I find myself as slack-jawed by the news coverage as I am by the news conveyed. Every news franchise – every minute – every news segment – rehashing the same ugly incident over and over. If I were actually at the incident, might this merely reinforce any existing post-traumatic stress? Yes, it hits close to home, but by continually telling us every nuance of what happened – or might have happened – from every bystander’s perspective, do we inure ourselves and our children to even worse future events? Worst is when they show us how the perpetrator did it. Now every sad sack off his meds knows how to do the same, giving us copycat fame-seekers. What was once nationwide atrocity is suddenly common morning news. Continue reading “News Coverage as Shocking as News Itself”
Slow Economy Movement
I’m tired of hearing how slow growth is hurting or economy. A sustainable economy shouldn’t dive and sky-rocket like a roller coaster. We have a slow food movement, slow cities movement, slow living movement, why not a slow economy movement? It’s time to crack down on bank executives making huge profits while the rest of us pay top-heavy mortgages. With new banking rules, banks are beginning to charge ridiculous monthly fees to use automated teller machines (ATM’s). Funny how they were originally introduced as a way to free up human tellers — at a lower cost to banks and consequently to bank customers. Some banks charge you if you call with a question about your account. Banks need to be more socially responsible and stop picking our pockets. Are you fed up? Let’s start the slow economy movement. Join a credit union. Drop-kick your bank.
Google Plus – The Rollout
I read this article on CNET. Google Plus has been around for months, now. I keep hearing about how fantastic it is, but most of us who clicked the ‘Keep Me Posted’ button or received invitations can’t join because they’ve ‘temporarily exceeded maximum capacity’ almost since the service began. I’m not sure that most of the famous bloggers/tech-heads who were invited to field-trial membership are not aware that most people simply never got the invite or weren’t allowed to fulfill an invitation. And while the president of Google may not be posting publicly, unless we’re in his circle, maybe we’ll never know whether he’s one of the 40% who have stopped posting publicly altogether, preferring to publish exclusively to specified circles. Continue reading “Google Plus – The Rollout”
Thoughts on Dolphins, Language and Tools
Language is what makes us unique, right? Not necessarily. In this PopSci Article “A Clever New Fishing Method, ‘Conching,’ is the Latest Trend Spreading Among Australia’s Hippest Bottlenose Dolphins”, we find that dolphins around Australia passing on a learned hunting strategy from one pod to another at about the speed we learn about the latest and greatest gadget from friends and family. This is considered news-worthy because in the minds of many humans, dolphins are mere ‘animals who only use rudimentary tools’. Continue reading “Thoughts on Dolphins, Language and Tools”
Improving Google News – Can it i-happen?
MG Siegler writes on TechCrunch.com comparing Google News with other tech news venues. He suggests that algorithms alone are not enough to make decisions about what actually is news and what is stale. His comment about re-bloggers getting purposed before the original story shows just how stale the information really is. But I have to go a couple steps further than Siegler. The most important thing to remember about the ‘sci/tech’ section of google news is that it’s supposed to encompass science and tech. Grouping them together in one section is akin to smaller book stores grouping science-fiction and horror together. They really are separate entities with a blurry overlap. Continue reading “Improving Google News – Can it i-happen?”
