I may have nightmares about it, but this is just amazing:
Category: news
I don't feel guilty for not blogging for a while, no I sure don't. Guilt is certainly not why I'm posting a bunch of random (but great) links for you to look at. Nope, not at all:
- Hospitality for the Coming Age: Sharing in the midst of scarcity: Anna Lisa's new blog chronicling her ministry formation work around sharing resources - food, listening, time, hope - when such things are scarce. Brand new, ready for your comments!
- indexed: astute and sometimes funny observations about the state of the world, presented as simple diagrams on index cards.
- Project 10 to the 100th: Google is giving away $10 million for good ideas - anyone want to partner on a submission?
- FAIL Blog: Pictures and Videos of Owned, Pwnd and Fail Moments: in the tradition of lolcats, some really funny and scary stuff here, like this abomination of truth in marketing.
- Found Magazine: random bits of other people's lives found, scanned, and posted to the web. Wow.
Tonight I attended a talk by NPR Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon, who I've always enjoyed listening to on the radio on lazy Saturday mornings. He talked about the current Presidential election and the role the media play, especially when it comes to their participation as news-makers, such as when media personalities moderate debates.
His comments were interesting and insightful, but not necessarily ground-breaking, and when asked to comment beyond what I took to be his prepared remarks, he had some trouble even being insightful. But, I did really appreciate his perspectives on how deferential and petty many members of the media have become, and his advice to politicians and interested citizens to go against the grain more and shake things up a bit.
Though, when I asked my question of him, he wasn't so into the shaking things up bit: Continue reading "Listening to Scott Simon and Dave Isay, NPR greats"
Journalist Amy Goodman, along with two other members of her crew, were roughed up and arrested at the Republican National Convention despite clearly displaying their press credentials. Other journalists hoping to provide media coverage of the convention and the protests around it were pre-emptively arrested before it even began. And of course, many other people attempting to protest peacefully at both major-party conventions were rounded up, assaulted, arrested and more. For anyone who still had some shred of hope that the media have the ability (let alone the interest) to cover actions and speech that dissent from the mainstream, these incidents may not leave you with much hope left.
Here's an interview PBS did with Goodman about her arrest, including video from the scene: Continue reading "Arresting journalists, preventing protest"
A few upcoming speaking events to note:
- Rising Above the Noise: Online Strategies & Tools for Success: we'll take on blogging, RSS, micro-blogging, social networking, widgets, photo sharing, and more, and talk about how these tools can help businesses and other organizations get their message out there further. See also the article in today's Pal-Item. Thursday September 25th 8-9 AM at the Uptown Innovation Center in Richmond. Free, contact Main Street to register.
- The Internet as a Political Tool: this is a repeat of the presentation I did in May, but now with more flavor! I'll talk about how the Internet is changing the world of politics, and what it means for local citizens (especially right before the November election). It's a part of the Technology Series at Morrisson-Reeves Library (see the PDF brochure) that is bringing together local experts to talk about various technology issues. Thursday, October 9th 6:30-8 PM in the Bard Room at MRL in Richmond. Free, contact MRL for details or just show up.
- General Talk about the Technologies of the Internet: I'll be speaking to a group of freelance artists, web developers and consultants in Cincinnati about how to best use the technologies of the Internet to serve their clients. Friday, October 24th. If you're in the Cincinnati area and are interested in joining the group, contact Katie McGuire.
If you're interested in having me speak to your business or organization, learn more about how to get in touch to make a request.
It's been a while since I posted one of these, here are a few highlights from my Delicious link feed:
- Dave Pollard's process flowchart for blogging [GIF]
- travis poling, the blog - A new blog by Travis, who's taking blogging to a new level
- Bikes as Transportation - A new blog by Mark, locally based but globally appealing:
- Three great local/regional food blogs I've come to know recently: Middle West Meals, Indieats, and Going Local.
- Indianapolis Startup Weekend - anyone want to go start up a tech company together?
- When Gmail Goes Dark - or, "why it will be a long time before I depend on Google Apps for mission critical business tasks"
- Fun with FOIA - scans of various internal forms used by the National Security Agency. I love that stuff.
- ChaCha - human-powered search engine accessible via SMS text message - great for parties.
This is a republishing of a series of blog posts looking at the pal-item.com Terms of Service, discussing what they actually mean and how they might impact your use of the Palladium-Item website. (The Palladium-Item is Richmond, Indiana's daily newspaper.) You can view the original posts where they appeared on the Pal-Item site: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
The pal-item.com Terms of Service (TOS) are the policies and terms that the Palladium-Item and its parent corporation, Gannett, have set forth for the use of their website at pal-item.com. When you visit the site in your web browser, you are subject to those terms. Opinions vary about whether the TOS can be considered a legal contract between you and the Palladium-Item, and how enforceable the terms might be. But one thing is clear: as websites like pal-item.com become more interactive and encourage more user submission of content, it’s in your best interest to understand these terms and how they affect you. Continue reading "Discussion of Pal-Item.com Terms of Service"
We all love to splurge a little once in a while. Save up some money and do something nice with it, really go a little beyond our normal spending - maybe it's a vacation, maybe it's a nice gift for a friend, or maybe it's buying universal healthcare for 300 million Americans.
Huh?
Oh yeah, universal health care was one of the things I bought on my $3 Trillion Shopping Spree. I did it at the website 3trillion.org, which asks the question: "The occupation of Iraq will cost $3 trillion...can YOU spend that money better?" It's an interesting exercise, and a great way to put the costs of the U.S. presence in Iraq into perspective.
Here is the full list of purchases I put in my cart:
Continue reading "A $3 Trillion Shopping Spree"
I don't usually read USA Today, but in doing so this morning I saw that there's a perverse new angle that some organizations are taking on the issue of U.S. immigration policy. It was manifested in an advertisement taken out on page 2 of the front section, with a single photo of a long line of traffic at a stop on an interstate highway. The text in the ad basically says that illegal immigrants from Mexico, in their unending contribution to the population here, are causing Americans to have to sit in traffic congestion longer than ever before. The call to action is clear: if you want your freedom to drive wherever you want whenever you want to remain intact, we have to keep those Mexicans out of our country.
Oh my.
Continue reading "A scary new angle on immigration: traffic congestion"
Just a few minutes before it happened, I had said, "You'd think people would pay better attention to what's going on around them on the road." We were barreling west on I-70, heading to a wedding in southwest Indiana, and I'd just watched the second police car in a row with its lights and sirens at full blast trying to get by a driver ahead of us who wasn't checking their rearview mirror enough. We didn't know what was up ahead, but I didn't have a good feeling about it. Perhaps in my own nervousness about what was in front of us, I apparently also stopped checking my rearview mirror frequently enough, because the next time I looked at it, there was a third police car right behind us, lights and sirens blaring, trying to get by. Not good.
A few miles up the road, the traffic in the eastbound lanes across the median were going very very slow. And not because of any apparent wreck or other barrier. We were trying to figure that out when I saw more lights up ahead - brake lights, flashing red and blue lights, and glints of sunlight off of surfaces that were moving in directions and patterns that just didn't seem right. A cop cruiser cut dramatically across the median, and then another came back across the other way, also really flooring it. "Uh-oh," I said. The cars ahead of us were coming to a full stop. Then we saw the white van weaving in and out of the traffic ahead, and then it was coming toward us on our side of the road, twisting and turning on and off of the pavement and grass.
Continue reading "The one where we almost died in a high speed car chase"