Eric and Irene

in , ,

Paul Krugman, writing for the New York Times:

A few weeks ago, Mr. Cantor was the hard man in the confrontation over the debt ceiling; he was willing to endanger America’s financial credibility, putting our whole economy at risk, in order to extract budget concessions from President Obama. Now he’s doing it again, this time over disaster relief, making headlines by insisting that any federal aid to the victims of Hurricane Irene be offset by cuts in other spending. In effect, he is threatening to take Irene’s victims hostage. How is it that his supporters can continue to defend him and yet, still sleep at night?

Flickr Adds New "Geofences" Feature

in , ,

As you may know, Flickr is my photo-sharing site of choice due to its institutional community among geeks going back for more than 5 years. However, many of us geeks are often disappointed in Flickr's inability to evolve ever since Yahoo took over, with the site stagnating in design and features for years. Due to this, I'm always hopeful when I do see them add new features because I become optimistic that perhaps Yahoo is putting more focus on development at Flickr. Today's announcement from Flickr introduces a new feature they're calling "Geofences". From their annoucnement:

Geofences are special locations that deserve their own geo privacy settings. For example, you might want to create a geofence around the your “home” or “school” that only allows “Friends and Family” to see the location of the photos you geotag in that area. So the next time you upload a photo with a geotag in the radius of a geofence, it will follow the default geo privacy you’ve designated for that hotspot. That way, you can easily make sure that only people you trust can see the location of photos taken inside your house or any other sensitive areas while still showing the world exactly where you had those amazing cheese covered duck fat fries. If Flickr can continue to hold onto their community as it stands today, and with the further proliferation of cameras with GPS capabilities, I think features like this could be very powerful for users.

Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison Prank Email Computer Consultant in 1998

in , ,

A very old article on CNN.com, circa 1998. This is priceless:

The newspaper reported Wednesday that Jobs and Ellison, who is also chairman and CEO of Oracle Corp., both sent e-mail messages to Michael Murdock, a Burlingame, California-based computer consultant, two days before Christmas, telling him he had the job. "OK. You can have the job. -- Larry," was one message sent to Murdock, who has been conducting an e-mail campaign for the top job, the Chronicle reported. Jobs reportedly wrote, "Yep, Mike, it's all yours. When can you start?"

The Rules

in ,

Merlin Mann, writing on Kung Fu Grippe:

The Two key Rules of the Grocery Store

It's really very simple: 1. if you're in the way, keep moving 2. if you stop moving, get out of the way. This is Ape Law, and we must teach it to our young.

I wish this were required reading. I wish that all people must first pass a test in which they're required to prove that they've memorized these two rules before acquiring their Grocery Store Shopping License™ and being allowed to buy food.

Republicans Against Science

in ,

Paul Krugman, writing for the New York Times:

Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.