Scripting News for 8/12/2006

Since I own a house in the Pacific time zone, my blog and servers should express time in my home zone. So Scripting News is, once again, a west coast blog. If I remember correctly there will be some bugs to shake out. 🙂 

Hil observes that there have been a lot of unfair generalizations in the post-BlogHer discussions. I too wanted to respond to what Maryam wrote about men and our supposed lack of softness. Please we should expect more of ourselves and each other, not less. Of course men have soft insides, just like women, but the world treats us so harshly. Be a man, you can take it. I notice this, because as you get older you’re not as strong as you once were, but there’s so little mercy. Even crossing the street, drivers challenge men, where they stop for women. I refuse to run to get out of the way of a speeding car, for fear that I’ll trip and get run over. And I don’t run so well anymore. Being hit by a car hurts a man almost as much as it would hurt a woman. And on the Internet our bodies are exactly the same size. But men are still supposed to put up with bashing. No wonder our emotions turn off. We’re punished for showing any of it, sadness, fear, joy — these are considered unmasculine. The only emotion men are permitted to have is anger, which is why you see so much fear and sadness, even joy, expressed as anger. The day when you are ready for men to express their emotions is the day you will see that we have them.  

Mike Arrington: “Google smugness is at an all time high.” 

Doc Searls on the blogger as eyewitness. Yes, that is journalism, imho. As he says, journalism will become an everyday thing, practiced by people as well as professionals. I’ve recommended to every journalism professor I meet that they expand their scope. Instead of only teaching journalism as a profession, they should think of journalism as a basic requirement for a good education. It’s a skill they should be teaching everyone who gets a bachelor’s degree, from now on. Think of it this way, we’ve had microprocessors, now it’s time for microjournalism. Think small picture, not big. The idea seems to be out there. Seth Godin has a new book with the theme. I think that “small” is such a big idea that I bought a domain for my work in this area. 

BTW, just for the record, yesterday was the closing day for my Berkeley house purchase. I can’t move in for another month yet, but I am now, again, a home owner. Hot dam! 

Dan Farber reviews the big professional news networks arising out of the blog world. Lots of new competition for Denton and Calacanis.  

I like websites with simple direct domain names. 

Most major news networks have one or two news podcasts that are worth a listen on your daily commute or while exercising. ABC News has the Nightline podcast, it’s excellent, produced every weeknight. I would never watch it live on TV, it’s way past my TV-watching hours, and after getting tired of the Ted Koppel version, it would never have occurred to me to watch the new version. But I’m always looking for a longish news podcast for my daily exercise, and Nightline fits the bill. Right up there with NPR’s On the Media and NewsHour, and NBC’s Meet the Press.  

Kevin Burton says that Tailrank has a mobile mode. I’m still going to work on my own software, I want to play in this area, literally, I’m having fun. 🙂 

David Berlind: Use ‘POD’ in your trademark, get sued. 

2001: “Open the pod bay doors, HAL.” 

Stray Packets: “People turned to the encyclopedias like the Britannica because they had established a trustworthy reputation for accuracy, not because they knew how to deliver perfect accuracy all the time.”