I’ve been citing pieces of branding consultant james Torio‘s master’s thesis for some time now. But because the thesis is long, and I want to cite a few small pieces, and those pieces aren’t directly URL addressable, I’m quoting them here. Clickable URLs are added, but everything else should be exactly as Torio wrote it. […] » about 1000 words
David Moats did some hard thinking on Oliver Stone‘s World Trade Center. “[I]t occurred to me that the problem with the movie is that five years later we remain stuck in the moment. We haven’t really moved on.” We’ve not been able to move on from 9/11 because we’re still mired in the mistakes that […] » about 800 words
I’m not going to make this point well, but let me try. Now that we’ve recognized the long tail of violence and the “open source insurgency” and seen the Hezbollah missile threat, it’s hard not to imagine a growing threat from enemy or terrorist missiles. In short, as technology becomes cheaper, the weapons people can […] » about 400 words
Nicholas Lemann, in a story on blogging and citizen journalism in the August 7 issue of The New Yorker: [N]ew media in their fresh youth [produce] a distinctive, hot-tempered rhetorical style. …transformative in their capabilities…a mass medium with a short lead time — cheap…and easily accessible to people of all classes and political inclinations. And […] » about 400 words
I awoke this morning to a bit of a mess. After enjoying months of spam-free bliss thanks to Akismet, I found over a hundred spam comments for pills and free pictures to suit most any need or desire. Spam has snuck through before, but never in this volume, and Akismet has always been quick to […] » about 300 words
The Mercury News’ QA on carry-on restrictions answered a big question I had: Q Can I still carry my laptop, cell phone and iPod on board? A Those items are still OK as long as you’re not traveling to or through the United Kingdom. But a Reuters story posted at C|Net suggests the restriction on […] » about 200 words
I’ve been looking up information on non-profits, specifically 501c3 corporations.
There’s this sales-pitch filled FAQ; The Company Corporation makes it sound easy, but this how to guide from the National Mental Health Association (of all places) seems to offer the…um…most honest info I’ve seen yet. Well, most honest sounding.
You might argue with Kevin Lim‘s suggestion that terrorism depends on our emotional and psychological insecurity, but can you really argue with the notion that more happy people is a bad thing? I can’t.
And I can’t criticize him for finding deep meaning in catchy pop songs and funny movies. He and Brandtson might be right… “nobody dances anymore. Everyone’s still playing safe and nobody takes chances anymore.”
I’m a sap. I can’t help but get choked up when I read or hear Shakespeare’s St. Crispin’s Day speech in Henry The V.
eHow tells me that “Saint Crispin’s Day is a good day to honor lives well lived, beliefs held dear and shoes well made.” But Steve Denning calls the speech a “magical, linguistic sleight of hand,” and warns us:
…it may work for a battle, or even several battles. But the danger in real life is =that it may not be sustainable. It unravels when people begin to question: what’s the point?
Perhaps even more so today, when the justification of war is a often a matter of serious debate and question, the US Army finds that the soldier’s will to fight and kill stems mainly from the soldiers’ interest in surviving and having their buddies survive, rather than in any belief in the purpose of the war. The story of who we are as a fighting unit is more powerful than: what on earth are we doing here, shooting and killing people?
Quite a while ago now, stepinrazor asked people to do some self-censorhip in a post in the Flickr Ideas forum. FlyButtafly quickly joined the discussion, noting that she’d encountered some material she found offensive in pictures from other Flickr members: “as I’m going through the pictures, one shows up of a protestor holding a sign […] » about 1300 words
Bob, the occasional cultural affairs correspondent here, took me to task:
how could you not?
no link to Dooce.com??
nor to BlogHer.org???
What can I say? My immediate reaction was that he’d found proof of Danah Boyd‘s point that male bloggers only link to male bloggers.
Anyway. The BlogHer conference just wrapped up, but as Ryan notes, I don’t know of any library folk who attended. Still, Marianne Richmond is on-blog, raising our awareness of DOPA just like a lot of librarians are trying to do. Meanwhile, over at Dooce I found the kind of smart, funny writing that I expected from Bob’s recommendation.
Arthur Schopenhauer is suggested to have said: Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is violently opposed, in the third is regarded as self-evident. If the reaction to Karen Calhoun‘s report to the Library of Congress on The Changing Nature of the […] » about 300 words
It’s hard to be angry with Flickr about unexpected downtime when they post funny things like this. For my part, this is more than just an excuse to link to DJ Ted Stevens’ Internet Song (yeah, “the internet is a series of tubes”), it’s an excuse to point out how Flickr apparently knows how to […] » about 100 words
…The time for pedantic purism is past; if we wish to communicate with the larger audience, we must use language they understand. We do not have the luxury of defining our words, their definitions are thrust upon us by usage. I was struck by how much that sounds like something I might have said about […] » about 300 words
Today I discovered (thank you Ryan) Kareem Elnahal’s speech as valedictorian of Mainland Regional High School and I discovered new hope, new faith in our country’s future. When high school students can step up and speak truth to power, as Elnahal did so well, I become a believer in the strength of human spirit. “We […] » about 1000 words
Let the vexillographers cringe, flag desecration never tasted so good. Sure, it’s barbecue season, but that’s no reason not to enjoy breakfast. And what better way to break fast on the Fourth of July than to dress waffles as sugary, fruity flags? Do that with your hamburgers. Do that with your potato salad. Do that […] » about 100 words
Today’s terms
tags: , concert, music, political criticism, politics, show, the sun, they might be giants, tmbg
echo through pine walls
stretch sun along desire’s coast
They Might Be Giants, playing at Mohegan Sun, drew roars of approval from the crowd when John Flansburgh went off-lyric sheet during The Sun (which they amusingly described as part of their Venue Songs series): …The heat and light of the sun are caused by nuclear reactions between a failed foreign policy, a failed domestic […] » about 200 words
My feelings on the Flag Burning Desecration Amendment should have been clear from my Flag Day story. Still, let me offer the t-shirts above as confirmation. america, burn, citizenship, civil liberties, civil liberty, first amendment, flag burning, flag desecration, flag desecration amendment, free speech, liberty, patriot, patriotism, rights » about 100 words
A comment from TroublePup alerted me that the Principality of Sealand burned Friday. The Evening Star explained: Witnesses watched in amazement as a huge plume of smoke started to rise from one of the legs of Sealand — and boats raced to the scene. Seafront worker Bruce Harrison said: “It was quite spectacular. The amount […] » about 300 words
I don’t collect stamps, but this set caught my eye. First there’s the irony that the USPS is celebrating American diplomacy at a time when, well, there’s not much to celebrate. Then I get a further chuckle when I notice the postal service can only scrounge up six examples to celebrate, but found 40 “superlatives” […] » about 200 words
Steve Lawson‘s A biblioblogger visits the local branch library is worth a look and quite a hoot.
I wrote yesterday of Nicole Engard’s comment that the ILS was about as open and flexible as a brick wall. Today I learned that the vendor of that ILS had tried to squash her public criticism.
Not cool.
It’s pure speculation on my part, but what comes next? Surely no vendor would send Vinny over to bust an uppity biblioblogger’s knee-caps, but might they offer a customer a better deal if they could just help quiet down a critic within the customer’s organization?
Not speculation: how do we feel about vendors that will spend lavish sums of money to court potential customers, but do little to improve the product and regularly refuse suggestions that they open a round-table with technology leaders among their existing client-base?
John Blyberg‘s ILS Customer Bill-of-Rights is especially relevant here, but also, let’s think about our side of the relationship.
update: I keep forgetting to link to this public example of how bad our OPACs/ILSs are. Thanks go to David Walker for making me ROTFL.
I’m more than a month late to this bandwagon, but whatever. Jessamyn alerted me to DOPA, the proposed Deleting Online Predators Act. What’s the point? When conservatives pit FUD against free speech, reasonable people would do well to pay attention. And what’s social software? Take a look at what Meredith Farkas has to say about it.
My dad just forwarded the following message to me: Hi, Everyone expected House Republicans to give up efforts to kill NPR and PBS after a massive public outcry stopped them last year. But they’ve just voted to eliminate funding for NPR and PBS—unbelievably, starting with programs like “Sesame Street.” Public broadcasting would lose nearly a […] » about 400 words