reasons to be cheerful #459

From the Columbia Journalism Review: Four dailies that have produced inspiring international coverage in the past — The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Boston Globe, Newsday, and the Baltimore Sun — closed their remaining overseas bureaus. In TV, as veteran correspondent Tom Fenton has observed, a quarter century ago CBS News had twenty-four foreign bureaus and stringers in forty-four countries; today, there are six bureaus, none of them in Africa or Latin America. Time Inc., owner of the largest circulation newsweekly magazine, Time, eliminated 650 jobs in early 2006, including those of Don Barlett and Jim Steele, two of the nation’s preeminent investigative journalists, in May. The following week, it was reported that Time Inc. had just paid $4 million for exclusive photographs of Shiloh, the newborn baby of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. — Future of Journalism - Achenblog

The Idiocracy will be televised. Go ahead, scream.

via WRECK & SALVAGE

stray bullets

How the Music Business Spent the Summer Killing Itself Labels Pull Albums off iTunes, RIAA Goes After Internet Radio -- When Will They Ever Learn? Idiots. I think this lunacy is driven by lawyers who convince behind-the-times executives that the world is ending in order to fatten their bank accounts with the fees they collect filing cease and desist notices, removing videos from YouTube, and prosecuting their customer base.

The mass graveyard of the blogosphere How many dead blogs do you think exist in the blogosphere today? Take a guess… A couple of million perhaps…? Try again. According to Technorati and PC Mag, in 2007 the number stood at 200 million! Yes, 200 million! Which means blogs are now officially abandoned more often than red headed step children. More research from Perseus on blogging abandonment behaviour found that 66% of blogs hadn’t been updated for two months. So why is it that the blogosphere represents a mass graveyard of unfulfilled intentions? (via)

Clueless smugglers find 'gold' is uranium One thing puzzled them. At night, a report on a local government website said, “they were surprised that, when the lights went out, the treasure sparkled and glittered”. One of the men, identified as Mr Wang, “chipped a piece from it and kept it beside his bed — sometimes playing with it”.... “To prevent the sample being lost or stolen on the way, Mr Wang used tape to stick the unidentified treasure to his body, and it never left him night or day.”

Do No Harm To Humans: Real-life Robots Obey Asimov’s Laws European researchers have developed technology enabling robots to obey Asimov’s golden rules of robotics: to do no harm to humans and to obey them.

Shadow analysis could spot terrorists by their walk By analysing the movements of human shadows in aerial and satellite footage, JPL engineer Adrian Stoica says it should be possible to identify people from the way they walk - a technique called gait analysis, whose power lies in the fact that a person's walking style is very hard to disguise. (via)

Dairy farmers: True IT pioneers The dairy industry was an early adopter of information technology, and dairy farms have been among the most aggressive businesses in the agricultural industry at applying IT. Dairy IT got its start in the 1950s, when an IBM mainframe was used to develop the first dairy records management system and a genetics database...

also:
Nazi-era photos surface in Bolivia
The Global Album Cover Map (via)
Psychic investigator looks into spooky painting (via)
Finding a new position as a mature job hunter
John Titor weighs in on the LHC (entertaining) (via)

stray bullets

Scientists receive death threats over 'end-of-world' experiment The scientists behind the world's biggest ever scientific experiment have received death threats from critics who claim it could cause the end of the world. What? "If you destroy the world, I'll kill you." seems like a pointless threat.

Researchers Use Facebook App to Create Zombie Army Computer researchers built a tool that demonstrates how hackers could silently turn Facebook users into a powerful zombie army that can attack other websites or scout for vulnerable sites on the net. Some might maintain that Facebook already has a powerful zombie army.

also:
Brazil oil boom 'to end poverty'
Hand Weapons of Trench Raiders, WWI
How To Spot A Heart Attack Soon After It Occurs
Murder map of London, 1888 (via)

viddy:
Top 10 Amazing Physics Videos
『Gypsy Rhythm Machine Crazy Beatbox(動画)』
Zen Wind - Yoga and the Art of Farting (via)

stray bullets

Top 10 Exoplanets: Weird Worlds in a Galaxy Not So Far Away (slide show)
China hacker gang issues diplomas…goes to jail (via)
Facebook won't approve woman for account because her family name is "Yoda." (Assbook) (via)
Why Rhona Cameron would make a better Bill Hicks than Russell Crowe
Sir Francis Drake: No Hero's Death

Atomic Wednesday: Operation: Teapot

viddy:
Vladimir Nabokov discusses Lolita part 1 of 2 (part 2 of 2) (via)

If you think you stink at driving....

...take heart.

via Blame It On The Voices

Screw Warren Ellis

What the Web doesn't need is a snarky comic book writer dictating what the Web needs.

With the majority of the Web flow being spam, porn and other garbage, and the remainder a phenomenally huge amassment of virtually impenetrable data and information, this relatively small group of people scouting for interesting items provide a valuable service. (In their spare time, mind you, and likely not on a comic book writer's wages.)

There are a vast number of fascinating topics worth exploring. With most having so little time to dig through all the crap, Web curating is a niche that is being filled because it is needed and desired. Link blogs are there because the desire exists and the traffic demands.

The rest of the world is coming online and they want information. What they don't give a flip about is what a few people were doing back in "the good old days" and they can't rely exclusively on Boing Boing and Neatorama, fine institutions as they are, to find everything they want.

It is ridiculously absurd to assume that one, or even a small handful of weblogs could cover all of the news, topics and areas of interest that would occupy the Web surfing public. A billion is an enormous number* and there are growing billions of people scouring the Internet for what they want. On top of that, there are a seemingly infinite amount of things in this universe to draw our attention... an army of bloggers couldn't keep up with it all, though they're finding their way.

It's a new Web, reborn every day, and if you don't like where it's going, step off and leave us be, old man.

*a million seconds = 11 and a half days; a billion seconds = 31.7 years; a trillion seconds = 31,709 years.

She Thought She Won a Toyota

I can't stop laughing.

If I was her lawyer, the first thing I'd ask is: Did you really think that the manager of a Hooters was going to pony up for a new car because you sold some beer?

By the look on her face, I'd wager she was hustling granny and the baby to win that contest.

via Clusterflock

More on the GTA-Drunk Driving Foofaraw

This one originates here in Savannah.

From Kotaku:

A TV station in Savannah, Ga. is out doing what Crecente and I commonly referred to as the "gratuitous local." In other words, it's a national story that doesn't have any impact specific to your locality, but you sure can dream up some because it's the kind of story that's real easy to assign. The Grand Theft Auto IV Drunk Driving story fits perfectly, and we will see versions of this for two months, if not more.

Now, you stick a camera on a cop and ask him about drunk driving, real or virtual, and what the hell do you think he's gonna say? WSAV-TV does just that and the results are predictable.

It's just a frickin' game.

If I ran around town actuating Madden, FaceBreaker or Medal of Honor, I'd surely get arrested. What's the difference?

I'll say it again: Those inclined to flip out on something like GTA IV would find something else to flip out on in its absence.

To paraphrase Robert Anton Wilson: Some, but not all, people are idiots.

WSAV

Thanks, Nick