Google News Alerts interest me because I worked for a dot com that tried to build a business around this concept and ultimately flamed out. Given that Google already has the code to parse and aggregate news stories in place, putting in alerting on top of that seems like a no brainer.
A few days ago I was going to post here that I was a bit frustrated with Cerulean Studios because I paid for Trillian Pro 1.0 when it was released and they haven’t really upgraded it since then. I have used Trillian for a long time and was glad to compensate them for that usage, but at the same time I had paid for a subscription for upgrades and then didn’t get any upgrades. Anyway, since I started intending to grip about them the’ve released a beta version of Trillian Pro 2.0, so I’m not going to complain. I’m becoming suspicious that they’re just not the release early, release often types. ...
Every time I’ve flown recently, I’ve posted an update here on my airport experiences. This time I had direct flights each way, and both were very much on time. The security procedures are still annoying, but they’re a streamlined annoyance at this point. I don’t think I will ever get used to taking off my belt and shoes at the security checkpoint. Before my return flight, the reports of terrorists planning to use explosives packed into cellular phones broke, but it didn’t seem to affect the security procedures at the airport at all. I had two mobile phones in my bag, and the security personnel didn’t ask me to take out either of them. ...
I’ll be away for a couple of days on a trip. Posting should resume on Wednesday.
When one reads about Ireland’s Magdalene Asylums, it makes it clear that the Taliban aren’t as far divorced from Western culture it would be comfortable to believe.
Is it just me, or is it strange to see an op-ed on the New York Times editorial page penned by Dave Eggars? That said, his message about preserving AmeriCorps is an important one. I can’t think of too many other ways to get some of America’s best and brightest to make this country a better place on the cheap.
Fred Kaplan points out that while it’s being widely reported that North Korea is finally making concessions, the reason they are doing so is that the US has conceded to hold bilateral talks as part of multilateral talks.
Salon has a piece today arguing that Democrats can only win if they can convince people that Bush is a phony. I’m not entirely sure Bush is a phony, though, so that may be a tough task. I think Bush really is very decisive and really does have a strong set of convictions. My problem with him is that I don’t agree with his convictions or his decisions. If most Americans do, then Democrats are going to have a tough row to hoe. I don’t think that nuance is selling very well right now, which is not unusual but is unfortunate. ...
In last week’s New York Times Magazine, David Rieff asks, Were Sanctions Right? It’s a thoughtful article that examines the real effects of the sanctions that followed the first Gulf War, not just on the Iraqi people, but on the nature of the regime, and on the people imposing the sanctions. It’s pretty clear now (as it was to many people before the war) that the sanctions actually strengthened the hold of Saddam Hussein’s regime over his people, and had the side benefit of enriching a lot of scumbags in Iraq and their trading partners outside. Indeed, the perverse cruelty of the sanctions regime was the main reason why I could never say that I was against war in Iraq. Simply letting Saddam Hussein do as he wished did not seem reasonable to me, and both war and sanctions struck me as unbelievably cruel. That said, the sanctions were not getting rid of Saddam, were enabling him to kill thousands of his own people through targetted and planned deprivation, and were hurting the United States as well by exposing our cruelty to the world. In retrospect, it would have been better to finish off the regime 10 years ago. ...
Eric Meyer (whose position as standards evangelist at Netscape was elimiated) is starting his own consulting firm. There are about a billion sites out there that could use his advice. Here’s hoping some of them contact him.