Really, astonishingly cool.

What wuold happen if cats and mice were intelligent and really at war in a medieval society? Possibly they'd be wearing these...

Cats & Mice

CNN once again shows how easy it is to confuse a Democratic senator and a terrorist.

"Where's Obama?" they asked, over a graphic of Osama bin Laden.

Apparently Fox fired the guy that does their graphics stuff and he got a job at CNN. (One cynically observes that this is exactly how the media kills a candidate it's operators don't like. Yarrr, anyone? I believe they apologized for that too... Posthumously.)

I absolutely don't believe these are mistakes. Our media are just so despicable these days.

CNN: Obama Bin Lauden?

I don't think Rago has spent much time on blogs or he'd know that several specialize in, and are very good at, taking on complex topics that the mainstream media barely skim.

A response to the WSJ editorial.

[ Not bad, and I'm glad someone who writes for a news paper, someone on the inside, as it were, felt as I did.

Of course, I believe it's not just the internet that makes modern employees of news organizations lose it... I think they're largely either uninterested in or incapable of practicing good journalism. I give a lot of leeway as to why -- as I've said, I'm of the mind there's a lot of institutional pressure to spin a certain way and I blame that for a lot of problems we see.

The fact that the news media harped on Lieberman's false (and horribly petty) attack on Lamont isn't really proof to me that reporters don't get this newfangled interweb thing, but just one more incident in which sensationalism trumped responsibility. "Lieberman doesn't buy enough bandwidth" isn't going to sell ads. "Democrat Lamont Accused of Hacking" will.

Someone like Rago might argue that that issue got blown up because the blogs all jumped on it so fast, which reinforced the MSM and generated that feedback loop. Or perhaps blame the fact that blogs put unnatural pressure on news organizations to publish faster so they can keep up with competition.

Too bad, I say. If you want to be seen as purveyors of reasoned analysis and verisimilitude, then spend the extra time, and do it right. People will respect that. Joining the mob isn't going to work. -k]

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Rich Miller :: Pundits lose grip on reality when dealing with the Internet

Heh.

glumbert.com | Sexual Consent

possibly noteworthy wrote:
There is some truth here.

The larger problem with blogs, it seems to me, is quality. Most of them are pretty awful. Many, even some with large followings, are downright appalling.

Meh. I found this article asinine when I first read it last week and was hoping it'd pass quietly into the abyss, but I guess not.

I find it painfully ironic that an opinion piece which goes on and on about the lack of originality, research and genuine critical thinking in the blog world, itself offers essentially no elucidation or original thoughts of any kind. Bloggers and technologists have been self analyzing the echo chamber effect and the reality of a low signal to noise ratio from the very start.

That's *why* places like Memestreams and Digg and technorati and all the various social networks exist -- we're trying to find the signal in the noise. If one wishes to make an argument that we're not there yet and need to do better, well, gee whiz, thanks. We know that, and no one's more aware of it than the bloggers who write their piece and want it to be read.

Mr. Rago could have explored the ways in which social networks and collaborative filtering are trying to improve the situation, but instead makes a passing gesture at how chaotic the scene is.

He glibly jots "there's more 'choice'," implying that choice isn't necessarily a good thing, but not going any deeper. Well, again, smart people already know that. We've read Schwartz, among others, and at least an acknowledgment that it's not saying anything new would've gone a long way towards softening my opinion of this piece. But that would have undermined his whole silly point.

Again, a lot of true things are said here, but little to none of it could be called original.

He stabs at the political blogs and cites the anonymous critic, saying "Some critics reproach the blogs for the coarsening and increasing volatility of political life." Again, little analysis is offered. Is it really that the blogs are responsible for this effect or merely a response to a coarsening and volatility already being propagated by our actual leaders in congress and the White House? Or is it merely that when you give voice where there was none before, it will always start off shrill? Those of us who care about this space actually have thought about these things, and it's disingenuous and a little insulting to parade about as some kind of whistle blower when the "industry," such as it is, is already largely working on the very problems Mr. Rago points out.

Again, he's not wrong, just hypocritical, bandying some lovely vocabulary in service to the tiniest shred of analysis, reducing what might have been an insightful work into an apology for the MSM and a useless attack on a scene which already knows it's own weaknesses.

We're told that "[j]ournalism requires journalists," a wonderful and true statement, but also one that I read, here, on a blog, months and months ago.

"[P]retty awful" indeed.

RE: Why Blogs Suck | WSJ

The trailers for the Transformers movie are surprisingly creepy.

[ Yeah, i actually have hope for this movie... looking forward to it... -k]

Transformers Movie - Official Site of Transformers: The Movie

Possibly the geekiest thing I've seen all year... and that's saying a lot.

If you haven't shopped at the apple store recently, this'll make no sense to you at all, but for the rest, well, it'll still be just unbelievably geeky.

Enjoy.

appleeasypay.mov (video/quicktime Object)

Well, that didn't take long.

-k

Busted Tees - Jokes you can wear! Funny T-Shirts!

Totally awesome...

Extra points to anyone who catches every song reference he makes on the first time through... I missed one.

-k

Egotastic! Video Player - Pachelbel Rant

Wonkette has published sneak peek scans from a new "graphic novel" produced by the NRA to promote membership.

It's full of laff-worthy fearmongering, but the illustrations are great. Above: With their mutant critter hordes of lobsters, islamofascist deer, and TNT-totin' owls, razor-eschewing hippie chicks who've escaped from R. Crumb comix are coming to burn down your white suburban home. And ye shall know them by the tracks of their Birkenstocks.

Wow. Seriously wow.

-k

Boing Boing: NRA's fear-mongering graphic novel is full of funny illos