Tag: Web, Blogging and Computers

In The Days Of The Bubble

Jay has been noting events at the disasterously bad idea of Pajama Media – great evidence in itself that the A-list idea of 2003 never was – and I repeat the noting of this quotation below from the discussion board at “pajamasmedia.isfullofcrap.com” just for its sheer 1998-ish-ness:

When the only evident sign of investment is in the party you throw to announce an organization with an illegal name offering a service that no one understands and that you yourself aren’t entirely able to define, you’ve got a real problem.

Interesting to note that the URL for the thing is “osm.org”, still referencing that allegedly “illegal” name “Open Source Media” – illegal in that it was owned by some other media called “Open Source”, a fairly well known US public radio show. Nutty.

…but maybe now is the time to try to sell dog food over the internet.

Google Bubble

Micheal is putting the boogie curse on my one share of Google. I suppose that the collapse of Google in itself would trigger the end of this bubble economy. But what of the small investor who puts just enough in to get the annual report and little else? What of me that person? Shouldn’t that investor be able to trust in a system that allows irrationality to provide a 3000% annual return and a few decent share splits on an information product that can’t even assure you that the answer provided is the authoritative one on the topic?

Draw Your Own GUI

GUI = Graphical User Interface. Now you can draw your own. I find this widget called the Fly very interesting – and I don’t find many new widgets actually of any use at all:

The Fly also comes with something called Fly Open Paper: a sheaf of blank pages that permit a much more free-form range of creative activities. You indicate which program you want by writing its initials in a circle. For example, in Notepad mode (draw an N in a circle), you can write up to three block-letter words at a time; the pen then reads back what you’ve written. In Scheduler (circled S), you can write “Tuesday 3:45 P.M. student council”; at the specified time, the pen will turn itself on and speak the appointment’s name. Then there’s the Calculator (circled C), which is for nerds what “Pinocchio” is to wooden puppets. As you draw a set of calculator buttons, they come to life, speaking their own names when tapped and announcing the mathematical results (“one hundred sixty-nine, square root, equals thirteen”).

Not only does the computer state it but it stores it and then makes it downloadable. The neat thing is that a whack of people could work off the a single computer in a setting where there is not a lot of cash to buy a PC per person. I wonder if it comes in United Nations green? Click for a bigger view.

Update: there is a harrowing little paragraph at the end of the New York Times article lined above:

when it comes to children’s technology, a sort of post-educational age has dawned. Last year, Americans bought only one-third as much educational software as they did in 2000. Once highflying children’s software companies have dwindled or disappeared. The magazine once called Children’s Software Review is now named Children’s Technology Review, and over half of its coverage now is dedicated to entertainment titles (for Game Boy, PlayStation and the like) that have no educational component.

1 + 0 = 2

I linked to this yesterday over at the sideblog (that’s what that is called by the way) but the list of people making fun of the concept of Web 2.0 is one of the best anti-tech-hype things I have read for a long time. Any you might add? My favorite is

Web 2.0 is made of … Segway spare parts

By the way, speaking of the counter culture, have you seen that iPod add where everyone is walking around in the street in their own exclusionary poddy bubbles but singing the same Christmas carol. Oddly, none of them seem to get hit by cars and, laughingly, they all carry the tune. Has no one broken the news to these people that people singing with headphones in their ears sound like scalded but urgently amorous cats?

My Favorite Legal Article

I just came across the searchable, on-line, member’s only archive of the Canadian Bar Review which I immediately whirled into use to find my favorite law journal article of all time “The Early Provincial Constitutions” by J.E.Read from 1948. Classic nerd knowledge fills every page: The content of that ur-document the Letters of Patent for Nova Scotia from 1749, the fact that the British Empire was a unitary state without rival sovereignty, the cite for Re Cape Breton (1846), 5 Moo P.C. 259 confirming the use of Royal prerogative to unify two colonies into one.

Wow. Neato. I’ll be back to you guys later.