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« Wednesday « March 31, 2004
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The 39 Steps: On Story Writing
(USM Center for Writers)
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The 39 Steps: A Primer on Story WritingHelpful.
[4]
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Conscientious Objector
(I, Cringely/PBS.com)
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"If costs are out of control and services are inconsistent, that's something to be dealt with internally, not by hoping some outside organization is smarter or more disciplined."
--Anonymous Walmart spokespersonNo "outsourcing to India" spoken here. But the thing about this article that really got me is the part where it suggested that Wal-Mart's IT operations are about three times as complex as that of the U.S. Navy. Either that's an omen to make thoughtful folk scurred or positive proof that the end of the world is near. Think only in hyperbole and slapstick humor.
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« Friday « March 26, 2004
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Dawn of the Dead (2004)
(metacritc)
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I've read some critics that say this remake wasn't as smart as George Romero's 1970's version. I say 'So What?' You don't go into this film expecting Citizen Kane. I thought the critique on consumer culture, by turning a shopping mall into a theater of blood, was clever and in just the right amount. After all, this isn't really a message film. But what got me about this movie was, unlike the earlier versions, where the zombies were relentless, but stumbled awkwardly about like they were walking on stilts all the time, these zombies moved about as fast as Carl Lewis in a full sprint. And since they were dead already, they never ran out of gas. Now a mob of zombies, chasing you down an alley, and shaving time off of the 100-yard dash record gave the flick juggular, dramatic urgency that was sometimes cheesy, but always fun to watch. You never felt like the good guys had an easy way out. And the footage after the credits ... that was interesting, very interesting.
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« Thursday « March 25, 2004
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Commodity Music
(Yahoo!)
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« Sunday « March 21, 2004
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Stanford runs out of miracles
(FoxSports.com)
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This time, there was no fantastic finish for the Cardinal.Hope slips away, again. It seems like every year at this time, and definitely since I began blogging back in 1999, that I'm in full condolence mode for my poor, beloved Stanford men's basketball squad. But after a 27-0 start, you really started to think that this was going to be our year. It was filled with record win streaks, improbable comebacks, and magical buzzer-beaters ... until last night. I don't know what to say, except, wait until next year. What else can a die-hard alum do? (And now I know how Red Sox fans must feel year after year after year ... hope springs eternal but it is never fulfilled.)About 10 yeas ago, when Stanford was manhandled and bounced out of the NCAAs by a big, physical UMass team led by Marcus Camby, Stanford coach Mike Montgomery insured that the Cardinal would never again be pushed around when he started recruiting size. But quick, athletic teams caused problems. So with the addition of recruits like Brevin Knight, Stanford started to become more athletic. Well, this year's team was both big and athletic; you couldn't punch them in the mouth, and you couldn't run all around them. But the thing that seems to be lacking now is that fabled killer instinct. These kids may be too nice.
They had Alabama down 13 points with 8 minutes to go, and let them back in. Teams like Duke and Kentucky would have doubled that margin and completely demoralized the other guys. Crush, kill, destroy: not so cool in real life, but completely necessary in championship sports. Now, I know you can recruit size, and you can recruit speed. But can you recruit players who have the desire rip an opponent's heart out when they get the chance? And how much does the head coach's own mentality figure into that? Time will tell. I guess that East Coast media bias isn't really a bias at all; now that Stanford, Gonzaga, Arizona, and Washington are all out, it may be true: college basketball on the Left Coast isn't as good. Thanks for a great season, Cardinal. Better luck next year. UPDATE (4:30pm): Well, I now feel only slightly better about things because overall Number 1 seed, Kentucky, went down in flames in Round Two as well; but losing this early still stinks.
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TypeKey: The Patriot Act of Weblogging
(BurningBird blog)
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And there is no 'positive' way to say this -- TypeKey is a bad idea.The blogger at BurningBird, a well-respected technical writer, simultaneously laments the loss of innocence of a couple of the blogosphere's grassroots pioneers, and comes down hard on Six Apart's TypeKey technology, which, apparently is a centralized attempt to control the growing problem of comment spam. Comment spam is where unwelcomed guests leave comments on your weblog promoting get-rich-quick schemes and genital enhancement drugs.
I have a better solution for comment spam: turn off comments, and only use trackback technology, if you must gather feedback. While comments seem cool, and are perhaps even useful in a limited number of scenarios, I've rarely seen a situation where comments improve the content that's being discussed in the first place. Most comments on blogs, aside from the spammed ones, just add noise, not signal. If the desire is to create a conversation then do it on a message board, and not on a weblog.
But what do I know? I deactivated comments on this blog a long time ago, because I felt that they never really added to what I was thinking (or ranting) about. My blog. My thoughts. Your thoughts? Put them on your blog.
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Doing a Job on the U.S.A.
(washingtonpost.com)
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Columnist Art Buchwald: "Written by a Chinese person, this column would cost only 50 cents. It scares the heck out of me."Now, that really puts this whole 'outsourcing' genie into a humorous yet morbid perspective, do you think? And according to this story at Newsforge, CNet's thinking about offshoring all of its article writing. Jeez-muhf**kin'-loo-weez! Why don't we just send everything over to India? America will just be a place where things get consumed, but not created. Hey, wait a minute: sneakers, shirts, cars, computers, coffee beans, TVs, and cellphones, just to name a few product categories, already are made offshore (of USA). It wasn't a problem when factory workers in Michigan or Ohio were losing their jobs. That was 'efficiency.' It is a problem when raw economic math suggests that even Buchwald's column can get written for half a dollar.
b/w: gigaom
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« Friday « March 19, 2004
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American Idol site reflects racism of society
(Silver Rights blog)
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It is fashionable to say that the American blight, racism, doesn't impact some areas of our culture. Sport and entertainment are usually offered as examples. But, scholarly examinations of sport and entertainment, particularly of the economic aspects, reveal otherwise. However, one does not have to read a tome about the integration of baseball or a bluesman's biography to see that the blight is just as apparent in those areas as elsewhere. One need only visit Internet message boards and open one's eyes.J at Silver Rights is what I call a "scientific" blogger. She picks a topic and breaks it down with the precision of a scientist running clinical trials. While I'm not part of the American Idol cult, there are some pop-culture shows that I follow, among them "The Apprentice," and "Survivor." I can confirm that when you do visit message boards related to these shows, you rarely see anything positive said about the dark-skinned contestants, and when they are discussed, the terms are double-dipped in all matter of racial ugliness -- innocuous on the outside, but bitter and nasty on the inside. Must be something about the anonymity of online discourse that gives free reign to some folks' true, non-PC feelings.
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Blog Survey: Summary of Findings
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These results reveal a certain naivete in how most bloggers think about persistence and how it operates in networked environments such as the net, where information is constantly cached. As blogs become more pervasive and their audiences grow, the ever-persistent nature of entries and the direct link to defamation and liability are likely to become even more of a burning issue.Interesting information from a survey of bloggers conducted by a grad student at MIT. Let's face it, blogging is publishing, and as it becomes more mainstream, bloggers need to realize that they can be held accountable for what they say. You probably can't be sued for your opinion; but you probably can get sued if you go around blogging lies about people and products that irritate you. Here's where those who argue that blogging is new form of journalism will get a test, because real journalists -- well reputable ones -- check their facts. Do bloggers?
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« Wednesday « March 17, 2004
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Waiting to Exhale...
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Or just looking for that second wind? I don't know, but I've become a little jaded by blogging, and the blogosphere lately. It is an echo chamber. But like I've always said, all my weblog really wants to be is a public place where I post notes and remember links that I want to go back to later. I have no pretensions here. I'm not using this space to "become a better writer" or to "get famous" or to gain someone's approval.
But I can definitely say one thing: the busier you become in "meatspace," aka real life, the easier it is to ignore blogging. And this is coming from some who makes his living, yes, earns his daily bread, using and evangelizing cyberspace. Blogging has definitely helped my career ... and yet, even as it's become easier to do, I don't have the same enthusiasm for it now that I had 2 or 3 years ago. I've lost my focus. And I want that back!
The only way to blog, and blog successfully, I'm now concluding, is to schedule it. The blog-when-a-thought-pops-in-my-head approach just doesn't cut it anymore. Maybe that approach never did and I was just kidding myself.
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« Monday « March 15, 2004
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N * E * R * D
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I saw their lastest video while folding clothes in the laundry room this morning. Maybe I'm too old to get it. Yeah, it's probably me, but that's got to be worst song I've ever heard. Stick to producing, and get off of the stage. Puhleeeeeze!
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Bracketology
(ESPN.com)
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Kentucky tabbed overall No. 1 seed.I don't get how my alma mater, Stanford, with just one loss, to an 8-seed at that, isn't the top top seed. But until the Cardinal wins it all, the non-believers -- and they are legion -- will continue to doubt. As opposed to previous seasons, this year's team is mentally tougher than ever before, and cool like Josh Childress. I like their Final Four chances.
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« Saturday « March 13, 2004
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Amid schadenfreude, sympathy for Martha
(CSMonitor.com)
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"Most women are actually very torn about this. Most are convinced that she did violate the law, but on the other hand they're very uncomfortable with the glee with which she's been brought down," says Susan Douglas, a professor of communications at the University of Michigan. "It's a glee about women stepping out of their place and [the public] slapping them down when they do, and that makes women very uncomfortable and angry."Much like the "glee" that seems to abound in the dominant culture when "uppity" Black people are put in their place?
b/w: rebecca's pocket
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Vikings? Such friendly folk, say textbooks
(Guardian Unlimited)
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Children are being taught a sanitised version of European history in which Napoleon is depicted as primarily a reformer and the Vikings are portrayed as peace-loving traders, according to new research. The move is part of a new drive towards political correctness in which national identity, as well as controversy and conflict, have been wiped from secondary school textbooks, the study claims.Now when European historians were writing about what their explorers found in Africa back in the day, do you really think they reported what they really found, or did they "whitewash" the facts? It seems to me that the Western psyche can only deal with situations from the perspective that they are the "good guys" and the only ones with intelligence and humanity. I think this flawed and dangerous psychological condition is called white supremacy.
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High-Tech Background Checks Hit Stores
(Excite)
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Privacy advocates object, cautioning that selling background checks over-the-counter could put personal information in the wrong hands...[the] requirement that users have a business license is an inadequate control on information that should be parceled out much more carefully. "If Joe's Bait Shop ... goes out and buys this thing with a business license and then he wants to find out information about a neighbor, then he would be able to essentially do that..."We're so living in the Matrix.
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Resume Fraud Gets Slicker and Easier
(Reuters.com)
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Background search firms admit their job is getting harder with the increasing level of sophistication in resume fraud. "A good liar understands that you have to have some basis and facts to pull off a scam," said Lester Rosen, president of California-based Employment Screening Resources. "But it's even more dangerous when employers unknowingly hire a fraud, thief or a crook."Hiring a person who's an imposter will no doubt be bad for a company down the line, but I think there's a simple way to flush out a majority of scammers during the hiring process: make them take a test. If someone is faking their resume, but you're close to hiring them, why not give them a really difficult test that makes them display the domain-specific skills they'll need on the job. If they're fake, there's no way they'd be able to complete it, because if they're faking their resumes it probably means they really can't do the job in the first place. Perhaps I'm being naive, but I'm sure this would scare away all but the most accomplished liars.
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What To Do If The RIAA Sues You
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RIAA Information Page provided by Law Offices of Charles Lee Mudd Jr.
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« Friday « March 12, 2004
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Tony Soprano on Management
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Economic uncertainty. Employee loyalty. Power struggles. Conflict resolution. Tony Soprano has to deal with leadership problems just like any CEO. Aside from "whacking" people (a definite no-no in most corporate environments), his strategies and tactics can work for you.Tony Soprano, crook. The CXOs at the Enrons, WorldComs and Tycos of the world, crooks. Why read the book when you can live the movie?
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« Thursday « March 11, 2004
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RoboSapien
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A full function fast moving robot minion suitable for all your world domination needs.I want one.
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« Wednesday « March 10, 2004
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Wicked Wisdom
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Jada Pinkett has a band and from a quick sampling of songs on their site, they sound good. Hey look, if average singers like Britney and Madonna can try their hands at acting, why can't a pretty good actress like Jada try her hand at music? Plus, Jada's got that Will Smith actor/rapper guy talking her up everyday. Go girl.
b/w: american black
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A Different Campaign for Nike
(NY Times)
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I used to like Agassi. But these Nike ads, with him appearing as a Red Sox ... it's making this Yankee fan sick. What kind of branding strategy is it to associate your product with a team that hasn't won anything in more than 60 years? Of course, the thing about branding is that it's aspirational, so you do have the Red Sox, year in and year out, aspiring to beat the Yankees ... and failing. Nike's obviously in serious decline.(Registration required.)
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« Sunday « March 7, 2004
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QOTD: "Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things."
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--Theodore Leavitt, HBS professor, author of classic 1960 marketing essay, 'Marketing Myopia'
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« Saturday « March 6, 2004
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Warning: Blogs Can Be Infectious
(Wired News)
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The most-read webloggers aren't necessarily the ones with the most original ideas, say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs. Using newly developed techniques for graphing the flow of information between blogs, the researchers have discovered that authors of popular blog sites regularly borrow topics from lesser-known bloggers -- and they often do so without attribution.Good article, including links to the study, Blog Epidemic Analyzer, and Blogpulse, which I haven't seen before. I found this passage about what stands to be gained from studying the sociology of the so-called blogosphere provocative: "[S]uch an understanding is also important to marketers, who hope to be able to pitch products and ideas directly to the most influential people in a given group." Apparently, if the "cool kids" do it, then everyone else will follow, because consumer markets are just like high school. Posted ... with attribution.
b/w: gigaom
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ID Theft
(FTC.gov)
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"When Bad Things Happen to Your Good Name"I am a recent victim of identity theft. Someone had been using my SSN for nearly 9 months. Knowing some of this preventative information ahead of time may have helped, but it probably would not have stopped the act. Now that I have experienced this problem firsthand, it's very easy to take a hardcore approach to protecting my identity. You should too.
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How Not to Get Hooked by a 'Phishing' Scam
(FTC.gov)
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Internet scammers casting about for people's financial information have a new way to lure unsuspecting victims: They go "phishing." Phishing, also called "carding," is a high-tech scam that uses spam to deceive consumers into disclosing their credit card numbers, bank account information, Social Security numbers, passwords, and other sensitive information ... [t]o avoid getting caught by one of these scams, the FTC, the nation's consumer protection agency, offers this guidance...
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« Thursday « March 4, 2004
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engadget
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Worthy foil to Gizmodo?
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Harrick Jr.'s 'easy' UGA final exam uncovered
(SI.com)
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Most college students dream of getting a final exam with easy questions like: How many goals are on a basketball court? How many quarters are in a high school basketball game? How many points does a 3-point field goal account for?
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Delivering Films to Fans
(Cinequest Online)
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An exciting offering from Cinequest Online is the ability to view trailers, scenes, short and full feature films that are participating in this year's Cinequest Film Festival.This is very interesting. Almost all of the indy films being screened at the upcoming Cinequest film festival in San Jose will be available online, for free. Since Hollywood has no apparent interest in innovating digital film delivery, maybe it will be up to the indies. I'll definitely download a few movies to evaluate the experience. The one blemish is that the format is Windows Media Player only (for DRM apparently.)
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