Monthly Archives: November 2011


What good is having HBO on my Roku if I can't buy it without a cable subscri… 2

What good is having HBO on my Roku if I can't buy it without a cable subscription?

It's always nice that they are adding more content channels to Roku. These little media streaming boxes rock. But adding HBO Go to Roku seems completely pointless. The only way to get access to HBO Go is if you already subscribe to HBO from your cable or satellite provider, typically at $20/month (at least that's what Comcast charges me right now). HBO Go provides the same content that I can already get through On Demand on my cable box so why would I want to consume the capped bandwidth through the Roku and risk buffering and other disruptions when I can just use the existing service? What I want is to be able to go directly to HBO.com, and subscribe to HBO Go for say $10-12 per month without having Comcast in the middle of the transaction. If I could do that with the twenty or so channels(most at a significantly lower price of $2-4 per month) that we actually watch, out of the several hundred offered by Comcast then I could ditch the cable TV service and just keep the Internet and save a lot of money.

Fat chance of that happening any time soon.

Reshared post from +Clayton Morris

Sweet. HBO Go comes to our Roku boxes.

http://www.roku.com/hbo-partner

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HBO GO
Get instant access to over 1400 HBO® shows and hit movies – every episode of every season of the best of HBO. Free with your HBO subscription through participating TV providers.

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If only Saab could get as many people to actually put real money down for its products… 2

If only Saab could get as many people to actually put real money down for its products it might be able to make a case for saving the brand

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Saab celebrates 100,000 Fans on Facebook – Saab Newsroom
Archive. All. 2011 November October September August July June May April March February January 2010 December November October September August July June May April March February January. Saab Convert…

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The modern world has certainly brought plenty of unintended consequences with it,…

The modern world has certainly brought plenty of unintended consequences with it, but the benefits of vaccination have done wonders for public health. Does Delta really want thousands of sick and infectious passengers flying in its sealed aluminum tubes?

Reshared post from +Philip Plait

Delta Airlines is running an insidious anti-vaccination ad on their in-flight TV right now, sponsored by the notorious reality-challenged (and Orwellianly-named) National Vaccine Information Center. These ads make it out as if getting the flu is no big deal, when in fact preventing the flu is a very big deal. The link below from Skepchick.org will give you the details.

I will not fly Delta until they remove these ads. It's that simple. I tweeted about it (http://twitter.com/#!/BadAstronomer/status/132116584591409154) and I ask folks to spread the word.

Vaccines are one of the greatest achievements of medical science, saving millions of lives every year. I won't sit back and let a well-funded fringe groups spread blatantly false misinformation about them.

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I Flu Delta: An Action Alert – Skepchick
I Flu Delta: An Action Alert. The National Vaccine Information Center, an organization ironically misinformed about vaccines, is running an ad on Delta Airlines flights through the entire month of Nov…

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Make magazine, Maker Faire and the Maker movement are amazingly cool and a great…

Make magazine, Maker Faire and the Maker movement are amazingly cool and a great way for people to learn. It also gets us back to creating real physical stuff rather than just feeding into a bogus service economy.

Reshared post from +Alexander Howard

Congratulations to Maker Faire and MAKE Magazine founder +Dale Dougherty, named a "Champion of Change" by the White House today!

"You're sort of the anti-Washington, in that you guys just hang out and do great stuff," said U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra in introducing him. Their conversation was streamed live online at http://whitehouse.gov/live.

"Tinkering was once a solid middle class skill," said Dougherty. "It was how you make your life better. Making involves a willingness around risk, he emphasized "Ok, you fail. So get up and do it again."

It's also about what people do because of passion and personal interest. "People are building robots because they want to," he said. "It's an expression of who they are and what they want to do."

Now, MakerFaire is bringing many families together around making. In California, we have about 100,000 people coming to Maker Faire, said Dougherty. "We've got a lot of kids who don't want to sit in a seat & read a textbook. They want to DO stuff. How do we unleash that power?"

From the press release: "The recognition will come at the first part of a day of activities the White House is calling “Make it in America,” which will bring together American leaders helping to create high-quality jobs in the United States.

The White House Champions of Change Initiative profiles Americans from all walks of life helping the country rise to the challenges of the 21st century. These Champions of Change are doing extraordinary things in their communities working to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world. For more: http://www.whitehouse.gov/champions

Mr. Dougherty is being recognized for his work as founder and publisher of MAKE, a do-it-yourself magazine that helps readers make the most of their technology at home and away from home. Mr. Dougherty leads the Maker Media division of O'Reilly Media, Inc. He also developed Maker Faire, a fair that showcases DIY approaches in arts, crafts, science and engineering. Maker Faire showcases the innovation and creativity of its participants.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Tech/2011/1101/Maker-Faire-Mad-science-for-the-masses

“Innovation happens everywhere;” Mr. Dougherty said, “not just in universities or corporations. The innovators who come to Maker Faire to share their ideas are living proof of that.”

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Dale Dougherty talking about @makerfaire at today's @whi… on Twitpic
@whitehouseostp. OSTP November 3, 2011. Tweet. Rotate photo View full size. name. twitter username. @reply to tagged user. Hide map and return to photo. Dale Dougherty talking about @makerfaire at tod…

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Who would have that there were this many elements to analyze in this photo? 4

Who would have that there were this many elements to analyze in this photo?

Reshared post from +Jhakaas NeiL

A practical example of how the human mind works

Analysis of the Below picture can tell us a lot about how different people think.
– For young men, it's a picture of a lady with a nice arse but only the most observant will notice that she is crossing a street.

– The really observant will notice that she is wearing a thong.

– For older men, she appears to be a respectable woman – with a nice arse – on her way to work.

– The perverts among them will imagine her naked.

– Wiser men will ponder the presence of mind of the photographer to take the shot in the face of such beauty and be grateful that they shared it with humanity.

– For half of the women, this is an ordinary woman who should not have left home dressed that way.

– The other half will think she is a slut but wonder where she bought that blouse.

– Older women will imagine the misery that the woman's arse will cause by the time she reaches 50.

– But only children, the extremely intelligent and the celibate will notice that the taxi is being driven by a dog.

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Everyone on Google+ should go sign the White House petition against SOPA/E-PARASITE….

Everyone on Google+ should go sign the White House petition against SOPA/E-PARASITE. The only parasites here are the members of congress supporting this bill and their financiers in the entertainment industry.

Reshared post from +Alexander Howard

The State Department has made "Internet freedom" part of its foreign policy priorities.
http://huff.to/gP6sFA

Will the White House back up Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as Congress considers new laws that could criminalize some of the very circumvention tools that the agency is funding?
http://bit.ly/vk8lQB

#SOPA #PIPA #netfreedom

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White House Petition Against E-PARASITE/SOPA | Techdirt
Last week, as part of our trip of startup entrepreneurs, innovators, artists and venture captialists, we were able to meet with senior White House staff about our concerns over the E-PARASITE/SOPA bil…

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Bill Gates has aged as human being much better than Steve Jobs did 1

A decade ago when Bill Gates was still in charge of Microsoft, I never thought much of the man. He always came across as overly aggressive and somewhat unpleasant to deal with. To some degree, those are probably necessary traits to be an entrepreneur and build a big successful company. However, in the years since he stepped away from the company to focus on his foundation, he seems to have aged gracefully and has developed into a more sensitive human being that actually cares about the world.

While I still don't get the ill-fated commercials he did with Jerry Seinfeld a few years ago, he did show a self-effacing side that we never saw from Steve Jobs.
Jobs on the other hand continued to lead the creation of cool new products right up until his final days.

On the other hand, based on what I'm reading from the new Walter Isaacson biography, indicates that Jobs remained an asshole throughout his life especially when it comes to his attitude toward competitors like Google and Samsung.

Very different men and it will be fascinating to see how we view the two of them 10, 20, 30 years down the road.

Reshared post from +Dave Girouard

Bill Gates is a classy guy. I really respect his maturity in responding to SJ. He deserved more respect.

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Gates Dismisses Criticism in Steve Jobs Biography

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