Has anyone noticed many more Apple switch ads recently? What’s more, has anyone noticed a trend that they seem to offer commercials right after a television show first goes into commercial? Since I have a TIVO, I noticed that I’m much more likely to get sucked into the first commercial before realizing I can fast forward to the point where the television show picks up.
Tags: [TIVO, Apple, marketing, advertising, RWRW]
An interesting idea is starting to percolate over at WIRED. What happens to a person’s soul if their physical body is cloned? Frankly, my quick take is that although physical characteristics are identical (much like that in identical twins), souls are obviously separate.
Your take?
Hewlett-Packard created a camera that adds a slimming effect to photos.
Perhaps you can get it to also replace head and torso shots with celebrity faces and bodies.
Tags: [Hewlett Packard, HP, diet, camera, technology, weight]
This person needs to lighten up, turn off his computer, go outside and breathe in the fresh air…
“Gillespie, 53, claims that Marlowe and Bob Charpentier, a 52-year-old Oregon resident, insulted him and harassed him in the AOL chatroom called “Romance — Older Men” to the point where it inflicted “severe emotional distress and physical injury that is of a nature no reasonable man could be expected to endure it.”
Tags: [AOL, chat, chatroom, social, instant messenger, romance, dating, Court TV]
Rare is the occasion when I agree with John C. Dvorak, columnist for PC Magazine and contributor to TWIT podcasts. Usually I disagree with him because he bashes Mac products.
However, the rare occasion has arisen - and a surprising one at that. As a conservative evangelical Christian, I am familiar with the Concerned Women for America. They would be the conservative counter women’s organization to NOW.
Using his partisan biting wit, Dvorak argues that the CWA is wrong for opposing the creation of an .xxx top-level domain to the Internet. He argues that
“The idea behind the .xxx domain is to make it brain-dead easy to keep porn out of the American family home. That’s the reason it was proposed. So why do these people oppose it? The argument against the .xxx proposal seems to indicate either an incredible naïveté regarding the workings of networks and computers or an extreme distrust of computer users themselves. Perhaps it’s a combination of both. Concerned Women for America claims that the .xxx domain will increase porn by giving the pornographers a “new platform.”
On the other hand, the CWA argues
“Creating a .xxx domain exclusively for pornographers would just be giving them a new platform to spread their smut,†said Jan LaRue, CWA’s Chief Counsel, who met with top officials at the Department of Commerce to block the domain. “Not only would smut-peddlers retain their current pornographic Web sites on all other domains, they would have been granted their own exclusive one.
“Porn site operators are the only ones who stand to gain from having a .xxx domain. Families across America realize that this outrageous scheme would only provide children with more opportunities to view hard-core porn images, and help legitimize an illegitimate industry,†LaRue concluded. “
I have to say, I agree with Dvorak on this one. What better way to oversee and manage Internet content than to force pornographers to register their domain in the .xxx level? I liken this to having pay-per-view pornographic television channels versus letting random pornographic shows populate traditional terrestrial television airwaves.
The CWA are leaning a bit too far right on this one.
Tags: [Dvorak, TWIT, PCMagazine, Internet, regulation, ICANN, CWA, values, porn, pornography, xxx, family]
Long time no post. I’ve been a bit busy personally since my wife and I welcomed twins into the world! Needless to say, I haven’t had much free time to comment here.
Anyway, I found political-correctness run amok again. I happen to have a university email address. The email administrators chose to use Mirapoint for its web email solution. Here’s a portion of the university’s recent communication to all web email users, explaining that they will be changing the algorithm for determining junk mail:
“The Mirapoint software is distributed using “White List” and “Black List,” terms frequently used in the software industry for “pre-approved” and “blocked” addresses. Mirapoint, the product vendor, has acknowledged our request to replace these with color neutral terms in a future release.“
Does anyone really find these terms offensive?
Tags: [politically correct, political correctness, pc, Mirapoint, racism]
Silicon Beat reports on a modern-day Tower of Babel? Wouldn’t it be more efficient to work on teleporting instead?
Tags: [Babel, Tower of Babel, Silicon Beat, teleport, space elevator, physics, science]
IDG News Service reports that Yahoo! will expand its free email service storage to 1 GB per customer, exceeding Microsoft’s Hotmail and matching Google’s Gmail service.
I’ve used Yahoo’s service for many years now. My initial decision was done partially to spite Microsoft’s Hotmail service (I am a big Mac fan). However, Yahoo! has moved all over the place in the last few years. For instance, here’s what happened to my account over the last few years:
Government Computer News (GCN) reports that America Online has changed its terms for using its instant messaging program (AIM). According to the article, AOL now states in its terms:
“By posting content on an AIM product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy.”
So far, I do not see this update posted at AOL.
I currently use AOL and Yahoo! for my chat service needs. Although I use AIM primarily for personal reasons, AOL is important because many family and friends only use this service. I would hope AOL would rethink their position on this. Yes, we may choose to use their free chat service, but we should also have a right to privacy.