December 2007
45 posts
Netflix Offers Unlimited Online Viewing to... →
According to Hacking Netflix, select Netflix subscribers have been receiving emails over the past few weeks granting them access to unlimited Watch Instantly hours. They have also increased the number of titles available on the service to 6000 —presumably in anticipation of a full-scale rollout. Keep in mind that this is only a rumor at this point so we have to ask —did you happen to receive an...
WSJ.com - High Design for Low-Income Housing →
Public housing used to mean fortress-like blocks and soulless rows of cheaply built townhouses. But now architects, from established stars to ambitious up-and-comers, are looking to such projects to do innovative work.
Circuit City Executives Run Company Into Ground,... →
Dean Baker: The basic story is that last March, the wise men who run Circuit City came up with the brilliant idea of laying off their more senior salespeople, who get $14-$15 an hour, and replacing them with new hires who get around $9 an hour. It turns out that this move was not very good for business. One of the reasons that people go to a store like Circuit City, rather than buying things on...
Someone Tell the UN Spider Man Isn't Real [Global... →
The United Nations, earth’s premiere international organization, is suffering from what a generous person might refer to as a PR problem. The once-esteemed institution (granted that was 50 years ago) now suffers from what is feared to be widespread corruption and also, thanks to our very own Decider-in-Chief, almost total irrelevance on the international stage. How does a tarnished international...
Starting bittorrent downloads remotely from the... →
Filed under: Hardware, Tips and tricks, Odds and ends, Internet Tools, Open Source, iPhone
I like Mac OS X Hints a lot, although I will admit that most of the hints they post just aren’t for me— either they’re for things that I just don’t have a need to do, or they’re for things I already figured out a solution for on my own. But lately, I’ve been trying to...
Aw, Look! He's Working! [Christmas Comes But Once... →
George Bush is readying his veto crayon again this afternoon, this time for the defense policy bill. See, he sorta didn’t really read it before they passed it and it reverses a decree-thingie he did after Saddam fell which makes the new government not liable for the terrorist actions of the old (and thus kills a bunch of lawsuits). The new defense policy legislation, if passed, would reverse...
China blocks imports of American DVDs →
China has stopped importing American DVDs for the same reason you’ve stopped buying them at Target: it’s way easier and cheaper to get pirated copies on the Internet. And Hollywood’s mad about it.
While piracy has always been a problem with China, the MPAA is really up in arms about China denying or losing import requests from the studios. Normally, they’re limited to 20 a year, a low enough...
Nanowires Boost Laptop Battery Life to 20 Hours →
brianmed writes to tell us that Stanford researchers have created a new use for silicon nanowires that promise to reinvent lithium-ion batteries. “The new version, developed through research led by Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, produces 10 times the amount of electricity of existing lithium-ion, known as Li-ion, batteries. A laptop that now runs on battery...
Amazon Helping To Change The Business Of Music →
The signs are everywhere that a revolution is taking place in music. DRM is history, the price of music is falling towards zero (and sometimes even free isn’t enough to slow piracy), and even big music sites like Yahoo are beginning to break ranks with the RIAA and labels.
But Amazon may be doing more than anyone else to change the way music is discovered, promoted and sold. Not only do they have...
Deeply off topic, but so disturbing it must be... →
It’s Paul Anka singing Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” This is wrong for so many reasons and on so many levels that I don’t even know where to begin. I’m still burning incense to get the evil spirits out of my office. I may just throw out this iMac. Kurt, my brother, do not let this frigtardedness bother you. Rest easy, gentle soul. Full disclosure: I...
Scotland Yard YOINKS! Beehive Deflated! [Amy... →
“Increasingly erratic soul singer Amy Winehouse was arrested Tuesday in London in connection with an alleged $400,000 plot to fix her husband’s assault trial, reports said.” [NYDN]
Toshiba Builds Personal-Sized Micro Nuclear... →
Here’s an idea that’s not going to go over well with the Department of Homeland Security: Toshiba has reportedly developed a nuclear reactor that will fit in your basement. Measuring 20 feet wide by 6 feet long, it cranks out 200kW and doesn’t even require Homer Simpson to operate, since it’s supposedly totally automatic and can’t overheat. According to Next Energy...
Copygate update: eWeek freetard hack spanked by... →
Not for being a lazy copycat who lifts press releases word for word, — a fact first revealed by the FSJ Spotlight Team last week — but simply for being a biased, unreliable freetard. See this piece by Microsoft fanboy Joe Wilcox where he tears Steven J. Vaughan-Cut-and-Paste a new one for intentionally misreporting the results of a Linux Foundation survey to make it seem like Linux is...
Great Firewall of China crumbling from within →
Oliver August, a freelance investigative journalist living in China, describes the incompetence and bungling of the bureaucrats who run China’s storied — and expensive — Great Firewall of China. In the fight between Chinese people and the Firewall, the people are winning. There’s even a group of active entrepreneurs who’ll give you Firewall-busting lessons.
From...
Henry Blodget nails disruption →
Many of my commenters don’t understand disruption. That’s become clear in the argument about whether Amazon is going to disrupt Oracle and Microsoft and MySQL’s databases. But Henry Blodget understands.
I see this disruption all around me.
Will it fly? How to Evaluate a New Product Idea →
I’ve been thinking about a number of new product ideas lately. In doing so, I’ve been trying to come up with a way more structured way of evaluating them. Here’s a first attempt at defining that. It’s not as clear as I’d like it to be. But perhaps you’ll find it useful. Tractability
Question: How difficult will it be to launch a worthwhile version 1.0? ...
Nice Warren Buffet interview →
By Tim O’Reilly I just read some great comments by Warren Buffet from a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. Whatever your politics, you have to appreciate the thoughtful responses of the “Sage of Omaha,” so different from the usual political blather. Some tidbits, from notes taken at the event by Nick Nejad at Rational Angle:
Q: “Buffett, why are you a Democrat?”
A: I...
December in Central Park →
T-Mobile and Twitter →
DeWitt Clinton on T-Mobile’s decision to block Twitter: If you think the rest of Internet needs net neutrality laws, that’s nothing compared with the backward-facing worldview of the established mobile carriers. You guys aren’t going to last long at this rate, and when it is all said and done no one is going to look back and longingly pine for the days of a handful of restricted carriers running...
Macenstein, this is just plain wrong →
Apple faithful, I’m sorry, but I really do not approve of this exploitation of women, and I’m sick of having frigtards try to attach our brand to this kind of thing, and I know you share my revulsion but we have to keep shining a light on these horrible incidents because sunlight is the best disinfectant, as my good friend Chuck D of Public Enemy (who by the way was just raving to me,...
Organize Your Money in 2008 with Wesabe [Feature] →
As the last few days of 2007 slip away, make a New Year’s resolution to get your finances in order with Wesabe. A few months ago Adam kicked Mint’s tires. After giving Mint a whirl, I knew it wasn’t for me. With Wesabe’s plethora of features, open source mindset, and strong community backing, it’s the perfect money management app for my needs.
At just over one...
Google Preparing To Launch Game Changing Wikipedia... →
When it comes to Google, nothing should surprise us any more. Last month it was Digg style social voting on search results, this month its a new project called “Knol” (which apparently stands for a unit of knowledge), a user generated knowledge project that combines parts of Wikipedia and Squidoo (and to a lesser extent Mahalo) into what could easily turn out to game changer in this space.
The...
Rumors say Best Buy is sitting on tons of Wiis,... →
We think people who camp out overnight for electronics (even the iPhone) are dumbasses in general, but Best Buy is looking to force them to do just that, it would seem.
Word is the biggest of the big box retailers is sitting on a glut of Wiis, keeping them from the shelves, and is planning on a few door buster sales in the coming weeks.
Why they’re doing this we’re not sure, unless they’re...
Flickr Uploadr 3.0 Released, Pro Accounts See... →
Two big announcements for Flickr lovers (or is it lovrs?) today: First, previously mentioned Flickr Uploadr 3.0 beta is all grown up and ready for your post-beta consumption. With tons of new and improved features like picture re-ordering, the ability to create your sets offline before signing in and uploading, and simultaneous set creation and picture uploading (i.e., you don’t have to wait...
How To Destroy An Analyst by POT →
Bill Doyle the baller CEO of Potash Corp (NYSE: POT) recently crushed the spirit of an analyst on a conference call in a swift and brutal way that made even all of us here at LoS (who hate bad sell side research) cringe. The unfortunate recipient of this de-pantsing was Charles Naberg who had recently initiated on the fertilizer industry. He asked an innocent enough question about some capacity...
Switched On: Vudu starts on its to-dos →
Filed under: Features, Home Entertainment
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment.
Imagine a history in which broadcast television programming was not sent directly to television sets. Rather, it was sent to another, more expensive device in the home with a smaller screen. If you paid $40 per month, you could access at...
Viacom Walkout #2: MTV Shamed Into Hiding Their... →
On Day 2 of The Great Viacom Walkouts of 2007 in Times Square, the “freelancers” were really getting organized. There were better signs (“This is a Kurt Loder of Crap”), more literature (“Let’s Find Out If We Really Are Freelancers?”), and a list was being circulated of everyone’s personal email addresses, “so we can organize a website that...
How Institutional Investors Push Around The Fed →
The Federal Reserve likes to project the image of it is independence and discernment but it is increasingly regarded as under the sway of Wall Street. At least three times now, pressure from Wall Street seems to have swayed the Fed to reconsider it’s judgments about the condition of the markets and the economy. The most recent took place during the course of November and early December, when...
Iran Builds Supercomputer From Banned AMD Parts →
Stony Stevenson writes with the news that, despite a ban on US PC hardware, Iranian techs have built an enormously powerful supercomputer from 216 AMD processors. The Linux-cluster machine has a ‘theoretical peak performance of 860 gig-flops’. “The disclosure, made in an undated posting on [the University of] Amirkabir’s Web site, brought an immediate response Monday from...
Thoughts As People Attempt to Put Their Carry-On... →
Look at this asshole. This is why a woman could never be president. It’s called planning. Here’s an idea for a plan — don’t make your carry-on weight more than that which you could hoist over your head. Why? Because you will probably have to hoist it over your head. Asshole.
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Upon watching a slightly more attractive woman doing the same thing:
Should I help? I should probably help. I wonder...
Regret The Error has posted its annual year-end... →
Regret The Error has posted its annual year-end best media errors and corrections list, and our favorite is this one, from Slate: “In the May 25 ‘Explainer,’ Michelle Tsai asserted that an eight ball is about 10 lines of cocaine. While the size of a line depends on personal preference, most users would divide an eight ball into more than 25 lines.”
Humans Evolving 100 Times Faster Than Ever →
John Hawks writes “A new genomics study in PNAS shows that humans have been evolving new adaptive genes during the past 10,000 years much faster than ever before. The study says that evolution has sped up because of population growth, making people adapt faster to new diseases, new diets, and social changes like cities. Oh, and I’m the lead author. I’ve been reading Slashdot for...
RIAA Argues That MP3s From CDs Are Unauthorized →
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes “In an Arizona case against a defendant who has no legal representation, Atlantic v. Howell, the RIAA is now arguing — contrary to its lawyers’ statements to the United States Supreme Court in 2005 MGM v. Grokster — that the defendant’s ripping of personal MP3 copies onto his computer is a copyright infringement. At page 15 of its brief (PDF) it states...
An Open Letter to Tom Tancredo's Congressional... →
Dear friendly Colorado District Six voters, Your district is a very red district, which would explain why you have elected Tom Tancredo five times. If anything can explain that! Well, we’d like to offer clemency for your egregious damage to the current state of American politics: Elect a Mexican to take the resigning Tancredo’s open seat in the 2008 election. Need we spell it out? This will mean a...
Robots That Bounce on Water →
inghamb87 writes “The way water striders walk on water was discovered years ago. The insect uses its long legs to help evenly distribute its tiny body weight. The weight is distributed over a large area so that the fragile skin formed by surface tension supports the bug on the water. However, the ability of water striders to jump onto water without sinking has baffled scientists, until...
EXCLUSIVE: Dinner, with a Side of Ethics Violation... →
Ah, how quickly they forget the rules when there is free food! Last week, the Federal Communications Bar Association held their annual FCC Chairman’s Dinner to roast and then listen to the incredibly young-looking Kevin Martin (sample one-liner: “Kevin looks so young even Mark Foley would throw him back”). But what Kevin probably didn’t know is that some of the companies sponsoring the event were...
Iran and China, Together Again... →
Now, mind you, it’s important to remember that China under almost any circumstances was not going to step away from doing energy deals with Iran, even if their business partners in Tehran were drinking toasts to the imminent arrival of the Twelfth Imam with highly enriched uranium and threatening to nuke Israel the day after tomorrow. But the timing of this announcement, in which SINOPEC has...
Is AIBO returning from the dead? →
Filed under: Robots
You heard that right, folks. Supposedly, AIBO is back… with a vengence. According to rumors, the fiesty-but-killed robo-dog from Sony is making a comeback with a new paintjob and whole slew of fresh features. First and foremost, the re-upped model will be tailored to interface wirelessly with your PSP and PS3, will have a built in headcam which utilizes a motion sensor...
Will Fav.or.it get me off of Google Reader? →
Nick Halstead cornered me at the geek party on Friday night in London and said something like “I have an RSS reader that’ll get you to give up Google Reader.”
“Oh really?” I answered skeptically. After all, I’m locked into Google Reader thanks to FeedHeads, which is just about to pass 10,000 users on Facebook, and thousands of people who subscribe to my Google Reader Shared Items feed, not to...
Making Fun Of Facebook Is Fun: Add Fake Beacon... →
Well, I asked for negative Facebook speculation and rumors and, even though I was just kidding, a ton of stuff rolled in.
A new Facebook application called Bonfire is my favorite. The idea is that you can beat third parties who are inserting information about what you did on their sites into your news feed, to the punch.
So now you can insert a statement like “Mike bought Preparation H at...
NYT Editorial Slams ISPs Over Online Freedom →
Erris writes “The New York Times site is running an opinion piece from last weekend which lambasts Yahoo! (and other US ISPs) for cooperating with China and other repressive governments. ‘Yahoo’s collaboration is appalling, and Yahoo is not the only American company helping the Chinese government repress its people … Last January, Representative Christopher Smith of New...
We Regret To Inform You That This Is A Government... →
We began our quick analysis of President Bush’s loan modification plan yesterday by calling it a bailout. Today we hearing from all over that the plan is not a bailout. In fact, Felix Salmon has issued a public plea for everyone to stop calling it a bailout. And, more recently, he’s began recording a “bailout hall of shame” for those who have called this a bailout. This morning, Edmund Andrews...
The MTV Networks Holiday Party [Holiday Parties] →
Last night, video guy Richard Blakeley and I headed down to the Hammerstein Ballroom to ask Viacom freelancers how they were, you know, feeling about getting Scrooged just in time for the holidays. Are they all revved up for the planned strike on Monday? “What strike?” said one guy. We’re also thinking about adopting the kid who told us that he’s currently unattached but...
Why Google Doesn't Need to Win the Bid to Win... →
explosivejared writes “TheStreet discusses Google’s possible strategy options in the bid for the 700 mhz spectrum. The end goal of getting the government to put an open access stipulation on the spectrum, Google’s end goal, is almost a given - in the author’s opinion. At this point, he says, Google hardly even needs to win to ‘win’. From the article:...
Friend or foe? →
In July we and several other media outlets reported on the closure of the China Development Brief, a non-profit newsletter based in Beijing that focused on NGOs, development and civil society. At the time the government’s move to shut down the publication—officially due to a violation of a law on conducting surveys—was seen as a result of official sensitivity to the power NGOs...