MetaFilter posts by m.polo

m.polo — Wed, 05 Sep 2001 19:52:09 -0800

OK, this whole Harry Potter thing - while completely out of proportion to any real value in the books - has up till now been pointless but essentially harmless. But wasting a Hugo Award on this crap?! To quote (oh, I don't know, some Clinton-hating Republican): "Where's the outrage?!"

m.polo — Fri, 31 Aug 2001 08:18:40 -0800

In the midst of being indignant over the death of the BeOS, Scot Hacker talks about Microsoft's OEM license with hardware vendors. Although Microsoft claims the terms of the agreement are a "trade secret," preventing it from making appearnce in the DOJ circus, apparently it prevents OEMs from installing any non-Microsoft OS along side a Microsoft OS... If true, the "browser integration" thing's just a minor annoyance - this would be monopolistic and anti-competitive... via rc3.org

m.polo — Fri, 27 Jul 2001 18:29:26 -0800

Stolen shamelessly from Tom: a charming clock, reminding us once again that "time" is an intellectual concept meaningless without human participation... (Don't miss the webserver, either.) Considering the depth and breadth - and apparent copious free time - of the MeFi community one would hope we'd be able to help fill in some of the still unphotographed minutes.

m.polo — Wed, 18 Jul 2001 04:59:39 -0800

Loosening the noose... but still leaving the rope around the neck. "Far from hastening its own demise by allowing the Internet to penetrate its borders, an authoritarian state can actually utilize the Internet to its own benefit and increase its stability by engaging with the technology." An interesting - if not entirely expected - report on Internet access in Cuba and the People's Republic of China.

m.polo — Thu, 05 Jul 2001 19:00:46 -0800

What happens when the info-age Web runs afoul of attitudes and societal restrictions that haven't been allowed to change or be questioned in 1,500 years. For my part, I was unaware that merely writing in the style of Qur'an, even with the most honorable of attentions, was proscribed. (At least AOL didn't let us down - their reaction was as craven and cowardly as we come to expect from that bastion of mediocre blandness.) (via scissorfish by way of plasticbag.org)

m.polo — Sun, 24 Jun 2001 14:39:28 -0800

You can forget all about that "goat sex" photo thing when there's something as horrifying as this closeup available for public viewing. Good God, he's barely human at this point! All I could think of once it loaded was: "That's just not right."

m.polo — Fri, 22 Jun 2001 11:53:36 -0800

The French, determined to prove that even if they could understand that the "World Wide" web includes France and the rest of the world, they would continue to pretent they didn't. Like Yahoo before them, a web hosting service that caters to neo-Nazi groups (oh, sorry... "racialists"...) has run afoul of the French desire to control what appears on French browsers.

m.polo — Sun, 17 Jun 2001 19:33:01 -0800

I usually just ignore Jakob - he has his right to his opinions, tho' I seldom agree with him - but I draw the line at misrepresenting a technology so egregiously... Acrobat's not that hard to understand; I can't believe it's possible for Neilsen to not know that the features he berates Acrobat for missing are, in actuality, right there to be used.

m.polo — Fri, 15 Jun 2001 15:41:45 -0800

Apparently, the Lt. Governor of Illinois has WAY too much time on her hands.... Of course, rallying public support for a boycott of Abercrombie & Fitch doesn't really seem like what she was elected to do, but hey, never hurts to throw your title around when your teenagers are going ga-ga over half-naked muscle-boys, huh?

m.polo — Wed, 06 Jun 2001 05:14:56 -0800

My God, how I've loathed them over the years for their heart-stopping mix of hubris, brilliance, clueless, utter lack of any discipline whatsoever and oh, the sheer arrogance, but after all these years, it's with a distinct sense of ennui that I read that Netscape is throwing in the towel.