April 2007 - Posts
I'm not sitting near a TV today but I'm guessing there are bits of this running on the air. The first minute or so is the best, not just for the footage but for the reactions. The YouTube description links to this higher resolution version if you've got DivX.
Coincidental to the mention earlier this week of our old chat room interviews I've begun booking audio interviews again. I have a few ideas I'd like to try but before any experimenting I need to brush up on talking on the phone. Today I published two pieces of audio. Atul Gawande is a surgeon and medical writer who explains in his book the system he's set up for himself to improve from a good doctor to an excellent one. Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani writer who has spent a considerable amount of time in America. He wrote a novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist , about a Pakistani man who has spent a considerable amount of time in America. In the course of writing, 9/11 happened, so the book includes a lot of insights into the relationship between the Muslim world and the West, particularly America.
Today's entry is a mix with no real lead item. The headline refers to a funny newspaper article about the dances being banned from a West Virginia prom. Lots of video today and a couple games too.
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I don't know how I missed this, but it looks like we have another game on the site . You are a donkey or an elephant and you chase after money.
As if in answer to the question in my previous entry about how many people are actually participating in the online trends that seem so popular, Steve Rubel shares some of a new report on how people participate in online activities. ... Plus... More offensive than the H-word, our common tongue, beware the fog, and more
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Today's entry is mostly catching up on links that were hot last week that I didn't get a chance to review because of Virginia Tech coverage. Since many of the newsier items are already old, today's entry is a little on the fluffy side, but there are still a few meatier links in there too.
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As you've no doubt noticed, I've been caught up in Virginia Tech coverage this week. It feels a little odd changing gears from that, so let's go to the mailbag for highlights from the past couple of weeks to get Clicked back on its more familiar path.
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If you haven't gone so far as to express your opinion on a message board, chances are good that you've at least muttered under your breath what you think of the decision made by NBC News to make public some of the material mailed to them by murderer Cho Seung-hui. The range of opinions online shows that NBC News would have a hard time finding a happy medium.
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Using our victim list I sought to find any online profiles or personal pages for the victims of the Virginia Tech tragedy. I started with Facebook, given its prominence among college students and then tried other searches and the research of other bloggers.
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Updated 4/17 3:10: If you've been looking through MSNBC.com's coverage of the massacre at Virginia Tech you may have seen the link asking you to share your story if you were there. I happen to have access to the tool that gathers submissions through that page so I can share a bit of what we're seeing come in.
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Check out the new
MSNBC.com game . It's like Break Out but with headlines dropping on you. I just took the number 1 position on the board with 16950.
Today's entry is a mixed bag, beginning with a look at what happens when you threaten to sue a blogger. Also, a few good games, what's up with khat, and the fish will one day have its own bicycle.
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This Katie Couric plagiarism story is just so rich I can't even stand it. She should at least be thankful it wasn't discovered by bloggers first. Can you imagine CBS suffering another humiliation like that at the hands of bloggers? Hopefully independent online volunteer journalists won't have to endure as much preaching from mainstream news with this as a rebuttal. ...Plus... Mom, I'm an atheist, which stem cells saved the day, and it's never good to assume nudity is appropriate.
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For all of its promise, the Internet does not appear to have improved discourse between people. It's done wonders for organizing and uniting people of like mind, but as far as bridging gaps with this new means of communication, we haven't seen it. But maybe we haven't been patient enough. It wasn't until my colleague, Jane, pointed it out that I saw the Imus story in the context of what appears to be a new examination of the state of social discourse. ... Plus... Row row row your hoe, why is America unlivable, and fearing the change
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This piece in the Guardian arguing against Net Neutrality has me doing a mental double-check to make sure I'm not one of those people the article accuses of being out of touch with reality. Here are the two sides as I understand them. Let me know if I'm missing something... Plus... Games, in your face Wonder Woman, and a soldier shot right in the iPod
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Today's entry is a bit of a monster. When you look through it you can see there are several items I almost made into the lead. I settled on pointing out the new collection of web logging services that return to the roots of blogging. ...Plus... Ways to watch commercial video online, skyscraper farming, feces throwing, and the usual mix of online oddities.
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I'm pleased that unlike just about every year since I've been blogging on MSNBC.com (holy moly, has it been 4 years?!) I wasn't fooled by any April Fool's links so far this year. Of course ThinkGeek kicked ass again this year on funny April Fool's items. There's a full list of this year's online pranks (to which you can add any that you spotted). ...Plus... Mississippi River rafting, fear the pain, my other SUV is a school bus
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Here's a funny one while I process the new week's links. Safe for work, but you'll probably have a small crowd around your cube when folks come over to see what you're laughing at.
UPDATE: Ok, since some folks aren't seeing the humor let me supply a little context. The original song, below, was described as "a song so awful it hurts the mind " so half the humor comes in seeing it given more serious musical treatment. The other half of the humor comes from Morissette making fun of her own image. Unless she's undergone a make-over, I don't believe she performs in hot pants and "icey icey." These could never be her lyrics. She is prone, however, to taking herself awfully seriously, so the bits with her weeping on the floor are, I imagine, a jab at her own propensity for "drama, no, no, no, no drama."
ONE MORE UPDATE: Just to be clear, I don't think this is the funniest thing in the world, just kind of funny (and getting less funny the more I explain it). As is pointed out in the comments, there are further levels of humor and irony in that Alanis Morissette is, by many assessments, no more serious an artist than Fergie (the original Humps performer) so she has no grounds for making this kind of joke in the first place.
