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The life and times of the world’s
most self-deluded online superstar
News & Commentary
Betrayed by Panasonic
A little over a year ago I decided to buy a new digital camera. The Canon Digital Elph I'd been using was still giving me good stuff and the portability was (and is) fantastic, but I felt like I was missing some great shots because of its minimal optical zoom. I'd always had good luck with Canons both personally and professionally, but I was enticed by a...
Friday
Just saw Rebecca Black's "Friday" video, rightly voted the most hated on YouTube. I didn't mind the video itself so much as the song, which was about as Autotuned and lyrically awful as anything I've ever heard. It's almost like the song was programmed to annoy adults. For those outside the tweener demographic that this is clearly aimed at, the idea of a...
Macworld Expo 2011
Last year I wrote: Having just concluded three days of Macworld SF 2010 after taking part in various user conferences and walking the show floor, I remain somewhat skeptical of Macworld SF 2011. The joy of being right is rather muted by the embarrassment of actually attending this year's dismal show. This year's Macworld is even smaller than last year's....
iPhone Life and Death
Pretty layouts, glossy paper, and alluring subject matter will get you in the door, but if the content's not there (and boy is it not), you're going to have a rough go of it. I'm looking at the March-April 2011 edition of iPhone Life that I picked up for free at Macworld, and ouch. It doesn't bode well when you have to augment your periodical's title...
Myers-Briggs 20 years later
I took the Myers-Briggs personality test back in college some 20 years ago. In case you're not familiar, it's a questionnaire that measures how you see the world and how you make choices. Briefly stated, there are 16 different types based around four different dichotomies: Extrovert (E) v. Introvert (I); Sensing (S) v. Intuition (N); Thinking (T) v....
Greener housing
Awesome Oregonian Quote of the Day
"We're here to show that we mean business," said Margie Layton of Salem, who arrived wearing military fatigues and a wicker basket on her head festooned with tea bags.
That socialist Obama
The New Republic's Jonathan Chait deconstructs and finds, what do you know, the result that most of us suspected.
Joe Wilson’s war
Today's MSNBC story on the recent health insurance reform included this nugget: When all is said and done, the majority of working-age Americans and their families will still have employer-sponsored coverage, as they do now. But the number of uninsured will drop by more than half. Illegal immigrants would account for more than one-third of the remaining 23...
Health insurance reform passes
President Obama's long awaited health insurance reform passed the House last night. It will, I think, come to define his presidency, something upon which even the nay-sayers will likely agree. But I think they and the GOP in general are as wrong about Obama as they were about the health insurance reform. Obama ran on healthcare reform, and Obama delivered....
Essays
Paula, Paula, Paula…
Keeping up with the Joneses. An open letter to the woman who, like Betsy Ross or Eleanor Roosevelt, has done so much for this country. With her court case now deservedly thrown out, she may not get rich, but she'll always have her reputation. April 17, 1998 Dear Paula: Thanks for your on-going political soap opera of the last few years. It's really been a hoot. Trailerpark entertainment at its best, up there with Jerry Springer and Monster Trucks, I assure you. Get a nose...
Virtual PC 2.0: My 486 is Out of a Job
New emulator happily and easily opens the Pandora's Box of Windows 95 for Apple Power Mac users. Now your Mac can have page faults, general protection errors and blue screens of death just like a real PC! Two steps forward, one step back in the Dance of Life. (This review also appears on Mike Breeden's excellent Accelerate Your Mac!.) Connectix' Virtual PC 2.0, the $150 software-based emulator of an Intel PC, offers Apple Power Macintosh owners a chance to run all the...
Galaxians: Arcade Game for the Ages
Nothing like an arcade emulator and the re-discovery of a favorite video game to make one feel young again. Cheaper than plastic surgery, too. I know that many of you—though not that many perhaps (which must say something about who my friends are)—will think me a touch mad for rediscovering in recent days an old arcade game called "Galaxians" and seeing this as a kind of right of passage into adulthood. (Of course at age 29 it's about time for adulthood, isn't it?) In...
Be Impeached Like a Man!
His domestic agenda in tatters, President Bill sounds the happy drumbeat of war in an attempt to distract restless natives. Slips another notch on the "morality-o-meter." (Who knew negative numbers were possible?) Monica Lewinsky and why "loose lips sink ships." President Clinton holed up this weekend (or is that a poor choice of words?) at Camp David to salvage what he can from the ruins of his second term. Huddling close by were scores of advisors—military officers,...