How sad is that? he snickered.
Of COURSE it's a Walmart exclusive!
Thursday, October 27, 2011
And 50 Million Grumpy Old Men Rejoice
Emph. added:
Apple engineers and designers, spurred by Mr. Jobs, have been struggling for years to find a new interface for the television. One of the biggest hurdles, according to people with knowledge of the project, has been replacing the television set’s annoying best friend: the awkward and confusing remote control. Apple would give people a way to choose the content on their television that is as easy as choosing the content on their iPod, iPhone or iPad.
Alternative remote ideas floated by Apple included a wireless keyboard and mouse, or using an iPod, iPhone or iPad as a remote. None of these concepts worked. But there was one “I finally cracked it” moment, when Apple realized you could just talk to your television.
Enter Siri.
It’s the stuff of science fiction. You sit on your couch and rather than fumble with several remotes or use hand gestures, you simply talk: …
What could possibly go wrong with that? asks the guy who still won't put voice recognition software on his computer out of fears that someday his dictation will be misunderstood as "Wipe hard drive now. Yes, I'm sure."
I'll also point out that, typically, there is only one remote control. Households featuring multiple children, please note.
Anyway, I'm gonna hold out until Siri lets you punch through the teevee. And then I will start watching a lot of Fox News.
"The Shame of College Sports"
There's a long piece in the Atlantic and available online that some of you might be interested in. It's by Taylor Branch (Wikipedia entry). Here's the introductory blurb:
A litany of scandals in recent years have made the corruption of college sports constant front-page news. We profess outrage each time we learn that yet another student-athlete has been taking money under the table. But the real scandal is the very structure of college sports, wherein student-athletes generate billions of dollars for universities and private companies while earning nothing for themselves. Here, a leading civil-rights historian makes the case for paying college athletes—and reveals how a spate of lawsuits working their way through the courts could destroy the NCAA.
I haven't gotten to this one yet, so this is partly a note to self, and I can't say for sure how good it will be. But based on a shorter NYT article about the piece and the author, I'm betting it'll be worth your time if you're interested in this aspect of sports.
(h/t: KK | pic. source: TB's homepage)
P.S. You can read and listen to the Frank Deford piece from which the blurb above is taken. It aired last month.
Euphonious Phrase of the Day
… meditatively hefting rosewood bishops …
Nice one, Tad Friend.
(Sorry that all I have to offer is a link to the gate in the paywall. I was reading the print edition.)
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Lawrence Krauss on tour
Remember I mentioned what sounded like a great new book, back in May? I just happened across the author, out pimping it! (Actually, this talk took place back in April, at D.G. Wills Books.)
It's about ninety minutes long, but Krauss is a fine speaker, so the time seemed to fly by for me. Jump to 03:55 if the intro starts seeming tedious.
Also of interest: First, the Krauss talk appears to have been organized by The Science Network, which I've mentioned a time or two before. You might like to visit their page for this talk and see if anything else grabs your eye.
Second, D.G. Wills Books has a YouTube channel, featuring other people who have pimped spoken there. For example, Christopher Hitchens in 2006 (i.e., pre-God is not Great), discussing the book he wrote on Thomas Jefferson, and answering audience questions on other topics, as well. [Added: which just keeps getting better and better, the farther in I get.]
P.S. Lawrence Krauss's home page, just for completeness.
(Insert Big Brother reference here)
But admit you want one of your own. Particularly if you have cats.
You'll want to go full-screen with this one. It's about three minutes long.
(h/t: Michael Moyer via Bora Zivkovic)
Cognitive Dissonance of the Day
For wingnuts, I mean.
michelleinbklyn Tear gas is known to cause miscarriage. Shouldn't pro-lifers join lefties in condemning its use by the Oakland PD? latindispatch.com/2011/05/19/chi …
You go, Powerpuff Ninja!
Coastal Elitisim Up Over Last Year; Joe Buck Seen as Principle Cause
In news that probably comes as no surprise, viewership numbers for this year's World Series are down, especially among the Coveted Demographic, as those in the teevee biz like to say.
It almost certainly isn't helping that the two teams are who they are -- if I had a nickel for every time I've heard or read some variation on Ugh. La Russa? Texas? How can you root for either of these teams? I could buy Fox Sports and fire Joe Buck.
I'll tell you what I'd also do with my new power: stop the interstitial ads. I am convinced that the casual fan, even the young one whose filters are much better developed, gets to a point where having the game itself constantly interrupted with swirling promos for other shows and inane sponsorships like "this call to the bullpen brought to you by …" is no longer tolerable, especially given a handy remote control. Two and a half or three minutes between each half-inning, not to mention between each pitching change, not to mention the billboards in the background of every single shot, ought to be plenty, even for the greediest teevee executives. And failing that, they should at least realize that you can only corrupt the product so much before other things start looking more attractive.
And really, get an announcer who doesn't hate baseball and analysts who ought not have been put out to pasture a decade ago. I guarantee you there would be a measurable increase in viewership if Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez were calling the games, and I say this as a Yankee fan.
Take that, windmill!
(h/t: KK, via email)
Remember that scene in Star Trek IV ...
... where Scotty tried to talk to the computer, and when that didn't work, and Bones handed him the mouse, he tried to speak into the mouse?
(h/t: Well-known magazine columnist Sean M. Carroll (in the near future, if not in some other universe). And see also the follow-up post.)
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Much as I hate to give Chief Chickenhawk Mattera any attention ...
... at all, to the point of hesitating to link to a post that once again exposes him for what he is, this opening from TBogg is too good not to pass along:
Over at Human Events, which is like Big Journalism for people who find Dana Loesch too erudite …
(pic. source: some wingnut who appears to think that reading captions is elitist)
Spooky! (well, for math nerds it is)
John Barrow's lecture on continued fractions, which I finished watching three hours ago, still has the hairs on my neck and forearms gibbering about.
Visit the link above for the transcript and/or the slides. (Or just click those links, obvs.) You'll almost certainly want the latter, if the talk grabs your attention at all.
And remember:
[Added] I see by looking at the transcript that the lecture stems from Barrow's article published in Issue 11 of Plus Magazine, "Chaos in Numberland: The secret life of continued fractions."
Rick Perry and George W. Bush once went out drinking ...
... but only had 5 bucks between them. So Bush took the fiver and bought a sausage.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Something to think about
From an old Ars Technica article about the Darknet:
As Pirate Party chairman Rickard Falkvinge points out, there is a fundamental incompatibility between enforcement of contemporary copyright law and the cherished freedoms of a democratic society: "there are much more fundamental values at stake here than copyright," says Falkvinge. "The new technology has brought society to a crossroads. The only way to enforce today's unbalanced copyright laws is to monitor all private communications over the Internet. Today's copyright regime cannot coexist with an open society that guarantees the right to private communication."
Cory Doctorow has been speaking eloquently on this subject for years. If you're not already aware of his thoughts, here's an example a short version and here's an example of a long version.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Line of the Day: 2011-10-23
We can talk about Obama's hypocrisy all day, but in the end his Middle East agenda at least makes some kind of sense. The American conservative approach has demonstrably been to invade a place, fuck the shit out of it, rack up a trillion dollar bill, and then bitch when someone else cleans up the mess.
-- Roy Edroso
On a related note, from the same author: "Rightbloggers Denounce the End of the Iraq Occupation and the 'Horrific Murder' of Gaddafi."
(not a post related to Malcolm Gladwell)
On a note related to the previous post (my linking to which, it must be admitted, more than anything tends to reinforce the point of Daniel Kahneman's article), I encourage you to read "Don’t Blink! The Hazards of Confidence." Here's an excerpt:
The confidence we experience as we make a judgment is not a reasoned evaluation of the probability that it is right. Confidence is a feeling, one determined mostly by the coherence of the story and by the ease with which it comes to mind, even when the evidence for the story is sparse and unreliable. The bias toward coherence favors overconfidence. An individual who expresses high confidence probably has a good story, which may or may not be true.
The part near the end about those involved in the stock market is particularly instructive. Some funny illustrations, from Tim Enthoven, too.
[Added] Uncle Eb also liked the article, and added some artwork that I just had to swipe.
Though, of course, we shouldn't be too harsh on eagles for their poor judgment. That could be construed as America-hating, after all.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Line of the Month
That people so often believe themselves to be right is no proof that they are; the only difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of England is that the former is infallible while the latter is never wrong.
-- Jill Lepore, "The Commandments: The Constitution and its Worshipers"
Line of the Day: 2011-10-22
If a Republican had been responsible for the foreign-policy markers of the past three years, the Party would be commissioning statues.
From David Remnick's post about "Muammar Qaddafi's death and Republican politics."
A Warning Tale About Smileys
Dr. Lisa M. Bates reports:
In the text function of my BlackBerry there is a sidebar menu of emoticons (how ridiculous is that?) that shows the yellow smiley faces, except they are also crying and raging, and winking and blowing kisses, etc. I sent a fairly new acquaintance a ‘big hug’ emoticon — which, for the record, was ironic. But anyway, on his iPhone it came up with the symbols, not the smiley face, which don’t look anything like a big hug. From his perspective they look like a view of, er, splayed lady parts: ({}). He then ran around his lab showing colleagues excitedly what I had just sent him. Half (mostly men) concurred with his interpretation, and the others (mostly women) didn’t and probably thought he was kind of a desperate perv.”
Why, that's almost enough to make you like Tony La Russa
Due to the Cardinals having made it to the World Series, additional revenue has been generated for the city, and it now looks like city workers will not be required to take a furlough, after all. Hooray!
Okay, that's not actually nearly enough to make you like Tony La Russa. Never forget. Paste-eater.
It occurs to me that the frequency of cuts to his mug may be diminished tonight. Due to Fox's urge to show George and Laura Bush's non-reaction to every other play. And of course, all of this will be smeared with the stultifying gooeyness of Joe Buck's nonstop drone. Which completely explains the excitement of this headline.
"... message enough for many."
This has energized two groups who are notoriously apathetic and lacking in civic engagement — the young and the poor — and has done so outside the existing architectures of power and politics.
Yes.
And numbers from the sidebar: "Not Quite 99 Percent, But Most."
Friday, October 21, 2011
Banksters in a nutshell
Remember that three-page memo describing how to "avoid making taxpayers liable in the future for the kind of reckless speculation that caused the financial crisis and resulting bailout …"?
Wall Street firms have spent countless millions of dollars trying to water down the original Volcker proposal and have succeeded in inserting numerous exemptions. Now they’re claiming it’s too complex to understand and too costly to adopt.
Ding Dong
Apparently, all of Michele Bachmann's paid New Hampshire campaign staffers have quit. Go Lexington! On Concord! (?)
While looking for news of that after seeing it mentioned on Twitter, I came across an even more delicious headline:
Michele Bachmann ignored by S.F. protesters
Unsurprising News of the Day
How often does the Pentagon award contracts to defense companies that have already been proven to be defrauding taxpayers? A report the Department of Defense did at the request of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reveals an answer that should make Washington very uncomfortable.
The report, released today, showed that hundreds of defense contractors found guilty of civil fraud received more than $1.1 trillion in defense contracts since 2001. The study took into account only companies that were found to have defrauded taxpayers of more than $1 million dollars.
But still, you should read the whole thing.
Verizon Wireless to start selling your usage data
Here are a news post and Verizon's disclosure statement.
Hat tip to the good people at Demand Progress, who have a petition you might like to sign.
"David Keith on Technology, Energy and Nature"
What, another hour-long video? Yes. Sorry, can't help it. Been stumbling across some good ones lately.
This talk, by David Keith, delivered at the Equinox Summit: Energy 2030 in June 2011, is about the most thought-provoking one I've ever heard on global warming, related resource issues, AGW mitigation, and our options and responsibilities. Denialists will no doubt be overjoyed at the cherry-picking they can do, but that doesn't mean it doesn't deserve the attention of the reality-based community.
I already retweeted this, but ...
... just in case you don't follow me there, please read Eric Alterman's "Think Again: The Continuing Curse of ‘On the One-Handism’."
[Added] Don't miss Uncle Eb's related recommendation in Comments.
Line of the Day: 2011-10-21
We haven’t had a shortage of demands and solutions. We’ve had a shortage of mass movements.
-- Stephen Lerner, in an interview by Ezra Klein
Apologies for it actually being LOTD from three weeks ago. Hat tip to Frank Pasquale, via James Kwak, via Brad DeLong.
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