general

Will it blend? is the only question worth asking about this dumb appliance. Watch the YouTube and find out.

(hat tip MBM)

Good idea for a post: Salon blogger finds "negative" Amazon reviews of classics such as The Grapes of Wrath, Anne Frank's diary, etc.

This one-starred review of the Bible is good, almost too good:

Man, this book is boring. All this weird stuff happens and it's harder to get into than Lord of the Rings. And what's up with the red writing and the LORD says stuff. All caps = rude, peter paul and mark, whoever the heck you are. And this is just badly written. James Patterson could do better. These apostles need to get a clue and hire a ghost writer. Even Miley Cyrus's manager was smart enough to do that. Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ, indeed.

This is the opening paragraph of Wikipedia's article on Star Trek (the franchise). Read and memorize, as I am guessing the gremlins will soon pare it down to size:

Star Trek is an American science fiction television and film series that has transcended its context of entertainment. It has shaped and formatively influenced culture, ideas, technologies, sciences, and even race relations. The original Star Trek was created by Gene Roddenberry. It debuted in 1966 and ran for three seasons. Like the Bible and Shakespeare, Star Trek is increasingly understood as being a great text of Western Civilization, and it is now studied in this way by literary criticism and literary theory.[1] The original pilot film of Star Trek, "The Cage," was made in 1964, starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike of the Federation Starship Enterprise. It elaborates many of the major literary and technological themes that are hallmarks of the entire Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry was very influenced in his creation of Star Trek by the 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet. After saying no to Star Trek in 1965 because it was too cerebral and not suited to serial production, NBC Television Network executives asked that a second pilot film be made.[2] Hunter then turned down the leading role, and it was given to William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk. Following the release of other series in the franchise, the Kirk-headed series was retroactively referred to as "Star Trek: The Original Series". [...]

[1] See [[Michele Barrett and Duncan Barrett, "Star Trek: The Human Frontier," Routledge 2001 and Franco LaPolla, "Star Trek: Foto di Gruppo Con Astronave," Editrice PuntoZero, 1996.

[2] See [[Stephen E. Whitfield (Poe) and Gene Roddenberry, "Them (sic) Making of Star Trek," Ballantine, 1968, pp. 123-4, and Herbert F. Solow and Robert H. Justman, "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story," Pocket Books, 1996, pp. 27-30, 58-60.

Hats off to the Wikipedia user who is attempting to give cultural context for Star Trek. Will let you know if the wording above changes--curious whether it will be deemed "neutral" enough by the collective mind.

Update: It only took a few hours for the Wikipedians to dumb it down to the following:

Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment series. The original Star Trek is an American television series, created by Gene Roddenberry, which debuted in 1966 and ran for three seasons, following the interstellar adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Federation Starship Enterprise. The original pilot film of Star Trek, “The Cage,” was made in 1964, starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike. Following the release of other series in the franchise, the Kirk-headed series was retroactively referred to as "Star Trek: The Original Series".

An issue of contention is: whether Star Trek is "mere" entertainment or a larger text. We don't get to consider this because the footnotes to writings arguing for the latter were removed along with the rewritten lead. My head hurts thinking of trying to argue, to a cult of people obsessed with "facts," that the cultural influence (bad or good, brilliant or mediocre) of this phenomenon (which long ago went well beyond a mere TV series into the realm of language references, design, role play, etc) deserves to be the lead paragraph and not some sidebar. Knowledge is more than an inverted pyramid of facts (with worker bees deciding the order in the pyramid)--it is argument. But who wants to devote the energy arguing about this topic with people who have ultimate publishing power but no sense of beauty or drama?

See Cracking Facebook's Dominance: New Cross-Network Commenting Protocol Could Be a Game Changer.

Am all for cracking dominance, Facebook's or otherwise. It is mindboggling that 400 million people needed a new version of AOL to enjoy the web. From that article, this sounds so weak:

Simply put, if you could leave Facebook and still communicate with people using Facebook (you can't today) then leaving Facebook would be a lot easier, and more social networks would have reason to invest in building a compelling service for you to use. If there was more than one meaningful option, those services would compete to build the best social network they possibly could. And Facebook would have more reason to be careful when considering dramatic changes in things like its privacy policy. Today, where else are you going to go without losing touch with all your friends?

You can pretty much find anyone with a few seconds' diligent googling. Why is being in instant, annoyingly close "poke" range of everyone you ever knew from the date of your birth to the present so important to people? I don't get it. (Obviously I am not on Facebook.)

Just found this in my inbox, sent by a friend who knows how much Apple is treasured around here (sarcasm):

Dear _______,

First of all, we would like to thank you for your patience and understanding regarding the unpleasant upgrade experience with FileApp (v. 1.5)

So please allow us to apologize for our relative lack of reactivity in communicating on this issue, we were a little bit confused.
We understood some users had upgraded before they had a chance to read our warning, unfortunately.
Lesson learned, and we wish to inform you on what is going on, and what is coming up.

Now comes the good news:

After discussions with Apple they have become aware of the enormous amount of dissatisfaction expressed by our users.
Therefore Apple has agreed to let us submit an update that will re-enable USB connectivity to all users that have installed a previous version of either FileAid or FileApp.
If you wish to enjoy USB file transfer again you should make sure you have any previous version installed and ran at least once.

All versions will qualify for the upgrade - if you deleted it, just install the current version (1.5) and launch it right now! Then you should upgrade to FileApp v. 1.6 when it is released on the AppStore and USB file transfer support will be available to you again. Futur upgrades should carry on USB support as well.

This feature is only available to you as former FileAid user.

Please note: The release and applicable schedule are subject to Apple App Store approval process, please be patient!

Best regards,

Vic & The DigiDNA Team

Such nervousness in the presence of absolute power was not seen again until this comment in response to a Paddy Johnson hat tip.