Category: del.icio.us

[technology, information] != knowledge

“If the passenger with the iPhone would be kind enough,” he began, “to use it to check the weather at our alternate airport, then calculate our revised fuel burn due to being rerouted, then call our dispatcher to arrange our amended release, then make a call to the nearest traffic control center to arrange a new slot time (among all the other aircraft carrying passengers with iPhones), we’ll then be more than happy to depart…. [From iPhone Ownership Does Not Bestow Meteorology Degree – Boing Boing Gadgets ] I agree that the pandering and security theater are worse than stupid but so is assuming what your friend sees out the window is an accurate meteorological view of the conditions at 35,000 feet.

We were informed that Chicago had put a three-hour delay on all incoming flights due to weather. People around me were calling friends there who reported it cold but clear. [From Naked Terrorist Toothpaste]

I was reminded of this:

Reportedly, the captain responded with a public address announcement that was sharp enough to elicit audible laughter from the cabin.

“If the passenger with the iPhone would be kind enough,” he began, “to use it to check the weather at our alternate airport, then calculate our revised fuel burn due to being rerouted, then call our dispatcher to arrange our amended release, then make a call to the nearest traffic control center to arrange a new slot time (among all the other aircraft carrying passengers with iPhones), we’ll then be more than happy to depart. Please ring your call button to advise the flight attendant and your fellow passengers when you deem it ready and responsible for this multimillion-dollar aircraft and its 84 passengers to safely leave.”

[From iPhone Ownership Does Not Bestow Meteorology Degree – Boing Boing Gadgets ]

I agree that the pandering and security theater are worse than stupid but so is assuming what your friend sees out the window is an accurate meteorological view of the conditions at 35,000 feet.

bonus quote of the day

As I like to say, elite American news outlets are best understood not as journalistic organizations, but as the church newsletters for an extremely unpleasant religion.

As I like to say, elite American news outlets are best understood not as journalistic organizations, but as the church newsletters for an extremely unpleasant religion. [From More From The Our Lady Of Strangling Brown People Newsletter]

links for 2008-01-23

links for 2008-01-20

Crowds of French patriots line the Champs Elysees to view Allied tanks and half tracks pass through the Arc du Triomphe, after Paris was liberated on August 25, 1944 (LOC)

Crowds of French patriots line the Champs Elysees to view Allied tanks and half tracks pass through the Arc du Triomphe, after Paris was liberated on August 25, 1944 (LOC) Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress …. Of course, I would be 80 years old now, but you know what I mean.

Oh, to have been there. Of course, I would be 80 years old now, but you know what I mean.
If you take a closer look, the little old man down in the right front makes it for me. Stooped, dressed in a suit in the August heat, had probably wondered if this day would ever come, but there he is clapping. He’s of the right age to remember the last war as well, maybe to have fought in it.


You can see a 141 Mb TIFF (!!) here.

overkill

I have two in service, with three available networks, and another in a box with two networks.

…Every computer in your house can work off a wireless network at blazing speeds.

I don’t need another wireless base station. I have two in service, with three available networks, and another in a box with two networks.

Time Capsule is also a full-featured 802.11n Wi-Fi base station. Every computer in your house can work off a wireless network at blazing speeds. And they can back up wirelessly to the same Time Capsule.

[From Apple – Time Capsule]

What I would like is just a big chunk of networked disk. Does Time Capsule do more than just take whatever Time Machine throws its way?

links for 2008-01-15

quote of the day

The value of a newspaper is not that it gives me information ; the value of a newspaper is how it selects information – what it puts in and what it leaves out.

…It used to be that editors and publishers had an idea why they were publishing a newspaper at all (Ralph McGill’s “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” is hard to top).

,

[W]hy are newspapers, for instance, having such a hard time? I think it’s because they have a fundamental misunderstanding of what they do. The value of a newspaper is not that it gives me information; the value of a newspaper is how it selects information – what it puts in and what it leaves out. [From Hugh McGuire: Porn Knows What It’s For — Do You?]

It used to be that editors and publishers had an idea why they were publishing a newspaper at all (Ralph McGill’s “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” is hard to top). Now I’m not so sure. Is it because of the increase in corporate ownership, where a newspaper might be owned by some conglomerate with its own agenda?