Saturday, November 23, 2002
Friday, November 22, 2002
Looks like Glenn Reynolds has yet another BlogChild.
(Interestingly he has chosen the same template as the Unablogger.)
I'm reminded of a sci-fi book I read years ago (the title of which I forget right now) in which people spent their days at home acting in large radio soap operas, playing roles with other participants who were staying in their homes.
(What do you expect, real jokes on a site called "The Comedian"? I live in Connecticut for God's sake, insurance comedy is big up here.)
I am now listening to a man who lied to me. I happened to home the day of the "riot" in Florida, watching it all on the various cable news outlets, and it was no such thing. It was a lot of angry, loud, yet extremely well behaved Republicans protesting illegal behavior.
A big topic of the panel discussion was trust and track record, and Kaus has lost my trust.
Mickey Kaus of The Kaus Files delivering
"A lot of half-baked ideas that he
expects us to finish, just like a blog."
Also, he notes that there is "No such thing as 'half an idea' to a blogger," and no one wonders “If anybody had this idea before.”
Question One: Will blogging displace traditional media?
A. -- No.
Question two...
Blawgs as marketing legal services. Use a well written Blawg to showcase talent, build trust, and make information accessible to potential clients. It can be scary for practicing attorneys to allow people to "look under the hood" of the legal process, but in the end you can hope to bring in paying business by building a presence on the web.
Keeping a site updated often helps improve Google ranking, which can lead to more exposure.
Librarians act as “connectors” (a term from “The Tipping Point”), that is, they put people with information.
Name of her blog is "The Shifted Librarian" because now information finds her, not the other way around.
By syndicated sites using RSS, she is now able to keep up with 170 websites on a daily basis.
Information can now follow people 24/7 on wireless PDA links using aggregators. What will the impact of this be?
Professor Reynolds answers some questions
about Blogs vs. Big Media
Also, the contingent character means initial reports are taken lightly.
Repeat readership of most blogs improves value of retractions.
If an entry is on a blog for a long time, uncorrected, it is likely true, as it would have been corrected if wrong.
Because it is cheap to blog, you don’t have to make money to do it.
Big media is imitating blogosphere now, but it seems more like those old state sponsored Soviet rock bands than the real thing.
Newspaper is a lecture, blogs are a conversation.
(MS Word doesn’t know blog as a word…)
Blogs are cheap, “Thin Media”. So is the revenue. Unlimited bandwidth for $36 a month.
"How did Salon get $75Million in debt?"
Thursday, November 21, 2002
"If entertainment becomes so much a part of politics," he said, "and if that entertainment drives an emotional movement in this country among some people who don't know the difference between entertainment and politics and who are then so energized to go out and hurt somebody, that troubles me about where politics in America is going."Hmmm, blurring the line between politics and entertainment, eh? Do you think he means things like
- Inviting Julia Roberts to testify before Congress about a disease that strikes young girls?
- Having Michael J. Fox & Muhammed Ali testify about Parkinson's disease?
- Drooling over Christie Brinkley as she spews forth about nuclear energy while draped before the Environment committee?
- Propping Backstreet Boy Kevin Richardson up before the U.S. Senate subcommittee on environment and public works to talk about coal-mining?
- Anthony Edwards testimony on Autism?
- Having Senator Joe Lieberman attempt to get an assistant director credit on everything Hollywood produces, trying to make sure it meets with his content approval?
- Elton John's appearace, while dressed in a Versace suit, grubbing for more money for his pet cause?
Wednesday, November 20, 2002
"I think it's a serious business," he told journalists. "I think that humour is not in very good taste when one thinks of the men and women of the Canadian Forces who fly in those helicopters, and their families."Apparently it is OK to send servicemen and women out to do their jobs in dangerously antiquated equipment, but for God's sake don't joke about it. The song was made by people who actually do have to fly in these heaps, so the Minister's comments seem entirely self-serving.
BTW, here's the lyrics of the genuinely funny song.
Sea Kings in the SunUPDATE:The CBC has a good summary of the history of Canada's Sea Kings.
(Sung to the tune of Seasons in the Sun)Goodbye papa please pray for me
My helicopter's crashing in the sea
I honestly don't mean to pout,
but my future is in doubt,
My co-pilot just fell out.
Goodbye papa it's hard to fly,
When my airframe is cracking in the sky,
For every hour in the air,
it takes them 30 to repair,
We fly these things on a dare.
We've had joy, we've had fun,
We've had Sea Kings in the sun,
But the engines are on fire,
and the Sea Kings must retire,
Goodbye Chrétien my stingy one,
You could have bought the EH-101,
Instead you blew 500 mil,
Just to cancel out the bill,
Now I need an airsick pill.
We've had joy, we've had fun,
We've had Sea Kings in the sun
We'll be lucky if we reach,
a crash landing on the beach.
While even recently canceled "Ally McBeal" sweats and fantasizes in her own disturbing Skeletor way, wedding porn takes all the dirtiness out of romance. Each scenario is meant to get our hearts (but not our parts) fluttering. This isn't about sex, it's about shopping. For men. Maybe, just maybe, there's some passing reference to a nice butt, but the comment is made from a great distance, like the appreciative but almost clinical observations of a mother in her mid-60s who considers herself out of the game. Instead, we're supposed to get hot over the fact that Prince Charming has his own posh bachelor pad, that he buys fresh flowers and nice dinners, that he's earnest and doe-eyed. "Sweetness" is the Holy Grail, the ultimate turn-on. Can this man fuck his way out of a paper bag? Maybe not, but he recycles!
Monday, November 18, 2002
Since Nevada has a large number of high-end vehicles, she says, ''this is a big-time money loser, and it's not being done by people who can't afford it.''And then there's the useful-idiots, folks who would tell the master about their fellow slaves misdeeds.
Meanwhile, Christopher Lively prowls his Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Glover Park several nights a week with a laptop computer. His target: cars with out-of-state plates hogging valuable parking spaces. ''It's not just parking, it's revenue for the city,'' he says. ''It's people hoping to pay lower, out-of-state insurance premiums and end up raising my bills. It's people who don't want to get their cars inspected. It's people avoiding jury duty. And sometimes, it's people trying to avoid paying D.C. income taxes.''Lively, 39, is a property manager and elected neighborhood commissioner who has pressed for city action to stop the license plate scofflaws. He even became a reserve police officer to help.
Lively and three neighbors have accompanied police officers three nights a week since 1999. Police spot the suspected vehicles, and the volunteers run the plate numbers through the computer. The officer must issue the citation. The district launched a citywide enforcement program this summer.
Some people disapprove of Lively's efforts.
''They ask me, 'Why aren't you out fighting crooks,' '' he says. But most residents ''smile, applaud me and say thanks for doing a good job.''
comTuba Boy
