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Reclining airplane seats are a terrible idea and should be banned

Reclining airplane seats are a terrible idea and should be banned:

Like Kois, and like Merlin, I’ll almost never recline my seat, except on long overnight flights where everyone is expected to be asleep.

It’s a tiny, insigificant form of protest, but it’s a small contribution toward reducing the world’s total annoyance. I think of it like social environmentalism.

[In this case I’d take it one further. I don’t fly unless I have no other choice. The entire experience is awful with one general exception… speed. There’s no faster way to get some places. Even before the TSA existed I stopped flying to Montreal. For a while I ran a dev team there. Every few weeks it was time to check in more personally. I started out flying. Took 5 or so hours with all the usual stresses and costs for a flight time of about an hour. When winter weather was poor it took much longer. Driving always took about 5 and half hours, wasn’t as affected by the weather and gave me the peace of listening to a decent car stereo, controlling my schedule, and reducing cost. Everyone thought I was a heretic. So don’t just not recline, avoid flying if at all possible. What should be banned is the airline/airport experience as it is today.]

Source: Marco.org

Good for Dell (maybe)

Good for Dell (maybe):

For Dell’s part, cutting corners has been their modus operandi for at least a decade, and the race to the bottom—especially in the consumer PC business—has taken them here. If nothing else, it may be easier for them to get out of the hole they’ve dug themselves into without a bevy of analysts screaming that the only solution is to dig faster.

[Agreed.]

Source: Coyote Tracks

CBS Bans SodaStream Ad. Where’s The Outrage?

CBS Bans SodaStream Ad. Where’s The Outrage?:

Now, CBS has essentially opened the door for its biggest advertisers to forever complain about those “annoying little competitors” that are trying to steal share. “Take them off the air. Make them stop!” is what they will scream. “You did it for Coke and Pepsi.”

And it won’t only be CBS. All media will have to bear the burden of this biased, un-capitalistic, anti-progress, move. But, guess what? This isn’t the first time in recent months CBS has overplayed its hand.

Add the fact CBS banned the Dish Network “Hopper” and now we’ve got ourselves a trend.

You heard about this, I’m sure. CBS forced the staff at CNET to change the winner of “Best In Show” at CES this year because, presumably, the technology which had already won the honor, if successful, would mean less money for CBS. It was Dish Network’s “Hopper” technology which allows viewers to skip entire advertising pods with one click. Forbes Contributor, Erik Kain, wrote a great expose on this scandal recently, “CBS Forced CNET To Drop Its ‘Best Of CES 2013′ Winner, The Dish Hopper.”

[Can’t complain about not being a little part of this anymore. Curious to know what they’re thinking over at CBS.]

Report: Aaron Swartz Didn’t Face Prison Until Feds Took Over Case

Report: Aaron Swartz Didn’t Face Prison Until Feds Took Over Case:

Declan McCullagh, writing for CNet:

State prosecutors who investigated the late Aaron Swartz had planned to let him off with a stern warning, but federal prosecutor Carmen Ortiz took over and chose to make an example of the Internet activist, according to a report in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.

Middlesex County’s district attorney had planned no jail time, “with Swartz duly admonished and then returned to civil society to continue his pioneering electronic work in a less legally questionable manner,” the report (alternate link) said. “Tragedy intervened when Ortiz’s office took over the case to send ‘a message.’”

We all know Ortiz isn’t the only prosecutor to act like this. But a prosecutor “sending a message” is an outrage. It is a plain violation of the accused’s rights for their punishment to be increased because of people unrelated to their case. The more I learn about this case, the more heartbroken and furious I get.

[I’ve nothing to add. On point!]

Source: Daring Fireball

Let’s build a massive meta McDonald’s in Times Square

Let’s build a massive meta McDonald’s in Times Square:

“It is a cornmeal quenelle, extruded at a high speed, and so the extrusion heats the cornmeal ‘polenta’ and flash-cooks it, trapping air and giving it a crispy texture with a striking lightness. It is then dusted with an ‘umami powder’ glutamate and evaporated-dairy-solids blend.”

[The cause of this is the Food Network atmo. Call a chip a chip :)]

Another theory on Apple’s stock price

→ Another theory on Apple’s stock price:

I’ve managed not to lose money, but I probably haven’t made enough to be worth the time and stress of managing these stock positions myself. I’m considering getting myself out of the individual-stock business. It’s more apparent over time that this is a huge game run by an oligarchy with infinite resources, little oversight, and no consequences, and I’m gambling blindly, hoping to piggyback coincidentally on a giant’s massive wins.

I can’t help but think that individuals like me are better off not playing the game, and that my actual work is more worthy of the attention I give those stocks.

[I’d have to agree overall]

Source: Marco.org

The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime” « Unhandled Exception

The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime” « Unhandled Exception:

If I had taken the stand as planned and had been asked by the prosecutor whether Aaron’s actions were “wrong”, I would probably have replied that what Aaron did would better be described as “inconsiderate”. In the same way it is inconsiderate to write a check at the supermarket while a dozen people queue up behind you or to check out every book at the library needed for a History 101 paper. It is inconsiderate to download lots of files on shared wifi or to spider Wikipedia too quickly, but none of these actions should lead to a young person being hounded for years and haunted by the possibility of a 35 year sentence.

[Incredible.]

The death of greatness

Aaron Swartz, a web technologist and internet activist who worked on RSS, reddit and fought against SOPA/PIPA, committed suicide the other day in Brooklyn. Metafilter has a collection of some of his accomplishments.

[II was in the right place, at the right time to meet many amazing folks. Aaron was one of them. I met the 14 year version of Aaron and his talent was obvious, as was his compassion.]

The Days When We Had Rest, O Soul, for They Were Long « Blogarach:

…even as we’re dimly aware that poorer, less connected, less important people are hounded to their lives’ ends by the dirty machinery of our penal system, which is powered by punishment wholly out of scale to any wrong, punishment which is itself quite often the only wrong ever committed, the sheer, tawdry, grotesquely ill-proportioned persecution of the young man for acts whose criminal taxonomy is something out of a Lewis Carroll poem is the sort of spectacle that really does make you wonder how long, actually, a society intent on destroying its genius in order to preserve the inbred rights of its rentier class to extract filthy lucre from the margins of genuine intellect can endure.

[It’s easy to wail when greatness dies. But as Bacharach points out, there is a shame to it as well since we don’t cry enough about the loss of “poorer, less connected, less important people”. We all contain the same divinity. No one is given more or less of that. We need to do more and by that action provide ourselves the peace of knowing we did all we could.]