Friday, March 29
Real Time Fact Checking...
by
Thomas
on Fri 29 Mar 2002 09:17 AM PST
But we’re only beginning to grasp how weird it is to have wireless Net access all the time. One harbinger: during Tuesday morning’s session with Qwest telecommunications CEO Joe Nacchio, several conference participants were typing their impressions into personal “Web logs,” online diaries available to all on the Internet. One of these “bloggers,” Doc Searls, got an e-mail from a friend across the country, who noted that Nacchio—who at that moment was onstage complaining about how tough life was in telecom—had sold huge amounts of stocks over the past two years. Searls located a page from Yahoo Finance with the particulars and linked it to his log. Another blogger in the room read Searls’s log, and copied the link to his own site, acidly commenting on the inappropriateness of Nacchio’s whining. Though it’s not clear how many in the room were reading the Web logs, apparently there were a lot. In any case, it seemed that the room palpably chilled toward the pugnacious executive. This is a dangerous trend for public speakers everywhere. (From MSNBC)
Danergous, because they can't BS a crowd, I think a little accountablity is a good thing, although granted a voice in the back of my head says becareful what you ask for today it may bite you in the ass tomorrow :-)
This guy made a killing as a monopoly and the crowd was able to call Bullshit on him. I like it, hell I love it. It makes presenting at conferences much like everything else the web is infecting, a conversation. The person who just wants to speak at conference to push their idea with a few little questions at the end is forced to realize his crowd is interacting with their speech, whether they like it or not.
I have even a better example of this, at this same conference Dan Gilmor was blogging and made a mistake, during the Q&A the Presenter called him on it and corrected him. So it's not just one way street this accountability is a two way road. But the fact he was called on it, didn't make him mad, it made him even more excited about the medium.
Then, in the Q&A, he corrected something I'd written in the blog. In other words, he'd caught this in near-real time and had better information (he should). I immediately posted another paragraph, which began, "I've been corrected...."
Whoa. I'm still not entirely sure what happened. But I do know this. My journey in journalism hit a pivot in that moment. Maybe journalism itself hit a pivot point, as pretentious as that sounds.
All I know for sure is that I'm jazzed that it happened, and I'm going to think about it, hard. Stories like this disprove cynical theory that the web is over. Lisa Guernsey thinks Fun is Hard to Find online, I suspect it's more that she doesn't have a clue and is like one of the Blind men trying to describe an Elephant. Weblogs, IM, Metafilter, Google, Indendent Content, just because the Dot Bombs have left doesn't mean people have gotten off line, they have just gotten smarter.
The world is interactive, not broadcast. "It's not the medium, it's the message." The message a simple one, come on guys let's have fun. (Thanks David for the Steve's Quote)
Friday Five
by
Thomas
on Fri 29 Mar 2002 08:00 AM PST
Friday Five 1. If you could eat dinner with and "get to know" one famous person (living or dead), who would you choose? Hmm, perhaps James Woods, although he seems egotistical at times and I wouldn't agree with him on most political issues, I think he's intelligent and would make for interest person to get to know. Otherwise Kate Winslet, you know she available now...
2. Has the death of a famous person ever had an effect on you? Who was it and how did you feel? I think the old Hollywood stars deaths effect me more than anyone else, Jimmy Stewart, Bogart, while the studios were big movie factories those days the quality of the writing and the actors were better overall.
3. If you could BE a famous person for 24 hours, who would you choose? Be famous and myself, the best of all worlds. More seriously I can't say I wouldn't have interest in being any of them, it's not my bag baby.
4. Do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? Who? Without the beard, the Gerber baby. Shut up, got a lot of emotional scaring over it ;-) Actually people occasional say Al from tool time, but I don't buy it.
5. Have you ever met anyone famous? Outside of the political world, which the list is too long, yes, I have met Richard Roundtree aka SHAFT and Charlton Heston. I met Charlton Heston while on the Hill, I knew he would be in our office that day, I was just interning and was sent off to run an errand. I came back in and he was in meeting with the boss. The office was buzzing about how he had shaken EVERYONES hand on the way in, I was bummed that I had to run the errand and missed out. So it was a Friday and slow so I had an IM window open with a buddy, telling him all about it, how it sucked I missed out. I look over my shoulder down the hall and see he's leaving now. I quickly type "There he is, Moses in person, cool." I turned and he realized I hadn't been there on the way in smiled came up shook my hand, he's a big guy, said hello chatted for a second, then left. I turned back to the computer and typed "I shook hands with Moses!" So regardless if you like his politics or not, he is considerate towards staff, he didn't have to stop and say hello. My little brush with fame.
Thursday, March 28
Advantage Bear Droppings
by
Thomas
on Thu 28 Mar 2002 03:33 PM PST
Fox news covers the Speedy Gonzales story, I covered it two days ago. I even linked to the Hispanic Online story which they mention but don't link to, shame on you Fox. That's right folks you want to hear it first about Cartoons and James Traficant I am your source. (some how those seem alot more related then I intended when I typed it, also thanks to Howard Kurtz for pointing out the story)
Damn that Internet it's going to ruin the Economy
by
Thomas
on Thu 28 Mar 2002 08:08 AM PST
According to a study the economic recovery could be slowed by the market efficiency.
One reason that firms won’t do so well this time around is because the Internet is essentially killing profits by turning earnings that formerly went to businesses into savings that go directly into customer pockets, the report said.
An example is the hotel industry. In the past a price cut by one hotel would only attract a few customers, so there wasn’t as much incentive to cut rates, the report said.
But a price cut posted in cyberspace is quickly matched by other hotels fighting for guests — competition that leads to lower profits for everyone, the report said. “This competition on the Internet reduces price to operating costs, leaving no return on investment at all,” the report said. “It is autos, it is PCs, it is airlines.” My god, you mean that business may have to start have more than just low price, they might have to show some quality to differentiating from other companies, oh how will the market ever survive? Stupid study, that is why the price is not the only factor people and smart businesses will use it to their advantage. In auto's it might be the ability to access your car better, in PC's it's Dell and Apple, and in airlines it's Jet Blue and Southwest. They know the truth, customers are people, not numbers. I am not saying people at those companies don't make mistakes, but I think they are trying harder than most companies out there.
Email addresses
by
Thomas
on Thu 28 Mar 2002 07:37 AM PST
I am sick of email to my Yahoo account taking forever to process, literally some of the posts to the DC Bloggers Group are taking a day or two to arrive, when other members of the group are not having any problems. This is particularly funny since the Blogger group and my Yahoo email are hosted by the same company. So I am getting back to using my bears account more often, check out the BIO page if you don't have the email address. I really have liked the fact that my bears address wasn't exactly my public one, more of the account old friends used to reach me. But considering how slow the Yahoo email is in processing messages I decided to leave my Yahoo account as the public spam account. It's a shame because I liked the fact I could access Yahoo mail from any browser and read messages for instance at the gym on a web-enabled exercise bike. It wasn't just Blogger group email either, I am also on Declan's listserv and I would get things hours after my boss did, it has just gotten annoying. My only problem with the bears account is my work web connection gets buggy and can't hold a telnet window open for any length of time, if I leave it alone for 5 minutes it will crash. This only happens at work though so I know it's on our end of the connection. I won't stop checking my Yahoo mail, but I'll probably only scan it once a day instead of the 5-6 times I do currently.
Wednesday, March 27
Michelle Malkin's view on Washington
by
Thomas
on Wed 27 Mar 2002 01:25 PM PST
Dave's right, I must grant certain caveat's to Michelle's opinion, DC is not perfect, I haven't seen a perfect city either. DC is too humid for my taste, and she is right housing is too expensive, and Dave's right traffic can get ugly. But most of her judgements are way off base and sound like sour grapes of someone who interned, but never actually found a job in town, at least that's what she sounds like to me. A few tasty excerpts and comments...
Written by Beltway types and drawing on the self-delusionary opinions of other Beltway types, this Brookings report leaves out some of the most obvious reasons why Washington repulses normal Americans. You seen very obsessed about types and inside the Beltway types specifically, but then throughout the article you generalize about K Street, the Hill, and people.
I speak from experience as an intermittent and reluctant resident of Washington and the surrounding area over the past 10 years. She interned in DC once and visits for stories...(okay looking at her bio she works for papers as a columnist)
Up close, it's a rude, family-unfriendly, ego-infested, tax-subsidized, creep-coddling swamp. No more rude than any major city of any size and in fact in neighborhoods the people are friendly, it's scary three years after leaving Old Town when I am down there how many people I see I know or know me from when I lived there, very small town like in an area of 3 million people. I have heard the same thing said for Cleveland Park, Adams Morgan, and more recently Ballston. As for family unfriendly, tell that to all the families who visit every year on the metro (esp. in the Summer), it's cleaner than New York's subway, and fairly simple to get around on. On top of that you could go on a museum trip once a weekend for three months without visiting the same place twice, so unlike Phoenix which doesn't have many family activities, there are many here. Ego-infested, unlike New York, LA, San Francisco.....there are egotistical people everywhere I hate to be the one to break it to you, DC has no monopoly. And yes DC was a swamp and feels like it again every August, them is the lumps.
Try walking along K Street - D.C.'s famous corridor of power brokers -- on a weekday morning with a baby, stroller, and diaper bag. Why would you want to walk down K Street on a weekday morning? The Mall and there are plenty of parks that make a better place to walk. Besides would walking down Wall Street in New York at the same time be any more pleasant? It's a business area.
If you're lucky enough not to get mowed down by a profanity-spewing driver in an expensive car sporting diplomat license plates, you'll freeze to death under the icy glare of cheerless and condescending lobbyists who automatically assume you are your child's paid caretaker. Pedestrians and stay-at-home parents are endangered species in this part of town. Diplomats drive that way, why were you in the street? Of course stay-at-home parents aren't found in that area, it's a business district, not residential.
Try walking the halls of Congress. It's Abercrombie & Fitch meets the Hair Club for Men. Lots of really photogenic young people kissing up to lots of insufferable blowhards. Separated by one or two generations, most of these players have only one real thing in common: they have never been weaned from the public teat. The closest they've ever come to meeting a payroll is when they come together to spend everyone else's payroll taxes. I was one of those people, I hate to tell you, but I ain't photogenic. I never had the high end clothes and I wasn't alone. On top of that both of the members I worked for had run their own business before coming to Congress. In fact alot of members have, I would bet you never actually worked on the Hill, but applied for alot of jobs and sound bitter about it.
In Washington, you don't have friends and neighbors. You have "contacts" and "sources." And nobody ever travels alone on Capitol Hill. Happiness is a groveling entourage. Weekends are made for "networking." The typical Beltway denizen's idea of social stimulation is a constantly vibrating beeper. Gee, I better tell all these people I have called friends for the last five years they are not. Hmmmm I have some contacts, but no sources, the only people who have sources are journalists. Hate to tell you Michelle, but I travel alone up on the Hill all the time. I don't have an entourage, but if you would like to apply let me know and I'll get you an application. ;-) Hmmmm I really don't think she did live in the city, weeknights are for networking (not weekends), weekends are for getting out of Dodge, going camping or to the countryside, or just relaxing. Although I fully admitt, I don't go to a party without a couple of business cards in my pocket, they are good for notes or a phone number. The last comment about a beeper is funny, I don't know anyone in DC who has had a beeper in the last few years they all have cell phones, get with the times. ;-)
Except that most Washington dinner "parties" are dreadfully joyless affairs, filled with more rivalry than revelry -- and enough name-droppings to fertilize a football field. I don't think I have ever been to a true "dinner" party maybe once or twice, but I tend to suspect they are the previous generations thing, not the current one. I do go to a fair amount of receptions and happy hours.
Okay so you don't like the Brookings report, good for you, but when you make blanket judgements, it says more about you than those you try to cover. I may be leaving DC in the next year, but you know I honestly don't regret my time here, the people, or the experiences, I have made some wonderful friends, worked some amazing places, seen some wonderful things. This town isn't perfect, but it isn't that bad either.
Untitled
by
Thomas
on Wed 27 Mar 2002 06:59 AM PST
I'll second Lex's nomination for Allura (actually I think her bedhead looks cute) to Dave's blogger calender.
Tuesday, March 26
Untitled
by
Thomas
on Tue 26 Mar 2002 07:59 AM PST
Friday, March 22
Friday Five
by
Thomas
on Fri 22 Mar 2002 02:38 PM PST
Friday Five 1. What is your favorite time of year? Autumn, then Winter
2. What is it about your favorite season that, well, makes it your favorite season? It's isn't so freakin hot, trees changing colors, smell of leaves and the crunch they make underfoot.
3. What is your least favorite time of year? Why? Summer. A wise man once said you can always put on a coat, but you can't remove your skin, summer in DC August especially, the humidty is oppresive. Phoenix in the summer is an oven, except folks in Phoenix summer starts in May and lasts until October. That's right folks they usually break 100 degrees in May and while it might go into the 90's in June for a few days it continuies to reach 100 until the first or second week of October, yuck.
4. Do you do anything to celebrate or recognize the changing of seasons? Little personal rituals in recognition of the season....putting an autumn leaf on my noteboard in Autumn (and it's still there). Taking care to notice the wonderful array of greens in Spring after plants bloom.
5. What's your favorite thing to do outside? ~Oh you and me baby ain't nothing but animals~ ...ummm never mind hiking in the woods in Spring or Autumn.
Thursday, March 21
Untitled
by
Thomas
on Thu 21 Mar 2002 12:39 PM PST
My dream centers have been alot more active of late. The funny thing is usually my dreams revolve around long term things, but lately it has been revolving around new aspects of my life...Blogging, the DC Blogging group, and work environment. I'd like to point to a dream interetation site, but I never found one that was even vaguely correct from what my instinct tells me about my dreams. Oh well, at least my creative mind is doing something.
Poetry Wednesday - Introduction
by
Thomas
on Wed 20 Mar 2002 09:58 PM PST
The Internet needs another Meme like I need a hole in my head...That being said and my enjoyment of some of the weekly questions like Friday Five. I got to thinking, I would like to do something like that, but something of my own and if others are interested they can join, but I wanted something a bit literary. So I decided to have the Humpday Poem. 9 to 5 working office stiffs sucks the soul, humpday is the worst of lot, so perhaps it's the perfect day for alittle poetry. I started liking poetry back when I went to summer camp, back at Sky Y camp in Prescott, our counseler read a poem or two every night after lights out. The rules for the Humpday Poem will be simple, just publish a poem on Wednesdays, either of your own writing or of a poet whose work you enjoy.
Summer Night in Muinch
The streets are alive,
global city realized,
As the rain soaks us
we gather under cover
the world becomes smaller.
Later a Japanese woman types away in an internet cafe,
we share experiences of the Hofbrau haus
to half a world away.
Newsstand in the train station
has newspapers the worldwide.
No matter the taste
Muinch will provide,
Beer, Sex, Love, History,
she welcomes all.
Thomas Vincent, August 2002
Certainly not my best, but upbeat mood to start the Humpday Poem.
Wednesday, March 20
Fast Food Nation
by
Thomas
on Wed 20 Mar 2002 03:02 PM PST
Review Fast Food NationIn recent months, across the web I have seen this book in people's reading mentioned on various blogs. I decided I would like to read this book for myself. I had every reason to like what this book would tell me, I eat fast food infrequently, don't like what it is doing to America, it's culture, or our health. All that being said while I think this book has interesting and useful information, but one must read it with health skepticism. I am an aspiring author, but as I study my craft I read the words repeated over and over again "Let the story tell itself". My impression of Fast Food Nation is that Mr. Schlosser had a very set opinion approaching this work and looked for answers that matched his thesis. He uses facts and studies very effectively to represent these viewpoints. When facts are unavailable he uses an anecdotes to suffice and leaving the implication that his one story is the norm. Lastly when this method fails him he uses someone else's opinion and leaves it to give the impression of the overall state of the industry. There are numerous examples of this approach, but I will briefly cover a few. On page 118 he uses the words of a Bert Moulton to implies collusion and price-fixing throughout the potato growing industry without any direct evidence. On 174 he blames supervisors for widespread sales of amphetamines to meat packing plants. In describing and E. coli out break he describes on page 208 that no direct source of the outbreak can be traced, he states that the meat came from a specific plant that was dirty according to federal inspectors so therefore it was the source. His political viewpoint is accented throughout the book. He repeatedly uses terms such as "right-wing", "conservative", and "republican" in a negative context, but is careful not to include them in the index to show how wide spread his bias is in the text. This shows through to the additional section where he discusses the changes since the original book. Specifically he goes after the Wall Street Journals editorial staff as right wing without mention of the reviewers name or what was wrong with the review. It isn't until page 277 that he confesses that he was light on the role of the Clinton administrations record and ties to the Tyson family. After a bare three sentences he turns to attack the current administration. Finally, the charge of American cultural imperialism rings hollow. He notes on page 244 of various acts against McDonald's by Dutch anarchists. McDonald's uses an orderly system for distribution, a natural target for an anarchist regardless of culture. He mentions that one McDonalds was blown up in Cali, Columbia in 1997, I just wonder how many other buildings were blowup in Cali that year? On Page 250 he mentions Plauen only having McDonalds the only store open in the town square on Unification day in Germany. I'll confess to have never been to Plauen, but if he knew anything of German culture he might know that all businesses close in Germany except restaurants. He continues in last few pages of the chapter implying blame for the high unemployment in East Germany on McDonalds and other Western institutions, I am sorry this doesn't wash. The Wall fell in Eastern Germany to an economic system whose end had come. Afterwards it has been a difficult adjustment period for those people, trying to get over the chains of Communism and it cheapens those people's struggles, sacrifices, and dreams to use it as a cheap plot device to drive a personal opinion. This book has some positive characteristics, I agree with it's statements about the danger of genetically altered food. I enjoyed when he talked about the good actors in the industry and feel they deserved a full chapter, rather than a few paragraphs. This would have been a better book if he had let the story tell itself, rather then use it as a personal opportunity to push his political agenda. If he had then I think Fast Food Nation would have been great book instead of just an Upton Sinclair knockoff.
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