TechCrunch: It was probably to be expected that Twitter would struggle as reportedly hundreds of thousands of tweets came in about Jackson in a very short amount of time. While I only got a couple actual Fail Whales, the site was really sucking wind for much of the hour that people were trying to get information about him. But Twitter was hardly the only site that was struggling. Various reports had the AOL-owned...

We have all seen the chilling video of the 27-year-old Iranian woman, Neda Agha-Soltani, dying in the streets of Tehran. In his press conference a few minutes ago, President Obama mentioned the “searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets [in Tehran]” He also mentioned how “powerful images and pointed words have made their way to us through cell phones and computers…” We...

My two friends (surely they can’t be described as “socialists” by any stretch of imagination) have come out in full support of the US government’s SINGLE PAYER HEALTH INSURANCE scheme. However, they are amazed at the misinformation that is being spread regarding the scheme in the US media and the ads. Shyamal Bagchee, PhD, FRSA, Professor of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta,...

David Fitzsimmons, The Arizona Star This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

For diabetics who own pets it comes as little surprise that dogs are being trained to warn diabetic owners when their blood glucose levels fall dangerously low. For diabetics who live alone and for young children, this is a big deal. This phenomenon has been discussed in anecdotal incidences by diabetics in published letters to the American Diabetes Association monthly magazine for years. Man’s best friend...

Monte Wolverton, Cagle Cartoons This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

David Carr asks, How Good (or Not Evil) Is Google? His conclusion: As with most matters involving Google, it is less about the specific activity than the scope of it. A company with Google’s wherewithal and ambition may have the ability to eventually seem like the only choice in all manner of endeavors. The morning before I went to visit Google, I searched my Gmail to find my schedule and plugged it into my...

It sounds like a routine alarm, but the things are getting serious. The question being asked in this part of the world is: Who would grab Pakistan’s nuclear weapons first…the Al Qaeda or the USA? To this speculation one may add an Aesop’s fable: Would it be the “monkey” India/Israel combo snatching the nukes away from the Al Qaeda/USA “cat” ? Here is a categorical...

Paul Lamere at Music Machinery: One of the ways that Music 2.0 has changed how we think about music is that there is so much interesting data available about how people are listening to music. Sites like Last.fm automatically track all sorts of interesting data that just was not available before. Forty years ago, a music label like Capitol would know how many copies the album Abbey Road sold in the U.S.,...

I don’t tweet, nor do I know much about Twitting. At my age, when I can’t even “Blackberry,” or “iPhone”, or “iPod,” or even “iPod-Touch,” (or whatever the name is of the latest gadget that my 9-year-old grandson so masterfully “operates”), why should I venture into even more iNcomprehensible technological territory. So, a couple of weeks ago, when Time Magazine’s cover story was...

A few months back Siva Vaidhyanathan asked if anyone had ever used Google Street View for something important? He posted some of the interesting answers he got, but none was quite so newsworthy as this: A four story building collapsed in Brooklyn today, just before 2pm. The “Vesper Bar & Lounge” at 493 Myrtle Avenue is completely unrecognizable after the collapse, which saw no casualties and four minor...

White-collar job opportunities are just drying up. A former scholar Matthew Crawford, a PhD. in political philosophy from University of Chicago who after his studies became a motorcycle mechanic, says “The trades suffer from low prestige. Because the work is dirty, many people assume it is also stupid. This is not my experience.” Crawford writes in his book Shop Class as Soulcraft (and excerpted...

We have all heard by now of the allegations of massive fraud in the counting and reporting of the recent election results in Iran. There is telltale “suggestive evidence” that tends to confirm such allegations: * The unrealistically high votes for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in urban areas, including Tehran and Tabriz where he is not very popular. * The surprisingly poor performance by opposition...

Obama, GM’s new Chairman by Scott McKain If my very future depended upon selecting a single person to sink just one basketball shot, I’m picking Michael Jordan. If my life hung in the balance, and one individual from our history had to present an oration that would determine my survival, I would beg Martin Luther King to speak on my behalf. So, why in the moment of its greatest trial would General...

My fascination for bus rides and backpacking/trekking has remained intact. I was delighted to learn that even among the car-loving Americans, bus travel is now becoming popular. Well, this may cause a social and economic revolution in the USA!!! People are more “loath to get into their cars.” The Federal Highway Administration says Americans drove 81 billion fewer miles in the year ended January...

John Cole, The Scranton Times-Tribune This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Jack Shafer at Slate is doubting Twitter: Unlike several other technology-friendly journalists, I’ve found it more noise than signal in understanding the Iranian upheaval. I’m not saying that there is no signal to be found; I’m just saying that my cognitive colander isn’t big enough to strain out Iran information I can rely on…. I appreciate, as Atlantic Senior Editor Andrew Sullivan...

In Iran, why didn’t they just turn Twitter off? From All Things Considered: Jonathan Zittrain, co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, says Iran uses a basic filtering architecture that has the average Internet connection piped through a government server farm before it goes anywhere else. But, like resourceful American students in search of Facebook, many Iranians...

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report today on the effects we can expect that global climate change will have on the United States. Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States draws material from 13 US government science agencies. Ten key findings: Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected...

UPDATE: In comments, Twitter is down for maintenance. 1:30 am in Iran, they delayed to minimize the impact there. ++++++++++++++++ Both CNN and Reuters are reporting that the Obama administration asked Twitter to delay going down for scheduled maintenance last night to ensure Iranians could continue using the service to communicate to each other and the outside world. Twitter rescheduled. But some folks are...

James Joyner voices concern that rapid-fire communication technologies (Twitter, et. al.) may be forcing snap-decisions on issues before those issues can be fairly and fully evaluated. I share some of Joyner’s concern. Compelled to react to the Iranian situation over the weekend and yesterday, I authored what I think (in retrospect) were some remarkably thin, shallow, pedestrian posts. What I did afterward,...

The ex-Beatles pop music sensation Sir Paul McCartney and his two daughters are avidly campaigning for meatless Mondays to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the world’s livestock, among the most serious contributors to global warming.” The Independent reports: “The McCartneys have attracted support from across the worlds of showbusiness, science, business and the environment. The...

Yesterday Fred Wilson proposed we give bing a chance. He set his default search to Bing and promised his reaction to it in the coming days. Later TechCrunch’s MG Siegler reminds us that back in the 90s he was something of a Microsoft fanboy before going on to admit: I mocked Bing from the second I heard its name, as basically a non-starter. But here we are a few weeks later, and I’m still hearing a...

With the transition to broadcast digital TV and the ending of brodcast analog signals, there has been much discussion and heartburn. Given that the vast majority of people who live in urban and suburban areas get their TV signals via cable, those most affected live in rural areas and don’t get good reception in the first place. Since the video card in my computer has a digital TV input, I decided to buy...

I could not agree more: The traditional TV industry–cable companies, networks, and broadcasters–is where the newspaper industry was about five years ago: In denial. [...] Specifically, the TV industry’s attitude is the same as the newspaper industry’s attitude was circa 2002-2003: Stop calling us dinosaurs: We get digital; We’re growing our digital businesses; We’re investing...