No, no, no. It’s “How many ANGELS on the head of a PIN”, not “How many PINS on the head of a MORON!”
Hey AP – U R Doin’ It Rong!
The Associated Press has decided that they’re going to charge bloggers who quote more than five words in a row from an AP story, with a minimum charge of $12.50 for a 5-to-12-word quote. Be sure to read Cory Doctorow’s little screed in that BoingBoing link, because he nails it cold.
Meanwhile, in it’s announcement, the AP said it was meeting with some group called the “Media Bloggers Association”, but, as Teresa Nielsen-Hayden discovered, there is no such organization. There’s just some pathetic right-wing blogturd named Robert Cox who passes himself off as a “representative” of bloggers and has put up a site called “Media Bloggers Association” to justify his lame hornblowing. She dissects his shtick pretty thoroughly, so I hope the brain surgeons at the AP have a chance to read about who they’re dealing with before they think they’re going to start collecting any money from anyone.
Why is it that “old media” people have been so utterly unable to understand the mechanics of the “new media”? Thing like this, or the New York Times’ ill-advised “Times Select” paywall, do nothing but shriek out loud the complete cluelessness of the people who run these businesses. Even the television people are finally beginning to not fuck up every single thing they try, but the “dead tree” folks seem to think its still 1919 and William Randolph Hearst runs the world.
Come Fly With Me
Airline pilot Patrick Smith, who is a regular contributor at Salon, also wrote this piece in the latest issue of Readers’ Digest (Huh! Who knew Readers’ Digest had a website. Go figure.) He starts off telling it like it is:
Before we take off, I would like to apologize on behalf of this and every airline for the hassle you just endured at the security checkpoint. As is patently obvious to any reasonable person, the humiliating shoe removals, liquids ban, and pointy-object confiscations do little to make us safer. Unfortunately, the government insists that security theater, and not actual security, is in the nation’s best interest. If it makes you feel any better, our crew had to endure the same screening as the passengers. Never mind that the baggage loaders, cleaners, caterers, and refuelers receive only occasional random screening. You can rest easy knowing that I do not have a pair of scissors or an oversize shampoo bottle anywhere in my carry-on luggage.
But then he turns it around and puts it into perspective:
I am well aware that airlines have become pariahs of the postindustrial economy. But it’s rarely acknowledged that despite recurrent fiscal crises, major staffing and technology problems, and constant criticism from the public, our carriers have managed to maintain a mostly reliable, affordable, and safe transportation system.
Erich Vieth at Dangerous Intersection isn’t so quick to let the TSA off the hook. Considering that they STILL try to justify such inane policies as the “no liquids” rule, they deserve it.
They Came From Outer Space
As you may know, on September 7th, Spore, the most highly anticipated computer game of the last five years will hit the shelves. Sometime shortly there after, when my pre-ordered copy shows up on my doorstep, I will disappear into my Fortress of Solitude with it and may not be seen again for months. Unless it sucks, in which case I’ll re-emerge almost instantaneoulsy, but let’s not even consider that possibility right now.
A couple of months ago, Electronic Arts and Maxis, the company that is actually developing the game, announced that they would whet everyone’s appetite with an early release of the module of the game that allows you to design the beings that will populate the game world for you. And so earlier this week — Tuesday, in fact — they made a limited version of the Creature Creator available for free and also started selling the Creature Creator as a stand-alone item on sale for $9.95. (Why you would spend $10 on this is beyond me; they won’t give you $10 off on the final game if you buy the CC module, so why not just play with the limited free version and save your cash for later?)
Hundreds of thousands of eager fans (myself included) have downloaded the Creature Creator in the last three days, and over 300,000 player-created aliens have been uploaded to the game’s database. And can you guess what the most popular type of alien is?
Yep. Giant penises! Hundreds of different variations on penis-shaped, penis-headed, penis-talied, or penis-covered creatures just waiting to be played with. There are also creatures that resemble two people engaging in sex, the occasional naked female, and, of course, a walking, roaring animated representation of the Goatse man (or, at least, his most famous pose).
The fad has even generated its own name: Sporn. Ain’t life grand?
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, just so we [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT. Since you cannot click [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and neatly into [...]
