Category: Web 2.0

WordPress and Drupal founders share stage, no fistfights reported

Posted on

This rather funny report comes via WordPress Tavern:


Here is something you don’t get to see all the time. WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and Drupal founder Dries Buytaert shared the same stage at an event called Schipulcon. While catering to the web marketing crowd, the event also has a short but concise mission statement:

To grow community champions that make the world a better place through extraordinary thinking, smart technology and cross-industry creativity.

Schipulcon took place in Houston, Texas which is the hometown of Matt Mullenweg. While some expected the two founders to duke it out, according to some in the audience, it looked more like a bromance.

Indeedy — Ain’t they cute together? 😉

Heck, I figured there would be at least one little fistfight. I mean, we are talking about the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of CMS here.

Foursquare is worth 600 Million Dollars?!?!?!

Posted on

Holy freaking crap… 😯

I am, indeed, in the wrong freaking business.

Video:

The Story via the WSJ:

Start-up Foursquare Labs Inc. has a large user base and a $600 million valuation, but unlike social-media stars Zynga Inc. and LinkedIn Corp., it has a big hole on the revenue line.

Now, the service, which lets users announce their location to friends by “checking in” at bars, restaurants and other venues via cellphone, hopes to ease its revenue problem with a series of pacts to remarket daily coupon deals from LivingSocial, Gilt Groupe and AT&T Inc. to its 10 million users.

New York-based Foursquare is in talks on a similar arrangement with Groupon Inc., people familiar with the matter said.

Foursquare will begin making the deals available Tuesday. Chief Executive Dennis Crowley said it will get revenue from the deals it sells for its partners, but declined to specify the breakdown.

The move is Foursquare’s most significant attempt yet to build a revenue stream. If it works, it could reduce the skepticism toward the start-up’s business model.

Despite its growing user base and brand, the three-year-old company hasn’t come up with a way of making much money from its service. Foursquare thinks its location-tracking capability and data, such as where a subscriber’s friends are checking in, will help it better target daily deals and produce a higher conversion rate for them in the increasingly crowded market.

Foursquare has checked into a new office in San Francisco, its first outside of New York. Co-founder Naveen Selvadurai talked with Stacey Delo about how the company isn’t concerned about revenue or valuations, but is concerned about privacy.

“We are trying to see if our targeting works and how users will react,” Mr. Crowley said in an interview in Foursquare’s New York office. “The deals haven’t been heavily targeted with some of these providers.”

Jake Maas, senior vice president of business development for LivingSocial, said the deal with Foursquare adds another distribution channel for his company, which already markets deals through websites and bloggers. “We’ll see where it goes, but we are optimistic,” he said.

AT&T has started its own location-based deals service, but AT&T Interactive CEO David Krantz said partnerships in which companies share deals and users will become more common as the market gets more competitive.

“Nobody reaches everyone,” said Mr. Krantz. “You will see a web of top players who have sales forces and brands working together.”

Foursquare also has struck agreements to market offers from group-deal site BuyWithMe and from Zozi, which offers deals on activities like golf lessons. Gilt City, the Gilt Groupe subsidiary that offers daily deals, will be offering the deals to Foursquare.

Would it be wrong of me to hate on a guy that stands to make that much coin; off something like that? Maybe just a little?

Nah, if he designed it and it took off; I am all for it. God Bless the man and hope he puts it to good use.

But 600 Million?!?!? Holy Moses. 😯

FYI: Russian Hackers Targeting Conservative Blogs

Posted on

This is a bit of a heads up; it appears that Russian hackers are on the prowl again. They are basically targeting Conservative blogs here in America. Michelle Malkin announced that she had be hacked.

This info is for those who run self-hosting blogs, if you are on WordPress.com or Blogger.com or yes, even at Typepad; you have zero to worry about. However, if you are self hosed or run WordPress at your own domain; you need to add the following to your .HTACCESS file.

---- *** limit GET POST ***
order allow,deny
allow from all
deny from .RU
deny from 217.114.234.*
deny from 91.124.120.*
deny from 174.129.228.*
deny from 217.114.234.*
deny from 91.124.219.*
deny from 95.30.158.*
deny from 178.95.123.*
Deny from 178.95.123.*
Deny from 91.124.178.*
Deny from 91.124.154.*
deny from 91.124.91.*
deny from 178.95.84.*
*** Slash limit ***

replace the ***’s with the symbol over the comma and the period. and of course, the “slash” with an actual right arrow (thing over the comma) and a slash! WordPress eats them as actual code.

If you have zero idea what this is, contact your hosting company.

We Conservatives should expect an uptick in hacking attempts on Conservative Blogs as time progresses here and Obama’s agenda falls apart. Expect to see progressive hackers to try and bring down Conservative blogs. To avoid charges; they will employ hackers from third world Countries and countries; like Russia, to do their bidding.

Another thing to remember; if you are running WordPress on your own Server; YOU MUST KEEP THE SOFTWARE UPDATED AT ALL TIMES! Otherwise, you are basically a moving open target! If you access the back end of your blog; which you should, at least once a week — and you see a notice to upgrade, DO IT! Don’t just look at the damned notice. Quickest way is this:

1. Disable ALL Plug-ins

2. Hit upgrade button

3. Turn on all plug ins and look for errors.

If you see errors and you know how to fix ’em, then do so, if you don’t, either get rid of the plug in, which is now doable via WordPress back end; or look for a newer plug in via WordPress’s plug in repository. Really, losing an few year’s worth of work, is NOT worth a silly plug in that is outdated and not being supported any longer.

I also recommend this plug in for wordpress, that limits logins to your site. There is also a plugin that will do a security scan on your blog as well. I use it and I think you should too. I also recommend that you read this here, on how to “harden” WordPress. against attacks.

Folks, it’s all about being smart about this sort of stuff. We can out wit the hackers, we just have to know how.

BREAKING NEWS: AOL to buy The Huffington Post

Posted on

It is official — AOL has gone liberal.

Via the old Gray Lady:

The Huffington Post, which began in 2005 with a meager $1 million investment and has grown into one of the most heavily visited news Web sites in the country, is being acquired by AOL in a deal that creates an unlikely pairing of two online media giants.

The two companies completed the sale Sunday evening and were expected to announce the deal Monday morning. AOL will pay $315 million, $300 million of it in cash and the rest in stock. It will be the company’s largest acquisition since it was separated from Time Warner in 2009.

The deal will allow AOL to greatly expand its news gathering and original content creation, areas that its chief executive, Tim Armstrong, views as vital to reversing a decade-long decline.

Arianna Huffington, the cable talk show pundit, author and doyenne of the political left, will take control of all of AOL’s editorial content as president and editor in chief of a newly created Huffington Post Media Group. The arrangement will give her oversight not only of AOL’s national, local and financial news operations, but also of the company’s other media enterprises like MapQuest and Moviefone.

By handing so much control over to Ms. Huffington and making her a public face of the company, AOL, which has been seen as apolitical, risks losing its nonpartisan image. Ms. Huffington said her politics would have no bearing on how she ran the new business.

The deal has the potential to create an enterprise that could reach more than 100 million visitors in the United States each month. For The Huffington Post, which began as a liberal blog with a small staff but now draws some 25 million visitors every month, the sale represents an opportunity to reach new audiences. For AOL, which has been looking for ways to bring in new revenue as its dial-up Internet access business declines, the millions of Huffington Post readers represent millions in potential advertising dollars.

“This is a statement that the company is making investments, and in this case a bold investment, that fits right into our strategy,” Mr. Armstrong said in an interview Sunday. “I think this is going to be a situation where 1 plus 1 equals 11.”

Ms. Huffington and Mr. Armstrong began discussing the possibility of a sale only last month. They came to know each other well after they both attended a media conference in November and quickly discovered, as Ms. Huffington put it, “we were practically finishing each other’s sentences.” She added: “It was really amazing how aligned our visions were.”

One of The Huffington Post’s strengths has been creating an online community of readers with tens of millions of people. Their ability to leave comments on Huffington Post news articles and blog posts and to share them on TwitterFacebook has been a major reason the site attracts so many readers. It is routine for articles to draw thousands of comments each and be cross-linked across multiple social networks. and

Mr. Armstrong and Ms. Huffington say that AOL’s local news initiative, Patch, and its citizen journalist venture, Seed, stand to thrive when paired with the reader engagement tools of The Huffington Post.

AOL’s own news Web sites like Politics Daily and Daily Finance are likely to disappear when the deal is completed, and many of the writers who work for those sites will become Huffington Post writers, according to people with knowledge of the deal, who asked not to be identified discussing plans that are still being worked out.

I got one thing to say about the above. I give it a year; and Huffington Post and AOL will both be gone. The truth is, that Huffington Post was swirling the drain, according to some of my well-placed sources and Huffington was looking for a buyer. She finally found a sucker, with deep pockets. The problem is that AOL is quickly becoming a relic of the old days of the internet; as in Pre-web 2.0. AOL has tried to keep up; but the majority of internet users, like myself; recoil in horror, when people say, “I am on AOL!”

Again, I give it a year.

Update: Ed Morrissey, always the nice guy, says:

It should be an interesting transition to watch, though.  None of these oddities takes away from Arianna’s success, either, in building a blogospheric empire and realizing a fortune from it.

Yeah, she built an empire of wealth; because she was already damned wealthy, because she supposedly “unknowingly” married a guy, who was involved in politics and he turned out to be gay. Further more, the Huffington Post exists for one reason and one reason alone. To propagate socialist Liberal propaganda  and make a mockery of Conservatism. In other words; that marble-mouthed socialist got rich off of disparaging American values and our capitalistic system in this Country —- All the while getting rich off of it — or in her case, richer.

Again, it is pathetic and straight up hypocritical. But then again, we are talking about American socialist liberals, are we not?

Update #2: Roundups by MediaGazer, TechMeMe and Memeorandum

Firefox 4 looks promising

Posted on

I just downloaded Firefox 4 Beta 10.

My impressions so far:

It has a Google Chrome look to it.

It still is a memory hog.

You can change the set up of the buttons and where the address bar is at the top.  The default is terrible; I liked it the way it was.

The buttons are too big. I’m half-blind, but hell. Not that blind….yet!

They added paste and go; smart move.

I’ll post more, as I think of it.

Jeff Kuhner takes it to another level: Kill Julian Assange

Posted on1 Comment

I figured someone in the Conservative media would say this sooner or later. I thought about it, but I really do not like the idea myself.

Jeff Kuhner at the Washington Times writes:

Julian Assange poses a clear and present danger to American national security. The WikiLeaks founder is more than a reckless provocateur. He is aiding and abetting terrorists in their war against America. The administration must take care of the problem – effectively and permanently.

The recent WikiLeaks document dump is the latest example of Mr. Assange’s dangerous behavior. His release of more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables, many of them containing classified information, is a major blow to our foreign policy. The essence of diplomacy – especially that of a great power – is the ability to conduct negotiations and hold talks in secret. Foreign leaders will not be willing to engage in sensitive discussions with American emissaries if their words are going to be splashed across the front pages of the world’s newspapers. Officials in autocratic and Islamist states often risk their lives to cooperate with Washington, usually by providing vital information or advice. They now face a further disincentive to help us: The U.S. government can no longer guarantee the privacy and secrecy of their discussions.

American diplomacy has been crippled. So has our ability to conduct the war on terrorism. For example, the cables cache reveals that the United States is working closely with Yemen’s dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, in launching drone strikes against local al Qaeda bases. Al Qaeda has spread to Yemen. Its insurgency is growing. Yemen risks becoming what Afghanistan was before Sept. 11, 2001: a vast sanctuary for jihadists. Mr. Saleh insists that Yemeni public opinion – insular, xenophobic and increasingly Islamic – will not support the U.S. military presence on domestic soil. Hence, he says the pretense must be maintained that Yemen is firing the missiles, not America. This pretense has been shattered – and with it, perhaps, a key ally in the struggle against al Qaeda. Mr. Assange is helping chase the American infidel out of Yemen’s desolate deserts.

[………]

The United States is paying a severe price for Mr. Obama’s negligence. This is the greatest diplomatic crisis since the late 1940s, when communist agents in the U.S. government provided atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. The world is witnessing the absurd, almost surreal spectacle of the American superpower standing helpless in the face of a lone hacker. Her diplomatic secrets are no longer safe; her allies and friends are being betrayed; and her cyber-enemies are free to roam with impunity. America is no longer feared or respected.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. vows that he is looking into possible criminal charges against Mr. Assange. It is too late for tough talk. At this point, we are beyond indictments and courts. The damage has been done; people have died – and will die because of the actions of this puerile, self-absorbed narcissist. News reports say the WikiLeaks founder is hiding out in England. If that’s true, we should treat Mr. Assange the same way as other high-value terrorist targets: Kill him

Okay, here is the question that I feel the need to ask. Are we going to kill someone every time some whistle blower decides to speak out and expose some corruption in Government? Because if that is where we are headed, that is a slippery slope we can never recover from. Like anyone else, I am for open Government, I am also for seeing elected officials held accountable. However, if the United States Government and more importantly the United States Military is being put at risk, then by all means, arrest this guy and put him away.

I have no idea what Julian Assange‘s motivation is; whether it is conspiracy theory, politics or if he is just a pompous ass.  But the idea of KILLING someone, just because decide to release some confidential information is not something, as a Conservative; who believes in rule of law and not Governmental treachery, that I can support. Because once you unleash that monster onto the American and World Wide Community, it cannot be stopped.

I would think that Jeff Kuhner would be a bit smarter than that. However, when you are working for a paper that basically was a cheerleader for the Bush Administration during the lead up to and during the Iraqi Invasion, one can expect only so much.

Others: Reporters Sans Frontières, Hullabaloo, Harry’s Place, Guardian, New York Times, News: News blog and The New Republic

Farewell BlogAds, I wish you well

Posted on1 Comment

Something interesting happened yesterday. I received this rather tersely worded e-mail from the follow that handles Blog relations at BlogAds:

Delivered-To: tpblogeditor@gmail.com
Received: by 10.216.2.204 with SMTP id 54cs188277wef;
        Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:37:31 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.150.230.14 with SMTP id c14mr16284843ybh.312.1288121849331;
        Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:37:29 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <marc@blogads.net>
Received: from mail-gx0-f170.google.com (mail-gx0-f170.google.com [209.85.161.170])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTP id v3si16164162ybi.73.2010.10.26.12.37.28;
        Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:37:29 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of marc@blogads.net designates 209.85.161.170 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.161.170;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of marc@blogads.net designates 209.85.161.170 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=marc@blogads.net
Received: by mail-gx0-f170.google.com with SMTP id 26so2514759gxk.29
        for <multiple recipients>; Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:37:28 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.150.54.7 with SMTP id c7mr13249285yba.9.1288121848345;
        Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:37:28 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <marc@blogads.net>
Received: from Marc-Wassermans-MacBook.local (rrcs-24-106-179-34.se.biz.rr.com [24.106.179.34])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 13sm10640690anq.30.2010.10.26.12.37.26
        (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5);
        Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:37:27 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <4CC72DF5.2020102@blogads.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 15:37:25 -0400
From: Marc Wasserman <marc@blogads.net>
Reply-To: marc@blogads.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.11) Gecko/20101013 Thunderbird/3.1.5
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Patrick <tpblogeditor@gmail.com>
Subject: End of Service
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hi Patrick,

I wanted to let you know we've stopped Blogads sales for your site. We
will pay out any outstanding funds. Your adstrips will stop functioning
within the next few days -- if you leave it up on the site, the ghost
adstrip code won't disrupt your site's serving. While we realize
Blogads.com is imperfect and has frustrated you, we don't want to be
associated with your abusive language about our staff and service.

Best,
Marc

--
marc wasserman | customer relations
blogads for opinion makers | blogads.com
p: 919.636.4551 x 804 | f: 469.398.0473
facebook.com/blogads | twitter.com/blogads

My first reaction was, basically, to chuckle a bit. What happened was this; I was trying to edit an ad spot here a few days ago and the server that handles the ad editing — was slow, as in very, very, slow. Therefore, I hopped over to the facebook page and in so many words, told the idiots to fix their stupid slow server. I guess Henry, the man that owns BlogAds, saw it and someone got their butt chewed for it. I suspect that might have been Marc. Therefore, in retaliation, I am tossed off the service.

Here is why this really does not matter at all. I can count on one hand, how many ads I have gotten with BlogAds, since I started using it again — when I switched sides politically. I only got five or maybe six paying ads on the side. When I was a left of center Blogger, I got exactly ZERO ads. As a “Right of Center” Blogger, I even was a part of a few hives, or Ad Groups. Those paid nothing as well. I mean, literally no ads came from the majority of them; except maybe the so-called “Conservative” hive. I got a few through there. I ended up leaving that hive, because of the actions of its owner. Of whom, I felt was a bit of an asshole towards David Frum. Other than this, I was not “rolling in the dough” as some might have assumed —- much quite the opposite — I never made much of anything with Blogads at all. All of those ads, that you might have seen in the sidebars, in the Blogads, ad sections, were free ads that I ran, either to promote stuff that I was selling on zazzle or as a favor to others who asked for the help.

Frankly, it is the opinion of this writer, that Blogads day has come and gone; Blogads came on the scene in 2002 and became big in 2004, during the election. However, much has changed since then. Google Adsense got smart and started doing graphical ads — not to mention the fact that their pricing structure is a bit saner for advertisers. In addition, there is this little thing. I believe in the time old business practice of “the Customer is always right,” no matter how abusive, nasty or whatever, the customer is always right. Frankly, if the staff over at Blogads cannot handle being yelled at, because of their subpar servers, then they should shut the company down and leave the advertising business.

Frankly, I am glad to be severed from that company and their joke of an advertising system, which benefits the bigger bloggers and leaves the smaller people like others and me on there in the cold. Therefore, I can honestly say, there was no big loss, at least not on my part.

In conclusion, I simply say to Blogads —- Goodbye and good luck. I wish you the best; however, I suspect that BlogAds will be going the way of other foolhardy ad businesses of the pre-economic bubble era — out of business, especially if they continue with this philosophy that the staff is always right.

Memo to Yahoo.com: Stop allowing your employees to leave stupid comments on my Blog

Posted on

You know, I do not normally bring crap like this up. But this is just straight up crap:

Look what landed in my Moderation Que Earlier:

Author : Not Likely (IP: 209.131.62.113 , nat-dip4.cfw-a-gci.corp.yahoo.com)

E-mail : no@thanks.com

URL    :

Whois  : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=209.131.62.113

Comment:

You ought to be in trouble for butchering the English language in addition to your shallow-minded religious and political views.

I did a trace route of the IP address, and here’s what I got:

Tracing route to nat-dip4.cfw-a-gci.corp.yahoo.com [209.131.62.113]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.2.1

2 6 ms 1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1

3 6 ms 10 ms 8 ms [snipped for my safety….]

4 8 ms 9 ms 7 ms ge-2-30-ur02.southgate.mi.michigan.comcast.net [68.85.49.193]

5 9 ms 28 ms 10 ms te-9-2-ur02.woodhaven.mi.michigan.comcast.net [68.87.190.181]

6 8 ms 12 ms 9 ms te-9-2-ur02.rockwood.mi.michigan.comcast.net [68.87.190.177]

7 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms te-9-2-ur02.monroe.mi.michigan.comcast.net [68.87.190.173]

8 13 ms 12 ms 12 ms te-0-4-0-2-ar01.taylor.mi.michigan.comcast.net [68.87.190.169]

9 23 ms 21 ms 15 ms be-10-ar01.pontiac.mi.michigan.comcast.net [68.85.235.206]

10 27 ms 31 ms 31 ms pos-3-3-0-0-cr01.chicago.il.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.90.109]

11 72 ms 28 ms 92 ms xe-9-2-0.edge1.Chicago2.Level3.net [4.71.248.25]

12 56 ms 27 ms 36 ms vlan51.ebr1.Chicago2.Level3.net [4.69.138.158]

13 52 ms 55 ms 54 ms ae-3-3.ebr2.Denver1.Level3.net [4.69.132.61]

14 53 ms 54 ms 69 ms ae-1-100.ebr1.Denver1.Level3.net [4.69.132.37]

15 92 ms 89 ms 89 ms ae-3-3.ebr2.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.69.132.57]

16 94 ms * * ae-92-92.csw4.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.69.134.222]

17 88 ms 89 ms 87 ms ae-41-99.car1.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.68.18.195]

18 94 ms 91 ms 93 ms YAHOO-INC-2.car1.SanJose1.Level3.net [64.152.64.2]

19 * * * Request timed out.

20 * * * Request timed out.

21 * * * Request timed out.

22 * * * Request timed out.

23 * * * Request timed out.

24 * * * Request timed out.

25 * * * Request timed out.

26 * * * Request timed out.

27 * * * Request timed out.

28 * * * Request timed out.

29 * * * Request timed out.

30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

C:\>

Look up info:

#

# Query terms are ambiguous. The query is assumed to be:

# “n + 209.131.62.0”

#

# Use “?” to get help.

#

#

# The following results may also be obtained via:

# http://whois.arin.net/rest/nets;q=209.131.62.0?showDetails=true&showARIN=false

#

NetRange: 209.131.32.0 – 209.131.63.255

CIDR: 209.131.32.0/19

OriginAS:

NetName: FC-YAHOO1

NetHandle: NET-209-131-32-0-1

Parent: NET-209-0-0-0-0

NetType: Direct Allocation

NameServer: NS2.YAHOO.COM

NameServer: NS1.YAHOO.COM

NameServer: NS5.YAHOO.COM

NameServer: NS4.YAHOO.COM

NameServer: NS3.YAHOO.COM

RegDate: 1999-07-09

Updated: 2005-08-25

Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-209-131-32-0-1

OrgName: Yahoo! Inc.

OrgId: YHOO

Address: 701 First Ave

City: Sunnyvale

StateProv: CA

PostalCode: 94089

Country: US

RegDate: 2000-10-23

Updated: 2009-05-18

Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/YHOO

OrgTechHandle: NA258-ARIN

OrgTechName: Netblock Admin

OrgTechPhone: +1-408-349-3300

OrgTechEmail: abechtel@inktomi.com

OrgTechRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/NA258-ARIN

OrgAbuseHandle: NETWO857-ARIN

OrgAbuseName: Network Abuse

OrgAbusePhone: +1-408-349-3300

OrgAbuseEmail: network-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com

OrgAbuseRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/NETWO857-ARIN

RAbuseHandle: NETWO857-ARIN

RAbuseName: Network Abuse

RAbusePhone: +1-408-349-3300

RAbuseEmail: network-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com

RAbuseRef: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/NETWO857-ARIN

I just wonder, if Yahoo.com approves of such behavior by their employees on company time. I will be sending a link of this posting to yahoo corporate and let everyone know if their response. This is just straight up wrong; and I wonder if yahoo does endorse terrorism? It sure seems that way to me. It might also explain why Yahoo is now all but overlooked by the majority of America over Google.com.

He writes another:

Author : Not Likely (IP: 209.131.62.113 , nat-dip4.cfw-a-gci.corp.yahoo.com)

E-mail : no@thanks.com

URL    :

Whois  : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=209.131.62.113

Comment:

You aren’t even capable of understanding your own commenter’s sarcasm. Find a new hobby. I’d suggest one that doesn’t involve setting down your befuddled musings in text.

That’s fine buddy, you keep leaving those little pud messages and I will keep posting them here and will forward them to yahoo corporate.

Remember this folks come 2010 and 2012, how tolerant liberals are, except when it violates their ideology.

If anyone deserves it, it is those guys

Posted on

It appears that the founders of Google are, like the guys that created Facebook, are going to get a feature film.

From Dateline:

EXCLUSIVE: The founders of Facebook aren’t the only game-changing geeks poised to have their story told on a movie screen. Michael London’s Groundswell Productions has teamed with producer John Morris to acquire movie rights to the Ken Auletta book Googled: The End of the World As We Know it. They will use the book as the blueprint for a feature film that tells the story of Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and the fast rise of the juggernaut web business that made them billionaires.

The book was published last fall by Penguin. Auletta, the media columnist for The New Yorker, chronicled a business that grew into a search engine-driven octopus whose $20 billion in ad revenue last year was more than the major broadcast networks combined. CEO Eric Schmidt predicted to Auletta that Google will become the world’s first $100 billion media company.

Some of you might expect me to snarl and say that these guys do not deserve the fortune that they have; because they are liberals — or at least from a State that is quite known for it’s liberalism.

Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you; but I do not fault these young men one lousy iota. Why? Well, it is like this here:

First off, I am not a progressive, who believes that anyone that makes or has more money than me, is someone to be loathed. Those guys have that sort of money, because they worked their rear-ends off for it. They just did not stand around and all just luckily all of that success came to them; for nothing. No, they worked for it. They spent hours coding and recoding that software to make it work better. That my friends, is just honest to goodness work. Work, that I could never do in million years, if I wanted to. Why? Because I am not a coder; I am a writer —- or at least I try to be one anyhow. There are some however, that think that I couldn’t write my damned way out of a paper bag; and you know, sometimes I think they just might be right. 😉

There is another angle to this as well; whether we want to admit it or not — Twitter, Facebook and Yes, even Google revolutionized the way we use the internet. Before these services were created; an era known affectionately among us old duffers as the “Web 1.0” era — the Internet was a patchwork of websites, that were, quite honestly, awful. You see, this was also before the days, when HTML was actually quite intelligent. The internet, for better or for worse — has grown and got much smarter by enormous leaps and bounds, since back in the mid-1990’s when I began to use it. Honestly, to me, it seems like one day, I was using Microsoft Frontpage 2000 to create my website; and now I am using WordPress to do what I do now.  The awesome part is; WordPress does everything, and I do mean, everything for you. WordPress is a writer’s dream and it too, has changed the way writing and yes, the internet is done.

Speaking of WordPress; if anyone deserves a Movie made about him — It is Matt Mullenweg. Now as for Matt; whether you love him or hate him, you cannot argue this fact; Matt changed the game with WordPress. Matt basically took a piece of software, that someone else had stopped development on, did what is known as “Forking” in programming talk, and made it his own and made enormously better product out of it.  Matt for all of his quirks; and that god-awful, “R.E.M. Shiny Happy People” looking template he is using on his blog — is actually an awesome person. 😀

In closing: (Said in my best drunken Ted Baxter voice) We as Conservatives should not be the one’s deriding these young people, we should be the one’s extolling their fortunes and encouraging others to follow in their footsteps.

Others: Crikey, Speakeasy, New York Magazine, VentureBeat, Fortune, Gizmodo, Underwire, The Wrap, ScreenCrave.com, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Just Jared, VentureBeat, Fortune, Gizmodo, L.A. Times Tech Blog and Gizmodo Australia.

Video: “Those voices don’t speak for us”

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One word…. Awesome. 😀 (H/T HotAir)

The Reality Report #52

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If you can get past the tin foil hat sounding stuff in this video —– It is actually pretty good.

Enjoy: (source)

Video: We Will Remember

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(H/T HotAir)

Sign the Pledge at We Will Remember.

A Twitter Troll goes after Sarah Palin

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Now before anyone gets any kind of weird ideas. I am not defending the said party here. I am simply pointing out what is going on.

It appears that, what is known in Web 2.0-speak, as a “Twitter Troll” has began attacking Sarah Palin posting threats and other silly stuff, Patterico has the story and the offending “tweets”:

I had hoped to post about 20 screenshots from this guy’s Twitter account, but with the technical work being done on the site I find myself suddenly unable to upload images. So I will just quote you the messages. He posted most of them tonight, and they include messages like this:

@sEaTtLe_MeTrO Death 2 Palin family them retarded hillbillies take teabaggers w/ you hateful bitch

and this:

We cant expect gov to intervene we must shoot Gen. Palin on site be 4 her troops strike again!

and this:

@interactionswst one word racism choose sides plain and simply that bitch Palin launch an attack, she need 2 b shot on site!

and this:

@Palin360 you need 2 b assassinated soon we ll settle 4 one of the family if not u!

and this:

maybe it takes a murder or 2 2 get the point across take aim at radical TP members

and this:

@BRIANGLAD Palin will b met with gunfire her or her family

and this:

@SarahStormRpt u need 2 be shot on site startin that racist Tp shit, all you all do is promo violence dont cry when some kill u basterds

and this:

IS Sarah Palin still alive, please feel free 2 domecheck that bitch! she will look good in tha box the TP left on someones lawn

and this:

Yeah shorty i know soon as a bitch get killed bout a lie then ppl gone realize how stupid n lack info can get u hurt TP fuckin wit fire

and this:

@Southfive her map w crosshair need to b put on her family she that bitch can die or a TP supporter

and this:

Does Palin really want what she ask 4? we ll see after death strikes i guess no pose 2 see her rhetoric,it can b dangerous. but who cares!

and this:

i got 2 go see how many more targets Gen. Palin got mapped out that bitch gone get or someone i hope its GOP one of them racist fuckers

and this:

THe street gangs of america can take on the teabaggers and Palin. TP is callin 4 war just shoot any TP associates and family MS13 BITCHES!

and this:

I cant wait till someone serious hurt that bitch Palin or one of her children soon she out of control!

and this:

@Oplis the ppl of color have been wait n 4 no one can agree on history so suggest the Palin plan let roll!ms13 will take care of that bitch

and this:

Palin came 2 lower 48 2 start a civil divide this could b the moment of truth 4 americans 2 put her down

and this:

i encourage ppl 2 meet the TP wit the same acts of violence Palin instructs them 2 do we need 2 harass them 2 their racist graves

and this:

#hcr proof that Palin targeted Va. rep. w/ her map and someone followed up we have 2 stop this terrorist name Sarah someone please kill her!

Damn violent teabaggers!

For some reason this one seems particularly ominous:

Does anyone have that alaskan address 4 the Palins?

Again, let me be clear, (Before my teleprompter breaks and I forget what to say… 😯 😉 😛 😀 ) I am not defending this idiot. But I very highly doubt that this person, whomever he is and conversely, I very highly doubt that is this persons real name; anyhow, I doubt that he is even threat to anyone, other than himself. I do agree that it is wrong, and I do agree that the media should be covering it more. But the part of me that has more common sense that, say, looks; tends to believe that this guy is nothing more than some idiot twitter troll who is looking for attention. I mean, just look at the dude’s profile on twitter. He has all of 26 followers and is following all of about 24, and he also has no profile pic. In the world of twitter, that is usually a good sign that he is, 1.) A troll, 2.) A Spammer or 3.) New.

Another thing that I feel should be pointed out. The reason why the FBI and the MSM are not covering this, unlike, say, President Obama is this; Sarah Palin is now a private citizen and Barack Obama is now the leader of the free world; well, at least the President of the United States. 😉  So, while it might interesting to those of us, who are opposed to the socialism of the Democrats, I am afraid you will be waiting a long time, before the media goes into what I like to call, “Foaming at the mouth mode” about something like this there.

Again, I am not defending the idiot. I just wanted to point out some of the obvious things to me here.

Others who are “Foaming at the mouth”: Gateway Pundit, Left Coast Rebel, Weasel Zippers, American Power, Michelle Malkin and Power Line

Video: America’s Comeback

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This Comes via The Other McCain:

RGA 2009 Chairman’s Report

Republican Governor’s Association HQ

The revolution starts today. What are you doing?

Dan Rather explains himself

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I am, of course, referring to this little poor choice of words.

First off, Dan explains in his own way, that he is from the pre-internet generation. This is understandable. The man is just old. You have to remember, he was one of the reporters in the trenches in Vietnam. He did work under Walter Cronkite. So, he is old, as in almost my dad’s age. Even I can understand that.

He explains his rather “off the cuff” remark:

All this is the backdrop for what I said on the Matthews show. I was talking about Obama and health care and I used the analogy of selling watermelons by the side of the road. It’s an expression that stretches to my boyhood roots in Southeast Texas, when country highways were lined with stands manned by sellers of all races. Now of course watermelons have become a stereotype for African Americans and so my analogy entered a charged environment. I’m sorry people took offense. – Source Huffington Post

He goes on to say, and I believe this is important:

But anyone who knows me personally or knows my professional career would know that race was not on my mind. Reporting on the injustices of race was part of the reason I became a reporter. I grew up in segregated Texas on the same side of the tracks as the African American community. At the time, enlightened people called them Negros. Many people called them much worse. When I covered the Civil Rights movement, I saw sheer hatred in ways that still haunt and shock me. For doing my small part in reporting on the South in the 1960s, I was called a traitor to my roots and other names not fit for print. I was threatened with death by people who would have welcomed me to their church on Sunday on account of my white skin if they didn’t know what I was there to do. I do not take this issue lightly.

I am inclined to believe him here, as I do agree with his position on the subject. Also too, I believe it is important to understand the framing of the comment as well. He did just say, in his own southern style that President Obama is, in fact, a lousy salesman. Now he said something to the effect of, “That Obama isn’t nothing more than a stupid Watermelon eatin’ so and so…” it would be quite different. But it was not said in that matter. Yes, I know, Rush Limbaugh and we Conservative Bloggers did raise the “If a Conservative have said that” flag up; Which I believe is valid. There is a double standard in this country when it comes to race and political party affiliation, I know that. However, I believe this one here was just a tad bit blown out of proportion.

Finally, Dan Rather makes this very important point:

What saddens me is what this experience has made all too clear. Much of what we call news, isn’t. Much of what we Tweet, or post, or chat away at under the guise of news, are distractions.

[…]

The optimist in me believes that we are not as polarized as the partisans on the left and right would want us to believe. They make money on division. I have gotten dozens of letters from viewers for my HDNet show saying that they thought I was a left-wing partisan hack until they sat down and watched our reports. This is not meant to be self-aggrandizing. It is just evidence that if we stopped worrying about political point-scoring and sat and listened to the issues that matter, we would be less distracted and more focused on the problems that we all face and must solve together.

Sorry folks, I cannot argue with that. Thanks Dan for the clarification.  I know I might take heat for highlighting the above, but you know what? I do not care. I think if both sides would simply work together and stop with the decisive nonsense; we might just be able to fix the Nation’s problems; like Healthcare, like Jobs and many of the other problems that are hurting Nation right now.

New Conservative Blog

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Richard Spencer, formerly of Taki’s Magazine has finally got his own project going.

Here, he explains it:

[podcast]http://podcastmachine.com/podcasts/3651/episodes/17841/media_files/43982/download/5/file_128kb.mp3[/podcast]

Click here to check out the site.

Countdown to being called an Anti-Semite by the normal players for linking to either of these blogs in 5….4….3…2

Fixed rather funny typo…. Sorry Richard! 😛

FARK is owned and ran by Liberal Fascists

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Apparently, they’ve blocked me from submitting my content over there. Which just proves to me that Socialist Liberals are nothing more than fascists.

Word to the wise, if you are a Conservative Blogger, do not try to use FARK to promote your content or you will be blocked. It is because FARK is owned and operated by fascist socialist liberals, who hate everything related to Conservatism and Republicanism and they will block you, if you use their service. Which is quite sad, and proves what I have known for a long time, socialist liberals do NOT want a diversity of opinions, they want to control the message and silence dissent.

I guess Jonah Goldberg was absolutely correct.

Thanks guys for proving my point for me.

Here’s the book to read:

Google Says to China, ‘If you keep hacking our servers, We will leave China’

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I cannot blame them one bit.

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

via Official Google Blog: A new approach to China.

Which totally destroys the Conservative Meme that Google is some sort of evil socialist company. In actuality, Google strikes me as being more of a civil libertarian type of a group. Because Google is very big on privacy and has fought in court against privacy invasion; they also support many organizations that fight for privacy. The reason why Google is hammered by the right, is because they refuse to show deference to the American Christian Holidays. The reason they do this is to be fair to all of the faiths and because Google is not solely an American Company, but an international company with people from many faiths and backgrounds. Personally, I would like to see good be a bit more friendlier towards America, it’s Holidays and Customs, but, I do understand their position on the matter.

I personally commend Google’s stance on privacy and I am extremely happy to see Google stand up for the privacy of the people of China, especially those who are fighting against that Communist Government in China.