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Articles from the Web

Go watch The Social Network next week « Boy Genius Report

Go watch The Social Network next week « Boy Genius Report.

I have to say that I have been very torn about Social Network.  On the one hand, Facebook, the company, is right here, I have so many friends (well, 5 or 6) that work for them, and I am a little sick of hearing about it as a company (along with Google). Enough already!  I get it, it’s a great story that has defined the concept of social networking!

On the other, it’s a script by Sorkin and directed by Fincher, and stars Jesse Eisenberg.  What a trio.  I know the movie will be quality but wasn’t sure how I felt about the topic.

Apparently, though, it’s darn good.  If BGR, about as entrenched in tech and social networking as any person/group, can say that it’s a truly excellent movie, then I guess I’ll go…

September 26, 2010 Articles from the Web, , 0 Read more >

Does Fiscal Austerity Reassure Markets? – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com

Does Fiscal Austerity Reassure Markets? – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com.

My favorite line from this article is the last one:

“But hey, what are you going to believe: what everyone knows, or your own lying eyes?”

Krugman spends all this time basically analyzing whether it’s a good time to move away from deficit spending and more towards some kind of balanced approach to spending.  I have always thought this was one thing that was ignored by all of the critics when the stimulus package and budget were first being rolled out by the Obama administration.

Specifically, that this deficit spending and all of the activities by the Treasury and the Fed had to happen now, but also had to be temporary.  That the monetary base of the Fed would decrease as it wound down and that the Treasury had no desire to be the owner of AIG or GM forever.  But we had to do this for a while, at the least.

After all of that, Krugman then says that those who push for “fiscal austerity” now have “blind eyes.”  Way to go, Paul.

June 16, 2010 2008 Economic Crisis, Articles from the Web, 0 Read more >

BP Increased Oil-Capture Rate to 10,500 Barrels a Day Update3 – BusinessWeek

BP Increased Oil-Capture Rate to 10,500 Barrels a Day Update3 – BusinessWeek.

About 1/2 way into this article, the COO of Exploration and Production at BP says that they hope to capture “90-plus percent of this flow.”

I realize that by now they must know to be a bit safer in their estimates, but in this case they are still saying that their “hope” (not goal or anything more concrete) is to let “only” 5-10% of the oil to keep leaking straight into the Gulf.

Awesome.

I will admit that this is one of those disasters that is so terrible that sometimes I can’t watch.

June 6, 2010 Articles from the Web, , 0 Read more >

Higher Ed Tech Talk: OMG the OS is the Internet

[link removed because 1) it was a while ago and 2) don’t want to piss off the original poster….]

A short time after the iPad came out, someone at another university (a CIO, I think) posted that “OMG, the Internet is the OS!”  The gist is that he had a revelation that with such a device, it wasn’t about the operating system anymore.  It was about applications that ran on the internet, like Google Docs.  One didn’t need an OS anymore to run local apps.

I had two problems with this.  First, the iPad does run an OS, and Apple is in the business of operating systems.  Yes, any tablet or slate will have some kind of OS on it (even the JooJoo Pad, which is about as basic and internet-oriented as it gets, runs a small linux kernel).  But a lot of applications on the iPad that are so heavily touted – the media player, the book reader, the music player – run on the installed operating system.  These are not cloud-based applications that are accessed via the internet.

Second, I found the revelatory nature of the post rather surprising.  It’s not like internet-based applications are new, nor are other cloud-based service such as storage (enterprise level like Amazon’s S3 or Rackspace or personal solutions such as Dropbox), applications (aforementioned Google docs, as well as a few others).  Software as a Service (SaaS) has been around for a while, too, where one can run traditionally local solutions (like MS Exchange, powering an Outlook-based e-mail and calendar system) in a hosted environment – essentially outsourcing but to the internet.  There is even a Microsoft Office solution for sharing documents via cloud storage, kind of like Google Docs but with a monster of a local application (the Office suite) doing the heavy lifting.

So why would it be so stunning that applications are migrating towards online?

June 6, 2010 Articles from the Web, Work-related, 1 Read more >

Adobe Upgrades Software to Help Defend Against Apple (Update1) – BusinessWeek

The article linked at the bottom of this post is a more balanced version of what I’ve read on sites like boygenius report, which was much more anti-Apple.  I will look for the little tidbit that Adobe’s CTO wrote later, too, which is quite interesting.

The two quoted sections below frame the entire discussion, I think.  Both companies are basically trying to work within closed systems on a single, dominant platform.  The iPhone and iPad block out Flash, which is an established, dominant media option.  Adobe needs to have Flash work with iPhones and iPads.

The resulting issue, then, is whether “people,” whether Adobe or independent developers, start working on more open platforms.

Narayen said Apple’s criticism reflects an attempt to protect its way of doing business. “This has nothing to do with the technology,” he said. “It’s not a technology decision, it’s a business model: a closed, proprietary business model, with complete control, as opposed to having open innovation drive what happens across devices.”

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris disagreed. “Someone has it backwards,” she said in an e-mailed statement. It’s HTML5 and other standards supported by the iPhone and iPad “that are open and standard, while Adobe’s Flash is closed and proprietary.”

via Adobe Upgrades Software to Help Defend Against Apple (Update1) – BusinessWeek.

April 12, 2010 Articles from the Web, , , , 0 Read more >

Conan O’Brien to Host Talk Show on Time Warner’s TBS (Update1) – BusinessWeek

Conan O’Brien to Host Talk Show on Time Warner’s TBS (Update1) – BusinessWeek.

I am still upset with NBC for the way they handled the entire Conan situation, and will not watch any episode of Leno ever.  So while I am sad to see Conan go to TBS (they don’t yet have a established record for late-night shows…), I’m glad to see him get a show.  And that it’ll go head to head with Leno (with a head start, actually).

April 12, 2010 Articles from the Web 0 Read more >

Novell bets on Google Wave to replace its struggling GroupWise platform « Boy Genius Report

Novell bets on Google Wave to replace its struggling GroupWise platform « Boy Genius Report.

This is one of the most…amazing things I’ve read in a while.  I would normally say “exciting” because it is also that.  But it’s so exciting that it’s amazing.

I won’t lie – I’m not a big fan of Groupwise, and I say that while working at a university that uses it.  I know that Novell’s suite can be very powerful when implemented in the right environment, but I’m not sure that a university is the right one.  Just too many variables at play for something that needs to be fairly controlled yet is not pervasive (such as Outlook via Exchange – of which I’m not a huge fan, either).

But of all the things I thought Novell would do, to base their next e-mail generation on something like Google Wave is BOLD BOLD BOLD.  Wow.

March 22, 2010 Articles from the Web, Work-related, , , 0 Read more >