Daniel R.

From a recent article in the NYTimes about the new Facebook Beacon program:

“Isn’t this community getting a little hypocritical?” said Chad Stoller, director of emerging platforms at Organic, a digital advertising agency. “Now, all of a sudden, they don’t want to share something?”

This guy is completely missing the point. There is a big difference between explicitly sharing information, which is what Facebook user's have been doing up to this point, versus the implicit sharing that the Beacon system is doing. I'm not a Facebook member so I can't comment on the opt-in or opt-out features the system which would make it more explicit and only slightly less disturbing.

MoveOn.org is running a petition that I encourage you to sign.

Tags: facebook moveon

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some issues seem to only get worse. Some updated statistics about credit cards and debt in American since the last time I posted about this:

• Americans spent one in seven of their take-home dollars on debt payments last year, up from one in nine in 1980.


• In 2006, the industry mailed out nearly 8 billion credit card offers, up from 3.5 billion in 2000.


• Credit card debt, less than $8 billion in 1968 (in current dollars), now exceeds $880 billion, more than tripling since 1988, adjusting for inflation, according to the Federal Reserve Bank.


• In part because of the debt burden, the consumer savings rate fell below zero percent in 2005 and has stayed there.

Tags: debt

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More Fake Food

Food Companies Test Flavorings That Can Mimic Sugar, Salt or MSG.

While I'm sure that the product is safe, it's just scary what companies are doing to food these days.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The current 15 minutes of fame

The NY Times has a write up on the back story to the video.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OASIS allows patents on standards

OASIS is seems has created a new policy that will allow some of their standards to be patented. This pretty much shuts out the possibility of OSS using such a standard. As mentioned in the posting, send email to open@rosenlaw.com to indicate your support against OASIS adopting this new policy.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Credit Card Debt

Who do you know that doesn't carry a credit card? On one hand a credit card enables you to easily make large purchases but you will easily screw yourself over if you don't pay in full. Some of the updated statistics from the article:

• To a degree, they subsidize the 40 percent of credit card customers who pay in full each month without incurring any fees or charges.
• The typical household has eight cards with $7,500 on them.
• Last year, card issuers made $2.5 billion a month in profit before taxes.
• Last year, they collected $11.7 billion in penalty fees, more than half of the total $21.5 billion in fees they collected from cardholders, according to CardWeb, a research firm.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jon Stewart on Crossfire

Jon Stewart offers some constructive criticism about the media and Crossfire itself. One of my favorite bits:

STEWART: You know, the interesting thing I have is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.

CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think.

STEWART: You need to go to one.

The thing that I want to say is, when you have people on for just knee-jerk, reactionary talk...

CARLSON: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny.

STEWART: No. No. I'm not going to be your monkey.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back-room dealing a Capitol trend

Great article about the negative effects the Republican controlled congress are having on the law making process.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 7:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Did a bot get the pot?

An interesting article talking about the possibility of poker bots given the recent increase in online poker playing.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 8:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Paper crane anyone?

An amazing origami piece.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Blog Off: Olympic athletes largely barred from posting online diaries

A fine example of why I feel the Olympics has stopped being about the athletes and become another money making opportunity.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

File-Sharing Sites Found Not Liable for Infringement

It has been nice to see that the courts seem to be doing the right thing with P2P technology. Napster's model of storing information on a centralized server definitely put them in legal limbo, but the second generation got it right and the courts have agreed.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nation's Charter Schools Lagging Behind, U.S. Test Scores Reveal

While statistics can be manipulated to favor a particular viewpoint, since this looks to be a reasonable finding, it will spark additional analysis of the situation. The argument that students in charter schools may excel as they continue to progress through the grades could be easily backed up by a follow-up study looking at eighth graders. I'm glad that people are starting to question the benefits of charter schools instead of assuming they are just better.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 7:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kerry You Blew It!

For five days now, as the long-distance arguments between President Bush and Senator John Kerry have focused on the wisdom of invading Iraq, Mr. Kerry has struggled to convince his audiences that his vote to authorize the president to use military force was a far, far cry from voting for a declaration of war.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Less due process

Citing concerns about terrorists crossing the nation's land borders, the Department of Homeland Security announced today that it planned to give border patrol agents sweeping new powers to deport illegal aliens from the frontiers abutting Mexico and Canada without providing the aliens the opportunity to make their case before an immigration judge.

Posted by Daniel Rinehart at 8:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)