Barb has been in San Francisco all week, attending the National Health Lawyers Association meeting (I think). She’s been palling around with friends, including an old college chum, Julie. Julie is an old married lady with kids (and a nice husband, Jim), but I remember how hot she was at our annual Halloween parties.
She tripped all my fantasy switches when she showed up as an officer of the law. I just want to make sure her kids find this the next time they google “hot women in cop uniforms.”
“Sure, it would be great if you could hire one single person who could do everything. We call that “computer jesus” — and you need to accept the fact that there really are not many people in the world who can walk on water.
— Mindy McAdams on setting up a team for online journalism:
Brother George (Fez #14) and I will fire up the webcam for an hour this Friday morning, webcasting from the Coffee Zone in downtown Jefferson City. Should be lots of traffic in the Zone along with colorful carny folk and swarms of strangely dressed Americans celebrating Independence Day.
We’ll get started around 9 a.m. Central. Join us if you can.
Clyde Bentley, a Missouri School of Journalism professor whoresearches user-generated news, speaking at the Future of Journalism conference at Harvard, June 20-21:
The debate over bloggers’ influence “is over,” he said. “Blogging is a numbers game. It’s there and we’ll just have to deal with it.” Noting that 120,000 new blogs a day dwarf the country’s 1,427 dailies, he said editors should treat the blogosphere like a giant wire service. Bentley said that while consumer demand for content decreases, their demand for content navigation increases. “There will always be a place for the journalist who can craft a story better than anyone else, but there will be a bigger place for the journalist who can help media consumers find the information they want.” — Poynter: Centerpieces
Interesting story on NPR this morning about a sports blog called The LoHud Yankees Blog. The blog seems to be a collaborative effort by Journal News beat writer Peter Abraham and a shit-load of fans. According to the NPR piece, a post can get as many as a thousand comments and readers will post to the blog form the stands, in the middle of a game.
I have a theory about blogs like this one. If the Yankees organization tried to create such a successful blog, they couldn’t. Wouldn’t matter how much money they threw at it. There is some organic quality to really successful blogs like this one that is damned hard for big institutions to foster.
Smart companies will find and encourage and support efforts like this one. Is there a risk that someone will post something unflattering about the Yankees? Of course. But get a clue… they’ll do that anyway.
Most of the pro leagues have some sort of dumb-ass policy regarding live-blogging of games by reporters so I’m a little curious how the Journal News is pulling this off. If Mr. Abraham or someone from the paper stumbles across this post, I’d love to know the answer. Could it be the Yankees are smart enough to know a really good thing when they see it?
Apple hardware and software are not perfect. A piece of gear can be defective or stop working… software is, after all, software. I’ve had very good experiences since getting my first Mac just over two years ago.
But a couple of things gacked up recently. A problem with my Airport (wireless router) and my new Mac Mini. Unrelated. And even His Macness, George, couldn’t put things right. So he called Apple support.
I purchased an extended service plan called AppleCare which is a bit pricey but often recommended for switchers.
We wound up calling Apple three times yesterday, speaking to three different people about the two problems. Each time there was zero wait. And each time we wound up speaking with someone that was very knowledgeable. None of those long waits while they try to read the support screens. These folks obviously knew their shit.
And they were all very friendly, but efficient. No time wasted.
But the big “ooh!” moment for me was when the lady helping with the Airport problem resolved the issue and then asked us to wait 5 minutes (until the MacBook went to sleep) to be certain everything was really working correctly.
She didn’t want us to have to call back…get a different agent…and go through the whole routine again.
I’m sure others have had different experiences with Apple and I might have a bad one down the road. But I was reminded of all the hellacious support calls I’ve endured over the years and this was a nice contrast.
There are lots of positives to living on a few acres of wooded land. It’s quiet and peaceful. No traffic. The sort of environment where you find deer, rabbits, turtles, wild turkeys and… snakes. (shudder) I am not fond of snakes.
This was found at the bottom of a pile of brush that the lads are clearing out today. I wasn’t there when Mark picked this copperhead up and declined his offer to “milk” the venom.
Following this little show-and-tell, the snake was dispatched with a spade. Yes, I know there’s never just one snake.
Last December’s ice storm destroyed a lot of tree. Parts of our property have looked like an artillery range for the last six months. Today a crew of hard-working lads are cutting down the fatally wounded. The price tag seemed a little high at first glance, but after seeing the guys 30 feet up with a chain saw roaring in one hand, it seems about right. I’m proud to say that I gave NO thought to attempting this project on my own.
“Here’s the deal with Twitter as it applies to fast-breaking news: All it takes is one person with knowledge of a big-deal news event (in this case, anyone in the NBC building who learned about Russert’s death) to instantly blast it out via Twitter to blow apart any notion you may have of holding back the tide for a few minutes.”
— Steve Outing, E-Media Tidbits
6/26/08 – 8:20 p.m.