Carl Setzer

Huge wooden moose planned in Sweden   This just speaks to me in a Monty Python sort of voice. Despite all the misery and mayhem in the world, stories like this give me hope. I need to plan a trip to Stockholm .   Moose bites can be nasty!  

Evel Knievel dies at 69   I didn’t think it was possible for Evel to die. Considering all that he’s survived, it’s particularly stunning for him to be brought down by disease.   I remember those outlandish stunts, and the crazy costume, and being fascinated. All us boys were Evel Knievel lunging our BMX bikes over tires and Matchbox cars.   Godspeed, good sir

Microsoft Challenges the iPod (Again) - New York Times I'm glad Microsoft is getting going in this space; it'll serve to keep Apple honest and not take us for granted. Competition is good, blah, blah. Apple is (hopefully) not going to make the same mistake as they did in the desktop wars of the 80's.

Sears Profits Obliterated - Forbes.com A 99% profit plunge...OUCH! Retail may be haggard, but nobody's this weak. One lesson I take from this is that you can only shore up profits with cost cuts for a limited time. There comes a point where you lose your ability to function. I think of all the lame, outdated (and damn depressing) Sears stores out there, and clueless sales staff, and am not at all surprised. I do hope they pull it together, for Sears is a venerable brand and it would be a loss for them to vanish.

Wired News - AP News Rather weird, and scary. However, I can't imagine a cell phone battery having a strong enough chemical reaction to injure someone that severely. That would require quite a bit of force, and I don't see how a standard battery could generate that. It would need to be an abrupt, rapid and fully contained reaction, and (again) I can't imagine a commercially produced battery would have that capability. Odd...

Hidden crime of ‘wi-fi tapping’: only 11 arrests but most of us are guilty - Times Online Well, one piece of the "is using someone else's unsecured wireless internet account ethical" has been answered. In the UK (at least) it's apparently illegal. Interesting... Though I've always been adamant about locking down my account, I don't see someone else surfing using my account a crime, per se, especially if the account is unencrypted. I can think of several times that my computer had logged onto a neighbor's network without my knowledge (when my network had dropped, generally). And I think that viewpoint's more prevalent. The analogy of leaving my front door open doesn't really hold water. I've known several people over the years who are rather communal about their service, and are happy to let others use their access point. Perhaps the articles alarmist rhetoric about being held culpable for someone else's downloading of illegal content will i...

This fine medium, our blogosphere, is still in being birthed. Its power is only at the initial "fleshing out". Anti-corporate protests and political campaigns are just the beginning, I'm sure. We have two things combining. Greater numbers of people, globally, are coming online every day. The vast majority of western school children are well versed in web issues, and most in the global south have a real awareness if not intimate experience. And the rest of the population is getting drug into this world, if for no other reason than to be able to fill out job applications. This, meshes nicely with the media's desperate need for conflict. They have a ready supply of well thought out critique of -name-your-issue-here-. Anyone who hates something can build a blog or full blown website, and others can coallece about the orbit, via the power of the Google, et al. And the media can easily find these folks, and the might of the Google. Yes, some of these folks are c...

Oh, I loved this song back in the 80's.

Homeland Security slams FEMA for staging fake wildfire news conference - On Deadline - USATODAY.com Not just unethical, but plain dumb. Anyone with an iota of Public Relations/Public Affairs knowledge would have nixed this early on. Mike Widomski, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs really should be sacked for gross incompetence. There are plenty of ways to have spread this information without, well, this . Sheesh! Adrants has a cute take on this.