A Commercial History of the Personal Computer

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If you haven’t already seen this go now to A Brief History of Computers, As Seen in Old TV Adds put together with commentary by Harry McCracken at PC World’s Techblog!

It’s been said that the average American will see two million TV commercials by the time he or she turns 65. Doing some quick math in my head, I believe that means that I’ve seen…well, a terrifyingly large number of commercials for PCs and related products over the past 26 years or so. You too, maybe.

One of the many perversely fascinating things about YouTube is that its users have uploaded a remarkable percentage of those ads to the site, including both famous and obscure examples. Watch enough of them, in the right order, and what you have is a history of the PC in American life.

Well, perhaps you should wait until you get home from workas you might want to spend just a bit too much time watching this fascinating collection of commercials.

As cool as many of these ads are Americans might get just a slight feeling of having been short changed if they check out the example of why the author did not include commercials from Europe in his selections:

Q: Where are these commercials from?
A: The U.S., as far as I know. Rule one of European computer commercials: They’re too dirty for American TV.

I don’t agree with the ‘dirty’ description at all but, yes, this one is probably not work friendly.

If You Have Young Children…

This entry was posted in Health Care on by

…turn off the television!

As a final point, although as discussed our results do not definitively prove that early childhood television watching is an important trigger for autism, we believe our results provide sufficient support for the possibility that until further research can be conducted it might be prudent to act as if it were. page 42

You should turn off the TV for your children anyway but this is certainly another great reason to do so.

Via /.Science

George Will Has Lost Count

This entry was posted in Drug Laws on by

As noted here a while back:

The us congress has passed legislation which prohibits US banking institutions from processing credit card and funds transfer transactions by once free residents of the United States with internet gambling companies.

Now president w has signed the legislation.
George Will rips the new prohibition and provides some detail on which slime balls are benefitting.
Unfortunately George can’t count:

Perhaps Prohibition II is being launched because Prohibition I worked so well at getting rid of gin. Or maybe the point is to reassure social conservatives that Republicans remain resolved to purify Americans’ behavior. Incorrigible cynics will say Prohibition II is being undertaken because someone stands to make money from interfering with other people making money.

Surely, Prohibition II is the failed war on drugs and this gambling stupidity might reasonably be called Prohibition III. Except, that as Will points out:

Forty-eight states (all but Hawaii and Utah) have some form of legalized gambling. Forty-two states have lottery monopolies. Thirty-four states rake in part of the take from casino gambling, slot machines or video poker.

Hardly seems to qualify as a prohibition does it? Nevertheless the federal action reeks of the same broken rationales as Prohibition I and the horrendous war on drugs.
When a foreign government or an al quaeda kills Americans, destroys their lives, our response has been clear and strong: see WWII and Afghanistan. If a foreign government had ruined as many American lives as the war on drugs there would be a massive outcry to obliterate said foreign government. Why do we give our local, state and federal governments a pass?

Via A Stitch In Haste.