There's quite a kerfuffle brewing around the Apple's "inspiration" for the iPhone commercial.
We've covered this ground before, repeatedly. I'm looking forward to surveying blogistan when all is said and done to compare results and opinions.
Meanwhile - do kerfuffles brew? If not, what do they do?
Anil beat me to the post [1] regarding the amazing "Mobsters vs. Arabs" CNN Poll. After reading his post this afternoon, I reconsidered the article.
56,000 votes in and more than thirty five thousand people trust the Mafia, whereas only around twenty thousand people trust an "Arab-based" company. This is "why they hate us" (tm) - because we hate them. Given the choice between an "Arab" company and the Mafia, who are infamous for murder, graft and anti-social behavior, we choose the Mafia. We assume that an anonymous "Arab-based" group is probably going to be worse than the Gambinos, Lucheesis or Gottis. That's absolutely astounding, even moreso when you consider that cnn.com readers probably lean left.
[1] In the past week, Anil scooped Ray Ozzie on cut & paste and he beat me to a CNN critique. That's pretty good!
Kenyatta says:
"Television is one of the bad things that happens when Sunday isn't a school night. After watching about 15 minutes of Access Hollywood, I come up with the idea that we should all add 'Jolie-Pitt' to our last names so we could all be part of the extended family."
I feel more beautiful already. Why not just give them their own holiday? We could immerse ourselves in Jolie-Pittness for 24 hours straight and reclaim the rest of our free time from those beautiful mind thieves.
And speaking of thieving, my time as guest reblogger is almost at an end. I stole all my MLK links from Jason Kottke of kottke.org. I'm surprised that in the 200+ feeds that make up the reblog reading list, only Jason and one other blogger mentioned Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday at all. I guess Bloggers know no days off.
The story of a judge ruling mentions of Intelligent Design to be unconstituational is notable enough on it's own. But all this talk of "intelligent" "design" seems to have lit a fire under the butt of CNN's "designers." Witness The evolving bubble people and this DNA helix that appears to dwarf the earth in size. It's almost... threatening. And what's the light up near the North Pole? Is God in the DNA?
Rogers Cadenhead: Like Rappers and Actors, Popes get to choose their own names.
Why Hot, WASPy Chicks Love Jews, by Joel Stein:
The stereotype in Jewsploitation isn't the neurotic, nervous Jews of Woody Allen films, which you guys never seemed to like much. The Jews in "The Fockers" are loud, inappropriate, obsessed with sex and bodily functions, overly affectionate, liberal, earthy and smothering.
These traits seem to amuse people who don't get two helpings of it a day from parents who can't seem to understand that this is precisely why we moved 3,000 miles away to Los Angeles.
When I first read this I thought Andrea had written it herself, and I was really impressed. I didn't know Andrea could write like that! But at least she posted it, that's almost as good.
Al-Jazeerah does give a platform to Iraqi dissidents, but they also do ask tough questions of, e.g. Sadr's representatives. Anyway, there are no grounds under the interim constitution (which guarantees freedom of speech) for the government to close the offices of a news organization. It is not an auspicious start for the new Iraq, and these kinds of measures, once taken, become foundational.
Juan Cole notes that the new "democratic" Iraqi government is attempting to ban (jam?) Al-Jazeerah's satellite signals. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I am.
Speaking of banned, both Sprint and T-mobile (see full entry) customers claim to have been shut out of the txtmob sms service during the RNC. Of course, I don't know if I missed any txtmob messages, but I felt like I was getting a lot of them. I never did hear from the Seahorse Liberation Army (I was anonymously asked to join) but maybe I was supposed to, and I didn't get the message. I'll keep you updated if I find anything out.
Txtmob.com is licensed under the Creative Commons GPL, but I can't find a link to download the code. Please comment if you find it, I'd love to see what makes it tick.
As much as unpredictably and tension fuel humanity's obsession with contests and sport, I believe we're also comforted by those whose performance we expect. Just as we all have food, clothing and music that elicit feelings of instant nostalgia, I'm reassured that the universe is in order when an athlete performs exactly as expected. The consistency of Lance Armstrong dominating Le Tour, Serena Williams (Anna who? Serena represents the pinnacle of human physical potential) winning a grand slam, Michael Jordan hitting the big shot in his heyday, even Takeru Kobayashi shaking down four and a half hot dogs a minute. Even losing is comforting - after a long solitary walk and falafel dinner last night I found myself in a Bay Ridge bar guzzling Bass and watching the Mets. They lost, of course. If they start winning I'm not sure what I'll do with myself.
Anyway, I'm thinking about all of this because I googled Ken Jennings and Jason "Mr. Google" Kottke's entry The cult of Ken Jennings was the first result. Jason, I salute your continued dominance over the world's greatest information resource. It's quite a streak. (Other Ken Jennings pages: wikipedia: Ken Jennings, TV Game Shows: Ken Jennings, JeopardyJennings: Ken Jennings).
Now, if there's one thing I love, it's seeing white people bitch about black people bitching about white peopleI love this too, and I'm white. Anyway, if it's not the most insightful discussion in the world, it's spirited. Hip-hop was a huge part of my life in 1998, and I identify with the sense of lost hope that O-dub is feeling. I must have played Manifesto 500 times; I literally burned through 4 copies of that vinyl. I definitely consider myself still a part of the culture, even though I'm mostly just a bedroom dj now.
Apple computer has posted the famous original 1984 ad. Greatest. Ad. Ever. This is not quite the original version, though, as Xeni Jardin is now playing our heroine and is wearing an iPod as she rushes and then smashes the projection of Big Brother. Wouldn't Xeni prefer the pink mini? (picture via finn)
Also, Matt Haughey writes:
Does anyone care about Xserve? Who would serve up sites or services when you can get so much more power at a lower cost with linux or FreeBSD boxes?
I think people do care. The Xserve is a great value compared with the whole line of Dell & other name brand rack servers. It's not as cheap as getting an old server of ebay, but OS X Server is great, and the unlimited license is great.
Anil points out David Byrne "bringing the power and the point to the 92nd street Y next month."
Adriana's response:
25 bucks?! you've got to be kidding me. those apple store employees do this kind of presentation every day for FREE. who does he think he is? a celebrity or something?
The apple store should add "epistemological" to each presentation and charge a cover fee.
I can do this too, if you're interested. I'm a C-list celebrity, in many circles.
I'm posting this with the new NetNewsWire which explicitly supports Typepad and, courtesy of Aaron Swartz, reveals the differences in edited posts. This is like having your own person Winer Watcher, except also for the New York Times and Yahoo News. The New York Times tends to post stories off the wire early and continually reedit them until the morning, and it's fascinating to watch.
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