AZplace

Dear Websites Whose Names Shall Be Withheld… ☀

dailymeh:

When I clicked on “Print”, I did not give you permission to launch my printer. It’s a forgivable mistake, but when I click on “Print”, I don’t mean “Please help me print this website out”, I mean “Please take me to a version of this article that is on a single page rather than many short pages, and that isn’t covered in ads and widgets.” I know how to print out a goddamn website. If it’s a well-coded website it even has a print stylesheet that does the job of turning off all the annoyances automatically. But I’d really prefer if that stuff were turned off to begin with.

Oh yes.

Major annoyance. Tapping Cmd-P is heck of a lot easier than clicking on your “Print” link that I falsely believed would give me the full article minus all the ad and widget garbage.

A Tragic Virtue ☀

War is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics and of troops by politicians. —Chris Hedges

And the Pat Tillman story, chronicled in Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory; The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (Krakauer is also the author of Into the Wild, the story of Christopher McCandless Alaska trek made into a big screen movie), is certainly emblematic of that aforementioned adage on betrayal.

The saga of Pat Tillman may be familiar to most all — star safety for the Arizona Cardinals forsakes a NFL career measured in millions to walk on to the global war on terror, joining the elite fighting Army Rangers. His younger brother Kevin joined Pat too, in what they believed was their duty as Americans, in the wake of 9/11 attacks on America. In the spring of 2004, Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan by “friendly fire”, but the Army and Bush administration conducted a coverup until grudgingly admitting that he was “probably” killed by friendly fire. But not before using him as a poster boy for the war on terror and compelling his soldier brothers from dissembling and deceiving to keep his family from the truth. All along, Pat’s mom railed at the presiding government for answers. Not certain of the final tally of investigations — I believe there’s been 3 or 4 at least, and the first one where the the possibility of criminal charges were proffered was discarded by higher-ups.

But Krakauer’s chronicle isn’t about the government coverup. Nor is it a trove of conspiracy theories speculating about a fellow soldier fragging or counter-espionage termination. It’s about the confluence of fortuitousness that led Pat Tillman to Arizona State, the NFL, and then to his tragic end in Afghanistan. With weaving of historical background on the conflict in Afghanistan, going back to pre-Osama bin Laden days.

Again, for anyone keeping abreast of this affair, no new ground is traversed. (Though I write with hesitation, as I’m not so sure cable TV news viewers are informed enough. I watch little TV, and the occasions I do, I am shocked at the difference in news coverage online vs. Fox News Channel or CNN). I believe all of the sensationalist details were previously extracted…

• …Pat Tillman was an admirer of Noam Chomsky, and arranged via an old study buddy from ASU (Reka Cseresnyes) to arrange a meeting, via Cseresnyes husband was pursuing a graduate degree at MIT.
• …Pat Tillman was an atheist and “unequivocally declared that he did not want either a chaplain or a civilian minister to officiate at any memorial services” in case of his death. And explicitly wrote in “I do not want the military to have any direct involvement with my funeral”.
• …his last words were reportedly “What are you shooting at?! I’m Pat Tillman! I’m Pat fucking TILLMAN!”
• …after his death, his uniform was burned, his notebook he specifically asked not to be discarded, and an ammo can containing his brain.

Some things I learned in reading:

• Pat Tillman did some jail time prior to his freshman year at Arizona State. In an violent altercation outside a pizza joint where ran outside to aid his friend who provoked a fight, Pat viciously assaulted one who was fleeing, who had not participated in the melee, and beat him to a pulp, knocking teeth in and striking and kicking so hard to deliver a concussion to the poor lad. A judge lessened the charge to a misdemeanor, which cleared the way for Tillman to come to ASU without fretting over a scholarship retraction for a felony committed. The victim and family were outraged, believing Tillman was granted special treatment due to his athletic standing. Pat served 30 days and had to do 250 hours of community service. According to Krakauer, this was a cornerstone event in Tillman’s development — where he resolved, not all at once, to pursue a purer path.
• It appears that fatal firefight was Tillman’s first exposure to live combat.
• Not much is mentioned about Pat’s dad in this title.
• The Jessica Lynch debacle was also fraught with friendly fire and Army/government coverup and dissembling.

Pat Tillman was an amazing man, one who swung against the tide. Honor. Duty. Courage. Loyalty. An undersized guy that worked like the dickens to attain the pinnacle of professional athleticism. Unlike his ~1500 NFL colleagues, he felt the duty to honor his country by serving and sacrificing, even for a campaign (Iraq) he did not feel was justified. He refused to skip out early from his commitment, after the NFL, Arizona Cardinals and Army agreed to allow him a special exit dispensation. Even before, as a Cardinal, he turned down millions of dollars to jump ship to the St. Louis Rams (er, I almost typed “Cardinals” again ;)) to play for not much above the league minimum. Incredulous, his agent was at Pat for spurning the free agent offer, but Pat was loyal to the Cardinals, citing how they took a flier on him, believed in him and gave him his big shot.

Perhaps I’ve just been exposed to a filtered, rose-covered viewing of Tillman’s life. With his foibles, flaws and transgressions minimized or omitted. Good writers, like Krakauer, excel in narrating as such.

Even accepting that, I’d still state that the world is a lesser place without Pat Tillman. And that it would be a heck of a better world with more Pat Tillmans.

Willing to Pay a Fee for Access to News Articles? ☀

As I’ve been perusing online since the time when the Mosaic browser ruled the web, I continue to be astonished at the recycling of this meme about the tragedy of noble newspaper guardians going extinct at the expense of gluttonous online readers taking for free what print subscribers previously paid fees to receive. Inevitably, the discussion meanders into solution space speculation — typically, after first lambasting newspaper publishing lords for their shortsightedness in adopting an online business mode. From there, subscription pay walls, various micropayment schemes, or clearinghouse outlets like how radio music is licensed to play are proffered forth.

Belied in this assessment however is a false notion that readers were ever (at least in the modern era) the main subsidization of a news organization’s operation. Subscriptions for printed news output delivery were a pittance compared to advertising revenue. But that ad money was tied to mass eyeball share for monolithic news sources. You got world events, local happenings, stock quotes, sports scores, lifestyle features, movie listings, comics, classifieds, horoscopes from that wadded bundle of newsprint left on the doorstep (or plucked from newsstand). Television displayed breaking news video, but if you wanted the deeper story, you read the newspaper or a weekly newsmagazine.

Circa 2009, you get your news from either television or the internet. Or some combination of both. But online, you would point your browser at nfl.com for NFL scores, frequent Google Finance (or Yahoo Finance or whatever your desired flavor) for stock data, tap up movie times on your iPhone NowPlaying app, and shop for a used MacBook Pro on craigslist. Yeah, you might skim local doings posted on your town newspaper’s online presence, but it’s possible you could collect the same sort of information from blogs or twitter friends. Bottom line, your news seeking exercise is blanketed over a dissemination of sources. Meaning that’s a smaller mass of web visitors for the online newspaper site proprietor. Meaning a significantly smaller ad rate with no earthly way to profit from those old school print readers.

With diminished ad fare, readers would have to carry more of the fare in what was already a minority portion. Consequently, to capture web patrons paying for content, subscription rates would have to be set at prohibitive marks. At a level that most readers would be unable or unwilling to pay.

By no means are subscription models an impossible option for all online publishers. Markets exist where there are customers eager to pay premium fees for specialized information. Odds are, however, the price will be considerably greater than the cost of a daily newspaper. And there are some successful models in existence today, churning out profit, and serving their readership, some still funded by advertising, others by a loyal subscriber base.

Thanksgiving 2009 Thankfulness ☀

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Things I’m thankful for:

• My smashingly beautiful, unreciprocated giving, deeply loving wife.
• My wonderful family.
• The roof over my head, the clothes on my back, and blessed with sufficient food and water.
• Our church and fellow caring brothers and sisters.
• Friends that I’ve had to pleasure to share life with, interact, influence and be influenced. In both online and real life realms.
• My MacBook Pro computer and internet access.
• The wonderful interweb treasure trove that lies discovered and undiscovered.

Hot Bubbling Gore ☀

The conservative media sphere has been ablaze the past week over a Al Gore gaffe on the earth’s interior temperature. Yes, Gore blundered — it’s thousands of degrees, not millions.  Social networking organs and conservative talk radio bastions are gleefully roasting Gore and deriding his “scientific blunder” and bolstering their climate change denial talking point chest.

Though I’m fairly certain that Gore, if queried about his misspoken cite and presented with the prevailing scientific pronouncement, would renounce the erroneous claim. Or at the very minimum, cease from repeating the error in future public speaking events.

Which makes it even more riotous that most of the conservative critics chiding Gore are outright deniers of science. Many believe the earth’s age is measured in thousands of years not billions, most reject evolution and deny the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. Indeed, there has been a conservative war on science waged that’s had an impact, driving a wedge between scientists and the public.

We live in a remarkable age. A time when so many are blessed by the aid and comfort of technology, yet so anti-rational in clinging to beliefs that should only be prevalent in pre-enlightenment epochs.

Laws of the Internet ☀

1. Godwin’s Law:

“As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

2. Poe’s Law:

“Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing.”

3. Rule 34:

“If it exists, there is porn of it.”

4. Skitt’s Law:

“any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself” or “the likelihood of an error in a post is directly proportional to the embarrassment it will cause the poster.”

5. Scopie’s Law:

“In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses the argument immediately, and gets you laughed out of the room.”

6. Danth’s Law (also known as Parker’s Law):

“If you have to insist that you’ve won an internet argument, you’ve probably lost badly.”

7. Pommer’s Law:

“A person’s mind can be changed by reading information on the internet. The nature of this change will be from having no opinion to having a wrong opinion.”

8. DeMyer’s Laws (only the 2nd and 3rd laws apply generally):

2 - “Anyone who posts an argument on the internet which is largely quotations, can be very safely ignored and is deemed to have lost the argument before it has begun.”

3 - “Anyone who posts a picture with a caption which does anything other than describe the picture is deemed to have already lost on the point they were trying to make and it can be ignored.”

9. Cohen’s Law:

“Whoever resorts to the argument that ‘whoever resorts to the argument that… …has automatically lost the debate’ has automatically lost the debate.”

10. The Law of Exclamation:

“The more exclamation points used in an email (or other posting), the more likely it is a complete lie. This is also true for excessive capital letters.”

11. Sturgeon’s Law

“Ninety percent of everything is crap”