Slashdot Mirror

People knew that long before gamergate ever existed. Games journalism has always been corrupted by money and publisher influence. Here's such an article from 2003. Gamergate didn't actually expose some hidden truth that no one knew about.

and why are you watching that part of him while he walks to begin with? [you kinda walked yourself into that one]

The GP's reason is probably something along the lines of this eyetracking study:

Although both men and women look at the image of George Brett when directed to find out information about his sport and position, men tend to focus on private anatomy as well as the face.

Why do men assess genitalia? I don't know, but it is a repeatable phenomenon, so you may as well accept it rather than castigating the GP for "looking".

I remember report of a kid breaking into Pentagon a long time ago. Since when do you need 30 trained people to do such things?

Must learn to post comments AFTER I've had coffee, damnit.

Hackers breaking into NASA, the Army, Lockheed, General Dynamics, Northrup, Raytheon, and Boeing can never be sure they will get anything at all, or that what they do get will be marketable. Its fairly difficult for your average college hacker to market the plans for an F22 or the communications system of a Predator drone.

I remember a long time ago. Since when do you need 30 trained people to do such things?

I'd love to use this argument, but I can't find much evidence of this. Citation needed!

Always glad to help. I'm doing this multiple times because it's so important.

It was called the Postal Act of 1792. Here is a very nice explanation.

I can't find any evidence that this delivery was subsidized

It's called "The Postal Act of 1792".

If you read this, it will spell it out for you.

Our founding fathers believed a free press was so vital to the working of a free society that they voted to subsidize newspapers.

A study was done recently that was using eye position recognition, and participants were shown photos of all kinds of people. The computer was able to note where (on the image) the person's eyes were fixed, and for how long.

They found (among other things) that women tend to fix upon the face and eyes of the person in the image. And they found that guys frequently stared at the crotch area, such as that of a baseball player (hey, dudes, it's a CUP, don't get so insecure). There were other findings, but these are the more memorable ones.

Did you know that when an academic writes a paper, to get it published, they have to surrender the copyright to the academic journal? After that, they can't even give copies away. If someone wants to see it, they're supposed to point them to the journal publisher where they can "buy" reprints.

Who are these academic publishers? Springer, Wiley, etc. Try doing a scholarly search in Google. You'll find many PDF entries show a few words from the article, but no [cache]. When you click, you seen none of the article, but are taken to a "Pay Up!" page run by Springer, Wiley, etc. I wish Google wouldn't even waste my time listing these. (Note they even make an exception, allowing them to show one version of the web page to Google and another to the public. BMW was blacklisted by Google for doing this. Why are these publishers allowed to get away with it?)

In the pre-Internet days they could get away with it. But with the Internet, these companies should have dropped out of the business. Certainly Universities are sick of paying big bucks and would love to spend their money on more important things. Many third world countries can't afford them period:

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/121004ohanluain/
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6289896.ht ml

Springer, Wiley etc should have gone out of business, but they've managed to hang on. How? In part due to Academics who still contribute to them. Prestige and promotion depends on having their papers published in 'prominent' journals. There are alternatives: peer-reviewed journals, organisational or web sites. What really stinks is most of this research is paid for by the tax payer. But the taxpayer has to pay Springer, Wiley, etc to read the research they paid for.

http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/2900/01/harnad96.pe er.review.html
http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/04-01/varian.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_journal

Hopefully Universities will finally read academics the riot act: "We're not going to buy anymore of your publishing buddies overpriced ripoff journals, and we're not going to give you credit for being published in one either" and for government/taxpayers to say "We paid you to do the research. We're not going to let you give away the results"

Well, straight news headlines are one thing, I suppose. However, sportswriters are damned near defined by the puns that they do linguistic flips and twists to get into their headlines and stories.

I will confess that while I groan and turn my nose up like everyone else, I secretly admire headlines like 'Bull riders in chute-out tonight at the Corel' (from when Ottawa's Scotiabank Place - blech - was called the Corel Centre). It takes Glengarry Glen Ross-sized brass balls to put your name beside that teaser.

So, while I do appreciate the desirability of headlines that actually have something to do with the story, it would be a shame to see all headlines homogenized in a quest to improve SE rankings and thus eyeballs for advertising.

The Guardian is a perfect example of how a little guy can look real big on-line; while it is the second smallest national print newspaper in the U.K., it gets more than 7.5 million views per month, more than a quarter of those views going to readers in the U.S.

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/business/1063229872.php

Emily Bell - Editor in Chief of the Guardian Unlimited, which is what the on-line version is called - attributes the bulk of the Guardian's on-line success to the high volume of blog and Google links to Guardian articles, a result, she says, of *not* requiring registration to read the Guardian on-line.

NYT are doing this for one very simple reason: if a British judge finds that material has been published that is prejudicial to the outcome of the trial, the people who tried to murder thousands by blowing up planes mid-flight can get off scott-free. In this respect, I guess it's the British equivalent of not reading someone their Miranda rights -- slip up on it and the whole case goes out of the window (not a brilliant analogy, but you get the picture).

The NYT has been in trouble in the UK courts before as it has published material prejudicial to a trial, albeit in a much less important case. They could receive a huge fine for contempt of court if people had to be released because of publishing prejudicial information.

I'm surprised this is being labelled censorship by some people -- it's complying with the law and ensuring that a very important trail isn't jeopordised.

As for whether NYT has to comply with British law: Firstly, the print edition of the NYT is distributed in the UK. Secondly, publish anything online and you are automatically suspectible to be taken to court in criminal or civil proceedings IN ANY COUNTRY!!! The Australian high court, for example, has ruled that in the case of libel "each time material is downloaded, it will enliven the defamation laws of the place where [downloading] occurs."

This is very obviously utterly disturbing... but it's the way things are at the moment and responsible news organisations, such as the NYT, are compelled to act accordingly.

Give credit. AOL went from 1 million Apple/Commodore/Atari users to twenty million PC users within a couple of years. Compuserve didn't mail out all the free CDs or the story might have ended differently. Anyone remember Prodigy?
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/060112grubisich/

Does anyone also remember what it took for that AOL icon to appear on your fresh Windows install?

Other than that, I question Skype changing the network world.
I was/still am redirecting/receiving local voice/radio/etc over tcp/ip since 1997. Its how I get my NFL fix for free.

Enjoy,

http://www.ojr.org/japan/wireless/1047257047.php

In South Korea, meanwhile, the government has institutionalized the death of the personal computer in a program call the Post PC Era Initiative (formally, the "IT839 Strategy"):

http://www.hardware-depot-online.com/xybernaut_est ablishes_korean_operations_to_benefit_from_post_pc _era_db.jspx

You can scoff and say that "well, that's fine for the Asians, but it will never catch on here." I said the same thing 20 years ago when I saw my first Japanese anime and manga stuff. "Nah...this stuff is too tied in to a completely foreign culture and lifestyle and is too out-of-context for kids in the West to relate to. Never catch on here." Now I have a 24-hour anime channel on cable--in rural Texas. Proving once again (as has been proven countless times over the past 40 years if I had been paying attention) that whatever it is that the Japanese youth are doing now, we in the U.S. will be doing in another decade.

The idea is sold to us as a way to simplify our lives. The snag is it also helps disenfranchise sections of the population, and if abused allow gov'ts to control the flow of news by simply ensuring it gets marked as irrelevant. People could also then decide to never hear bad news, and could cause even greater polarisation in society between rich and poor, healthy and unhealthy. Imagine if 60% of the US population never knew about Hurricane Katrina?

About 8 or 9 years ago my boss at the time did a lecture on "The Daily Me".. the idea has been kicking around for years... e.g. http://www.ojr.org/ojr/lasica/1017779142.php

Is it inevitable? Can society decide to control the viewing habits of everyone, i.e. a reverse censorship to make people NOT turn off? That's a big question!

Paul

The U.S. law in question, which protects "service providers" from libel liability from third-party postings, has an interesting history. Back in 1995, a New York judge found that the then-proprietary Prodigy service could be held responsible for an allegedly libelous posting to its Money Talk bulletin board about the Stratton Oakmont financial services firm, on the theory that Prodigy exercised editorial control over the postings. The fact that Prodigy's editorial control was limited to automated dirty-words filtering was lost on the judge.

In response to the uproar by ISPs and online hosts over this case, the U.S. Congress enacted a safe harbor for service providers, ironically into the roundly criticized Communications Decency Act. While most of the CDA was found unconstitutional, the safe harbor remains (at 47 U.S.C. 230, and has been used by a number of major ISPs (including AOL in a case involving a Matt Drudge story) over the years.

This case will likely come down to whether a blog creator is a service provider as defined by the law and the cases that have interpreted it. What makes it interesting is that allowing public comments to a blog really falls somewhere in the spectrum between hosting a message board and publishing letters to the editor, depending on issues of control and other factors.

A few other thoughts. First, regarding those Slashdotters who have marveled at the U.S.-centric views on Internet law, it's really the European Union (through its data protection and VAT laws among others) that has sought to project its legal structure regarding the Internet to others around the globe. Also, as it happens, libel via the Internet has generated major new jurisdictional questions, as the libelers have been brought to trial in foreign countries whose libel laws are much more pro-plaintiff than those of the alleged libeler's home country. (Take a look at the Dow Jones v. Gutnick case for just one example of this.)

-------------------
Prof. Jonathan I. Ezor
Assistant Professor of Law and Technology
Director, Institute for Business, Law and Technology (IBLT)
Touro Law Center
Co-Author, TechLawProf Blog

This one claims liberal bias, http://google.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archiv es/2005/05/04/google-accused-of-liberal-bias/

The truth is that Google news simply shows results that are more left and right instead of just stuff in the middle. I like to see this approach more than a homogenized result. http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050520-1325 05

As far as staple feeds showing bias, well you can do an RSS search (called "Create a Section" on the bottom left) an add anything you like to your news feeds such as Fox News or whatever you care for such as a specific conservative blog. It's actually quite easy and simple to use. It avoids having to use a seperate RSS reader and removes some of the technical intimidation that RSS offers an average user. Just for grins I tried Shacknews.com and instapundit.com, both feeds worked like a charm.

She writes: "I've got a confession to make. I'm talking weak-in-the-knees infatuation. But it's not Brad or Orlando or Colin or any of the cinematic hunks du jour who have set my heart aflutter. No it's Atrios and Kos and Joshua Micah Marshall and Kausfiles and Kevin Drum and Wonkette. Bloggers all. Yes, when it comes to the blogosphere, I'm a regular cyberslut."

I spent 17 years in the music business the last several of which were all about pushing and prodding the painful development of legitimate on-line music. Now, the music fan is on the cusp of riches in their options - free of the viruses of the pirate sites.

There are lots of places you can go for great music at good deals and with a deep catalog of songs from over the last 20 or 30 years. MSN.com, Rhapsody.com, aolmusic.com, even walmart.com. There are little players to make your favorite music even more portable than ever starting at as little as 29 bucks. Most every player device works at every one of these "stores" and it is pretty easy to keep all the songs, no matter where you got them, in a single folder or "jukebox" on your computer.

But not the iPod. Most agree it is the best quality player on the market even if the cheapest one costs a few hundred dollars. The problem is that the iPod only works with either songs that you buy from the on-line Apple iTunes store or songs that you rip from your own CD's.

But those other music sites have lots of music that you can't get at the iTunes store. So, if you have an iPod, you are out of luck. If you are really a geek, you can figure out how to strip the songs you might have bought from another on-line store of all identifying information so that they will go into the iPod. But then you have also degraded the sound quality. How cruel.

keeping the iTunes system a proprietary technology to prevent anyone from using multiple (read Microsoft) music systems is the most anti-consumer and user unfriendly thing any god can do.

Why am I complaining about this?

Well the LA Times charges today for their calandar section. Rollcall charges. So the article isn't listing everything.

In fact, the third article I linked to was about how the L.A. Times had started charging for the calendar section. That article makes it clear that the Times only began charging for that one section in late 2003, well after the history of online publishing covered in the other two links.

Roll Call is not what you called a "first-tier newspaper". It's published Monday through Thursday while Congress is in session, Mondays only during recess.

And finally I don't agree that writing mainstream articles about issues which are non controversial is saying anything important.

Your point was that the N.Y. Times has nothing important to say so it can't expect to make money from its online content. You should then find it strange that 99% of the content on the WSJ site is non-controversial yet it successfully charges for its online content.

And it is similarly strange that the L.A. Times only charges for its calendar section, which by your standards is hardly a bastion of important, controversial articles.

I'm not sure where I could find a history but that's a pretty good list.

This article from March, 2001 on the history of paid online newspaper content mentions only the San Jose Mercury News and Slate as charging a fee. I would have expected them to point to a failed effort of a major paper if one had existed.

Similarly, this article on paid online subscriptions from Nov., 2002 only mention the SJMN as having charged.

This story on the L.A. Times' plans for online subscriptions only mentions it ever charged for online content through Prodigy, which pre-dated the Web.

not sure what you mean by "company information"...

From the WSJ site: "Get stock quotes, charts, news, detailed financials and more for 8,500 publicly traded U.S. corporations and international companies listed as American depositary receipts. Plus, find quotes, news and overview information on nearly 20,000 companies that trade on non-U.S. markets." Users can generate graphs of the stats over time periods of their choosing.

The articles you mentioned are relative safe journalism.

Safe or risky wasn't the issue you raised. The question was whether the Times had "anything all that important to say". The Pulitzers clearly show it does.

Slashdot doesn't have editors.

That's funny, the "editors" seem to like the term.

It could be out of ignorance or favoritism. Or it could be that slashdot has an obligation to occasionally make plugs for MSNBC which has ties to MS-Slate which has the purpose of knocking off Salon as MSIE was to knock off Netscape.

They already know how to do it. Linguistic anomalies and other factors can skew Google News results. When you're talking about human events, there's no way to remove bias.

Hey Ryan, the story here isn't my paranoia, it's your lack of full disclosure. For starters, you're hyping up your website with posts using a pseudonym that you do not use on said website. The slashdot community typically frowns on such disingenuous self-promotions. Had you instead been open and said, "Hey slashdotters, here's an article I wrote on my website about XYZ" then it certainly wouldn't have come across as some sort of deception.

...what Engadget is: a subscription free news source.

Is your site really a news source or a distributor of press releases? I know that sounds like a flame, but I don't mean it that way. I think your site is probably a lot of fun to produce. At the same time, when a site's content is so product-heavy, I get suspicious about the possibility of paid placement, etc. Especially when you gush about a product like this-- "Know that new T-Mobile Sidekick II that Paris Hilton and Derek Jeter have been totin' around town?" The only reason Paris Hilton would have any tech gadget is if she's paid to endorse it. By commenting on Paris Hilton owning a Sidekick II, you've taken on the role of a mouthpiece for the Danger PR department. Does your community really care what consumer products Paris Hilton owns? Actually, it would have been a hundred times more interesting had your contacts at Danger's PR department arranged for you to interview Paris about what she does with her Sidekick rather than the CEO.

If you want to call Engadget a news source, you need to brush up on your journalism ethics. Real journalists don't accept gifts or freebies of any kind from people / companies they might write about. For example, Roger Ebert pays to see the movies he reviews. Quality journalists don't present advertisements as news. Does Engadget qualify?

Please check the Society of Professional Journalist's website on the issue:

Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.

Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.

Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; avoid bidding for news.

It looks like they were able to hire some competent web designers.

Actually, the code is maintained by Carl, who I beleive began with the Slashcode, as you can see after wandering around on the site a bit, he has changed it quite a lot from what he started with.

It's a bit more difficult to garner Karma than on /. and you need a lot more of it in order to benefit or fully participate (negative modding, story posting, etc), but those seem to make Plastic a reasonably civil place.

There's an article about Plastic and Carl available here.

(posting as an AC to avoid "modappeal" ratings on my posts over at Plastic

I chalk it up to a need to replace old revenue streams before they dry up, or before security and anti-trust penalties take it down for the count, before the company gets a proper audit...

'Course all that's moot if Joe Sixpack figures out that Windows is not ready for the Internet, but that Linux, BSD and OS X are, plus cost effective and easy to use.

I don't believe that Gator has any legal basis with which to effectively enforce any such action, but are rather attempting to bludgeon the negative comments off of the website with threats of libel suits that would undoubtedly be costly, although without legal precedent on the side of Gator. More on internet libel law at http://www.ojr.org/ojr/law/1033079636.php

Did you know there are places outside of america?
The website is still broadcast in America --- that means certain laws may still apply.

If you're interested in the topic of participatory journalism, you could do worse than reading some of the articles I've written on the subject:

- Personal Broadcasting Opens Yet Another Front for Journalists

- Participatory Journalism Puts the Reader in the Driver's Seat

- What is Participatory Journalism?

- Niches of trust

- Independents day

- When webloggers commit journalism

- Personal storytelling

- Citizens as budding reporters and editors

And if you haven't heard of the blogosphere, well, that's your loss.

I'm currently working on a book about the clampdown on people's digital rights by the entertainment industries, and hope to post a few chapters on /. for your input.

If you're interested in the topic of participatory journalism, you could do worse than reading some of the articles I've written on the subject:

- Personal Broadcasting Opens Yet Another Front for Journalists

- Participatory Journalism Puts the Reader in the Driver's Seat

- What is Participatory Journalism?

- Niches of trust

- Independents day

- When webloggers commit journalism

- Personal storytelling

- Citizens as budding reporters and editors

And if you haven't heard of the blogosphere, well, that's your loss.

I'm currently working on a book about the clampdown on people's digital rights by the entertainment industries, and hope to post a few chapters on /. for your input.

If you're interested in the topic of participatory journalism, you could do worse than reading some of the articles I've written on the subject:

- Personal Broadcasting Opens Yet Another Front for Journalists

- Participatory Journalism Puts the Reader in the Driver's Seat

- What is Participatory Journalism?

- Niches of trust

- Independents day

- When webloggers commit journalism

- Personal storytelling

- Citizens as budding reporters and editors

And if you haven't heard of the blogosphere, well, that's your loss.

I'm currently working on a book about the clampdown on people's digital rights by the entertainment industries, and hope to post a few chapters on /. for your input.

While I agree that indie news operations would cause dissonance from readers who want to stick to the familiar (if stale) old media brands, the fact that indie sites tend to offer niche news and subjective news might work in their favor over the long term.

Indymedia, for example, offers a subjective slant to political news (just as the increasingly popular Fox News does on the other side of the political spectrum). Whether it's Guerrilla News Network, The Car Place, Theme Park Insider, Consumer World or others, all such indie news sites offer solid personal journalism and community journalism often not found on institutional news sites beholden to commercial interests.

I don't see how user participation is "dangerous because common sense would dictate, somewhere along the line information will be misconstrued." That's where the Internet community's self-correction mechanism comes into play.

A conversation may be noisier, but it's much more fulfilling than a perpetual one-way lecture from the media.

-- JD Lasica

From the article:

But when bloggers comment on and link to news stories, is that journalism? Usually no -- but it depends. When the blogger adds personal commentary that relies on original research, or if it is done by someone considered an authority on the subject, some would consider it journalism.

I think that this is the most interesting thing that has come out of the web. In the past people relied on relatively few sources to form their opinions on politics and world affairs. With the advent of the internet comes the ability to discuss events with people all over the world instantaneously. We no longer have to rely on large organizations to provide us with news that is usually biased due to personal or corporate agendas.

Slashdot is an excellent example. Stories are posted here every day, and for those of you who RTFA you may notice, as I have, that the comments on slashdot often provide far more interesting insight. The article argues that blogging is not really journalism because there is no editor, I would argue that every reader of the blog is, in fact, an editor. If someone writes something in their blog that is obviously biased or not based on fact people will undoubtably pick up on it and reply.

The problem is that the various frequencies that are used by NPR around the country are not bought and sold like the rest of the FM spectrum

On the surface that would seem correct. But the reality is much different. Why is this spectrum different? It exists to serve the public, not corporate, interest.

There are two areas of concern (in reality excuses). The main "primary" transmitter and all the thousands of "secondary" translators in use.

To say that a 10-100 watt LPFM station would "interfere" with a 100,000 watt primary station is laughably ridiculous at best. That would leave the "translators".

The purpose of translator stations was to fill in gaps in coverage for the existing transmitting signal, not to EXTEND coverage of a single station across large regions They originate no programming. That is why they exist under a "secondary" purpose, not as a "primary" station.

The problem is that the various frequencies that are used by NPR around the country are not bought and sold like the rest of the FM spectrum.

This has nothing to do with it. What gives NPR the right to transmit over the whole nation?? You are absolutely right when you said "This is the frequency range between 88 and 92MHz and are reserved for non-commercial use." What makes NPR so "special" that they need to have every frequency in the "non-commercial use" spectrum?? What makes them so "special" that they need to have coverage over large geographical areas that commercial stations don't have??" What makes them so special that they have to have a "monopoly" on public radio???

This also begs the question if NPR is really "non-commercial." Have you listened to NPR recently?? They are filled with station breaks giving acknowledgements to corporations that "sponsor" programs that predominantly contain promotional announcements. I really can't tell the difference between what they broadcast and a regular advertisement on a "commercial" radio station. At least alot of the religous stations don't have that nonsense.

Maybe NPR needs to be kicked out of the "non-commercial" section of the spectrum and let them compete honestly with regular broadcasting corporations. Oh wait, NPR's "corporation for public broadcasting" isn't really a corporation. I see.

Does NPR really serve the public interest?? According to this link, not really. Not only by not representing a variety of viewpoints, but also by hoarding translator frequencies that they really don't need. They seem to be representing increasingly commercial interests. There are others who are noticing this also. NPR has even tried putting a bandaid on it. As can be seen, NPR takes out the "community" in "community radio".

After NPR goes dark from drives like the unpledge, those that love it can pick it up on satellite radio. NPR is not an irreplaceable resource. There are thousands of people ready to put up LPFM transmitters in its place that are really non-commercial.

I know that there are alot of of people who listen on NPR on slashdot, but it is time to realize that NPR no longer represents community interests. Sure their programming is fun and interesting to listen to at times. But the same could be said of any

Hollywood's Hidden Digital Ether
The Birth of a "Tracker"
Where the Network is Today

- James

Hollywood's Hidden Digital Ether
The Birth of a "Tracker"
Where the Network is Today

- James

> [Interactive TV] just is never going to happen.

Maybe iTV is never going to happen in the States, but just as with cellphones, DAB and many technologies that gain momentum through standards and cross-border co-operation , the US is being left behind, as Interactive TV is thriving in Europe, especially in the UK, and I'm amazed that many tech-savvy Americans don't seem to realise this

~45-50% of UK households *with a TV* have digital TV, and of them 65 percent of have access to ITV

In simple numbers ,that's about 8 million households have Interactive TV in the UK. As a comparison, there are about 10 million Uk households with access to the Net.

There are about 6.25 million households with digital satelite alone. All of them have access to very, very advanced interactive services. There are about 2 million households with digital cable, using Liberate middleware

The new Free to air DTT boxes are selling like hot cakes, and there are many Interactive services available through the BBC and others

Here's a wide range of iTV screenshots

In europe as a whole 'interactive TV was estimated to be available in 31 million European households at the end of 2002, creating a potential audience of 72 million viewers'

keep overhead to a minimum and provide content that isn't availabile elsewhere

Tough to do if you're not "created" by motivated volunteers or unaccountable flights of fancy (drudge). One would hope to see Internet journals that compete with conventional ones in every way but on paper. I do see quite a few /. cites to their exclusive content, as well as their AP clipping service. As for /. itself, I don't envision an IPO anytime soon, though it it is reasonably likely to be commercially viable. This is the period of shake-outs in the industry, we'll see.

Salon is a good deal more liberal than the "main course" press, so the more apt comparison is to other "second course" small-audience publications, which by definition have a tougher time surviving on the crumbs after we've paid for our NYT subscription and the like. I held out on subscribing to Salon for a long time, until I started to feel guilty and worried about losing the resource. As I mentioned earlier, I think it's stunning the stories Salon has broken (e.g., here; some argue Salon has lost its touch; another naysayer), and this distinguishes it from an also-ran journalistically if not economically.

But I concede I may be overcome by wishful thinking; Salon perhaps has permanently lost its edge and is headed for that place old CPU's go to die.

1. forgot to mention the Blogicon lexicon
   
2. pundit blogs are actually deemed "war blogs" or "blogs of war"
   
3. it is blogs4god.COM not .CM
   

Not necessarily specific pressure, but the fact that the U gets a ton of entertainment industry money cannot have totally escaped the thought processes of the USC administration. They have buildings named after movie stars; there is tons of implicit pressure to defend the industry's interests whether or not such pressure is ever made explicit.

Nonetheless, from what I've seen, USC has done or at least tolerated some significant moves that deserve commendation. The current policy is a complete shift from their stance during the Napster/Metallica fallout, when they refused to shut down napster ports and spokespeople pointed out that Napster allowed for many things besides trading "illegal" files. Also don't forget that USC publishes the Online Journalism Review, who published articles on both sides of the napster and copyright battles. I would guess there is a split at USC among the administration regarding what to do about copyright infringement and that the current policy probably reflects exasperation at getting threatening letters about USC students sharing mass quantities of files.

This seems to have been a Net-wide pattern; news sites got hard-hit, but all other kinds saw big traffic drop-offs.

There will be a story up at Online Journalism Review before long talking about that -- and about how Slashdot served as an ad hoc news portal in a way no traditional news site could.

- Robin

Even if the article is not presenting any real ew insights, it still summarised the problems with news very well. Another site about journalism and ethics is the Online Journalism Review. The have often articles on subjects like this.

What I really hated about the article is this stupid and ridiculous open-source activism.

Yes, it is nice that CmdrTaco publishes the code for Slashdot, but for the matter of transparency of the news selection mechanism it doesn't really help. It may increase the stability of the system and is a great help for people wanting to start similar sites, but, even with the source code, there is no way of checking what scrips CmdrTaco is really running. Nobody can stop CmdrTaco from adding a message filters. And if he tried, no matter if the code is available or not, sooner or
later discrepancies would crop up and people would become suspicious.

The whole issue is about trust, and the source code does not help (or hinder). Saying Slashdot is better than freerepublic because one is open-source and the other not, is only ridiculous.

Posted by Mike@ABC:

Perhaps in larger cities this isn't true, but in Smalltown, USA, reporters don't do a lot of reporting.

Ouch. As someone who cut his teeth on the smallest daily newspaper in upstate New York (circulation 4,000), I can safely say that reporters in small towns do even more reporting than their big-city counterparts. I remember one fateful day of sitting in on a town meeting, two school board meetings and a kindergarten graduation. Then I went to a fire in another county at 11 p.m. and didn't get back until 4 a.m.

You're right about the AP, though. The wires are extremely convenient, especially for small to mid-size papers, and even my own Web site. But I wish there were alternatives. The Online Journalism Review has a good story on AP wire useage this week.

I am proud to have in my collection Several significant tablet-type computers: the GRiDPad, the GRiD 2260 and 2270 (aka Convertable), Amstrad PDA600, a Telepad 3, and (soon) a Linux Write-Top.

For more on the history of pen-computing, see:

• probably the best collection of pen-based computers in the world (though not yet documented online)
• some valuable info on the history of pen-based computing

While I love books, and have hundreds (if not thousands), I have long felt that the advantages of reading electronic-based information has definite advantages -- the same ones we have come to take for granted with the web and other electronic references. (Things like hyperlinks to related material, in-line definitions, multi-media, and so on.)

In addition, the easy, familiar format of things like the GRiDPad, CrossPad, etc. lend themselves to quick replacement of the traditional pad of paper for note-taking, surveying, and other data entry. The ease of integrating remotely gathered data into centralized databases/references will ultimately make such devices commonplace.

In short, technology such as the WebPad, e-books, and CrossPad will be augmenting more and more everyday tasks, from taking notes in meetings, to compiling grocery lists, from street corner surveys to reading the latest news while climbing the stairmaster at the gym.

P.S., if anyone has examples of early tablets (such as those from Go, Momenta, Motorola, AT&T, etc.) or other older portable computers they want to find a new home for, please feel free to contact me!