Category Archives: News

When Clouds Crash

Rackspace is in a crater right now, on fire. So are many of its customers. I’m one of them. What happened, Rackspace says, was “the result of a ransomware incident.” Damaged, lost or destroyed is its Hosted Exchange business. On that cloud … Continue reading

Posted in Future, News | 2 Comments

On solving the worldwide shipping crisis

The worldwide shipping crisis is bad. Here are some reasons: “Just in time” manufacturing, shipping, delivery, and logistics. For several decades, the whole supply system has been optimized for “lean” everything. On the whole, no part of it fully comprehends … Continue reading

Posted in Business, Ideas, Journalism, News, Pandemic | 8 Comments

A side view of the Ranch 2 Fire

What you see there is a flammagenitus cloud rising to the north above Ranch 2, a wildfire about fifteen miles east of here in the San Gabriel Mountains, just north of Asuza (one of too many towns to remember, in … Continue reading

Posted in fire, Geography, News | Leave a comment

Bad $20

I once tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. Actually, twice. The first was when I paid for a lunch at Barney Greengrass in New York, about two years ago. After exposing the $20 to a gizmo at the cash … Continue reading

Posted in News | 1 Comment

The Great Trivializer

Last night I watched The Great Hack a second time. It’s a fine documentary, maybe even a classic. (A classic in literature, I learned on this Radio Open Source podcast, is a work that “can only be re-read.” If that’s … Continue reading

Posted in Internet, movies, News, personal data, Politics, privacy | 1 Comment

Where Journalism Fails

“What’s the story?” No question is asked more often by editors in newsrooms than that one. And for good reason: that’s what news is about: The Story. Or, in the parlance of the moment, The Narrative. (Trend. More about that … Continue reading

Posted in Digital Life, Journalism, News, Politics, problems, publishing | Leave a comment

Venus, Moon, Jupiter and Mercury in the dawn’s early light

Walked out on the front deck this morning and grabbed a photo set of the Moon between conjunctions with Venus (that was yesterday), Jupiter (tonight and tomorrow) and then Mercury (Saturday), before passing next to the Sun as a new … Continue reading

Posted in astronomy, News, Science | Leave a comment

New York lights

I had a bunch of errands to run today, but also a lot of calls. And, when I finally got up from my desk around 4pm with plans to head out in the car, I found five inches of snow … Continue reading

Posted in infrastructure, Nature, new york, News, Travel | Tagged | Leave a comment

Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica problems are nothing compared to what’s coming for all of online publishing

Let’s start with Facebook’s Surveillance Machine, by Zeynep Tufekci in last Monday’s New York Times. Among other things (all correct), Zeynep explains that “Facebook makes money, in other words, by profiling us and then selling our attention to advertisers, political … Continue reading

Posted in adtech, advertising, Berkman, Business, Customertech, Ideas, infrastructure, Internet, Journalism, Law, Links, marketing, News, Personal, privacy, problems, publishing, Research, Technology, VRM | 72 Comments

Enough Alreadies

I just unsubscribed from Quora notifications. Reasons: With my new full-time gig as editor-in-chief of Linux Journal, I have close to no time for anything else, even though many other obligations do take time. Some of those also pay, and so require … Continue reading

Posted in News, Personal, problems, publishing | 3 Comments