Steve Fossett is aloft, again in the Global Flyer. This time, flying farther. Follow the flight here.
Monthly Archives: February 2006
Another Cyberdissident Imprisoned Because of Data Provided by Yahoo
Reporters Without Borders today condemned the US firm Yahoo! for handing over data on one of its users in China which enabled the authorities there to send him to prison for eight years, the second such case that has come to light in recent months.
It called on Yahoo! to supply a list of all cyberdissidents it has provided data on, beginning with 81 people in China whose release the worldwide press freedom organization is currently campaigning for.
It said it had discovered that Yahoo! customer and cyberdissident Li Zhi had been given his eight-year prison sentence in December 2003 based on electronic records provided by Yahoo. “How many more cases are we going to find?” it asked.
Consumer Debt Growth
The facts are indisputable – the consumer has grown increasingly levered just when interest rates are rising and the large amount of mortgages based on teaser rates are about to be reset.
The facts speak for themselves:
- Non-discretionary consumer spending (for items like food, energy, medical expenses and interest payments) which vacillated in the 44% to 47% range until 2000 has now risen to 54%.
- Household debt/household assets is at an all-time record high (up from 14% six years ago to nearly 19% today).
Death of Blockbuster, Part IV
Chris Anderson pens and charts his way to the conclusion that:
Bottom line: even in Hollywood, the home of the blockbuster, hits are losing their power. It’s not nearly as dire as in music, but it’s trending in the same direction. Does this mean the end of movies? Not at all–there have never been more films made, just as there has never been more music available than today, despite the fact that the bestsellers sell less.
It’s not that people aren’t watching films and listening to music, it’s that they’re watching different films and different music–we’re just not following the herd to the same hits the way we used to. I’d guess that most of the decline in box office is due to the rise of the DVD, not a loss of interest in movies.
ACC Shorts Crash
So why do we keep track (from time to time) of ACC? We like ACC because it’s an example of good ole American homegrown ingenuity. ACC’s aircraft are Shorts 330s and Shorts 360s, which were once commuter passenger aircraft. Shorts was once an independent aircraft manufacturer based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, now no longer building aircraft but instead a parts-manufacturing division of Bombardier. The Shorts factory is at Belfast City Airport, which in recent years has taken an increasing share of traffic into that city (versus Belfast International).
The Gladwell Effect
“PEOPLE are experience rich and theory poor,” the writer Malcolm Gladwell said recently. “People who are busy doing things — as opposed to people who are busy sitting around, like me, reading and having coffee in coffee shops — don’t have opportunities to kind of collect and organize their experiences and make sense of them.”
Shared WiFi: FON
FON is a Global Community of people who share WiFi. Share your WiFi broadband access at home/work and enjoy WiFi all over the world! FON: small cost, great benefit!
To become a Fonero, all you need to do is register with us on our website, have broadband connection, and download the FON Software onto your WiFi router. It’s that simple. Just share your connection and the rest of the Community shares back with you. Join FON and enjoy connecting from anywhere within the WiFi World.
To start sharing, set up your access point where you can receive the most coverage, generally close to the window or outside your home. The rest of the Community will be thankful.
Search Engine Math or Simplified Boolean Searching
Now, if you find Boolean operators too intimidating, there is an easier way. This is called simplified search syntax, pseudo-Boolean searching, implied Boolean or (according to Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch) “search engine math”.
15 Tech Concepts for 2006
Scientific and technological breakthroughs can take years to develop, but when they leave the lab and enter the world at large, word spreads quickly. Here’s a look at the advances you’ll be hearing about in the coming year.
The $33K 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid
Dan Nell takes a drive in the new Toyota Camry Hybrid:
Like a Trojan horse, Camry sneaks gas-saving radicalism into a trusted American staple.
By certain lights, the 2007 Camry Hybrid is not particularly revolutionary. Here we have a nicely equipped, 3,637-pound, five-passenger sedan with 192 horsepower, costing about $30,000 (final pricing has yet to be confirmed). Styling reminds me of the old Merle Travis song: So round, so firm, so fully packed. The ride and handling are straight-up Pink Floyd: comfortably numb.