Monday, October 11, 2004

coming clean. So I've been whining for a while about the lack of interesting conservative remixes. I knew this would happen, and have stalled a bit in reporting this (bias confession: the obvious one), BUT: Here's a clever anti-Kerry remix. [Lessig Blog] 8:57:10 PM    comment []

Karen Ryan, reporting for duty. Remember "Karen Ryan"? She was the fake reporter used in Bush administration promotional videos to advertise the Medicare law -- videos that were deemed propaganda and an inappropriate use of government money by the GAO. Now "Karen" is "reporting" for the education department. [Salon.com] 8:57:03 PM    comment []

Wi-Fi not a slam dunk for basketball Maverick. NBA franchise owner Mark Cuban nixes plans to let Dallas Mavericks ticket-holders get Wi-Fi access from their seats. [CNET News.com] 8:50:13 PM    comment []

Philosophical Joke. A philosopher in Canada sends the following: What do you get when you cross a deconstructionist and a mafioso? He'll make you an offer you can't understand. [The Leiter Reports: Editorials, News, Updates] Which is, I guess, a way of saying R.I.P, Jacques Derrida. 5:24:10 PM    comment []

Post's Kaiser wants bulge mystery solved. Washington Post associate editor Robert Kaiser is intrigued by the Bush bulge story, even if he has "ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE" on what the bulge might have been. "But given the apparent visual evidence of the photo," Kaiser said, "I hope we can keep pursuing this question and get an answer." [Salon.com] Eariler coverage of the bush bulge here at A blog doesn't need a clever name. 5:23:30 PM    comment []

a blog devoted to remix. Here's a blog devoted to popculture remix. CC licensed. But needs a RSS/Atom feed. [Lessig Blog] 5:21:04 PM    comment []

R.I.P., 'Superman' star Christopher Reeve, dead at 52. Via CNN [NewsIsFree: Popular Items] 6:47:53 AM    comment []

Sampling a World of New Ways to Grapple With the Web. These days, there is an array of agile, interesting browsers that are almost absurdly adaptable to the tastes and needs of the user. By By VERLYN KLINKENBORG. t the moment, at least eight different Web browsers reside in my computer. There's no earthly reason to have so many except for the slightly obsessive fun of it. And these are just the non-arcane browsers - the ones that didn't ask me to install supporting programs I don't understand. I've also resisted the temptation to build my own browser, which is the kind of project computer magazines like to publish. I know what my do-it-yourself browser would look like. The decals would be crooked and the paint would have fingerprints on it, just like the model airplanes I built as a kid.  . . . What went wrong with Internet Explorer is a big subject. But one answer, apart from the mediocrity of the software itself, is that it sided with the commercial purposes of the Internet and not with the user. Explorer works like one of those magical doors in a horror movie: open it and the ghosts come flying in, swirling around your head, threatening to suck you into the maw of chaos. But users want control. They want to believe they have the power to explore the Web on their own terms. Explorer wants them to sit still and shut up. A couple of years ago, I switched from Windows to Apple. The switch was, in many ways, a revelation. Apple's browser, Safari, seemed astonishingly polite, almost discreet, after the imperious behavior of Explorer. Switching to Safari was also a reminder of something that's obvious to computer geeks but not so obvious to ordinary users. A browser is just a way of putting a friendly face on code. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't have to become an institution. It doesn't have to metastasize. I stuck with Safari for a time, largely on the assumption - as endemic in the Apple world as it is in Microsoft's - that somehow the browser built by the maker of the underlying operating system must be better than all the others. But switching from Windows to Apple prepared me to keep on switching. It taught me that market share means nothing in terms of quality. It made me wonder whether there was any inherent advantage in a browser that happened to be the same brand as the computer that was running it. The answer, it turns out, is no. These days, there is an array of agile, interesting browsers. What's refreshing about these programs is their diversity. The best of them are astonishingly nimble. They are almost absurdly adaptable to the tastes and needs of the user. Most are free, and many are open source. They have none of the monolith about them, none of that feeling of being shackled to a leviathan.  [The New York Times > Opinion] 6:46:51 AM    comment []

And did I say, "WOO, HOO!"? Cardinals Will Play for N.L. Title. St. Louis advanced to the N.L. championship series for the third time in five years, beating the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-2, Sunday night. By By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. [The New York Times > Sports] I'm having a great time watching this team. 6:44:22 AM    comment []

A mess of good stuff up at Wired News: A MacGyver for the Third World. An MIT inventor bent on public service creates practical solutions to life-threatening problems around the world. Her approach: be a master of the obvious. Second in a series profiling this year's MacArthur 'genius award' winners. By Kari Lynn Dean. India Emerges as Innovation Hub. Indian labs churn out technologies to help users in developing countries keep up with the information age even if they can't afford a computer, don't live near a phone or speak a language that can't be typed on a standard keyboard. By Manu Joseph. Oral History on the Go. A project to record thousands of interviews with people across the United States is expanding. StoryCorps originates from a soundproof booth in Grand Central Station and now wants to go mobile. Rachel Metz reports from New York. People Are Human-Bacteria Hybrid. A group of British scientists believes people should be viewed as 'superorganisms,' made of conglomerations of human, fungal, bacterial and viral cells. It's a sensible view, given that human bodies contain more than 500 bacterial species. By Rowan Hooper. 6:40:38 AM    comment []

Its Crunch time on The Benefactor !. With each test, I am looking for specific things. I cut based on those specific things. In putting together the basketball teams, I was looking for organizational skills. I always tried to stick to evaluating the skills the tests were based on. Did I like it when the kids were harassed by some of the contestants. Of course not. Did I take it into consideration. Yes, but not as the primary consideration.  Now that I have gotten to know the remaining contestants, I have been accumulating the “brownie points” and the “cut points”. Things like how they dealt with the kids. How they have treated and reacted to both me and the other contestants. Those havent gone unnoticed. I just tally them up, ready to use them if there is a toss up in making a decision between two contestants Why not just cut on the spot ? Because there is only 1 reward on this show (with the exception of the bribe). That reward is winning the million dollars. There is not added value if a contestant goes further but still doesnt win. They walk away with the same amount of money as the Rich, the first contestant cut.  . . . Character tests come in to play starting this episode. If you thought there was something good or bad about a person, it comes out Monday…  . . . And one more tidbit.. The best place to search for info on The Benefactor is via a new feature on IceRocket.com. Its the blog Search. Forget what traditional media is saying. The fun stuff is on blogs. Check it out http://www.icerocket.com/search?tab=blog&;q=%22the+benefa… [Blog Maverick] 6:38:09 AM    comment []