Blogger since 2002, political activist since 2003, geek since birth. Opinions informed by mixed-race, multi-ethnic, cis-female condition, further shaped by kind friends of all persuasions. Sci-tech frenemy, wannabe artist, decent cook, determined author, successful troublemaker. Mother of invention and two excessively smart-assed young adult kids. Attended School of Hard Knocks; Rather Unfortunate Smallish Private Business School in Midwest; Affordable Mid-State Community College w/evening classes. Self-employed at Tiny Consulting Business; previously at Large-ish Chemical Company with HQ in Midwest in multiple marginalizing corporate drone roles, and at Rather Big IT Service Provider as a project manager, preceded by a motley assortment of gigs before the gig economy was a thing. Blogging experience includes a personal blog at the original blogs.salon.com, managing editor for a state-based news site, and a stint at Firedoglake before landing here at emptywheel as technology’s less-virginal-but-still-accursed Cassandra.
In tandem with the release of his book, Who Owns the Future?, Jaron Lanier’s interview with Salon generated a lot of hand-wringing across social media. It seems Lanier, one of our so-called intellectual visionaries, believes that the collapse of Kodak and its 140,000 jobs, and the rise of Instagram and its 13 jobs, exemplifies the […]
In contrast to headline news today, the weather seems perfectly harmless — until one looks carefully at these maps. Though increased soil moisture levels may be a big improvement over this past summer’s drought, a serious problem remains: there’s been too much late snow and it’s going to melt quickly. Based on the 21-MAR-2013 hydrologic […]
Over the last several weeks there has been considerable re-evaluation of the Iraq War, launched ten years ago by the Bush Administration. Eulogies and opinions from pundits of all types ranged from “I told you so,” to “It was a qualified success.” We all know what the truth is without punditry: the war was a […]
This is an op-ed; opinion herein is mine. ~Rayne A tweet yesterday by technology-futurism pundit and sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling hinted at the problem of technology industry and journalism, with regard to politics: The tweet was spawned by a profile in The New York Times of Newark NJ’s mayor, Cory Booker, who has used social media […]
This is an op-ed; opinion herein is mine. ~Rayne Once upon a time, before the rise of machines — um, before corporations took over and subsumed the Democratic Party, there were people who espoused an ideology of caring for their fellow man. Granted, some of the richest among them ended up elected to office, but […]
The Steubenville rape case is so offensive in so many ways I can’t even begin to tackle them all. • CNN and a number of other news outlets cast the rapists as victims; • Idiots who “don’t believe in rape” come out of the woodwork and spew their insanity; • Society follows the spectacle of the case for […]
Help me get over the hump and clue me in on a few things. I’ve been scratching my head wondering about these topics. Suicide in Singapore — The recent “suicide” of a U.S. electronics engineer in Singapore looks fishy to me. It looked not-right to Financial Times as well; it appears no other domestic news outlet […]
Today saw a bumper crop of weak content masquerading as journalism. I’m really perturbed about one article in particular. Forbes—the business magazine led by zillionaire libertarian CEO and editor-in-chief Steve Forbes—published an article noting that NPR’s reporting had a gender bias in its sourcing. The report was written by contributor Michael Howe, whose bio at […]
While we’re waiting for Congress and the White House to do something productive together for once, let’s recap: • The Department of Defense said climate change is a critical strategic concern with regard to its operations and its impact on defense efforts, based on its legislatively-mandated Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published two-plus years ago in […]
The breathless reporting about the alleged Chinese hacking at The New York Times is truly annoying because of the shock it displays. The surprise any major government or private corporate entity shows at this point about any network-based security breach that appears to originate from China should be treated as propaganda, or a display of […]