Topics on businesses, good and bad.
Remember the SOPA drama last week? It has given MPAA not-quite-lobbyist Chris Dodd a bad case of foot-in-mouth: he publicly threatened politicians who’d taken MPAA money for not doing what the MPAA wanted. On national television, no less. Un-freakin’-believable. And just this side of actually criminal. Dodd is a former senator — he should know …
This sounds like an awesome idea. It’s a “limited, unscreened” school. […] It means that any student who is interested can apply–their grades and attendence record are not taken into account in deciding whether or not to admit them, only their interest. I think this is the best thing about the school. A lot of …
Continue reading ‘“New York City gets a Software Engineering High School”’ »
I’ve often said on this blog that if the governments of the world had realized the power that the Internet would give to their people, they would have quietly strangled it in its cradle. Apparently the wish for retroactive infanticide extends to large corporations as well, which makes sense.
It’s about time someone called corporations on this type of self-serving rule change. As a business owner, I can’t blame them for trying to limit their liability. I’d probably do the same thing in their shoes (though I hope I’d find a way to be more fair about it). But as a consumer it always …
Continue reading ‘“Sony sued over PlayStation Network no-suing rules”’ »
I’ve been baffled by this for the last couple days. I’m not sure I follow their numbers, but I’ll accept them on faith for the moment. The thing that baffles me is the source: a very conservative think-tank. Political conservatives have railed against anyone who was different practically since the ink was dry on the …
Continue reading ‘“The cure for US job woes: More immigrants”’ »
Film critic Roger Ebert weighs in on the current 3D movie craze, and why it’s a failure, at least from the technical side. I always wondered why it feels so odd when I don the glasses, now I have an explanation. I really couldn’t care less whether a film is 3D or not. It doesn’t …
Continue reading ‘“Why 3D doesn’t work and never will. Case closed.”’ »
As much as this sounds like pure fantasy right now, I suspect it’s all but inevitable. Too many people are looking too hard at the problem — somebody is going to crack it sooner or later, and likely sooner. I also suspect that the consequences listed in the article are only the tip of the …
Continue reading ‘“Superhero oil-burping algae will save the world”’ »
Apparently not: In the late 1990s Robert Soloway made $20,000 a day as a spammer. He drove fancy cars. He wore Armani clothes. He was, by all accounts, one of the most successful spammers on the planet. But if he were starting out today, he’d find some other line of work. In 2011, spamming just …
Continue reading ‘“As the Internet evolves, is there a place for spam?”’ »
This is satire, but wickedly on the mark. Obviously poking fun in the direction of Microsoft, but that’s not the only target — I saw at least one other large company using the same tactics, just before I dumped their product in disgust. I’ve no doubt that several other companies (that I’ve been fortunate enough …
Continue reading ‘“Bloated, slow and leaky – what version numbers really mean”’ »
As mentioned previously here, autistic people tend to interpret things as black and white, all-true or all-false, no shades of gray allowed. That’s almost certainly why many of us are drawn to working with computers, because computers “think” the same way. Nice to see someone recognizing that as a strength and putting it to good …
Continue reading ‘“Autism Traits Prove Valuable for Software Testing”’ »