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November 30, 2004
Cult of Mac attack:
Carpundit is much more gracious than I would have been to the negative commenters to his Apple Store post.
Although I still like and recommend the computers and the Apple Stores, I haven't drunk the Kool Aid. Those fanatics who bristle at the slightest criticism of Apple should get a life.
Ounce of prevention:
Lisa Williams is cleaning her computer. She's right. Ad-Aware and Spybot. Spybot and Ad-Aware. Two programs that should be running on every Windows computer. You really should use them both. A good rule of thumb is don't trust other spyware (or adware) removers. And don't forget to keep the versions and definitions updated.
Cosmeceuticals:
(Or, as they used to say on Green Acres, cosmeteticals.) What's the difference between cosmetics and dermatology? Less, these days, according to Business Week.
Recounting for Nader:
The New Hampshire Nader recount should be finished by this afternoon. The bottom line: "It looks like a pretty accurate count here in New Hampshire," a campaign representative told the AP. "There doesn’t seem to be any error due to fraud based on what we’re seeing here today."
Arson connection:
Here's an update on what's happening with the fires on the Cape.
Extreme commuting:
People are moving further and further away from the cities that they work in, but home prices trump gas prices for those ultra-long distance commuters. In California, as this USA Today article notes, they call it "driving until you qualify."
Falling down:
Jay Fitzgerald has some advice if you're heading to the office Christmas party.
November 29, 2004
Sensitive Searching:
Lots of ground to cover:
In Prince George County, four or five cops, per shift, patrol 180 square miles, an area more than three times the size of Boston. No wonder there's a crime problem.
Big screen:
Flat TVs are coming down in price and 2005 will be a good year to buy. "The 2005 price drops in L.C.D. will make the 2004 reductions look like a walk in the park," a Sears merchandise manager told the Times. But industry representatives don't want to talk too much about the coming price drops. At least not until after Christmas.
Time to go:
Is an age limit for Supreme Court justices wise? Of course. To make it mandatory, though, would require an amendment to the constitution, no small thing.
November 28, 2004
When bloggers kill:
This is pretty creepy.
The commercial made me do it:
Is there a connection between people drinking too many high-sugar soft drinks and a rise in obesity. It seems strange that people are actually arguing about this. Accepting the obvious then, whose fault is it that people choose to drink too much high-calorie soda when the marketplace is awash with alternatives?
Baby seal safari:
In an incredibly bad marketing move, Norwegian tourism officials are promoting tours for Americans and Europeans that explore the natural beauty of the fiords while offering the opportunity to shoot some of those pesky sad-eyed marine mammals.
Off the hook:
Don't hate me because I'm a thug:
So what's the story with the Indiana Pacers' Ron Artest?
"People say I'm a thug or whatever," Artest said. "But my cousin got life for killing someone. I have other cousins who sold cocaine and drugs. So what type of person am I supposed to be?"
The article also mentions the time that Artest applied for a job at Circuit City in Chicago - while he was a member of the Bulls! He figured he could work part time and get the employee discount on electronics. This guy's a real character.
Political winds:
How close was the election and what do the margins mean? Even the experts can't agree, as this article in the WaPost illustrates.
November 27, 2004
Stealing 911:
No one could call 911 to report this burglary. In a NY break-in, the burglars inadvertently stole the working circuit boards for the emergency phone service for Westchester County. They were caught, through a stroke of luck (and a foot chase) after leaving the building with the equipment.
A thanks to the pinstripes:
David Brooks writes about the silver lining in global economic news.
Economists have been arguing furiously about whether inequality is increasing or decreasing. But it now seems likely that while inequality has grown within particular nations, it is shrinking among individuals worldwide. The Catalan economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin looked at eight measures of global inequality and found they told the same story: after remaining constant during the 70's, inequality among individuals has since declined.
There's some bad news - AIDS, deficits, high oil prices, etc. - but overall, he notes, "we're in the 11th month of the most prosperous year in human history." That's saying something.
What was he thinking?
A North Carolina man who deserted his military patrol and fled into North Korea in 1965 was recently sentenced to 25 days in a military prison. But his real punishment was the four decades he spent in North Korea.
November 26, 2004
Rosinating:
In a performance that was part artistic statement and part parlor trick, cellist Matt Haimovitz played his version of Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock version of the Star Spangled Banner on NPR's The Connection this morning. It was... interesting. Here's an audio link to the show.
I got a feeling:
Carpundit writes about Terry v Ohio, taking issue with an opinion by law blogger Ken Lammers. The discussion involves how a gut feeling by a police officer should fit into the probable cause continuum. In other words, should police sometimes be able to use inarticulatable gut feelings to detain or search people?
It's an interesting discussion and I tend to agree with Carpundit (and Terry.) If a police officer can't articulate why, relative to an illegal act, they initiated the seizure of a person, the seizure (and all that follows) is no good. If they can, and the explanation is 'reasonable', even if it involves a technical violation under Whren, it's usually OK.
It's a simple, clean and amazingly durable principle that has worked well in innumerable circumstances since the mid-sixties.
Rinse, Repeat:
Dan Kennedy notes how history has a way of repeating itself, at least in the case of Dan Rather. He quotes from an article that details an earlier Rather/CBS/60 Minutes forgery fiasco. (By the way, Times v Sullivan was only the backdrop for the article, not the case being discussed, as Kennedy kind of implies. I couldn't find the case involving Dr. Galloway on line.)
No downside:
Jay Fitzgerald takes a shot (not jello) at those Harvard hooligans, reminding them on Thanksgiving...
Cranberry sauce, not jello shots, on turkey. ... Bourbon pecan pie is also eaten from a plate, not a luge.
The Harvard students started this war by attacking the Herald, in the process, handing the paper a great marketing opportunity. Being the newspaper that stands up to an ultra-rich old-money Harvard can't be bad for business around these parts, and especially on this side of the river.
Rising Influence:
Hispanic clout, both in politics and commerce are the subjects of separate articles in today's Washington Post.
(The former mentions a young, up-and-coming Florida politician who has a strong grasp of Hispanic issues: George P. Bush, son of the Governor. Imagine that.)
Hardcover advice:
It's early yet, but the Globe editorial board gives its 2004 book recommendations, two of which I can join them in: Tom Perrotta's Little Children and Phillip Roth's The Plot Against America.
November 25, 2004
On the street:
Round 4: A genius for stupidity
The Herald isn't finished with Harvard quite yet.
The Year of Bank of America:
BOA doesn't want naming rights to the Fleet Center and wouldn't object to its being called the Boston Garden. But once that happened, the owners, Delaware North, would have difficulty selling the naming rights to someone else down the road. (Delaware North, which also owns the Bruins, has the distinction now of owning a team that doesn't play in an arena that has no name.)
So in the meantime, the Fleet Center will probably end up being called something neutral (and boring): like the Causeway Center or the Delaware North Arena. ...Or the Locked-out Lyceum.
Goodnight, Connie:
Michael Socolow, who runs the journalism program at Brandeis, weighs in on Rather's legacy and departure.
November 24, 2004
Small News:
Scientists have created the world's smallest test tube, and then used it to conduct the world's smallest chemical experiment. The tubes are 1.2 nanometers in diameter, less than 2 billionths of a meter.
Flinstones' cellphones:
Faye Bowers writes in the CSM about al Qaeda's increasing use of technology for communication and marketing.
Becoming Nixon:
Without warning, CBS announced yesterday that Dan Rather is moving out of the anchor seat. I think it's apparent what all this is about. He'll stay on at 60 Minutes to save face, but I'd guess that he will be gone from that job as well, before the Novocain from the first extraction wears off.
Of course the blogosphere was buzzing over the news and soon after the announcement, ScrappleFace produced the expected "If this is true, I want to break this story" fake story. (And it was still funny.)
Anyway, we'll raise a glass, tomorrow, to the departure of the anchor who ended up becoming what what he sought to expose.
New offensive sweep:
With fighting in Falluja behind them and elections looming, troops are headed south towards Babylon to to the "triangle of death" to deal with the insurgents and criminals who have taken over the area. Anthony Shadid wrote about the problems in the triangle yesterday in the WAPost.
Council candor:
An honest, or at least candid politician tends to stand out. Here's City Councillor John Tobin quoted on the rent control proposal up for a vote before the council: ''The easy thing to do would be to pass this at the city level and walk around like heroes in our districts, knowing this is dead on arrival at Beacon Hill."
Of course, he'll have to straighten up and become much more evasive and disingenuous if he actually wants to go anywhere in politics.
November 23, 2004
Party Unity:
David Brooks writes that the biggest problem Republicans face is dissenting factions of other Republicans. But with a one party lock on government, maybe it's a good thing that at least someone is dissenting.
Son of Sam online:
When they said, In the future, everyone will have a home page, they really meant everyone.
Who woulda thought:
Take a look at this series of photos and see if you can predict what's going to happen.
Broadband Access:
There's good news and bad news in a report on the spread of high speed internet access. The good news is that access is up dramatically to about 20%. The bad news is that the increase didn't include many rural and minority areas. And for many, it's still too expensive.
Searching in Plain View:
In Boston, the TSA is stepping up a campaign of aggressive body searches for the holidays. But women around the country are becomming fed up with the invasive nature of the out-in-public searchs.
November 22, 2004
Death penalty phase:
Executions are down in the US. The CSM explores the meaning of the decline.
One reason could be that crime in general is down. Except, that is, on the NY subway.
Geniuses at work:
A USA Today article highlights the Apple Store 'Genius Bar' which offers face-to-face tech support.
Making fun of in-store computer tech staff is a tradition in the geek world. From the old Egghead to current the Comp USA, overconfident cluelessness has been the standard.
But apart from long lines, I've never had a bad experience in the Apple Stores. A guy in the Soho store spent twenty minutes working out a bluetooth problem for me; the Cambridge store has fixed numerous minor hardware glitches and offered some good advice over the years. These guys are too good. There's nothing to make fun of.
Class Warfare:
That skirmish between Harvard and the Herald that Jay Fitzgerald wrote about the other day has broken out into full-scale war. I'll put my money on the Herald for the next several battles.
Could be, maybe, possibly
A story in today's Washington Post details the circumstances of the scuffle between Secret Service agents and Chilean security. Here's a paragraph describing what happened after the agent was pulled into the event by the president:
[The agent,] Trotta walked in behind Bush, who looked enormously pleased with himself. He was wearing the expression that some critics call a smirk, and his eyebrows shot up as if to wink at bystanders.
Some call a smirk? What kind of reporting is that? If you think it's a smirk, call it a smirk. If you don't know, you don't know.
If you build it...
The MBTA is due to open its new $600 million Silver Line extension service to the South Boston waterfront next month. The only problem is that since development of the area is behind schedule, there's nothing at the end of the line.
November 21, 2004
MP3 blogs:
I'm just finding my way around in this area, but this page seems pretty cool. Here's a compilation site.
Print Into Sound:
I got the camera-phone out this morning to snap Trish, my co-reader at the T.I.C., reading the Sunday Globe. Mike, below, works the board.
Last Call for Blogging:
One of the good things about getting up early in the morning on weekends is checking out Universal Hub for those late night, just-back-from-the-bar blog posts. I've been guilty once or twice myself. Maybe someone should invent a breathalyzer in a browser.
November 20, 2004
Saturday Photos:
Going through old directories, I found a couple of photos to post; the first, a shot of two woman standing on a Barcelona sidewalk in an animated conversation; the second, a blind right hand shot out the passenger window as I was passing International Place, driving on the then elevated Central Artery.
Counterintuitive:
It's actually cheaper to pay more for things you don't want. That's the conclusion of a study, on the feasibility of a la carte pricing of cable TV channels, done by the FCC.
John McCain doesn't buy it: "the industry has been successful once again in distracting policy makers with a 'parade of horribles' that they allege would result from a mandatory a la carte offering."
And, says a consumer advocate, "For people on Capitol Hill, this should raise more questions than it answers -- if you charge the same for nine channels as you do for 50 channels, doesn't that mean there's something wrong with the cable market?"
Greetings from...
Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamau in Webster is the subject of a front page Times story. The name - Nipmuck for "English knifemen and Nipmuck Indians at the boundary or neutral fishing place" - is the longest place name in the country. I did not know that.
Let it go:
Since he left office, the image of the petty, selfish, dishonest Bill Clinton had faded and the public perception of a popular effective president had begun to replace it. Until now.
A riot going on:
I wouldn't take this video game thing too seriously. Kids do stupid things. (Check this out, if you need to be convinced.)
I'd be more concerned about the Boston Beatdown crew than that U-Mass student.
If you want to take a look at the game, here's the link, but you may have to wait until the traffic dies down.
November 19, 2004
Phone Trojan
Be careful what you download to your phone.
The Taser buzz
Non-lethal weapons have been in the news recently. But another side of the story involves th