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Category: News of News (Page 9 of 11)

News and comments about news and media

John Edwards on Podcast 411

Rob W of Podcast 411 features Senator and Vice Presidental candidate Johnn Edwards on his most recent show. Senator Edwards talks about his own podcasts done at his home with his family and post them on his website, One America Committee dot Org.
Note: Rob and Senator Edwards are speaking via Skype (voice over IP).
Rob also gives mention to the podcastercon.org being planned here with Brian Russell in the lead of the planning. (Check it out).

Vanished News Found – Berkeley Laptop and Dr. Rine

Miles at tinyapps.org has found and put together a few sources for the missing ABC News story on ranting laptop theft victim and Berkeley prof Jasper Rine. Miles also notices that the original video has been edited at Berkeley to remove Rine’s rant — so much of archives as history. But luckily there are copies around the Net [torrent of QT format] in case you are wondering what we’ve been talking about.


Page 1 on the story in Google cache.
Thanks to Miles.
Page 2 of the story in Google cache. Thanks to Miles and Julian Robichaux.

Earlier stories here about Rine and the laptop theft and here about the vanishing story on ABC News.

Alert commenter, Julian Robichaux also points us to Jasper Rine’s teaching statement in which he tells us all “Facts just aren’t that important.” To be fair to Rine, he’s getting our attention in order to make a point. That is teaching the emerging discoveries in biology that the process of discovery and research is more important to learn than a series of facts of the moment.

CalStuff blogger, Allen Lew let’s us know that the Berkeley student blog is on the case as well with pointers to articles on Rine and laptop there.

To our knowledge, the laptop remains unfound.

Vanishing News Story – ABC version

Not long after the story broke on the net of the angry rant by stolen laptop victim Jasper Rine, a story pointing out the very obvious problems with the claims made by Rine appeared on the ABC News site. The story by Hari Sreenivasan did a great and lively job of describing why Rine’s claims were wrong while sympathizing with him over the theft a bit.
Not long after I linked to it, the story vanished. Luckily I grabbed at least one good paragraph for my post. As it turns out no one else grabbed any of the story that I nor others can find.
Miles at tinyapps.org managed to get a screen shot of Google News to prove the story existed once.
Now not only is the ABC News story gone, but the site that broke the story originally seems to have vanished as well (at least for me for Miles of tinyapps).
Here’s the challenge: Can you find the story anywhere? In a cache? Other places on the Net?

Meyer and Gillmor in the Economist

In an ongoing in North Carolina invasion of Britain, Phil Meyer appears in today’s Economist (just as Jamie Boyle is in the Financial Times). Phil is quoted, his book cited and props given.
Recent visitor, Dan Gillmor also gets star treatment in the same article, “The Future of Journalism: Yesterday’s Papers,” which asks or rathers tells us what Rupert Murdock told US editors last week, the business of news is changing drastically.
Also mentioned blogs, podcasting, wikis — the usual technological suspects.

Not His Native Language, but He Read Phil Meyer

Rupert Murdoch told US editors yesterday that the “Internet is an emerging medium that is not my native language.”

As the big Fox told the editors that News Corp had slept too long during the Internet emergence, he quoted Phil Meyer:

One writer, Philip Meyer, has even suggested in his book The Vanishing Newspaper that looking at today’s declining newspaper readership — and continuing that line, the last reader recycles the last printed paper in 2040 — April, 2040, to be exact.

There are a number of reasons for our inertia in the face of this advance. First, newspapers as a medium for centuries enjoyed a virtual information monopoly — roughly from the birth of the printing press to the rise of radio. We never had a reason to second-guess what we were doing. Second, even after the advent of television, a slow but steady decline in readership was masked by population growth that kept circulations reasonably intact. Third, even after absolute circulations started to decline in the 1990s, profitability did not.

But those days are gone. The trends are against us. Fast search engines and targeted advertising as well as editorial, all increase the electronic attractions by a factor of 3 or 4. And at least four billion dollars a year is going into R&D to further improve this process.

So unless we awaken to these changes, which are quite different to those of 5 or 6 years ago, we will, as an industry, be relegated to the status of also-rans. But, properly done, they are an opportunity to actually improve our journalism and expand our reach.

Full speech at The News Corp site.

Apocalypse 2075: Robot Rebellion Chances High

The word “robot” was first widely used in the play RUR or Rossum’s Universal Robots [in Czech] by Karel Capek (but some give credit to Karel’s brother Josef for coining the word). The play you may remember is about a robot rebellion — a justified one at that.
The Guardian asks scientists and other experts to evaluate 10 end-of-the-world scenarios as to their likelihood of occuring in the next 70 years. Robot Rebellion was right up on top with a HIGH likelihood and a HIGH impact.

Here’s a very brief summary:

1: Climate Change.
Chance of temperatures rising more than 2C (the level considered to be dangerous by the European Union) in the next 70 years: High
Danger score: 6

2: Telomere erosion.
Chances of a human population crash due to telomere erosion during the next 70 years: Low
Danger score: 8

3.Viral Pandemic
Chance of a viral pandemic in the next 70 years: Very high
Danger score: 3

4. Terroristic Attack.
Chances of a major terrorist attack in the next 70 years: Very high
Danger score: 2

5. Nuclear War
Chance of a global nuclear war in the next 70 years: Low
Danger score: 8

6. Metor or Asteriod Impact
Chance of the Earth being hit by a large asteroid in the next 70 years: Medium
Danger score: 5

7. Robot Rebellion
Chance of super-intelligent robots in the next 70 years: High
Danger score: 8

8. Cosmic ray blast from exploding star
Chance of encountering a supernova in the next 70 years: Low
Danger score: 4

9. Super-volcanos
Chance of a super-volcano in the next 70 years: Very high
Danger score: 7

10. Earth swallowed by a black hole
Chance of Earth being gobbled up by a black hole in the next 70 years: Exceedingly low
Danger score: 10

Franken Show – updated during the show

Al enters and begins a monologue about UNC as national champs, panders (self-admitted) to us by bashing Duke (his daughter went there for one year), a bit about UNC grad Paul Wellstone. How is he different from Rush? (much laughter). Where does Rush get his facts (hint: most of us sit on this source)?
quotes, etc:
Rot at the top can be mulch for the grassroots
To appear Barry Saunders, Joel Schwartz, Larry Grossberg, Mike Nelson, Mark Kleinschmidt and …
Coach K dissed as a Republican and for his tacky American Express adverts
A bit about the origin of the term Tar Heel (sorry not get that part entirely)
Bashing Bolton. How he tried to give a talk to Heritage about bio-weapons in Cuba. He was stopped by Westerman who said no there aren’t. Bolton tried to then get Westerman fired by Asst Secretary for Intelligence and Research Ford (at State Department) who refused. Play Ford’s testimony about how Bolton abused authority regularly. Now plays a tape of Bolton speaking about how the US should run the UN or do nothing with them.
“Kiss up and kick down.” quotes from Ford on Bolton.
Britney Spears/Bolton jokes ensue.
2 year moratorium on death penalty proposed in NC. Talk on that.

See also Sally’s blog for her better typing and more coherent sentences.
Oy! Oy! Oy! Show. Many Jewish jokes and appearance of Jerry Meek head of the NC Democratic Party. Grassroots vs Demo machine tale told. Jerry agrees with ideology of both but wants door to door conversations by the Democrats. Becoming oil-free in 10 years. How could we not go for renewable resources after 9/11?
Now about making the Demo Party responsive to the people instead of the good-ole-boys. Dean-like.
Dissing on Newt Gingrich. And on to Tom Delay.
AlFrankenShow.com: Call your Republican congressman twice. Once to say get rid of Delay. Once to keep him.

Franken’s own blog entries and comments.

Barry Saunders up next. Hat talk. Barry is a fedora wearer. Fred Phelps of Kansas who hates gays and is coming to Durham to picket the School of the Arts High School where the Laramie Project is being produced. Phelps is the GodHatesGays guy. His hate cult will visit Duke, local churches and the high school. Phelps folks are celebrating the Pope’s second week in hell (in case hating gays are not enough).
Phelps was at the Shepherd funeral with GodHatesFags signs. Phelps is a character in the play. Barry has interviewed Phelps. Franken has been picketed by the Phelps cult.
Carrying condoms does not get you sex. Barry carried a condum for six years and never got any. This in context of Wake County School Board’s fear of any sex ed. Especially of condums.
Barry’s column on American Idol asking Reuben to lose weight got him tons of hate mail calling him names he’d never been called before — like whitey, like red-neck, like N–hater. One letter told him that he must have it in for big, black men. Seeing Barry makes this much funnier. His book: Do Unto Others Then Run. Barry looks much slimmer on the cover than on the radio.

Next up Mark Kleinschmidt. and Mike Nelson, Mayor of Carrboro. Mike from the phone. Carrboro has a lesbian police chief and a gay mayor. Mark is the second gay council person in Chapel Hill. Now a bit about the repeal of the defense of marriage act. Now the tale of the Called2Action packing of the Council with an anti-gay crowd. Mark describes how all kinds of people actually from Chapel Hill defended Mark’s position. The Council voted unanimously to support Mark’s proposal.

Mark on the Death penalty. Mark is a death penalty lawyer. Mark has strong hopes and belief that the death penalty moratorium will pass in NC.

Talk of Mary Matlin’s Simon and Schuster imprint Threshold. A bit about Mary Cheney as described by Matlin. Matlin says that she hasn’t read Al’s books, but that Al’s books are useless. Al wonders how both statements could be true or if she is lying!

Larry Grossberg up next.

Larry’s book: Caught in the Crossfire: Kids, Politics and America’s Future

Larry says that the Right demonizes kids saying that the kids are worst than ever. Even Rolling Stone. But the statistics don’t say so. Kids are less criminal. Use less illegal drugs. Are getting pregnant less often. And in general are better than say in the 80s.

Kids are safer in school than anywhere else in Amercia. You have a greater chance of being hit by lightning than suffering violence in a public school.

Discussion of child-poverty rate. which is very high in the US compared to Europe say. A bit about drugging kids with prescription drugs.

Why are we treating kids so badly? (see larry’s book)

We are in the midst of a fundamental struggle about the kind of America we want our children to live in. Under attack: public schools, juvenile courts, children’s place as our relationship to the future.

Next more Larry?

[found WillR blogging live on OrangePolitics.org] and doing a great job.

Yes more Larry. He was just warming up. Dissing on Revelation about a nun and a cop. Apocalyptic visions seen as a end of the future. Larry discusses Virgina Postrel’s Future and its enemies. Two kinds of people: Those who think the present can act to form the future. Those who would just let things happen in the present since you cannot plan a future. She says she belongs to the last. Larry (and the Unibomber according to Postrel) belong to the first.

Larry is just getting wound up when he’s called for time. We need 50 minute academic talk radio!

No matter Larry is explaining things art length and with many hand motions to WCHL owner Jim Heffner.

Talking basketball next. What else? Start with NCAA theme from CBS. Had to get an expert from Cambridge, Thad Williamson (but he is a native Chapel Hellian). Author of More than a Game: Why North Carolina Basketball Means So Much to So Many.

Book written before Matt Dougherty’s seasons. Now a lot about Williams and his history with UNC. Now a bit about Dean Smith. Especially about how Dean treated everyone and how he has been living his life. Now about players leaving school early. Including Michael Jordan.

Franken says he did air work with MJ and it worked out fine. (air joke). Al gave the Espies Award. He tells joke on himself. About how his joke which was ironic wasn’t taken so well.

Now McCants announced that he will go pro early — like this year. Hoots for Sean May.

Next up Joel Schwartz about Paul Wellstone.

Wellstone was Schwartz’s first graduate student. Telling a story about Paul and himself at Berkeley where they shared a two bedroom appartment (a total of 8 people in both families). His last call to Wellstone was PW saying that he would vote against the resolution to give the President war powers that belong to Congress

Franken fix!

Al Franken
In my role as consort to the council person,
I’ll be meeting up with Al Franken. Sally, the council member with whom I consort, is way ahead of me and has been asking for topics and suggestions about what to say to Frankeneven borrowing comments from Orange Politics
I need your help. Although I will probably emulate Prince Phillip and stand there deferring, I may need a topic or question or news bit for Al riff upon. If you have one, lemme know.

You don’t have to be a Marxist…

Late Friday, I took a call from a Daily Tar Heel reporter doing a story on Open Access journals. I chatted a bit and pointed him to others who know more, including but especially Jeff Pomerantz who helped organize the Convocation on Scholarly Publishing here a couple of months back. We both wrote about the Convocation here (me) and here (Jeff).

Here’s a clip from the article which takes what I said, in portions, and at least makes me interesting. Perhaps more interesting than I deserve.

“You don’t have to be a Marxist to figure out that the workers are getting screwed,” said Paul Jones, a clinical professor in the schools of Information and Library Science and Journalism and Mass Communication.

“If I was a publisher and I could say it with a straight face, I would say I add value at every step.”

A paper written by Sarah Michalak, head University librarian, and Research and Special Projects Librarian Judith Panitch states that the cost of physics journals has risen 36 percent in the last five years to an average cost of $2,543 per subscription.

Such numbers make Jones a proponent of open-access publishing. He said he hopes it will force the major journals to be more reasonable in their pricing.

I said that scholars must join (or feel like they must join) the scholarly societies that publish the journal, in many cases they must pay a page fee to publish (or even to be reviewed), they pay again for the journal and/or their library pays for the journal, then they pay again to use the articles in their classes. You don’t have to be a Marxist…

Jeff writes about his experience as well.

Better if we share

The cover of today’s NYTimes Business section has a story on IBM’s patent reevlauation and their patent release. As I discussed in my interview with the News and Observer back in mid-January, IBM is getting the “Better if we share” idea. The Times writer rightly cites Eric von Hippel‘s new MIT Press book, Democratizing Innovation (which you may buy or download free from his website as a PDF and yes the book has a Creative Commons license) as a good (I’d say great) source for learning about the ideas influencing the IBM decision.

Aside: The online version of the story has an audio/visual slide show which does little more than summarize the article. The pictures there add little to the story. Looks like a way to give you all of the downside of a radio news short version of the story with not much added insight. The charts however are quite good. Both are accessible as click and pop links on the story site.

Personal Aside: I did a separate interview with the IBM folks in the article back in February as a follow up to the NandO interview. They seemed to be right on top of things as you might expect and were very interested in ibiblio. It was also a good feeling to hear that I had it right in my interview — I was wondering if they were calling to set me straight on a few things at first, but I surprised myself ;->

Top Secret ibiblio project to be revealed

Some time in the next few hours, at least before tomorrow noon, the ibiblio team will be revealing a special top secret project that will make the Makers at MIT insanely jealous, that will help Dave Winer in his quest to lose weight, that will compete with Doc Searls for having the best collective knowledge of net.goingson, that will help NC State and Duke forget their NCAA loses, that will put shine on Howard Rheingold’s shoes, that will double the value of Tim O’Reilly’s backlist, that will make a preacher lay his Bible down, that will make a coon dog hung a hound, that will complete Brewster Kahle’s Internet Archive, that will be of course under Creative Commons license, that will help Jessamyn West tolerate overdue books, that will combine the Cathedral AND the Bazaar and the Bizarre, that will allow Larry Lessig to wear a color other than black, that will allow Jamie Boyle to speak with a Southern Drawl, that will give Eben Moglen a close shave, that will make John Hood approve of public transportation, that will allow Douglas Rushkoff to drink a can of Sprite without irony, that will turn Boing Boing into something serious and Cory Doctorow into a long haired poet, that will allow Pamela Jones to see the upsides of the SCO claims, that will fill in the large blank spots in Roblimo’s blog, that will make the perfect SlashDot post, that will get the attention.xml of Steve Gillmor, what will get down to the grassroots with Dan Gillmor, that will help Jeff Pomerantz find the next highest prime number, that will reveal Glenn Otis Brown‘s biggest secret, that will put hair back on Bob Young‘s head (so he can quit wearing so many hats, [more later]

UPDATE Bloggy is here! or see the post above. After April 1, find Bloggy here.

Jones on Library Cuts in Daily Tar Heel

Took a call last night at 5ish from a Daily Tar Heel reporter, Greg Steen, about the state budget cuts and how they might affect the Academic Libraries. I did say things about digital access and how with digitization the wealth held in the Libraries are easily accessible to all the citizens of the state especially K-12 students and teachers and of course citizen researchers.
Here’s the article and here’s what I ended up having said (I actually said all this too):

Paul Jones, clinical professor in the School of Information and Library Science and in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, expressed concern that a lack of resources will affect others besides students and professors.

“One of the strengths of our library has been the outreach to public schools and citizen researchers,” Jones said.

“When you buy those books, you’re investing in knowledge that ripples through the state, not just knowledge in one guy’s mind.”

Jones said he believes that having to search for resources will distract professors from completing their duties.

“How do you want professors spending their time: trying to finagle ways of getting books or actually reading those books and developing ways of teaching in the classroom?”

Wireless in Laurinburg and the Triangle

Doc was nice enough to pick up on my references to Fiona’s stories over at his IT Garage, but he got a few things a bit off. First the article that has all of the links to Fiona’s stories on Muni-nets wireless and other is here.

Next, that’s Laurinburg, NC! Once called MacLaurinburg, it’s now called Laurinburg. The town is close to the South Carolina line — just above the famous South of the Border — but it is definitely in Nawth Cakalacky.

Quiz Show Connections

Charles Van Doren Faces the Press
Just getting around to seeing Quiz Show (1994). The scandal of the fixed quiz shows of the 1950s is revealed by a tight focus on three characters, contestants nerdy Herb Stempel and handsome Charles Van Doren — and the author/producer of the movie Richard Goodwin played Rob Morrow. Goodwin is by far the most complex character. Stempel is portrayed as a sort of stock character almost. Van Doren as an over privileged WASP trying to get his famous father’s attention.

Not unlike the phoney “news” shows of today, our phoney press conferences, etc, the quiz shows were seen by the networks and sponsors as entertainment while leading the public to see them as reality.

But the story after the story is more telling. The after credits tell us of the fates, as of 1994, of most of the important characters. Even a brief bit on Goodwin:

Richard Goodwin became a speechwriter for the 1960 Kennedy campaign and then a member of the White House staff. After the assassination of Robert Kennedy, he retired from politics to become a writer.

Doris Kearns Goodwin meets the Press
One bit of trivia not in the aftercredits is that his second wife — his first wife died — is Doris Kearns Goodwin. A Pulitzer Prize (1995) winning historian and author, Kearns Goodwin was discovered to have plagarized large portions of her books from others. The scandal was complex full of denials and cover ups and revelations as this longish description of the “developing story” from the History News Network from 2002 show. Slate’s Timothy Noah was less subtle writing an article in January 2002 entited “Doris Kearns Goodwin, Liar” that she not only plagarized and lied but that she also “paid hush money to one of the people she plagiarized.”

It makes you wonder what she was thinking as she was watching Quiz Show. What was in her mind when the Goodwin character questioned the Van Doren character about his book in progress on Lincoln? What is she thinking now as her next book, due October 2005, is “Master Among Men : The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.”

You are the News you read

Forwarded from many folks, most recently the poet Terri Ford. I am solidly in numbers 3 and 11 (but prefer the Weekly World News):

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country–if they could find the time and if they didn’t have to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren’t too sure who’s running the country and don’t really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don’t care who’s running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren’t sure there is a country … or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

12. None of the above is read by the guy who is running the country into the ground.

Is That Legal? War on Freedom of Information

Sally, blogging for Eric Muller at isthatlegal.org, reports on the FOI restrictions as interfered with Dan Carter’s work on his bio of George Wallace and his book on the Scottsboro Boys. Carter goes on to talk about increasing restrictions on public record access (as described by Sally).
Then Sally notes a story in today’s paper. Legislation has been proposed to allow a town to sue its citizens who ask for public records. All the town would need do is assert that those records are not public afterall. Talk about a chilling effect.

Staying out of the News by Buying It

One way to keep your neighbors in the dark about your misdeeds even when the police have caught on to you is to buy every newspaper in town. That’s exactly what Jack William Pacheco of Chowchilla, CA did to hide his methamphetamine arrest. Pacheco, who claims he is innocent, bought all available copies of the Chowchilla News. He plans to use the papers “to clean his windows and train his new puppy.” Despite his enterprise, over 550 were delivered to homes in Chowchilla. He bought all store and machine offerings.
Pacheco failed on another front as well; his story is now wide spread thanks to AP.

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