According to this article, FTP is celebrating its 40th birthday today.
Wow.
Big fan of FTP – a fast, dumb, error-challenged protocol that’s been around, well, for four decades!
I still use FTP extensively, at work and at home, to just “get stuff done.” Mainly at the command line, but many GUI clients work well. Whatever works for you.
Happy B-Day FTP!
Despicable MeThis is a strange little animated movie that is not great, but it just works.
Highly formulaic story line (bad guy brought back from the dark side by cute little kids – trust me, I’ve spoiled nothing), but is saved by wonderful animation, unbelievably imaginative characters and attention to detail.
The weapons used in this movie would make Wiley Coyote salivate – from freeze guns to squid shooters, and rockets galore.
This is a “rent it” movie. Good fun for all ages, but not something I’ll return to again (as I will with just about any Pixar title).
Well, the presidential election isn’t for another 18 months are so, but the jockeying has begun. Obviously, this is really only pronounced for the non-incumbent party (the Republicans).
OK, I can see trying to appeal to certain constituencies, but sometimes it gets so absurd that it makes candidates/king makers hard to take seriously.
Take Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who sat down for a radio interview with Bryan Fischer, a prominent voice of the religious right. They talked about the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), and Barbour – a potential Republican presidential candidate for 2012 – had this to say:
“[I]t’s not necessarily over homosexuality. It’s over the fact that when you’re under fire and people are living and dying of split-second decisions you don’t need any kind of amorous mindset that can effect saving people’s lives and killing bad guys. […]
“I think it ought to be rolled back. I just don’t see how you can take any other position if the person you are trying to protect is the soldier who is actually in combat.”
— DADT DEAD-ENDERS NEED TO GET OVER IT, WashingtonMonthly.com
Well, there is a lot wrong with Barbour’s statement, but – to me – what struck me was the “amorous mindset” phrase.
Here’s my thought – just as “there are no atheists in the foxholes” (William Thomas Cummings), there are “no amorous mindsets when under fire.” When you’re under fire (I have no experience with same), I would expect your thoughts are survival; saving your ass and those of your fellow soldiers – because if they are hit, your odds go down. With the bullets whizzing around, I don’t think there’s a lot of sexual tension. I don’t understand what Barbour was trying to say. I really don’t.
And how does re-instating DADT fix this “amorous mindset” problem? We’ll still have gays who are lusting after other gay/straight soldiers; but they’ll just be in the closet. And to really get rid of “amorous mindsets,” maybe we should get rid of women in the armed forces, as well, right? To keep the straight males focused.
Crazy.
And let’s back up to the radio program this was on – Bryan Fischer’s. His show has recently seen the likes of most Republican presidential hopefuls: Barbour, Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty and so on.
He’s big with the religious right.
And what are Fisher’s opinions on government and religion?
“Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy. While there certainly ought to be a presumption of religious liberty for non-Christian religious traditions in America, the Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment.”
[…] Fischer took it a step further, calling Islam a “treasonous ideology” and adding that “from a constitutional point of view, Muslims have no First Amendment right to build mosques in America. They have that privilege at the moment, but it is a privilege that can be revoked.”
— Bryan Fischer: Muslims Have No First Amendment Rights, talkingpointsmemo.com
Now, I support Fisher’s right to say such. I don’t agree with him, and – hopefully – he’d be OK with my right to say same.
But he’s a big hitter – do the candidates really want to associate with this kind of hate-mongering? Fischer didn’t even leave wiggle room for Jews – most of the times issues like this come up, the talking points are that the US is “Judea-Christian” nation. Are synagogues OK?
I am deeply saddened by polarizing rhetoric that passes for reasoned discourse these days. Part of it is the 24-hour news channels – a lot of feeding the beast – but some comes down to simple pandering, where it is easier to say “All Muslims are terrorists” than make that point that, yes, some terrorists are Muslims. And some Muslims are political/business leaders helping the country. Just not as easy to put on a bumper sticker.
One of my favorite musical groups today (I just discovered them a year or so ago) are The New Pornographers. They took their name from a declaration by some conservative religious leader who declared (I’m paraphrasing) that “rock and roll is the new pornography.” They were rock and rollers, hence, the new pornographers. The religious leader meant this as a bad thing; the musical group took it lightly.
To me, the new pornography – in the bad sense (pornography here as pejorative term) – is the accept-no-gray, America is the land of opportunity (but only if you’re like me/believe what I do…), self-righteous, fact-adverse political/religious discourse/diatribes.
It’s hurting everyone. It’s vitriolic.
Downloaded Firefox 4 this evening. First impressions:
Again, first impressions.
I’ll have to see how it works with memory (Firefox 3.x could get piggy with memory…). Looking VERY good right now, but whatever.
Again, first impressions.
Update 3/24: If anything, 4.x is worse than 3.x with memory – CPU and RAM sucked up. Could be – in part – the new Flash I’ve installed, but it is still ugly.
Update 3/24 #2: Post-Flash install seems to have settled down things a bit. But need more days to draw true conclusions..
When the internet first rolled around, it was pretty open.
You had gopher, archie, veronica and – later – FTP. Get a picture? Get UUDecode.
Then came the web. AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy and so on.
In the beginning, one could only email a Prodigy account from, well, another Prodigy account. And so on.
The walls came down (relatively) quickly, but new walls quickly came up:
Today, the walls have changed, but they still exist:
The fragmentation into silos makes sense – it’s a point of differentiation (Apple: We’re more integrated; Android: We’re more open). And these are different technologies. Understood.
But – to the average consumer – it’s freakin’ impossible to understand. They don’t understand that, for example, if Amazon discontinues the Kindle, well, it might be a bad thing for them.
Silos are bad. Mebee…
Yet silos can be your friend.
Ten years ago people were horrified at the notion of Intel adding a unique ID to all of its processors. Today every phone has a unique ID, and yours is probably uploaded to apps’ servers multiple times a day. Not so long ago, people were outraged that Amazon could and did arbitrarily delete books from users’ Kindles; last week they clamored for Google to exercise essentially the same power.
— Jon Evans, The Walled Garden Has Won
He’s got a point. It’s part of the Facebook world, confirming Scott McNealy’s (in)famous quotation, “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”
But there are silos of privacy (almost gone), and silos of data (can I easily port my Blogger.com account to WordPress.com?).
The latter is still very difficult – and I’m a web dork. And it’s my data, dammit!
There need to be basic standards that – for example (and not picking on anyone) – blog hosting sites adhere to. So you can easily export your data to a different blog hosting site. Sure, may lose some functionality (think about saving that MS Word doc as RTF – yep, some formatting will be lost….), but, for the most part, intact/possible.
Or you can export your pics from site X to site Y- yeah, may lose the thumbnails/friends, but OK…
That’ll be a good thing.
We’re not there yet, and – for the most part – it’s gotten worse over the last few years, as every new startup does things differently. So porting your (pics/data/spreadsheets/etc) gets messier and messier.
I expect things to get a little worse before they get better – but that means some innovation is occurring, so that’s not a really bad thing.
But it’s frustrating at times.
The average web user has a Yahoo! email account.
Yahoo!, is, unfortunately, dying. It’ll stay afloat due to its large installed base (hey, all those email accounts – how many of you have free excite.com email accounts [that you still use]?).
But – tomorrow – is that enough for Yahoo to say alive? If not, what happens to (a bazillion) yahoo.com email accounts? Including your account, that you use just for X or Y (water bill notifications; kid’s school stuff…)
Silos. Good…bad…hmm…
Tonight – about five to six hours from now – the 2011 Academy Awards show will get underway; here’s my list of the winners and why.
[Update ~11pm – Watched the Oscars; added winners/losers. Got seven of nine correct.]
Best Picture – The King’s Speech
Why: I haven’t seen yet, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. And it’s the traditional type of big Hollywood movie the Academy traditionally rewards. Correct
Best Director – David Fincher, The Social Network
Why: The Facebook movie is picked by a lot of critics to take home the Best Picture award, but I just don’t see that happening. While a somewhat traditional Hollywood movie (hard work, some backstabbing and you make good), it’s more of a younger movie, and the Academy is old. I think the Academy may reward Fincher with the Best Director award instead of the Best Picture award (which, as I outlined above, will go to The King’s Speech) – much like the way it was done with Brokeback Mountain a few years ago. Wrong – it went to the favorite, The King’s Speach.
Best Actor – Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
Why: Nothing but good press for Firth in a highly-acclaimed movie. And movies where one plays against type of or has a disability (think Rainman, Forrest Gump, Boys Don’t Cry) give one an extra bump. This is a gimme. Correct
Best Actress – Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Why: See Best Actor, above. Much, much darker than anything she has played. Though the sexual elements of her performance may work against her with some Academy members. We are such prudes in this country. Correct
Best Support Actor – Christian Bale, The Fighter
Why: Really, the only competition for Bale is Geoffrey Rush in The King’s Speech. Since this is going to be a King’s Speech night, Rush has a chance of pulling an upset. However, he has won before (Best Actor for Shining), and the Academy tends to reward someone new. If merit alone won Academy Awards, think of how cluttered Meryl Streep’s mantelpiece would be… Correct
Best Supporting Actress – Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Why: Most critics say Leo is a lock, but with both her and Amy Adams nominated for the same slot from the same movie, there might be some ballot-splitting. But I still see Leo taking the statue home. If there is a split, Helena Bonham Carter will be the winner – again, it’s going to be a King’s Speech love fest… Correct
Best Original Screenplay – Christopher Nolan, Inception
Why: I really haven’t read much about this – I believe The King’s Speech is nominated here, as well. But Inception is just so strikingly original that I think is should win. Wrong – went to The King’s Speech. Interesting.
Best Adapted Screenplay – Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Why: This was brilliant writing and, to me, was the best part of the movie. If this doesn’t win, that’ll be a big surprise to me. Correct
Best Animated Film – Toy Story 3
Why: Because every Pixar film is so many times better than the competition… Correct
The envelope please…
Tonight (Sunday) I’m tailing a work initiative, so it’s time in front of the computer but nothing intensive.
So I give you some (completely) random thoughts I’ve jotted in a tickler.
Social Network, TheThis was definitely a Sorkin movie – the shotgun dialogue – but the director (David Fincher) really made the movie with interesting choices of cinematography and the non-linear plot (although that could have been Sorkin, as well).
I know of Facebook and some of the backstory, but I’m not really in a position to say how accurate it was. The tech parts were, for the most part, spot on (except that Zuckerberg had an AT keyboard. I don’t think so…).
Good watch, but not something I’ll watch again any time soon, if at all. I’ve seen it. That’s that.
I saw “The Social Network” today (review, right – One word review: “Meh”), and the two take-aways from the movie I saw were:
(NOTE: That’s from the movie, not necessarily from reality.)
This resonated with me on a couple of levels: The current state of the internet is a lot like 1998 – the bubble is rising. And a lot of it is that people are pumping money into companies with no real due diligence, and it seems as though a lot of companies are being built to be purchased.
It’s all about the Benjamins.
The internet is getting closer to Wall Street than Main Street. On Wall Street, all they really do is figure out ways to make money. Period. No new products, no tools/devices to make life better – just schemes to make money. Use money in a novel way to make more money. To the nth degree.
While this is, to a (non-nth, let’s say) degree, fine (hey, “Greed is good,” right?), it causes problems when the banks/brokerage houses are suddenly the financial engines of the country, instead of GM, Ford, General Electric and so on. Ya know, companies that actually make something in addition to profits.
That’s why I gave GroupOn props for spurning Google’s buyout offer.
Much like Zuckerberg, GroupOn decided to stay true to its vision and not settle for a couple of pallets of cash. At the same time, part of both Zuckerberg’s and GroupOn’s equation is that no matter that offer is presented, it doesn’t come close to the potential valuation of either property. As of today, both companies have bet correctly.
Yesterday, Saturday, January 8th, 2011, a gunman shot – at point-blank range – U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D, AZ) as she was at a meet-and-greet in her home district.
The assassination attempt left six dead, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl, and over a dozen injured, many critically.
Giffords is currently out of surgery, and doing well (considering the circumstances). Long-term prognosis has not even been mentioned.
A couple of quick notes:
Lots of talk on the intertubes about this, obviously.
There is no upside to this for anyone, yet there is a lot of finger-pointing.
Taking a longer view of the situation, HuffingtonPost.com’s Howard Fineman puts his finger on the bigger picture – while not ignoring the incredible suffering this shooter has inflicted on individuals, the community and the nation as a whole.
The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is a watershed event in many ways, some of which we cannot yet know, but one of the clearest and simplest is this: Congress and its members are about to be permanently quarantined, physically isolated, from the people it and they represent.
Thirty years ago, there was no such thing as security on Capitol Hill or for members. Members of the public were free to roam the halls, and police presence was practically invisible. There were no barricades around the grounds, and even the leadership rarely had any form of protection.
The Hill was the very model of the People’s Place — and in that respect it was an inspirational symbol of our democracy.
— Howard Fineman, The End of Access
I was in DC this summer, and it had changed in so many ways since I was last in the district (over 30 years ago, granted).
The White House is now a fortress: Lockdowns for foot traffic when a helicopter is inbound, police with M-16s everywhere, barricades are the norm.
It’s sad, but it’s – unfortunately – a reaction to reality. And it’s in evidence across federal buildings.
Yesterday, many individuals died, and many were injured.
One of the casualties was at least one facet of democracy: the idea that an individual can meet – face-to-face – with those who represent that individual.
Going to be much harder moving forward.
I’m not minimizing the loss of life or those who were physically injured yesterday, but this event has far-ranging consequences.
This is not a year in review piece, it’s just a collection of things that struck me over the course of the year.
 Favorite book: This would have to be Kurt Vonnegut’s A Man Without a Country. This book came out in 2005, but I just became aware of it this year (read my review). Once I did stumble upon it, I purchased and devoured.
It’s as close to an autobiography of Vonnegut as we’re going to get (unless there is some manuscript waiting to be discovered…), and while not a true autobiography in any sense, it’s Vonnegut writing about his life/thoughts in the first person. A very enjoyable – albeit brief – read, but good to spend some time with new (to me) Vonnegut. |
 Favorite musician: Regina Spektor. I saw the movie 500 Days of Summer (more on this later), and the movie had an amazing soundtrack, with a lot of artists I wasn’t familiar with. So I purchased the soundtrack, and two of the tracks – two of my favs – were by Regina Spektor. So I purchased a couple of her CDs, and they are amazing: Soviet Kitsch and Begin to Hope. These are older albums (2004 & 2006, respectively), but new to me.
I don’t quite know how to quantify Spektor to those who don’t know her – perhaps a mix between Tori Amos (piano) and PJ Harvey (out of the mainstream folk/pop with balls). I love Spektor’s staccato beat, especially on “Us.” Awesome. I just ordered a more recent – 2009 – release of Specktor’s, Far from Amazon. It got mixed reviews – for some it was bad because it wasn’t as pure/raw (voice/piano); others said it was still all Spektor, just with the full studio feel. I have not received yet; it’ll be interesting. My fav musical artist of this year, even if she has been around for years. |
 Favorite movie: Saw a lot of good films this year – all on DVD and not necessarily from this year – but the one that stands out is 500 Days of Summer. Quirky, non-linear, great mix of film and illustration, awesome soundtrack (see above).
Best movie ever? Of course not. Just a very watchable (over and over) film. |
| The Ugly American: The USA, with its vast wealth and international reach, has always been dissed – from some camps – for our intervention. We’re always sticking our nose where somebody objects to same.
Whatever. After 9/11, the mistrust of the US seemed to increase. Understandable (to some degree), as we were engaging in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and dragging our NATO allies into same. But the ugliness – the Islamophobia – that has occurred IN the US has been particularly troubling to me. The Ground Zero Mosque clusterfuck was a great example of the idiotic thinking of so many. Great wrap-up on same at TPM. The last time something this crazy happened in the U.S. was the deplorable Red Scare/McCarthyism of the 1950s. Sure, Nixon had his Enemies’ List and J. Edgar Hoover, with all his paranoia, investigated, well, just about everyone. But the communist craze – destroying people’s lives due to sometimes only perceived communist tendencies is a black spot on American history. And it’s very analogous to the Islamophobia going on today. People are defined by one attribute – Communist/Muslim – without regard to any other conditions. Communist bad! Muslim terrorist! Just depressing. Add to that the unbridled gay-bashing that occurred this year as part of the, uh, debate(?) over the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT), and there was a lot of hate Made in the USA this year, some directed abroad, a lot directed at our fellow citizens. Not a good year to be proud of your country. |
| Tech Meme: Smartphones. Yeah, where have I been for the last three years…
It’s just that I live and work in the burbs, and when we vacation, we usually hit more rural areas. This summer, we went to Maryland (Chesapeake Bay – rural) and and Washington, D.C. What struck me – as we rode the Metro, airport buses and just walk the mall – was the sheer number of people constantly texting/reading texts. It seems as if no one gets on the Metro and just spaces out and uses the commute time to just stare out the window and decompress. Nope. Right to the smartphones. Ditto for people on the mall, obviously on lunch. Not much talking, but staring and pecking at the candy-bar format phones. As someone who has been far from the madding crowd for a couple of years, the change was startling – though not at all a surprise. Folks I work with do it all the time and I don’t think a thing about it – it was just with masses of people, just about everyone was heads down, which I had not really seen/taking in before. |
Run Lola RunThis is just what the title says: Lola (Potente) running.
A German film, it won the audience award at Sundance in 1999.
Basic outline of movie: Lola gets a call from loser of a boyfriend; he’s screwed up and – unless he can come up with a lot of money in 20 minutes, he’ll probably be killed. Lola promises to get to him – with the cash (somehow) – in that time period.
Most of the movies is Lola running through the streets, trying to fashion a plan. She runs a LOT.
There are three sequences, all beginning the same (the phone call and her running out of their apartment). Yet each of the three sequences have very slight differences, and those differences make all the difference in the world to Lola and those close to her.
Oddball, artsy film. Not one you’ll watch time and again, but I enjoyed.
Well, it’s that time of the year: Prognoistications. As I have for the past couple of years (2010 guesses, 2009 guesses), I’ll first take a look back and see how I did for this year before gazing into the crystal ball for 2011.
Here’s what I was expecting for 2010:
So how did I do?
Not great, considering some of the topics addressed (newspapers will have a rough year; in related news, the sun will rise tomorrow…).
And some of by ballsier predictions – Job’s announcing retirement, Ballmer getting shown the door – never happened.
Oh well, what’s done is done.
The (possibly) next exciting entry: 2011 Tech Prognostications! Whoo-hoo!
