Category: Aside

EU votes in favor of universal mobile charger

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date March 17, 2014

550 votes to 12 says that chargers need to be standardized.

Awesome news for consumers in Europe who have to deal with the multitude of manufacturers that use proprietary adaptors for no clear purpose. Note: I exclude Apple from the ‘no clear purpose’ category, as lightening adaptors are wickedly more awesome to use than microUSB. This is a fact I’m reminded of every time I plug in my Android phone and wife plugs in her iPhone. Especially when doing so in dimly lit situations (i.e. almost every night in the dark).

On that note, USB Type-C connectors (which, like lightening connectors, will fit into ports regardless their orientation) cannot come soon enough!

Tags European Union, Standards, USB

Aside Links

CSI and Malaysia 370

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date March 16, 2014

politicalprof:

See, on TV and in the movies (Enemy of the State, anyone), the government always has whatever technology they need at exactly the right moment they need it to solve a problem. Even more, they have unlimited budgets to pursue every case.

So of course people think Malaysia 370 was under total observation all the time. It’s the only story that “makes sense” given what they all “know.”

The ‘CSI effect’ also causes huge problems at jury trials these days, with jurors often unable to believe that a CSI-style analysis of evidence isn’t possible or hasn’t been done. Equally pernicious, CSI-based evidence is often held in higher regard, now, that previously on the basis that it must be accurate. Because, you know, unless you’re dealing with the master-villian of the series the CSI analyses are likely to have successfully drawn conclusions.

Yay TV and technology?

Tags Education, Evidence, Technology, Television

Aside Links

Queen’s Park backs slowly away from transit-dedicated tax hikes

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date March 16, 2014

Toronto desperately needs serious leadership on the transit file, and soon: the condo boom is going to bring even more cars on the streets, and that’s going to aggravate already horrible congestion. If Toronto wants to state that it’s a world city then it needs to have the services you’d expect of such a city. And decent public transit is high on the ‘expected services’ list.

Tags Finances, Ontario, Toronto, Transit

Aside Links

In sudden announcement, US to give up control of DNS root zone

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date March 15, 2014

Signs point to fallout from NSA spying that lead to “multi-stakeholder” model.

This is incredibly huge news. However, given the incredible influence of the Government Advisor Council and relative denigration of the Non-Commercial Users Constituency the shift to multistakeholder governance is going to be fraught with sweet words to distract people from the real politik that has largely consumed Internet governance.