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Vol. 6, No. 31
7-27-06
1 And now for something completely different…
2 Hard lessons
3 iPod killer?, Intel dual core, Metallica grows a brain, IE 7
4 New views of the Earth and the universe
5 Remailers
This has absolutely nothing to do with technology but, since I tend to read almost all of my news via the web, it has everything to do with technology. A bit of a dichotomy, and if today’s journalists would be presented with that word they would likely think it meant someone who could see both sides and use the term “centrist” instead.
I use the term here, possibly incorrectly, as a division between the job of actual journalists charged with giving us unbiased facts in our native language, and with the fact that they appear to sorely lack the capability. The dichotomy is that the people we pay to give us this information really haven’t a clue about what they’re doing.
On second thought, maybe that’s not a dichotomy, maybe its just incompetence.
A case in point is the recent tragedy in Madison involving the vehicle that sped through a barrier and plowed into the crowd over the July 4th holiday weekend, eventually crashing into the Ohio River. Having worked EMS for 15 years and specifically working Regatta duty in Madison for 10 years I paid particular attention to this story. Eventually the likely cause of the incident came to light and not one, not two but every single news source got it wrong.
Websites, newspapers and TV reports all said that the alleged cause of the accident was that the driver had purchased a can of air from Wal-Mart just prior to the crash, had huffed the Freon propellant to get high and passed out. At least they likely got the Wal-Mart and huffing part right (allegedly).
Freon is a controlled substance and hasn’t been available without extensive certifications and licensing since 1996 when the CFC ban went into effect. Also there’s no such thing as a “can of air”. Computer and electronics “dusters” Such as “Dust Off” and “Blow Off” are actually cans full of Difluoroethane in which the gas acts as both “air” and propellant.
Every news story I saw about this was wrong and said the driver was huffing Freon. A simple Google search could have made this right but every “journalist” that I saw, online and off, apparently lacked the capacity to do a bit of simple research.
Another journalist beef I have has to do with TV (and to keep the tenuous tech thread alive, online clips via sites like www.youtube.com) reporters not being able to speak English, or at least not in terms that us normal folk can understand.
As a couple of examples I constantly hear reporters refer to a “weapons cache” as a “cash-a”. I’m sorry, but when it comes to a grouping of objects, be they weapons or ladies lingerie, it’s pronounced “cash”. That also applies to computer memory associated to computer uses, such as the “processor cache” or the “browser cache”.
With “cachet” we’re talking about a distinction or sign of quality. My grandmother also used the term for some weird perfume/moth control product she kept in her dresser drawers. Is English still required for Journalism students in the US?
If they can’t actually speak the language and they report obvious falsehoods, how can we expect them to keep us apprised of things like Senator Ted Steven’s “internet tubes”?
It was a stretch but it was kinda sorta technical. I’ll try to do better next week ;)
Kevin Mefford, Editor
Terry Wise
Tech News of the Week
Microsoft
claims it will spend big money (well, big money for us
non-billionaires) on
an iPod competitor:
http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2006/07/24/daily30.html
Get
used to these words: Core 2 Duo. That's the name of
Intel's
newest line of processors and if early reviews are any
indication,
this bad boy is going to be the new king of the CPU
hill:
http://news.com.com/Tis+finally+the+season+for+Intels+Core+2+Duo/2100-1006_3-6098972.html
Remember
when the band Metallica was on the "Kill Napster" bandwagon?
Well, seems like
they've now joined the 21st century:
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002912680
Microsoft
is getting ready to push out the next version of Internet
Explorer (version
7) as a high priority update. Hmmm....what does
that say about IE
6?
http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_IE7_a_HighPriority_Update/1153932798
Copy
us on the good stuff ;-)
Matthew Dattilo
thepcgurus@gmail.com
www.mattstodayinhistory.com
Download of the Week
Whether you want the world or just a tiny corner of it, Google Earth gives it all to you. You can twirl the planet like a globe and turn it every which way, then zoom in for a better look at what interests you. The images-none are more than three years old--show every landmark and every urban center in very nice detail. You even can find your own house. Be sure to read the minimum system requirements and the recommended PC configuration. The pictures are high resolution and require some pretty beefy hardware to handle them. Get Google Earth here:
Once you've seen everything in this world, you might want explore the universe. You can do that with Celestia. Celestia is a real-time space simulation that lets you experience our universe in three dimensions. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. Celestia is free and you can get it here:
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
Art Maley
Email Question of the Week
Q: I was wondering how you do your email
mailings. I have a list of about
1,500 subscribers. I have used Open Office's
Email Mailmerge, MS
Office's Mailmerge to an electronic document (with the
assistance of
an automatic "Click Yes" program) and cut and pasted 99
addresses into
yahoo's web mail (sending one to myself and 99 as bcc). There
has got
to be a better way. My ISP claims they do not prohibit outgoing
mass
mailings. But fewer of my individual emails get through.
(E.g.,
Insight blocks once you reach 100 in a certain time frame--I have
211
insight subscribers.) Any suggestions? Mass Emailing for Dummies?
The
true spamers seem to be so sucessful and I can't always get
through.
A: The PC Gurus use something called an
electronic mailing list. There are
several popular ones available, and
generally require a Web hosting
company to provide the service. Please
see the wikipedia link below for
more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_mailing_list
At
the bottom of the wikipedia entry is a few recommendations of free
mailing
lists that you can setup.
Hope this information helps.
Ed
Engelking II
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