thoughtmechanics

I’m not sure when it happened (I think it was yesterday), but Matt went ahead and released WP 2.0. I spotted it a little while ago and as of 9:21pm EST, Thought Mechanics is powered by it. The upgrade went ridiculously smooth.

Yikes, I just got done reading Wired’s Worst Tech Moments 2005 and man, 2005 had some UGLY ones. They’ve listed a bunch, but I’ll limit this post to my personal picks.

Commerce Department Blocks .xxx Domain:
In a move that would help isolate porn on the net and even help make it easier for parents to block content from unsuspecting children by adding a .xxx top level domain to the Internet, a Christian group called the Family Research Council said no. They felt that a top level domain dedicated to porn sites would somehow magically double the number of porn sites on the net.

Prompted by a flood of mail from the Republican base, Michael Gallagher, assistant secretary at the U.S. Commerce Department, drafted a letter to ICANN chairman Vint Cerf asking for the new domain to be delayed. It was; and in that moment any illusion that the internet’s critical domain-name system was immune from U.S. political whims evaporated.

There you have it, Republicans once again overlook their own philosophy of small government in favor of ideology. (more…)