I kid you not — Windup Noodle Bowls. Only $19.95 for four.
London panorama
While waiting to give a lecture in a room on the 10th floor of a central London building, I amused myself taking photographs through the windows. This was stitched together from two shots. The poor quality is partly attributable to reflections from the glass.
Who said this?
From Guardian Unlimited
“Power is moving away from the old elite in our industry – the editors, the chief executives and, let’s face it, the proprietors,” said Mr X, having flown into London from New York after celebrating his 75th birthday on Saturday.
Far from mourning its passing, he evangelised about a digital future that would put that power in the hands of those already launching a blog every second, sharing photos and music online and downloading television programmes on demand. “A new generation of media consumers has risen demanding content delivered when they want it, how they want it, and very much as they want it,” he said. Indicating he had little desire to slow down despite his advancing years, he told the 603-year-old guild [the Stationers’ Company] that he was looking forward, not back.”It is difficult, indeed dangerous, to underestimate the huge changes this revolution will bring or the power of developing technologies to build and destroy – not just companies but whole countries.”
He added: “Never has the flow of information and ideas, of hard news and reasoned comment, been more important. The force of our democratic beliefs is a key weapon in the war against religious fanaticism and the terrorism it breeds.”
Strong stuff, eh? Oh, and the identity of Mr. X? None other that the Digger himself, Rupert Murdoch, now the proud owner of MySpace.com.
Fukuyama vs. Levi
The French chic-intellectual Bernard-Henri Levi has written a book about contemporary America entitled American Vertigo in which he says rude things about Las Vegas. Francis Fukuyama was cross about this. Here’s the entertaining exchange between the two savants.
Milosevic: the mystery deepens
Curiouser and curiouser… Milosevic Possibly Manipulated His Medication to Fake Illness…
A top toxicologist in the Netherlands said that he believed Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader, was manipulating medication to fake a medical condition, a plan that might have played a role in the heart attack that caused his death.
That theory was advanced by Dr. Donald Uges, professor of clinical and forensic toxicology at the University of Groningen, who posited that Milosevic was seeking to demonstrate that Dutch doctors could not cure him and that he should therefore be allowed to seek treatment, and freedom, in Moscow. He was imprisoned here on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity including genocide during three Balkan wars in the 1990s.
Uges based his theory on his detection in Milosevic’s blood of a drug that had not been prescribed for him and that was not only inappropriate but, under the circumstances, dangerous. He was found on his bed in his prison cell on Saturday morning. The drug at issue is an antibiotic known as rifampicin, used to treat serious bacterial infections, such as tuberculosis. It is known to interfere with medications he was taking for high blood pressure.
Impossible to summarise…
… so you’ll just have to see for yourself. But the title conveys the essence:
The Slow and Painful Collapse of a Relationship Over the Course of a Weeklong Vacation as Expressed by the Names Each Partner Gave Their Digital Photos Taken During Said Vacation.
Very clever idea — by Matt Hulten.
Dave Winer bows out
Yep. One of the Founding Fathers of the Blogging movement has decided to quit…
So there’s the first part of my reason. Blogging doesn’t need me anymore. It’ll go on just as well, maybe even better, with some new space opened up for some new things. But more important to me, there will be new space for me. Blogging not only takes a lot of time (which I don’t begrudge it, I love writing) but it also limits what I can do, because it’s made me a public figure. I want some privacy, I want to matter less, so I can retool, and matter more, in different ways. What those ways are, however, are things I won’t be talking about here. That’s the point. That’s the big reason why.
I will miss him. Dave is a good sort. He was also the person who led me to start my Blog (in 1997/8: It was a private notebook for a few years). I used his Userland Radio software for years.
So…?
Reminds me of a joke much loved by the kids.
Q: What’s the difference between dogs and cats?
A: Dogs come when you call. Cats merely take a message and may get back to you.
Dead wood
The move to user-generated content
More evidence of changes in the ecosystem — from The New York Times…
Increasingly, the new, new thing in media is getting paid for the homemade. Reflecting the surge in the popularity of user-created material, both online and traditional media companies are opening their wallets to make sure that the best of it finds its way onto their television shows and Web sites. Even Yahoo, the nation’s most-visited Web site, has signaled a change in its strategy by moving away from creating its own professional content in favor of user-generated material — and it appears willing to pay for anything its users deem worthy. All this is part of a trend seeking to turn conventional media business models on their heads in the digital age. Typically, media content was either paid for by consumers in the form of subscription fees or by marketers through advertising. In offering to pay users for creating content, companies like Yahoo are not looking to turn every amateur into a professional so much as acknowledging the growing appeal of homemade material to audiences and hence its value to media businesses.