The WikiLeaks video: arms-length slaughter
By Eric Pettifor
An important story over at WikiLeaks concerns what appears to be the slaughter of innocent civilians by American forces, including two Reuters news staff, in Iraq . I should warn you that the video is very disturbing, taken as it is from the Apache helicopter doing the firing.
I’ll leave it to a [...]
Jet pack? NOT!
By Eric Pettifor
Where is my jet pack? It has been the future now for at least 10 years, or so it seems from the perspective of someone who was alive when men landed on the moon for the first time. Some might say that was the beginning of the future. After all the 1958 [...]
Hitler to Wait for HP Slate
By Eric Pettifor
Apple’s iPad has been out for awhile now, long enough for tons of opinion pieces to be written, so no need for me to add to the noise, especially when so many of my reservations have been so well expressed by none other than Adolph Hitler. Apparently, for him, the final straw [...]
Sexbot? Not!
By Eric Pettifor
Back at the end of 2007, my tech prediction was that 2008 would be the year of the sexbot. This seemed a sure thing based on two developments: highly realistic sex dolls like those from RealDoll, and a cute little dinobot called Pleo capable of responding to human interaction and its environment. [...]
End Times for the iPhone
By Eric Pettifor
2010 could prove to be the year of the iPhone killer, but, if so, Apple’s bereavement will simply be collateral damage in the ever-raging battle between giants Microsoft and Google. Google’s Android on a Google phone won’t deliver the death blow, but it will be a sign of the end times.
Android is [...]
The Terrifying Tale of Textbook Tammy
By Eric Pettifor
I was chatting with a friend about the high cost of textbooks, and he recalled a young woman of his acquaintance from his university days who made some extra cash by selling photocopies of textbooks. I didn’t ask how she did this. Did she hang around on campus wearing a big [...]
What would Jesus do (if he were on a website and it had ads)?
By Eric Pettifor
J.D. Frazer’s book Money for Content and Your Clicks for Free is more interesting for the insight it provides into the business side of the online comic strip User Friendly than as a putative how-to book. (Frazer has written User Friendly under the pen name Illiad since 1997.) As a how-to book, its [...]
Nasty Old People Nice
By Eric Pettifor
I just finished watching a new film out of Sweden titled Nasty Old People. I downloaded it off the internet with my trusty bittorrent client. Very rarely will I see a film in a cinema that I haven’t previewed this way. Would I shell out to see Nasty Old People [...]
