"Long hair is not the appropriate choice of grown-ups. It says rebellion. Hillary Rodham Clinton softens her do, and sets off a bizarre Howl of Angry Inches, as if she had betrayed some social compact. Well, my long hair is indeed a declaration of independence. I am rebelling, variously, against Procter & Gamble, my mother, Condé Nast and, undoubtedly, corporate America in general. Whereas it used to be short hair that was a hallmark of being a liberated woman — remember the feminist chop? I do; I did it — these days, long hair is a mark of liberation."
"Certain numbers have magical properties. E, pi and the Fibonacci series come quickly to mind — if you are a mathematician, that is. For the rest of us, the magic numbers are the familiar ones that have something to do with the way we keep track of time (7, say, and 24) or something to do with the way we count (namely, on 10 fingers). The “time numbers” and the “10 numbers” hold remarkable sway over our lives."
It’s eerie to get posthumous glimpses into tragedies like this from online forums. It’s almost Clementi’s last words: “I ran to the nearest R.A. and set this thing in motion. We’ll see what happens.” It seems too thin a line between the determination to seek help and the decision to jump off the bridge.
First off: Cringely doesn’t provide evidence. He’s guessing that a way of giving Google preferred access without technically violating net neutrality is to give them access to Verizon property for server farms, thus cutting out some of the hops on the internet backbone. Interesting theory. I wonder if/when we’ll get the real story of this secret pact.
To see how it could work, you need to know a little about Google’s network of data centers, those windowless buildings around the country containing the servers that answer search queries, show maps, provide e-mail service and download YouTube videos. Several years ago, the company found a way to build a data center quickly and easily by simply filling a warehouse with stacked shipping containers — each one filled with computers. You just plug the containers together and flip the switch. Clever.
"The editorial strength that may have been lost in terms of writing is going to be re-emerging in control and curation of sites. In order to maintain a grip on an industry, you need to be able to go to someplace that looks at and filters all those documents."
"It’s hard for them to share each others’ views on what’s going on. These older people grew up in largely white suburbs or largely segregated neighborhoods. Young people have grown up in an interracial culture."
Demographer William H. Frey, in A Generation Gap Over Immigration (NYTimes).
The article talks about how generations have had different exposures to immigrants. In 1970 only 4.7 percent of the country was foreign born and many grew up in segregated suburbs. Immigration is now at the level it was from the 1860s to 1920—the new normal is the old normal, creating a generation gap of expectations. Fascinating.
From the NYTimes:
So strong was the antibusiness sentiment for the first Earth Day in 1970 that organizers took no money from corporations and held teach-ins “to challenge corporate and government leaders.” Forty years later, the day has turned into a premier marketing platform for selling a variety of goods and services, like office products, Greek yogurt and eco-dentistry.
“Look at those dead bastards,” one pilot says. “Nice,” the other responds.
Video game wars from Collateral Murder:
5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff.
Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.
Via NYTimes.
In the NYTimes:
Nowhere in the letter did Benedict address the responsibility of the Vatican itself. Many victims’ groups have criticized the Vatican for not recognizing the depth and scope of the abuse crisis sooner. Nor did he use the term punishment, or spell out any consequences for clergy or bishops who had not upheld canon or civil law. Indeed, he laid blame firmly with Irish Catholic leaders.
It’s hard to believe anyone’s sorry and anything’s changed while people like Boston’s former Cardinal Law are given cushy jobs in Rome. How many people have lost their faith? And how many churches have been sold off to cover the lawsuits and settlements? Hasn’t the Vatican learned anything?
"When you’ve seen a U.F.O., as Kucinich says he has, a mere lobbying session at 32,000 feet by the Leader of the Free World, urging you to join your party in a cause that has eluded Democratic presidents since Franklin Roosevelt, is a tough match."
A bizarre internet phenomenon in China, via the NYTimes:
The Chinese term for human-flesh search engine has been around since 2001, when it was used to describe a search that was human-powered rather than computer-driven. The kitten-killer case and subsequent hunts changed all that… the Chinese public’s primary understanding of the term is no longer so benign. The popular meaning is now not just a search by humans but also a search for humans, initially performed online but intended to cause real-world consequences.
An interesting scenario from the NYTimes blog:
Mr. O’Brien argued last week “Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet, a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the ‘Tonight Show,’ I believe nothing could matter more.” I’m sure nothing could matter more on spreadsheets and in traditional advertising meetings. But with the 18- to 34-year-old crowd, who have shown undaunted support for Mr. O’Brien, a time slot is as relevant as which brand of frying pan your favorite restaurants use to cook your meal — maybe it makes a difference in the kitchen, but 99 percent of the patrons just want good food.
Wow, what a story.
Mr. Yamaguchi, as a 29-year-old engineer for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was on a business trip in Hiroshima when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. He was getting off a streetcar when the “Little Boy” device detonated above Hiroshima.
Mr. Yamaguchi said he was less than 2 miles away from ground zero. His eardrums were ruptured and his upper torso was burned by the blast, which destroyed most of the city’s buildings and killed 80,000 people.
Mr. Yamaguchi spent the night in a Hiroshima bomb shelter and returned to his hometown of Nagasaki the following day, according to interviews he gave over the years. The second bomb, known as “Fat Man,” was dropped on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, killing 70,000 people there.
Mr. Yamaguchi was in his Nagasaki office, telling his boss about the Hiroshima blast, when “suddenly the same white light filled the room,” he said in an interview last March with The Independent newspaper.
“I thought the mushroom cloud had followed me from Hiroshima,” he said.
From the NYTimes:
For more than a decade, media companies have hoped for a day when they could either control access to their products online or at least put a price on them that a mass market would bear. But that day has never come. What has changed is the level of threat they face, given the worst advertising downturn in memory.
Count me as one of skeptical ones when it comes to large-scale charging of readers.
