Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Sen. Kerry to Speak on Campus this Sunday

Posted on April 16, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

University of Miami: College and Young Democrats are hosting a visit by Senator Kerry to the UM campus on Sunday. The efficient Kerry operation also sent me an email:

We invite you to rally with John Kerry on Sunday, April 18th, at the University of Miami.

John Kerry's college tour was a big success. The huge crowds brought a lot of energy and enthusiasm to the campaign. Let's keep the momentum going. There will be a tremendous amount of media at Sunday's rally — let's make Sunday's crowd the biggest yet.

Sunday, April 18th
University of Miami — The Rock
1306 Stanford Drive
Coral Gables, Florida 33146

Doors open at 12:30 PM.

I think I'll take the kids…hope they don't yawn too much … not that we'll be in the center of anything…

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | Comments Off on Sen. Kerry to Speak on Campus this Sunday

More On Civility in Politics (or its Absence)

Posted on April 16, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

It tends to be conservatives who push loudest for civility in public discourse. Given that uncivility is often part of a challenge to the status quo, and given that conservative politics tend to favor the interests of whoever is doing well out of the status quo, a strategy of cabining dissent to means that are less likely to disturb the status quo is a natural and sensible political strategy. (I happen to think civility is a good thing most of the time, but for other reasons; if that happens to dovetail with traditional conservativism, well, that's the breaks.) The strategy runs into some trouble when the conservative movement allies with have-not populists; and it founders when the leadership of the movement is taken over by corporatists and especially by nuts.

Witness the following elements of civil discourse:

Compare to this much more civil and effective use of ridicule.

Posted in Politics: US | Comments Off on More On Civility in Politics (or its Absence)

12 Million Channels and Nothin’ On?

Posted on April 16, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Jim Moore prophesizes about Personal Television Networks:

This afternoon Dave Winer and I were talking and he told me about his coinage of the term “Personal Television Networks”—PTNs. What are they? Think: what the personal computer was to the mainframe computer, personal television networks are to the current behemoth networks.

Which immediately makes me think of Bruce Springsteen.

Meanwhile, as we rebuild/remodel our house we are installing wiring for cable/satellite TV points in various places. But we still can't decide if we actually want to buy a TV.

Posted in Internet | Comments Off on 12 Million Channels and Nothin’ On?

Not Your Number One Draft Choice (Or, the 83rd percentile President)

Posted on April 15, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Must-read DeLong, If You Said to Me, Name 25 Million People Who Would Maybe Be President… He Wouldn't Have Been in That Category (quoting an amazing interview with Carlyle Group founder David Rubenstein). Brad then adds his comments:

Never yet has a grownup looked me in the eye and said, “George W. Bush is qualified to be President of the United States.” The most anyone has ever done is to say (around the time of the inauguration), “Look, Brad, he'll be Queen Elizabeth; Colin Powell will be Tony Blair and Paul O'Neill will be Gordon Brown. There are lots of Head-of-State things that George W. Bush will do really well, and the government will be in good hands.” But I don't think any grownup would say that or anything like that now.

Which just shows you that Berkeley is special. I suspect that many people in this community probably think Bush is just fine for the job. Some national religious leaders, after all, have said they think that his 5-4 election in the face of both contrary precedent and a contrary popular vote was a sign of divine providence. Others predict a divinely-ordained Bush victory in 2004. These views don't exist in a total vacuum.

I bet it's nice in Berkeley this time of year.

Continue reading →

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 5 Comments

Something Funny at MS-NBC?

Posted on April 15, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

This is odd. When I point Firefox at MS-NBC, I get this:

Network Error
Unable to read URL from host msnbc.msn.com: Not in GZIP format

But if I try to visit the site with IE6, it comes up just fine.

And yes, I tried it several times.

Is this a Firefox problem, a very very unlikely coincidence, or is MS-NBC blocking a non-MS browser.

Update: I only have this problem on the win98se machine, not on the win XP machine, which suggests it's something local. But it's very odd.

Posted in Internet | 3 Comments

25GB ‘Paper’ Disk Invented

Posted on April 15, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Even if the slashdot headline was slightly misleading, an optical disc made 51% of paper is still pretty impressive:

TOPPAN PRINTING CO., LTD (TSE: 7911) and Sony Corporation (TSE: 6758) today announce the successful development of a 25GB paper disc based on Blu-ray Disc technology. Details will be announced at the Optical Data Storage 2004 conference to be held from April 18th to April 21st at Monterey, California.

Using the disc-structure of Blu-ray Disc technology, the new paper disc has a total weight that is 51% paper.

Posted in Sufficiently Advanced Technology | 4 Comments