Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Today I unsubbed from the Industry Standard feed. Every item had an ad in it. I found this too distracting because I read each item as a unit, and my mind has to work too hard to split it in two. After trying to live with it for months, today I gave up. Also today CBS MarketWatch started putting sponsored links into their feed. They show up even when there's no other new items. I'll try it this way for a few days, but I have a feeling that the annoyance-to-utility ratio for this feed isn't good enough, I'll probably unsub. And this is okay. I've never had the option to unsub from spam in email, so I feel especially empowered here, in control, and okay with it.  

On of the mysteries of my new iPod is why the Playlists menu doesn't appear on the screen of the iPod. I've set it up to automatically update all songs and playlists. I created a playlist. Then did everything I can think of to cause it to synch up. But over on the iPod, there is no Playlists menu. I've tried shutting it off and starting it up again. No luck. Any ideas, much appreciated. 

Mike Cohen writes: "It sounds like the playlist menu somehow got turned off. Go to settings -> main menu and click on playlists to turn it on." Exactly right. Problem fixed. Thanks! 

This article on MSN, a reprint of a Slate article by Paul Boutin, has already generated 100,000 hits. The people who send me mails about my experience fighting adware are polite and informative. I never thought I'd place such a value on politeness.  

Alan Kleymeyer: "I'm really excited to finally have our second product, SmartManila, released." 

Gossip's bootleg RSS feeds palooza.  

Salon: "Just off the heels of the official Democratic veep announcement, left-wing reactions to the Edwards pick are ranging from incredulous to the ecstatic." 

Jeremy Zawodny: "The pinger simply accelerates the refresh process. There's no conspiracy here." 

Scripting News dinner in NY on Thursday? We can talk about covering the conventions on blogs. NYC is hosting the Republicans, which is pretty amazing given how Democratic the city is. Kind of like hosting the Yankees in Queens. Stranger things have happened. By Thursday I should know for sure if I'm getting into the DemNatCon. Of course I'd like to cover the Reps too. And the quote by Trippi in today's Washington Post is typically narrow. He's thinking of Kos. I think they're all suspect. Of course Bush is totally nasty, imagine claiming that Kerry really wanted McCain. Feh. Keep raising the question Dubya, maybe the Reps will get hip and throw your ass out and nominate McCain. Now that would be an election worth having. 

Adam needs some help with UserLand's aggregator API.  

BBC: "Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has formally announced Senator John Edwards as his running mate." 

Email sent by Kerry to email subscribers. 

Signs of life at the Edwards weblog.  

The DNC says they'll announce which bloggers will get credentials for the convention later this month.  

More BlogTalk blogalia from Vienna via Paolo. 

Apartment 11D: "When bloggers personally attack others, who are not public officials or celebrities just private citizens trying to go about their work, this undemocratic creation is deeply troubling." 

Via Joi Ito, via Metafilter, from US Aviation forums: "John Kerry"s 757 was in hgr 4 pit tonight John Edwards vp decals were being put on engine cowlings and upper fuselage." If it's not true it's a good rumor! And I've been looking for a way to say this -- Edwards is the obvious right choice. He's a great campaigner and team player, and despite all his protests to the contrary, clearly wants a shot at national office. The Dems still won't win the south, but Edwards did pretty well in Iowa and New Hampshire.  

Who to believe? The NY Post says it's Gephardt. Union guy, the core Democrat base trust him, probably worth a bunch of votes in the rust belt states, most of which are in play. Win Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, and win the White House. That's why the announcement is coming in Pittsburgh.  

Isn't it interesting that Wesley Clark isn't much mentioned as the Kerry running mate? Does this signal that the Dems see the economy as the major issue, and not the war? I guess Gephardt is a choice to make the economy the issue, and Edwards is the choice to make TV ads the issue? We still don't really have any idea what Edwards' politics are. With only one term in the Senate, and some vague populist talk during the primaries, we know that he's attractive, has nice hair, and looks younger than he is. That's about it. He could play the vice-president on The West Wing.  

Passion for the story 

In my opinion, a reporter should be thirsty for information, and passionate about conveying it. It should bother you when you got the story wrong, and you should put aside pride or ego when the object of your story tells you you got it wrong. Get out the notepad and get the real story.

I think this is so basic, perhaps it should be a third tenet of real reporting, along with 1. Disclose your interests. 2. Never knowingly say something that's not true.

In the last flamefest, this is what separated the real reporters, professional or amateur, from the space-occupiers. Did they care what the actual story was, or were they just bloating the blogosphere with more uninformed crap. There was a lot of the latter, very little of the former.