Ten years ago we had an 80s show. Now we have this.
April 14, 2009
Lauren Streib writes on Forbes.com that newspapers may be going under, but colleges are packed with journalism students. Leo and the folks at TWiT were wondering where the hell all these students are coming from. Is the blogosphere looking for professional training? I have a feeling Andrew Keen wouldn’t complain about having better trained bloggers, but he would definitely wonder how they expect to get paid.
April 3, 2009
Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland offers some food for thought; he’s introduced a bill that would allow newspapers to become nonprofit organizations.
March 30, 2009
This column from Kenneth Woodward does a nice job of demonstrating the fine line that Catholic universities need to straddle: on one hand, Notre Dame is an esteemed institute of higher learning, encouraging concientious debate and fostering understanding of world issues. On the other, they are committed to the principles of the Catholic faith. On those occasions when the synergy of those missions is not abundantly clear, there is going to be some backlash.
I have always appreciated Catholicism’s distinct lack of zealotry, at least in comparison to certain other Protestant sects. I would hope that the majority of Notre Dame alumni and students can recognize the President’s visit as an opportunity for dialogue on the issues most important to us, rather than a whole-hearted endorsement of his ideas and policies.
March 18, 2009
There is a piece today on the Wired How-To Wiki about making small talk, i.e., how it is done.
I don’t know if forgetting how to interact with others verbally is a creeping social problem related to our immersion in online, written (or at least, non-personal) communication forms, or if it is a long-standing problem for the target demographic of Wired magazine, and since all other reporting (about every other topic imagineable) is being covered, they have space for this tutorial.
You be the judge. And practice up if you want to talk with someone about it.
February 6, 2009
On my personal blog last week, I posted a topic in response to the notion Lifehacker was presenting that day– to sum up, that a better Windows product would lead to a shrinking (and possibly, an elimination) of the Linux community.
January 23, 2009
In podcast #7, we touched on the so-called “green movement” and how it seems to be moving beyond the realm of partisanship. Today’s Dot Earth column from Andrew Revkin and the New York Times shows some numbers that beg to differ. The column is a good jumping-off point to read up on some recent stories on this topic. Revkin cites a Rasmussen Reports poll that said:
Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democrats blame global warming on human activity, compared to 21% percent of Republicans. Two-thirds of GOP voters (67%) see long-term planetary trends as the cause versus 23% of Democrats.
With the price of gas down to levels we haven’t seen since 2006 and the global economy reeling, will we shove our collective head into the sand once again when it comes to climate change? Can we afford to? The new president doesn’t seem to think so…
January 22, 2009
Just before Barack Obama took the oath of office, a new incarnation of the White House website went live. We’ve talked on previous shows about Obama’s status as our “most wired” president yet– the depth and variety of media available through this new website and the various feeds that it offers demonstrates that the Obama administration will do its best to deceminate information the same way the Obama campaign did. By directly interacting with constituents, they have the opportunity to circumvent the filter of the news media while simultaneously appearing to be more direct and transparent than any previous administration.
It’s a shrewd and potentially brilliant tactic. It will be interesting to observe the public’s reaction to the “White House news network” over time. Undoubtedly, the vast network that Obama’s campaign created over the previous 12+ months will help kick start interest in the new website, but will that interest last?
January 8, 2009
Some interesting follow-up pieces to podcast #6, via New Scientist and Bloomberg.com, respectively:
January 7, 2009 1 Comment
How far away are we from getting any kind of hardware and software standards for all this Web 2.0 stuff? It seems like the platforms just keep proliferating…are we under a new paradigm where we no longer narrow standards (VCR over Beta) but rather expand them into chaos?
January 7, 2009
A piece from New Scientist that discusses the possibility of an international oversight agency for nuclear power. The goal– prevent arms proliferation while taking advantage of a relatively cheap, efficient energy source.
