Tech Boom 2.0: Electric Bugaloo

An interesting theory on Microsoft and Yahoo that I simply could not fathom occurring... until now.

 

May 18 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp.'s plan to buy AQuantive Inc. for $6 billion increases the likelihood that the software maker will also buy Yahoo! Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst Anthony Noto said today.

Yahoo would plug a ``strategic hole'' at Microsoft that isn't filled by the purchase of AQuantive, announced today, Noto said in a note to clients. AQuantive, which creates Web ads and measures whether they reach the target audience, doesn't give Microsoft the roughly half a million advertisers required to compete against Google Inc., Noto said.

``We believe the odds of a deal happening over time actually increases,'' New York-based Noto wrote. ``Microsoft is willing to do deals that are a strategic necessity.''

Thank Bloomberg.

 

Obviously, no one learned anything from the 90's.

 

And I would suspect that Yahoo probably does NOT want to be acquired.  That's a fairly clever bunch.  Stay tuned.

 

 

 

The Sequel To The Best PC Game Of All Time

I'm not a young guy anymore, but I'm positively giddy about the game which is arguably the best game of all time.

Introducing: Starcraft II.

Protoss, Terran, and Zerg. These three distinct and powerful races will clash once again in the fast-paced real-time strategy sequel to the legendary original, StarCraft. Legions of veteran, upgraded, and brand-new unit types will do battle across the galaxy, as each faction struggles for survival.

Featuring a unique single-player campaign that picks up where StarCraft: Brood War left off, StarCraft II will present a cast of new heroes and familiar faces in an edgy sci-fi story filled with adventure and intrigue. In addition, Blizzard will again offer unparalleled online play through Battle.net, the company's world-renowned gaming service, with several enhancements and new features to make StarCraft II the ultimate competitive real-time strategy game.

Oh, dear.
Finally a reason to upgrade the computers.
Here's the trailer.

The Credit CARD Act

Usually, I have a natural suspicion of obviously-named bills (see: Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, etc.).  Not in this case.  I bring you... The Credit CARD Act if 2007 .

 

 

A BILL

To amend the Consumer Credit Protection Act to ban abusive credit practices, enhance consumer disclosures, protect underage consumers, and for other purposes.

 

Where discovered?  Why, The Consumerist, of course.  It's easier to buy into a bill when they are into it.

 

The Credit CARD Act Of 2007 is a bill currently before Congress aiming to end some of the credit card industry's anti-consumer practices. Among H. R. 1461's proposals:

• Advance notice of interest rate increases
• End universal default clauses, the premise that they can raise your credit card interest rate if your credit score changes
• Prohibit credit cards being issued to minors without a parental signature

Here's your chance to stem unadulterated evil, people.  Don't blow this.  Support positive changes in the things that drive you crazy in your everyday life, then marvel at the improvements in your daily existence.

Regular Google Is Not Enough?

If it isn't, try the experimental Google search.

 

Google is always experimenting with new features aimed at improving the search experience. Take them for a spin, and let us know what you think.

I'm actually not exactly sure what this is, but I'm going to try it, anyway.  I'm an early adopter of Google products by nature.

 

Yes, I know that I haven't been posting as much lately.  I promise that I'll make it up to you.

All Things In Moderation

Perfect news for men.

 

Heavy multivitamin users were almost twice as likely to get fatal prostate cancer as men who never took the pills, concludes the study in Wednesday's Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Here's the twist: Overall, the researchers found no link between multivitamin use and early-stage prostate cancer.

The researchers speculate that perhaps high-dose vitamins had little effect until a tumor appeared, and then could spur its growth.

More wonderful news from Yahoo, but don't shoot the messenger.

 

Someone once told me that his doctor told him that if he lived long enough, he'd get prostate cancer.  He did.

Now, too many vitamins might help small cancers beat you?

 

That's it.  It's steak tonight.

 

Population Growth Oddly Making Sense

Over at kotte.org, they noticed a little article from the Wall Street Journal on The Realignment of America.

 

The bad news for them is that the Coastal Megalopolises grew only 4% in 2000-06, while the nation grew 6%. Coastal Megalopolitan states--New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois--are projected to lose five House seats in the 2010 Census, while California, which has gained seats in every census since it was admitted to the Union in 1850, is projected to pick up none.

You see an entirely different picture in the 16 metro areas I call the Interior Boomtowns (none touches the Atlantic or Pacific coasts). Their population has grown 18% in six years. They've had considerable immigrant inflow, 4%, but with the exceptions of Dallas and Houston, this immigrant inflow has been dwarfed by a much larger domestic inflow--three million to 1.5 million overall.

Naturally there are political implications here, but why, do you think, this would happen?

 

If you can't come up with an answer right away, think carefully, Google, and get back to me.

Consider also the how areas in this country grow these days as well.

 

Sometimes, people try to make things more complex than they really are.

 

May 14th - Tappity Tap Tap Tap.

When it comes to privacy, remember that you don't have any on the Internet.  On Monday, you'll have less.

 

May 14th is the official deadline for cable modem companies, DSL providers, broadband over powerline, satellite internet companies and some universities to finish wiring up their networks with FBI-friendly surveillance gear, to comply with the FCC's expanded interpretation of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act.

 

Wired said this first.

 

Oh the news, Zombie Hoover sat up in his grave and applauded.  Oddly, the same news made millions of American Internet users shake their heads in disgust.

 

They Take The Titans Seriously In Tennessee

Today's interesting news story brought to you by WBAL, via my good friends at Fark .

 

Ravens quarterback Steve McNair has been arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, and charged with owning a vehicle being driven by a drunken driver.

 

Steve McNair was driving dr.... hey!  Wait a minute...

 

Jamie Cartwright, 31, was driving McNair's 2003 Dodge pickup truck, with McNair as a passenger, northbound on Hillsboro Road at Abbott Martin Road at 11:53 p.m. Wednesday when DUI Squad Officer Harold Taylor saw that the truck was traveling 45 mph in a 35 mph zone. Officer Taylor activated his emergency equipment and Cartwright pulled into a strip mall on Hillsboro Road near Crestmoor Drive.

When Taylor approached Cartwright, he detected an obvious odor of alcohol and saw that Cartwright's eyes were red and glassy. Cartwright admitted to drinking at least two beers earlier in the evening. Taylor administered the standard field sobriety tasks to Cartwright, which indicated impairment. Cartwright was taken into custody for DUI and was asked to submit to a breath alcohol test. He refused.

Because McNair owns the truck and was a passenger with Cartwright, he too was charged with DUI. It is illegal in Tennessee for the owner of a vehicle to knowingly permit its operation by a driver under the influence of an intoxicant. Metro police have charged 43 persons, including McNair, for violating that statute since the first of this year.

So.  To be clear, Steve McNair, who may have been drunk, was riding shotgun with a person that may have been drunk, and Steve McNair (the passenger) was charged with a DUI?  Or is it a PUI.  Hm.

 

Clever.

 

 

 

 

Friends, don't let friends drive your car.  Anytime, just to be safe.

 

 

Hoaxes On The Internet

The way that you can tell that you've been on the Internet for a while is that you've at least seen or heard of most of these, highlighted today by Yahoo:  The Top 25 Web Hoaxes.

 

Some old favorites:

 

2. Sick Kid Needs Your Help (1989)

4. Five-Cent E-Mail Tax (1999)

5. Nigerian 419 E-Mail Scam (2000)

20. Rand's 1954 Home Computer (2004)

21. Microsoft Buys Catholic Church (1994)

Funny how things change so much, yet so little in Internet culture.  In some variety, I still see a lot of these available on the Internet and in my email - some daily.  Do yourselves a favor, folks, seriously:  check Snopes.com before you send that email explaining how Bill Gates is giving away money for just sending an email.  Snopes is a good resource, and is conveniently located on my sidebar.  Oldsters will remember the old Usenet group rec.folklore.urban - from which Snopes was born.  These guys know their stuff and have been writing about Internet and other urban folklore, or urban legends, for years.

Take a look.  I tend to do that before I believe anything that I read on the Internet.

 

 

 

POW! Goes The Blog

Quite unfortunately, last night while doing some blog tweaks, I unfortunately lost my blog template, so things might look a bit strange for a couple of days.  If anyone has any ideas on how to recover an inadvertently lost blogger template, let me know.

 

In the meantime, I have much to do, and will try to have this fixed by the weekend.

Digg Dugg?

Uh oh.  I'm not sure what happened to Digg.com, but something big is definitely afoot.

 

I've never really seen anything like this on user run websites, but chaos is taking place over on Digg. As I have mentioned before, Digg is my favorite website out there, but after they banned me earlier today I got a little pissed. I submitted a story about a T-Shirt with the now famous HD-DVD hex key on it, and I was banned for "violating the terms of use".

Stories were getting deleted and user accounts were being banned all because of a stupid HD-DVD copyright Hex code that can be used to unlock HD-DVD. Digg claimed that they could be sued and what not for it so they decided to censor all of the stories that had to deal with the key. The whole thing is just bull, you can't copyright a sequence of numbers and letters.

Thank TechPwn.

 

Then this, also from TechPwn.

 

Well, as a follow up, digg has shut down story submissions. They have also turned off the ability for stories to reach the front page.

 

This is quite the interesting thing to come home to after a 15 hour day.  Here's a little Digg background.

 

...and here's Digg.com.

 

Slashdot weighs in here. 

 

I am a member of Digg, but I haven't been there lately.  The geek in me finds this revolt... intriguing.