Cyprus: No Cash Until March 26th

Cyprus banks to remain closed another 2 days

Banks in Cyprus will remain closed for another two days as officials try to find a new plan to stave off financial ruin, the central bank’s spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Aliki Stylianou confirmed the additional two-day closure for Thursday and Friday. As next Monday is a national bank holiday in Cyprus, the institutions will not reopen before next Tuesday at the earliest.

How much of a disaster is this?

Seriously: MYOFB

Family’s Home Raided over Facebook Photo of Child’s Rifle

New Jersey police and Dept. of Children and Families officials raided the home of a firearms instructor and demanded to see his guns after he posted a Facebook photo of his 11-year-old son holding a rifle.

“Someone called family services about the photo,” said Evan Nappen, an attorney representing Shawn Moore. “It led to an incredible, heavy-handed raid on his house. They wanted to see his gun safe, his guns and search his house. They even threatened to take his kids.”

Don’t you have better things — any damn thing — to do with your life than to stick your nose into someone else’s life?

You can question the judgment of the guy for posting such a photo, but some exchange of emails could have led to some public clarification on his post that could have prevented the Iron Fist of the State from barging into his life.

Simply Wrong

Exhibit A in the Case That Newly-Hired Apple VP of Technology Kevin Lynch Is a Bozo, a Bad Hire

That post is a bit of a shock, calling out someone as a Bozo.

The trouble is, what the hell did Gruber expect him to say as an Adobe employee? That Flash sucked and don’t use it?

For all we know, he could have agreed with Jobs but what the hell could he do?

Anyone who has been in the belly of the corporate beast understands how even the smartest, brightest, even genius-level people can be screwed and have their intelligence misused, abused, and wasted (hasn’t anyone learned anything from HP + Palm and Todd Bradley?). I’ve seen it happen too many times to assign blame to any single person other than the one at the top.

Same-day update: Exhibit B: Defending/Denying Flash Player’s Adverse Effect on Battery Life, a Mere Two Years Ago

Gruber now adds:

I get that the guy worked for Adobe and had to play for the home team, but as CTO he backed a dying technology for years too long.

Again: What did he expect him to do? Resign? Stop. This is silly. Let’s wait and see what he does at/for Apple (and don’t expect him to trash-talk Flash while there, either).

Previously here:

Simply Stupid

Welcome To My 2006, Kindle Users!

Amazon launches “Send to Kindle” button for web publishers and WordPress blogs

Waaaaay back in 2006, having encountered the newly-released Sony Reader, I wrote:

4) “Sitecasting” and “Blogcasting.” I made this one up. But think of it. Imagine, each week or two, blogs issuing a compilation of what they’ve published during that time in Reader format. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’d love to see that done for sites that publish a lot each day, such as JK on the Run, Teleread, and Palm Addicts. For sites that offer reviews (such as The Gadgeteer), a compilation of just that material could be offered. I think “blogcasts” could offer people a better way to sample more blogs than sitting at a PC and flailing away with search engines and links. I always feel pressured sitting at a PC. Sitting back with the Reader will allow me to read sites and blogs more. Along with all of the RSS, XML, digg, and other such icons now on sites, I’d like to see a new one added. One that in effect says, “Put this site on my Sony Reader.”

Well, we’re still not there (although the dotEPUB plug-in and similar ones are great) but this Send To Kindle feature is a good start.

I even jumped the gun on it by offering a few long posts here as ePub files.

Right now, the Send To Kindle feature is for self-hosted WordPress blogs. I’ve emailed WordPress Support to find out if there’s any chatter about offering it here at free WordPress. If it’s made available (and I think it will be), I’ll add it to this blog.