October 2010 Archives

links for 2010-10-31

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  • One unforeseen result of the Tea Party movement is the ascension of Chase Whiteside, a 22-year-old student journalist from Ohio. Dressed in colorful shirts and ties when he’s on camera, Whiteside has become a new progressive media darling with his reports from conservative political events. His interviews at Tea Party gatherings, a Sarah Palin book signing, and Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally in Washington, D.C., have racked up over 4.9 million hits on YouTube as of mid September.
  • Apple has included certain multi-touch options in OS X for some time now; first for MacBook users with multi-touch trackpads, then for Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad users. But all of these are basically tacked-on shortcuts of sorts for stuff you normally do with mouse clicks. Some of these newer OS X Lion features appear to be fully thought-out with multi-touch in mind.

links for 2010-10-29

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  • "People should not think of cable companies as media companies," said Craig Moffett, a senior analyst at Wall Street equities research firm Sanford C. Bernstein. "They are infrastructure companies. And they are in business to make a return on their physical infrastructure." But instead of simply raising prices on cable broadband, Moffett said it's more likely that cable operators would move toward usage-based pricing. That way consumers who use more bandwidth to stream movies and TV shows end up paying more per month for service than people who may be getting their video from the traditional cable TV network.

links for 2010-10-29

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  • "People should not think of cable companies as media companies," said Craig Moffett, a senior analyst at Wall Street equities research firm Sanford C. Bernstein. "They are infrastructure companies. And they are in business to make a return on their physical infrastructure." But instead of simply raising prices on cable broadband, Moffett said it's more likely that cable operators would move toward usage-based pricing. That way consumers who use more bandwidth to stream movies and TV shows end up paying more per month for service than people who may be getting their video from the traditional cable TV network.

links for 2010-10-29

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  • "People should not think of cable companies as media companies," said Craig Moffett, a senior analyst at Wall Street equities research firm Sanford C. Bernstein. "They are infrastructure companies. And they are in business to make a return on their physical infrastructure." But instead of simply raising prices on cable broadband, Moffett said it's more likely that cable operators would move toward usage-based pricing. That way consumers who use more bandwidth to stream movies and TV shows end up paying more per month for service than people who may be getting their video from the traditional cable TV network.

links for 2010-10-29

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  • "People should not think of cable companies as media companies," said Craig Moffett, a senior analyst at Wall Street equities research firm Sanford C. Bernstein. "They are infrastructure companies. And they are in business to make a return on their physical infrastructure." But instead of simply raising prices on cable broadband, Moffett said it's more likely that cable operators would move toward usage-based pricing. That way consumers who use more bandwidth to stream movies and TV shows end up paying more per month for service than people who may be getting their video from the traditional cable TV network.

links for 2010-10-26

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  • In their current anti-NPR initiative, Fox and the Republicans would like to suggest that the main way NPR differs from Fox is that most NPR employees vote Democratic. That is a difference, but the real difference is what they are trying to do. NPR shows are built around gathering and analyzing the news, rather than using it as a springboard for opinions. And while of course the selection of stories and analysts is subjective and can show a bias, in a serious news organization the bias is something to be worked against rather than embraced. NPR, like the New York Times, has an ombudsman. Does Fox? [I think the answer is No.]
  • The Parents Television Council spent most of the last decade as a conservative superstar in the culture wars. By pressuring the Federal Communications Commission to crack down on racy programming, the council was responsible for record-setting fines against media giants like CBS and the News Corporation.

    But the organization now finds itself damaged, defanged by court challenges to the F.C.C.’s hard-line position, by its own dwindling finances and by internal troubles that resulted in its accusing a former senior employee of extortion. Meanwhile, the entertainment industry — once so afraid of the council’s wrath that Fox blurred the naked behind of an animated character — is pushing the boundaries of taste with renewed intensity.



Cardinals Nest in the Pergola

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In May we found some Cardinals had built a nest in our patio pergola. I became obsessed...

...On Saturday I taught an iMovie Workshop and finally put the video together.

links for 2010-10-24

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  • A dirty secret of charter school 'success' is that they typically transfer their poorly-performing students the students they fail to educate to public schools. Consequently, charter schools are able to claim better test scores than regular public schools (clearly, ethics aren't on the charter school agenda....). It's been a problem in Boston and Bay Area charters in California.

    A letter to Diane Ravitch from a Los Angeles school prinicipal documents just how dishonest and harmful this practice is...


    (tags: education)

links for 2010-10-23

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links for 2010-10-21

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  • Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party movement, here in Indiana and across the country. For some, it is a matter of religious conviction; for others, it is driven by distrust of those they call the elites. And for others still, efforts to address climate change are seen as a conspiracy to impose world government and a sweeping redistribution of wealth. But all are wary of the Obama administration’s plans to regulate carbon dioxide, a ubiquitous gas, which will require the expansion of government authority into nearly every corner of the economy.

links for 2010-10-20

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  • Beginning Wednesday, Starbucks customers who use the free Wi-Fi at more than 6,800 U.S. company-operated stores will be greeted with the Starbucks Digital Network (SDN) — an exclusive content network curated by the company and designed to enhance the customer’s in-store experience.

links for 2010-10-19

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links for 2010-10-18

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  • The Rev. Kevin V. Madigan, who is the pastor of St. Peter’s, said that when he began reading about the history of his church early this year in preparation for the anniversary on Tuesday, he was not initially struck by the parallels between the opposition it had faced and what present-day Muslims have encountered in proposing a community center and mosque near ground zero.
  • A proposed house of worship in lower Manhattan had sparked controversy, with demonstrations and a flow of righteous condemnation that it would be a sign of contradiction--a temple of a religion that is blasphemous in its doctrine and practice and inimical to democracy and the American way of life. Also it was to be funded by foreigner powers. But it was 1785 and the house of worship to be built was St. Peter's Catholic Church on Barclay Street.
  • The two publishing packages include the $89.99 Basic Publishing option, where BookBrewer assigns the book an ISBN, and makes it available to all major eBook stores at a price set by the writer. The $199.99 Advanced Publishing Package gives Authors full rights to their ePub file, which they can distribute in any way they choose.
  • So, let’s assess where we on, on that road to replacement journalism. Let’s start with some numbers. Take the most useful census of daily newspaper newsroom employment, the annual ASNE (American Society of News Editors) census, conducted early each year and next reported out at its April 2011 conference. ASNE’s most current number is 41,500. That’s down from 46,700 a year earlier, from 52,600 in 2008 and from 55,000 in 2007. So, over those three-plus years, that’s a loss of 13,500 jobs, a 25-percent decline.

links for 2010-10-17

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links for 2010-10-06

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  • Back in December we introduced Google Goggles on Android: it lets you search by taking pictures. Today, we’re excited to announce that Goggles is now a feature of Google Mobile App for iPhone. Google Mobile App already lets you speak your queries, and it can also use your phone’s location to give you more relevant search results.

    In the new version of Google Mobile App just tap on the camera button to search using Goggles. Goggles will analyze the image and highlight the objects it recognizes -- just click on them to find out more. You can see how this works in this short video:



links for 2010-10-01

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