Category: media

  • Silly Girls — the Internet is for Boys!

    It’s April 1, meaning that it’s time for technology blogs — and it’s always technology blogs — to pull out that tiresome old canard of making their site women-friendly. It wasn’t funny when Slashdot did it, and it’s not funny now that PetaPixel has done it. Yes, how hilarious to market technology sites towards women!…

  • Share buybacks!

    A-ha! In my previous post on owning stocks, I had completely forgotten about stock buybacks, when the company uses excess cash to buy outstanding shares. In this sense, the company itself is placing real value on the stocks, and this gives them some intrinsic value other than (a) producing dividends or (b) liquidation. The traditional…

  • No news, so here is some bad press!

    The Santa Barbara Independent has had excellent coverage of the Gap Fire, but I decided to look for more information elsewhere. A lot of shit went down with the Santa Barbara News-Press before we moved to town, but I thought I should given them one chance. Although the News-Press has an extensive online section for…

  • Now batting for Pedro Borbon…Manny Mota! (mota! mota!)

    I’ll admit it, I’ve been spending way too much time paying attention to the crazy political goings-on this season. Even after the endless Bataan Death March Obama-Clinton showdown, I’ve continued to pay attention. But the relentless echo-chamber, especially on the right, but also on the left, is completely out of control, and blogs have made…

  • Smoke before fire, but both before information

    We were visiting family this weekend, and spent a fair amount of time assuring them that we weren’t affected by any of the California wildfires, as they were hundreds of miles north of us. And then last night, a fire broke out maybe ten miles from where we live. The Santa Barbara Independent — a…

  • He had me until the word “not”

    If you were under the age of 35 ( . . . which most of you are), and were reading the paper with your breakfast, would you continue with an article that started like this: I do not unconditionally celebrate the Internet, particularly its intrusion into classical music. As replacements for the record store, Amazon…

  • Dean gets it, and gets votes

    I read that the Democratic National Convention is giving full press credentials to hundreds of bloggers, including one locally-focused blog from every state. This is yet another example of how Howard Dean gets it, the 21st century, and I still can’t believe that the Democratic Party actually, for once, did the smart thing when electing…