Google won’t leave China

Friday, January 15th, 2010

As a quick follow-up to yesterday’s somewhat rambling post on the subject: even if the government expels the company, Google won’t be leaving China.
Seemingly lost amidst all the windbaggery on this topic is the fact that according to Alexa, google.cn is as of this writing the #3 most-trafficked website in China. google.com, though, is #6.
I’m [...]

Clever PR move, Google: give up the ball

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

The Chinese expat net-o-sphere is abuzz this week with Google’s challenge to the Chinese government. I’ve seen commentary ranging from mindless protestor-like exaltations of a company “sticking it to The Man” to the more patronizing and pragmatic “why would Google want to give up all the money they can make?”

First, as someone living in [...]

A suggestion to get Apple out of the censorship business

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

After reading Trent Reznor’s expletive-filled mini-rant about Apple’s App Store approval process, which I basically agreed with, it got me to thinking: why does Apple want to be the decency police in the first place?
Apparently, when you submit your app to the App Store, they have people using it and looking for naughty words interspersed [...]

New world order

Saturday, April 8th, 2006

I wanted to wait for a bit before writing about this, to avoid writing something silly while getting caught up in the hysteria. Also, I had decided a while back that this wasn’t going to be a geek blog, but, geek that I am, it’s time to break the rules.
This is a week that [...]

Moneygrubbing pigs take us back to the 1950s

Friday, June 25th, 2004

Yesterday I was listening to England vs. Portugal on BBC5 Radio’s live Web feed. You might say, “what a triumph of technology; nowadays you can listen to radio broadcasts from around the world from home!”
That’s one way to look at it.
Here’s the problem: Here in the USA, there’s this scumbag company called Setanta [...]

Clash of values

Thursday, September 6th, 2001

I just finished reading two books this week. It generally takes me forever to read a book, but I finished both of these very quickly. (Yes, I commonly read more than one book at a time…I am a Gemini, after all, and prone to boredom.)
Anyway, I think it would be difficult to find [...]

Boycott the RIAA

Monday, August 27th, 2001

If anyone out there cares, here’s a site that I’m firmly in support of: http://www.boycott-riaa.com/.
This whole thing is a complicated issue, I agree, with validity on both sides, but in the end I just think the RIAA is desperately trying to maintain their castle while it’s under siege from all sides by Napster and [...]

At least dead people like them

Thursday, August 23rd, 2001

It seems Microsoft has resorted to pathetic tactics to try to win favor with the Attorneys General in the states where they are contesting their monopoly status, as this Newsfactor story details.
It’s amazing to me that a company whose products have touched so many people could be as universally reviled as they are. About [...]