Latest posts

Blogs: The new media wave?

scaredpoet

Time.com has an interesting article about blogs being the new media source:

Over the past five years, blogs have gone from an obscure and, frankly, somewhat nerdy fad to a genuine alternative to mainstream news outlets, a shadow media empire that is rivaling networks and newspapers in power and influence. Which raises the question: Who are these folks anyway? And what exactly are they doing to the established pantheon of American media?

Couple things:

1. Media Empire? No, that’s Time Warner’s job.
2. I really don’t see myself as reporting news. I find interesting links and I post ’em. And maybe I’ll gripe about what’s been written, too. Yeah, lots of originality there.
3. Even Time admits in the article that they’re about as late to the party as this website is. Blogs have been around since at least ’97 and really hit big a year ago with the Iraq war. Everyone has an opinion, so around that time, everyone started getting their own blog (‘cept of course my lazy ass who waited a year). 🙂

Still an interesting read though. I kinda find it amusing that someone, somewhere in the mainstream media finds bloggers as some sort of media force to be reckoned with.

Mail quota wars

scaredpoet

This is old news, but still worth mentioning for those who don’t know. In response to Google’s 1GB e-mail service called GMail, Yahoo! has upped its mailbox limits to 100MB for its free users.

Personally, I still don’t see how Yahoo expects to compete, as Gmail is still offering ten times the storage space. Personally though, if I had to choose, I’d stick with my current web based e-mail provider. A big inbox space is nice, but extrememly effective spam filtering is even better. 🙂

Never vote in Florida (duh)

scaredpoet

*sigh* Looks like Florida is going to be a source of contention again in the upcoming presidential election.

Clearly, our election system is totally broken. Not just because of e-voting, or because of hanging chads and other stupid crap. But because it’s clear that election officials in these problem areas have an agenda, and I think they like to have the ability to manipulate results and leave things up in the air, subject to their interpretation. Why else would people stall this badly rather than work to fix the problem? Why is a paper trail so hard to implement, and why do election officials resist the idea so much?

Beating a dead horse…

scaredpoet

Isn’t it great how, in a nation that bills itself as the “freest country in the world,” people can be silenced when the free speech they exercise in unsavory?

A college radio station DJ in Alaska was suspended for doing just that:

Scott Hornyak, a 28-year-old undergraduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, had been suspended indefinitely from his disc jockey job at KSUA-FM after the Sunday show.

“They’re firing me because of what I said, and the public’s reaction to what I said,” said Hornyak, who goes by the call name “Spider Bui.”

This same bull happened during 9/11, and during every other major event where we’re supposed to come together in one big patriotic pow-wow. Always nice to know that, much like in places like China and Vietnam, “free speech” only applies when the speech is politically favorable.