July 13, 2003
Playing fair a losing proposition
Sunday's Doonesbury was a keeper.
bern said:
Never underestimate the liberal's capacity for self-congratulation, especially when it comes to his innate moral superiority.
E.g., the notion currently in vogue among persons of a leftist bent that somehow they are personally more altruistic than the rest of us. Not sure how you even begin to reason with people like that.
JD said:
Actually, the very essence of liberalism is the idea of being open-minded, ie, open to all points of view -- a position that most certainly is not held by the vast majority of conservative publications or broadcast media in the land. I think it was Roger Ebert who recently wrote that when he receives emails from those in the political center or left of center, they tend to take issue with his argument, offering citations and point-by-point rebuttals. Those on the right, however, immediately launch into vitriolic ad hominem attacks on his motives or his personal life, seldom offering a factual rebuttal, confident in their smug knowledge that they're the keepers of the Truth.
I can't find that citation, but I found this in an Ebert Q&A:
The right really wants to punish you for having an opinion. And I think both the left and the right should celebrate people who have different opinions, and disagree with them, and argue with them, and differ with them, but don't just try to shut them up. The right really dominates radio, and it's amazing how much energy the right spends telling us that the press is slanted to the left when it really isn't. They want to shut other people up. They really don't understand the First Amendment.
The Net, the law and free speech
Interested in the Internet, law and free speech? You'll want to read this story in Sunday's Times about Intel vs. Hamidi. You have 7 days till the toll gates go up.
Dems = pot party?
Click on this NY Times story about the Democratic candidates for president, and you get a somewhat jarring image of a marijuana plant (at least I did) in an advertisement on the page. Coincidence or product placement?
Later: A reader writes to say he's getting Nokia banner ads. Ah, well, it was too serendipitous to be intentional.
New on the ResourceShelf
I've been remiss in not pointing enough to Gary Price's invaluable ResourceShelf. New on ResourceShelf this week.
• Part 2 of an interview with Daypop's founder. Scroll down to July 9. (Here's part 1.)
• Link to video interview with the CEO of FAST Search
• A homemade transcript of a conference interview of a Walt Mossberg intervew with the founders of Google.
• Search engine personalization: An exploratory study.
Also, recently:
• Consumer Reaction to Learning the Truth About How Search Engines Work. Excerpt:
Here are the major findings of this study:1. Most participants had little understanding of how search engines retrieve information from the Web or how they rank or prioritize links on a results page.
2. The majority of participants never clicked beyond the first page of search results as they had blind trust in search engines to present only the best or most accurate unbiased results on the first page. As a result, two-in-five links (or 41%) selected by our participants during the assigned search sessions were paid results.
3. Once enlightened about pay-for-placement, each participant expressed surprise about this search engine marketing practice. Some had negative, emotional reactions. ...
Happy birthday, Hollywood sign
Happy birthday to the Hollywood sign, which turned 80 today. As it happens, my father-in-law turns 80 tomorrow. Thanks to Adam Curry for the pointer.
Privacy rights under threat
Here's a reminder for all those members of the East Coast punditocracy who think California is wack because of its initiative process, which sometimes is the only way to bypass a compromised or out-of-touch legislature.
Privacy rights under threat by lawmakersBy Dan Gillmor
Mercury News Technology ColumnistIn the constant battle to preserve what's left of our privacy and roll back some of the invasions we've already suffered, one reality is all too clear: Elected officials are not on our side.
Last week brought the latest perversion of the public will, the cowardly refusal of the California Legislature to enact even modest improvements in financial privacy. The voters will do it instead, in a ballot measure next year.
A royalties plan for file sharing
Harvard's William Fisher in News.com: A royalties plan for file sharing.
Clampdown on students' Net access
The University of Florida has begun cutting students' Net access en masse -- not just to file-sharing networks but even Internet Relay Chat.
