Monthly Archive for November, 2005

Pausing real life 0 cmts

Heathers thoughts on pausing real life are spot on. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found myself reaching for my TiVo remote in random life situations, and especially wishing I could hit the pause button in the middle of conversations. And to some extent the instinct is correct — technology is giving us the ability to leave the confines of a “broadcast” world and conform reality to *our* expectations. Media is becoming “narrowcast” as we are given more options for controlling what and when we see, hear, and read. Sadly, I don’t believe a TiVo remote for controlling “real life” will be forthcoming…

The new Tomorrowland entrance 0 cmts

If you haven’t been here in a while, it looks quite different.

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The subliminal reassurances of TV procedural dramas 0 cmts

Derek Powazek tells us about the subliminal reassurances of TV procedural dramas:
*Bones* – Don’t worry, if you get killed and all that’s left of you are your bones, a brilliant but socially awkward woman and a vampire with a soul will solve the crime using a combination of 3D imaging and sexual tension. (via Heather)

Who Controls the Internet? – Why it doesn’t matter if the United States is in charge. By Adam L. Penenberg 0 cmts

Slate offers a quick overview of the salient points with regard to recent rumblings by various countries about the US holding too much control over “the internet” and what consensus was reached at the WSIS conference in Tunisia two weeks ago.

Scientology builds intergalactic markers in the New Mexico desert 0 cmts

The Church of Scientology has built symbols in the desert visible from space so that when members return in the future they will be able to find the location of L. Ron Hubbard’s sacred writings.

Wed

Nov

2005

Obligatory welcome 1 cmts

Another time of transition. This is the longest I’ve spent on a design. What you are seeing here has gone through several iterations over many months, and it dawned on me today that if I don’t do something soon, I might never finish. So nothing like switching over to the new design right as the holidays are starting…I’ll either have lots of free time to finish up the design and fix the broken things, or no time at all. Report feedback, praise, and broken-ness to zeno @ agblog, as per usual.

AgBlog is now hosted at TextDrive. I love them in theory with their support for open source projects, liberal hosting philosophy, and amazing hardware, but in practice everything is really darn slow and needlessly complicated and annoying, so I might decide to move to something better if it continues to suck.

0 cmts

US declares reports that Bush wanted to bomb Al Jazeera “outlandish”. If that is so, then why not deny it?!

Tue

Nov

2005

What Murtha Meant – We’re leaving Iraq anyway. At least he’s got a plan. By Fred Kaplan 0 cmts

Fred Kaplan at Slate charifies Rep. John Murtha’s proposal, noting that what Murtha wants is not a “withdrawal” from Iraq but a “redeployment,” and that no matter what people say to the contrary, it will happen: It almost doesn’t matter whether withdrawing or redeploying the troops is a good idea; it’s simply going to happen because there is no way for it not to happen (short of a major act of political will, such as reviving the draft or keeping troops on the battlefield beyond reasonable endurance). This because, in short, the Army is at a breaking point, and the Army leadership knows it.

Acronym capitalization, US vs. UK 2 cmts

I like the BBC’s practice of not capitalizing acronyms. If you pronounce the word rather than saying each letter, it shouldn’t be capitalized. CNN. Nasa. WTO. Unesco. Make sense?

Rumsfeld is wrong, terrorists can win militarily 0 cmts

In an article about reaction to Murtha’s call to withdraw troops from Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumself is quoted as saying, “The enemy hears a big debate in the United States, and they have to wonder: ‘Maybe all we have to do is wait and we’ll win. We can’t win militarily.’ They know that.”. Really? I thought history was chock fill of examples of terrorists/freedom fighters sticking it out for *years* until the occupier/liberator tired of the situation and pulled out. I think they know they *can* win, and we know it too.