Monthly Archives: May 2010

This is What Enivronmental Disaster Looks Like

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Michael Froomkin

Gulf oil spill live feed via the Washington Post.

Posted in Energy | 1 Comment

The ‘War Is Making You Poor Act’

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Michael Froomkin

Here's a somewhat effective piece of agitprop from Rep. Grayson: War Is Making You Poor Act – NEWS RELEASE.

Congressman Alan Grayson (FL-08) introduced a landmark bill last night, called the “War Is Making You Poor Act”. The bipartisan bill does three things

1) It limits the amount of funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
2) It eliminates the federal income tax on the first $35,000 of every American’s income ($70,000 for married couples), and
3) It cuts the Federal deficit by $15.9 billion.
Congressman Grayson said, “All three of those things need to be done. This bill brings them all together.”

The bill attracted an eclectic group of supporters.

The terrible thing about it is that the math is true. But of course there's no way we're about to cut a third of the non-war-related defense budget. Not until long after we have to.

It's odd in a way that more members of Congress don't try stunts like this, though. If enough did there might in the end be some movement on the issue.

Posted in Econ & Money, National Security | 1 Comment

Pretty Lousy Privacy Often May Suffice

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Michael Froomkin

Seth Godin writes about a way to have a convenient low-security privacy shield:

The internet is constantly, relentlessly public. Post something and it's there, for everyone, all the time.

Acar has come up with a clever idea, a small idea that makes things just a little protected. Trick.ly is a url shortener with a twist. You can share a URL but hide it behind a question that only insiders can easily answer.

So, for example, you could tweet, “Here's the source for my world-class chili: http://trick.ly/2L5”. Anyone can go there, but only people who can figure out the clue can discover the site you were pointing to.

It's not secure. It's sort of private. Neato.

For people who don't have their own servers and don't want to mess with .htaccess files, this probably is a great thing. Of course, some people will over-rely on this or a related service, and the blackmail will start…

Posted in Internet | Comments Off on Pretty Lousy Privacy Often May Suffice

Ed Bott is Celebrating

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Michael Froomkin

It seems there's a nifty new free tool out to explain Where has your Windows memory gone?:

… for us Windows geeks, today is a red-letter day, … RAMMap is a memory analyzer, a lightweight tool (272KB) that gives you a very detailed look at exactly what is your system’s memory is up to right now. It presents its report in a tabbed dialog box whose opening page is a colorful, well-organized bar graph

Download RAMMMap or read more about it.

Posted in Software | 2 Comments

Dems Win Again

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Michael Froomkin

Democrats win the congressional special election in PA-12, despite GOP claims that this would be their bellweather victory. This is a pattern:

For those keeping score, there have been seven special elections for U.S. House seats since the president's inauguration 16 months ago: NY20, IL5, CA32, CA10, NY23, FL19, and PA12. Democrats have won all seven.

The Democratic wing of the Democratic party also won in the Pennsylvania Senate primary, defeating ur-DINO ex-Republican Arlen Specter. Progressives tied in Arkansas, forcing incumbent and sometime corporate shill Blanche Lincoln into a runoff (although if I had to bet, I'd give odds she'll win the runoff, having better access to funds and likely winning more votes from the third candidate's supporters). And Democrats won the Republican primary in Kentucky, as the GOP voted down the bland establishment candidate supported by the party leadership, in favor of extremist anarcho-libertarian candidate Rand Paul, a man whose graciousness and charm are already winning deserved plaudits.

Posted in Politics: 2010 Election | 12 Comments

He’ll Try Harder

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Michael Froomkin

Hey, Dan is #2 on the Power List 2010: NextGen Media Personalities … whatever that is.

(For those under 30 or so, title is a reference to an old car rental commercial.)

Posted in Dan Froomkin | 1 Comment