Fox (owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation) has always struck me as having the most obviously right wing slant of all the TV networks, so quite strange to see this in another of Murdoch’s properties. Le Carre in the London Times: Times Online “A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre.” Mmm, anyone know what poll that would be?
“Irwindale, a 9.5-square-mile moonscape of open-face gravel pits and industrial waste 26 miles east of Los Angeles.” Lets face it, NY is much better than Irwindale. Take, for example, the Guggenheim, its much better than the Irwindale museum of Yes album covers and the menu at Chucky Cheese just doesn’t compare to Alain Ducasse. Fatty SoCal Town Eats 350,000 Big Macs a Year
I’m not actually sure why I am giving this the oxygen of publicity, however, on the subject of the little guys v. big meanies – I’m referring of course to the trumped up SF v. NY debate where an extremely pleasant seaside town of less than 1M people is pitted against the arch metropolis of Gotham city. Even NY v. Chicago would be stretching it. Nick Denton writes: “I’ve always thought that San Francisco would be a perfect city if it was inhabited entirely by New Yorkers.” WHAT! (Come on Nick its obvious that you’re only trying to stir up shit for clicks). The sight of sweating hoards of black-clad PR flaks pounding up Mt. Tam in Manolo Blahniks would almost be worth it. nickdenton.org: Friscophobia
Jeff Jarvis admirably stands up for the role of media companies. What he is points out is that the support for Eldred was more the noble cause of ‘lets root for the underdog’ (the subject of many hollywood films). With more efficient distribution and marketing perhaps leaner media companies will concentrate on getting the best talent in front of any customer instead of any talent in front of the most gullible customer.
Although the Supreme Court ruling is undoubtedly a blow. There is a bright side. Media companies may have won a battle but they are losing the war – digital media fundamentally changes the role of the agent between artists and their fans. If copyright were indefinite, Shakespeare would make more money over time than all pulp fiction. Longer copyrights mean that media companies can take a longer term view and since quality lasts, this means slightly less over-hyped, short-term junk. When you couple this with the fact that the role of media companies as marketers and distributers is reduced by the efficiencies of digital media distribution and peer to peer recommendation, then the need for the middle people is reduced and there is even less money to spend on promoting crap. News From The Associated Press
In the right hand side bar I have indicated my own one line bio within largely decorative <olb> tags. Any others that I see around I will be adding to my Blogroll. In the RSS 1.0 output I have added the <olb> and links to an HTML bio (not yet up) and an XML version. This metadata is added to each item. I will be replacing the RSS 0.91 output with RSS 2.0 which will include the ‘author’ module. <author:olb>Scottish, based in San Francisco, former architect at Foster and partners, co founder: Moreover, co founder: Origins.net, co author RSS 1.0</author:olb> <author:linkHtml rdf:resource="https://www.davidgalbraith.org/author/bio.html" /> <author:linkXml rdf:resource="https://www.davidgalbraith.org/author/bio.xml" /> More soon.
Here is an experiment to do at home. 1. Take 150 words either written by or about Derrida. 2. Using AltaVista’s Babel fish, Translate them from English to French, then from French to German, then back to English. 3. What comes back is no more or less complete gibberish than what you started with. Clearly the translation service is better than it used to be. Before: “Derrida seeks to destabilize these inherited assumptions. We think, therefore we question, he counters. Even Plato’s own thinking contains such challenges to it’s own theses.” After: “The research work of Derrida d
From the second issue of Wired in 93: “There seems to be an unwritten rule nowadays that every product announcement must trumpet the fact that the new gizmo is, even if only in some minor way, wireless. We now have wireless mice, keyboards, modems, printers, and networks. The once-esoteric deliberations concerning radio bandwidth auctioning have become front page news in the Wall Street Journal. What’s strange is that there is no corresponding consumer clamor for wireless products. In fact, wireless keyboards and printers have flopped every time they have been introduced.” It took 10 years, but as Jon Udell said in December, Wi-Fi was the story of the year (oh – and Bluetooth can deal with the other bits and bobs, printers and the like). Perhaps Wired should think about a name change. – But they’re in NY now, so are probably more interested in what people are wearing this…
Jon Udell: “Service advertisement techniques such as UDDI are not likely to pass the View Source test “. XML and Web Services in particular are designed for machine to machine communication, but, as Jon rightly points out, their success ironically depends on human readability. Udell: Services and links
$130,000 gets you a 12 ft x 6 ft room in North London with no bathroom. Even prison cells have toilets. Shoe box in Islington via Simon Perry
Stephen Wolfram is this years winner of Wired’s tech renegade of the year award. Wolfram spent the best part of ten years in a nocturnal existence working on ‘A new kind of Science’ which he self published because he didn’t trust peer review. If he was a painter his garret existence would be a badge of honor, but in the world of science this isolationist approach draws suspicion. connected.telegraph.co.uk – A revolution or self indulgent hype? How top scientists view Wolfram
“A German family has kept a live eel in its bathtub for the last 33 years and even trained it to swim into a bucket when someone needs to wash. “ CNN.com – Family keeps pet eel in bath, for 33 years – Jan. 7, 2003