Category Archives: Technology and Society

Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

NASA’s Technical Report Server

9 Comments

Has Frank Wolf shut it down?

As the emailer who sent me the link notes, “I understand the need for an ITAR review, however, what we have so far is a blanket ban, with no prescription in place for when and how this issue will be resolved. In the meantime NASA’s vast archive of technical information, so vital to the commercial and private sector has vanished in a single day.”

So where in the days of sequester is NASA going to find the funds to review the data and get it back on line? Just more ITAR madness that has cost the US space industry billions over the past decade and a half.

[Thursday morning update]

More over at NASA Watch.

[Bumped]

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Green Energy In The Red

6 Comments

Remember how if we didn’t let Obama hand out taxpayer money to his cronies like Solyndra, we’d be buying our solar panels from China? Well:

The world’s top-selling producer of solar panels has defaulted on a $541 million bond payment. The Chinese firm Suntech hasn’t posted a profit since the first quarter of 2011 and has been relying on the government of Wuxi, the city where it is headquartered, to stay solvent. But as more bills come due, this renewable energy producer is looking less and less sustainable.

Just shocking. If you’re an economic ignoramus, anyway.

Business, Technology and Society, Weird

Amazon Advantage

7 Comments

So, I’ve been trying to set up a page for my book at Amazon. So far, color me very unimpressed.

The Advantage site has a form to fill out with book description, author bio, and three reviews. It very clearly states:

You don’t need to use HTML to fill out the edit boxes below – just type normally. However, if you’d like to use advanced formatting, you may use HTML to indicate breaks, boldface or italics.
<P> = a paragraph break <BR> = a line break
<b> </b> = boldface <i> </i> = italics.
Example: The <b>quick</b> brown fox <i>jumped over</i> the lazy dog.<BR>

Well, I kind of like paragraphs. Call me crazy, but that’s just how I roll. So I put in some <p>s, and bolded the names of the reviewers.

When I saved my work, it didn’t display the HTML properly, instead showing the code. Moreover, it had removed the second two reviews, and attributed the first one to the second reviewer.

I scratched my head, and went back int to edit, reinserting the other two reviews, and straightening out the reviewer names. I hit “View” and got exactly the same thing. HTML still in the code, no graf breaks, and the second two reviews disappeared, with the wrong reviewer name on the first.

I send a complaint to Amazon (via a web form, so I have no record of it, unless I had the foresight to copy it somewhere, which I didn’t). Here is the response:

Dear Vendor,

I apologize for the inconvenience caused.

Please be informed that when you update any information using update item content and then click submit button, everything will get disappear. However please be informed that the same will appear on the website in 5-7 days.

I request you to update the information without using HTML tags.

As you have the limit to add only 3 reviews, I request you to write back to us with the reviews that you wish to add and we will do the needful.

Thank you for selling with Amazon,

Sowjanya Reddy T.
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

So, they can’t show me what the page is actually going to look like until it goes live, and despite the fact that they clearly invite me to use HTML, they then request that I not do so. Which means that I can’t do so much as break paragraphs.

I’m kind of gobsmacked. I mean, this is fricking’ Amazon.

Business, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society, Weird

Auto Insurance Spam

6 Comments

Every day my inbox (or rather, my spam box) is flooded with spam telling me about how “auto rates” are going down (presumably it means insurance, though the word is often not mentioned). Usually, the subject is something like “The president has passed a new law reducing your rates,” or “Washington has passed a new law…”

Well, today, I got my first Pope auto-rate spam:

Subject: New Pope Equals Lower Auto Rates? Yes – See Why.

– – – – New Pope Announcement Has Major Impact On Your Auto Rates – – – –

The new pontiff – Francis The 1st is already having a dramatic impact on auto rates. Did you know the month a new pope is elected is always the safest month to drive of the year? This is why major auto insurers have come together to lower auto rates to $3.75/month for drivers who sign up during the month of March who reside in low-risk driving zip codes

See if your area qualifies for the new rates by visiting the link below and entering your zip code. Should you qualify, expect your rates to drop and budget accordingly.

Needless to say, I didn’t click on the link below, but you have to give them marks for creativity in coming up with idiot bait.