that the Internet’s impact could reach beyond academia to  fuel educational and economic growth as well.”

Sure sounds to me like he  took him some initiative there.

This is a sea change . . . kids don’t want to drive

Really. Tale a look at this chart from Ad Age.  Apparently the trend is common knowledge in the auto, advertising and marketing industries. And probably quite a few others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No one is quite sure why, although young people themselves cite environmental concerns.  And since it’s a 30-year trend, it’s probably not because of unemployment or gas prices.

One theory – and the one that fascinates me – is that things like Skype and Facebook have given younger generations a new way to be together, without actually ‘being together.’

Laughing out loud: Maru is back in tip top form

Watch it – you know you want to! Maru is one determined cat, who lives in so clean and uncluttered a house that it makes me wonder if he is really a visitor from the future - where they’ve somehow conquered dust and dirt and grease?

Newt’s gonna lose it after all

Andrew Sullivan surfed the interwebs tonight so we didn’t have to and gathered this damning round-up of conservative post-debate commentary. Not seeing anything but good news for Romney here:

Rod Dreher thought Romney wiped the floor with Gingrich:

Romney won this debate, and probably Florida, and so the nomination. Newt collapsed, as bullies and blowhards often do when somebody fights back. Santorum auditioned for Romney’s VP, and greatly enhanced his chances. Ron Paul shines on, that crazy diamond [great line].

Will Wilkinson seconds him:

Romney started strong, completely obliterating Newt on immigration and questions about his finances, and then stayed strong. Santorum again turned in an admirably dogged performance, but so what? Romney won the debate and the nomination.

Larison likewise expects a Romney win in Florida:

Romney held off Gingrich, and Gingrich was flailing most of the night. Unless something strange happens in the next few days, Romney should hold his lead in Florida. Santorum may have gained a little, but nowhere near enough to challenge for second place. Paul did a decent job tonight, but Florida is not a good state for him and he’s already looking to the caucus events in February.

There’s much, much more at the link. All of it worth a read if you’re interested in the Florida vote on Monday Tuesday.

Or just read the rest here after the jump.

I’m “going black” Wednesday

This site, along with hundreds of thousands of sites around the world (millions of sites?), will ‘go black’ at 8:00 a.m. today – and stay down for 12 hours – to protest the proposed U.S. legislation (SOPA/PIPA), which poses a real threat to a free internet and to freedom of speech on the internet. It’s being supported by and lobbied for by some of the world’s largest multinationals, who will benefit financially.

The SOPA legislation purports to provide protection for intellectual property, but is in fact toxic and dangerous. Watch the video here. You can sign the petition here.

See you back here after 8:00 pm tonight.

“We are currently experiencing . . .

Me today - if I weren't a girl

. . . connection problems at Comast.net.”

I’ve been unable to access my email this morning. Withdrawal symptoms are appearing.

The laptop (with Outlook) had to check into intensive care yesterday; on this machine, I have to go directly to comcast.net – and I can’t. Are there drugs for this?

And ooohhhh . . . has Comcast been hacked?

UPDATE: Email back. Cable gone. Comcast is screwing with me today.

Maru wears a bag

Take some comfort in this: no matter the political and geo-political upheavals in our world, some things remain unchanged. S0me things are forever.

 

Thanks Liz. I needed that.

That’s what I always assumed; didn’t you?

You may already be familiar with Americans Elect, the group working to put an internet-nominated presidential candidate on the ballot in 50 states.  Just visited there to see what names have been submitted to date.

Es un milagro!

Google Translate will now do your entire website with the simple click of a button. Quite remarkable. Or . . . es un milagro! (h/t mac).

Verizon is watching

On Wednesday I wrote a post complaining about Verizon and just now I find a comment there from . . . Verizon.

Honest. Go look. Don’t quite know what to make of it.

Like it could be worse. I’ll take anything that isn’t nuts.

Your 2012 candidate, conveniently running on both tickets

It could be that it’s too late for real electoral reform in this country but a few things suggest that Americans are still looking to find ways to express their dissatisfaction with the parties. One is Ron Paul – his  appeal is in large part because he doesn’t spout a party line. Another is Chris Christie – not for his ideas, but for his candor which has been so lacking in our politics for so long. Even the Tea Party (which may have started as a legitimate independent movement but was quickly co-opted by Americans for Prosperity ) arose out of dissatisfaction with the parties. That movement quickly  attracted an ugly element, which will ultimately delegitimize them (even if they’re everyone’s favorite prom date this week).

Grass-roots movements pop up in every election cycle (anyone remember the Natural Law Party?), who tend to make a small splash and then slide back below the waves.

Here’s one that looks promising. It is at least unique and reflects some original thinking. It’s not a protest movement,; these guys want to get right in there and mix it up. I like their idea. We’ve changed the way we nominate and elect national candidates many times over the years and there’s no reason we can’t do it again.

Americans Elect has a plan to host the first ever, nonpartisan, online convention and put the resulting ticket on the ballot in all 50 states, bypassing the two parties. They’re collecting the necessary signatures to get on those ballots and have almost two million already.

This is from the PBS News Hour last week:

Go sign their petition.

Gubmint nevah could do nuffin’ right

Except invent the internet. And computers. And other stuff. And then give the technology to American businesses to launch entirely new industries. Damn gubmint!

From wikipedia, here’s how it came to be:

ENIAC ( /ˈɛni.æk/; Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer)^[1][2] was the first general-purpose electronic computer.  . .  ENIAC was designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army‘s Ballistic Research Laboratory.^[4][5]  When ENIAC was announced in 1946 it was heralded in the press as a “Giant Brain”. It boasted speeds one thousand times faster than electro-mechanical machines, a leap in computing power that no single machine has since matched. This mathematical power, coupled with general-purpose programmability, excited scientists and industrialists. The inventors promoted the spread of these new ideas by teaching a series of lectures on computer architecture.

The ENIAC’s design and construction was financed by the United States Army during World War II. The construction contract was signed on June 5, 1943, and work on the computer began in secret by the University of Pennsylvania‘s Moore School of Electrical Engineering starting the following month under the code name “Project PX”. The completed machine was announced to the public the evening of February 14, 1946^[6] and formally dedicated the next day^[7] at the University of Pennsylvania, having cost almost $500,000 (nearly $6 million in 2010, adjusted for inflation).^[8]

Like so much Research & Development, it was financed with taxpayer dollars. We used to think that was a good way to spend money.

Maru is three! Let the party commence!

Maru! The most famous cat on the intertubes - probably the most famous cat in the world – has  his own facebook page here and his own YouTube channel here (with almost 3 million subscribers!). Either place you can find all the videos that made Maru famous;  you’ll see Maru eating, napping, running, staring and even refusing to look at the camera. Maru’s charm is that his very ordinariness has made him a star. Maru is us.

Here is a video collage. Watch it and you’ll love the guy too.

Balloon Juice Day here at Whatever Works

For those amongst you who aren’t savvy to the ways of the netroots, John Cole (again) put up a post this morning asking for funds to send a Balloon Juice contributor to Netroots Nation, the huge annual convention of lefty bloggers, politicians and other media types. But mostly bloggers.

So Cole wants to send someone and posts a ‘bleg’ (i.e., to beg on a blog) for financial support to make it happen. Here’s how it goes:

Hello all- we are going to hold a brief, brief fundraiser this morning to pay for Kay to hit Netroots Nation . . . This isn’t too expensive a trip:

Hotel expenses are 390- $130 a night.
Air fare is 450.
I figure 300 for expenses, food, and other things.
And then another 300 for registration. All in all, we are shooting for about 1440. So if you are interested in helping pay for the BJ rep, hit the paypal link.

UPDATE:  At $750 at 11 am. Almost halfway.

UPDATE: STOP. We are at $1600. No more donations needed unless you want them spent on liquor and cat treats.

It took an hour. Lucky Kay.

Seen here some of the young bloggers of the left at  the first Netroots Nation, including Cenk  Uygur and Sam Seder who have both moved into traditional media.

Henry Ford made cars but he didn’t build any roads.

We suffer legions of fellow citizens who hate government and are certain that all innovation and growth comes from the almighty private sector, driven by individualists and innovators.

I copy/pasted this some months back and failed to copy the link. It speaks to this point better than anything I’ve ever read. And I don’t know who said it. So my apologies the author and my thanks for the fine words.

Decades of relentless Republican hate-mongering against the government has done its job.

Never mind that it was government that pulled off the greatest feat of social engineering in history. In 1900, only 4% of Americans graduated from high school. By 2000, more than 80% did. It was this mass educated public that made possible the most technically sophisticated economy in the history of the world.

It was government that won both World War I and World War II, leaving the U.S. economy astride the world like a colossus, able to harvest the fruits for decades. It was the government GI Bill program that educated a generation of young people to ultimately defeat the Soviet Union.

It was the government that wired every house in the country for electricity during the Great Depression, setting up the largest household consumer-goods market in the world in the 1950s: home appliances. And it was government guarantees for home loans that set off the greatest building boom in the history of the world: suburbia.

It was government that paved more than 3 million miles of road between 1930 and 1960, making possible the massive economic boom associated with automobiles, mass mobility, and more. It was government research that invented the graphical user interface (I remember when we called it ‘gooey’) and the Internet.

Of course, none of that matters.

Just like Upton Sinclair*

First, an aside: Here, now, and right up there next to the essential new noun ‘truthiness‘, comes an essential new verb, ‘acorned’.   I found it this morning and apologize to the original author for already forgotting where it came from. It’s a very good new word, so I expect we will  see it everywhere soon.

Now, on to the post: NPR has a posted a detailed examination of the latest James O’Keefe sting. He’s the guy who considers himself a muckraking journalist. He’s not. He’s a muckraking fabulist. Some months back O’Keefe took down Acorn with a fraudulent report. He tried to do the same with Sen. Mary Landreau but he got caught, breaking into her office and files. That’s a crime and he pled guilty. Most recently, he took down a bit of  NPR’s credibility the same way, using wildly edited surepticious audio and video. Guy has a terrific record. His success is only possible in our current cable news and internet climate where any video must be shown long before it’s truthiness is ascertained.

I can’t summarize what NPR has at the link (a bit late guys!) but here’s a bit from Jonathan Turley’s post:

Mom must be proud

 

For example, the tape released to the public shows Schiller laughing with the men as they described how their “organization sought to spread the acceptance of sharia across the world.” NPR notes that “[i]n reality, as the longer tape shows, that laughter follows an innocuous exchange as Schiller and Liley greet the two supposed donors at their table.” Other more disturbing claims of misleading edits are contained in the NPR analysis.

Also, it seems that Mr. Glenn Beck may be correct about the looming apocolypse. How else to explain that Beck’s own website The Blaze and its editor worked together with NPR on deconstructing the O’Keefe hack job.

(*Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle exposed the practices of the American meat processing industry leading to wide reforms – and no doubt saving thousands of lives.)

YouTube just went and lost me

Boy . . . I step away from the computer for a few days and bandersnatches sneak  in to have some fun with my settings.

Suddenly I am unknown at youtube;, I need a password to sign in. I have tried repeatedly with the password I have on my little list. No go. Clicked the old ‘forgot  my password button’. Set a new one. Tried to sign in again. No go. Tells me another user – me actually – already has my email address so I’ll need to set up a new google account. But hey, fellas! I have settings! I have favorites! I have some history here and I need access to it.

Any ideas? Is it because I forgot the oldie  on Friday? Is this punishment?

Protest in a vacuum

This is disturbing. If it works, other nations will take notice. Right now, we – and more importantly, they - are dependent on ‘old’ media.

Egypt Cuts Off Most Internet and Cell Service
Egypt has cut off nearly all Internet traffic into and out of the country in the largest blackout of its kind, according to firms that monitor international data flows. Cellphone networks were also disrupted.

Coming to a tweet near you!

From Sherri at A Feather Adrift. Meet SIWOTI, a new achronym, from xkcd.com: