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Television host Bill Maher from HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher will be performing at the Virginia Theater in midtown for two weeks, starting May 5. Should be interesting. Maybe they could get Jon Stewart from The Daily Show to open for him.
"BILL MAHER: VICTORY BEGINS AT HOME" - A one-man show with the political humorist. Virginia Theater, 245 W. 52nd St. (212)239-6200. (1:30) Previews begin Tue. Opens May 5. Closes May 18.
If you haven't been to see experimental show De La Guarda in Union Square over the past five years, your chance to do so is rapidly fading. Walking by the theatre this morning, I noticed a sign saying they will be ending the show as of May 5th. I don't know if they lost the space at the Daryl Roth theatre, or it's an economy thing, or what, but they're not going to be there any longer.
Howard Reingold, noted futurist (and author of Smart Mobs) gave the keynote at this year's O'Reilly conference, arguing that the freedom to technological innovation by individuals is under attack.
Rheingold warned that attempts to stifle innovation would have dire consequences. He reminded the audience that Unix, the Internet and the Web were all open systems built collectively, by collaborating parties. If the government or big corporations had been charged with building the Web, they'd still be struggling with it in our grandchildren's lifetimes, he said.
Companies in general benefit greatly from individual innovations in technology, but often forget this fact and seek to squelch that innovation in order to protect intellectual property or market dominance. Like many folks my age, I learned to use computers by playing around with them for years, poking under the hood and listening to the ideas of other tinkerers. If the tech companies and media groups manage to "weld the hood shut" on computers and consumer electronics, it will be at tremendous cost to the intellectual energy devoted to moving technology forward, and innovating beyond immediate commercial needs.
The New York Times has a great article by Paul Krugman on the illogic of Bush's tax cut proposal.
"The average American worker earns only about $40,000 per year; why does the administration, even on its own estimates, need to offer $500,000 in tax cuts for each job created? If it's all about jobs, wouldn't it be far cheaper just to have the government hire people?"
Krugman wrote The Return of Depression Economics in the late 90's. It's still the best, most clearly written book on macroeconomics I've ever encountered.
Congratulations to my friends (and ex-coworkers) Nate, Feiyu and Issam for their team getting a great new collaborative email system out to market. Yahoo reports that Kubi Software has shipped its first product, Kubi Client.
From the home office, in Union Square:
5. You say "bless you" -- when your next door neighbor sneezes
4. The TV keeps getting drowned out by the vacuum upstairs.
3. You know when your neighbors argue. And laugh. And whisper.
2. The dog upstairs sounds like Dumbo the Elephant at play, dragging a chain back and forth.
1. Alarm clocks wake you up three times in one morning... but you don't own one.
Alex at Brokentype is railing against \Bloomberg's Doomsday Plan, villanizing the mayor for releasing a (proposed, alternate) budget that includes deep cuts to police, fire and zoo budgets. [Via Gawker]
A fun read maybe, but lacking an explanation of why that budget was released, or what the situation is in City Hall and Albany.
Webloggers are portraying the mayor as putting out this budget because he doesn't want to raise taxes. He does, and he wants to do it in a fairly reasonable way -- a commuter tax and increased bridge tolls. The budget you're discussing is being used as the "alternate" option to those taxes being allowed by Albany -- and it's intentionally as painful, and brutal, as possible.
The excuse can be made, of course, that this is just snide, insider commentary that assumes readers already fully understand the situation's reality -- extremism for the purpose of humor, etc. But I'm pretty sure that if I stopped people on the street, not one in ten would understand why this "doomsday" budget was released, making these kind of posts irresponsible (not that weblogs always care about that.)
The commuter tax is a reasonable request. New York spends million in extra police, fire and transportation for people who work in NYC but don't pay taxes here. (And I point out, many of those are among the highest paid in New York.)
Albany, of course, doesn't much like New Yorkers and is the middle of being late with its own budget, for the 19th year in a row. Our city wouldn't have any bargaining power in terms of getting higher tolls or a commuter tax without showing just how deep the cuts are going to have to be if Albany doesn't help us.
One of the biggest problem with many weblog posts is that they're knee-jerk reactions to headlines, the same complaint that many of us online writers make about print journalists when they cover stories we're personally close to. (e.g weblogging, dot-coms, etc.) There's been a rash of editorializing lately that seems to have been driven by only reading the first paragraph of the news articles about this situation.
[Followup: The New York Times has a great op-ed today by Bob Herbert on the state of the city, and the issues of the doomsday budget. When my Financial Times free student subscription runs out, I'm going to start buying the NYT every day instead of the Journal, which is fine to read online.
In Flowing Faster, the Financial Times offers commentary on the London congestion charging program, and predicts that the system will spread rapidly to other areas where traffic is a problem.
"Given the ferocity of the opposition to the congestion charge, just as important is what has not happened. There has been no chaos. The technology has not crashed. The predicted mass non-payment campaign was still-born. Businesses within the zone have not suffered unduly. London's creaking public transport has coped. The public does not judge the charge to be unfair, either to motorists or to the poor. And Mr Livingstone still seems quite likely to be able to add further chapters to his political career."
What's it going to take to get this in New York? I've heard suggestions that there's a strong political lobby backed by parking lots owners that would fight such a program.
Given that it's Easter week (and Tax Day, too), I'm going to jump in early with a non-New York, non-intellectual post pandering to your secret interest in all things cute and fuzzy. Go see Oolong - The pancake rabbit if you haven't. Send it to your friends as an Easter link. Win fame and fortune. (Note: if you are interested in protecting your hardass trader/cop/librarian/fashion-critic image, maybe send this only to non-work friends.)
The Washington Post reported yesterday that mobile phone companies, in particular Verizon, are fighting number portability, which will allow US cell phone subscribers to keep their number when switching providers.
Europeans have had this for a long time, and were were supposed to get it on this side of "the pond" over a year ago, but it's been pushed back once already due to industry lobbying. Obviously, it would radically change the US cell phone industry, removing the last major barrier to switching providers (aside from onerus one-year contracts some folks have.) Cell phone companies already lose up to 30% of subscribers each year (their "churn rate"). This would probably also mean the end of those "free phone for subscribing" promotions we see now, perhaps in favor of lower actual rates.
There will probably also be industry consolidation, with number portability accelerating process. Industry watchers estimate that the 6 or so major cell phone providers will drop to 3 in the next year or two, bringing their cost structures more in line with providers in other countries. That's fine with me... I'm tired of every other ad on television featuring the Sprint guy or Catherine Zeta Jones.
One detail in this story I wasn't previously aware of: the rule would allow you to take a land-line phone number and have it pointed to a cellular phone.
The SF Gate has further coverage of our favorite Iraqi propagandist, Minister McGoo. Information chief unshakable as Baghdad falls around him. Has anyone heard from him since Baghdad fell yesterday? I expect him to show up on David Letterman sometime soon.
11:22 EST Update: PR Flacks Lament Disappearance of Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf
TeeVee.Org's article: Crappy Journalism, Unfair and Imbalanced points out that the problem with Fox News coverage isn't its slant, or its bias -- it's the shoddly, unprofessional and unobjective in its delivery, and ignores good sense in jumping to conclusions based on incomplete information, abandoning any attempt at impartiality or thought. Even if you're totally pro-war, you're better off watching CNN or NBC and knowing what's going on than watching Fox's cheerleading.
Fox News Channel's slogan is: "Real Journalism -- Fair and Balanced." Forget the arrogance of having a slogan like that. Let's boil it down to the basics: before you can get to fair and balanced, you've got to practice real journalism. This weekend I didn't see any of that going on at the Fox News Channel.
The San Francisco Gate also has an extensive analyis of war coverage that particularly compares broadcast network and cable news coverage.
Fellow Manhattan webloggers Jonathan Van Gieson and Lockhart Steel are taking sides over New York City's smoking ban. As a New Yorker, bar patron and non-smoker, I have to side with Van Gieson... I'm looking forward to a weekend where my clothes don't end up smelling like I work for Altria, and I think there's far more patrons now who don't smoke. Yet at the same time, as a lifelong New Yorker, I can't help but feel that it's another form of the creeping gentrification that threatens to turn downtown into the latest Disneyland; been to Times Square lately, anyone?
I have to add my voice of agreement to Jason Kottke's applause for al-Jazeera. We may not like how they report stories. But heck, I don't like how Fox News reports stories, either. The Arab network represents one of the first independent news sources in the Arab world. Such news agencies are a critical component of modern democray. Of course they report from an Arab perspective, with a slant towards empathy for the suffering of Iraq's civilians. Our news agencies slant towards reporting the humanitarian side of our soldiers and their families in just the same way. You don't have to read them -- but respect the effort they're making, all the same.
Yeah, I know the layout is flipping out. I'm trying a new style sheet and I think there must be a DIV tag out of place somewhere in my main template.I'll find it sometime today, I can't fix it right at the moment.
The Iraqi information minister has definitely upped the ante this week; I suspect he's setting himself up for a Hollywood second-career, or at least a made-for-TV-movie.
Read more on 'Victory over America'.
"We defeated them yesterday. God willing, I will provide you with more information. I swear by God, I swear by God, those who are staying in Washington and London have thrown these mercenaries in a crematorium.
"As President Saddam Hussein said: God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Iraqis."
If you misssed my earlier post about this giant of the media, take a gander.
Memo
Re: Spring
It's mid-April, and we've still got the weather set to January. Did someone forget to switch over to Spring? Or are we just jumping directly to a gritty, New York summer?
In his book The Invisible Machine, Donald Norman argued that computing technology must follow the same evolution as phonographs, cars and wristwatches -- away from expanding feature complexity and towards consumer values like style, form and personalization. Alienware, which has built itself a tremendous niche market in an industry overshadowed by the mighty Dell by catering to gamers, has the new case design show at left. It reminds me of some exotic car detailing, and it's definitely an indicator that what's motivating purchases is changing.
If the Iraqi information minister was an actor, they'd fire him for hamming it up as the evil despot lackey of this particular debacle.
This morning, he was giving a live interview with Al Jazeera declaring, as always, that the US is being defeated handily. (The Scotsman - International - Information minister delivers the rhetoric) Unfortunately, at the same time CNN was airing live video of US tanks making incursions into Baghdad.
Regardless of how you feel about the war, you have to admit this guys bluffing is getting pretty funny. One day he's saying that the US hasn't pushed into Iraq significantly, and the next day he's saying, well, they took Baghdad airport, but we pushed them back.
Someone said it's hard to keep giving these briefings when at this point, he has to worry about them getting disrupted by coalition troops. Me, I'm dying to see what I would consider the seminal TV moment off all time -- the Iraqi information minister declaring victory, right as US troops run in and tackle him. Think of it as the international version of COPS.
P.S. they are now showing video of Baghdad center where you can hear the sound of gunfire in the distance. It's too bad that wasn't happening when Al Jazeera was doing the live, outdoor interview.
P.P.S. CNN just said that he read a statement saying that US troops are "on Baghdad." I guess it was getting hard to stay credible.
Keep up with the latest from the man in Iraq.
The war, in some ways, is like reality TV in reverse... (continued)
...at some point, reality is going to collide with the worlds being created on television by both sides of the conflict, and everything is going to have to become self-consistent.
This has already happened to the American side, to some degree. Embedded reporters have brought back video of injured or dead Americans, and civilians as well. But they've also been there as Iraqis used human shields, lost battles and gave ground. At times, the correction to reality has been embarrassing to the coalition leadership. But because reporters are travelling with our troops, the correction has never been too large, and it's hard to accuse anyone of a cover-up.
The Iraqi side, however, has depended upon a controlled portrayal of reality -- one that will only hold up so long. It's a calculated gamble, I would guess. If they can convince the world that they're winning, the coalition might lose its nerve. If they lose, and are shown as liars, what will it matter? Everything will be lost anyway.
This peculiar form of game theory will be coming to a head in the next few days as the wiggle room for Iraqi lying closes into a smaller and smaller area of Baghdad. I'm going to love to see their information minister made the fool on international television, but I'm not sure he had any choice in how he's played this.
Found these gems on Amazon today after seeing someone reading "The Idiot's Guide to Communing with Spirits." I'm wondering if maybe we could send some of these to Washington as a handy primer. Or maybe that's who wrote them...
Amazon, incidentally, is now recommnending Living Wicca (a witchcraft lifestyle-guide) to me, since I searched for the first book. Nice try... no sale.
The New Yorker has an interesting piece by Louis Menand, The Thin Envelope: Why College Admissions has Become Unpredictable. Especially in light of this week's affirmative action ruling by the supreme court.
I'm not totally sure how I feel about the use of race in admissions. Especially in business school admissions (my most recent experience) it seems to me that asking any information that does not speak to the immediate qualifications of the student should be questioned. Given my professional career, academic performance, personal qualities, why should which box I check in the "race" category change my chances of entry? This is a particularly personal question to me; given my mixed ethnicity, I have the right to make such a choice. I don't see how such a system can claim to be both internally consistent and equally fair to all races.
I found one section of the Harvard Business School application even more dubious, if not downright offensive -- the one where they ask where your parents went to school, and what they do for a living. As someone well into my career, what reasonable meaning could my parent's occupation possibly have? How could it possibly be an indicator to my personal integrity, professional skill or experience. My only thought is that it may be an indicator of how much I'm likely to donate to the school, or how famous (and/or well connected) my parents are. Is that any better or worse than say, asking how many generations my family has lived in this country?
Fast Company has a great article on the culture at everyon's favorite search engine. "How Google Grows...and Grows...and Grows"
One reason Google puts its innovations on public display is to identify failures quickly. Another reason is to find winners. For Bharat and Mayer, those 70,000 users provided ammunition to build a case for News within Google. "A public trial helps you go fast," Mayer says. "If it works, it builds internal passion and fervor. It gets people thinking about the problem."
Bless my techie (yet security-naive, or security-indifferent) neighbor whose wireless internet drifts into my apartment from one of the hundreds of windows visible from my apartment in lower Manhattan. They save me the need to turn on my modem for the occasional home email check or weblog post. It's a tenuous connection so I can't download anything bigger than a web page, but it's still far more convinient than dialup.
These "serendipitous" connections are oh so common in Manhattan now. They were also all over in Boston (often a more tech-saavy city in general.) Just another advantage of living in urban population center.