“After ten years of watching Web users, one clear conclusion is that they are utterly selfish and live in the moment. Giving users exactly what they want, right now, is the road to Web success.”
— Alertbox, April 21, 2003
Monthly Archives: April 2003
18 Years
Yesterday the Missouri Supreme Court overturned the death sentence and conviction of Joseph Amrine, 46, of Kansas City. He’s faced execution since 1986 for the stabbing of a fellow inmate. Over the years, the three former inmates who testified against him recanted. He was in for robbery, burglary and forgery and would have been out 1992 had he not been convicted of murder. If he walks free, he will become only the third Missouri death row inmate in modern times to be freed of his capital conviction. One of our reporters, John Davis, interviewed Amrine today. It runs about 15 minutes. You can also listen to the oral argument before the Missouri Supreme Court on February 4th. This strikes me as a good example of how the web –more specifically, streaming audio– enables a news organization like ours to go way beyond a 4-minute newscast with a couple of sound bites.
The sky is not falling
Starting this summer, XM Satellite Radio plans to offer “real-time weather data through a targeted service that will deliver information to map-display devices in boats, aircraft and emergency-response vehicles.” That’s according to a story in the April 18 issue of R&R (Radio & Records). In a letter to the FCC, NAB Sr.VP/General Counsel Jack Goodman wrote, “It appears that XM does intend to convert its service from an exclusively national program service to one that delivers locallay differentiated content.” Hmm. I couldn’t find the story online but will keep searching.
Barb with Dr. Denton Cooley
Long before she became a loathsome lawyer, Barb was a nurse. Specifically, a Surgical Intensive Care nurse. Following nursing school, she spent a year in Houston working in the long shadow of Dr. Cooley. He was famous way back then and she had the good sense to get a picture and letter of reference.
“A world-renowned surgeon, Dr. Denton Cooley pioneered many techniques used in cardiovascular surgery. He performed the first successful human heart transplant in the United States in 1968. In 1969, he became the first heart surgeon to implant an artificial heart in man. Cooley and his associates have performed more than 100,000 open heart operations–more than any other group in the world.”
(Reuters) Dr. Cooley died on November 18, 2016, at the age of 96.
When I close my eyes
Every year the Missouri Department of Mental Health puts together a showcase of art created by people with mental illnesses, developmental disabilities and assorted addictions. Therapy for the artists and PR for DMH. This year I volunteered to put some of the pieces online for them. My personal favorite is #24.
XMPCR.
Satellite Radio for your computer. Attaches to your computer via the USB. Access to all 100 channels. You can save song titles and artist names to an “alert” list and get a pop-up message when a favorite song or artist is playing on a different channel. Click and you’re there. XM says “it’s not Internet radio (since the signals are still delivered via satellite), so users will experience no buffering or stalls, no slow channel changes, and the program won’t affect the PC’s performance.” The product is scheduled to begin shipping May 2nd for $69.95. I’ve never been one to listen to the radio at work but this could change that. Tell me again why this will have no impact on “traditional” radio.
“Enlarged prostitute”
Those watching the closed captions on the 6:30 p.m. Tuesday feed of Peter Jennings’s “World News Tonight” were informed that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was “in the hospital for an enlarged prostitute.” Apparently the typist hit the wrong key, or keys. Greenspan was home recovering Wednesday from prostate surgery, said his wife, NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell. As for that “enlarged prostitute,” Mitchell told us: “He should be so lucky.” (Lloyd Grove – Washington Post) By way of Shop Talk.
Jolly good.
One of the reporters that works for our network in Des Moines (Matt Kelley) was interviewed by the BBC today. A British man was arrested in Fort Madison (Iowa) after flying there from England to rendezvous with a 14-year-old Iowa girl. The two met on the Internet three months ago. The man tried to pay his hotel tab with a check from a bank in England… a dispute arose… the cops were called and he mentioned the name of the girl who was staying with him. The girl had been reported missing by her parents as a runaway the day before. The BBC called the Radio Iowa newsroom and asked Matt Kelley to fill them in on the story. The busted Brit, by the way, is a radio deejay who –if convicted– could get 12 years in prison. I’ll see if Matt recorded the interview from his end. Doubt it.
Dennis Miller on Congress and politics
“Congress is just a place where we send mediocre men to get Earl Scheibed into looking kind of, vaguely, consequential. And politics is just a bullshit world where “my esteemed colleague” means “this prick here.”
“Fat guys are the chirping canaries in the mineshaft of freedom.”
– From Dennis Miller’s sixth HBO special
King of Torts, Pattern Recognition, Altered Carbon
I would have sworn I mentioned these but can’t find any reference. John Grisham’s King of Torts was… predictable. And not very interesting. But I couldn’t put it down. Hmmm. I enjoyed William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition more than any of his recent books. And Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon was pretty damned good, despite similarity to early Gibson novels.