A long, but very interesting essay on the current situation regarding digital broadcast television (DTV), digital cable and satellite TV, Internet streaming, content protection, etc. “Prisoners of Digital Television” by Mike Godwin, Reason.com(even longer version available at PublicKnowledge.org) It is a bit technical, but if you are wondering what’s going on with the move to […]
Andrew Orlowski, writing for The Register, is currently busy covering the Google News automated service and their recent inclusion of press releases as legitimate news sources. Here’s the latest column: “PR rules, OK? Google ducks promised news policy pledge” by Andrew Orlowski, The Register.co.uk It does sound like a serious issue, although it depends on […]
I must admit it was particularly pleasing to watch Man U losing 3-1 against Real Madrid and being given a lesson of football by an extremely powerful team. Several Man U players were also deservedly booked for ridiculously inappropriate behaviour. And some of them will rightfully miss the return leg because of suspension. The only […]
More on the unbearable hypocrisy of the current US administration and its advocates: “The Last Refuge” by Paul Krugman, The New York Times For years to come, then, this country may be, in some sense, at war. And all that time, if Mr. Racicot and his party are allowed to set the ground rules, nobody […]
Every day bring to the fore another problem in Mac OS X’s Mail application. Today, while receiving yet again a large (1 MB) attachment via my pokey modem connection, I couldn’t help but notice that the progress bar in the “Activity Viewer” window (an indispensable Mail troubleshooting tool if you are on a slow Internet […]
Important column by Robert Scheer on what’s ahead of us now that the Saddam Hussein regime is pretty much over. “The View from the Throne” by Robert Scheer, AlterNet.org … the most dangerous days are ahead for the U.S. This battle is for the hearts and minds of Iraqis, Americans and the rest of the […]
While it contains some exaggerations (500,000 civilian casualties?), it’s still a good read: “Metaphor and War, Again” by George Lakoff, AlterNet.org I’m not sure it all falls under the “Metaphor” category, though. As far as I can tell, some of the language is based on metonymy as much as it is based on analogy. In […]
Dave shares with us his notes for a talk given at Harvard: “Speech and weblogs” by Dave Winer, DaveNet The Internet is the nicest distribution system for creative work that’s ever been invented. Pretty good, and with some important links.
I am quickly reaching boiling point with Mac OS X’s Mail application these days. And the reason is extremely simple. I have had enough of all these obnoxious, useless, erroneous, irritating, intrusive, idiotic error messages telling me that my email account password is wrong or that the server could not be reached. All my passwords […]
I am 35. I have been using computers since the age of 12. (My first computer was a Sharp MZ80K.) I have been typing on computer keyboards during all that time. I have never taken any typing courses, but I am a fairly fast typist, using 5 or 6 fingers. I have never experienced any […]
When editing an existing Word document, there’s little that’s more irritating than HAVING to fix tables created by other people. I have already had the opportunity to describe this type of activity. For example, why is it that nobody seems to know what the “Repeat row headings” option is for? If you have a TABLE […]
I have a dual-monitor set up with two flat panel displays. (Yeah, I know, lucky me :).) The “Font smoothing” setting in my “General” preference pane in System Preferences is set to “Medium – best for Flat Panel”. Yet on occasion, when I move a Word document window from the main monitor to the secondary […]
Is it me, or is Word X totally unreliable when it comes to using the keyboard in the “Find/Replace” dialog window? Every other time I invoke this window, when I try to use the keyboard while in the window (tab key to go from “Find:” to “Replace:” field, return key to start the searching process, […]
Over the past few months, I have done my best to try and acquire an informed perspective on the (first looming and then very real) war in Iraq by reading articles and essays from a great variety of sources. Invariably, however, the arguments that I have heard from the pro-war camp in the mainstream media […]
Following last week’s item on the apparent change in policy regarding access to the archive of old New York Times columns, I am pleased to report that the archive is now back to its previous state, i.e. fully accessible. This is good news for all those who, like me, have been linking to the New […]