From Pine View Farm

February, 2012 archive

Facebook Frolics, Willfully Fact-Free Dept. 0

Facebook exchange:  Original poster claims that, if the sun were 10 feet closer or farther from the sun, we should all burn to death or freeze to death.  Poster points out that earth's orbit is elliptical, ranging from 147 to 156 km from the sun.  Original poster says,

Via Contradict Me.

Share

The Socialism Bowl 0

Warning: Language, episodic bad taste.

Bill Maher – Irritable Bowl Syndrome from Fraser Davidson on Vimeo.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Share

Ship of Fools 2

Republican figures as the cast of Gilligan's Island

Via PoliticalProf.

Share

Stray Thought 0

The surest sign of being a Hollywood has-been is an appearance in a Super Bowl half-time show.

Share

QOTD 0

Booth Tarkington:

There are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink.

Share

Great Moments in Supply and Demand (Updated) 2

TPM Muckraker:

She may, famously, not be a witch, but here’s a bit of money magic from former Delaware Republican Senate candidate and recent Mitt Romney endorser Christine O’Donnell: her political campaign gave $142,000 to her super PAC, which proceeded to buy copies of her book.

I guess somebody had to buy that turkey.

Addendum, the Next Day:

Perhaps shoring up her almost-non-existent book sales wasn’t the best use for the funds. My ex-local rag reports:

O’Donnell has burned through most of the $424,000 in campaign donations remaining from the record-setting $7.4 million she raised in her failed 2010 U.S. Senate campaign.

She has nearly exhausted her leftover funds, has reportedly had lackluster book sales and is being sued by a longtime supporter who claims she’s trying to stiff him out of pay for political consulting and legal research. Her political action committee, ChristinePAC, and Senate campaign had a combined $36,100 left in the bank at the end of 2011, according to reports filed last week.

At this rate, she’ll have to look for honest work.

The story does point out that the her PAC purchased the book at the “non-royalty” rate.

Share

Facts Evasion 0

Recitation of Republican myths about taxes and jobs
Click for a larger image.

Via BartBlog.

Share

Facebook Frolics 0

Yahoo News considers how Facebook puts you on sale. Remember, users are not the customers; they are the product.

A snippet:

According to their filing, Facebook had 850 million Monthly Active Users (MAU) at the end of 2011. From that user base the company generated roughly $3.7b in revenue, or just under $4.50 for every member. Nearly 90% of this number comes from selling your information to advertisers who, in turn, try to sell you things Facebook says you want.

That may seem like a reasonable trade until we get to the IPO. “If this thing goes public at the price they’re expecting (Facebook) will get $120 per user,” Matt Nesto notes. Said another way, Facebook is going to sell you for 120 bucks. Wall Street bankers will get a cut of this figure, with Facebook getting the bulk of the money. FB users get nothing.

Via LXer.

Share

Turnabout 3

Though I do think that much of what Anonymous does is the internet equivalent of toilet-papering someone’s yard, it is difficult not to take a perverse delight in their eavesdropping on the eavesdroppers.

Trading jokes and swapping leads, investigators from the FBI and Scotland Yard spent the conference call strategizing about how to bring down the hacking collective known as Anonymous, responsible for a string of embarrassing attacks across the Internet.

Unfortunately for the cybersleuths, the hackers were in on the call too — and now so is the rest of the world.

Anonymous published the roughly 15-minute-long recording of the Jan. 17 call on the Internet on Friday, gloating in a Twitter message that “the FBI might be curious how we’re able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now.”

Share

Say Anything Mitt 0

When you believe nothing, it’s easy to say anything.

Share

Facebook Frolics 0

At Psychology Today, Jeff Wise speculates that Facebook is on its way to being another MySpace, which itself is on its way to being another AOL.

He believes that Facebook’s “cultural moment has passed.”

A nugget:

Facebook, then, should be a focus of our online experience: it should be the irreplaceable source of the up-to-date social information that we so instinctively crave. Imagine some long-ago villager who knew exactly what everyone was up to, and could give you the low down, without boring you with useless facts about people you didn’t care about. This is the person you’d want to spend time with. This would be the person with savvy.

Once upon a time, Facebook felt like this. But the longer I use it, the less savvy it seems. Most of the information that crawls down my home page is about people I don’t even know. The information they’re conveying is stuff I wouldn’t care about, even if I did know them. Someone read an article; someone joined a group; someone commented on her own photo. The signal to noise ratio is too low. Facebook has gone from being the village yenta to the village idiot.

Share

When You Believe in Nothing . . . 0

. . . you’ll say anything.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Share

QOTD 0

Ida Tarbell:

Imagination is the only key to the future. Without it none exists – with it all things are possible.

Share

And Now for Something Completely Different 0

Sure, it’s commercialized, but it’s still a chuckle.

I am in now way endorsing Denny’s.

Share

The Politics of Dumb and Dumber 0

Are Republican candidates spreading the stupid?

Share

“Instant On” 0

Philly dot com has some hints for saving money and waste caused by appliances, mostly electronic gear, sopping up stand-by power:

Standby power consumes 5 percent to 10 percent of all electricity in developed countries, but there is some debate whether consumption is growing, the folks at Lawrence Berkeley say.

An informed and aggressive approach can cut standby use about 30 percent.

Share

Mitt the Flip the Bird to the Poor Those Who Not Lucky Enough To Be Children of a Rich Person 0

True colors.

From Bloomberg (hardly a font of leftie propaganda):

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s statement that the “very poor” don’t concern him comes at a time when the portion of Americans living in deep poverty is the highest in more than a generation while assistance varies widely and is often inadequate.

Click to read the rest.

Share

Playing the Trump Card 0

Heh.

Share

Vitamin S, Reprise 0

Under arrest for contributing to public health by spreading vitamin S.

Share

QOTD 0

Robert Doisneau:

The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.

Share
From Pine View Farm
Privacy Policy

This website does not track you.

It contains no private information. It does not drop persistent cookies, does not collect data other than incoming ip addresses and page views (the internet is a public place), and certainly does not collect and sell your information to others.

Some sites that I link to may try to track you, but that's between you and them, not you and me.

I do collect statistics, but I use a simple stand-alone Wordpress plugin, not third-party services such as Google Analitics over which I have no control.

Finally, this is website is a hobby. It's a hobby in which I am deeply invested, about which I care deeply, and which has enabled me to learn a lot about computers and computing, but it is still ultimately an avocation, not a vocation; it is certainly not a money-making enterprise (unless you click the "Donate" button--go ahead, you can be the first!).

I appreciate your visiting this site, and I desire not to violate your trust.