“ The moguls are not helping matters. They might as well be an alien species. The elite are supposed to pioneer trickle-down middle-class goods. That’s not working. Today’s ultra-wealthy are into oddities private space flight, private jets, superyachts, pet Senators, and collecting old media. How many middle-class people are going to ever own a pet Senator? The ultra-wealthy are into the immaterial: not gold ingots, not washing machines, but positions as board of directors, stock options, political sway.
Just My Stuff
Welcome to my Tumblelog... not nearly as user-friendly as my other Tumblelog or my blogs. Homepage to my Tumblelog here? justmystuff.tumblr.com
January 13, 2010
“ Brockman’s cadre are a pretty select group — scientists, hippie visionaries and culture gurus — but that’s an interesting set
of testaments. None of them say that the Internet made them more
prosperous, that it helped them to settle down, that they feel better
about their future thanks to the Internet. Nobody says that the Internet gave them a sense of safe, fatherly, middle-class things to do with a three year old. It’s great for thinking about tons of weird crap, and it’s rather bad for business and governance, the Internet. And for consumerism? Nobody pays on the Internet. They hate paying. They might mess with e-commerce for convenience sake, but give them their head and they undercut, they conspire, they disintermediate, they eBay and they Craigslist, they copy, they pirate, they cut and paste. Those are not consumer values. Real consumers have brand loyalty. They’re proud to pay because it shows how far they’ve come from poverty, from precarity. They want the car with fins. They specifically want the fins. Internet people want to swap the behind-the-scenes story about the fins, which is by no means the same impulse.
of testaments. None of them say that the Internet made them more
prosperous, that it helped them to settle down, that they feel better
about their future thanks to the Internet. Nobody says that the Internet gave them a sense of safe, fatherly, middle-class things to do with a three year old. It’s great for thinking about tons of weird crap, and it’s rather bad for business and governance, the Internet. And for consumerism? Nobody pays on the Internet. They hate paying. They might mess with e-commerce for convenience sake, but give them their head and they undercut, they conspire, they disintermediate, they eBay and they Craigslist, they copy, they pirate, they cut and paste. Those are not consumer values. Real consumers have brand loyalty. They’re proud to pay because it shows how far they’ve come from poverty, from precarity. They want the car with fins. They specifically want the fins. Internet people want to swap the behind-the-scenes story about the fins, which is by no means the same impulse.
“ We need to start by recognizing that the Net is infrastructure, in the sense that it is a real thing that we can build on, and depend on. It is also public in the sense that nobody owns it and everybody can use it. We need to recognize that the Net is defined mostly by a collection of protocols for moving data — and most of those protocols are open to improvement by anybody. These protocols may be limited in some ways by the wired or wireless connections over which they run, but they are nor reducible to those connections. You can run Internet protocols over barbed wire if you like. This is a very different kind of infrastructure than anything civilization has ever seen before, or attempted to regulate. It’s not “hard” infrastructure, like we have with roads, bridges, water and waste treatment plants. Yet it’s solid. We can build on it. In thinking about regulation, we need to maximize ways that the Net can be improved and minimize ways it can be throttled or shut down. This means we need to respect the good stuff every player brings to the table, and to keep narrow but powerful interests from control our common agenda. That agenda is to keep the Net free, open and supportive of everybody.
Soda fountains contained fecal bacteria
2 years ago • NotesNearly half of the 90 beverages from soda fountain machines in one area in Virginia tested positive for coliform bacteria — which could indicate possible fecal contamination, according to a study published in the January issue of International Journal of Food Microbiology.
Researchers also detected antibiotic-resistant microbes and E.coli in the soda samples.
“ The moguls are not helping matters. They might as well be an alien species. The elite are supposed to pioneer trickle-down middle-class goods. That’s not working. Today’s ultra-wealthy are into oddities private space flight, private jets, superyachts, pet Senators, and collecting old media. How many middle-class people are going to ever own a pet Senator? The ultra-wealthy are into the immaterial: not gold ingots, not washing machines, but positions as board of directors, stock options, political sway.
May 18, 2008
Reasons why men may have two dogs but NOT two wives
The later you arrive home, the more pleased your dogs are to see you.
Dogs will forgive you for playing with other dogs.
If you think another dog is gorgeous, other dogs do not hate it!
Dogs do not notice if you call them by another dog’s name.
Dog’s parents do not visit you.
Dogs do not hate their own bodies.
Dogs agree that you have to sometimes raise your voice to get your point across.
Dogs like to do their own snooping outdoors rather than in your wallet or desk.
Dogs seldom outlive you.
Dogs can’t talk.
You never have to wait for a dog. They are always ready to go out 24 hrs a day.
Dogs can find you good company even when you are drunk.
Dogs like to go out hunting & fishing.
A dog will not wake you up at night to ask, “If I died, would you get another dog?”.
If a dog has babies you simply put an ad in the paper and sell them.
A dog will let you put a studded collar on them and not call you a pervert.
A dog will not pester you to replace the car for a new one.
If a dog smells another dog on you, they don’t get mad.
On a car trip they do not demand the heater is on all the time.
And finally….. If your dog leaves you he does not take half your belongings !!
“ Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other large organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot masturbate.
Dave Barry
4 years ago
• 0 notes
January 29, 2008
October 31, 2007
October 30, 2007
