miamime

Which to save: The Everglades or U.S. Sugar?

willplasencia — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:27:19 +0000

via nytimes.com

Did anyone ever have a doubt that Big Sugar was in control of this deal?

Posted via web from miamime

Oh, Rick. He tries. Too much.

willplasencia — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:46:57 +0000

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

The Uninformant

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Reform

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Milk of the Gods

willplasencia — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:29:22 +0000

via nytimes.com

Growing up, you couldn’t walk into a Cuban-American home and not find sweetened condensed milk. We used to pour it on all sorts of things. Even Coca-Cola. Read the NYTimes food article about it.

Posted via web from miamime

Oops, my bad.

willplasencia — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:05:07 +0000

“My chairmanship is bringing so much attention to the press,” said Rangel, 79. ” . . . In order to avoid my colleagues having to defend me during their elections, I have this morning sent a letter” asking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “to grant me a leave of absence until such time as the ethics committee completes its work.”

The ethics committee reprimanded Rangel after concluding that his staff was aware that corporations, such as American Airlines, financed his 2007 and 2008 trips to Caribbean resorts for conferences. That broke new House rules forbidding such privately financed travel. While the committee could not conclude that Rangel knew of the backing, the panel found him culpable for his staff’s knowledge.

via washingtonpost.com

I am not a Rangel fan. By any stretch.

Posted via web from miamime

The funniest commercial I’ve seen lately – Old Spice

willplasencia — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:02:29 +0000

via youtube.com

This really is a ridiculous but funny commercial.

Posted via web from miamime

Totally. Want. One. Of. These.

willplasencia — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:41:21 +0000

via wired.com

Now, if only I had a MacBook…

Posted via web from miamime

The most beautiful sight in the world

willplasencia — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:31:44 +0000

via nytimes.com

Posted via web from miamime

NYTimes: Haitians See Chance to Gain Clout

willplasencia — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:58:13 +0000

I’ve been seeing this trend growing steadily in Miami. I hope it accelerates. Haitians here have been marginalized for far too long.

“We succeed as individuals, not so much as a community,” said Nadege Fleurimond, a Haitian who immigrated to New York when she was 7 and graduated from Columbia University.

via nytimes.com

Posted via web from miamime

J.D. Salinger, dead at age 91. God help those phonies.

willplasencia — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:29:04 +0000

J. D. Salinger, certainly was to me and to many others, one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century. He died Wednesday at his home in Cornish, N.H. He was 91. Read on, for the New York Times obituary on him, and later I’ll post my own thoughts and links to other tributes.

You raved and you bitched when you came home about the stupidity of audiences. The goddam ‘unskilled laughter’ coming from the fifth row. And that’s right, that’s right — God knows it’s depressing. I’m not saying it isn’t. But that’s none of your business, really. That’s none of your business, Franny. An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.

Franny and Zooey (1961)

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My thoughts on Apple’s new iPad

willplasencia — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:23:38 +0000

I know I acted blasé given the level of anticipation leading up to Apple’s launch today of the iPad, but I was just as intrigued as the next geek. And now that the iPad has been revealed in all its terrifyingly world-changing glory, I’m still unimpressed.

The iPad has many of the iPhone’s faults – ones that Apple stubbornly refuses to acknowledge or at the least give some indication that, yeah, there’s still work to be done:

No camera. WTF? To me, this is the most serious failing of the iPad because it had all the makings of a killer interactive communications device. Yes, I know the iPhone has a camera and it sucks.

It doesn’t have a removable battery. That’s a deal killer for anyone who travels a lot or travels to places where electric plugs are greeted with the same skepticism you might give the advances of a “dancer” in a dimly lit Rio nightclub. Battery life degrades over time, and after a few cross-continental trips I can assure you the iPad won’t be getting Apple’s claimed 10-hour battery life.

No removable storage. I own an 80Gb iPod and it’s nearly filled to the gills. No way can I carry around all my music, videos, podcasts plus all the apps I’d like to have without more storage.

No Flash. Let me for the record repeat my oft-said phrase, “I HATE Flash.” But the interwebs is full of pernicious Flash animation, so I have to deal with that, and you can’t on the iPhone and you can’t on the iPad. I’m sure Adobe is furiously whipping their slave elves to push out a version, but would it kill you, Apple, to at least give us an estimated time for arrival?

I refuse to pay hundreds of dollars to be part of Apple’s beta testing team. Because that’s what first-adopters who buy the iPad really will amount to.

I will not buy a first-generation iPad, just like I didn’t get a first-gen iPhone. Unless Apple addresses some of these issues, I don’t really ever see myself buying one when I can get real work done on a netbook or desktop and superior data syncing and connectivity through an Android or Palm phone. [Full disclosure: My Blackberry and I are having issues. We’re trying to work them out. But I’m not too hopeful.]

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