August 2004

To be a journalist or not to be a journalist

August 3, 2004

Dave Winer points out on Scripting News why he disagrees with David Weinberger when he says bloggers are not journalists. I'm very glad I watched the video post that started off the most recent round of this question. As Weinberger's post hits the nail on the head.

Too many folks who get wrapped up in this question seem to think there is a special aura that goes with being a journalist. That the title is a lofty one. It is a serious profession and it is filled with honorable people who work hard, in much the same way that many professions are.

As Weinberger points out there are a handful of journalists who blog. There are also many bloggers who have moments of journalistic greatness.

Bloggers are, by and large, story tellers. To say that anyone who has a blog is a journalist is like saying everyone who tells a joke is a comedian. Journalists are a group of people who work, primarily, at telling the story. They share many traits with bloggers who are mostly not journalists. Bloggers are, by and large, from walks of life other than journalism. They are people who like to write, tell stories and communicate information. But the true value in blogs is that they are written by the people living the story not an objective outsider looking in with a degree of disinterest. Journalists should be as concerned as Jay Leno is about uncle Bob telling good jokes at the birthday party. I don't think it really concerns Leno that there aren't going to be any open dates in Vegas.

Weinberger hits the sweet spot when he says that in the future blogging will be done by the people who are living the convention, who are seating delegates, who are attending.

Nevada is not a wasteland

August 2, 2004

MoveOn.org is asking everyone to join in encouraging unity in our fight against making Yucca Mountain a nuclear waste dump. The plan would cause incredibly toxic waste to be transported across the country through large and small towns and increase the number of terrorist targets throughout America.

I want my old blogging world - Check out Drupal

August 2, 2004

Marc Canter writes about wanting tools he used to have in Radio Userland. The first feature he mentions is one of the key features of Drupal. "The functionality of having a POST button right next to the news story - is essential." I could not agree more. In fact the features he asks for are possible in Drupal. I'm not certain that the WYSIWYG copy and paste is standard but it wouldn't be difficult to add. Drupal is rapidly out pacing many of its 'peers' who seem to rest more on their laurels than innovation.

Becoming part of the churn

August 2, 2004

I'm rather sorry to say I'll soon become a part of the churn which has been debated recently at Netflix. (Fool.com had some criticisms of how they calculate churn). It seems to be a company headed down hill quickly. I say that because when a company's customer service begins to fail they quickly will loose out to the big name stores who are already circling and looking for a kill.

Here's the problem: It's been over two weeks since we returned our last movie. Since then they have been sending movies, supposedly to our correct address, and getting them back. I wrote customer service and got back a snotty little sniveling note telling me I don't know how to use the postal system.

Drupal wish list

August 1, 2004

Drupal has been a great site management system. It is called a content management system but there are some functions that would make it much more useful in that regard. I say it's a great site management system because it's great for managing a single site. If you want more than one site you need more than one instance of Drupal. There are some ways of prefixing table names and making it possible to put two instances of Drupal on a single server.

Taxonomy based RSS feeds would be a big help. It would be best to have the ability to have several different RSS feeds so people could subscribe to those feeds they are interested in. If a site owner chooses to they can allow for people to subscribe to various feeds based on taxonomy.

Different sort of day

August 1, 2004

Today has been a different day on the ranch. We've had spells of strong thunderstorms passing through. This uncovers one of my only gripes about satellite internet. It doesn't work well in storms. So when we have to come in because it's too nasty outside I can't get my computer work done either.... We also had a few scary moments as Irving was rolling and got himself stuck under the bottom rail of the arena fence. After we got him freed and left him to roam in the arena with Jez he got his front leg stuck in a section of fence and broke that rail while pulling the fence out of the ground. Just a crazy day.

Pages