Huckleberry Hart

#goodreads 30 May 2012

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel endorsed Scott Walker in his recall campaign. Readers responded in kind, filling up an entire page with letters criticizing the decision. You can read them here.

Three things we learned about Tony Blair’s relationship with the media | Oliver Wright | The Independent | 29 May 2012

1. According to the former British PM, he was only a business acquaintance with Rupert Murdoch — until he left office, that is. After that, the relationship became more personal, to the point where Blair became the godfather of Rupe’s daughter. Really.
2. Even when it was strictly a business relationship, Blair saw “nothing odd” about calling up Murdoch in the hours before the Iraq War began and giving him personal briefings on the mission. Because, you know, whatever! Just business.
3. Blair’s family has had its own struggles with the media. His wife, Cherie, reportedly has filed (or considered filing) over 30 lawsuits against media outlets in a five year period, in what Blair claims was a “personal vendetta.” 

#goodreads 29 May 2012

How FBI Entrapment Is Inventing ‘Terrorists’ - and Letting Bad Guys Off the Hook | Rick Perlstein | 15 May 2012

It’s a perfect example of how post-9/11 fear made law enforcement tactics seem acceptable that were previously beyond the pale. Previously, however, the targets have been Muslims; now they’re white kids from Ohio. And maybe you could argue that this is acceptable, if the feds were actually acting out of a good-faith assessment of what threats are imminent and which are not. But that’s not what they’re doing at all.

The spy who came in from the code | Mathieu Adkins | Columbia Journalism Review | May/June 2012

How a filmmaker accidentally gave up his sources to Syrian spooks

“I think that the journalism community in the US, and to some degree elsewhere, is just beginning to grasp the fact that they need to protect their information and, by extension, their sources,” said Frank Smyth, who is the senior adviser for journalist security at the Committee to Protect Journalists and also runs a private company, Global Journalist Security. “It’s just too easy to get in and lift their information or monitor their communications without them ever knowing they were compromised.”

Don’t Get Your Sources in Syria Killed | Eva Galperin/CPJ Guest Blogger | Committee to Protect Journalists | 21 May 2012

The al-Assad regime’s surveillance of telecommunications–cell phones, text messages, email, and Internet traffic–is remarkably extensive. Using equipment built in the West by companies such as BlueCoat, the Syrian government censors the Internet, blocks websites, and snoops on traffic using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI).

What Higher Education Should Look Like | Roshaun Paul | Stanford Social Innovation Review | 25 May 2012

Like so many present-day thought leaders, THNK believes that we are living in an era of accelerating change; that our technologies are moving our lives and bodies beyond our physical evolution’s capacity to keep up with the changes; that resources of all types are depleting faster than our political systems’ ability to address the losses; and that our education systems don’t help students prepare for these new realities.

Twenty academic studies on file-sharing that are mostly at odds with music industry’s claims.

Visualization.ch put together a selection of data visualization tools that they use the most and that they enjoy working with. It includes libraries for plotting data on maps, frameworks for creating charts, graphs and diagrams and tools to simplify the handling of data. Even if you’re not into programming, you’ll find applications that can be used without writing one single line of

#goodreads 28 May 2012

Cyberwar: China’s move discovered

New Zealand, Fresh From Its Service to Mexican Drug Lords, Helps Out the Russian Mafia | Richard Smith | 27 May 2012

Emergency weather alerts coming soon to a cell phone near you | Dan Stillman | Washington Post Capital Weather Gang | 23 May 2012 has a few more details.

Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) are a new service from U.S. weather service and FEMA. Starting in June, they will send a text message with a strange tone to your mobile device if you are in range of a Tornado Warning, Tsunami Warning or other major event (in the U.S. only). Major events include “Presidential Alerts.” You do not need to sign up.

You can identify poor neighborhoods from space | Grist

Next to U.S. firing range in Afghanistan, a village of victims | Kevin Sieff | Washington Post

But in the past year, civilians have been maimed and killed on or near NATO firing ranges in provinces of Ghazni, Paktia and Kabul, according to MACCA. One of the agency’s incident reports, obtained by The Washington Post, includes graphic photos of a de-miner taken seconds after an American 40mm grenade tore off his arm and leg while he was clearing Russian anti-personnel mines near a range in Kabul.

Three things we can do to keep survey research relevant for democracy:

1. Remember why random samples are important

2. Defend yourselves (and others) in the industry

3. Promote transparency in the use of the new methods… and the old ones

Survey Research, Its New Frontiers and Democracy | Scott Keeter | Pew Research | 24 May 2012

#goodreads 27 May 2012

Criminals have electronically filed thousands of false tax returns with made-up incomes and withholding information and have received hundreds of millions of dollars in wrongful refunds.

From 2008 to 2011, the number of returns filed by identity thieves and stopped by the I.R.S. increased significantly, officials said. Last year, it was at least 1.3 million, said Steven T. Miller, deputy commissioner for services and enforcement at the agency.

This year, with only 30 percent of the filings reviewed so far, the number is already at 2.6 million. The bulk are related to identity theft, Mr. Miller said.

With Personal Data in Hand, Thieves File Early and Often | Lisette Alvarez | The New York Times | 26 May 2012

Introducing XOXO – Waxy.org

“Who knew people were so interested in commas?” Ben Yagoda has written three NYT pieces on correct comma usage: Fanfare for the Comma Man, The Most Comma Mistakes, and Some Comma Questions.

At Clifton’s Cafeteria, someone left a light on. For 77 years. A downtown Los Angeles landmark, the Clifton’s Cafeteria, has a storied past. Recently sold, it was established during the Great Depression, with a mission to provide affordable coffee and food - a pledge that was honored for decades. While remodeling, the new owners made an astonishing discovery: hidden behind a partition, a neon lamp that was switched on during the Great Depression and it’s been on, continuously for 77 years. The owner estimates it’s generated more than $17,000 in electric bills. [LATimes]

“Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s and 10 times Germany’s. The hidden engine behind the state’s well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard cash.” Louisiana Incarcerated is a tour de force eight-part series on the Louisiana prison system. NYTimes op-ed.]

The E-Book Wars: Amazon Versus the Rest. Publishers, distributors, booksellers, and authors weigh in on Amazon’s ever-increasing presence and influence in the electronic publishing world. The author also takes a stab at forecasting the future for the major players in the e-book industry.

#goodreads 26 May 2012

David Lowery on the Internet illusion of internet democracy.

In the last few years it’s become apparent the music business, which was once dominated by six large and powerful music conglomerates, MTV, Clear Channel and a handful of other companies, is now dominated by a smaller set of larger even more powerful tech conglomerates.  And their hold on the business seems to be getting stronger.

Meet The New Boss, Worse Than The Old Boss? | David Lowery | The Trichordist | 15 April 2012

New Orleans, newspapers and the beginning of the end | Mathew Ingram | GigaOm | 25 May 2012

David Carr on the media:

The other thing is, now that there’s Twitter and the fights over scoops … no one cares. When the metrics of scoops get down to seconds and milliseconds, I don’t think it’s meaningful.

TPM Interview: New York Times Media Columnist David Carr | David Taintor | @TPM |  25 May 2012

None of the directors on JPMorgan’s risk committee have worked at a bank or as financial risk managers.

Researchers push for end to publishers’ default ban on computer scanning of tens of thousands of papers to find links between genes and diseases

some of the commercial restrictions from publishers seemed not only to be restricting access to the scientific community, but also hindering the work of researchers. “Elsevier needs to take a much harder look at what it is doing to work well with the academic community at large, since it believes that its future lies in tapping the funding for science,” he wrote.

Text mining: what do publishers have against this hi-tech research tool? | Alok Jha | Guarian | 23 May 2012

To keep you going through campaign season, campaignsick.tumblr.com.

#goodreads 25 May 2012

#Grexit stage left: @mjbommar visualizes the online discussion around Greece’s possible Euro exit.  /@rrichard09

Chris Matthews and Newt Gingrich.

MATTHEWS, impatiently: OK, favorite snake.

GINGRICH: Uh, probably a python.

MATTHEWS: Why? It’s a constrictor, right?

GINGRICH: It’s big and passive. It sits there.

Chris Matthews and Newt Gingrich: The Most Entertaining (and Reptile-Centric) Political Interview Ever | Molly Ball | The Atlantic | 24 May 2012

On the Front Line: The Collected Journalism of Marie Colvin 1986-2012 | guardian.co.uk |  19 May 2012

Forget Rachel, Bill, Anderson, and Sean. The broadcaster who will most determine the 2012 elections is Jorge Ramos.

“We are constantly balancing domestic and international stories that cover the home countries of our viewers,” he says. “If we don’t include these stories, they wouldn’t watch us. They could go someplace else.”

The Anchor | Laura M. Colaruss | washingtonmonthly.com

Andy Carvin (@acarvin) interviewed by Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) at Mesh.

Mathew: You were posting faster than news media do. They do more verification.

Andy: Which is why I get uncomfortable when people prefer my twitter feed as a newswire. It’s not a newswire. It’s a newsroom. It’s where I’m trying to separate fact from fiction, interacting with people. That’s a newsroom.

[2b2k][mesh] Andy Carvin | David Weinberger | hyperorg.com | 24 May 2012

How French theorist Roland Barthes gave us the modern TV recap.

Can trees deter crime?

#goodreads 24 May 2012

Madeline Albright’s life as a diplomat is somehow less exciting than her family’s remarkable history.

Born in Prague in 1937, Albright was the eldest child of Joseph and Anna Korbel. Her father was press attaché to the Czech delegation assigned to Belgrade, where she spent most of her first year. As tensions mounted, Madeleine and her parents returned to Prague, and then, in 1939, escaped to England.

Review: Albright’s ‘Prague Winter’ mixes the personal, historical | Carolyn Kellogg | LA Times | 13 May 2012

Hockey fans throwing weird stuff on the ice. | John Metcalfe | The Atlantic Cities | 12 May 2012

Readlist is a group of web pages—articles, recipes, course materials, anything—bundled into an e-book you can send to your Kindle, iPad, or iPhone.

Screens

A very comfortable interview with Bill Murray in anticipation of Moonrise Kingdom. 

“I don’t like to have a situation placed over my head.”

Matthew Weiner of Mad Men, Vince Gilligan of Breaking Bad and David Milch of Deadwood talk to GQ about writing for television.

“TV is where writers get to tell interesting stories right now, because writers, for the most part, run television.”

The New Rules of TV everything you need to know about the Golden Age of Television.

RULE 1. NO CHANNEL SURFING

#goodreads 23 May 2012

Twitter is really revolutionizing Bollywood. 

Twitter represents for these celebrities a certain refuge from both the constraints that held them back. It maintains a comfortable distance from the media and its manipulations and, simultaneously, from the diktats of propriety—because, presumably, unless it is said to the press, it is not official. But the truth is that their audience, following their beloved stars in lakhs-strong throngs, is watching them closely and judging them by their tweets. 

Is Twitter changing the Hindi film industry’s long-held moral code? | Snigdha Poonam | Caravan Magazine | May 2012

Bad times at the top of the world.

The scene here over the last couple of days has resembled the aftermath of a battle.

Four confirmed dead in two days on Everest | Grayson Schaffer | Outside Online | 21 May 2012

The number of children biking to school has diminished to the point that at least one school wouldn’t allow them on campus.

“A story like Jaycee Dugard’s will always loom larger in our brain than statistics. We live in a society that tells parents if they aren’t afraid every second of the day, they aren’t good parents—and the magical way to keep [kids] safe is to worry about them all the time. Many places now won’t allow a bus to drop a kid off unless a parent is waiting at the bus stop.”

Why Johnny Can’t Ride | David Darlington | Bicycling | 2012 April 27

Oglala Sioux tribe Attorney General Rae Ann Red Owl, Discussing the South Dakota tribe’s unusual method of sentencing people convicted of crimes in the community.

“It’s a lot like a talking circle. Everybody gets a chance to talk without interruption. It’s done in a respectful way. It’s confidential.”

How Gawker wants to mon­etize comments.

Denton’s vision for Gawker Media’s editorial product is very much moving towards comments and away from posts, and he reckons that advertisers will follow him in that direction if he blazes the trail. Expect Gawker’s blog posts to get shorter, in future, and sometimes just be a headline, at least in the first instance, so that the conversation can get going before a pretty post can be put together. And if Denton’s scheme goes according to plan, when you follow a link to a Gawker website, it will often — or maybe even usually — be a link to a comment, rather than to an original post. Eventually, it’s possible to envisage a world where the distinction between the two is erased completely.

How Gawker wants to mon­etize comments | Felix Salmon | Reuters | 22 May 2012

Kickstarted: Om Malik interview Kickstarter co-founder Perry Chen.

“Members of the class of 2012 … You’re f*cked” – Robert Reich 

SIGGRAPH 2012 : Technical Papers Preview Trailer (by ACMSIGGRAPH)

Wild. The SIGGRAPH Technical Papers program is the premier international forum for disseminating new scholarly work in computer graphics and interactive techniques. SIGGRAPH 2012 brings together more than 20,000 professionals from 5 continents, 5-9 August 2012 in Los Angeles, California, USA. Learn more at www.siggraph.org/s201

#goodreads 22 May 2012