I just bought a dauntingly complicated fancy-pants touch screen thermostat for our house. But Honeywell has encoded so many social presuppositions (into a thermostat!) that I can’t believe they’re able to sell them. Continue reading
Author Archives: Ed
Campiello Barbaro, the beautifulest square
In Venice, across the Grand Canal from St. Mark’s and the doges’ palace, in the Dorsodoro neighborhood near the Salute church, there’s a little square, the Campiello Barbaro, that I’ve taken a shine to.
Spanish galleons in Hawaii
There’s no real evidence for Spanish galleons in Hawaii before Cook, but there are claims that the San Juanillo was wrecked near Maui in 1578 and the Santo Cristo de Burgos was lost off of Kona in 1693 (or 1696).
Al Jezeera on Roku
I just discovered that I can watch Al Jazeera live on my Roku box. It’s not exactly obvious; it’s in the “Roku Newscaster” podcast aggregator/channel, which is available in the Roku Channel Store. Unlike many of the other news sources there the Al Jazeera feed is video not just audio.
Facebook people
Via @radar O’Reilly, news that Netflix is going to deeply integrate Facebook into its authentication system, at least. Specifically, they’re going to use Facebook accounts to identify individuals in households. This makes sense: when Netflix was mailing DVDs, the relevant unit was mailing address or household. But since they’re fulfilling the promise of their name (they weren’t called Mailflix before), the relevant unit for streaming is, arguably, the individual.