The sad tale of Power Computer (and no, they weren't bought by Apple)
Most Mac users of a certain age remember Power Computing, the Mac cloner who undercut Apple with better machines back in the mid-90s. Apple ended up buying Power Computing out and putting an end to the clone market. Well if you can’t compete, use your financial muscle.
It’s often said that Apple bought the company – but it didn’t. Even Wikipedia gets this wrong, claiming that Power was an Apple subsidiary. In fact, what Apple bought was the Mac-related assets of Power, including the license to make Mac clones. Apple did not acquire the company.
And, in fact, Power had a brief life post-Apple acquisition. It attempted to launch an Intel-based Windows laptop, the PowerTrip. However, it seems to have run out of money before it could launch – at least I can’t find any references to anyone ever getting their hands on the PowerTrip – and it got sued by its suppliers.
By the end of January 1998, Power was gone. Ironically, if the company had survived for longer, the $100m in Apple stock would have been worth a lot, lot more than Power itself ever was or could have been.
I’m sure that somewhere in a box, I still have some of their stickers.
Systemic Risk Reporting: A System in Crisis?
Instead of relying on platforms or regulators to define how risks should be conceptualized and mitigated, a joint approach is needed—one that builds on expertise by civil society, academics and activists, and emphasizes best practices. A collaborative approach would help make sense of these complex challenges and how they can be addressed in ways that strengthen users’ rights and protect fundamental rights.
The “something” that I was testing earlier (which worked) is the integration between Drummer and Micro.blog. I’ve always been a fan of outliners, and I’m interested in maybe using this one.
File under “things which make absolutely no sense at all”
Tom MacDonald and Roseanne Barr have written what can loosely be called ‘a song’ for Trump’s inauguration. And it is as bad as you might expect. The first lines are:
We won, you mad/It’s done, too bad/Boo-hoo, so sad/Now your daddy’s home
SpaceX calls their explosions “rapid unscheduled disassemblies,” which I think is intended as a joke, a parody of corporate euphemisms (while still trying to deflect attention from the danger). It reminds me of the language used by manufacturers of certain types of light bulbs. When their products explode, they call it a “nonpassive failure.” And they’re not trying to be funny.
Did Donald Trump Really Just Drop a Solana Meme Coin? - Decrypt
On-chain sleuths pointed to potential red flags, including the apparent fact that the project was seeded with millions of dollars of funds from Binance and Gate—two exchanges that don’t serve U.S. customers. But some other apparent concerns diminished with further sleuthing, not to mention with time as Trump’s social posts remained online.
Barf.
Over on my big school blog, Ten Blue Links is a day late, but you’ll forgive that, won’t you?
Some nifty news: Ghost is getting ActivityPub features this year. This makes me even happier that I moved from WordPress to Ghost.
Mark Zuckerberg lies about content moderation to Joe Rogan’s face
In fact, many of the controversial moderation calls Facebook made in the pandemic were during the Trump administration. Take, for instance, the “Plandemic” video hoax: Facebook removed the video in 2020. Joe Biden took office in 2021. If Zuckerberg was dealing with an administration pressuring him about this, it was the Trump administration. The Biden White House may well have engaged in similar outreach, but it was joining what was already an active discussion about Facebook moderation.
Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation is planning to target Wikipedia moderators. So there’s that.
Flat tax rate is an ‘attractive idea’, Kemi Badenoch says | Kemi Badenoch
From the department of batshit Tories, we bring you this:
At the moment, we are a welfare state with a little bit of a productivity attached to it. We’ve got to turn that around.
I’m going to make a subclause of Betteridge’s Law for this one which changes “no” to “nothing good”.
Meanwhile, the billionaires would very much like you to know it’s now illegal not to give them your money.
