Tag: internet

My Internet’s real wonky tonight.

I think it’s because of the unexpected snowfall up here, and the repeated freeze/unfreeze. We’ve lost Internet outright a couple of times last night, and it’s crawling now. Fortunately I was spending most of the night working on getting THE STARS ARE WRONG ready to be sent out. You never know: somebody might buy it!

At least, I think it’s pretty good. I seem to have gotten at least a little better at this, over the last few years. Go figure.

So, let’s see if this goes through…

Always fun when the Internet implodes.

As in, my personal Internet.  It just… failed.  And then came back, and failed, and came back, and then said all my security certificates were expired, and then took me to my provider and had me set up a new wireless network*, and then failed again.  And so I finally call in to my ISP to get help… and it resolves itself the second he starts chat**.

So that was a fun couple of hours! Continue reading Always fun when the Internet implodes.

…And they laughed at my never throwing out computer equipment. LAUGHED!

WELL! I just used my Chromebook to download the drivers to a wifi dongle that works on Windows 10 to access the hotspot that will allow me internet access! And now I can use that access to get the drivers to the other wifi dongle to use that one instead and un-cannibalize the craft room computer! SO WHO IS LAUGHING NOW?!?

…sorry if that came across as manic. But if you can read this, then I have wifi hotspot access, so maybe I am being a little manic. It’s all good.

OK, I admit it: I expected worse of this Computerworld article on Google and Cuba.

Said Computerworld article argues that Google is not going to be able to wire up Cuba for the Internet. When I saw that, I started to huff and mutter Well, of course not it’s not going to work right. Cuba is a totalitarian Communist dictatorship.  I wonder what excuse the author will use to avoid writing that.  And then, sure enough: the author gave his ‘explanation’…

The problem is that Cuba is a totalitarian Communist dictatorship.

…Oh.  Well, don’t I look foolish, now. I’m sorry for assuming the worst.

 

The future of journalism? Probably neo-feudalism.

Megan McArdle’s right to be worried:

…advertising dollars are shrinking. We just can’t charge as much for Web advertising as we used to for print advertising. A decade ago, when I entered professional journalism and began earnestly discussing its financial future, there was a reasonable case that, eventually, digital advertising would be worth more than print advertising — you could precisely target it, after all, and measure its effects. As soon as we got better at building digital ad products and educated advertisers, in theory we’d be in better shape than ever.

That theory has, alas, been pretty well destroyed by the last 10 years. Advertisers still won’t pay print rates for digital. Worse, the money that does get spent on digital advertising increasingly isn’t going to news outlets; it’s going to Google and Facebook and Yahoo.

Continue reading The future of journalism? Probably neo-feudalism.