Critiquing style

Ann Althouse goes off on Glenn Greenwald's expansive style. Not the politics, the style.

Althouse: In the company of a few too many Glenns.

technorati tags:style, althouse, greenwald, bloviation

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The business breakthrough that makes solar power feasible?

FastCompany points to SunEdison, which has possibly discovered the business breakthrough that could make solar power take off:

When you’ve got Wal-Mart and Whole Foods as eager customers for the same alternative energy source, you’re doing something new. The remarkable thing is that SunEdison’s solar success has nothing to do with technology. It’s all about a business breakthrough.

Cracking Open the Sun. At Last.

technorati tags:solar, sunedison

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Things that keep me from blogging

Blogging has dropped off dramatically in the last few weeks. First, I went on a weeklong trip. Then, shortly after I got back, my laptop's motherboard went out and I had to use a borrowed laptop for about ten days. In the middle of all this, I've been handling SIGDOC submissions and various projects.

This is going to be a busy summer: Beyond SIGDOC, I'm conducting two field studies, coauthoring two grant proposals, and of course directing the CWRL, and I anticipate revising my book manuscript soon. We'll see if I can fit a litle blogging in there too.

"Thumbs up to Sony for this one."

Via Andrew Sullivan, Sony's solution to the classic biometrics problem: What if someone cuts off your finger in order to gain access to your stuff? I liked the pun at the end of the item.

New Scientist Invention blog: Digit-saving biometrics

technorati tags:sony, biometrics, severed-appendages, thumbs, demolition-man

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WidgetMate ...

... keeps putting comment spam on my blog. I've deleted three of them this morning. WidgetMate, I will obviously not be using your services.

"I'd credit the Internet, wouldn't you?"

Andrew Sullivan notes that Ron Paul's campaign has raised a lot of money since the debates -- going from just under half a mil to perhaps $5 mil, which puts him neck and neck with John McCain. That would allow him to compete across the nation, state by state. Speculation is that this surge has something to do with his principled antiwar stand.

That's great news for his campaign in the short term, but I am not sure his platform is going to be popular -- abolishing the Department of Homeland Security is one thing, abolishing the Department of Education is quite another.

Lifestreaming as an alibi

A man who made it onto the FBI's watch list has decided to prove himself -- by lifestreaming. That is, he has preemptively sacrified his privacy as a confidence-building move. It also appears to be an art installation.

Wikipedia's value ...

... is less in being a repository of all human knowledge and more in being an extensive treatment of nerdculture.

Google in Austin?

Possibly so, says the Austinist.