Author Archives: Jon Lowder

When Will We Stop Calling Them “Newspapers” and “Broadcasters”?

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Back in May, ’05 I wrote a rather long post about my belief that local news outlets or broadcasters had as much to worry about as newspapers, if not more.  My main reason for believing that they may have more to worry about than newspapers is that if newspapers catch a clue about providing video via their online operations then they would be able to beat the broadcasters at their own game.

My belief is that our media consumption is quickly moving toward pure digital distribution.  Pretty soon the average consumer will be getting all their media via a provider (cable, satellite) who will give them the capability to do everything from watching TV to surfing the web via the same hardware.  Think of a glorified TV with a computer network feeding it so that it essentially is your TV, TIVO, PC and phone combined.  IF newspaper companies have figured out how to do video for their current web operations by that time then they will have an advantage over traditional broadcasters because they already have more reporters, editors and other infrastructure in place to cover the local market. 

I was reminded of this piece when I saw the Online Journalism Review’s interview with washingtonpost.com’s first video journalist.  I really think the Washington Post company is way ahead of the other newspaper organizations in adopting multi-media practices and they’re carving out a great early competitive advantage.  Part of me is tempted to say that since so many newspapers are owned by large media companies that also have broadcast operations they could simply merge the operations, but having witnessed how silo’d many of these media operations are I’m thinking that the different operations (newspaper, broadcast) are going to have to ensure their own independent survival.  That’s another reason I think newspaper’s have the advantage; as they move away from newsprint and towards digital media they can actually reduce their overhead by replacing presses and paper with cheap digital cameras.

Realistically I think what’s going to happen is that all the traditional media silos will disappear and we’ll just have some meld of media providers, and while I think most will be housed in the corporate halls of traditional media companies like Gannett I think you’ll also see some new players that have yet to be born.  It ought to be fun.

The Guys in White Shirts and Riding Bikes Found Me Again

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Last night I was visited by two Mormon missionaries and a volunteer from their local Ward.  This is part of the church’s ongoing campaign to try and win me back, a campaign they’ve been waging since 1976 when my parents got divorced and left the church. 

Back when I was a kid some people from the church would call and offer me and my brother a ride to church.  My mom told me I could go if I wanted but I don’t know many 10 year olds that would a. go to church without their mom, or b. go to church without being physically carried.  So I always respectfully declined the ride.

The Mormons lost track of me in college but once I got married I somehow re-appeared in their database and they started calling on me again.  Usually it’s just a couple of missionaries coming by the house, and because I respect who they are and what they’re doing I invite them in, sit them down, give them a cold drink, tell them my life story and that there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of me coming back to the church, and then end up talking hoops for a while (it’s amazing how many Mormon missionaries played high school basketball).  I also give them an open invitation to stop by if they’re tired or thirsty and we’ll have a cold glass of water or lemonade waiting for them.

Sometimes, like last night, they’ll have another church official call or visit.  I’m also nice to them, but since they’re driving I don’t feel the need to offer an open invitation for a cold drink.  Other than that I have the exact same conversation with them that I have with the missionaries, and it’s amazing how each takes it.  Without exception they don’t try to "sell" me, they just give me their name and welcome me to call if anything ever changes.  I have to respect that.

Now that they know my story I won’t be getting another visit until the next batch of "recruits" comes to town, so I guess we’ll have those cold drinks ready in about 6 months.

Side note: If you need to find someone forget hiring a PI, just go straight to the Mormons because their people tracking skills are amazing.  No wonder so many work for the FBI.

Airline Bills Passenger $1,350 for Causing a 27 Minute Delay. Hmmm

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According to this story Air Canada is charging a beligerent passenger $1,350 for causing a 27 minute delay. They say the charges are for "the cost of overtime for flight crew, extra baggage handling and various other unspecified expenses".  While it sounds like the passenger was a real jerk this story has me wondering what would happen if the airlines received bills from every passenger they caused to be late to a meeting, miss a ride, miss a connecting flight, etc.

I think we might have a budding movement here.  Let’s see if we can introduce legislation that would allow us to bill the airlines for all the money they cost us when they’re late.  Of course there are situations when they can’t help it (weather and such), but there are plenty of times when it’s their own fault that the flights are delayed or cancelled.  I’ll tell you right now that a 27 minute delay would fall in the realm of "slight" delay from the airline’s perspective and if they’re going to bill passengers for causing a slight delay then they should be prepared to pay the piper for all the 27 minute delays they cause.

Sign me up.

Severe Blog Navel Gazing

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My buddy Fecund Stench asked me to participate in this rather silly chain-mail-like activity so I’m obliging him:

1. Do you like the look and the contents of your blog?
Yup.

2. Does your family know about your blog?
Yup, and usually they are ashamed to admit it.  I’m the family dork.

3: Can you tell your friends about your blog? Do you consider it a private thing?
Not sure how something posted online could be private.

4: Do you just read the blogs of those who comment on your blog? or you try to discover new blogs?
The more I read the better my strenuous efforts at procrastination.

5: Did your blog positively affect your mind? Give an example.
Screeeeeee!

6: What does the number of visitors to your blog mean? Do you use a traffic counter?
It means I don’t know very many people and no.

7: Did you imagine how other bloggers look like?
I’m assuming I understand the question since the tortured construct is difficult to understand like. My answer: Aren’t they all fat middle-aged guys with a bad haircut, stained underwear and four days of stubble on their spittle covered chins?  Oh, that’s just me.

8: Do you think blogging has any real benefit?
Beyond enabling my narcissistic tendencies I don’t think so.  But I like my blog so I really don’t give a damn if it (blogging) does or doesn’t have any real benefit.

9: Do you think that the Blogsphere is a stand alone community separated from the real world?
Bloggers are breathing while they type, right?

10: Do some political blogs scare you? Do you avoid them?
They bore me, and since they don’t seek me out I haven’t had to engage my anti-blog flares.

11: Do you think that criticizing your blog is useful?
Well, I think it’s brilliant and I like to agree with myself so I don’t ever criticize it.  Now if you’re asking if I think getting criticism from other people is useful then I’d have to say yes.

12: Have you ever thought about what happen to your blog in case you died?
That’s the least of my worries.  I’m more worried about who would get my collection of navel-lint I’ve collected over the years.

13: Which blogger had the greatest impression on you?
Alton Hedgelick.

14: Which blogger you think is the most similar to you?
Felbert Simpsonian.

15: Name a song you want to listen to.
Oklahoma

Can you tell I have a headache?

Don’t Fear the Smart Big Man, Embrace Him

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My favorite people are large, strong men who also happen to be intelligent.  I thought of this when I ran across this Freakonomics post about a 6’8", 350 pound professional football player who majored in economics at Cal and who reads educational material in his free time.  That’s my kind of dude.

Here’s the deal: through ninth grade I was always the smallest kid in my class and I wasn’t endowed with natural strength although I did have a little speed.  In ninth grade I had the distinction of being the punching bag or locker-stuffing victim of several convicts-to-be, but I learned how to run well and I often found I could out-think my tormentors, usually by pointing behind them and saying "Holy shit that girl’s boobs are showing" and when they turned to look I’d take the precious seconds it bought me and run like hell. Sometimes my trickery didn’t work and that’s where the smart big man came into play.

You see I made friends with this one freshman football player who was actually studious.  The problem for him was math; he was doing okay but he really wanted to ace the class and we’d often work together during breaks to get him up to speed.  Well, one day he saw me getting chased around the track in gym class (I’m not kidding) and proceeded to whip up on the kid doing the chasing.  Word got around and my torture decreased significantly, but unfortunately not completely.  Still I forever after had a soft spot for studious big men.

I finally hit my growth spurt in tenth grade and after that I only got into a couple of scrapes and those were always fair fights.  I also found that most of my friends who were big suffered a kind of prejudice where everyone assumed they were dense.  Of course they weren’t and it was always fun watching them prove people wrong.

Can you think of a better person to have in your corner than a smart big man.  Put another way, would you want that person in the other corner?

A Book for My Mom and Other Smart People

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My mom has always liked doing crossword puzzles, acrostics and other mind games as a form of entertainment.  Now she does them because she thinks she’s getting old and everything she’s read tells her that constantly challenging her brain will help stave off dementia or just plain memory loss.  So she’s gone from a casual procrastinator to a motivated procrastinator (I’m still in the casual category).

That’s why I think a perfect gift for mom this x-mas will be a book called Mind Performance Hacks from O’Reilly publishing.  David Pescovitz at Boing Boing described the book this way:

The book is like a user’s guide to your brain complete with new
"software subroutines" that you can run to optimize various mental
processes like memory, creativity, emotional response, learning, and
logical analysis.

You can read seven sample hacks here, including:

Bookmark Plugin for Acrobat

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A local computer programmer named John Ford from this area has created a simple plugin for Adobe Acrobat that creates a simple bookmark that opens up a PDF book to the page you were on when you last had the file open.  In other words it works like a regular bookmark in a print book.  So simple it’s amazing it wasn’t incorporated in Acrobat to begin with. (Found via BloggingPoet.com)

More on Diebold’s Electronic Voting Machines

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I’ve written before about the dust-up over the proposed use of electronic voting machines here in Forsyth County, NC.  That dust-up led to the resignation of the longtime director of elections because the Board of Elections wouldn’t support her proposal to use the Diebold machines, and over time the Board of Elections has been proven correct in their negative assessment of the machines.

Ed Cone has a piece about the trouble election officials are having with the Diebold systems being used in the Maryland primaries.  Things are so bad that Maryland’s governor is calling for a return to paper ballots for the November elections.  David Allen, whose been on top of this issue for a long time, has some interesting comments himself.

This is VERY important stuff and we need to get it sorted out by November since this mid-term election has the potential to have the greatest impact on our country’s future as any mid-term election in a generation.  And we definitely need to have all this figured out before ’08. Is there any doubt that ’08 will be the most important presidential election in decades?