Ye Olde Test Post

This post is used to test code.

Read the full article →

Narrowband Wastelands? Of rural America, death spirals, and the Narrow Belt

Looking back they will say: “It could have been avoided.” They will say: “If only the government had been more effective, if only the telecommunication conglomerates had been less greedy.” Somewhere it will be noted that, back in the Fall of 2010, somebody wrote: The fact that tens of millions of people living in America’s [...]

Read the full article →

Of Nerds and Whitepapers, Satellites and Cynics

Thumbnail image for Of Nerds and Whitepapers, Satellites and Cynics

You know you are a nerd if…You spend your spare time writing technical whitepapers. And that’s what I’ve been doing. Apparently, it’s not nerdy enough that, for the last two years, I have spent at least 40 hours a week–and often many more–working on contract for a software company for whom, among other things, I [...]

Read the full article →

Back-dated, Scriptified, Testing

I’ve been working on some video-blogging techniques to show people what some of the malware and malicious activity that we write looks like on screen. Here is an example:

Read the full article →

Zero Privacy: Thoughts on McNealy and Zuckerberg and “privacy statements”

Thumbnail image for Zero Privacy: Thoughts on McNealy and Zuckerberg and “privacy statements”

In some of my recent posts about privacy, occasioned by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s apparently dismissive attitude to privacy concerns, I referenced the “infamous” privacy comment that Scott McNealy made in 1999.

Read the full article →

Mark Zuckerberg Faces the Privacy Meter: Facebook trends open book

Thumbnail image for Mark Zuckerberg Faces the Privacy Meter: Facebook trends open book

Face it folks, it’s time to dust off the Privacy Meter for a quick check of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. According to an internal source, Mr. Zuckerberg has placed himself in the camp made (in)famous in 1999 by Scott McNealy, the CEO of Sun Microsystems, who was reported to have said: “You already have zero [...]

Read the full article →

An Irish View of the Celtic Curse

I was browsing the Iron Disorders Institute web site last night and came across a story about hemochromatosis in an Irish newspaper. Since hemochromatosis is known as the Celtic Curse–on account of its relatively high rate of occurrence in persons of Celtic ancestry–I thought this would be an interesting perspective on my wife’s condition (and [...]

Read the full article →

My “Satellite is Not Broadband” Letter to the Editor, FCC Test Data, and More

I just noticed that my letter to the editor of the Daily Star about rural broadband was published (back on February 15). I have pasted the letter at the bottom of this post. The letter is part of my ongoing campaign to evangelize the need for affordable broadband connectivity in rural areas. I truly believe [...]

Read the full article →

Back to the Futurama: That’s the way this Hummer rolls

Congratulations to Brooklyn-based artist Jeremy Dean for realizing his vision: Creating a horse-drawn Hummer as a modern incarnation of the Hoovercart and getting it into a major art show. When Jeremy says he’s going to get something done, it usually gets done. Passengers in this rolling sculpture are treated to leather seats and flatscreens playing [...]

Read the full article →

3 Pleasing Things: Office software, wireless router, and boots to boot

Too often a blog post ends up as a vent or rant about stuff that annoys the blogger (been there, done that). When I started writing this post I was pretty annoyed by a head cold I caught at a trade show last week, but I figured that expressing this in a blog post was [...]

Read the full article →

I’ve Moved! But I’m still here…

Last night I completed the move of cobbsblog.com to a new hosting service! Moving a web site is not that hard, but moving a WordPress blog with all that SQL database stuff can be tricky. So please let me know via the comments if you see anything missing or not working right. Fortunately I found [...]

Read the full article →

Over 1,300 Blog Posts and Counting

Stephen Cobb has written more than 1,300 blog posts covering everything from Art to XMRV.

Read the full article →

Now Blogging Back to the Futurama: From 1939 to 2009 and back

My good friend Jeremy Dean is now blogging his wild and crazy Back to the Futurama art project. I have written about this project elsewhere (Jeremy Dean’s Back to the Futurama: A moving art project rolls from Hummers to horse carts). Now, as the car industry is putting on its annual show in Detroit, Jeremy [...]

Read the full article →

Where Does The Time Go? Is all this time-saving technology to blame?

My good intentions to research the CFS/ME/XMRV/CDC thing have fallen prey to all kinds of technology. There’s the technology I work on marketing at my day job, which requires a part of every day. Then there’s the technology that distracts me, like Kindle for the iPhone, whereon I am reading the last book in the [...]

Read the full article →

XMRV, ME, CFS, CDC: Thanks for the input

I just wanted to thank everyone who has commented on the previous post about XMRV, CFS/ME and hemochromatosis. I have learned a lot from you all and am still reading through the references and blog links you provided. I hope to post my thoughts this weekend. Stephen (D2EXAZ7XW96R)

Read the full article →

XMRV Hits #55 in the Top 100 for 2009: But what the heck is it?

XMRV! Is it a band? Is it a car? Is it a hot new computer game or a cool new radio station for fans of recreational vehicles? No, XMRV is a virus, a retrovirus that is at the heart of one of the top scientific discoveries of 2009, recently listed as number 55 on the [...]

Read the full article →

Opera to the Rescue? Definitely worth a listen

I just spent my evening at the Opera. Not the fat lady sings kind of opera, more of a browser with wings kind of thing that just happens to go by the name Opera. And I am really impressed (even though I’m tone deaf and can’t tell a libretti from a Lambretta). I have checked [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →