URLs du Jour

2008-03-28

  • A reproduced article from a November 1968 issue of Mechanix Illustrated: "40 Years in the Future":
    IT’S 8 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008, and you are headed for a business appointment 300 mi. away. You slide into your sleek, two-passenger air-cushion car, press a sequence of buttons and the national traffic computer notes your destination, figures out the current traffic situation and signals your car to slide out of the garage. Hands free, you sit back and begin to read the morning paper—which is flashed on a flat TV screen over the car’s dashboard. Tapping a button changes the page.
    As you might expect, the prognosticator got some things right, many things hilariously wrong, and totally missed on others.

    On the other hand, we have nearly eight months to go before November 18, so there's still time to come up with some of this stuff … (Via GeekPress.)

  • For example Mechanix Illustrated failed to foresee something like this: Thanks to a data breach at Hannaford, the Pun Salad preferred supermarket chain, we got our first replacement credit card yesterday; probably a couple more are in the pipeline. The Boston Globe has details on the breach that I hadn't seen elsewhere:
    A massive data breach at Hannaford Brothers Cos. was caused by a "new and sophisticated" method in which software was secretly installed on servers at every one of its grocery stores, the company told Massachusetts regulators this week.
    This sounds like a remote compromise, unless the bad guys had an inside IT accomplice at Hannaford. In which case, I recommend drawing and quartering.

  • Republicans have to be disappointed in Hillary Clinton, who's engaging in the politics of personal self-destruction. Rich Lowry examines the symptoms:
    Oliver Sacks may have a new case study in Hillary Clinton. The neurologist and author who writes about people afflicted with bizarre disorders (e.g., “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat”) might find Hillary’s faulty memory an avenue for new research.

    It’s the case of “The First Lady Who Mistook Herself for a Risk-Taking International Diplomat.” The patient is a 60-year-old white female, known for her intelligence, impeccable work ethic, and emotional reserve. Although capable of bouts of absent-mindedness — especially when subpoenaed billing records are involved — the patient is cautious to a fault.

    And in case you haven't seen it:

  • You think I'm kidding about "the politics of personal self-destruction"? Not really.


Last Modified 2012-10-13 6:28 AM EDT