By Sheila
Lennon
'Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
Fair and balanced, too!
June 10, 2005, 8:00 p.m.-- Last
week's weblog
Thanks for all the kind words about the award. We're most grateful, although
that underwhelming slab of lucite drives home that there's not much more
to it than that winning is better than not winning.
There was celebratory pizza in the newsroom
this afternoon, and smiles and applause from our print colleagues. We were
all, as always, grateful for the free lunch.
Now, I'm off for a few days of spring cleaning and gardening. Lining up the
ducks before I leave left no time to blog today. See you Thursday. And ...thank
you for coming here.
June 9, 2005, 6:35 p.m.
I've added some new items, but this lead stays on top today. Scroll down
for more. I've now added links to the winning sites.
Projo.com wins EPpy Award as best smaller news
site. (The actual category is Best Overall Newspaper-Affiliated Internet
Service under 1 million [(monthly Web site visitors)].) Hot off the press,
just awarded today at the E&P/Mediaweek
Interactive Media Conference in New Orleans. Here's the full
list of winners at the Editor & Publisher site.
Here's what the top of the list looks like:
Best Overall Newspaper-Affiliated Internet Service over 1 million
Winner: NYTimes.com
Finalists: Boston.com, washingtonpost.com
Best Overall Newspaper-Affiliated Internet Service under 1 million
Winner: projo.com
Finalists: OCRegister.com, Get Out! (Amarillo.com)
Best Overall Network TV/Cable-Affiliated Internet Service
Winner: MSNBC on the Internet
Finalists: CNN.com, ESPN.com
Our tiny band is more than grateful for the recognition.
The first kudo is already here, from reader Bill Marsland, who saw the announcement
high on our homepage:
Excellent work!!
You're a big reason for this honor.
That being said, the whole crew there deserves a big "Way to Go!!"
You guys are the one site I hit every day.
Your section
Mark P
Sports
All the features
And "The News"
Makes me proud to be a Rho-Dilenda
Keep up the great work
Bill
Hey, this winning stuff is fun!
Link
to this item | Comment
Illusions for sale: Jennifer Guevin, writing at
CNet (Pay
$80, hijack a plane?), notes how anyone traveling from Orlando International
Airport with "a clean background check and an easy 80 bucks" can
bypass all the security lines, shoe removal, frisking and -- coming soon
-- nudifying X-rays the ordinary traveler undergoes every time we fly.
...Beginning June 21, passengers will be able to enroll in the Clear
Registered Traveler Program, which promises to get "you through security
faster and to your gate sooner." The "Clear" cards are the brainchild
of Steven Brill, CEO of Verified
Identity Pass, a private company that has been contracted to work
with the Orlando airport. To get a card, travelers must submit themselves
to fingerprint and iris scans, a background check by the Department of
Homeland Security, and pay an annual fee of $79.95. In return, Clear
Card holders will be sped through security in a special "ClearLane" and
are guaranteed they will avoid "selectee" status, meaning they won't
go through the random body and bag searches that regular travelers are
subject to.
Maybe it's just me, but this idea seems ludicrous. I'm no fan of random
searches at the airport (and you won't hear me argue that the current system
is flawless), but the idea behind them is sound. If airport security personnel
begin profiling certain passengers, potential terrorists only need to circumvent
that profile in order to skate through security. As author Bruce Schneier
told The
Associated Press, "Everyone complains: 'Why are you frisking grandmas?'
But if you don't frisk grandmas, that's who (terrorists) are going to pick
to carry bombs." So now is Orlando's airport opening up a potential vulnerability
by establishing a group of people who won't be thoroughly checked before
boarding a plane? Absolutely....
Indeed, this is nutty. To paraphrase, "If you don't frisk Clear Card
holders, that's who (terrorists) are going to pick to carry bombs."
If people who seldom fly pay $80 not to be frisked, will that in itself
raise alarms?
If everyone were to opt out, presumably enriching Verified Identity Pass
enormously, would all those airport security people be laid off? There wouldn't
be much for them to do but frisk families coming home from their first and
perhaps only family trip to DisneyWorld. Would you feel safer?
Face it, life is not safe, never was, never will be. We all die. The question
is whether you'll enjoy the adventure or squander your life, huddled, quivering,
in fear of the inevitable, and end up with lousy deathbed memories.
I liked the old days better, when fatalism ruled: "When you're number's
up, you go..."
Related: Terminal
Futility: Routine airport security won't thwart jihadists, but it does
inconvenience and endanger the rest of us. Christopher Hitchens in
Slate. He'd pay the $80, I bet.
Link
to this item | Comment
In their own voices: At Ohio University's Wired
for Books site, author
interviews by Don Swaim:
Listen to the voices of many of the best writers of the English language.
These uncut, behind-the-scenes interviews were the foundation of Don Swaim's
long-running CBS Radio show, Book Beat.
Wired for Books is proud to make these important recordings publicly available
in their entirety for the first time. Thanks for listening!
These are just the A's: Edward Abbey Peter Ackroyd (about Charles Dickens)
Alice Adams Douglas Adams Richard Adams Vassily Aksyonov Brian Aldiss Martin
Amis Maya Angelou Piers Anthony Jeffery Archer Eve Arnold Isaac Asimov James
Atlas Margaret Atwood Louis Auchincloss Jean Auel Paul Auster
But that's Swaim's past.
Don runs a definitive website on the myth and mind of Ambrose Bierce: The
Ambrose Bierce Site, and is editor of an online magazine dedicated
to the craft of creative writing: The
Bucks County Writers Workshop.
Link
to this item | Comment
Happy birthday to blogger Jeneane
Sessum, who's 43 today.
3:45 p.m.
Way beyond Arthur Godfrey: An astonishing ukulele
performance of "As my guitar gently weeps" by Jake Shimabukuro
while sitting on a rock in Central Park. Who knew a ukulele could be a virtuoso
instrument? Who knew there'd be a site called Midnight
Ukulele Disco?
Some of my earliest memories involve being trapped in a playpen while mom
made beds to the excruciating sound of Arthur
Godfrey on the radio plucking his signature song, My Little Grass Shack
In Kealekekua, Hawaii
In a bit of synchronicity, while looking for a
clip of Godfrey singing it , I found Old
Time Radio offering free old-time
radio show downloads -- 2,864 shows from 22 sites -- including the
episode of Godfrey's Talent Scouts in which comedian Lenny Bruce
shared a win with a tenor named John Connolly. (The Godfrey clip, along
with many
others,
is at Back
to the Fifties,
a jukebox from the youth of the alumni of Roosevelt High School in
Cedar Rapids, Iowa.)
Among the other downloads at Old Time Radio are Abbott & Costello, Sherlock
Holmes, Hopalong Cassidy, Death Valley Days, Gene Autry, Gunsmoke, Charlie
Chan,
Al Jolson
Show, Babe Ruth, Dick Tracy, Dragnet, Ellery Queen, The Shadow, The Mercury
Theater
and much more.
Link
to this item | Comment
3rd
Annual Nigerian EMail Conference: A spoof from J-Walk.
Link
to this item | Comment
Gill prosthesis: Invention
Allows Humans to Breathe Like Fish. At Live
Science,
Alan Izhar-Bodner, an Israeli inventor, has developed a way for divers to
breathe underwater without cumbersome oxygen tanks. His apparatus makes
use of the air that is dissolved in water, just like fish do.
(From Breathe
like a fish!)
The system uses the "Henry Law" which states that the amount
of gas that can be dissolved in a liquid is proportional to the pressure
on the liquid. Raise the pressure - more gas can be dissolved in the liquid.
Decrease the pressure - gas dissolved in the liquid releases the gas. This
is exactly what happens when you open a can of soda; carbon dioxide gas is
dissolved in the liquid and is under pressure in the can. Open the can, releasing
the pressure, and the gas fizzes out...
Link
to this item | Comment
June 8, 2005
Free download: all 9 Beethoven symphonies from BBC.
Download
all nine of Beethoven's symphonies here the day after they are broadcast.
All the symphonies are performed by BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Gianandrea
Noseda.
These are giant mp3s -- 29 to 51 megs each for the five available so far.
Symphonies 6 through 9 will be available at the end of the month.
Link
to this item | Comment
Sunken
doughnuts: Kremed!
The rise and fall of Krispy Kreme is a cautionary tale of ambition, greed,
and inexperience. This is very much a business story (it's at CFO.com.,
which bills itself as "Tools and resources for financial executives")
but some of these mistakes would be obvious to even a pottery major.
For instance, the company made big profits off its franchisees, selling them
required equipment and ingredients at a high markup rather than helping them
succeed. And,
In its quest for growth, Krispy Kreme also squandered some of its mystique. "They
became ubiquitous," says Jonathan Waite, an analyst for KeyBanc Capital
Markets in Los Angeles. "Not just in sheer numbers of restaurant units,
but also roughly half of their sales started going to grocery stores, gas
stations, kiosks. Anywhere that consumers could be found, you could find
a Krispy Kreme."
In what amounted to an act of heresy to Krispy Kreme devotees, the company
also added smaller "satellite" stores that didn't actually make
doughnuts. Unlike its factory-style franchises where customers could watch
as the pastries were showered in glaze — "doughnut-making theater," the
company called it — some new stores offered doughnuts that had been
made elsewhere. Other products were added to the menu, too, including a line
of high-carb, high-calorie frozen drinks, or "drinkable doughnuts," as
people dubbed them.
Link
to this item | Comment
The
machine that can copy anything -- including itself. The Star
Trek "replicator," at last? At CNN.
Bowyer (Dr. Adrian Bowyer, a senior lecturer in mechanical engineering
at the University of Bath in the UK) plans to make the design of the
RepRap available online and free to use, in the same way as open source
software such as the Linux operating system or Mozilla's Firefox browser.
Anyone with a replicating machine could then start manufacturing copies.
Once someone owned the technology they could download other designs, or create
their own.
"The most interesting part of this is that we're going to give it away," said
Bowyer.
"If these machines take off, it will give individual people the chance
to do this themselves, and we are talking about making a lot of our consumer
goods. The effect this has on industry and society could be dramatic."
Link
to this item | Comment
Less
Cursing, Better Pictures: 10 Suggestions: NYT's David Pogue's "Frequently
Given Answers" about digital cameras.
Link
to this item | Comment
Forbidden
fruit? Among all
the responses to the high court's acrobatic ruling on
medical marijuana, Fort
Boise's may be the zinger:
In terms of morality, Christianity and Intelligent Design, I want to know
what the heck marijuana is doing on our planet anyway. Just teasing? The
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that we were never supposed to touch?
Link
to this item | Comment
June 7, 2005, 8:00 p.m.
Strange
new bedfellow: Clarence Thomas, in his
dissent to the Supreme Court's ban on state laws regarding medical marjuana:
If the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now
regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the
50 States. This makes a mockery of (James) Madison's assurance to
the people of New York that the .powers delegated. to the Federal Government
are .few and defined,. while those of the States are .numerous and indefinite..
The Federalist No. 45, at 313 (J. Madison).
Moreover, even a Court interested more in the modern than the original understanding
of the Constitution ought to resolve cases based on the meaning of words
that are actually in the document. Congress is authorized to regulate Commerce,
and respondents. conduct does not qualify under any definition of that term.
Here's
the entire paragraph of James Madison, January 26, 1788, titled, The
Alleged Danger From the Powers of the Union to the State Governments (The
photo is a detail from Gilbert Stuart's 1804 portrait.)
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government
are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are
numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external
objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last
the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved
to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary
course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people,
and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
One can only hope that the more "liberal" judges simply want Congress
to step up and respond to the overwhelming public support for compassionate
medical use, rather than pass the buck to a court that might be assailed for
political gain as "soft on terrorism" or whatever the bogeyman is
called these days.
An entire generation has grown up under a demonization of a plant in its natural
state, while, as Justice Thomas points out, "...under the CSA, certain
drugs that present a high risk of abuse and addiction but that nevertheless
have an accepted medical use -- drugs like morphine and amphetamines -- are
available by prescription."
Related: R.I.
Senate OKs use of medical marijuana, 34-2, making it the 11th state to
do so. It happened today.
Link
to this item | Comment
American
wins British female fiction prize after 30 publishers reject book: Recognition
- at last - as Lionel Shriver wins Orange Prize for We
Need to Talk
About Kevin. Louise Jury, writing in the U.K. Independent, notes,
...Jenni Murray, the broadcaster, who chaired the judges, said: "We
Need to Talk About Kevin is a book that acknowledges what many women worry
about but never express: the fear of becoming a mother and the terror of
what kind of child one might bring into the world. It's a courageous book
which will resonate with everyone who has had a child or thought about having
one."
The American writer, who lives in London with her jazz drummer husband,
said one of the motivations behind the novel was exploring whether she herself
should have children.
"When I started this book, I was in my early forties and in the reproductive
last gasp. I still hadn't had any children and had always been queasy about
the idea," she said. The consequence of writing the book was "I
scared myself witless and I still don't have any children"....
Here's Reuters before the announcement. (Tiny
publisher beats giants on prize shortlist):
"We Need To Talk About Kevin", Lionel Shriver's shortlisted novel,
which is about a teenaged mass murderer, described acidly through the eyes
of his mother, who despises him, and suspects that he is evil from the moment
he is born.
"A lot of women editors at big houses turned down 'Kevin' because of
what they perceived to be its narrator's negative spin on motherhood. And
that's not their job," said (Serpent's Tail Publishing's) Peter Ayrton.
With wicked satire of suburbia and an unflinchingly grim look at parenthood, "Kevin" became
a lightning rod for debate, and a word-of-mouth hit on both sides of the
Atlantic.
"I've been with Lionel Shriver to darkest Essex in the middle of winter
with reading groups of 50-60 women. You should have heard the questions.
They all had strong feelings about this book."
Link
to this item |
Comment
Citi news in a garden blog: Donna Andrews writes,
Was just bookmarking your list
of garden blogs and saw the suggestion to email about our own blogs.
It probably comes under the "hybrid" category, and more hybrid
than most--but gardening often pops up in my blog, since that's what I
do to relax from my full-time job--writing
mysteries. I often post photos of what's going on in my garden (in
Reston, Virginia), either in the blog or in albums.
But what's leading her blog today is a rant (Stupidity
in the name of security) about Citibank waking her up to tell her that
the credit card she uses only online had been used online. Again:
Turns out one of the suspicious transactions was a membership that went
through the last few months without problem. Another was a batch of roses
I ordered from Wayside Gardens. Arg.
The second customer service rep I talked to said he would put a note on
my account saying that I bought a lot of books online, and sometimes this
would be from stores overseas. And blamed the Patriot Act for their security
policies. While the Patriot Act can be blamed for a lot of things--ask any
librarian--I think this sounds more like stupid implementation, knowing they
can blame the Patriot Act if anyone complains.
Yesterday, Citibank revealed (Personal
Data for 3.9 Million Lost in Transit ) that a UPS shipment of computer
tapes containing names, addresses, Social Security numbers and more -- enough
to raise alarms about identity theft -- had been lost last month.
...In the most recent incident, Citigroup executives say the box containing
the tapes was handed over to U.P.S., along with other items for shipping,
on May 2, under "special security procedures" that the bank required
of the courier. One of those special procedures, said Citigroup's chief operations
and technology officer, Debby Hopkins, included scanning the bar code on
each package, rather than scanning only the single bar code on the shipment
manifest, which is a summary document listing all the packages being moved
in one shipment.
According to Ms. Hopkins, just the summary document was scanned for the
box, which was picked up in Weehawken, N.J., so U.P.S. was unable to track
where in the delivery chain the box was lost. It was not until May 20 that
an employee of Experian, the credit reporting agency that was to receive
the tapes, called CitiFinancial to report that they had not arrived at Experian's
data-processing center in Allen, Tex. An investigation by U.P.S. failed to
locate the package. ...
Donna, apparently unaware of this when she blogged her irritation, has unwittingly
given us a glimpse into a cardholder's experience with how Citi translated
its nervousness into action, probably in an attempt to see if the data had
been stolen and used. "Patriot Act" seems like a convenient cover
story for a jittery company.
I wonder if Citi bought insurance from U.P.S. for that tape delivery.
You
can read about roses and ladybugs on the wiegela on Donna Andrews' blog, too.
Both are pictured at right. Click the photo to see Donna's giant version,
in which the ladybug looms large.
Link
to this item | Comment
Mail: So, after being sick yesterday, I dragged
in today because partially produced project deadlines loom. And in the mail,
links from readers, and out of the blue, a bouquet. Jeremy Duncan wrote,
Just a short note to let you know how much I enjoy your blog - it's always
filled with wonderful links that send me off on sometimes informative/sometimes
senseless adventures...! (BTW, the nod to Bob in your title is very cool)
I used to look forward to reading my ProJo sports section, now I forgo the
hardcopy every morning and go straight to your blog. Keep up the good work
and yes Little Rhody is reading!
Cheers
P.S.
Thought you might be interested in this link:
The
49ers' Embarrassing Training Tape. View the team training video in segments:
A VHS copy of the 49ers team training video was obtained by The (San
Francisco) Chronicle. In order to make viewing the tape online less
vulnerable to Internet bandwidth overload, the video has been divided into
8 segments, following natural break points in the source program. The entire
tape, as received by The Chronicle, is presented here, however we have
deliberately blurred scenes which contain nudity. This content is not suitable
for children. Obscene language is audible in several of the clips. If you
have not done so, please read the disclaimer.
NOTE: QuickTime software version
6 or above is required to view these clips.
Link
to this item | Comment
Don't get stuck: Eric Lilius, my "Canadian correspondent," sends
along this link to Small-Town
America: Stereoscopic Views from the Dennis Collection, 1850-1920 (American
Memory, Library of Congress). He adds,
I was raised on the St Lawrence and spent a fair amount of time in Upper
New York State.
I've always been able to fuse stereoscopic images without the aid of a viewer.
Comes in handy for "spot the changes between pictures" and was
useful for spotting counterfeit bills before the use of photocopiers.
Let your eyes cross and the images acquire depth. Try it with the collection's
lead image, below:
Link
to this item | Comment
Hit the road, Jack: Wired News: Radio
Industry Hits Shuffle:
....From Seattle and San Diego to Baltimore and Buffalo, more than a dozen
big-city radio stations have converted to a format known as Jack-FM over
the past two months. On Friday, even legendary New York City oldies station
WCBS-FM dumped '60s rock and joined the 'Jack' parade.
Boasting they're "like an iPod on shuffle," the new stations typically
dump their disc jockeys in favor of huge song playlists that mimic a well-stocked
portable music player...
At San Diego's Jack station, for example, a recent morning's playlist featured
songs from a 35-year span, from 1969's "Gimme Shelter" and 1982's "It's
Raining Men" to Madonna's "Vogue" and a recent tune by Nickelback.
The something-for-everyone approach is why car radios have preset buttons.
Maybe it's just cheaper:
...There's another Jack quirk: Many of the stations have dumped their DJs.
The lack of on-air talent could be temporary, a way to spotlight the new
blend of music. Or the DJs might be gone forever from the stations, a truly
radical -- and counterintuitive -- concept in radio.
But if your car stereo sounds like your iPod, just with a bunch of commercials
and snotty promos, why would you listen? Indeed, some critics say radio won't
survive unless it remembers that its only unique selling point is its ability
to provide companionship. ...
Link
to this item | Comment
Dylan's
Guitars. via Robot
Wisdom.
In the wake of Watergate: Ward Sutton, in a six-panel comic in the
Village Voice titled, Woodward
and Bernstein: The Next Generation, compares and contrasts then and now.
