When You'll Live...
Kaye Trammell, the Alpha Centauri of my blogoverse, writes about advertising and blogs.#
As corny as it sounds, if they truly believe in the product they are peddling (political candidates, Web sites, jobs) then the answer is a strong no. But, if they are doing it to make a buck then the answer is without a doubt. Then there is Josh Marshall from TPM who lies in the gray side. He posted about his ad policy taking the traditional media stance that a dollar in the bucket does not influence the ink on the page. He sounds very logical about the whole thing, understands that blogs are a different / more editorialized medium & even asks for reader input about his policy. I'm still forming my decision about this one, but I don't like it. Sell out might be too strong of a term, but for lack of a better term I might use it. I said might.
Back to the greater picture of selling ad space: That doesn't make any of this wrong. It just makes them sell outs. I can say that because I will never have an ad on my blog (other than the obligatory terms of service blogger icon). Not because I have this strict ethical pact of some sort -- but just because I am darn near sure I don't operate among the likes of Josh Marshall or Jeff Jarvis in the "hits per day" department.
Adres, at Online Journalism, writes about LeBron James. I'm out of it with regards to sports so I found this interesting.#
Many NBA scouts in America rated him the most talented amateur basketball player in America as a junior in high school. ESPN televised a crucial game of his to a national audience on prime time television. A bank granted his mother--who had no job and lived in public housing at the time--a loan for a new top-of-the-line, fully-equipped Hummer for her son's birthday. He even signed an endorsement deal worth more than $90 million with Nike and now stars in their latest regularly played commercial.
All this before 18-year-old LeBron James, now a guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers, had played even one minute of regular-season basketball for the National Basketball Association. A little bit of hype, anyone?
Jonathan Ichikawa writes about the Chinese Room.#
Sprevak points out that Searle's argument fails to recognize the distinction between a program (an algorithm) and a function (a set of input-output pairs). Although it's true that the Chinese Room, understood as a computer, can compute any relevant function, thereby giving appropriate Chinese responses to Chinese stories, it is not necessarily -- or even probably -- the case that it can run the same algorithms that the human mind runs. Sprevak considers the example of serial versus parallel processing as a potential difference between a human brain and the Chinese room. Specifically, some algorithms could be employed by the parallel-processing human brain but not by the serial-processing Chinese room.
Nyx at Sxxxy quotes on Boris Becker.#
Tennis star Boris Becker has revealed for the first time how he came to father an illegitimate child in a five-minute sex session in the broom cupboard of a London restaurant.
Becker's brief encounter in 1999 with Angela Ermakowa, whom he had never met before, led to the break-up of his marriage to wife Barbara and cost him an estimated £20 million in divorce settlement and support for daughter Anna, now three.
In his autobiography Stay a Moment Longer, serialised in German newspaper Bild, Becker, 35, reveals that he met Ermakowa just hours after the seven-months pregnant Barbara checked into hospital afraid she was about to give birth prematurely.
Lest that be a lesson.
j "Mistress of the Stacks" Baumgart links to John Lenger about what it's like working at Harvard.#
Another SR [Standard Response to, "I work at Harvard."] assumes the sidewalks of Harvard are paved with gold. Yes, Harvard has a $19 billion endowment, but it's there to run the entire University … forever. Yet I get comments from people who assume it's our personal checking account. I teach journalism at the Harvard Extension School, and to illustrate the difference between a private and a public event, I ask students: "What if a rich uncle dies and leaves me $1 million? What if I win $1 million in the lottery? What's the difference?" A student once answered: "Either would have a great deal of public interest since you're from Harvard, because you obviously don't need the money."
Matt May writes about the Old Politics and the New Politics.#
Now, here's where Newberry's version of New Politics falls apart. In his Berkman engagement, he seemed to be satisfied at having a constellation of bloggers supporting his candidate. This is a classic tactical error: all consumers are like me. It is not enough to mobilize a bunch of people to sit at their machines and link to the latest candidate blog entry or position paper. Elections are still won on the phones and at the voter's door. They're won by people working in campaign headquarters, reaching the audience of potential voters, rather than just riling up self-selecting affinity groups.
[...]
The blogger movement is missing the critical element: execution. The path one takes to make a decision is reasonably simple: I wonder. I learn. I act. While blog entries serve the first of these for blog readers, and the second for blog authors, there remains a firewall between blogs (and, for that matter, online communities) and the real world. Political bloggers must have some skin in the game in order for them to have any decent footing against the Old Politics regiments that stand in their way.
I'd like to note that an important part of the New Politics discussion is not saying, "Hey these weblogs are great huh?" It is asking, "How can we use these to increase social interaction and coordination?" Do you think that when telephones first came onto the political scene people were saying, "Those silly telephone advertisers and discussion holders... don't they know you need to go out and shake hands?" You have to both. So will be the case with blogs.
Every new movement, idea, technology in politics and society opens the flood gates and relieves the tension created by the stagnancy of the old system. Blogs are the next wave to wash away the cruft and will need to be washed away themselves at some point.
Ed Cone writes about some controversy in Greensboro. Joanne Highley, a conservative Christian, who speaks about the evils of homosexuality had an event cancelled on her by the college she was speaking at.#
At the same time, I understand why Highley, who spoke earlier this year to school administrators in Forsyth County, raises some red flags. She says she is a former lesbian and that other people can and should stop acting on homosexual desires by practicing a rigorous brand of Christianity. Several such "ex-gay" ministries have cropped up in recent years. These groups are offensive to many people, who question the science of claiming that homosexuality is a chosen behavior, and the ethics of singling out homosexuals for criticism and moral opprobrium. Highley, for example, has been quoted referring to homosexuality as "Satanic."
Leaving aside the right of a private college to limit the use of its facilities to certain groups, and the propriety of canceling a scheduled event, I think Greensboro College could have handled this better. Highley has spoken at other universities, some more liberal than Greensboro. As Alex points out, Highley's views would have been amenable to the college's Methodist founders. Why not use her visit as a teaching opportunity, not just as a lesson in diversity but as a chance to explore how Christianity has taken divergent paths on the issue of homosexuality?
Sooz writes about people being jerks and giving otheres something to laugh about.#
I stopped by Toscanini's earlier for a hot vanilla (one of few tasty hot beverages) and overheard an interaction that was a mix of disturbing and funny. A twentysomething woman and her mother were not pleased with the service so they decided to let the guy behind the counter know by making passive aggressive comments. And they went on and on. And on. It inspired a few very amusing reactions and bonding moments among the other customers. One guy put a few dollars in the tip jar and said: "I'll give you three bucks for being rude to those people." I tried to remain an innocent bystander but it was a difficult task. While putting a lid on my beverage a young woman started talking to me about what happened and we agreed it was very weird and uncomfortable. But I'm almost grateful for the people being such idiots, it gave the rest of us an opportunity to talk and share a few laughs.
Al Franken on Kicking Ass.#
And this is crucial: support your Party. We must, we must, win this election. And the DNC absolutely needs your support. Money's good. Work's good. Did I mention that money is good?
This president and this administration is the most far right-wing group we've seen in the White House in the history of this country. During the 2000 campaign, when Bush said he was against "nation building," I didn't realize he meant only our nation. No Child Left Behind is the most ironically named piece of legislation since the 1942 Japanese Family Leave Act.
We need a president who knows how to create jobs, invest in America's future, and not alienate the rest of the world. And every one of us has to dig in, roll up our sleeves, and work and give for the next year. Fight, fight, fight!
Jeremy Hylton links to a Sunday New York Times interview with Noam Chomsky.#
How would you explain your large ambition?
I am driven by many things. I know what some of them are. The misery that people suffer and the misery for which I share responsibility. That is agonizing. We live in a free society, and privilege confers responsibility.
If you feel so guilty, how can you justify living a bourgeois life and driving a nice car?
If I gave away my car, I would feel even more guilty. When I go to visit peasants in southern Colombia, they don't want me to give up my car. They want me to help them. Suppose I gave up material things -- my computer, my car and so on -- and went to live on a hill in Montana where I grew my own food. Would that help anyone? No.
Strange Women Lying in Ponds reports on a Knights Templar challenging Osama bin Laden to a duel.#
You could, of course, send your minions to kill me before that combat occurs. But if you send others to do your fighting for you, the news of your cowardice will reverberate from the Kunjerab Pass to the beaches of Gwydar, from Riyadh to Jakarta. It will be recorded in the history books that the great Osama bin Laden, the would-be leader of jihadists around the world, quailed before a Crusader, and cried out for others to save him. The name Osama will be equated with cowardice before a Crusader, and no family will ever so name a son again. You will be known as the "Cowardly Infidel" who knew that he could not count upon his personal courage or God to deliver him, for he possessed a belief in neither.
We know, Osama, that this message will reach you. You can reply to it through Al-Jazeera, which is always happy to act as the mouthpiece for murderers. In fact, Al Jazeera can film the combat and show it on television sets across the world. You would be defeated before the eyes of millions, but at least you would have retained a shred of personal honor. You would at least have proved yourself to be a man, a goal that has so far eluded you.
Michael at 2blowhards writes about Kill Bill.#
But I'm not a Tarantino fan generally, are you? His work makes me picture a stiff-jointed white boy who's studied the mambo and the frug really, really hard. He's practiced a lot, and he knows more about the history and the techniques of the dances than the originators themselves do. And, by gosh, he executes the moves pretty darned well -- but, even so, watching him isn't like watching someone to whom this kind of thing comes more naturally. Tarantino's got energy, determination and skill but he lacks flair and ease. I'd be willing to enjoy his uptight, headstrong-geeky thing if only he'd let us find the sight of him funny. But he doesn't. Despite the jokes and the malice, there's almost never a moment when you don't sense Tarantino's ambition bearing down on you. He writes and directs as though the Gods of Great Movies have left him no choice but to be intense and brilliant.
I'd be the last person to get moral about the way the movie's selling freakiness, bloodshed and kinkiness -- this is a film geek's cartoon splatterfest, and who am I to object to that? But the slow-mo pacing? The gloating and the chestbeating over every single "line," "scene," "touch" and "music cue"? The Tarzan-yodeling about his wonderful/awful taste? "Kill Bill" may be the most ponderous junk jamboree I've ever seen. It's anything but a solemn movie, and it deserves brownie points for being determined to outrage. But it also suffers from a terminal case of swollen head.
Gothamist covers P. Diddy's race.#
Diddy spoke to the Post's Jeffrey Slonim in yesterday's Diddy Diary that ex Jennifer Lopez donated $26,000 ($1,000 for each mile) and then Ben Affleck doubled that to donate $52,000 [interesting to celeb watchers and sad gossip hounds, such as us: Diddy referred to Ben(nifer) as "hubby" while on the phone to (Ben)nifer and (Ben)nifer as "wifey" while talking to Ben(nifer); so what's the dilly, yo?]. Additonally, Mayor Bloomberg gave a personal donation of $10,000, telling the Diddy, "I respect what you're doing, and I don't normally do this, but I'm going to give you $10,000 out of my pocket," confirming Gothamist's theory that billionaires carry thousands of dollars in their pockets. Diddy managed to raise $2 million - $1 million more than his pledg, which will go to NYC public schools - and of course donations will still be accepted. In our book, if it takes Diddy to run his ass ragged for 26.2 miles and work up a bigger sweat than the one during his gun possession trial to encourage charitable giving or even to consider taking up running, then there's no arguing about his intentions. Next, we'd like him to help out the cause of public television.
Tony Pierce writes about it.
i dont want to be inspired by puff daddy but i have to be inspired by puff daddy.
either the Diddy Does the City was the greatest rope-a-dope since Dubya took office, where we thought that no way could this fool pull off what he's fixing to pull off, or both of these men are the smartest motherfuckers in showbiz.
[...]
and still he got up yesterday morning, got his fat black ass out there, and he ran 26 point whatever miles and finished the damn new york marathon while all the cameras waited for him to fail.
Jerome Doolittle covers some "Bannergate" news and names the post, "The Nose Grows."#
The significant thing about the Bannergate flap is that it was, like the invasion of Iraq itself, totally optional. The question put to Bush was whether it had been premature to say in his flight-deck speech that major combat operations were over.
Instead of answering "Yes, but…" or "No, but…" he reached with practiced hand for the lie. And his questioner, Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times, hasn't let go since. Here she is, today:
"The sailors came up with an idea of a banner, and they said, 'Hey, is there any way we could get a 'Mission Accomplished' banner made?' Commander Daniels said…
"Meanwhile, Republicans said that it was increasingly unlikely that Mr. Bush would use the film of his 'Top Gun' landing on the carrier in a campaign commercial.
Jeff Jarvis wonders if your phone has people?#
Howard Stern started off the show this morning talking about our phone, the Treo 600. He said he spent his whole weekend learning how to use it (and loving it even more). He had a guy named Mandel from the company helping him and today he'll have his IBM consultant help him some more.
When you're rich and famous, not only do you have people but your phone has people.
Richard is hopelessly burdened with issues as a result of The Yeti discussion of NotDating.#
Before I get to the bit about commitment, he talks about wants, and specifically this: "We want different things. Women want men to be Men, and Men want women to be Women. This doesn't mean there aren't exceptions, but for the majority of us, we want the man to pursue a woman and convince her he is willing to work for her and needs her by his side to truly be complete. [...] Myths aside, we want to be ourselves." Earlier this year I had to deal with what I perceived to be my playing the role of a female friend's trusted girlfriend, in that she would tell me things that I thought girls only told other girls. Complaints about boys, previous and current (back then) sex lives, stuff like that. Stuff I was, as a male, ill-equiped to deal with because they were things that never happened to me. How should I know how to deal with a jerk boyfriend? What sex life do I have to base any opinions on? I told her this, that I didn't like being her "girlfriend", but she said that she didn't base what she told people on the gender of the listener. How can one not base what they tell people on the gender of the listener?
Richard links to a great essay from Photodude.#
It's the first thought I have when I hear someone who is still decrying how Bush "stole" Florida to win the election, as the Democrats had the power to make Florida totally irrelevant. Gore lost his home state. Gore lost his boss' home state. Gore lost every state in the South, when winning just one would have made him the undisputed President.
Gore lost. Period.
When the anointed Southern successor to an incumbent Southern President can't win one state in the South, there's a huge honkin' message there.
Richard links to Weblogg-ed about "What We Can't Write on Our Blogs." I love the name of the post, "Someone Might Actually Read Your Weblog"#
Everybody censors themselves when they write. Yes, even the ones who say that they write what they think. Even they can't write everything that they think or feel, usually because a lack of time, a lack of initiative, or an appreciation for the risk being taken when writing. (There are some who seem to not appreciate the risks associated with writing what they write. Sucks to be them.) There are occasions that would necessitate not blogging for a while—you'll know it when it happens, and you'll ask why, and I probably won't tell you. There is and there always will be subjects that I think are either boring or too personal, although this weblog has been quite the personal weblog lately. The main point of the above is that when you write something in the public realm, even on a weblog that gets two hits a day (both of them being you), there's always the risk that someone other than you might actually read it.
Lawrence Lessig lets John Edwards guest blog.#
Thanks for letting me be here Larry.
Did you know I'm from a small town but I can see at a national level too?
[Vague comment]
Bush is bad, mmmkay?
Hey, did I tell you I was working class?
[Vague comment]
Also, I get the Internet revolution.
Thanks, if you have an comments let my dog know.
Sorry, that's not really what he wrote.
Geoffrey Allen calls bullshit.#
What part of "illegal" don't people understand? I really get sick of listening to people whine about how dangerous it has become for illegal immigrants since the stepped up border patrols began. Who fucking cares? They have a choice. Stay the fuck home.
You can't have it both ways. You can't complain that the border patrols aren't stemming the flood of immigrants one day, then pass laws making it easier for illegals and harder for INS the next. Make up your mind. If you want them here, then just get rid of the border. Let them all come. If you don't, then shoot the bastards as they cross. As long as they are making it easy for them to cross, though, they have no business whining about the economy. The illegals are sending $12 billion a year back across the border. That money is being earned in the south western states, but it sure isn't being spent there.
At Kuro5hin is an article asking what Bush would do if he REALLY wanted to be like Jesus.#
In the days shortly before the war, a papal emissary arrived in Washington hoping to convince Bush to reconsider invading Iraq. The emissary insisted that "God does not intervene in the affairs of man," and as a result of free-will, it was our responsibility to use reason to discern between good and evil. Bush politely listened to what the emissary had to say but had no intention of rethinking the issue - his mind was already made up. Bush believes that through prayer, God has revealed his will, and it is his responsibility to fulfill it.
With this belief, it's no wonder Bush's speech is saturated with Manichean rhetoric: He presents the U.S. as good - surrounding it with talk of democracy, liberty, justice and humanity - while presenting "them" [insert monster] as an evil and vicious enemie. A National Security Strategy document, released briefly after 9-11, states that the US system of governance with its example of freedom, democracy and free enterprise is "right and true for every person, in every society", and it is in U.S.'s interest to promote this model throughout the world. With a mandate like this how could God not be on his side?
He may be correct in asserting that Saddam and Bin Laden are evil; but he ignores the elements of evil of his own nation. This apparent relativism is described in Paul Johnson's Modern Times as a "Jupiter complex" in which the U.S. leaders see themselves as righteous gods throwing lighting bolts - or bombs - down upon their evil enemies. God may have taken the side of the Israelites in the Old Testament, but God makes it clear in Deuteronomy that Israelites win battles not because of their righteousness but because of the wickedness of other nations (Deut 9:11-15). Besides, it's not Saddam or Bin Laden that Bush is killing and forcing from their homes; it's mostly innocent Iraqi and Afghani civilians.
Michael Feldman links wonderful news.#
The story of the race to become the governor of California is being turned into a porn movie.
One of the candidates in the race, adult actress Mary Carey, is poised to begin shooting a sexy behind-the-scenes view of the campaign.
The movie will co-star fellow hopefuls Ernie Gropenegger and the state's lieutenant governor Spooge Cruztamante, reports Sky News.
Joi Ito links to an article from Seth Godin about him.#
When Joi is online (six or eight hours a day), a camera broadcasts him as he types. If you want him to invest in your company, he'll point you to a discussion of his investment process and his standard terms, both of which are posted online. He'll encourage you to talk to the CEOs of companies that he invests in (all just a click away). If you send him a proposal, he's likely to turn it down, but he'll encourage you to post it on the blog, participate in an online discussion, and see what the thousands of people who read it have to say. It will help sharpen your message.
It's important, though, to not think of this as Joi's powerful new network or Joi's group. "Joi Ito is no longer a name, it's a place," he says. He coordinates a collective, one in which he's a member, not the chief. He's one of what he calls "a posse" of 70 or 80 people who are almost always hanging out in his blog's chatroom, 24 hours a day, keeping order, doing research, responding to queries, and helping out. When I met Joi at a conference, he was blogging it, in real time, over the wireless network. Others in the group started sharing their questions with Joi, and he passed the questions on. Suddenly, it wasn't 30 people on a panel--it was 110 people, all around the world. Some of those in the live group then opened their laptops and joined the online discussion instead.
Joi Ito reports on a roundtable discussion he was at put on by the Japan Society.#
There were representatives from the US, China, Taiwan and Korea.
An interesting point that was raised was that the older generation conservatives in Japan were unrealistic because they had been protected by the US, whereas the conservatives in South Korea were realistic enough to deal with the unrealistic Japanese. On the other hand, the younger generation in South Korea were unrealistic because they had not experienced the Korea war and the threat of North Korea, whereas the Japanese younger generation seemed to be more realistic. The point was that when the South Korean younger generation became more realistic, a stronger tie to Japan might be realized.
Charles Miller on Raymond Chen's backwards compatibility story about Windows "Shell Folders."#
There's the perspective Raymond tells it from: backwards compatibility is so overridingly important that Microsoft deprecated a registry key instead of removing it, so as not to break a few applications that were written for the Windows 95 Beta. Unfortunately, people started to use the deprecated registry key without realising there was a better, more reliable way.
Then there's the alternate perspective: Microsoft left a crufty, broken feature in Windows 95 that would cause programs written against it to break in unexpected and hard-to-diagnose ways, so as not to break four applications that had only been around since the beta anyway.
Moxie writes about what's wrong and unrealistic about Reality Shows.#
Par for the course (a la Joe Millionaire) the goal of this series is to show how superficial women are when it comes to dating.
This is the primary goal of the men who run our networks. And they wonder why viewership is down and more people are turning to cable?
I have yet to see JoAnne Millionaire nor an Average Jane reality dating series. If a handsome man were presented with 15 heavy, balding, socially awkward, "average" women with hairy backs my money would be on his rapid departure. Out the door. Before a rose ceremony.
Ironically, in real life it's not the just women who want a decent looking man. Some of these programming guys seem to have forgotten that they themselves sought out the woman with the looks of a model, the brains of a flea and knockers big enough to give him a concussion if he isn't careful.
Doug Miller asks the important question about the Dead Sea Drying Up.#
The Dead Sea gets its name from its heavy salt content, because no aquatic creatures can live in it. Now there's a new "death threat" Ñ the Dead Sea is drying up and disappearing.
An Israeli TV reporter, illustrating the government report, stood on a spot where, just 20 years ago, water met land. Now that point is 2,000 feet of parched ground away, he said, as the sea gradually recedes.
Lovely. Wonder which will happen first: the Arabs and Israelis kill each other off via their on-going political/religious squabbles, or they all die from environmental destruction? If you think things are bad now, wait until these crazies start shooting each other over water shortages, too.