Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, Science And Society, Technology and Society

I Always Suspected It

15 Comments

I’ve always thought that Monster cables were a scam, and that the supposed quality improvement couldn’t justify the ridiculously high prices, and that it was quite annoying that they’ve monopolized so much shelf space in the electronics stores. It’s hard to get reasonably priced audio cables (though things are better at Home Depot). But really, I’ve always figured that most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Monster and lamp cord.

Well, it turns out that supposed audiophiles couldn’t distinguish between Monster and coat hangers. But I suspect that the scam will continue, with salespeople continuing to push them. There are probably great margins for both the manufacturer and the retailers.

[Via Geek Press]

Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Space Arms Control Speech

6 Comments

Would a ban on space weaponry be verifiable? It seems intuitively obvious to me that the answer is “no.”

I think that this is a key point:

The President’s Space Policy highlights our national and, indeed the global, dependence on space. The Chinese interception only underscored the vulnerability of these critical assets. Calling for arms control measures can often appear to be a desirable approach to such problems. Unfortunately, “feel good” arms control that constrains our ability to seek real remedies to the vulnerabilities that we face has the net result of harming rather than enhancing U.S. and international security and well-being.

I always trust hardware over paper and good intentions.

Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

What’s The Point?

Sarah Pullman is very unhappy with Facebook’s privacy policy.

OK, I got a Facebook account last fall, at the urging of several people, who told me that I simply had to have one (though they could never actually explain why). I’ve yet to figure it out myself. I’ve gotten no discernible benefit from it (of course, I haven’t invested much time in it, either). Can anyone explain to me what the big deal is, and what I’m missing out on if I don’t have an account, or don’t use the one I have?

[Update late morning]

While we’re on the subject, here’s an article on which is better for business: Facebook or LinkedIn?

Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

What’s The Point?

7 Comments

Sarah Pullman is very unhappy with Facebook’s privacy policy.

OK, I got a Facebook account last fall, at the urging of several people, who told me that I simply had to have one (though they could never actually explain why). I’ve yet to figure it out myself. I’ve gotten no discernible benefit from it (of course, I haven’t invested much time in it, either). Can anyone explain to me what the big deal is, and what I’m missing out on if I don’t have an account, or don’t use the one I have?

[Update late morning]

While we’re on the subject, here’s an article on which is better for business: Facebook or LinkedIn?

Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

What’s The Point?

Sarah Pullman is very unhappy with Facebook’s privacy policy.

OK, I got a Facebook account last fall, at the urging of several people, who told me that I simply had to have one (though they could never actually explain why). I’ve yet to figure it out myself. I’ve gotten no discernible benefit from it (of course, I haven’t invested much time in it, either). Can anyone explain to me what the big deal is, and what I’m missing out on if I don’t have an account, or don’t use the one I have?

[Update late morning]

While we’re on the subject, here’s an article on which is better for business: Facebook or LinkedIn?

Space, Technology and Society

A Glimpse Of The Singularity

13 Comments

Charlie Stross sees it.

What I found interesting, though, is how quickly the discussion in comments transitioned to how slow the progress has been in space access, with NASA taking a beating.

There is no question that space technology, with high-powered (megawatts/gigawatts) devices is fundamentally different than things that switch bits and electrons around, and it’s not reasonable to expect it to come close to Moore’s Law. But there’s also no question that, given different policies for the past half century, things could be much further along than they are. We may not (as Monte Davis noted in comments over there) have seen 2001: A Space Odyssey by 2001, or even now, but we’d be on a lot clearer path to it, I think.

But that has never been a societal goal, even when we were pouring four percent of the federal budget (and doesn’t that make the NASA fanboys drool) into the problem during Apollo. We were just trying to beat the Russkies to the moon, and after we did that, we got preoccupied, and public-choice economics took over, as it always does when things aren’t important any more. And that’s the way it’s been ever since. But because of false myths promulgated during that era, it’s been tough to raise the money privately as well.

It won’t happen as fast as we’d like it to, nor will it happen as slowly as those who continue to cheer for government spaceflight expect, either. And most importantly, it will have trouble keeping up with the electronics singularity (though a lot of those advances will eventually accelerate space technology as well, and it will happen much sooner than most expect).

But I think that we are seeing real, measurable progress now, and I expect it to continue, and to continue to confound those who continue to cheer NASA five- and ten-year plans.

Technology and Society

Needlessly Annoying

10 Comments

I just entered my account number at Chevron/Texaco’s site, in order to recover a lost user name. The form to do so simply has a text box saying “Account Number.” When I look at my account number on my bill, as printed by them, it is a sequence of numbers separated by hyphens, so I type it in as they give it to me on my bill. So of course, it kicks out an error message, telling me not to include any dashes or spaces.

I find it easier to separate the subnumbers, because it makes the number easier to read and verify. Back when I was doing web site ecommerce (over a decade ago), I found it a trivial task to write a line of perl that would strip out extraneous characters, and convert the string to a pure string of digits. Has the technology degraded since then to the point that they have to annoy their customers by making them enter a perfectly valid number twice?