swirlspice linklog

[‡] [0] California Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban : YAY! :)

[‡] [0] John Gruber: Blackberry vs iPhone (again) : Apparently iPhone 2.0 includes all the features (namely MS Exchange support) that RIM thinks makes Blackberry a superior device/service. And when that fails, RIM's sticking to the keyboard as its point of differentiation. Again, the only thing keeping me from an iPhone is the carrier. I hope the Pearl lasts me until the iPhone has been freed from the shackles of AT&T.

[‡] [0] John Gruber: iPhone vs Blackberry : I'd so drop the bucks on an iPhone if I didn't have to switch carriers.

[‡] [0] BusinessWeek: "The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit" : "More office workers infatuated with iPods and iPhones are demanding Macs. Is business ready? Is Apple?"

[‡] [0] BizJournal Network Launches GreenBizJournal.com : "Greenbizjournal.com covers sustainability from a strictly-business point of view. We track the deals, people and innovations that are making the green industry the phenomenon of our age. We aim to help entrepreneurs, growth-company executives and the business community in general understand green trends, identify up-and-coming companies and, ultimately, be more successful."

[‡] [0] Ways to use Twitter in Academia : "[W]hen I first heard about Twitter I thought it represented the apex of what concerns me about internet technology: solipsism and sound-bite communication." (Not untrue.) Most interesting findings were how requiring his students to follow each other on Twitter made them more comfortable with each other and led to better classroom discussion and better class discussion outside the classroom.

[‡] [0] At Media Summit, the Real Conversation Was Conducted Online : Julio Ojeda-Zapata, in his latest Maynard Institute column, broke down the behind-the-scenes-in-plain-view goings on at the MPR Ethics in Online Journalism forum that Greg and I liveblogged for Ye Olde Metblog.

[‡] [0] Tax Day Blues Inspires Demand For Marriage Equality

[‡] [1] Poodle Workouts : WTFF? Seriously, what the hell is that? Are those midgets in those poodle costumes? Those poodle heads are awfully realistic looking. (via Missy)

[‡] [0] Of National Lies and Racial Amnesia: Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, and the Audacity of Truth : "Indignation doesn't work for most whites, because having remained sanguine about, silent during, indeed often supportive of so much injustice over the years in this country--the theft of native land and genocide of indigenous persons, and the enslavement of Africans being only two of the best examples--we are just a bit late to get into the game of moral rectitude. And once we enter it, our efforts at righteousness tend to fail the test of sincerity.

"But here we are, in 2008, fuming at the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago--occasionally Barack Obama's pastor, and the man whom Obama credits with having brought him to Christianity--for merely reminding us of those evils about which we have remained so quiet, so dismissive, so unconcerned. It is not the crime that bothers us, but the remembrance of it, the unwillingness to let it go--these last words being the first ones uttered by most whites it seems whenever anyone, least of all an 'angry black man' like Jeremiah Wright, foists upon us the bill of particulars for several centuries of white supremacy...

"We were shocked to learn that black people actually believed that a white cop who was a documented racist might frame a black man; and we're shocked to learn that lots of black folks still perceive the U.S. as a racist nation--we're literally stunned that people who say they experience discrimination regularly (and who have the social science research to back them up) actually think that those experiences and that data might actually say something about the nation in which they reside. Imagine."

[‡] [0] State of the News Media 2008 : Major trends: 1. News is shifting from being a product -- today's newspaper, Web site or newscast -- to becoming a service -- how can you help me, even empower me? 2. A news organization and a news Web site are no longer final destinations. 3. The prospects for user-created content, once thought possibly central to the next era of journalism, for now appear more limited, even among "citizen" sites and blogs. 4. Increasingly, the newsroom is perceived as the more innovative and experimental part of the news industry. 5. The agenda of the American news media continues to narrow, not broaden. 6. Madison Avenue, rather than pushing change, appears to be having trouble keeping up with it.

[‡] [0] "Racial Politics: Trying to hang on, Detroit's mayor says the issue is not his sex scandal, but racism." : Kwame, please. You done wrong and people should maybe leave your family out of it, but just.... just STFU. For real. Be quiet.

[‡] [0] "An hour and a half with Barack Obama" : Marc Andressen gets up close and actually has a real conversation with Barack Obama. Confirms all my gut feelings with actual information.

[‡] [0] "Every Newspaper Journalist Should Start A Blog" : Seven reasons, including "creating a platform for journalism that isn't dependent on a corporate entity's financial fortunes" and "becoming a node on the new media network."

[‡] [0] "The Only Way For Journalists To Understand The Web Is To Use It" : "The fundamental different between print publishing and web publishing is that print distribution is a linear process, while web-native publishing is dynamic and non-linear, particularly when publishing on a web-native CMS like a blog... So it's not about understanding one format, it's about understanding the WEB. It's about understanding that putting content on the web isn't just putting content on a page, same as a printed page -- it's putting content on the NETWORK. It's understanding that, unlike print publishing where subscriptions control distribution, on the web PEOPLE and LINKS control distribution."

[‡] [0] "Did I Put the Twit In Twitter?" : Phil Wilson on the active backchannel discussion during the Ethics in Online Journalism Forum.

[‡] [0] "Three Important Points Dan Gillmor Made the Other Night" : Graeme Thickins on the Ethics in Online Journalism Forum.

[‡] [0] Burbia : "Living Life on the Edge... of the Patio™"

[‡] [0] "The Entire Communications Industry, in Less than 200 Pages" : "The 2007 Digital Economy Fact Book is a tightwad researcher's dream: In-depth, statistic-heavy, well-cited, and freely-available online." Download the PDF from there.

[‡] [0] "Help us examine the lost JFK files" : The documents are actually linked from that article for anyone to peruse.

[‡] [0] What Europeans Think of Each Other

[‡] [0] Lesbian Phone Sex (The Big Gay Sketch Show) : Hilarious! I won't even excerpt it because it'll give it away.

[‡] [0] Living Wage Calculator : (via)

[‡] [0] Michelle Obama Is Your New Bicycle : You know the drill.

[‡] [0] Yes We Can Has : LOLcats for Obama.

[‡] [0] Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle : Just keep clicking.

[‡] [0] "Battling bin Laden" : "He and his followers hate us because of specific aspects of U.S. foreign policy. Bin Laden lays them out for anyone to read. Six elements: our unqualified support for Israel; our presence on the Arabian peninsula, which is land they deem holy; our military presence in other Islamic countries; our support of foreign states that oppress Muslims, especially Russia, China and India; our long-term policy of keeping oil prices artificially low to the benefit of Western consumers but the detriment of the Arab people; and our support for Arab tyrannies who will do that."

[‡] [0] "Bill Cosby may be right about African-Americans spending a lot on expensive sneakers--but he's wrong about why." : "What's troubling about the message of this study is that Cosby and others may not be battling against a black culture of consumption, but a more deeply seated human pursuit of status. In this sense, Cosby's critics may be right--only when black incomes catch up to white incomes will the apparent black-white gap in spending on visible goods disappear."

[‡] [0] Library of Congress' photos : Now available on Flickr. Amazing.

[‡] [0] Bush's Last Day : Countdown to 1.20.09!