Disqus - Latest Comments for Peter

Re: A Commenter’s Rights

Peter — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 21:33:52 -0000

quitdis.

Re: A Commenter’s Rights

Peter — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:33:52 -0000

quitdis.

Re: Velib Is Awesome

Peter — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:12:00 -0000

The 'free market' does not exist. What does exist does not have a tendency towards 'the public good'.

Re: 100 Comments or Bust

Peter — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:20:11 -0000

or you could just label them 'Most Active'. that's pretty common.

Re: Thinking About Obama

Peter — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:36:48 -0000

i agree completely. we have to keep the troops in no matter what - it's a matter of national pride. and besides, it's complicated. you can't just pull the troops out because that would be bad. or something.

Re: Friday Afternoon Is Bad News Time

Peter — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 06:14:44 -0000

glad it's just the Fed that likes to release bad news on Friday afternoon, else I don't know what we'd do. i mean, it's not like this has been a pattern for the last, say, umpteen years. it's not like any other agency dumps documents on Friday afternoon. it's not like the Democrats do it, because, well, if they did, it'd be a whole different ballgame. I mean, i know obama would never do anything like that. it's not like the US government is trying to cover anything up. i mean, it's not like the US government is trying to subvert democracy or anything. you'd probably have to be one of those crazy anarchists to think that. and if that was the case, you'd probably be rotting in a Shanghai, i mean, St. Paul jail right now - so no need to worry about you. i have a lot of faith in the good 'ol us of a. yep. they say it, and i spray it. that's my job.

Re: Cleaning up the mess over at MyBlogLog

Peter — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 18:47:54 -0000

I know - lay off MyBlogLogFogDogSog already. They're just a tiny little startup and they're innocent in all this. I mean, they knew they had to do the right thing and they did it. It had nothing to do with public pressure, because that would mean that the tiny little startup called DogBlogLog caved to pressure from mere humans, and that is obviously not what happened here. The folks at MyDogBlog are a principled lot, dontchaknow, and this would never have been necessary were it not for those meddling kids.

Re: Duncan Riley: Lessons in diplomacy

Peter — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 07:15:04 -0000

Duncan Riley is a fuckin asshole - despite being an Aussie.

Aussie Aussie Aussie - disown that loser!

and what is it with all the us vs. them language? trying to rally people to your side based on some wack nationalism? isn't that a bit totalitarian?

"He's trying to _destroy_ me!"

kid sounds like a daytime soap opera.

Dude thinks he can bust out with the anti-woman language, too, and not be challenged for it. Who is this fool?

Dare step to to God - blogger for the mighty Techcrunch? I'll show you! I'm mean, I swear, I'll fight - I finish you - shrimps on the barbie and shit. Loser.

We got George Bush and Dennis Miller. Oz has John Howard and Duncan Riley.

Oz is still my favorite place. Out.

Re: Why Dell will not bounce back

Peter — Mon, 12 May 2008 04:47:43 -0000

good.

Re: | Charles Hudson's Weblog

Peter — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:44:08 -0000

One obvious answer is 'brand advertising'. When Ford shows you their latest travesty in a commercial, they're not expecting you to click through and purchase it online - they're branding. Google's been working on building their branding advertising initiatives for years, now.

Another answer is that all reviews started out as being unwelcome on the net. Companies like http://www.bazaarvoice/ seem to be having a go a recommendations and reviews, and they're someone convincing folks that this is a good thing. I think there's every reason to believe that Facebook could take over the role of a Bazaarvoice in the 'social graph'.

I think the technical details are not so difficult. What could be difficult is more advertiser-related talk than I know about - things like crappy CPMs at sites like YouTube, etc. There are probably some good reasons for those low rates, but I haven't seen any convincing explanations in the tech blogosphere that I inhabit.

Re: Valley networker Auren Hoffman’s reputation on the line

Peter — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 06:28:22 -0000

is anyone here suggesting that Auren's kickin it with Bush and Brownback and all sorts of shady racist characters is not relevant to who he is as a person? i mean, it _is_ a wikipedia entry, innit?

i didn't like that auren guy from the first time i realized he was hanging with George, and it turns out i was right. he's up to his eyes in Republican slush money. public relations contracts. it's all horrific stuff, and it should all be mentioned in his wikipedia entry. and his acting as an imposter should and will be in any future wikipedia entry - i'll see to it.

as atrios would say, "Nice work...if you can get it." and apparently, Auren can.

how pathetic is that? erasing a wiki entry cause you got caught lying? and this guy is gonna sell online reputation services. perfect Republican. it's like having Mark Foley as head of the child sex predators group in the House. brilliant.

Re: http://laughingsquid.com/holy-fark-ted/

Peter — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:21:16 -0000

hey - that's pretty funny! that whole assassination thing is SO COOL. I mean, whether you think JFK was a mass murderer or not (he was), I think extra-judicial killings are so, like, in. ya know?

Re: http://laughingsquid.com/kite-fight/

Peter — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 20:42:10 -0000

that sounds smart!

p.s. smaller font, please. let's go with a -17 next time!

Re: John Law Sues His Former Burning Man Partners

Peter — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 03:26:27 -0000

agreed - burning man lawsuits? pathetic.

keep the memories - but ditch the event. let these fools battle it out over the dead carcass that is burning man.

Re: Photos of Yuri’s Night Bay Area 2007, A Giant Party at NASA | Laughing Squid

Peter — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 16:24:57 -0000

thought about going to this, but then realized it was just a propaganda event for the Pentagon and NASA as they bid to weaponize space.

Re: What Was Your First Experience With Laughing Squid? | Laughing Squid

Peter — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:32:25 -0000

was drinking some coffee and reading at at a berkeley cafe, the Nomad Cafe. there happened to be some spoken word thing going on that night and the performer was just kinda talking into the microphone in between her little skits or whatever, and she mentioned 'The Squid List', and i was just thinking 'wtf is that?'.

so, i managed to remember it when i got home, and thanks to google, looked it up, and was hooked ever since. maybe not my first event attendance due to the mighty tentacle, but the first i remember, was Writers With Drinks - it continues to be a favorite of mine.

all hail the squid. there should be a squid list for every major city, at least.

Re: Star Wars Pop Art By Eelus | Laughing Squid

Peter — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:44:29 -0000

no prices.

Re: Burning Man 2008 Art Theme: American Dream | Laughing Squid

Peter — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 02:26:37 -0000

i'll save my outrage until i find out for sure that this is not a prank.

i've already heard so many good stories from this burning man that i'm sure to attend 2008 - or, i _was_ sure to attend. there is _no_ room for nation-state worship at burning man.

Re: ZingFu Ignores Creative Commons Licences on Photos

Peter — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:26:50 -0000

startups will behave like startups. that said, the main problem, i'm guessing, is edumacation. licenses and licensing are extraordinarily complex, so the solution for most people is to just ignore any/all copyright.if the new generation grows up having some clue as to what CC is all about, maybe an attribution won't be far away.

http://www.attributor.com/

there are lots of other technological things that can and will happen - hopefully companies like attributor can help. (no affiliation)

maybe microformats or something like it can help - a little 'attribution' descriptor element embedded in the image itself would be cool, too - like modifying the png header format or something geeky like that.

Re: Paul Addis Arrested, Planned To Set Fire To Grace Cathedral

Peter — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:24:08 -0000

i'm not a big fan of one-sided stories based on next to nothing. we know he was arrested, but everything else is complete conjecture. what's the point?

i didn't know that 'small explosives' (aka, 'firecrackers') were a good way to burn a stone church down. silly me.

if i didn't know any better, i'd think this press-release-as-news-story was written by Donald Rumsfeld himself. Only the Pentagon could be this incompetent.

Re: Paul Addis Arrested, Planned To Set Fire To Grace Cathedral

Peter — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:42:07 -0000

"so I donâ€™t think itâ€™s just some firecrackers, as some of his diehard fans might like to believe."

cops lie all the time. they shoot a black guy in the back and then say they saw him reaching into his pocket for a gun, and a gun is never found, of course. and then they find bullet holes in the bottom of the victim's feet. or the victim ends up with his intestines shredded by police batons.

cops will kick your ass and then charge you with resisting or assaulting. they're gods walking the streets. they are rarely if ever punished for their various crimes - rapes, murders, sexual assaults of various kinds, you name it. there is no effective oversight.

i.e., to suggest that cops/the DA/the government would not levy outrageous charges against someone just because they can has no basis in fact.

any google news search will find countless examples - from the duke prosecutor (who was only caught b/c he tried to prosecute rich people) to the u.s. government's trumped up case against the muslim charity that was just declared a mistrial because the 'evidence' was laughable.

it's time for some perspective:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/ron666/bcnd.html

just take a listen to anyone of these and you'll start to get a feel for how widespread police terrorism is:
http://tinyurl.com/2zzyld

take a look at the innocence project to see how cops, da's, and judges work together to throw innocent people in jail, and keep them there even after they're proven innocent:
http://www.innocenceproject.org/

in fact, you don't have to go any further than this blog to see what could be just another example of police criminality:
http://laughingsquid.com/dna-evidence-proves-in...

Re: Wikipedia front page gets it right…and a shameless plug

Peter — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:53:34 -0000

i gotta try that whole 'sneak onto a rooftop so we can figure out best how to burn tens of thousands of civilians alive' thing. maybe i can be 'cool' too.

Re: War of the Wikis: Unversity of Wisconsin uses wiki collaboration to help troops in Iraq escape attack

Peter — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:48:03 -0000

It's awesome that we can use wiki software to help American troops kill more Iraqi civilians. I mean, if Iraqi troops were occupying my neighborhood, _I_ would be an insurgent, and I'd kill every single one of those Iraqi troops that I possibly could.

And if those Iraqi occupation forces had PBWiki to help them coordinate their attacks on my and my family, well then that's just tough noogies on me and my family, ain't it?

Go PBWiki!

Helping Americans kills Iraqis since 2008 - at least.

Re: Data Portability Evangelists Get Out of Line

Peter — Sat, 17 May 2008 20:54:17 -0000

data portability matters to a lot more people than these few raving ego-maniacal lunatics. the difference is, these lunatics only care about it because they think it'll help them make money; other people care about it because it could potentially help society.

Re: 2006/10/03/facebook-trapped-by-microsoft-ad-deal/

Peter — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 14:40:06 -0000

Trapped?

Innit a bit like a straw being trapped by its paper wrapper?

Re: 2006/10/14/youtube-why-the-fun-is-over/

Peter — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 02:15:56 -0000

yes, so the lesson is... stay small and insignificant. that's the only way to achieve true success.

huh??

this is just stupid talk. apparently, everyone has been a bit emboldened by Mr. Can't Stick to Basketball - and maybe now folks are sweatin those young rich guys. jealousy is a b*tch.

i get it - bandwagons have been around a long time. i jump on them, too. but i'm not likely to kick someone in the shins. not because i'm holier than thou, but because it's meaningless and petty.

this post strikes me as being as lame and naive as Francis Fukuyama's laugher, 'The End of History'. It's a little bit of 'state the obvious' mixed in with a healthy dose of 'self-congratulatory schadenfreude' - i.e., this post is worthless, or less than worthless, inasmuch as any observations that it actually makes about the existing/developing/impending failure of YouTube are non-starters and near-perfectly irrelevant.

so, you got that, kids of MySpace and YouTube? you're gonna have to stop liking and using these websites, now.

why?

well, because we adults know what you kids want. we really do. you're too stupid to know what you want, so we'll figure it out for you. so, you now hate MySpace and YouTube and any other website that dares serve you up Mr. Diddy and Ms. Dally.

got it? good.

so many problems! they have so many problems! what will they do? more exclamation points! what will happen if... what will happen when... and then there's this... and what about that...

it's like reading a mashup version of the Drudgery Report. entertaining if you want to get yourself all worked up and have a little fun sniping from the treeline, but ironically, at the end of the day - it's just meaningless clutter. so much for that signal-to-noise ratio.

doh!

Re: 2006/10/22/reputationdefender-nuke-those-naked-pics-and-blog-rants/

Peter — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 22:43:32 -0000

like the graphics.

heard about startup Attributor for doing the content-sniffing stuff. don't really know anything about them, other than the company's name makes sense.

http://www.attributor.com/

Re: 2006/10/23/yahoos-talent-contest-is-a-sign-of-desperation/

Peter — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 17:54:47 -0000

it's probably more perception than reality at this point. google can do no wrong, yahoo can do no right.

long-term, yahoo does need to figure something out. their new mail client sucks badly. it takes 30 seconds to load. i have been convinced, over the course of my career, that management is to blame - almost solely - for any flagging of a tech company - other factors being equal. if management is successful in strangling the natural aspirations of the engineers and marketers and sales folks, then any company will falter in time. right now, google is hitting on all cylinders - and regardless of all the haters (TechCrunch, etc.), Google's ongoing success and innovation is due in large part to its culture (risk-taking, work hard, play hard, etc.). Yahoo could turn their fortunes around in a matter of days - they just need to take the management jackboot off of their employees' necks.

Re: 2007/05/14/defense-department-bans-myspace-youtube/

Peter — Mon, 14 May 2007 19:15:33 -0000

i swear - whatever Uncle Sam says, the tech community just eats it up whole. never question authority, that's what i say.

Re: 2007/05/04/gadget-ads/

Peter — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:27:09 -0000

one step closer to my awesome idea of self-directed advertising.

Re: 2008/04/19/myspace-platform-upgrades-soon/

Peter — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 05:24:24 -0000

myspace has apps?

Re: 2008/04/20/six-apart-2/

Peter — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:41:21 -0000

Sounds a bit on the disastrous side. Are you a software company, or an advertising company? Or a media company? Or just a mishmash?

I guess if the ship is sinking, it's best to do _something_ to try to stay afloat.

Unless you're sinking in quicksand, in which case you'll only drown quicker if you fight it.

Re: 2008/04/30/are-you-frustrated-with-firefox/

Peter — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:54:17 -0000

Firefox is an absolute disaster. it always has been.

it's the worst browser in existence, except for all the others.

IE has is ridiculously insecure, even for those who don't care about security.

Opera doesn't let you slide your mouse over to the right scroll bar appropriately - you have to 'bump off' the edge of the screen to actually get the scroll bar.

Maxthon will not not just crash your computer, it will outright murder it. Boom.

what's wrong with Firefox?

how about, what's _not_ wrong with it?

please Netscape or Godzilla or AOL or whoever runs firefox, _please_ charge me $25 for this software so you can make it actually work.

Re: 2008/04/30/daily-poll-is-a-good-browser-worth-money/

Peter — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:48:33 -0000

Firefox needs to stop adding new trinkets and just concentrate on making the existing version work.

Less is more.

Free Firefox: free
Stable Firefox: $25

Re: 2008/05/01/ebay-vs-craigslist-round-one-ebays-version/

Peter — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:23:43 -0000

sh*t - if i want 'he said, she said' reporting without any context or opinion, i'll read the new york times.

wtf?

Re: 2008/05/07/jangl-whole-story/

Peter — Fri, 09 May 2008 01:16:57 -0000

i don't know who any of those people are. is it necessary to follow this blog for a few years to know who these folks are?

and what's the take-away? what is this dire warning thing? that startups fail? that failing sucks? that VCs aim to make money? that we're supposed to see wise business decisions by potential acquirers as bad because they don't make our friends rich?

i don't get it.

Re: Videoblogger jailed

Peter — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 10:04:32 -0000

and here i was thinking that the san francisco tech scene was just one big upper-class whites-only pat-ourselves-on-the-back-for-whatever-fest, and come to find out that some dude is actually taking on the gubment instead of selling out. holy cow. it's unbelievable.

now what would *really* throw me for a loop is if the 18,000 cooler-than-thou san francisco bloggers/vbloggers/mashers/geekers actually threw a fundraiser party for this dude.

redeem yourselves, Capitalists!

but seriously, though, why did this dude have to all go gettin arrested and all that stuff? i mean, doesn't he know i have a serious bandcamp or crapcamp or something or other to attend to this weekend? sheesh. some people are so inconsiderate.

Re: Videoblogger jailed

Peter — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 10:49:18 -0000

p.s. for all you freaks doing the government-worship thing, have a listen to what real cops really do for a living - terrorize people:

Bad Cop, No Donut!
http://www.badcopnodonut.fm/

Y'all need to get a little perspective. Just because you've always done everything you've always been told doesn't mean we all have or should have to. Somebody has to stand up for democracy. It sure as heck ain't gonna be you fascist IRS lovers.

Re: Pissing off the blogosphere…

Peter — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 14:34:27 -0000

i'm pretty new to the whole blogwhoring thing, but i suspect all the nytimes linking nonsense has to do with links at the bottom of the nytime piece - maybe linking to Technocrapi and stuff?

i like Arrington's description, though. it's can be taken as coming off so casual. "hey, check that - scoble just threw himself under a bus. damn, these are some good waffles." the phrase is great, to begin with, but the casual distance is classic.

why does anyone read that crappy gadget site, anyway? and what the heck am i doing on scoble? blah.

Re: Era of blogger’s control is over

Peter — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:47:11 -0000

Bamn! I _knew_ a good idea had to come out of this somehow. The Twitter-like 140-character comment character limit sounds like an idea we should _defi...

Re: “Late” and “lazy” lightrailblogger faces difficult decision

Peter — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:06:19 -0000

yes - bikes are awesome!
you should definitely check out the local bike group - get on their email lists and all that fun stuff.
http://www.biketempe.org/
and subscribe to a couple of bike blogs:
http://commutebybike.com/
best of luck!

Re: Wrong On Hyperlocal: Google And Web 1.0 Killed Backfence

Peter — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 05:22:02 -0000

zowie - good work.

wonder if any of the other fledgling/flailing local content sites will listen.

Re: Desperate to Censorship Facebook! (Updated)

Peter — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:07:22 -0000

my advice is to just cool out. nothing will happen. probably.

you probably do have to be careful that you don't actually cross into racist generalizations, but other than that, don't worry. fascists will always denounce things they don't like as racist, etc.

Re: Lake Anne in Reston: Designed For Walking

Peter — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 17:21:54 -0000

i lived near here for a while. It's also right across from the Reston Town Center (the big mall). great little spot. the bike/jogging/paved path rolls by very close to here - about 1/2 mile or less. you can take the trail from downtown DC (Georgetown area) all the way out to Purcellville, VA - 40 or so miles west. pretty dope.

Re: How to Cope With Climate Change, Austrian Style

Peter — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:40:05 -0000

i remember hearing from someone i considered to be a respectable scientist say that yes, indeed, this years euro skiing problems were more cyclical than global warming. i don't see why this has to be controversial.

Re: Gorilla Composting at McGill University

Peter — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 11:16:44 -0000

i swear, Canada is like the coolest country ever.

Re: TreeHugger Request: A Blackle Search Firefox Add-on

Peter — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 13:48:05 -0000

i thought that black-background-saves-energy myth was already debunked? guess it takes some time to reach the backwaters of treehugger.com.

Re: Quote of the Day: Wangari Maathai Speaks for the Trees

Peter — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:16:56 -0000

if only someone could tell me whether planting trees or not would help - that'd be swell. preesh.

Re: A Clean, Green, Killing Machine? Special Operations Units Test Electric Vehicles

Peter — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 13:46:36 -0000

great - save the planet - kill people directly.

Re: Amtrak Train Runs Out Of Fuel, Perhaps a Wake-Up Call For America?

Peter — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:12:12 -0000

Amtrak is the most wasteful, overfunded disaster in the history of public works projects in this nation's history. the sooner it dies, the better.

Re: Survey: Do You Like April Fools Day?

Peter — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:12:18 -0000

word. 'holiday'. ever.

Re: Shocking Space Debris Images

Peter — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:35:37 -0000

The more trouble the Pentagon has weaponizing space, the better off we'll all be.

More. Junk. In. Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

Re: Play with Your Home Lighting Fixtures, with Molo's Softlight

Peter — Tue, 20 May 2008 23:02:14 -0000

what are all these incredibly ugly things that keep showing up in my treehugger feed?

lemme unsubscribe from this thing until w get back to some green news.

Re: Plug-In Hybrids Address The OTHER Energy Security Issue: The Grid

Peter — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:24:27 -0000

yes - the U.S. government supporting government terror in El Salvadore - a very happy thought, indeed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvadoran_Civil_War#The_U.S..E2.80.99s_silent_partner_role

the more vulnerable terror governments are, the better. nation-states are unnatural anyways. they should end. we shouldn't try to prop them up or help them stave off resistance from the population.