Month: December 2008

what business are you in?

Do newspapers matter? Or is journalism, regardless of how it’s distributed, what matters? If you are in the business of selling bundles of paper with ads and news, an item fewer people want, time to think things over. Are you in the publishing business — making physical printed goods — or the news business which can and has gone out in many forms.

Likewise the car industry: are they in the personal transportation business, meaning anything a person can use to get around, or can they only understand 4-wheeled metal boxes with petroleum-fueled engines? Just as the newspapers are more about using paper, the carmakers are all about using dinosaur juice more than giving people what they want.

Why is that?

[from my comments on Facebook | Causes | Don’t Let Newspapers Die]

introducing the hard line


Congratulations

Originally uploaded by gabrielle hennessey.

So I’m a bit hardline when it comes to blocking people . . .

I don’t see the value in using Flickr as whacking material: I expect it means all the more, er, useful sites are blocked, but why do that at work? I think it would be much better to let people go wherever they want and if they wander off to places they shouldn’t, then take steps, just as you would if they were wasting company resources.

I’ve known people who frequented strip clubs on their lunch hours and who spent an awful lot of time scouring the interwebs for porn (I remember one guy who determined to burn it all to CD in case it somehow disappeared: have that many CDs been manufactured?).

She’s right to do this, of course. Shame some people are unable to grasp the subtleties of a naked form used as something other than a glandular stimulus.

brushes with greatness

I used to work with the brother-in-law of the author of this book:


but never knew about the work being done there, the school-building and generosity (or recompense?) being done in the wild regions of the Karakoram and Himalayas.

The fellow I worked with is the only person I have met who has summited Mt Everest and afterwards launched an improvement project of his own, cleaning up the refuse and debris left by climbers.

just in time

Shameless commerce, but I love browsing and buying from these guys . . .

An Old Chestnut…
(Please sing aloud to the tune of “The Christmas Song – Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”)

Eyeballs nestled in a pasta dish…
Rubber snakes nipping at your toes,
Yuletide rats, several orange growing fish,
And keychains with an extra-gooshy nose.

Everybody knows, a spider and some body parts
Help to make the season bright.
Tiny tots with their frogs and snake hearts
Will find it hard to sleep tonight.

They know the UPS truck’s down the street,
With lots of slime and rubber chickens as a treat,
And every mother’s child can’t wait to see
The screaming monkey flying right into the tree.
And so we’re offering these simple gifts
For kids from one to ninety-two.
Although it’s been said many times, many ways
You need surplus…. You need surplus, you do.

dumbing it all down

[P]ublishers say they print garbage so that real literature, which seldom makes any money, can find its way into print. True, to a point. But some of them print garbage so they can buy more garbage.

There was a time when I wanted to be like Sting, the singer, belting out, “Roxanne …” I guess that’s why we have karaoke, for fantasy night. If only there was such a thing for failed plumbers, politicians or celebrities who think they can write.

[From Guest Columnist – Typing Without a Clue – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com]

Mr Smith doesn’t go to Washington

A thought experiment that occurred to me this morning.

What if some member of the chamber of people’s deputies decided not to take his seat in Washington, instead taking his oath in his state capitol or home district, and managed his constituents business from there? Yes, it’s kind of a whizzy sci-fi idea where someone replaces human interaction or proximity with tech.

Flaws:

  • legislating is about deals and favors: hard to consummate those without personal contact
  • proximity still matters: why else are cities growing and why are the most powerful/influential cities so large (London, New York, Tokyo, 10 million people or more with millions more in the surrounding region)
  • can you really serve your constituents while remaining at home

Part of the idea for this came from conversations earlier in the week, where it was mentioned that no one gets rich in public service. The best you can hope for is, as a congress member, to take home your campaign war chest when you retire (I think they should be required to donate it to the treasury). Where they make money is in graft and other corruption that only comes from them all being in one place where the money flows so easily.

Hmm. It sounded a lot more interesting this morning.