Friday, March 29, 2002
Quick: cue up "Blame Canada"
More protectionist bullshit, this time from the movie industry. Or one of its unions, anyway. For whatever it matters, Jack Valenti opposes it, saying "I am standing alongside a good many of my colleagues to oppose attempts by others in Hollywood to impose countervailing duties on Canada."
Of course it won't happen, so it hardly matters.
Thanks to Doug for the link.
Starring Peggy Noonan as herself
Here's a nice long piece on the Oscars.
Say where?
I mistakenly postted the four items below in yesterday's blog, which was still open next to today's on my screen. I just moved them to today. If you have links to any of them, they are now broken. But the problem only lived for an hour or two at most, so chances are not too many links were made. And it isn't like I took the stuff away. I just moved them from /29 to /29 on the calendar part of the link. Easily fixed at the pointers' ends. Anyway, sorry about that.
Uncommonplaces
We're somewhere under there
Speaking of Webcams (see below), I dig this one from Mt. Wilson overlooking Los Angeles and (as the stations that broadcast from towers right next to the cam put it) most of Southern California. This morning it's all undercast: the clouds are below the summit. Ugly from below, but pretty from above.
Bad news, as it turned out
Lynn Unleshed is another blogger who thinks New York Times writer Lisa Guernsey was worse than wrong when she wrote As the Web Matures, Fun Is Hard to Find; she was utterly one-sided and deeply uninformed. Here's how Lynn puts it:
In this NY Times article by Lisa Guernsey, Glenn Davis bemoans the lack of fun and bizarre sites on the Web and fondly recalls such sites as the Coffee Cam, the Fish Tank Cam and the Mr. Potato Head site. This was a huge shock to me because the Web is littered with this sort of thing. So Mr. Davis likes webcams. He should take a look at EarthCam where there are hundreds of webcams showing everything imaginable: ashtrays, litterboxes, the insides of closets and refrigerators, a chia pet, guinea pigs and various other small pets, fish tanks, ant farms, a cup full of pens sitting on a desktop, a trash can, a lava lamp plus dozens of personal cams. When I first discovered webcams I was fascinated with them for about half an hour before I got bored with them but if that's what you're into you can find more than enough of them to stay entertained.
I'm the same way about Webcams, which is why that item didn't even catch my attention when I first read the Times article. But Lynn nails the problem: Prosecutorial in its tendentiousness, Guernsey's piece presents testimony against the Web by a series of expert witnesses and exhibits, and offers exactly nothing in its defense, despite a plentitude of it. Take these two paragraphs here:
There are other signs that all is not well in Webville. For the first time, the number of expiring domain names outnumbers those being registered or renewed, according to SnapNames, an industry research company in Portland, Ore. Although the SnapNames report theorizes that many of the expired domains were simply unused placeholders for existing companies, like those who wanted a .org version of their .com site, there is no counterbalancing rush to build new sites.
In addition, researchers at several online measurement companies have found that the rate of growth in new sites and unique visitors has slumped in recent months. And about 20 percent of public Web sites that existed nine months ago no longer exist, according to a sample studied last week by the Online Library Computer Center, a nonprofit library group in Dublin, Ohio. Separate research shows that of the sites that are still operating, a large number have been taken over by pornography.
Meanwhile Netcraft, in its latest survey of over 38 million sites on the Web, found a 1.75 million increase.
Guernsey's story wasn't a story. It was an op-ed piece presented as news.
Research help wanted
A few weeks back the Wall Street Journal had lead story about a young female Irish recording artist who only sold 300-some records after the record company spent someting like $3 million recording and promoting her. I can't find anything, and lack enough clear search terms to nail it down on the WSJ site (where I'm a subscriber).
If any of ya'll know anything, I could dig it. (And vice versa.)
Adding another .0002% to the oeuvre
Yesterday I wrote Some Thoughts About Microsoft in the comments section of a posting that was pulled down (perhaps wisely) by its author. He kindly sent me the text this morning. I just made a few small edits and put it behind the link above.
That's okay, it's only "content"
My trash file says I tossed 100 spams today, and it's only 8:30am. Maybe it's time for another one of these. There are so many new sucker categories to cover: wholesale jewelry, anti-virus software discounts, obscure trade association membershps, keys to financial freedom with no apparent keyholes, — and, of course, this: ¬¸¡ «¦‡ˆ½È µµøÚ¿Ã µ…ƒ‰ Û¥¬
Good Friday, it's God
Halley's Comment on Maundy Thursday:
Even if you don't like the Jesus of it, or the pomp and circumstance of it, there's a lot to be said for the concept of "forgiveness". Try forgiving the guy who cuts you off in traffic today. Try forgiving the significant other who doesn't get home on time, forgets to get milk or burns dinner today. Try forgiving the arrogant jerks at Enron. As an idea, it will make a more joyful world. We high-tech folks often find human flaws exasperating. (Code is unforgiving, after all.)
Sort of related is Twists and turns, in The Obvious:
We all become rigid and more inflexible with age and its not just our bodies. I have learned all sorts of rigidness in attitude, in expectations. I've built up patterns of pain which limit my intellectual and spiritual movement just as much as my side limits my physical movement.
A slashdotting would be a good start
Arbitron Throws the Book at CARP is a piece I wrote at the Linux Journal site. Since Arbitron's letter isn't the huge news item it ought to be, I'm hoping this urges things along a bit.
Here are a few more open letters and petitions to complement Arbitron's:
From Femme FataleFrom RAINFrom Live365 (a very good one, crafted by the real lawyers for the Web's largest Webcsting portal)From public broadcastersBeethoven.comPOV RadioThe Wizard fkapMary Wehmeier
For more big picture context, here's Wharton's review of Larry Lessig's The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World.
As Skoop Nisker sez, If you don't like the news, go make some of your own
Steven Levy has checked in with a Newsweek Web Exclusive on PC Forum. Good reporter that he is, he found something I only guessed at: that up to half the audience was not only on laptops, but connected to the Net, live, by wi-fi.
He also reports on what happens to an unsavory speaker when there are Net-connected bloggers in the audience. Great piece.
One small correction: I didn't do the Yahoo Finance research. My source did. He read my post that said "Nobody likes Qwests's Joe Nacchio," and sent me an email with the Yahoo link. I posted it as a link under the words "Some context," Dan blogged it, and it kinda spread from there, I guess.
In the world of online journalism, we're all stringers for each other.