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The Monrovian Analog Blogger
An anonymous reader writes "Motherboard.TV reports, 'In Monrovia, Liberia, there’s a guy taking the matter of a lopsided, state-run media and reshaping it into a free-of-charge, independent news-aggregator—all accomplished with dry-erase board and couple markers. (Sorry, internet!) Each morning, at 10:45 AM, Alfred Sirleaf wakes up and heads down to his bulletin board to post the day’s news, culling together a slate of stories his countrymen might otherwise never see. Grateful readers line up in droves, on foot and in cars, to read these updates, in what has been described as the country's — and probably the world's — only analog blog.'"
He'll probably be properly "censored" soon. Can't have the state lose control of the media...
Seriously though... props to him for taking a stand!
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Just another case of "blog" being used to describe something that people have been doing for ages. And now it's suddenly all great and shiny.
So apparently Slashdot is sooo out of touch they have forgotten why the word "Bulletin" precedes the word "Board" for a bazillion years before now? They never heard of a marquee?
Besides, wouldn't every single printed op-ed page in every newsPAPER be an "analog blog?"
I mean really posting news isn't even blogging, because blog is short for weblog, not webnewscaster.
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
Hear that? That's the sound of a joke, going right over your head.
The only joke here is that your post was modded insightful.
All news has a certain degree of "spin" to it. It's always the readers' job to challenge what they read and thus think for themselves.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Did anyone else noticed that Linux nerd at 3:21? Behold Microsoft, they are everywhere, and they are spreading.
I know the tone on slashdot is more on the humorous side, but seriously, stop belittling this.
After the war, Liberia had no functioning utilities for over 14 years - no sewage system, no water, no electricity, no telephone. Nowhere - not even in the capital!
Without painting a stereotype, Liberians aren't exactly known for their entrepreneurship. This man should really be applauded for what he is pulling up despite difficulties.
While he certainly must summarize news stories to fit on his board, he doesn't need to translate. The official language of Liberia (founded by liberated American slaves) is English.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Right, analogue is the opposite of digitalis!
More seriously, if you read the fine summary, you'd have the answer to your question. Your lame attempt at irrelevant pedantry betrays a more fundamental refusal to think or investigate what you're talking about. Do you complain that a "hot dog" is simply a canine with elevated temperature, and should not be used to name a kind of sausage? For this kind of discourse, "analog" is shorthand for computer-free and "digital" is shorthand for computer-based.
To be fair, pointing out that it's stupid to call it an analog blog is not a criticism of the Monrovian guy, it's a criticism of the bloggers who saw a noticeboard, and called it an analog blog. And it's a perfectly valid point. It's much like seeing Firefox, and exclaiming that Mozilla has copied IE's innovation of tabbed browsing. The causality is backwards, and displays cringe-worthy ignorance of the history of the subject matter.