“With Perlow’s Mail Goggles, users can specify which hours they would like to enable the feature. If a user tries to send an e-mail during the self-selected time — say, midnight to 3 a.m. — a screen pops up forcing the user to solve a series of simple math problems before the message can be sent.” Thinking outside the box for new and useful apps, Gmail engineers try to tackle the thorny problem of drailing (drunk e-mailing.) “Perlow created the function last fall when he found himself sending messages to an ex-girlfriend — late at night — asking to get back together.” I feel you, brother.
Tag: Internet
Under New Management.
“Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov…Millions of Americans have powered President Obama’s journey to the White House, many taking advantage of the internet to play a role in shaping our country’s future. WhiteHouse.gov is just the beginning of the new administration’s efforts to expand and deepen this online engagement. Just like your new government, WhiteHouse.gov and the rest of the Administration’s online programs will put citizens first.” Happily and quite impressively, the White House website gets Obamaifed.
Clinton: The Netroots are Bitter.
“‘Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] — which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down,’ Clinton said to a meeting of donors. ‘We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn’t even want us to go into Afghanistan. [sic] I mean, that’s what we’re dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it’s primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don’t agree with them. They know I don’t agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me.‘”
As Sen. Obama racks up the endorsements of Robert Reich, Sam Nunn, and David Boren, Sen. Clinton gets her own private fundraiser gaffe: To wit, audio surfaces of her blaming the netroots and “activists” for her dismal showings thus far. Well, I’m sure that‘ll go over like gangbusters. (By the way, if you’re keeping score at home, it’s now screw the southern whites, screw the red states, screw the insignificant states, screw the impressionable elites, and now screw the netroots. But, if you’re a white working-class northerner without an Internet connection, you’re the bedrock of the nation, and no mistake.)
The Great Firewall, block by DNS block.
“Depending on how you look at it, the Chinese government’s attempt to rein in the Internet is crude and slapdash or ingenious and well crafted. When American technologists write about the control system, they tend to emphasize its limits. When Chinese citizens discuss it — at least with me — they tend to emphasize its strength. All of them are right, which makes the government’s approach to the Internet a nice proxy for its larger attempt to control people’s daily lives.“
Forget Ohio and Texas, Sen. Clinton…Want to see a “real” firewall in use? The Atlantic‘s James Fallows explains the nature and workings of China’s “Great Firewall.” “What the government cares about is making the quest for information just enough of a nuisance that people generally won’t bother…When this much is available inside the Great Firewall, why go to the expense and bother, or incur the possible risk, of trying to look outside? All the technology employed by the Golden Shield, all the marvelous mirrors that help build the Great Firewall—these and other modern achievements matter mainly for an old-fashioned and pre-technological reason. By making the search for external information a nuisance, they drive Chinese people back to an environment in which familiar tools of social control come into play.”
It Takes a Carnival.
The promotional machine for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight continues to ramp up. As you may have noticed below, I’ve been posting several additional new photos of Heath Ledger’s Joker to the entry of a few days ago. Also, the online viral marketing has continued apace: First an edition of the Gotham Times was released, and, in keeping with the Dark Detective meme, that’s led to all kinds of spinoff sister sites and more municipal tangents than The Wire (Gotham Police Dept. (and Internal Affairs), Gotham National Bank, Gotham School District, Gotham’s DA hotline, Gotham City Rail, Gotham Cab, Acme Security Systems, Gotham Victim Advocate Organization, Remembering Gina, and a Jokerized version of the paper.) Whatsmore, at the original viral Joker site, you can now take a personality profile or try to open a vault for further clues. (Set your clock for 7:38am to do so.) Finally, both the trailer and the first seven minutes of the film will be released on December 14, before the IMAX version of Will Smith’s Omega Man-update I Am Legend. To the IMAXcave, Robin! Update: Another countdown, set for noon on Tuesday. The trailer, perhaps? Update 2: Nope. After some shenanigans involving local bakeries (the NYC ones were over in Yorktown), it’s a new one-sheet.
Rainbow Connection | Pop Song 360.
As noted in countless Woeful State of the Industry pieces over the past week, In Rainbows, the new Radiohead album, is now available for download directly from the band. (I figure I’ll give ’em ten bucks.) Also, it seems R.E.M. is premiering a new song on Anderson Cooper 360 tonight. The song, “Until the Day is Done,” will be featured in a CNN ecodocumentary, Planet in Peril, later this month. (If you’ve watched the Youtubes of the Dublin rehearsal shows a few months back, you’ve already heard it.) Update: 160kbpgate for Radiohead?
TheLeft.com
“What was once seen as a liability for Democrats and progressives in the past — they couldn’t get 20 people to agree to the same thing, they could never finish anything, they couldn’t stay on message — is now an asset,’ Leyden said. ‘All this talking and discussing and fighting energizes everyone, involves everyone, and gets people totally into it.‘” The WP’s Jose Antonio Vargas examines why the Dems are winning the Web War. “‘For Republicans, the Internet is where bad things happen. Take [former U.S. senator] George Allen and his ‘macaca’ moment…You can kind of understand why Republicans have this almost instinctive fear of the Internet, where the mob rules.”
Uneven Stevens.
“I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.” Via my sis-in-law Lotta, GOP Senator Ted “Bridge to Nowhere” Stevens (R-AK) seems more than slightly confused about the functioning of the Internets, to use Dubya’s parlance.
Scooter.com.
“Scooter Libby has a Web site. He’s not running for office, but the site makes it looks like he is. The lead picture on the front page shows him with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Other snapshots portray him in soft focus and at oblique angles, the kinds of images candidates use to make themselves look more huggable.” Slate‘s John Dickerson evaluates the web presence of the Libby Legal Defense Trust (put together by Scooter’s big-ticket friends), and what it tells us about Libby’s probable defense strategy.
Count the Votes!
As seen at Now This and through the hard work of Derek at The Scoop, the Post now features a Congressional Vote Database, which lets you browse every single vote since 1991. Among other things, the site tallies late night votes and perennial vote-missers, and lets you see vote results by party, region, boomer status, and even astrological sign. Now that’s a great tool…nice work, y’all.