I splurged and upgraded to Time-Warner "wideband."

Everything about Time-Warner, the company, is smarmy -- but the connection is very nice and fast (but not symmetric).

$99 per month, $40 to install.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

 7/29/2010; 12:58:31 PM.   .

I KNOW IT'S JARRING THAT THIS PIECE IS IN ALL CAPS BUT I WANTED TO SEE IF IT MADE A DIFFERENCE.

WHAT ARE THE CHANCES THAT THE COMMENTS HERE MIGHT IN SOME WAY BE RESPONSIVE TO WHAT I SAID, RATHER THAN JUST BE RECITAL OF PARTY LINE STATEMENTS THAT INVOLVE THE KEYWORDS IN THE PIECE.

FOR EXAMPLE: ADOBE, FLASH, APPLE, HTML 5. GO AHEAD TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK.

THERE ARE MANY OTHER EXAMPLES. IF I SAY "THE IPHONE 4" I WILL BE LABELED IN OTHER WAYS.

ANYWAY I'M TIRED OF SCREAMING AT YOU.

HAVE A NICE DAY.

 7/29/2010; 11:31:39 AM.   .

Earlier this month I reported on bloggers leaving scienceblogs.org because the publisher sold a presence on the site to bloggers from PepsiCo.

One of the rationales for bundling all the science bloggers together in one place was the synergy that comes from aggregation. Of course, with RSS you can achieve the same effect, without putting them all on the same server. So I put it on my to-do list to set up an science blogs aggregator, and yesterday I had some time to do it, so here it is.

http://science.newsriver.org/

As always, the OPML for the site is public so if you want to feed it into your aggregator you're welcome to. You should reimport the OPML from time to time, or ask your aggregator developer to do it for you -- because that list will be updated dynamically as the site grows.

And if you know of science blogs that should be included in the list, please post a comment here.

 7/29/2010; 9:50:29 AM.   .

Some people don't care for them, but I love Ole and Lena jokes.

Here's a good one.

Ole was going on a business trip to St Cloud but it was cancelled at the last minute cause the Minnesota Twins made it to the playoffs.

He's lying in bed before going to sleep when the phone rings.

He listens, gets up to look out the window then returns to the phone.

He says in an irritated way: "How should I know, it's a thousand miles away!" and hangs up.

Lena asks: Who was that Ole?

Ole: Oh Sven yust vants to know if the coast is clear.

 7/29/2010; 8:17:12 AM.   .

The iPad with its Kindle app got me interested in reading on a tablet again.

But it's summertime, and I'd rather read in the park, or on a bench looking out over the Hudson.

The iPad doesn't work for outdoor reading if there's any sun at all.

Further, I have a backlog of unread books I bought on Amazon, and I don't see why I should replace them (or if I can) using Apple's store.

I already buy a lot of stuff from Apple, and I don't like how they push around app developers and content companies. We're talking about First Amendment stuff here. So I vote with my dollars, and feel good about it.

So a couple of weeks ago I bought a Kindle DX, and I think it's a great product.

When I read on tech blogs that Kindle is a goner, I think these people must not read very much. Reading isn't about tech prowess or the shiniest gadget.

The Kindle is lighter, works in more places, has longer battery life, better connectivity, and has the biggest base of content. Plus they have been very smart about making their content available on every device known to man, including Apple's.

Bottom-line: Don't worry about the Kindle.

 7/29/2010; 8:03:37 AM.   .

Xcv comments: "At the large tech company I work at there is an internal micro-blogging tool. The limit was recently increased from 140 to around 500.

"People are still writing concise things. It is just incredibly refreshing to not have to abbreviate things. And also you can include full links instead of shortened crap."

Interesting story.

 7/29/2010; 12:20:14 AM.   .