"This is not, finally, an election of the new against the old. It is an election about the place of the America in the world of nations, and whether we are to be known primarily as a dreaded superpower. It is an election about catastrophes, both natural and man-made. It is the election of Katrina and Baghdad." — David Bromwich
Twitter growing on me
It started working for me when I stopped thinking about what I was doing and turned my attention to what my friends are doing. I’m only “following” a few people so far (Jamie, David, Andy, Kevin, Jackie, George). For me, this works a little like the Buddy List in iChat. Knowing that George is attending a conference in California or that Kevin is looking for interns, is useful or –at the very least– interesting.
I’m still getting the hang of Twitter but if you are a Twitter-er, let me know so I can “follow” you. Trust me, it’s not as dip-shitty as it sounds.
Blogs = Google Juice
In January I posted a video clip of a guy bouncing a nail on the head of a hammer. Actually, he was juggling the nail on the head of the hammer. Just watch the amazing video.
Yesterday I received notification of a comment on the post. It was from Scot Nery, the man in the video. The clip had been pulled from YouTube and he provided a permanent link to the video.
I assumed he found the post with a Google search but since it didn’t include his name or any identifying data, I wondered what he searched for. When I tried “nail juggle” (without the quotation marks), my post was number one out of 213,000 results. If I’m clear on how Google works, those two words would give you every hit with either “nail” or “juggle.”
Think about that. Those are two pretty common words. And a lot of the results pertained to Scot Nery doing the nail thing.
Just one more example of the sweet google juice generated by blogs.
The ravages of time
When I showed this "then-and-now" photo to my life-long friend John, he posed the following questions: How are these two people different? How are they the same?
Are we essentially the same person at 60 that we were at 25? Or does a lifetime of experiences change us? I seem to recall reading that our personalities are fully formed at a very early age. So most of the changes are physical (and inconsequential)? The "me" in my head feels exactly like that younger version. And maybe that’s the answer to John’s question. The differences are all positive. If I had to pick one, I’d say I’m a little wiser. But only a little.
More than half of Americans say they tend not to trust the press
That’s one of the findings of a nationwide Harris Poll of 2,302 U.S. adults surveyed online between January 15 and 22, 2008 by Harris Interactive.
“Looking at the press in general, over half (54%) of Americans say they tend not to trust them, with only 30 percent tending to trust the press. Just under half (46%) of Americans say they do not trust television, while one-third (36%) do trust them. Somewhat surprisingly, Internet news and information sites do slightly better as a plurality of Americans (41%) trust them while just one-third (34%) tend not to trust them. And, radio tends to do best among Americans as 44 percent say they tend to trust it and one-third (32%) tend not to trust radio.”
As for “trusting radio,” are they referring to radio news or radio in a broader sense (talk shows, etc). And why does radio (and the net) earn higher trust than TV and newspapers?