By Sheila
Lennon
'Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
Fair and balanced, too!
June 3, 2005, 6:40 p.m.-- Last
week's weblog
Weekend audio: Liz Donovan, in her Miami
Herald blog (she also writes Infomaniac off
the news site) finds lots
of 78 rpm recordings at the Internet Archive, and other, newer, open
source audio. You'll find 5,885 recordings as of today -- including old
blues, Enrico Caruso, Harry
Houdini (that link is an mp3 originally recorded to an Edison Wax Cylinder
in
1914) and much more.
Browse by style (Blues, Country, Electronic, Experimental, Hiphop, Indie, Jazz, Rock, Spoken
Word), Browse
by artist, Browse
by detailed musical genre, Browse
for recent additions.
Related: Here's an interesting collection of tunes
from the '30s.
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Weekend
games: Poom is
a surprisingly addicting little game, once you get the hang of it. This explanation
of how it works is on several sites, since that doesn't seem to be part of
the game:
...it's worth the effort, as it's your basic keepie-uppie bouncing challenge
with special powerup tiles and tricky 3D graphics thrown in too.
For instance - the green tiles just bounce you back up in the air, the stripey
metal ones stop you bouncing so much, and the target pattern ones shoot you
higher (and the radiation symbols higher still). There's no other point to
it other than to keep bouncing as long as you can, though Chris Rodgers (who
might just be something to do with Archrival) points out that you can "compare
scores to different players on the internet", further advising fans
to "Check out 'Lil Monkey Poo Poo' on the same site".
Controls: Mouse to move tiles to intercept ball on its way down.
Tips: Try to keep an eye on the ball's shadow as the most reliable
indicator of where it's going to fall, and try to hit the bullseye as often
as you can.
Xraye is
definitely an odd one. Simple, as far as I got, but with potential.
More games.
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Do you really want fender-benders at 11? Both
CNN founder Ted Turner and investigative reporter Jim Taricani of NBC Channel
10 in Providence suggest that TV news doesn't have to be so lame..
Taricani, fresh from four months of home confinement for protecting the source
of a leaked videotape in the trial of former Providence mayor Buddy Cianci,
told Ian Donnis of the Providence Phoenix (Back
on the Beat),
...But I think part of the problem that we’ve lost some of the respect
of the public is that we do too much of the so-called sensational news of
the car accidents, and the minor house fires, and the minor police actions,
and I understand why we do them.
But I think that if we got to do more serious, issue-oriented news, I don’t
know — I don’t know if the audience would accept it — but
I think we might gain back some of the respect. ...
...we do research to find out what the public wants to see. And usually
what you see on a newscast is what they want to see, because when we try
other things, the ratings start to go down. I think the public’s a
little bit at fault for being perhaps lazy. You could ask most people in
the public. They could probably tell you an awful lot about American Idol.
Ask that same person something about the selection of the judges going on
in Congress, and they’d probably look at you cross-eyed. So there’s
a two-pronged issue, I think, and the public needs to demand better news,
and we need to give better news.
Ted Turner, speaking Wednesday in Atlanta to CNN employees 25 years after
he founded the network there, leveled much the same criticism (Turner:
CNN Focuses Too Much on Perverts) :
"I would like to see us to return to a little more international coverage
on the domestic feed and a little more environmental coverage, and, maybe,
maybe a little less of the pervert of the day," he said in a speech
to CNN employees outside the old Atlanta mansion where the network first
aired.
"You know, we have a lot of perverts on today, and I know that, but
is that really news? I mean, come on. I guess you've got to cover Michael
Jackson, but not three stories about perversion that we do every day as well."
His remarks won applause and laughter from CNN employees, but the moderator
for Turner's remarks, CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour, said: "But
everyone else is doing that. Why do you think it's important not to?"
Turner replied: "Somebody's got to be a serious news person. Somebody's
got to be the most respected name in television news, and I wanted that position
for CNN....
As I type this, the Michael Jackson case has gone to the jury, and newsrooms
everywhere are bracing.
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Anonymous Library Cards An Option? Interesting idea
at Slashdot:
Ben Ostrowsky writes "On the heels
of the possibility of requiring
fingerprinting to use library resources, librarians don't like hoarding
personally identifiable information; many are keenly aware of privacy concerns.
Now it appears that anonymous
library cards may be a possibility on the horizon. Tell your librarian
you want to be anonymous!" From the article: " You've seen anonymous
cash cards already; you may even have received them before. They're better
known as gift cards. Using the same principle, libraries can issue a borrower
card that uses cash, rather than personal ID information, as collateral.
Here's an example: If a privacy-minded user deposits $20 to get an anonymous
library card, she can check out The Terror State without identifying herself.
Her account balance is temporarily reduced by $15, and when the library
checks the CD back in (in good condition), her balance is restored to its
original value."
A fairly wild discussion
of libraries, poverty and tracking ensues.
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Selling ice cubes to Eskimos? This is funny. It's a keyboard with unmarked
keys. They're all blank.
And a genius has named it "Das Keyboard for ÜberGeeks only," marketing
them like Lamborghinis for geeks, outward symbols of elititude that
pocket protectors don't convey.
Anybody who ever took a typing class knows the shock of seeing naked keys
for the first time. You can't hunt and peck here.
In typing class, where your brain is about to wire your eyes to your fingers,
there's a huge chart at the front of the classroom showing the entire keyboard
layout. Don't look down.
If you like, you can buy this keyboard, tape a card with the standard layout
to the top of your monitor, and teach yourself to touch-type while you revel
in the elite ÜberGeek coolness of a keyboard inspired by generations of
typing classes.
Bonus: Nobody else will use your computer. $79.95.
Afterthought: If these keyboards were "misprints" (i.e., somebody got a deal
on a lot of blank keys), this strategy for moving them should win a prize.
Editors note: A gaggle of editors around me here found elititude a
comprehensible conflation, like anticipointment. I like it.
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So nonstandard: It's been a mystery
to me for years now that Google News only picks
up this handrolled blog a day late and without links after it's syndicated
to the Dallas Morning News and a lot of other Belo sites, many of which are
TV stations.
I finally wrote to Google, pointing out that they could link to my items at
the source, when they're fresh. I explained that I make archive pages and permalinks
so the items can stand alone.
This week I got a very polite, mind-bloggling answer from Google. Here's the
nut:
After some investigation, we've found that our system cannot crawl your
articles because multiple articles are displayed on the same page.
Google News is compiled solely by computer algorithms, and articles are
gathered by crawling news websites. In order to correctly gather articles,
pages that display an article's full text need to have a unique URL. We cannot
include sites in Google News that display multiple articles at the same URL.
...We strive to include as many news sources as possible in Google News
and would be happy to work with you to include your site in the future if
you are able to change to a unique URL-naming scheme.
Thoughts, geeks? (Not possible now: Blogging software on this server, blogging
off this server. Go...)
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An "easter egg" in the Times: Stephanie
Rosenbloom writes in the New York Times (Loosing
Google's Lock on the Past) of her effort to get rid of an ugly photo of
herself on her alma mater's website.
It's a quirky, readable piece that should get a lot of links on its own, but
they may go through the roof because the blogosphere is snickering over a
T-shirt worn in one of the photos accompanying the story, one that went
over the head of all the Times photo editors, apparently. Don't ask.
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June 2, 2005, 8:00 p.m.
Summer
of Code: Seeding software. A great idea from Google, with some
serious money as incentive. Beats flipping burgers as a summer job:
The Summer of Code is Google's program designed to introduce students to
the world of Open Source Software Development.
This Summer, don't let your programming skills lie fallow...Use them for
the greater good of Open Source Software and computer science! Google will
provide a $4500 award to each student who successfully completes an open
source project by the end of the Summer. (payment details can be found in
FAQ)
By pairing applicants up with the proven wisdom and experience of established
prominent open source organizations (listed below), we hope to make great
software happen. If you can't come up with a great idea to submit, a number
of our organizations have made idea lists available.
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"Step" is an essential part of the title: Jeneane
Sessum quotes Jonathon of Stretching Thought in an extraordinary post, Adult
Children of Dead Parents. I'll let her set it up:
Like me, Jonathon experienced
the death of a parent as a kid. I was six, he was fourteen--the same age
as my brother when my dad died. My
dad. His mom.
We have both written about it.
I can't help but pull out Jonathon's comment on
my stepfamily post....
Here's the bad-a-bing, the thing every stepparent should understand when you
get to, "What should you call me?" She's quoting Jonathon here:
I think if they make you call em dad/mom you should have the right
to make them call the new addition the same name as their dead spouse.
That would prolly clue em in a bit.
That is Absolutely The Bomb. Stepkids, listen up. Let me give you the quote,
from Jonathon's mouth to your ears, pure and simple:
"Sure. I'll call Ted 'Dad' if you'll call Ted 'Robert'. Does that work
for you guys, Mom?
That, in a nutshell, is it....
There are no replacements.
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The
Downing Street "Memo" has a website of its own now, and,
as you might expect, it's not a fan site. Here's the primary source, the
text of the memo itself; in the opening paragraph below, the link goes
to the original text as printed by the The Times of London:
The Downing Street "Memo" is actually a document containing meeting
minutes transcribed during the British Prime Minister's meeting on July 23,
2002—a full eight months PRIOR to the invasion of Iraq on March 20,
2003. The
Times of London printed the text of this document on Sunday, May 1, 2005,
but to date US media coverage has been limited. This site is intended to
act as a resource for anyone who wants to understand the facts revealed in
this document.
Link
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Companies
subvert search results to squelch criticism. Mark Glaser at OJR.
Here's the subhed: "It's not illegal, but it's SEO gone bad. Companies
such as Quixtar are using Google-bombing, link farms and Web spam pages
to place positive sites in the top search results -- which pushes the negative
ones down."
You can't be surprised, after all that spam promising to make you -- all of
you -- number one in the search engines.
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80
Years of The New Yorker to Be Offered in Disc Form
The collection, titled "The Complete New Yorker," will consist
of eight DVD's containing high-resolution digital images of every page of
the 4,109 issues of the magazine from February 1925 through the 80th anniversary
issue, published last February. Included on the discs will be "every
cover, every piece of writing, every drawing, listing, newsbreak, poem and
advertisement," David Remnick, editor of the magazine, has written in
an introduction to the collection.
The collection, which will also include a 123-page book containing Mr. Remnick's
essay, a New Yorker timeline and highlights of selected pages from the magazine,
is being published by the magazine and will be distributed to stores by Random
House. It will have a cover price of $100, although it is likely to be sold
in many bookstores and online for considerably less. The magazine also plans
to issue annual updates to the disc collection, and it expects a first printing
of 200,000 copies.
Merry Christmas to all, I expect, since it's to be offered in the fall.
Related: In the current New Yorker:
THE
RECORD EFFECT by ALEX ROSS: How technology has transformed the sound
of music. It begins,
Ninety-nine years ago, John Philip Sousa predicted that recordings would
lead to the demise of music. The phonograph, he warned, would erode the finer
instincts of the ear, end amateur playing and singing, and put professional
musicians out of work. “The time is coming when no one will be ready
to submit himself to the ennobling discipline of learning music,” he
wrote. “Everyone will have their ready made or ready pirated music
in their cupboards.” Something is irretrievably lost when we are no
longer in the presence of bodies making music, Sousa said. “The nightingale’s
song is delightful because the nightingale herself gives it forth.”
Before you dismiss Sousa as a nutty old codger, you might ponder how much
has changed in the past hundred years. Music has achieved onrushing omnipresence
in our world: millions of hours of its history are available on disk; rivers
of digital melody flow on the Internet; MP3 players with ten thousand songs
can be tucked in a back pocket or a purse. Yet, for most of us, music is
no longer something we do ourselves, or even watch other people doing in
front of us. It has become a radically virtual medium, an art without a face.
In the future, Sousa’s ghost might say, reproduction will replace production
entirely. Zombified listeners will shuffle through the archives of the past,
and new music will consist of rearrangements of the old. ...
Also, JUMPERS by
TAD FRIEND
The fatal grandeur of the Golden Gate Bridge.
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1:21 p.m.
Free
doughnuts at Krispy Kreme Friday: Participating Krispy
Kreme doughnut shops are "celebrating" National Doughnut Day
tomorrow by giving away a free doughnut.of your choice. A press
release notes that the "holiday" falls each year on the first
Friday in June. (Who knew?)
A call to the Krispy Kreme at 1155 Pontiac Avenue in Cranston -- the only
one in the state so far -- confirmed that they'll be giving away the doughnuts.
Party pooper moment: The nutritional
information on the Krispy Kreme site is several clicks down and inside
a pdf, but it's there:
Depending on the doughnut you choose, calories range from 200 to 350, calories
from fat, 100-170; fat grams, 12-20; carbs 22-43. Each.
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June 1, 2005, 7:50 p.m.-- Last
week's weblog
Busy day here -- meetings, etc. Quicky blog.
'Providence
invasion': Thursday noon, music downtown: Every year about this time
Sean Sands organizes The
Providence Invasion -- as many musicians and bands as can get off their
day jobs at noon set up on street corners downtown at noon and play,
unplugged and acoustic. This Thursday, they plan to serenade the lunchtime
crowd again.
Sean -- whose Rattlehead
Records is more about recording live performances and rattling the local
music scene than about making "records" -- expects more than 40
bands to give it a go. If even half that number show up Thursday, downtown
should be wonderfully alive at noon. Take a stroll at lunch and see for yourself.
Related: In NYC, a bunch of improv comedians/musicians ("Improv
Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places.") took
to a roof dressed as U2, and pulled off the hoax. Not only do the
members document the gig (photos, too), the Times attended it (Where
the Streets Have No Shame):
Charlie Todd is the creator of Improv Everywhere, a rotating cast of comedians,
actors and other interested participants that travels around New York to
carry out what he calls "missions" - bizarre, anonymous happenings
such as staffing the restroom of Midtown McDonald's with a bathroom attendant,
or performing a synchronized swimming routine in the fountain at Washington
Square Park. When U2 announced that it would be playing a concert on May
21 at Madison Square Garden, just two blocks from Mr. Todd's apartment -
and when the show sold out almost immediately - he conceived his latest mission.
In the spirit of the band's impromptu public concerts, which include a famous
rooftop concert for the video of "Where the Streets Have No Name," Mr.
Todd planned a U2 concert for his own roof - with his own U2....
Link
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Lindbergh
had 7 secret children in Germany -- book: It doesn't get much stranger
than this
BERLIN (Reuters) - American aviator Charles Lindbergh had three German mistresses
simultaneously and seven secret children whom he visited and supported for
decades, according to a new book published on Monday.
Eighteen months after genetic tests proved earlier claims by three Germans
that Lindbergh was their father, their book called "The Double Life
of Charles A. Lindbergh" says he fathered two more children with their
aunt and two with his German secretary.
Lindbergh, who also had six children with his U.S. wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh,
became world famous for his daring 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic from
New York to Paris in 33 hours. He remained a worldwide celebrity until he
died in 1974....
A woman and her sister and their friend? And they all knew about it?
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May 31, 2005, 6:29 p.m.-- Last
week's weblog
Hot
Air: N.Y. regional Air Guitar Championship review. This is at ArtForum,
which is often unreadable,
but not this time:
...Any pet delusions that Spinal Tap still holds cultural sway over
kids these days are demolished by the opening (real) band, Waltham, and their
metalloid, internally lit logo—a giant W with WALTHAM emblazoned across
it in a font straight outta Albert Speer's Haus of Dasein. Now this may not
seem funny to you, but anyone who's ever lived in the Boston area in the
past twenty years will recall the name of the nondescript Massachusetts town
and the incessant radio ad that made it infamous: "Jordan's Furnitchah
Wal-tham. . . left on Spitbrook, right on Daniel Webstah." My cocktail
blasts through my nose as the band kicks into their utterly sincere blend
of Journey and Blink 182. Their second song is called "Fast Times at
Waltham High," and I wonder if I'm going to survive the evening with
my wits and bladder intact.
Post-Waltham,
the emcee introduces the judges (a Ben Folds tour veteran, a guy from a band
called Satanicide, and two former air-guitar champs) and reads the rules.
First round: sixty seconds of a contestant-chosen song. Second round: the
same amount of a judge-picked song, ostensibly new to the contestants. The
judging criteria are technical merit (convincing fretwork), stage presence,
and "airness" (transcending simulation). The winner will be flown
to Los Angeles for the US finals; the US winner will travel to the World
Finals in, er, Finland....
That's Oulu, Finland, in case you're booking a flight.
The story is pretty funny, and sneaks in here as performance art. The U.S.
Air Guitar Championships final is July 14. Here's Waltham
the Band and Waltham
Rocks, a fan site.
Link
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Nader
suggests impeachment discussion over Iraq war: Ralph Nader and
Kevin Zeese (director of DemocracyRising.US),
writing in the Globe:
THE IMPEACHMENT of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, under Article
II, Section 4 of the Constitution, should be part of mainstream political
discourse.
Minutes from a summer 2002 meeting involving British Prime Minister Tony
Blair reveal that the Bush administration was ''fixing" the intelligence
to justify invading Iraq. US intelligence used to justify the war demonstrates
repeatedly the truth of the meeting minutes -- evidence was thin and needed
fixing.
President Clinton was impeached for perjury about his sexual relationships.
Comparing Clinton's misbehavior to a destructive and costly war occupation
launched in March 2003 under false pretenses in violation of domestic and
international law certainly merits introduction of an impeachment resolution....
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Indipod is
an inflatable
portable outhouse.
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Measuring
access to history in martinis: WaPo's Leslie Walker picked this
up at at the Wall Street Journal's "D: All Things Digital" conference.
It's Martin Nisenholtz, president of New York Times Digital, referring
to that website's plan to charge $49.95 a year for access to columnists,
archives, etc:
"For the cost of roughly two and a half martinis, you can have access
to the entire archives," Nisenholtz quipped.
Martinis cost $20? And you say you have a couple or three after work on the
way home?
$49.95 is way out of reach for poor kids doing homework who might learn from
the history in the Times' archives, which are about to be opened to the public
-- for this annual fee -- for the first time.
By the way, here in downtown Providence, a quick telephone survey reveals
that, depending on the brand of alcohol, a martini at the upscale Capital Grille
costs $8 or $9; at the mid-price Trinity Brewhouse, $5 to $6; at no-frills
Nick-A Nee's, $4.50-$6.50.
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The end of childish computing? Todd Bishop of the
Seatlle PI reports (Microsoft
Notebook: The end of 'my' is nigh) that,
Those folders on your Windows desktop will still be yours -- but in the
future you'll need to figure that out on your own.
Ending a longstanding tradition, Microsoft Corp. plans to stop using the
word "my" as the default prefix for such folders as "My Documents," "My
Music," "My Pictures" and others along those lines. Starting
in the next Windows version, due out next year, folders will be known simply
as "Documents," "Music," and so on....
If you've ever had elementary school kids, or been one, you're likely to have
felt that this attempt by Microsoft to separate the system folder from your
own junk belonged back there with My Cubby, My Summer Vacation, My First Reader
and My Dog Spot.
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You
CAN Put Your Keyboard in the Dishwasher: Full instructions here
at Plastic Bugs, and
some folks
writing to BoingBoing say they've tried it with great success.
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Deep Throat: Rabbi
Korff was wrong.
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