Saturday, 18 December 2010
Friday, 17 December 2010
While granting that the Fokker franchise is a long way from "Taxi Driver" or "The Graduate", if they're going to agree to shill for their latest film on the talk show circuit, shouldn't DeNiro and Hoffman at least sit up straight in their chairs?
Watching Letterman read past movie glories from sheets of paper while his guests schlumped down in their seats was probably as painful to perform as it was to watch, but I'm not a professional TV watcher, while they are considered highly-regarded actors.
So act interested, will ya?
What an awkward segment.
Watching Letterman read past movie glories from sheets of paper while his guests schlumped down in their seats was probably as painful to perform as it was to watch, but I'm not a professional TV watcher, while they are considered highly-regarded actors.
So act interested, will ya?
What an awkward segment.
Monday, 13 December 2010
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Monday, 6 December 2010
Saturday, 4 December 2010
Thursday, 2 December 2010
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people....To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of statesmanship. - Theodore Roosevelt
Bully. Bully.
Bully. Bully.
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Monday, 22 November 2010
It all makes perfect sense now.
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Monday, 8 November 2010
I've been doing a slow burn since the election as the avalanche of excuses for why Dems lost the House and some key Senate seats has roared down the media mountain.
Thankfully, David Sirota has taken the time to summarize the issues at hand.
David lays out all the reasons why Dems lost. You should give it a read.
Thankfully, David Sirota has taken the time to summarize the issues at hand.
Go fuck yourself because all of your arguments are about what policies should be pursued to rescue Democratic politicians' electoral future, rather than about what policies are needed to rescue, say, the fucking country's future. Additionally, go fuck yourself because if you know so much about winning elections and if you are so sure conservadem-ism/Blue Dog-ism is the way to win said elections, how come it was the conservadems/Blue Dog candidates - not liberal candidates - who lost the most elections this year?
Also, go fuck yourself because the fact that you are even trying to create the same old bash-the-liberals debate exposes you not just as substantively wrong, but as professionally employed to despoil our culture with bullshit -- and specifically, with bullshit that you know is bullshit. That, really, everyone knows is bullshit.
David lays out all the reasons why Dems lost. You should give it a read.
Friday, 5 November 2010
How Matt Taibbi is able to continually squeeze through the bullshit and come out crystal clear on the other side is beyond me, but his analysis of the Olbermann campaign contribution kerfuffle is spot-on.
We had a whole generation of journalists who sat by and did nothing while, for instance, George Bush led us into an idiotic war on a lie, plus thousands more who spent day after day collecting checks by covering Britney's hair and Tiger's text messages and other stupidities while the economy blew up and two bloody wars went on mostly unexamined... and it's Keith Olbermann who should "pay the price" for being unethical? Because, and let me get this straight, he donated money, privately, to politicians?
This is absurd even by GE's standards. There is no reason, not even a theoretical one, why any journalist should be prevented from having political opinions and participating in election campaigns in his spare time. The policy would be ridiculous even if we were talking about an evening news anchor -- because the only "ethical" question here is the issue of NBC wanting to preserve the appearance of impartiality and being unable to do so, because political contributions happen to be public record and impossible to hide from viewers.
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
I listened to part of Obama's post-election presser today, and I had to turn it off. I thought about what he was saying and knew I had a problem with it, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why.
Thankfully, there's Paul Krugman:
Thankfully, there's Paul Krugman:
Nobody cares about this stuff — they care about results. Nobody really cares about earmarks; they’re just code for spending less (less on somebody else, of course, not me). Nobody cares about civility and bipartisanship, which in practice are code for Democrats giving in to Republican demands. Nobody cares about parliamentary maneuvers: we can argue about the role of health reform in the election, but I bet not one voter in 50 knows or cares that it was passed using reconciliation (as were the sacred Bush tax cuts we must, must retain).
If Obama had used fancy footwork and 2 AM sessions to pass a big public works program, and this program had brought unemployment down, Republicans would be screaming about the process — and Democrats would have comfortably held control of Congress. Remember the voter backlash against the way Medicare drug benefits were passed? Neither do I.
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Saturday, 23 October 2010
Could someone please tell journalists to write 1000 words on reality. I realize this might be more difficult than simply cutting and pasting press releases from the GOP, and columnists might not get invited to the cool parties anymore, but for crying out loud.
On a positive note, I'll bet half of Americans can name eight contestants on Dancing With The Stars.
The Citizens United decision was terrible on several levels. We're already seeing the effects of torrential special interest money cascading through this election cycle. I just want to veg out and watch an hour of television, but that means sitting through a monsoon of campaign ads full of lies, half-truths, selective interpretations, and negativity. I can't do it.
Money rules politics and government. It always has, and it always will. The system is engineered to ensure that never changes. I get it.
Thankfully, there are still a couple of folks who believe in transparency. Will Tom Perriello win? No idea. But I'm glad he's fighting the good fight.
Money rules politics and government. It always has, and it always will. The system is engineered to ensure that never changes. I get it.
Thankfully, there are still a couple of folks who believe in transparency. Will Tom Perriello win? No idea. But I'm glad he's fighting the good fight.
That said, if the press corp was doing its job, and our government could tell the truth and maintain some sort of temerity to stick to American values and traditions, Wikileaks would be irrelevant.
We reap what we sow sometimes. Let the outrage begin.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
Friday, 22 October 2010
Thursday, 21 October 2010
This is a fascinating piece in Scientific American about the six primary steps in the escape theory that culminates in probable suicide when all the criteria are met.
In considering people’s motivations for killing themselves, it is essential to recognize that most suicides are driven by a flash flood of strong emotions, not rational, philosophical thoughts in which the pros and cons are evaluated critically. And, as I mentioned in last week’s column on the evolutionary biology of suicide, from a psychological science perspective, I don’t think any scholar ever captured the suicidal mind better than Florida State University psychologist Roy Baumeister in his 1990 Psychological Review article , “Suicide as Escape from the Self.” To reiterate, I see Baumeister’s cognitive rubric as the engine of emotions driving deCatanzaro’s biologically adaptive suicidal decision-making. There are certainly more recent theoretical models of suicide than Baumeister’s, but none in my opinion are an improvement. The author gives us a uniquely detailed glimpse into the intolerable and relentlessly egocentric tunnel vision that is experienced by a genuinely suicidal person.
As much as I love Steelers football, either be a professional or retire already.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
Monday, 18 October 2010
Brian Krebs, writing in his Krebs on Security blog, comments on reports from Microsoft that the number of attacks against Java vulnerabilities has overtaken attacks against Adobe products. Adobe is obviously breathing a sigh of relief.
Says Krebs:
Says Krebs:
My research shows the reason for the spike, and it precedes the 3rd quarter of 2010: Java exploits have been folded into a number of the top “exploit packs,” commercial crimeware kits sold in the hacker underground that make it simple to seed hacked or malicious sites with code that exploits a variety of browser flaws in a bid to install malware.
All automation, all the time. Point and click assaults on known threat vectors. If you install it, they will come.
I'm less concerned because I run Linux boxes, but I still exercise caution with the Java in my environment. Relying on Java's auto-update feature has proven woefully inadequate.
Krebs has previously recommended removing Java from your machine if possible, but it's so intertwined with browsers and third-party apps that successfully getting Java off and keeping it off is a Herculean task.
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Love Matt Taibbi:
But these Tea Partyers make themselves fair game with their preposterous absolutist stance on government. If you call Obamacare radical socialism and unemployment insurance a parasitic welfare state program—well, guess what, asshole, you’re going to get rung up when we find out you had your whole family living off state medical aid and farm subsidies.
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Gin and Tacos has a plaintive piece on the absolute futility of expecting either party to solve the unemployment dilemma via more magical "job retraining" programs:
No, we can't.
The problem, of course, is that we can retrain people until the cows come home and it won't matter because the jobs aren't there. We keep adding more people to the game of musical chairs, and if the number of chairs doesn't increase it really doesn't matter how quick the players are. So when the White House announces the thousandth "job training initiative" of the last 20 years in response to the current levels of unemployment it is hard not to laugh. Retraining for what? The stated goal is to match the unemployed with the needs of the major companies behind the plans, including Gap and McDonald's. It's sad that people need to be retrained to reach the level of competence necessary to fold sweaters at Old Navy or supervise high schoolers at McDonald's. Anyone else wonder if the difficulty in filling those positions, if indeed there is any, has anything to do with the fact that an adult can't live off of the money they're paying? Can't quite "retrain" ourselves around that problem, can we.
No, we can't.
Saturday, 2 October 2010
Friday, 1 October 2010
Saturday, 25 September 2010
I think Peter Daou is right:
America is in an Age of Denial, a time in which intolerable injustices are widely ignored, from preventable hunger, poverty and disease to irreversible environmental destruction to the global oppression of girls and women.
It is an age where wealth disparities are at record levels, where a war based on lies and deceptions that resulted in unimaginable carnage is heralded as a success, where the assault on basic rights and liberties is greeted with a yawn — if not a cheer.
Friday, 24 September 2010
If you're not shielding the ATM keypad before entering your PIN number, this video will demonstrate the error of your ways.
With the use of card skimming devices on the rise, and given the public's inability to determine if an ATM has been compromised, shielding the keypad is one of the only defenses available.
Via Gawker
With the use of card skimming devices on the rise, and given the public's inability to determine if an ATM has been compromised, shielding the keypad is one of the only defenses available.
Via Gawker
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Monday, 20 September 2010
Monday, 13 September 2010
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Matt Taibbi is poking at David Brooks again, but I happen to agree with this particular passage:
A few weeks before that I tried on a friend’s recommendation to get into Entourage and gave up after it struck me that it was the same show as Sex and the City – a drama about a foursome of impulsive yuppies with lots of disposable income who spend half of each show buying brand-name consumer products to make them feel better about having no brains/soul. And the plot of pretty much every reality show is the same: ordinary middle American Joes with poor taste meet silver-tongued, fake-boobed Hollywood/New York shopping expert, who tells them what a shitty house they’ve been living in and what ugly shoes they’re wearing, and hands them a bunch of cash so that they can shop themselves back to superficial respectability. The public seems to have a limitless appetite for this awful stuff, which makes me wonder if it’s possible to clinically diagnose an entire country with depression.
Friday, 27 August 2010
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| I Have a Scheme | ||||
| ||||
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Saturday, 7 August 2010
Smart sometimes still wins.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
It's unsettling to click a link and find that you're connected to thousands of people without your knowledge, even though that's sort of the purpose of social networking tools on the Internet.
Who does Google know that you know? - Boing Boing
Who does Google know that you know? - Boing Boing
Friday, 6 August 2010
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| I Give Up - 9/11 Responders Bill | ||||
| ||||
Thursday, 5 August 2010
What if a critical flaw in Adobe Reader was demonstrated before a group of security professionals at the Black Hat conference and none of them made a sound, either?
That's what Charlie Miller must be thinking. He's the security expert that presented the vulnerability at Black Hat. His lament?
"Adobe security is so bad that […] not a single person tweeted it. Sad."
Adobe has acknowledged the flaw and is said to be working on a fix. Whether the patch is released out of band or at Adobe's next scheduled quarterly security release remains to be seen. Also unclear is the list of versions impacted by the vulnerability. The only good news is that there are no reports of exploits in the wild.
Some question how many more security blows Adobe can endure before going down for the count. My response is to look at Microsoft's track record. Many years into their latest secure coding push, Redmond is scheduled to release 14 patches to close 34 vulnerabilities in their August 2010 Bulletin Release. This mandates a massive amount of testing and deployment for enterprise customers, yet Windows is still the dominant operating system and office suite. The cost of switching away is substantial due to user training, infrastructure, and application impacts that it's almost cheaper to stick with the ugliness you know.
The same holds true for Adobe. It's the PDF reader with the most saturation, and not just among corporate environments. Home users are virtually guaranteed to have Adobe Reader installed on their systems, even though fully functional alternatives exist. Many have found Reader installed as a bundled offering from another application. The home user is also more likely to have an unpatched operating system and outdated software offerings, making exploit trivial. Antivirus protection? Please.
Adobe's install base and numerous versions places the company in the same predicament as Microsoft. There's a lot of old, insecure stuff out there, and even offering an automatic update solution only partially solves the problem. If Adobe can get 80% of the vulnerable installs patched, that still leaves hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of ripe targets out there. And when the next critical Adobe flaw appears - and you know it's when, and not if - the hamster wheel spins again.
My advice is the same as always. Dump Adobe products for less target-rich alternatives. A simple Google search on PDF readers will return scores of options onto your screen. Be sure to completely uninstall any Adobe software currently on your machine, being wary of third-party apps that might have plunked down some version while you whistled through a boring install routine. If in doubt, use Task Manager to look for processes associated with Adobe products.
Otherwise, abandon hope all ye who enter Adobeville. Like another Scream sequel, this will not end well.
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
I wouldn't mind having a BioErgonomic pen, even though I do a lot more typing that writing these days. Anything that's better for my body gets a thumbs-up.
But does it need to look like a johnson? And will the tip dry out if I don't put the cap back on?
Can I call it the Bic Dick?
Does it come with its own rollerballs?
Does the ink turn the paper yellowish over time?
I believe I will stop now.
Geekologie
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I guess killing the good bacteria in your gastrointestinal system while also knocking off bad bacteria elsewhere is something of a trade-off.
I hope I'm not in the middle of a long car ride if this kicks in. That would suck.
For everyone.
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Monday, 2 August 2010
No one outside of this infuriating clique cares unless the result is lower unemployment, exits from two wars, and no more hungry children.
Sunday, 1 August 2010
The etymology of the phrase “drill, baby, drill” is derived from the legendary words attributed to Bill Epton, a militant black activist who was jailed for uttering “burn, baby, burn” in response to the Harlem riots of 1964
And:
Once upon a time in America, a black man was convicted and imprisoned because the words “burn, baby, burn” were an incitement to violence. A few decades later, a black man was elevated to the chairmanship of the Republican Party because the words “drill, baby, drill” were an incitement to jingoistic fervor.
So how does she manage to translate the past to the present?
I know, you weren’t expecting me to go all college professor on you. You probably just asked about this because you wanted me to talk shit about Sarah Palin. After all, she’s the one who made the phrase popular.
That’s fine. I have no problem with that. Thing is, that empty headed cunt runs around parroting “drill, baby, drill” to her political base of half-retarded right wing nutballs, and I doubt she’s ever heard of Bill Epton. She wouldn’t have a clue as to the ironic etymology of the phrase. She’s too fucking dumb.
Smart, acerbic women are wonderful.
Image via geoffgresh's photostream on flickr
Saturday, 31 July 2010
Friday, 30 July 2010
I'm calling this the "Borat Effect," so you'll need to pay me if you use that. Real moneys, too.
We're falling behind is just about everything due to two factors: greed and cowardice. US broadband providers want to extract as much profit from their business as possible while providing the bare minimum to attract and retain customers, and our Congress and administration are more than happy to accept campaign contributions from broadband providers while ensuring that nothing improves.
Needed: Technical Learnings of Kyrgyzstan for Make Broadband Glorious Nation of America.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
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