It's Not Your Imagination

Technology really is speeding up - and more importantly our adoption of technology is speeding up with it.

The color TV and microwave took about 15 years for full adoption (i.e from 5% to 80% of households) while the VCR and cell phones reached this in only 10 years. Compare this with the long gently rising slopes for electricity, cars, and refrigerators.

So based on how the adoption curves are steepening I figure whatever major technological appliance-thingy comes next - neural implants, nano augmentation, etc - will become standard in a mere 5 or 6 years.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:57 PM | Comments (931)
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Nuance.

Fatboy's on again about Science, which he plainly has a strong interest in.

thanks to @bcohen

Posted by: Ace at 02:33 PM | Comments (417)
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Awesome.

Oh, that's the ever-douchier and less relevant Kevin Smith arguing with him with his fake "Hey mannn, I'm just a gentle hippie" bullshit.

Lovitz nails him on this act by pointing out Kevin Smith's favorite word is "monetize." more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:11 PM | Comments (289)
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Joe Lieberman has questions.

The White House's mouthpiece has answers.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney announced that White House legal counsel has concluded no White House staff engaged in any "misconduct" in Cartagena.

Case closed!

@slublog provides this actual continuation of Carney's quote, from Roll Call:

Carney declined to provide details of the review.

“I’m not going to give you a blow-by-blow,” he said.

That would be best.

Posted by: Ace at 12:13 PM | Comments (215)
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These ladies have been enslaved.

In a lawsuit against three Indiana government officials, a labor union alleged on Wednesday that its constitutional rights under the Thirteenth Amendment — which outlawed “slavery” and “involuntary servitude” — are violated whenever its members are forced to work alongside nonunion employees.

[A]n amended complaint filed on Wednesday added a Thirteenth Amendment claim as well. The new lawsuit suggests that when nonunion employees earn higher salaries and better benefits because of the unionÂ’s negotiation on behalf of its members, the union has been forced to work for those nonunion employees for free.

You know, I'd like to explore this notion that if a law requires one to labor for the benefit of another, it constitutes illegal, unconstitutional slavery under the 13th Amendment.

Posted by: Ace at 11:21 AM | Comments (237)
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Eh, nonsense.

I feel like a sap for even linking this because it's like saying "You ought to quit smoking."

Yeah, you should, but what's the point of saying it? No one is going to do so until they decide to.

There's no point telling the New York Times it needs to be less biased in favor of Obama.

Still, for what it's worth:

The Times needs to offer an aggressive look at the presidentÂ’s record, policy promises and campaign operation to answer the question: Who is the real Barack Obama?

Many critics view The Times as constitutionally unable to address the election in an unbiased fashion. Like a lot of America, it basked a bit in the warm glow of Mr. Obama’s election in 2008. The company published a book about the country’s first African-American president, “Obama: The Historic Journey.” The Times also published a lengthy portrait of him in its Times Topics section on NYTimes.com, yet there’s nothing of the kind about George W. Bush or his father.

According to a study by the media scholars Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter, The TimesÂ’s coverage of the presidentÂ’s first year in office was significantly more favorable than its first-year coverage of three predecessors who also brought a new party to power in the White House: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.

Writing for the periodical Politics & Policy, the authors were so struck by the findings that they wondered, “Did The Times, perhaps in response to the aggressive efforts by Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal to seize market share, decide to tilt more to the left than it had in the past?”

I strongly doubt that. Based on conversations with Times reporters and editors who cover the campaign and Washington, I think they see themselves as aggressive journalists who don’t play favorites. Still, a strong current of skepticism holds that the paper skews left. Unfortunately, this is exacerbated by collateral factors — for example, political views that creep into nonpolitical coverage.

He notes the Times' feature writers tend to inject partisan political jibes into non-partisan material -- like reviews of Downton Abbey.

Well, now that this has been noted in the Times, they can consider that box checked, and go back to ignoring their bias completely.

Posted by: Ace at 10:59 AM | Comments (140)
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Consensus?

[Lovelock] previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, he wrote that “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.”

However, the professor admitted in a telephone interview with msnbc.com that he now thinks he had been “extrapolating too far."

Check out his previous titles.

The new book, due to be published next year, will be the third in a trilogy, following his earlier works, “Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity,” and “The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning: Enjoy It While You Can.”

Alarmist? Nah.

I like the two colons in the last one. He couldn't pick one alarmist title, so he linked three of them in a row.

Here's one he meant to write, but didn't:

Earth to Humans: This is Your Last Chance: I Have Your Wife and Children In a Sack: I Will Send One Finger Each Hour On The Hour Until My Demands Are Met: Don't Toy With Me, I'm A Desperate Loner With Nothing Left To Lose: PS I Want Kate Winslet To Deliver the Money: Naked

“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.

“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said.

“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising -- carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.

He specifically noted Al Gore's "Earth in the Balance" as examples of "alarmist" -- and therefore flawed-- claims.

Thanks to @drewmtips, aka DrewMusings.

Posted by: Ace at 10:19 AM | Comments (182)
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Link.

via @katmckinley

Posted by: Ace at 09:39 AM | Comments (199)
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Thomas Friedman's brain is one-third the size of a man's. It's science.

I had to catch a train in Washington last week. The paved street in the traffic circle around Union Station was in such poor condition that I felt as though I was on a roller coaster.

No it's not. I go there frequently. I can't swear there are no potholes. I can swear, however, I've never noticed them.

I traveled on the Amtrak Acela, our sorry excuse for a fast train, on which I had so many dropped calls on my cellphone that youÂ’d have thought I was on a remote desert island, not traveling from Washington to New York City.

I don't even know what to say to this. You're traveling at 60-70 mph, moving from one cell tower's coverage to the next. Happens, man.

I use the internet connection on the train when I take it. There are occasional interruptions of service, time outs. Sometimes it doesn't work at all, and I have to use my phone as a modem.

I guess I'm just baffled that he's shocked that this happens. And that he demands a gold-plated government to spare him these inconveniences.

When I got back to Union Station, the escalator in the parking garage was broken.

Sucks. But here's the thing: Human beings need more exercise. So, take it as an opportunity to work some of that fat off your belly.

The thing about escalators is this: They are structural conveyances. They cannot be swapped out. Like all mechanical things, they break. During this period of repair, there is no Emergency Escalator ready to go -- as of course there could not possibly be.

Every subterranean area has an elevator in addition to an escalator. If you were so cheesed about the escalator -- try the elevator.

Or do we need a "renewal" and Mike Bloomberg because there was a three-minute line at the elevator?

Maybe youÂ’ve gotten used to all this and have stopped noticing.

I never really expected otherwise.

I havenÂ’t. Our country needs a renewal.

And that is why I still hope Michael Bloomberg will reconsider running for president as an independent candidate, if only to participate in the presidential debates and give our two-party system the shock it needs.

At the link, Pejman Yousefzdeh suggests a meme: Dwell on a tiny, inane point that annoys you, one that government has nothing to do with (or should have nothing to do with), and spin out a GooGoo (Good Government) whine about it, culminating in a call for a 3rd party candidate (preferably Bloomberg) to fix this nit.

Posted by: Ace at 09:00 AM | Comments (332)
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Pass the damn laws. Protect the integrity of the vote. This isn't friggin' Mombasa.

As Virginia legislators hotly debated a voter ID bill that narrowly passed the General Assembly, many were unaware of a state police investigation that, so far, has resulted in charges against 38 people statewide for voter fraud. Warrants have been obtained for a 39th person who can't be located.

...

Many opponents of the voter ID law maintained that there was no evidence of widespread election fraud in Virginia, and the law would suppress the vote of minorities and others who don't have adequate identification. About 3.7 million Virginians voted in the 2008 election.

...

A total of 194 cases statewide where police determined a violation likely occurred have been closed because the commonwealth's attorneys in those localities declined to prosecute those individuals, police said.

The results of the state police investigation appears to contradict, to some degree, claims made by some opponents of the voter ID bill that no evidence existed of widespread voter fraud in Virginia.

Posted by: Ace at 07:27 AM | Comments (260)
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