Archives for January 2008

From SecondRotation.com’s about page, the most awful sentence I’ve read all day: “We’re also impacting the problem of e-waste.”

NotchUp.com Arranges Pay for Job Interviews. If you have a gold-plated resume and are beating recruiters off with a stick, here’s a new twist: Companies will pay you to talk to them. You set the price. I love markets.

I’ve created a new site called OpenRegulations.gov that is an alternative interface to the federal government’s Regulations.gov database. The notable improvement is that unlike the official offering, OpenRgulations.gov offers an RSS feed of Federal Register notices for each agency. I explain it in more detail here. Please spread the word!

Thoughts on the Macworld announcements

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The MacBook Air looks great, but it doesn’t solve any problem I have. My life isn’t that mobile, so my MacBook is portable enough. No need to pay more and give up features for the weight reduction. But it’s still damn sexy.

The big story out of Macworld to me, is the revamped Apple TV. I’ve been on the fence about getting one since it came out, but now it looks like it’s a no-brainer (especially with the price drop to $229). Before it was basically just a big iPod. You downloaded content on your Mac and then synced it. Now you can browse straight from your TV. That’s great in itself, but the killer feature is the podcasting support.

I watch and listen to podcasts more than I watch TV. I simply prefer the niche content to the generally bland greatest-common-denominator stuff on TV. I think most people would if they could easily access it and watch it on a big screen. Streaming video Podcast support on the Apple TV basically adds a hundred thousand new channels to your cable line-up. No doubt more producers will jump into video-podcasting because they now have a viable way to get into people’s living rooms.

Biggest disappointment: the iPhone update. Yeah, location detection is great, but come on, my notes still don’t sync to my Mac? Seriously? No to-dos on this putative “smartphone”? Please throw me a bone here.

Jan 16, 2008 | Comment | Tags: , , , ,

Does Ron Paul have a tell?

This is a little wacky, but I don’t feel too bad since I’m talking about Ron Paul.

Check out this video of Paul discussing his racist newsletters with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. At about 2:30, when paul is making the claim that he has no idea who wrote the newsletters, he repeatedly looks to his right, the viewer’s left. According to the Internets, that particular eye movement denotes lying.

But who knows? Maybe he was distracted by something off-screen, like some shining gold bullion or whatnot.

Jan 11, 2008 | Comment | Tags: , ,

Jeff Howe writes that he’s finished writing his book on crowdsourcing, which I can’t wait to read given my interests. He passes along a neat tip for would-be authors: “When I started work on the book a friend told me to buy magazine holders for each chapter in the book. Best. Advice. Ever.)”

That’s what you get for tricking little children

The victim.The Sneaky Chef is a cookbook for parents who want to con their children into eating foods they would otherwise like to avoid, like vegetables and other non-hot-dog products. The New York Times says its recipes “camouflage puréed vegetables and fruits in comfort food for children[.]” Kathleen gave it to her brother and sister-in-law this Christmas and they loved it, though I can’t say the same for their M&M-aware two-year-old.

Now the author of the book, Missy Chase Lapin, has sued Jessica Seinfeld, wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, for copyright infringement. Seinfeld, it turns out, also has a kid-defrauding tome, which is called Deceptively Delicious.

Now, the first thing that pops to mind is that recipes aren’t subject to copyright, only their expression. Even if you were going to nick someone else’s recipe for your book, you’d write your own little paragraph introducing it, and it seems like that’s what Seinfeld did. So what do the suit allege? Similarities in “original expression, philosophy, premise, approach, explanations, discussions, reflections, organization, methodology and overall look and feel.” Except for maybe the first thing, she doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

What I like even better, though, it the defamation suit she has filed against Jerry Seinfeld for, among other things, calling her “a wacko.” According to the Times,

On the Letterman show, Mr. Seinfeld did not refer to Ms. Lapine by name, but spoke of a “three-name woman” and said that “if you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins.” The complaint states that Ms. Lapine is “not a violent or dangerous person.”

Jan 9, 2008 | Comment | Tags: , ,

Is Ron Paul a closet racist? Jamie Kirchick writes in The New Republic that a reading of Paul’s old newsletters suggest yes.

I have an op-ed in today’s Des Moines Register about government online transparency. It’s also been published in the Austin American-Statesman.

Gutierrez: Strong demand for free money

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez issued this statement on Friday:

The TV Converter Coupon Program opened as scheduled on January 1, and is off to a great start. Americans have begun requesting coupons that will help them get the converter boxes needed for when our television signals change on February 17, 2009. With these coupons, the federal government will defray $40 of the cost of an eligible converter, which is expected to cost between $50 and $70.

The demand for coupons is strong. We’ve taken requests from every state for nearly 1.9 million coupons from more than one million households.

The demand is strong? Really? For something that’s free? You’re kidding.

Let’s see, 1.9 million coupons requested at $40 a pop is $76 million of taxpayer money out the door in just four days. As Secretary Gutierrez says, “off to a great start” indeed. At this “great” pace it’s good to know the coupon fund totals $1 billion.

What are you waiting for? Get your piece of the American dream here.

Jan 7, 2008 | 1 Comment | Tags: , , ,

From Hillary Clinton’s concession speech yesterday: “You know, I wrote a book some years ago called ‘It Takes a Village to Raise a Child,’ and in it I have a chapter that I titled ‘Every Child Needs a Champion.’ Well, I think that the American people need a president who is their champion, and that is what I intend to be.” Thanks, mom.

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