Christopher: I just added Linked to my wishlist. My budget does not thank you, but I do.
Mitch: Actually, I'd say what's significant about the Internet---or, more particularly, the web---isn't the speed of distribution. Broadcast radio hit absolute zero for speed of distribution of local communications 100 years ago. You can't get any faster than the speed of light. Satellite television completed the process in the 1960s
Heh, I think we're doing the same dance we did over "what blogs will look like". When I say "speed of distribution", I'm thinking of time from brainfart to blogpost, not just the speed at which said post travels to screens across the world (which, as you rightly point out, is the same as the speed at which older media like radio and TV travel). So my term was ill-chosen, because my point was about the basic convenience and low cost of the interface -- the speed with which one can communicate via web, as compared with the time taken to, say, convince an editor to run your article, print it, and send it out.
Tom: when I asked, How different is blogging from pamphleteering or zine writing, other than speed and scope of distribution?, I didn't mean to downplay the differences among those methods of publishing. Rather, I think the enormous differences come down to the intertwined common factors I listed: speed (in the sense above) and scope of distribution.
Mitch: I get your point now. I agree about the changes in tech -- they leave me floundering every six months or so.
(Guesses: lots more use of mobile devices (a la phonecam-->flickr-->blog, which is already in pretty wide use), lots more pictures (as storage and bandwidth issues become less pressing and digital photos improve), more use of includes/streams from organising centers like del.icio.us and flickr. Anyone else care to venture some predictions?)
it's in its early days yet; the blogs of 2014 will look very little like the blogs of today.
Mitch: wanna bet? I think 2014 blogs will look exactly like today's in all important particulars: same mix of A- through Z-listers, same mix of motivations (get famous, try out ideas, have somewhere to dump all these thoughts, etc), same sorts of posts from the same sorts of people: lefty outrage, rightwing whining, academics doing their thing (I think this will become more common), everyday folks just staying in touch with geographically scattered friends, geeks geeking out over the latest tech, etc etc.
I base my prediction on the observation that people change much less, and much less rapidly, than technology changes their environment. How different is blogging from pamphleteering or zine writing, other than speed and scope of distribution? It may be a simple failure of imagination on my part, but I don't think there's all that much more you can do in the way of putting words (pictures, sounds, movies, whatever as technology allows) together and distributing them.
On the subject of filtering, here's another prediction, just for the hell of it: filtering is the Next Big Thing; or if not the very Next, then soon after. We are already like to drown in data and using some combination of trusted agents (portals, blogs) and algorithms (Google, pet methods of finding cool stuff via del.icio.us or whatever) to stay afloat. As the waters get deeper, the flotation devices will have to get better -- so although I lack the technical know-how to make specific predictions as to how this will happen, I think that new and better filtering methods/agents are not very far off. Also, I think they will begin to advertise as filtering methods, explicitly saying "we can help you find the signals you want in all that noise".
Ooooh, yes, Andre Norton! All the Forerunner stuff, how I loved it -- I think that was my introduction to sci-fi/fantasy.
And that brings to mind CJ Cherryh, whose website seems to offer a wealth of material -- including a bibliography, but a better one is here. Cherryh does "new worlds" and "first contact" as well as anyone, I think -- she really gives you the feeling of exploring an alien world in her best books (I'd recommend the Company Wars series and any of her novels or collections).
See? Told you I was always late. Bruce, you won't regret it!
*smacks self in forehead*
Can't believe I didn't think to recommend Gerald Durrell! Everything he wrote, from the descriptions of animal collecting trips (Two in the Bush, The Bafut Beagles, The Drunken Forest) to novels (Rosie is My Relative, The Talking Parcel) and collections of short stories (Fillets of Plaice) -- it's all wonderful, and suitable for any age. There's a short bio and a bibliography here.
For a 9yo, I particularly recommend the stories of his own childhood (Garden of the Gods, My Family and Other Animals, The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium, Birds Beasts and Relatives), which I still enjoy today, and The Talking Parcel, which I loved when I was about nine but have not reread since. Durrell has a strong prose style and a dry wit, and is a dab hand at marvellous description of the natural world. As befits a naturalist, he excels at detail. His deep love of all creatures great and small shines through in all of his books, even those not ostensibly about animals.
Obdisclosure: Durrell is a personal hero of mine, and his writing is one of the reasons I became a biologist. That's the kind of impact he can have on a young mind. I can't recommend his books highly enough.
Late as usual, but here are a couple of recommendations that may not have emerged unless there are other ex-Australians lurking hereabouts:
Patricia Wrightson, esp. The Nargun and The Stars (see here for other titles)
Nancy Cato, Nin and the Scribblies
Others that spring to mind: Paul Zindel (e.g. The Pigman), Knulp (Hermann Hesse).
For The Fallen
(21st September, 1914)
WITH proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
-- Laurence Binyon
Lest we forget.
Just wanted to say, I'm kind of an asshole and should mostly be ignored, especially when my boy just lost the election.
Sorry, adam; sorry, John. Sorry, thread, for adding heat without light.
Anything useful I had to say has already been said (by adamsj and John Scalzi, among others; see also and especially pericat). What I plan to do: join the ACLU, donate to the NAACP, follow elections around the country and donate to progressives. That's a start.
Reality matters. I'm done cosseting people who think sufficient indignation makes it otherwise.
Amen to that.
I have been too willing to turn off and walk away from People Of Outrage, who then think that means they "won" something. No more: if they want to be offended, and they do want to be offended, then I'll give them something to be offended by.
Eh, Patrick beat me to it -- what PNH said to adamsj, who is hereby cordially invited to kiss my angry blue-state ass, and John Scalzi, to whom ditto but mind the stick don't put an eye out.
I'm trying to collect data regarding the exit polls; here's a quick taste from SoCalDemocrat, who's been doing a mighty job:
------------------
Kerry is well ahead in Exit Polling in Ohio. We're being screwed.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/O...
Male: 51/49 Kerry 47%
Female: 53/47 Kerry 53%
Dem: 91/8 Kerry 38%
Rep: 94/6 Bush 37%
Ind: 60/39 Kerry 24%
Here is exit polling for Florida (3,824,794 votes for Kerry & Bush)
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/F...
Male: 52/47 Kerry 46%
Female: 52/48 Kerry 54%
Dem: 86/13 Kerry 38%
Rep: 92/7 Bush 39%
Ind: 60/38 Kerry 23%
3,824,794 votes for Kerry & Bush
2065388 Women (54% of total)
1759405 Men (46% of total)
Bush leads male vote by 5% of M = 87970
Kerry leads female vote by 4% of M = 82615
That means Bush is ahead by just 5355 votes in exit polling in FL.
Another odd thing is that there are more Reps then Dems in Florida by 1%, which is not expected. Either there are more voting Republicans in FL than Democrats, a first and not matching known statistics, or more Republicans were exit polled than Democrats. If the exit poll is off by just 1% that's a difference of 382479 more voters who are Democracts.
The results being posted however show Bush ahead 326,000 actual votes. This is simply not possible from the exit polling numbers. Even skewed for a 5% higher Republican vs. Democrat turnout from 2000, it doesn't add up.
-------------------------
Further, here are screencaps showing that CNN altered their exit poll data.
Anyone collecting hard data (pre-adjustment exit poll numbers) please email me what you have. I'll be putting it together over the next couple of days; no doubt someone else will do it faster and better but it can't hurt to have me plodding along behind.
So, a Kos diarist writes that CNN changed their data, but the links to prove it don't work. I'll read around and see what I can dig up, but it looks like Alex is right, it's going to be hard to get hold of the necessary data.
D'oh, Zogby's data aren't exit polls. I'm a dimwit.
FWIW, which is approximately nothing, Zogby's predictions were even-handedly lousy. For ten "battleground" states (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), the average difference between Zogby's 8-day average (Oct 24-31) and the actual result (as per C-span) is 3.2% for Bush and 2.4% for Kerry. Taking averages over the first five and last three days didn't improve the accuracy much, or make it less even-handed. Direction of change between first-five and last-three day averages didn't predict winners either.
People keep talking about the exit polls being off. Someone please post a link, because the one I posted shows numbers that don't look particularly suspicious to me. I've found some at Zogby, I'll report back shortly on those.
CNN's exit polls don't look that far off the final results.
the exit polls -- accurate to within 1 or 2 percent in almost every state of the Union, except Florida and Ohio
Lenny: that'll do me for a place to start fighting. (That, and blackboxvoting.org's FOIA requests.) Do you have some links handy?
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|---|---|
| 2004 | 23 |
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