Ocelopotamus

News, culture, and politics. Not necessarily in that order.

Ocelopotamus header image 4

Entries Tagged as 'Tech'

Roundup: Zero Gravity Friday Edition

April 27th, 2007 · Comments Off on Roundup: Zero Gravity Friday Edition · Apple, Climate Change, Comedy, Comics, Culture, Factory Farming, Film, Food, Guns, iTunes, LGBT, Macintosh, Media, Nature, News, Pet Food, Pets, Politics, Science

I have three days’ worth of links accumulated and only one Friday afternoon roundup post to squeeze them into! Help me with the zipper. As many as 6,000 hogs may have been fed melamine-tainted feed: “A USDA official said that so far states have quarantined one farm each in South Carolina, New York, North Carolina […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Roundup: Forest for the Trees Edition

April 23rd, 2007 · 2 Comments · Activism, Apple, Blogs, Business, Climate Change, Comedy, Culture, Food, Health, Heroes, Labor, LGBT, Music, Nature, News, Peace, Pet Food, Politics, Science, Tech, TV

France heads for a runoff election between right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy and left-winger Ségolène Royal. The country’s future hangs in the balance, and a lot depends on where the defeated centrist candidate steers his followers. Right wing blogs are now trying to push the idea that there was a massive conspiracy to hide WMDs in Iraq. […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

The Honey Bees in the Mine Shaft

April 23rd, 2007 · 8 Comments · Food, Nature, News, Science, Tech

For a while now I’ve been reading about the mysterious wide-scale disappearance of honey bee colonies, a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder, which has disturbing implications for a huge range of food crops. (According to Wikipedia, honey bees are responsible for pollinating about a third of all crop species in the U.S.) Now there’s […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

News Roundup: Back Alley Edition

April 19th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Business, Chicago, Culture, Guns, Health, Internet, Labor, LGBT, Music, Nature, News, Pet Food, Politics, Science, Supreme Court

Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling on abortion makes no exception for women whose health is in danger. This DKos diary, “5 out of 9 SCOTUS justices say my mom should be dead,” describes in vivid personal terms how a late-term abortion saved the life of the writer’s mother, and how this new ruling means that a […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

News Roundup: Indirect Role-Playing Edition

April 16th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Adobe, Business, Comics, Culture, Food, Hate Crimes, Health, LGBT, Media, Music, New Wave, News, Politics, Software

Gonzales is now helpfully explaining that he only had an “indirect” role in the firing of the U.S. attorneys. Yes, just like I had an indirect role in what happened to the passersby who got hit by those water balloons I dropped yesterday. I mean, all I did was let go! It was the water […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

News Roundup: Dinosaur Dig Edition

April 13th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Apple, Business, Comedy, Culture, Feminism, Hate Crimes, Health, Human Rights, LGBT, Music, Nature, New Wave, News, Politics, Science, Software, TV

The White House is claiming that oops, they managed to lose a whole bunch of critically important emails, but as any decent techie knows, deleted emails aren’t really deleted. Someone better sit poor Karl Rove down and explain to him about file recovery utilities. Speaking of recovering things thought lost forever — scientists have recovered […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

News Roundup: Fresh Prints Edition

April 9th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Activism, Advertising, Apple, Business, Climate Change, Culture, Health, HIV/AIDS, Human Rights, iTunes, Labor, LGBT, Media, Music, News, Politics, Science

Newt Gingrich calls on Abu Gonzales to resign. Trying to sound like a big, butch hunter to please the NRA, dreadfully amusing little joke of a candidate Mitt Romney says he likes to hunt rabbits and refers to them as “varmints.” Tell it to the Easter bunny, Mitt. I hope he left a gaily decorated […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Simone de Beauvoir’s Got Your Number, Slim

April 9th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Blogroll, Blogs, Culture, Feminism, Internet, Media, Politics

Jessica Valenti of Feministing had a nice piece in The Guardian on Friday, mulling over the state of online misogyny in the wake of the Kathy Sierra incident. And of course she touches on Ann Althouse’s nasty attack on her for the unspeakable crime of having a figure. If it’s any consolation, one side effect […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

News Roundup: Supreme Court, Python,
and Gromit Edition

April 2nd, 2007 · 1 Comment · Advertising, Apple, Blogs, Business, Climate Change, Comedy, Culture, Film, Fringe, Health, Human Rights, iTunes, LGBT, Media, Music, Nature, Neo-Futurists, News, Politics, Supreme Court, Torture, Travel, TV

The Supreme Court rules that the EPA has the authority — and the responsibility — to regulate greenhouse gases. Carl Pope of The Sierra Club says: “Today’s ruling is a watershed moment in the fight against global warming … The ruling is a total rejection of the Bush administration’s refusal to use its existing authority […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

News Roundup: “An Exceptionally Heavy
Spaghetti Crop”

March 31st, 2007 · 3 Comments · Activism, Apple, Business, Climate Change, Comedy, Culture, Factory Farming, Feminism, Film, Food, Health, HIV/AIDS, iTunes, LGBT, Media, Music, News, Politics, Science, Tech, TV, Video

Here’s a little smorgasbord of items I wanted to blog this past week, and didn’t get the chance to. Because unlike spaghetti, time to blog doesn’t grow on trees! John Nichols of The Nation asks whether we’re nearing an “Impeachment Moment,” noting that the I-word is finally being discussed — if not exactly embraced — […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

The Deep Dish Approach to Solar Power

March 30th, 2007 · Comments Off on The Deep Dish Approach to Solar Power · Climate Change, Energy, News, Politics, Science, Tech

Here comes the sun: Sicily is building the world’s first solar power plant! According to a deal signed by the Italian government this week, the plant should by operational by 2009: The project is named Archimedes, after the famous resident of the nearby city of Syracuse. The existing gas-fired power plant on the site will […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

News: The Hidden Cost of Margarine

March 27th, 2007 · 4 Comments · Adobe, Climate Change, Comics, Culture, Internet, Media, Music, News, Performance, Politics, Science, Software, Tech

• Orangutans may be extinct within five years, thanks to a soaring demand for palm oil leading to the destruction of their forest habitat. This situation needs to be addressed in product labeling somehow, so consumers can know that they’re buying sustainable, “orangutan and rainforest-safe” palm oil. Via this DKos diary. • Here’s a fascinating […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Music: The Best Kind of Madness

March 22nd, 2007 · 1 Comment · Culture, iTunes, Music, New Wave, News

Madness has a new single out! Released on their own label, Lucky Seven Records. The new song is called “Sorry,” and the even better news is that there’s a full album on the way this summer. Amazon has the CD single with four versions of the song available now. Or you can download it from […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

News: A Hive of Spam and Villainy

March 20th, 2007 · Comments Off on News: A Hive of Spam and Villainy · Activism, Food, Health, Heroes, Internet, LGBT, News, Peace, Politics, Science, Science Fiction, Tech, TV

• A pair of hackers are promising to expose a month’s worth of MySpace bugs to draw attention to security problems with the site. … two hackers going by the names of Mondo Armando and Müstaschio promise to begin disclosing security vulnerabilities in MySpace, News Corp.’s popular social networking site, every day next month. “The […]

[Read more →]

Tags: