Slashdot Mirror
Meet Joe Blog
theodp writes "According to the new issue of Time, we may be in the golden age of blogging, a quirky Camelot moment in Internet history when some guy in his underwear with too much free time can take down a Washington politician. Amateur scribblers posting on the Web are becoming the tails that wag the media, says Time, citing an underperforming undergraduate at a small Christian college in Michigan as an example." Hey, if Circuits can discover USB, I don't see why Time can't discover weblogs.
Wow, what an awesome news story, I shall add it to my blog immediately.
(omgwtfbbq!?fp?)
...may it end soon.
If there were any real legitimate journalists left in the world Bloggers wouldn't matter, but in lieu of the mainstream media and news networks no longer having any journalistic credibility, someone has to do a little research.
Sounds like a chapter right out of Ender's Game. Damn that Peter Wiggin, err.. Locke! Yea! Damn that Locke!
Now we just need to have a pen based computer for each kid in school. Whoops, that's already happening too.
Is this slashdot.org site any good? and what's the url?
OSDN confirms it, cheap plugs are not dying.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Friendster, Blogging - get on the shelf next to Geocities (everyone will have a webpage by 1998!).
...nicely. What's nice is that some of them are open source and written by savvy folks, i.e.:
RubLog - Dave Thomas
bloged - James Gosling
The Army reading list
Meet Joe Blog
or
Slashdotting CmdrTaco.
Slashdot just Slashdotted Cmdr Taco's website. I'm not sure how to react...
Sue Blog, Meet Joe Blog. Joe Blog and Sue Blog sitting in a tree B-L-O-G-G-I-N-G
There's only one site even remotely blog like page worth reading. It's hardly a blog, but it does take it to the man.
The Best Page in the Universe
Everything else is worthless. Its all moaning about how life is awful. Really. I made fun of a bunch of people's blogs on this one site, ironically in blog format, laughing at mostly conservative types who talk about how Bush is teh awesomest. http://son_of_commentary.kleverblogs.com this would be clickable, but slashdot ate the link.
Most Blogs are uber-forgettable ego stroking crap, but the truth in this statement - "some guy in his underwear with too much free time can take down a Washington politician" - can been seen in tons of places. A prime example of the influence a joe-nobody can weild is Harry Knowles. Check him out Here. Maybe not technically a blog, but the concept is the same, and this guy has ended up on the list of the 100 most influential people in Hollywood.
Daily Kos
Atrios
Pandagon
Whisky Bar
May the person who invented that word have his eyes poked out by an angry swordfish while swimming.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Google cache of main site
Google cache of page on Rob
... a seperate section on Slashdot for all *blog related articles, to clearly define which articles are about blogs.
So it's easier for people to ignore it.
Hate me!
I run two different blogs and it is amazing the response I get between both of them. I recently started a stock market blog and I have gotten an enormous user base within one week. However, you have to be careful about what you say so that you cannot get sued. Thus, I had to have a lawyer draw up a disclaimer when registering to my site.
Will politicians use lawyers to stop these blogs? I know I am very fearful of that.
-------
artlu.net
I'm not a blogger, and I don't read any blogs. I don't understand how the blog thing works.
Do people just sit around and read other people's blogs? How do they know which ones to read? If everyone is blogging then it seems like there would be so much useless crap out there that you wouldn't know what to look at. Who would waste time sifting through it all? Doesn't seem very useful to me. Good thoughts would go unnoticed and the sewer would spew forth. There's no focal point.
What am I missing?
The ratio of people to cake is too big
The article's subtitle:
Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they're fast, funny and totally biased
Thanks Time, you've just encouraged a site with more traffic than most others on the internet to keep being more biased, as opposed to just giving the story. Does michael get to post smart-assed statements after an article twice as long as they used to be. Does CmdrTaco get that feeling he does absolutely no wrong even stronger? Does this site continue to get treated like a small site by the people who run it when it should be treated like the big one it is, all because of your little article?
With the site going on such a downward spiral, do they really need their ego stroked? God damn you Time. God damn you.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Homer: Get out, who told you that?
Bart: Nelson!
Homer: Hmm, that's the kind of dirt that belongs on my web page.
Lisa: You can't post that on the internet, you don't even know if it's true!
Homer: Nelson has never steered me wrong, honey. Nelson is gold!
Bart: You know, it might have been Jimbo..
Homer: Beautiful, we have confirmation.
Kent Brockman: A new internet watchdog is creating a stir in Springfield. Mr. X, if that is his real name, has come up with a sensational scoop.
Homer: Darn tootin'
Kent Brockman: But we must never forget that the real news is on local TV, delivered by real officially lisenced newsmen like me, Kent Brockman. Coming up, how DO they get those dogs to talk on the beer commercials? Cowboy Steve will tell you!
NMG
The great blog myth exposed: There are more people contributing to blogs than actually
Care
or
Can do anyting about it
What it all boils down to is like giving the AM radio dial a spin, through all those talk shows. Lotsa blather, all given with about the same amount of passion and nothing much coming of it all.
Just go out and ride yer bike, you'll get more done.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's good that Blogs will get some kind of ranking.
Categories of blogs would be nice, too, so that we're not overwhelmed by Pop Culture, Sports, Movies, One Micron Deep Political Commentary, Etc. We might even divide these categories into groups, something like comp.os.linux.x and so on:)
Popularity might be a good measure of Blog site after it gets discovered and gets a bunch of hits and links to it.
The problem is that brute force popularity metrics will miss new, emerging Blogs that might have high quality writing, insightful analysis, but only a slowly-growing audience.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
What all these sites are nibbling around the edges of, is that people want to communicate more effectively. In the last 20 years we've seen two major advancements in communication: the web-based message board (like slashdot), and instant messenger. More recently some social networking sites have come close, but none have succeeded in that perfect combination of being able to easily share your thoughts, words, and photos with everyone you care about (and everyone they care about).
The only site I've seen that even comes close is called Multiply, and even that needs some work before it's truly powerful (I'd like to see more integration with existing communication tools, for instance).
The next few years are going to bring some dramatic change to the way we communicate -- that's for sure. Wonder which direction we'll be taken; let's just hope it's not an "embrace and extend" strategy by Microsoft!
I know that there are many types of blogging. There's the 'personal' type, where people write about their daily happenings for friends and such to read. My site is one of those. Then there's those (and many, I may add) that focus on a particular area or subject, eg. technical or scientific news (like Slashdot) or certain lawsuits (Groklaw). There has been a trend of the mainstream media citing blogs as sources and reporting on that, and maybe they should search around and be able to present two opposing views, or what not. I read blogs (type two) to learn about things; it's always nice to know both sides of an issue. Many type one blogs center around communities such as Xanga or Blogger. I suppose their goal is to promote the sense of being a community, while also conveniently creating the feeling of exclusiveness by limiting it to members only, even though the service is free... So, can blogging be seen as merely exercising free speech? If "one user in his underwear" can change/skew the media, well, maybe they should do more research first. Too bad the media isn't entirely objective, though. But then again, it's impossible to present everything pertaining to an issue.
The end of days is near!
quick! everyone click reload on slashdot right.... NOW!
I want to go look at this guys website, but I am afraid to see what kind of pictures he has photoshopped (gimped?) together to descredit the politician.
On the flip side, I look forward to a new world order led by geeks sitting at home in their underwear.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
contrast that with this week's "i, cringley"
Dude, it looks like we just slashdotted CmdrTaco's web site. How's that for irony? :-)
(And now Taco is going to go smack michael upside the head for posting this story. Gotta love it.)
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they're fast, funny and totally biased
Well, then they have one of the three in common with traditional media, and it isn't being either fast or funny.
Read my blog! ;-)
www.wasteofyourtimeandmine.com
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Are you seriously suggesting that bloggers have more journalistic "credibility"? Many (not all) blogs I've read tend to be unabashedly biased rants and take extreme positions- or do nothing more than mindlessly link to other stories.
While a few news outlets have credibility problems, they're far from worthless, and there are tens of thousands of excellent reporters who have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of reporting, and actually have degrees in journalism. It is almost sickening to hear you equate them with bloggers, who have so little dedication, 95% of them stop blogging after a month or so.
Just because you watch FOX news and read USA Today doesn't mean journalism is dead, and it certainly doesn't mean that we should be turning to bloggers.
Please help metamoderate.
it mentions /.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
What I recently discovered was that this form of autobiographical 'drivel' is by no means a new form of literary expression.
Taken from Narrating the Self: Fictions of Japanese ModernitySo yeah, the weblog is really nothing new, just a much easier form of distribution.
Notice how the article was published yesterday and conveniently held by /. until prime-time Monday.
A slashdotter (CMDRTACO) being slashdotted by slashdot?
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush Nov. 2005
Here's the article about USB from the NYT. Read the publish date. READ IT MORTAL! READ IT, WEEP, AND KNOW FEAR!
PC as Power Plant
By DOUGLAS HEINGARTNER
Published: June 10, 2004
IT began as a simple way of getting computers and other devices to play nicely together. But it has given rise to a stream of gadgets far more exotic than the printers and mouses it was designed to accommodate.
Its initials have also become increasingly familiar in the digital lexicon: U.S.B., for universal serial bus.
U.S.B. ports, and the plugs that fit them, make it easier to connect devices to a computer, eliminating screwdriver-heavy tasks and the need to reboot the computer every time a new piece of equipment is plugged in.
But perhaps most important, two of a U.S.B. cable's four wires carry not data but juice: enough current to run small to midsize gadgets with no need for batteries or AC adapters.
Eight years ago, when the technology first appeared, U.S.B. meant keyboards, joysticks and the like. But manufacturers began cottoning to U.S.B.'s ability to provide a power source, leading to a host of gizmos that have nothing to do with computers: radios, reading lights, even massage balls and air purifiers.
And as Scott Smith of the online retailer ThinkGeek (www.thinkgeek.com) points out, the universality of U.S.B. (that's what the U stands for, after all) means fewer international adapters for globetrotters to lug around.
Though many of the latest arrivals fall at the absurd end of the gadget continuum - like a U.S.B. flash drive shaped like a rubber duck - many are innovative, even ingenious: a U.S.B. cellphone charger, for example, lets you use your laptop for on-the-road S O S.
So the next time a blackout hits, your laptop's robust battery might find itself powering more than just your palmtop.
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
demographically based sociological analysis of "internet thought"
This for sure is a typo and should read 'biased' instead of 'based'. Well.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Despite the files not existing, and of course, no links to them, google tried to read
So, why? Are they going to adjust ranking on sites that are obviously blogs because they have feeds?
Cool, I'm blogging this!
The article seems to argue that the blogosphere is self-contained. Well, in a way, but really only in the same way the web is "self-contained".
Personally, I think the author is missing the diversifying nature of RSS feeds and RSS readers. I am subscribed to 100's of channels. It includes small voices like blogs and big ones like Dave Winer's nytimes feeds.
The exciting thing about the RSS phenomenon, intimately interwoven with blogs, is that it explodes the number of outlets you can surf. So, blogging leads to wider syndication leads to wider diversity of opinion available for sampling.
What's that you say, Rob? Working on your bachelor's degree was the best 12 years of your life?
In the beginning there was USENET and it was good...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
would you call that a 'log blog'?
love is just extroverted narcissism
As someone who writes for 7+ blogs, I certainly don't want to sound as if I'm putting down the trend of self-publishing. But it's hard for people who make little or nothing from blogging to have the time or resources to deliver good reliable news and analysis over a period of time. True, adsense/google ads provide some sort of revenue for A-list bloggers, but that's more the exception rather than the rule. Full time writers may have corporate responsibilities/biases, but at least they have more time to do what they love doing.
One heartening trend is that big media is now adding blogs to their websites (and are presumably paying these writers to blog). It would be nice if employers could recognize the value of blogging so that blogging wouldn't have to be done so surreptitiously.
The biggest worry I have is that the Time's and New York Times will start casting off full time journalists and switch to the slashdot/ALD format that basically poaches off the content from other publications.
To repeat: bloggers do good important work. But at some point writers need resources and infrastructure and collaborators (and a paycheck) to do a good job consistently.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
Seriously, I don't think this is quite true. It's not the case that an isolated blog is capable of single-handedly taking down an administration. They can maybe be a spark, or at most kindling, for that fire. It still has to get into "legit" big media right now in order to do someone in.
Blogs are the sort of "echo chamber" that right wing radio has been -- they try to punch a story up, and media organizations catch onto some stuff. The blogs alone wouldn't do it though.
A classic example is the Trent Lott thing. For days after he made his comments about how we'd have been so much better off electing Strom Thurmond back when he was a segregationist, the mainstream media ignored it. A bunch of incredulous blog writers wrote harangues about how people were ignoring it, and eventually it did catch on with the big news sources.
The papers vetted the Lott story, made sure the details of the story hung together, in a way I wouldn't trust any Blog to do. Not that papers are pure truth or anything, but a Blogger can claim anything without answering to the editors and the owner and the public at all. At least with a news source you know they have something to lose if they're wrong.
This is a sort of creative tension, though, that we haven't had. That's completely true. Some guy in his skivvies is helping to set the news agenda, and that can't be all that bad.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Uh, doesn't this just about describe any Slashdot reader? I mean, I don't know about too much free time but I hope everyone is wearing underwear!
Although its true that blogs can be very biased, so can mainstream TV news services. Fortunately, we have the same option with a blog as we have with TV, whereas you can choose NOT to turn on a certain news channel, or don't view a certain blog.
flamebait?
Yeah, I heard mocking core beliefs was usually modded flamebait these days, but I might be mistaken.
SAILING MISHAP
But he runs an amateur website. Darn Rob I thought you were making money at this. Linux mag must have been wrong back in 2000 when they discovered you and said you were doing quite well. I will write them a notice so Linux Mag can print a retraction.
By the by, the reason I read blogs, main stream media is so watered down I can't even taste it.
Take for example the recent piece in C|Net about why the FCC should go away. Gosh I wish I could sh*t words on paper / html and be called a reporter. I want a real newspaper!!
It seems to me that this is an example of what people are talking about when they start to wax poetic about the power of "what the Internet could be".
We live in a world where the land, money, and power are becoming more and more concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. The evening news only reports on stories and opinions that have pre-approved by corporate-mentality politically-correct editors, who only hire corporate mentality politically-correct writers and reporters in the first place.
Part of the reason behind the Internet's popularity and open-source fanaticism is the fact that it puts small amounts of power back in the hands of individuals. People can distribute thoughts, information, and opinions to millions of people, unstoppably, without the possibility of censorship, with virtually no cost.
The general absence of publishers and editors means an absence of filters. It may allow amateurish writing to make it to your browser, but it also allows you to read the views that the New York Times won't print merely because it's against the owners' political views or economic interest.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to put on my tin-foil hat.
But I bet we can finish off that stuck-up Alicia Watkins who thinks she's all that because Brad who sits behind that chinese kid in chemistry bought her that tacky bracelet from Zales. Anyway I heard from Jennifers sister who works at the DMV that she heard from her friend Christine that the real reason Alicia missed the class trip to Fun Mountain was because she has herpes. I SWEAR TO GOD I am not making this up LOL.
Anyway Brad can't you see that I'm the one who really loves you? Doesn't that mix tape I left in your locker mean anything to you?
"Let us not go to Camelot; it is a silly place"
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
I just can't imagine using USB to power a lightbulb.
USB Device: I need 60 watts.
Computer: Ha! That's a good one.
USB Device: I'm serious...
Computer: How about I just burst into flames now?
Wasn't it Al gore, shortly after inventing the Internet.
Oops I mean ALLLLLL GOOOOORRRREEEEEE !!!!!!!
I think that is how he is pronoucing it these days.
I think that factor that you miss is that the content on the blogs can (and WILL) be spread easily if there is something worth noticing.
So if Joe writes something interesting, then in a few hours Mary and Bob will link to him in their blogs and in the next day you will receive the entry (or just a link to it) via email from Suzy because she saw it linked on Bob's blog and thinks that all her friends just have to read it.
Real life is overrated.
I see Blogs as an extention of reality TV. Your average Joe wants his share of fame while, in some cases, lacking the necessary talent to earn it. So he starts a blog and measures his popularity by the number of hits to his site.
Mind you, unlike reality shows, the blogs are not controlled (yet?) by big production corporations and blog's primary goal isn't to make money, so at least there could be a certain sense of 'integrity' in blogs that's painfully lacking in reality shows.
I can imagine all the kvetching we're about to hear about how mundane and pointless the vast majority of weblogs and personal websites are (ala this and this), and how too many people are jumping online to post what they had for lunch or what they thought of Lord of the Rings or what they did over the weekend or pictures of themselves drinking a beer, and how it's all a bunch of crap. Someone will use the term "signal to noise ratio," someone will use the word "dreck," someone else will say "mundane."
Here's the thing: Even the most mundane minutae of human existence if fascinating compared with the prevailing (but fading) obsession with network topology and computer technology. The Web was not invented so people could talk about the Web. You People -- the technologists on Slashdot -- have had control of the vast majority of original Internet writing for the past ten years, and it's been nothing but CSS this, or XML that, or RPC SOAP OSS GNU GPL PHP this, or PGP that, SSL HTTP HTML DOM .NET blah blah blah ... Webmonkey stuff.
Does technical discussion have its place on a network first used to distribute physics papers and so forth? Of course. Is talking about the network by definition the most boring thing to do on the network? Absolutely. Do I like asking myself easy, rhetorical questions? YES!!!
My point is, people are going to post baby pictures and bad cryptical poetry about their personal lives and recipes for pulled pork and shallow reviews of episodes of popular mindless TV shows, and I think that's brilliant. It means the network is finally open -- FOR WRITING -- by the masses. By people who are not engineers. It means everday people are CREATING media rather than just consuming it. You might think it's dreck, but their friends and family will get something out of it, and every now and then we'll discover someone writing (or singing or designing or photographing or filming) something brilliant and posting it on their blog, and we'll get something the likes of Viacom or Time Warner wouldn't have put in front of us if we paid them to.
And there will finally be more to the Web than tech talk and old media shovelware.
Just had to get that off my chest.
I'm not sure how to express why I think it's so odd that Time featured that piece, so let me spit out the background of what's got me thinking about it:
Sometime in early 2003 a journalist goes to to northern Iraq ("Iraqi Kurdistan") working for Time. He doesn't seem to get anything published. He asks for and apparently receives permission from his editors to leave things on his blog, which he then sets up and starts contributing to. Somebody in the mainstream press discovers it (Boston Globe?), thinks it's interesting and reports on it, and the guys at Time say 'holy shit, quit posting'.
This seems a very different situation than Time would have us believe from the Andrew Sullivan quote in the piece:"Because we're not trying to sell magazines or papers, we can afford to assail our readers," says Andrew Sullivan, a contributor to TIME and the editor of andrewsullivan.com. "I don't have the pressure of an advertising executive telling me to lay off. It's incredibly liberating." Unless, I guess, your boss tells you to lay off entirely.
I also wonder why they might publish such a 'little guys push big media' article without examining _at all_ what media giants do to control that area, particularly in light of the above.
Well, I don't think blogging is going to replace Time magazine, CBS nightly news or the New York Times next week, but it DOES impact these institutions. Specifically, it raises the bar substantially on what readers will PAY for in their reading habits.
I used to get a daily paper, subscribe to several news magazines and watch the nightly news, well, nightly.
These days almost all the news that's fit to print has been all over the internet before you can get it in printed form. I know this by talking to non-internet news junkies. They'll start by saying "Did you hear about Bush falling off his bike..." and I'll interrupt to tell them more than they already know on the subject. Print media won't die next week, but the Internet has done much more to hurt print media than television ever did. There really is very little reason for printed publications these days other than those people who still don't use the Internet regularly, and I suspect the ratios will eventually put many of the print -only publication out of business unless they adapt to the Internet.
Getting the story first will still be important for news publications, including TV based ones. But the story they will drive to get first will be the one that breaks on the Net, while they will strive to offer more in-depth coverage than their competitors for the print edition (while it exists).
More importantly, blogging "commoditizes" opinion. Who needs Andy Rooney when there are thousands of bloggers our there that are just as funny, and in many cases more insightful too? News anchor people might eventually learn that we are not interested in the "spin" they put on stories. When you can read entire transcripts of hearing, do string searches, or even view almost all of the world in action Dan Rather and the like can't afford to spin so much or they lose their credibility (well they already have for me at least). C-SPAN started this trend, and watching our government in action taught me how bad the reporting really was. Getting news on the Net has multipled that affect many times over and I think that as a new Net savvy generation takes over there will be fewer and fewer "media giants" who can manipulate the news for their own agenda.
Getting there will be good. The ride will be bumpy though.
instead of ignoring the bias you dont like, it'd be better to view biased news from all over the spectrum, and afterward draw your own biased conclusions as to what might be the truth.
I imagine that while a majority of blogs are from angsty self important whiners it's when significant events happen that it's interesting to go back and read people's take on it. I don't know about anyone else but I've often clicked on the Hall of Fame section and read comments from some of the most replied to stories. It's fascinating (well to some) to see what people thought and said during significant events. Assuming that many blogs will still be around thanks to sites like The Internet Archive it could be a valuable reference and research tool for future generations. And then again maybe only the bad blogs will survive. The ones that proclaim Lemmy is god and George W. is teh suck.
I always thought it was http://slashdot.org. Yours won't even resolve (no dot between the www and the slashdot? horrors!)
Also blame lazy readers/listeners/viewers who don't actually read enough to distinguish between rubbish and truth. e.g. When Richard Clarke, the gut at the hub of the CSG wheel, says the Whitehouse flubbed the war on terror, are you going to believe him or some hack who says Clarke lacks any credibility because he as an axe to grind?
The right wing media has been taking advantadge of lazy journalists for years. For those of you who don't know, the "right wing media" -- Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, 700 Club, Hanity & Colms, Ann Coulter etc -- What they do is come up with terribly biased or completely false stories supporting the conservative agenda (status quo) and of course everybody dismisses the stories because the source is biased media! But lazy copy writers for legit news orgs pick up the stories, don't research them, and run with them! Then they *BECOME* "true".
Also refered to as Factoids by someone in the past, "Factoid: Something repeated often enough it becomes accepted as true."
A trained mind, skilled in critical thinking is harder for propaganda to overcome. This is why it's important to read as much about history as you can, starting with an open mind and questioning the veracity of everything you read. (This included!)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
and as its symbol a steaming pile of crap with a single golden kernal of corn
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
www.cmdrtaco.net has been slashdotted.
Oh, the irony...
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
Just a guess...
When I find a site on google and it has the links below it for 'cached' and 'similar pages'... I'd be more then happy to see an 'rss feed' link.
This is not insightful. It's not interesting. It's hardly informative, and it's more or less off topic.
Plus, anyone who doesn't code their OWN blog is a pansy. Duh.
Then they should be parsing the pages, looking for the RSS meta tag, not guessing.
The title of this slashdot article is very close to the title of an ongoing humor article on Tech Book Report website. "Meet Joe Bloggs"
:)
http://www.techbookreport.com/whoisjb.html
Just thought it was funny.
This whole blogging thing reminds me very much of Orson Scott Card's future in "Ender's Game." A subplot of the book follows Ender's siblings, two teenagers who shake up the global political climate by posing as adults named Demosethenes and Locke and posting inflamatory columns on what he called "the 'nets." When I first read it I thought of newsgroups, but with a much wider audience. Now I'm thinking that the blog model fits that 'future' better. (If you haven't read "Ender's Game," shame on you and make haste to Amazon or to your local book store.)
I'm a woman, you insensitive clod!
My blog exists for one simple reason: websites don't hyperlink.
I started it two years ago because rense.com had interesting stories, about half of which are verifiable (i.e. about 80% of the non-UFO stories). The problem is it took quite a bit of time for me to research Rense's stories to figure out which ones were true. And to not let that go to waste, I started dumping my results into a blog -- all with hyperlinks to either mainstream news sites or to "original" web documents from government, scholastic, or non-profit organization websites.
In the meantime, providing such links became de rigueur for the myriad of blogs that have popped up over the past two years -- in order to provide credibility. The result is that Rense.com now provides hyperlinks a lot more frequently now due to the new competition.
Rense.com has changed its ways, but newspaper sites still have not yet clued into the mystery of Tim Berners-Lee. Newspaper websites currently just duplicate the newsprint onto the computer screen. They refer to pending legislation without linking to the legislation. They refer to charters, press releases, products, budgets, etc. without linking to them. Or, sure, some have some newspapaper site have software that automatically goes through and creates links for popular keywords such as company names and people's names, but that's about it. Blogs, such as mine, provide deep links directly to the crucial material at hand, so that readers can assess the original material for themselves.
Sites like wired.com and salon.com are a bit more with it. Sites run by "Old Print" are going to have to adapt or die.
When we start seeing mainstream popular news sites with deep links to relevant material -- i.e. when newspapers embrace the web -- then maybe I can retire my website.
FAST:
If I want yesterday's news, I'll read a paper. If you read a blog, it's often the news that appeared in yesterday's newspaper.
As for the time I spend reading
FUNNY:
Imagine a beowulf cluster in russia... well, ok, sometimes they're funny. Sure as hell is funnier than all the idiotic talking heads and pseudo-intellectual writings of Time. So I'll concede blogs as funnier than mainstream media.
TOTALLY BIASED:
Russ Kick is biased if he shows photos of coffins but mainstream media's silence is a sign of impartiality? Pot, meet kettle
So the author gets a 1/3 in the byline. Some of the arguments in the article are shoddy too, but perhaps the most surreal thing was reading that "the little guy is a lot smarter than big media might have you think." Is that condescension masquerading as humility?
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
I dont keep a blog but i wonder what the implications are of keeping a technical based blog for those of us working under strict NDA's. If I am doing work on new tech xyz i am sure any mention of it in a blog could have serious consequences and since all my work would be focused in this area I wouldnt have much else to blog.
When looking over my own blog archives, I find myself wishing I had talked a little less about the latest slashdot article on security and a little more about my life, my friends and my daily concerns. We really shouldn't knock people who publish their own ephemera. Although I'm a news/technology junkie, I have to admit having a fondness for people who just talk about their lives.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
Why couldn't they print the name of the college?
Jeez if he went to Michigan State, it would be State this and Sparty that.
Come on, give the small school some pub!!!
I use blogs mainly to keep in touch with friends. I think it's cool that a friend of mine can write something - anything - down on a webpage, from depressive speculations on the nature and meaning of life to a description of a date with a beautiful girl. Like any journal, it also allows you to look "back in time" at what you (or your friends) thought way-back-when ...
That's a good question though: what do you other Slashdotters use your blogs for?
Yeah, that Jesus... Always encouraging his disciples to drive explosive-laden busses into crowds of civilians...
I usually skim the links on the Daypop Top 40 every day. When it's working, it lists the top 40 things bloggers are linking to. This is how I discovered a lot of the blogs mentioned in the article. Except for Slashdot and boingboing, I don't read these blogs every day. But the top 40 list works as a sort of daily "best of the blogs" for me, and as the list is politically neutral I get to see what both sides are saying.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
That guy's a fucktard. The only difference between him and "all that is wrong with blogging" that you mentioned, is that he is arrogant and closed minded. Which, of course, means arrogant and closed minded people love him, since he satiates their need to qualify their sheepish opinions as valuable in a world where opinions are a dime a dozen, and mostly unoriginal slop. In fact, he moans about how life is aweful, for example:
"When Jim Carrey's "Ace Ventura" came out, every prick I know did their worst "allllrighty then" impression. You can still hear it echoed by smug school girls who try to compensate for their lack of personality and any semblance of wit by chanting this mantra so maybe you won't notice that they're lying whores. The worst is when some gabby bitch is the center of a party, and someone tells an awkward story, to which she'll pause a beat, roll her eyes, then say "oooooookayyyyy!" Then she thinks it's funny and she high fives all her snobby bitch friends who watch stupid shit like "Will & Grace" and "Average American Family deals with gay daughter," all while listening to whiny angst-filled "emo" bullshit and taking everything Carson Daly says as gospel. I hope you choke."
Hm. I think someone got turned down at parties a few too many times by such girls. Not that I disagree with him, I just think he's a fucktard.
WTF? Don't you read between the lines when you read "the news" ??? If "journalists" are so obsessed with "the facts", then why do they always inject opinion into their "journalism". Sorry, buddy, all journalism is biased. All journalists leave out some facts, too. You're the one suffering from fantasy if you beleive otherwise.
On a similar topic, they went into the signficantly higher level of reserarch that goes into the Enquirer (and for that mater People, because both get sued for libel more often) vs the NY Times and the number of scoops (more) and retractions (fewer) that it had verses the other major papers, yet still it has signficantly lower believabilty poll numbers than the other two. I tend to believe /. pretty regularly as most errors are pointed out quite rapidly and discussion ensues. This is a much better way to see a better cross section of the biasas that almost any issue will bring.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Yeah, and I always thought 'blog' was a stupid name. We could call them 'news categories' or 'news groups' instead.
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
Is anyone here surprised?
This article is from exactly the same mindset that Microsoft displays when they tell us that Windows is cheaper and better than Linux.
Fact is, many in the media realize they have a serious trust problem, but things will get much worse before they get better.
Blogs are a huge potential threat to the media establishment, and the best ones provide information which BigMedia wishes to see suppressed, such as the UN Oil for Dictators program known as UNSCAM
There will be lots of loud and shrill posts in this thread reminding YOU, Citizen, that blogs are bad for you, boring, and will make your palms hairy.
Certainly, if you agree that your betters at BigMedia are best qualified to tell you what to think about, carry on as you are.
I mean, BigMedia has YOUR best interests in mind right? Right? It's not as if they are trying to sell you something.
There are more people contributing to _____ than actually Care or Can do anyting about it
Is it:
???? any other non-hyped means of expression or group effort? How can someone running a web page like your own say such a thing?
Blogs are web pages for people who don't have the knowhow to get a site hosted and built. They can and are authored by people who know about other things, like riding a bike. Why slam them as empty expression because they might not be able to present it as nicely as you do? Would you be bothered if Brad or Jimmy got themselves a blog?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Mea culpa.
(Never trust anyone who won't 'fess up to mistakes, and weaseling doesn't count. Again, there are people on all sides that are too busy being perfect and standing behind increasingly discredited opinions to be worth listening to. If you haven't changed any of your opinions in the last couple of years, you're neither as sophisticated nor as informed as you think you are.)
Fake "news" videos produced by the government using actors instead. Much more credible then "real" people actually reporting stuff. Nope, the US government doesn't "embed" propoganda, it's all those other furrin countries that have funny sounding names who are slap fulla "tarists" that do that.
Gross, Malda and Dutton aren't rich or famous or even conspicuously good-looking. What they have in common is that they all edit blogs: amateur websites ....
That's funny. Malda is paid by OSDN to edit Slashdot, which is owned by OSDN. Since when is Slashdot an amateur website? It's been a commercial, money-making venture for years.
The power of the blog comes from the acknowledgement that blogs are openly biased, unedited sources. This invites more interaction and thought than newspapers which try to pose as authoritative sources.
When you look at the way people behave in life, they really don't imbibe a piece of news until they start discussing it. The human infallabiliy of blogs invites such interaction, while the supposed objectivity of journalists repels open interaction.
Of course, we still need quality authoritative sources that produce just facts. Blogs need to co-evolve with unbiased, dry sources of information such as county records, meeting minutes or other dry sources of information.
You do not need to be aware of any information sources not sanctioned by Big Media
Seriously. First we were all the noble underdog crusaders against the Evil Empire of IBM. Then we were the tragic figures, bearing the Light of Linux to heal the scars of a Microsoft-ravaged digital wasteland. Next we're the romantic dark horses of politics, riding forth from the shadows of our mom's basement with truth and bad teeth from excessive soda consumption.
We're the Bloggers, and we have absolutely nothing to say, but we think that if we say it anyway, we might find a way to parlay the massive quantity of time we've invested into levelling that Druid into something we're not ashamed to mention when we finally land that first date at the age of 38.
"Yeah, I do computer stuff, you know..." (I masturbate nightly in cloth office chair that will now and forever more reek like butt sweat) "I run my own web server..." (I have parts from 9 Pentium II's in my basement, one of which has RedHat 6.1 on it) "I'm politically active with a group of like-minded citizens..." (I bitch a lot in chat groups based on stories I read on CNN.com)
I just can't imagine using USB to power a lightbulb.
That's because your imagination is limited I think oyu can also purchase a USB powered fan. Six wire firewire delivers more power, though.
To be fair to the nytimes, the short article was devoted to devices that neglect the "serial" part of USB and use it merely for power distribution.
Yes, you're correct. Hence in my original post there is the modifier of "just about" - but here's to hoping you are wearing underwear and have lots of free time as well! :)
Was I the only one who read the headline and thought it was going to be about Joe Bloggs and the Princeton Review?
Who was that write for abig name paper that recently was found to have forged many of his articles?
Didn't he have editors?
What if they can't find the link on the mainpage... I'm just as happy with a guess. I'm sure the readers here can come up with a number of reasons of why this is done. Maybe it's only done if they can't find a link to it on the pages....
I'd think Sid's slashdot ID would be a very low number, possibly negative.
Department of disinformation"
And be sure to read the last paragraph, guys! Thats undoubtably the best part of it all :-D
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Someone mod this "+1, In yer face foo!"
And mod me offtopic when you're done doing that. It might be well deserved.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Especially in the case of Linux vs BSD flamewars.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
On a similar note, there was a terrible Fox 5 News feature about blogging recently entitled "Blah Blah Blogging," which featured the subtitle "New Cyber Craze." They seem to think that "buh-logging" is a hip new replacement for email and chatrooms. The ignorance of Time doesn't even compare to this.
Link
As an amusing side note, this is the same news team that brought you the recent grape stomping debacle.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
In the past week I've seen a number of calls go out for people to contact Congress and ask to have the World War II memorial monument changed to add in the removed "so help us God". This has been spreading thanks in large part to web blogs hosting this information, which people then email out to friends and family.
So yes, clearly blogs are helping a bunch of retards spread an urban legend around to the point where letters are written to Congress, all because bloggers can't be bothered to check a few facts.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Thank you for pointing out that blogs can cover subjects more serious and mature than politics. ;-)
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
That was the most insightful comment I have read so far. There was always something that bugged me about foxnews.com cnn.com bbc.co.uk, etc, but I could never put my finger on it. They don't link to any documents or sources. I guess they are more interested in keeping people on their site for the page hits than actually providing the news. Given that, why trust them over bloggers? Bloggers' motives might be pure (we may not know, but we DO know that corporate media's motives are not)
Finkployd
....not on my car insurance, but on them dad burned pesky elections! No more going around bribing off poll watchers and union bosses, and local sheriffs, no sir! We got us high tech whizz bang efficiency now, we just hack the machines, and it's easy to do, because WE *own the machines*, WE *own the media*, WE *pass the laws* and WE *control any investigations*!
que jacov - "Amerika, vat a country!"
There was always something that bugged me about foxnews.com cnn.com bbc.co.uk, etc, but I could never put my finger on it. They don't link to any documents or sources
You may be right about the BBC, but you are wrong about foxnews.com. I'm no apologist, but I give credit where credit is due.
The current front-page story on foxnews.com is about the Supreme Court's ruling 'Under God' Case Dismissed on Technicality
In the short blub on the front page, one immediately finds, under "raw data," Supreme Court's Dismissal of Case. Right there on the front page.
the next to the last links, to cryptome and the oakland tribune? "not found".
How bout them apples
And the comment with google news, YES, I have started noticing that the past few months, stuff I KNOW I've seen fails to show when searching their news, happened to me last night in fact trying to find some stuff for another thread.
hmmmm
Anyway, this government (and I am assuming most governments) always have massaged the news and had paid-off reporters, and the bigdogs in the media are usually always corporate/government apologists,uhh, because they are also the owners of huge corporations, etc, so there ya go on that. There's no unbiased news, there has always been unreported news, always been lies in the news, so might as well switch to blogs more,it can't be any worse!
Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they're fast, funny and totally biased
As opposed to Time et al., who are as unbiased as a newborn, right? (Vide Oh, That Liberal Media or Biased BBC.)
If you state your biases up front, I can take them into account. If not, with time, effort, and luck I can eventually infer them...but don't be surprised if I can't keep a straight face any more when I hear or see the phrase "journalistic objectivity."
I'm blind!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
You know, a lot of people go to college for 12 years.
Yeah, they're called "doctors".
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Hang on to your hats, the article links to slashdot... we're gonna get TIME'd! Save the logs!
RP
One thing that reporters/editors should do before adding a hyperlink to another site, is to find out if the site can withstand a slashdotting. If they cannot, then find a way to provide the information from the other site without killing the other server. i.e. Find a mirror site or host the page on their own server.
There was a time when many intellectuals started private journals and newspapers. The net is giving people the opportunity to start newspapers, like www.brainsnap.com or www.theonion.com. Fifteen years ago, starting an independent press would be expensive and have an incredibly small circulation for many years. This can potentially over throw the largest brokers of news, but on the other hand, they do still have all the money. Marketing is everything in this world today.
For my money, the best part is that (despite the organization being, due to its guaranteed nonexistence, generally unheard-of) there's already a metal band named after it. Kl-assic.
Slashdot got Timed (in other words, slashdotted by the Times).
So theodp and michael conspired to slashdot the Times in retaliation.
Do I see a dangerous feedback loop?
On a serious note, as the FA says, when it comes to politics people tend to read the blogs that they allready agree with.
I DO read some journals and blogs that I don't agree with occasionally, but I also use the blogs as time-savers. The argument goes: "If it's worth my attention, the regular blogs would have note about it."
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
I have no idea why but I kind of like the idea of Rob Malda having his moment of fame!
it was at my brothers inlaws house. It was titled something like "the musings of fine young gentleman" I don't completely remember, but we laughed when we opened it up and read a page or two. It was just some guys opinion on everything. A Blog from late nineteenth century.
there is nothing new about the formula behind blogs...it's just that it's only been available to the rich and powerful.
I see a passing of the torch
I thought the zeitgeist was supposed to be representative of the net at that time. If the net is filled with 'noise' at the time, shouldn't the zeitgeist represent that?
Oh, yay. Googlewars over blog rankings. I really look forward to that.
Oh, wait
NM
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
From the article:
Unfortunately, there's a downside to this populist sentiment -- that is, innocent casualties bloodied by a medium that trades in rumor, gossip and speculation without accountability.
Blogs can be a great way of communicating, but they can keep people apart too. If I read only those of my choice, precisely tuned to my political biases and you read only yours, we could end up a nation of political solipsists, vacuum sealed in our private feedback loops, never exposed to new arguments, never having to listen to a single word we disagree with.
That bit about "feedback loops" reminds me of the continuous ticker at the bottom of every bloody new program now and also the fact that every half hour the same "news" items are repeated again, same copy, same photos, same everything. How is this "news" after several hours of soundbites and no in depth information?
He also doesn't seem to realize that his warning about blogs ruining people on thin or no evidence, shoddy reporting, spreading rumor as fact, or even bandying about biased information applies to the mainstream media as well.
At any rate, I tend to find that "even a broken clock is right twice a day" whether it's from a blog, mainstream news or just plain rumor.
Umm.. I don't think Google is necessarily trying to contain all blogs at Blogger (and even if they were, it would never happen) Blogs have had a disproportionally high representation in the SERPs until recently, but this was because of PageRank... as Google phases in their authority-driven link popularity algorithm, I think you will find that the results are not so skewed. And as for noise, I'd rather have crappy blog opinions than 100% commercial spam clogging up the SERPs.
Bloggers assume that because they were shrill, the big media discovered the story, and thus validated the blog. This story has gained wide currency, but no one is able to show any facts.
Once could beg the question by asking; Why, if blogs are as influential as claimed, is their only example of that influence something that has happened once in the five plus years of blogs being popular? Why not the hundreds (thousands?) of other topics the blogsphere has gotten a bee in its collective bonnet about over the same period?
I have an interest in the events going on in the world, and the internet is by far the very best way to sample and compare a lot of data from around the globe, and to then discuss/debate it into a rational picture of reality.
I don't bear any of the dumb traits you describe. I have an active social life, a good job and, amazingly I use the internet. And I am not alone.
You seem to typify a peculiar contingent of people who hope that through ridicule and belittlement, populations can be cowed away from seeking knowledge.
And guess what; It's not working.
-FL
The authorities have hated the free movement of information on the internet ever since it began, and have made many efforts to marginalize public opinion regarding it. As everybody knows, "The things you read on the Web are worthless." And "You are a loser if you spend time on the internet."
Now, who started those ideas? It's certainly not a very poweful message from within cyberspace itself; when you hear it on-line, it's most often a parroted signal from a self-despising cynic.
But in the world beyond the internet, the command to ridicule and feel ashamed of spending time on the web is loud and strong and it does permeate society. So where does it come from? Who started it?
Of course, it is certainly true that information on the web cannot be taken at face value; there is a lot of noise to the signal. But this is little different as compared to the regular media; indeed, the only difference is that on-line there is actually a great deal more and clearer Signal available, and the Noise is much easier to filter out. Is it better to read one newspaper and watch one televised news cast, or to sift through the testimony of from dozens of such sources from all around the globe, and then contrast and compare that data?
That's a no brainer!
Further, you can't collectively debate with and demand references from a television set. The 'Official' media, which as we have seen, is extremely deliberate and powerful in its methods of spreading falsehoods; watching CNN alone and expecting the 'truth' without working for it, is nuts! --The far-too-late retraction from the New York Times regarding Saddam's WMD's illustrates one fine example.
Interestingly, reading and communicating on the internet both requires and rewards people for using their brains; for comparing many sources of information and debating that data into a rational picture of reality. Unlike a CNN news cast, the Web does not lull a person into stupidly thinking that 'everything is allright; Very smart and authoritative people know best'. The internet actually makes you smarter and more responsible as you use it!
This is one of the big things the PTB are afraid of.
Though, all other forces aside, a large part of it comes down to personal security and the fear of job-loss.
When everybody is feeding happily from the same information trough, then the JOBS of News Professionals are not threatened. But people are increasingly feeding from independent sources, and the News people are reacting. The fear of losing job security is one of the most direct routes to reactionary fear-based behavior in otherwise rational adults. Whether the stimulus is imagined or not, the result is typically violent and emotional. Try this experiment:
Think of your career. Then think of some activity which, if enlarged, could put an end to your whole industry. Then gauge how you feel, how you react/have reacted.
News people are just the same as you, with one difference; they all have giant mega-phones with which to broadcast their reactions.
-FL
I've been doing my best to expose government corruption, etc for decades. It's one of my main interests. And fake news is certainly one of them, that's why you'll see me chiming in all the time with evidence that refutes major political party and government and globalist corporate FUD and lies, and I'll name anyone or any political side when I see them. Of course for the same amount of decades I keep getting told I am wrong, and when I am proven correct years later I never seem to get much in the way of follow ups in admissions from the previous accusers. The current smarmy response from know-nothings is usually along the lines of "that's tin foil hat". It used to be "oh, you're just a conspiracy theorist", this mostly from people who spend most of their free time with Tv and music/movies and sports watching,entertainments mostly, yet they "know better" on this or that subject compared to someone who has spent x-large amount of hours actually researching the subject at hand.