Yes, that is ironic

“We used to hustle on over the border for health care… And I think, isn’t that kind of ironic now?” — Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska, admitting that her family used to go to Canada for medical treatment when she was a child; Canada has a single payer system, which Palin opposes. (Time, March [...]

The tablet’s out of the bag

So it looks like the Apple Tablet is for real, not just completely unsubstantiated collective wishful thinking from thousands of Apple fans (which can be pretty powerful in and of itself). And if the slip-up is true, we’ll have all the fun details later this week — and they do sound tantalizing.

The real unemployment rate

The figure we most often hear is 10% unemployment. But that’s not the whole truth — it’s a politically spun figure that minimizes the real story. According to BBC America, we might actually be looking at unemployment closer to 17% if factoring in the “lost workforce,” or those people that have decided to drop out [...]

On climate change (yea, you should care)

It always amazes me when people don’t care about important issues. I can understand that many people don’t know if climate change is something they can or can’t affect. But burying our heads in the sand won’t make an issue go away. Investigate further or, if you aren’t willing to, then let the experts decide.
Here’s [...]

Social networking explosion

Social networking is on a meteoric rise, according to the December issue of Time. Makes me wish I’d actually enough time to pay attention to it.

13.9 billion — minutes facebook users spent on the site in April, a 700% increase from April 2008.
95% — of business decision-makers worldwide use social networks to some extent.
35% — [...]

How a web site design goes straight hell

I love this little sequence by The Oatmeal. It’s unfortunately far too true to life. It does baffle me that so many clients will hire a product design firm (whether it be web sites, marketing materials or hardware) only to completely disregard their cumulative decades of experience in favor of “Miffles the dog.”
Anyhow, buy The [...]

Is Email Marketing Still a Viable Marketing Channel?

This was just too funny. I use Postini to keep my mailbox clear of junk mail (and I’ve got to say, it does a fantastic job — and, you can now use Postini with your Google mail account). The Postini service sends me an email every morning with a nicely organized summary of messages that [...]

Outsourcing your offshore nearshoring? What?

Can someone explain what this means? I found it in my email this morning: “You heard it, India is outsourcing outsourcing. So why should you consider nearshoring your outsourcing, instead of offshoring it?”
The article was about how India is now outsourcing to Mexico, apparently because India is becoming as expensive as the United States (or [...]

Snow Leopard headache

Being the helpless technologist I am, I had to install Snow Leopard (OS/X 10.6) the day it shipped. Actually I’ve been looking forward to this release for some time — a release almost entirely focused on making the operating system more stable, faster and more compact. How novel! Of the handful of new features coming [...]

Antiprivacy policy

According to AT&T (via Wired Threat Level) AT&T has the protection of your privacy in mind. No really, despite their record (there was that little thing with the unwarranted wire tapping, after all), you can trust them. I mean, their new policy says they’re listening. Yes, it says that: “We’re listening.” Hmm.

The Force is not with them

From whatever angle of their approach — age, race, economic status, geography — they have come to a remarkably similar conclusion. Almost all indicators are pressing the Republicans into minority status.

No real ID?

I’m happy to notice the Real ID Law looks like it’s getting more and more opposition and may be scaling back (or dare we hope, dying?). According to the Washington Post the Obama administration has moved to reduce the scope of the law — passed after the September 11 terrorist attacks — that was designed [...]