A Heartbreaking ∞ of Staggering Genius

• Media moguls – Pulitzer, Hearst, and Murdoch (New Yorker) – Back then, nobody would have picked the Times and the Wall Street Journal as the country’s most important newspapers. That distinction belonged to two papers that have long since disappeared: Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. The papers, and their owners, were flamboyantly rich, Democratic, populist, and popular. Although they sometimes purveyed information and analysis, in the manner of the Times and the Wall Street Journal, their business was mainly telling stories—turning the life of the world’s rising metropolitan, industrial superpower into captivating adventure and drama.
• Miltä näyttävät erilaisten nettipalveluiden oletus-avatarit? –
• Nicholas Carr: Tim writes a book – ahihhi: "Tim wrote a book. The title of Tim's book is The Twitter Book. Tim didn't use a pen to write his book. Tim didn't even use a word processor to write his book. Tim used PowerPoint to write his book"
• In China, Knockoff Cellphones Are a Hit (NY Times) – Technological advances have allowed hundreds of small Chinese companies, some with as few as 10 employees, to churn out what are known here as shanzhai, or black market, cellphones, often for as little as $20 apiece.
• WordPressin teemoittelu on kehittynyt aika pitkälle kaikkine frameworkkeineen –

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Muistaakseni Jyväskylän Yliopiston yrittäjyyskurssilla tuli aikanaan puhe siitä, että mehiläishoitajat saattaisivat olla hyvinkin mainio kohderyhmä uutteralle media-alan puuhaajalle. Nyt olisi päätoimittajan vuorotteluvapaan sijaisuus tarjolla Suomen Mehiläishoitajain liitossa.

• Conde Nast to close Portfolio – uusi talouslehti + nykyinen taloustilanne = auts
• The underground world of neuroenhancing drugs (New Yorker) – Adderall, a stimulant composed of mixed amphetamine salts, is commonly prescribed for children and adults who have been given a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. But in recent years Adderall and Ritalin, another stimulant, have been adopted as cognitive enhancers: drugs that high-functioning, overcommitted people take to become higher-functioning and more overcommitted. (Such use is “off label,” meaning that it does not have the approval of either the drug’s manufacturer or the Food and Drug Administration.) College campuses have become laboratories for experimentation with neuroenhancement
• God Is Back -kirjan arvostelu (NY Times) – The market that niche religious leaders stepped into was the hole opened up by modernity, and their product was something the authors call “soulcraft.” Instead of raging against modern life, they sold themselves as easing the way for the harried middle class. Church became a place to form social bonds, get dates, meet fellow moms isolated in suburbia, lose weight.
• David Foster Wallace – Commencement Speech at Kenyon College –
• Shouts & Murmurs: Amen, Brother – After a blissfully romantic courtship lasting only twelve years, Stacy and I were married. We had decided to save ourselves for our wedding night, because, as I reminded Stacy over and over, “The first time I make love to a woman, I want it to be sacred and special, and not just mindless, unending pleasure, like sex with a guy.

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• Virginia Hefferman pohtii, miksi yleisökommentit ovat netissä ihan perseestä – Online newspaper commenters as a whole seem to have (at least) the stamina, drive and spare time to become a cogent part of online journalism. But as it is, online commentary is a bête noire for journalists and readers alike. Most journalists hate to read it, because it’s stinging and distracting, and readers rarely plow through long comments sections unless they intend to post something themselves. But perhaps the comments have become so reader-unfriendly, in part, because of the conventions of the Web-comment form.
• Whatever Happened to the Top 15 Web Properties of April, 1999?  –
• Uuden median murros Alma Mediassa, Sanoma Oy:ssä ja Yleisradiossa 1994-2004 – via Suviko
• Yhteiskunnallisia ohjelmia keränneen Apps for America -skaban voittajat – siis sitä kamaa, mistä Peter Corbett puhui Mediapäivillä
• In pictures: The four faces of the Bengal tiger – uuuuui!

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• Depeche Mode: Wrong-musavideo – biisistä vieläkään välitä, mutta video on hiano
• Sasha Frere-Jones kirjoittaa Lady GaGasta sekä kertakäyttöisyyden ja kestävyyden suhteesta popissa (New Yorker) – The artist who stays on the charts for years without interruption sometimes does it by virtue of professional acuity and inoffensive predictability. Some of pop’s most delightful figures endure exactly because we can’t figure out what they are up to.
• Seymour Hersh Uncovers New Thing Too Sad To Think About (The Onion) – Sources at The New Yorker said a new article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh "blows the lid completely off" a subject matter far too soul-crushing for the human brain to process.
• Tweeting Too Hard – Where self-important tweets get the recognition they deserve.
• The Final Four Of Everything – ( A vs B ) vs ( C vs D )

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• Ben Yagoda: In Defense of Common English – Such is the dilemma of the linguist, or at least the linguist who has any desire to reach anyone outside their — excuse me, his or her — discipline. A sizable group of people is partial to attending discussions and reading books about language. But what this group wants to hear is antithetical to what scholars of this subject want to say.
• The Wingnut explains why conservatives fear gay marriage (Salon) – "Ask a Wingnut" is written by a real live conservative and former Bush official who chooses to remain anonymous. Each week "Glenallen Walken" will bridge the cultural divide and answer questions from liberals about why conservatives think and do what they think and do.
• Google News Timeline – vinkeä vekotin
• Mike Skinner Twitters His Music Away – Mike Skinner is using his Twitter account to give away music. On April 13th, Skinner wrote: “I am going to tweet 3 new songs this week. I can’t be bothered with all this trying to sell you music. It wastes valuable time.” He kept his word and posted three new songs by The Streets: “I Love My Phone,” “Trust Me,” and “David Hassles,” all of which are still available. Last Thursday, Skinner promised his followers three more tunes this week.
• Ohjeet ylisuuren Parallels-levyn kutistamiseen, jos Disk Compact ei toimi – testaus kesken, mutta olisi parempi toimia (14 gigaa vs 4,5 gigaa)
• Peter Singer: To defame religion is a human right – While attempts to stir up hatred against adherents of a religion, or to incite violence against them, may legitimately be suppressed, criticism of religion as such should not be.

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Sanoma News eli sanomalehtipuoli (Hesari, kaupunkilehdet jne.) on lähettänyt avustajille uuden sopimuksen, jossa pyydetään entistä laajemmat oikeudet juttuihin. Vastineeksi ei tarjota yhtään mitään.

Vanha freelancer-viisaus sanoo, että totta kai journalisti on valmis myymään vaikka kaikki oikeudet, mutta sen pitäisi näkyä jotenkin myös laskussa viivan alla. Nyt näin ei ole.

Ay-toiminnan kannalta tilanne on erityisen hankala. Työsuhteisten työehdoista voidaan neuvotella kollektiivisesti, mutta tällaisessa tilanteessa jokainen freelancer on omillaan. Yksittäisen henkilön on pirullisen hankala mennä neuvottelemaan ehtoja uusiksi, mutta jos kaikki ovat mukana, tilanne voi helpottua.

Solidaarisuus saattaa olla ummehtunut käsite, mutta en keksi tähän paikkaan oikein muutakaan sopivaa. Siispä: älkää allekirjoittako sopimusta sokkona, vaan liittykää joukkoon.

Lisää aiheesta:

• Hesari, näpit irti freelancerin tekijänoikeuksista -adressi
• Facebook-ryhmä (jolla on varmasti hurjasti vaikutusta)
• SFJ:n uutinen

• Time Traveler Essentials -t-paita –
• Parlamentaarikkohuumoria Yhdysvaltain malliin (NY Times) – The barbed-tongued Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, silenced a Republican House colleague who had complained that he did not know what was inside a proposed bill: “This bill is five and a half pages — even the gentleman from Texas could have read it by now.”
• Shai Agassi haluaa mullistaa sähköautot (NYT Mag) – Agassi’s grand plan is to kick-start the global adoption of electric cars by minimizing one of the biggest frustrations with the technology: the need for slow and frequent recharges. The robot is the key to his solution. Unlike most electric-car technologies, which generally require you to plug your car into a power source and recharge an onboard battery for hours, the Better Place robot is designed to reach under the chassis of an electric car, pluck its battery out and replace it with a new one, much the same way you’d put new batteries in a child’s toy.
• Roju haastattelee Ville Rantaa sarjakuvamuodossa – aiheina feminiinisyys vs maskuliinisuus, taide vs viihde ja prosessitekeminen
• Typeface Inspired by Comic Books Has Become a Font of Ill Will – WSJ.com – "If you love it, you don't know much about typography," Mr. Connare says. But, he adds, "if you hate it, you really don't know much about typography, either, and you should get another hobby."

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• Andrew Sullivanin henkilökuva (Intelligent Life) – He was the first well-known writer to become a blogger—and played a key role in smelting the form. Just as Michel de Montaigne played a crucial role in developing the modern essay, Andrew Sullivan will be remembered as pioneering the form of the blog. The now-ubiquitous blog style—short, pithy, personality-inflected posts, offered often—was begun by him. “How many writers in their lifetime stumble across a new medium like this?” he asks excitedly. “Here you are, present at the creation.”
• Is it possible that the idea of "realism" as a guiding principle for fiction is itself unrealistic? – Did sci-fi writers from the 1940s and 1950s anticipate the future of serious literature better than the so-called "serious writers" or, for that matter, the highbrow critics?
• Manifesto of a Comic-Book Rebel – Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s ‘Drifting Life’ (NY Times) – Mr. Tatsumi began drawing manga as a child, but he quickly rebelled against the form’s aesthetic limitations. Manga was aimed largely at children, and its emotional and intellectual palette was circumscribed. Along with a cohort of young writers and illustrators, Mr. Tatsumi introduced in the late 1950s a bolder form of manga he called “gekiga” — darker, more realistic, often violent. The name stuck. And he became one of Japan’s most important visual artists.
• The Wrong Brand – logo ja nimi ei sovi yhteen
• Siistejä lepakkovideoita –
• De La Soul – Making of 3 Feet High – pitkä haastattelu

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Tero Lehto vinkkasi ircissä seuraavanlaista: Taking the paper out of news: A case
study of Taloussanomat, Europe’s first online-only newspaper (pdf).

Tiivistelmän sanoo näin:

Using in-depth interviews, newsroom observation, and internal documents, this case-study presents and analyses changes that have taken place at Finnish financial daily Taloussanomat since it stopped printing on 28 December 2007 to focus exclusively on digital delivery via the web, email, and mobile. It reveals the savings that can be achieved when a newspaper no longer prints and distributes a physical product; but also the revenue lost from subscriptions and print advertising. The consequences of a newspaper’s decision to go online-only are examined as they relate to its business model, website traffic, and editorial practice. The findings: illustrate the extent to which the medium rather than the content it carries determines news consumption patterns, show the differing attention a newspaper and its online substitute command, and reveal the changes to working patterns journalists can expect in the online-only environment.