“is the Detroit of” is the new “is the new black.”
Monthly Archives: April 2009
FIRE, Detroit, GOP, Microsoft
[FIRE = Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate]
MOFT:
At Microsoft, we see a future full of potential. We're working to expand the possibilities for computing every day, by continually improving and advancing our current products and embarking on fundamental research that paves the way for tomorrow's breakthroughs.
Microsoft has revealed that Windows 7 will offer an optional, downloadable Windows XP virtual machine to provide full backwards compatibility.
Eight years behind Apple and three years after Apple dropped support for Classic.
Before, Microsoft could claim that Windows 7 would be at least as compatible as Windows Vista. Now, they can claim almost complete Windows XP compatibility, or almost 100 percent compatibility with all currently running Windows applications. [emphasis in orig]
The point isn't MICROSOFT SUXXX0RS!!! AAPL ROOLZ!!!, though if you had to boil it down to four words those ones are much closer to true than to false. Rather, the problem is that Microsoft is the Detroit of software. It makes big, ugly, dangerous, resource-hogging crap, and its “success” is based on...its “success.” Vast sectors of our economy, from enormous enterprises to mom-and-pop shops, desperately depend on its continued dominance; and when it collapses, they—and we—will be screwed. It was hardly obvious that falling real-estate values would materially contribute to the sudden collapse of Detroit; and it’s far from obvious what will topple Microsoft.
We will be soon releasing the beta of Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate.
“Ultimate” is right up there with naming an OS after the year of its release.
Upcoming UI innovations to look forward to:
This is impenetrable. It’s UI salad.
Keep rocking that floppy disk icon, Microsoft.
See also: “As Estonia goes, so goes the world,” “Blowback for dummies,” “MS’s homeland security strategy,” “Judge to Ballmer: ‘GIVE IT UP FOR ME’,” “Missing from the stimulus bill.”
Needed: new notation systemz
The IPA can’t touch this:
Massive FAIL of yet another descriptive system in the face of hybridization.
Patient 0 2.0 [updated]
under environment, international, language, media, medicine
Some random bloggorother points to Veretect's (twitfeed, timeline) claim that it’s traced swine flu to a (drift|drove|sounder) of Patient Zeroes in a Granjas Carroll–operated (i.e., Smithfield-owned) pig farm in La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico.
The next illogical step in the construction of this moral tale was anticipated by Critical Art Ensemble and Richard Pell more than a decade ago:
It’s God’s wrath at pigs for not being kosher.
[Update: That didn’t take long. FRC jefe Tony Perkins spake: “What do sick pigs have to do with widespread, taxpayer-funded abortion? More than you might think. This week, as panic spreads over a potential swine flu pandemic, liberals are already scheming how they can...” More! Fleabag furriners threatening our precious bodily fluids. More! Mike Davis says the public-health infrastructure “belongs to the same class of Ponzified risk management as Madoff securities.” More! In accordance with prophecy, a nomenclatural battle royal. More! “A-”-lister suggests an awkward but descriptive name: “Smithfield Industrial Farming Swine Flu”; how about Smithfield North American Flu or SNAFLU? More inclusive... More! The Daily Show runs this item in reverse.]
Makes you wonder about the Keebler elves
Eighty eight years of the day Trotsky directed the suppression of the anarchist uprising in Krondstadt, a group of bandits scaled the walls of his former house in Mexico City during the late hours at night. We broke the lock on his mausoleum and we expropriate the content inside it: a silver large vase that bears the inscription of his name, wrapped in the red scarf that he carried around the neck, containing the ashes of the corpse inside. We replace with care the lock in the monument with a reproduction that was similar in the appearance and escaped into the night. The vase along with its content then was taken far away to a place where the vase was discarded and the content (a combination of ash and bone) were baked in cookies. These cookies then were sent, along with a letter that explains our actions, to newspapers, to organizations of Trotskyists, and to the groups of anarchist around the world.
Einstürzende Altbauten
under digital, media, neighborhood, trend
Mumford’s Technics and Civilization meets Ehrenreich’s Fear of Falling:
Nice rendering engine.
(andrew sullivan, for whom video = “mental health break”)
OurTube
youtomb.mit.edu, a repository for videos removed for copyright complaint.
(rp)
Long line
under economics, government, media, trend
Bank execs “await a federal assessment of their firms” (Blankfein, GS; Dimon, JPMC; Kelly, BONY Mellon; Lewis, BoA; Logue, State St; Mack, MS; Pandit, Citigroup; Stumpf, Wells F. )
Timeline of the line:
Hypochondria by proxy
under digital, government, medicine, privacy, standards
“Electronic health records raise doubt,” Boston Globe (Wangness, 13 Apr '09):
It turns out that Google Health uses information from billing records, which can be inaccurate, undated, and was never intended to be used by doctors. Transferring existing paper records could take years and hundreds of millions of dollars. Insurance data, by contrast, is already computerized and far easier and cheaper to download. But it is also prone to inaccuracies, partly because of the clunky diagnostic coding language used for medical billing, or because doctors sometimes label a test with the disease they hope to rule out, medical technology specialists say.
It doesn’t “turn out” at all—that’s what it is. Electronic health records (EHRs), personal health records (PHRs), personally controlled health records (PCHRs), and their ilk aren’t the detailed clinical notes kept by physicians or nurses; they’re the administrative records maintained by insurers. Confusing the two is on par with mistaking a charge from a restaurant on a credit-card bill for My Dinner with Andre.
Faced with questions about inaccuracies, Google plays the 24 card:
Google Health directed questions to Dr. Roni Zeiger, a product manager for the company; he said Google draws its information from a variety of sources sent by its partner hospitals, pharmacies, and laboratories, including claims data. He acknowledged that such billing information can sometimes be imprecise, but he argued that the overall benefit of having some information is better than no information and that accuracy will improve over time. For example, he said, a list of allergies, medications and recent lab reports can save a patient’s life, particularly in an emergency. “Test results from last week can make the difference between the right decision and the wrong decision,” he said.
And erroneous histories based on insurers’ billing codes can make the difference between a wrong decision and a wrong decision.
(risks)
Postie Mac
under digital, economics, government, media, neighborhood, standards, trend
Georg Jensen performs an excellent pre-mortem on the USPS then hatches ghastly plans for bringing it back to life—which include, naturally, “creative destruction,” “rightsizing,” the “the 21st century,” “natural selection,” and “revolutionary technology” that “reshapes the Universal Service Obligation to fit the mobile, digital, multiple-location life- and workstyles of many consumers” (as opposed to, say, of every person).
Gone dumpin’
under LDCs, environment, government, international
Johann Hari in The Independent (“You are being lied to about pirates,” 5 Jan ’09):
As soon as the government [of Somalia] was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury—you name it.” Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to “dispose” of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: “Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.”
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood.
“Satellite abuse”
under international, language, military, network, rural
WiReD says Brazillians are using “high-performance antennas and homebrew gear to turn U.S. Navy satellites into their personal CB radios.” <cane-wave>Not like the good old days when equating something with CD radio meant it was boring.</cane-wave>
“a perfect storm of ignorance and enthusiasm”
under government, international, language, law
Former CIA official sums up Shrub admin’s embrace of torture—though it could just as easily be ___ summing up Shrub admin’s embrace of ______________.
(nyt)
Consumer confusion
In Roubiniworld, metaphors are shaken not stirred:
While the worsening employment outlook is in line with Wall Street’s expectation, persistently high monthly job losses and the accelerating rise in the unemployment rate will further dampen Main Street’s consumption and animal spirits in an economy already facing considerable headwinds due to massive wealth destruction.
Disambiguate.
Apres moi, CRM
under idea
This classification of royal stalkers is generalizable, though proportions may vary by context: delusional (26.9%), amity seekers (16.5%), intimacy seekers (12%), sanctuary and help seekers (8.8%), persecuted (3.2%), counsellors (11.2%), querulants (6.4%), and chaotic (14.9%).
(somewhereorother)
TPB4, TPB3, TPB2, TPB1
Press conf with the TPB1. Note the kabuki starting at 1:17 when the interviewer feigns a question about where the other 3 TPBs are and TPB1 feigns an answer:
Q: How come the other guys, they are not here? They are not in Sweden I think.
A: They don't, uh, they don't live in Sweden
Q: They don't live in in Sweden.
A: Not any more, no. Not for over a year, I think.
Q: OK. They are not here for now.
See also: “Walk^w tiptoe the plank.”
Sign of the times
under economics, finance, neighborhood, trend
An email from a car dealership:
SATURDAY, [MONTH] [DAY], 9:00am–3:00pm
Use our lot to Spring Clean your Attic, Garage, Barn or House!
SELLERS
Spaces & Tables available for $10/unit fee with all fees donated to
[CAUSE]PRE-REGISTER FOR YOUR SPACE & TABLE
Call [DEALERSHIP] at ###-###-#### and ask for [NAME], [NAME] or [NAME].Setup Starts at 7:30am
THIS TAG SALE WILL BE VERY WELL PROMOTED, PEOPLE WILL BE TALKING!
*NO DEALERS, RETAILERS OR ENGINES REQUIRING FUELBUYERS
With over an acre available for selling, we're expecting a HUGE
assortment of tag sale items to browse and purchase.Click here to contact us for more info.
LOCATION
[PLACE + CONTACT INFO]
In areas where the downturn is decades old, the slow transmogrification of differentiated retailers into used then related then barely differentiated junk shops is a marker of hopelessness.
“the first documented case of election fraud in the U.S. using electronic voting machines”
under digital, government, law, standards
So says Schneier. He quotes Matt Blaze:
The indictment describes a conspiracy to exploit this ambiguity in the iVotronic user interface by having pollworkers systematically (and incorrectly) tell voters that pressing the VOTE button is the last step. When a misled voter would leave the machine with the extra “confirm vote” screen still displayed, a pollworker would quietly “correct” the not-yet-finalized ballot before casting it. It’s a pretty elegant attack, exploiting little more than a poorly designed, ambiguous user interface, printed instructions that conflict with actual machine behavior, and public unfamiliarity with equipment that most citizens use at most once or twice each year. And once done, it leaves behind little forensic evidence to expose the deed.
Best of all:
Count 9 of the Kentucky indictment alleges that the Clay County officials first discovered and conspired to exploit the iVotronic “confirm screen” ambiguity around June 2004. But Kentucky didn’t get iVotronics until at the earliest late 2003; according to the state’s 2003 HAVA Compliance Plan [pdf], no Kentucky county used the machines as of mid-2003. That means that the officials involved in the conspiracy managed to discover and work out the operational details of the attack soon after first getting the machines, and were able to use it to alter votes in the next election. Yes, the technique is low-tech, but it’s also very clever, and not at all obvious. The only way for them to have discovered it would have been to think hard and long about how the machines work, how voters would use them, and how they could subvert the process with the access they had. And that’s just what they did. They found the leverage they needed quickly, succeeding at using their discovery to steal real votes, and apparently went for several years without getting caught. It seems reasonable to suspect that if a user interface ambiguity couldn’t have been exploited, they would have looked for—and perhaps found—one of the many other exploitable weaknesses present in the ES&S system.
In 2002, 2004, and 2006.
Old pix
under digital, government, media, standards
LAT:
NASA was so preoccupied with getting an astronaut to the moon ahead of the Soviets that little attention was paid to the mountains of scientific data that flowed back to Earth from its early space missions. The data, stored on miles of fragile tapes, grew into mountains that were packed up and sent to a government warehouse with crates of other stuff. And so they eventually came to the attention of Nancy Evans, a no-nonsense woman with flaming red hair that fit her sometimes-impatient nature. She had been trained as a biologist, but within the sprawling space agency she had found her niche as an archivist. Evans was at her desk in the 1970s when a clerk walked into her office, asking what he should do with a truck-sized heap of data tapes that had been released from storage.
“What do you usually do with things like that?” she asked.
“We usually destroy them,” he replied.
Near miss:
“Unlike the picture that the public had seen, this version had twice the resolution and four times the dynamic range.”
(s-t)
The body vanishes in a cloud of greasy black smoke!
Army of Dude runs through the Iraq-based videogame possibilities:
(jl)