From ofb.biz
0 3
The same year Apple launched the iPhone, it unveiled a massive upgrade to Mac OS X known as Leopard, sporting “300 New Features.” Two years later, it did something almost unheard of: it released Snow Leopard, an upgrade all about how little it added and how much it took away. Apple needs to make...
on Thu, 1AM
From ofb.biz
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Let us begin by establishing that Marie-chan is the cutest cat ever. There is no escaping it. A little white ball of fluff with a face that suggests that she thinks she is much bigger and more fierce than she actually is, when you see her you want to look in back to find out if there is a key...
on Feb 27
From ofb.biz
Tech Shouldn’t Die Young, But Increasingly Does
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The Humane Pin has died and HP has killed it. The burial of last year’s tech darling, DOA as its concept was from the get-go, isn’t that important in itself, but continues the troubling trend of things we buy dying unnatural deaths.
on Feb 20
From ofb.biz
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Through an exclusive breakthrough in quantum journalism, Open for Business has obtained a classified Soviet Union memorandum from an alternate timeline. The document from 1956 in that reality describes a service we never enjoyed, Tick Tock Radio (TTR), an initiative apparently key to that...
on Jan 29
From ofb.biz
The Social Media Seesaw is Why We Need the Fediverse
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Last week, I praised Meta’s move from censoring information to using Community Notes to provide transparent, crowdsourced accountability. This swift reversal is encouraging, but its speed and decisiveness warn of the dangers of centralized social media like Facebook, X and even Bluesky.
on Jan 16
From ofb.biz
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If you look around or listen, you’ll hear the newly minted cliché that the Democratic Party is now engaged in soul searching after it got hammered yesterday, top to bottom, by voters who did not like what it was selling.
on Nov 7
From ofb.biz
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If all goes well, we’ll awaken a week from today to the ghastly thought that we’ll be listening to that voice for the next four years. I say if all goes well, because if the election is as close as the predictors say it will be — sooner or later, just by chance, they will be right — this thing...
on Nov 1
From ofb.biz
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There was a time, longer ago than most of us who remember it would like to admit, when most people in the country could identify the three national television news anchors. Well, except for ABC; at the time it seemed as if ABC could not identify its own anchor.
on Oct 25
From ofb.biz
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So it’s been, what, six months since I concocted my homemade television sets. Since then I’ve missed nothing that I would have liked to watch, and have watched much that was not available via the usual, um, channels. And I have maintained my privacy.
on Oct 17
From ofb.biz
Trump-Vance's Primrose Pro-Choice Path
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Let’s be clear: it’s either murder or it’s not. The problem with the Trump-Vance take on abortion is not its pro-life bent. No, it is pro-choice in a far less principled way than the pro-choice position itself is.
on Oct 5
From ofb.biz
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A few weeks ago I mentioned my intention to switch from the now-sketchy Ubuntu distribution of Linux, which I’ve used for 20 years, to the uber-reliable Debian. This was in lieu of buying a new machine. Well, actually, the parts to build a new machine; the last time I ran a store-bought computer...
on Sep 28
From ofb.biz
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There was a time, children, when a presidential election involved a choice between serious people who offered plans, policy proposals, and philosophies.
on Sep 26
From ofb.biz
Why I Don’t Make Swift Endorsements
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Unless you live under a rock, you know that the second most anticipated endorsement of the presidential election finally happened: Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris. Don’t hold your breath for the most anticipated: I won’t be making an endorsement. (And maybe you shouldn’t either.)
on Sep 26
From ofb.biz
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The time has come. The inevitable can be postponed no more. I’m switching my desktop computer to Debian Linux. I should have embraced Debian from the beginning. Please allow me to offer my excuse for not having done so 26 years ago.
on Sep 5
From ofb.biz
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It was such a cute gadget. A tiny computer, brushed aluminum on the outside, with a decent keyboard (albeit with chicklet keys), a Thinkpad-ish pointing stick that would even take a grippy Thinkpad “cat’s tongue” insert. A fairly fast X86 Intel processor, enough storage, and 8 gigs of memory....
on Aug 30
From ofb.biz
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In Vice President Harris’s nomination speech, she labeled President Trump an “unserious man.” She was right, but she should know: she could wear the “unserious” label just fine herself.
on Aug 30
From ofb.biz
Another Institution Bites the Dust
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WCBS Radio in New York, the originator of all-news broadcasting, will cease to exist before the month is out. Its famous call letters will disappear, replaced by something else. Rather than 24-hour live news, it will become round-the-clock sports discussion of interest primarily to gamblers....
on Aug 15
From ofb.biz
Those Weird Enough to Ignore History
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This will be a weird election, but not in the sense of uniqueness. If anything, 2024 is a race to find out who can best ignore recent history and doom the rest of us to repeat the weirdest aspects of it.
on Aug 9
From ofb.biz
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“America needs a full-time president, and a full-time Congress,” Nixon said. He also admitted errors in the events that led to his decision. “If some of my judgments were wrong — and some were wrong — they were made in what I believed at the time to be in the best interests of the nation.” The...
on Aug 8
From ofb.biz
Episode 45: Are You Going to Put This In?
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The Boys are back with an episode recorded throughout the final weeks of Jason’s summer vacation. On the docket: whether AI created art is really art, a medley of sports subjects (including the Olympics and Caitlin Clark), a look back at the summer as the academic year arrives and an exploration...
on Aug 3
From ofb.biz
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For a short while a couple of days ago it seemed that it might — just might — be possible for a person of conscience to vote for Donald Trump. But then . . .
on Jul 18
From ofb.biz
As X Spirals, the Fediverse Awaits
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If you’ve read my columns over the last few years, you know I’ve been far less pessimistic about Elon Musk’s Twitter (err, “X”) than many, even when he’s made inexplicable decisions. Officially supporting pornographic publishing on X, though, is a line crossed and a good time to consider the...
on Jun 23
From ofb.biz
Trump Isn’t the Savior (and Neither Is A Conviction Against Him)
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I could have written this column, regardless of the outcome. Half the country has put its hopes in an all too human “savior.” Half the country has put its hopes on the defeat of that man. Today marks either a celebration or a catastrophe if one’s hopes rest on the state of President Trump. That...
on May 31
From ofb.biz
The COVID-19 Lies Are Collapsing -- Will Anyone Notice?
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Those of us who have watched what currently passes for news know in absurd detail all we could ever hope to know about the trial of a former president for the lone financial offense of which he is arguably not guilty. What we don’t know about, because it has received practically no coverage, is...
on May 31
From ofb.biz
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In 1974 my friend and mentor Sylvia Porter, the financial columnist, was summoned to Washington by the president, Gerald Ford. She had been asked to head a government effort to reduce inflation, which as a result of the 1973 Arab oil crisis had risen to 12.3 percent. When she got there, she was...
on May 16
From ofb.biz
iPad: Forged from the Humane or Destroyer Of It?
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Apple created a lot of stir with the advertisement for its new generation iPad Pro. The shocking video shows a huge variety of things we love, including musical instruments and artistic tools, being crushed by a cold, dark metal press. Is Apple admitting its apocalyptic agenda?
on May 9
From ofb.biz
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I’m tired of it. I’m tired of every currently running TV show someone tells me to watch being littered with content that might make even the proverbial sailor blush. With so many forms of entertainment now freed from the reach of the FCC’s decency rules, it is now countercultural if dialogue or...
on Apr 24
From ofb.biz
Mirrored Perils, Shattered Response
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In a parallel universe last week, Iranian drones and missiles were launched against two pro-Western democracies. The same two that received those volleys in our universe; just one bit was different in Universe Two: there, the West scrambled jets to protect Ukraine, leaving Israel to fend for itself.
on Apr 17
From ofb.biz
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Gee. Every month people in the financial industry predict that inflation will go down. Almost every month, inflation doesn’t go down. Turmoil in the markets results. It is worth remembering that brokerage houses make money when you buy a security, but they also make money when you sell a security.
on Apr 12
From ofb.biz
How About Separation of Politicians and Religion?
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The news cycle of Holy Week has convinced me: I don’t think we need further separation of church and state, but we need separation of our politicians from church. As a friend likes to quip, “You can help me more by helping me less.”
on Apr 4
From ofb.biz
The Case of the Missing Wordle
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Disaster struck a few weeks back. After 291 days straight, my Wordle victory streak crashed and burned. I should say, the computer thought it ended. I got another day’s word correct, but my account was marked as if I’d missed it. Talk about a genuine crisis.
on Mar 21, 2024
From ofb.biz
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We’ve gotten bad (worse?) about cleaning up our own messes. Sure the other side is a mess, but it’s time to care more about doing what’s right than playing for loyalty or ephemeral victories.
on Mar 5, 2024
From ofb.biz
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One of my favorite streaming channels is Japan’s NHK World, broadcast in English. It isn’t very pleasing when it has programs about other countries — I go there to learn about Japan — but it often has satisfying, even soothing shows about that country’s tremendous beauty and rich culture.
on Mar 1, 2024