First Looks category archive

Cheers.

This, by the way, is my ringtone of choice, except for three special persons who get their own ringtones. (They are not all special for the same reasons.)

Steve has the skinny.

Aside: I could live on $3500.00 a month. And often have.

Tuesday, Triumph Brewing Company, Chestnut within sight of Penn’s Landing if it weren’t for the Chinese Wall of I-95, 6 p.

Good food, good talk, good company.

Hold a stool for me. If the creeks don’t rise, I’ll be there.

Robotic war, the next sign of progress:

Autonomous armed robotic systems probably will be operating by 2020, according to John Pike, an expert on defense and intelligence matters and the director of the security Web site GlobalSecurity.org in Washington.

This prospect alarms experts, who fear that machines will be unable to distinguish between legitimate targets and civilians in a war zone.

“We are sleepwalking into a brave new world where robots decide who, where, and when to kill,” said Noel Sharkey, an expert on robotics and artificial intelligence at the University of Sheffield, England.

The younger set thinks that Ginger Baker invented the drums:

Meghan McCain demonstrates a flair for the obvious:

“Simply embracing technology isn’t going to fix our problem,” she said. “Republicans using Twitter and Facebook isn’t going to miraculously make people think we’re cool again. Breaking free from obsolete positions and providing real solutions that don’t divide our nation further will. That’s why some in our party are scared. They sense the world around them is changing and they are unable to take the risk to jump free of what’s keeping our party down.”

(Actually, follow the link and read the whole thing. It’s a good reflection on the virtues and vices of connectivity.)

You subscribe to the yawps of a bunch of people; they subscribe to your yawps; and you produce and consume yawps for the rest of your days. The me-me-me clamor brings to mind Emily Dickinson’s poem about the disgrace of fame, “I’m Nobody! Who are you?”: “How public — like a Frog — / To tell one’s name — the livelong June — / To an admiring Bog!”

The hits just keep coming.

You can’t bank on it.

Not any more.

American Sterling Bank, Sugar Creek, MO

Must not have been sterling. Must have been plate.

Later: Another one bites the dust

Great Basin Bank of Nevada, Elko, NV

Masters of the Bleedin’ Universe. Free hand of the market my anatomy.

Brendan gets a phone call.

Buildings, however are quite another matter (warning, short commercial at beginning):

Especially to those who would deny it.

Via the Great Orange Satan.

Salespersons knocking at your door:

Rachel Gard, who started using Twitter two months ago to keep in touch with friends, says she may stop using the site if companies keep contacting her.

Already Home Depot Inc. has wished her luck painting her room, a medical company recommended its device for her ear infection, and a DJ told her to check out his single.

“I don’t want random people contacting me,” said Gard, 21, who lives in Clearwater, Florida. “Don’t try to sell yourself through my Twitter.”

(snip)

“It is starting to get out of control,” said Christopher Peri, founder of TwittFilter, a Web site that lets users restrict who can follow updates they post to Twitter. “The original value of Twitter is friends talking to friends. When someone says, ‘I’m going to pimp this product,’ it’s no longer a social media.”

The story goes on the discuss Twitter’s efforts to combat twit spam.

Criswell predicts that, if Twitter does not manage to control this, the whole damn thing will just collapse under the weight of marketing, which my old friend once defined as

what companies do when they can’t actually sell anything.

“We’re American seamen. We’re union members. We stuck together. We did our jobs.”

Via Oliver Willis.

Life imitates schmaltz:

In scenes reminiscent of the cult movie, four baby pythons escaped on a passenger plane in Australia, leading to a prolonged search of the aircraft and forcing the cancellation of two flights, the airline confirmed today.

Katie Couric (by the way, I’ve never watched her show and have no intention to do so; I’m a print kind of guy):

“I Twitter and blog very selectively,” she told a crowd of students, politicos and other journalists. “I don’t think anybody gives a rats ass whether I am about to eat a tuna sandwich. I don’t even care. Some of it is so inane and narcissistic and bizarre I don’t quite get it. I don’t know why anyone would want to read it, much less why I would want to write it.”

Via the Huffington Post.

As a trained and sporadically practicing historian, I understand that persons of good will can look at the same sequence of events and interpret it differently.

Persons of good will, however, do not ignore facts and make stuff up.

That’s a wingnut thing.

Steven D reports.

Noz, Brendan, and Ray report on doings in the big city just up the road.