The Photogenic News

Too beautiful not to report? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Newspapers and magazines (old media) are over a barrel these days. As Time pointed out, they were already suffering from internet sites giving all the same stories and insights away for free. Then the September 2008 market crash did nothing to help matters. The mid-January issue of Time had a scant 56 pages, giving immediate testament to the severity of the problem. Their ads have taken a dive.

Now, along comes President Barack Obama and he is truly a God-send to the magazines, given the dire circumstances. Regardless of your political views, Obama is manna from Heaven for Time and Newsweek. Here is why: he and Michelle are stylish, young, photogenic and even a little bit mysterious. My coworker's 5th grade daughter is an Obamaphile along with her entire class -- she has a stack of news magazines featuring Obama on the cover. How can there be such a blatantly "lookist" phenomenon and what might be the implications?

15 years ago, Lady Diana was the talk of the town. Magazine publishers the world over knew that they could boost sales a lot by putting her face on their covers. Magazines like US and PEOPLE could do it unashamedly -- give the people what they want. The tabloids rejoiced, there was no limit to Di-namic media profits. But serious news magazines had a bigger quandary -- how do we work Lady Di into a legitimate news cover story? There were a few things -- her divorce, work with AIDS and land mines and of course her tragic death. News organizations had to "pump it up" to justify much beyond the headline-quality material. Pump they did, because a Diana cover could sell twice as many magazines in one week.

Now come Barack and Michelle. They are probably the first truly attractive, vibrant, chic couple since the Kennedys 46 years ago. (With all due respect to the Clintons, Reagans and others). Not only do they sell magazines, they're the First Couple of the Free World -- Time and Newsweek can pretty easily justify a cover every other week. This brings me to other knotty questions about the obligation of news outlets in a capitalistic system of news-selling. The top tabloid subjects this week are as follows:

* John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston
* Justin Timberlake
* Britney Spears
* Zac Efron
* Tiger Woods
* Angelina Jolie
* Rhianna
* Octuplets Mom
* Academy Awards
* Oprah Love Triangle (alleged)

These are the topics that engage Americans standing in line at Krogers -- hardly material for Meet the Press. I remember being disappointed that PEOPLE shifted to a tabloid style @ 10 years ago. Then, I realized that they actually had stories about heroism, coping and politics toward the back of the magazine. The truth was "out there" -- it just wasn't glamorous or superficial enough to rate a front page appearance. I've noticed very much the same "lowest common denominator" at work in TV and movies -- see my blog, Television for Dummies.

If you like to read WSJ, UTNE Reader, obscure blogs or Newsweek, you are in the minority in so many ways. Not only are you NOT reading the most popular weekly, you are probably demanding a higher quality of analysis, reporting, news-worthiness and even for that matter, grammar. I have no major, Earth-shaking conclusions here except that true news may end up in the domain of non-profits (think PBS, NPR, church, AARP and charity-affiliated magazines).

The all-mighty dollar is less mighty when it turns America into drooling, tabloid sex junkies that care more about J-Lo's cleavage than they do about the credit crisis. It's a free country, so maybe J-Lo's cleavage should get all the air time that the dollar bill requests. Considering the sad state of our economy, J-Lo is probably helping the economic stimulus. But less exciting things like Citibank nationalization should still find a forum in some medium that doesn't have to tart itself up for space at a Kroger's news stand. In my idealistic mind, I think that such a place must exist -- let's please create it if it's not there already.

© 2009 blogSpotter

A Different Kind of Car Company

What happened? -- Picture courtesy of GM

by blogSpotter
In the new age of Obama, General Motors is valiantly fighting off bankruptcy -- trying to become solvent and relevant once more. Their new focus for 2009 is to:

o Improve quality & fuel economy
o Fight imports
o Forge a better relationship with Unions

Amazing, these goals, because they precisely match the 1982 goals which were stated for the then-nascent Saturn Division of GM.

In seeking to be "a different kind of car company", GM's CEO Roger Smith funneled $5 billion into Saturn. A new type of manager-union-dealer consortium was created for cooperation and communication all across the board. The trial ground was the Spring Hill, Tennessee plant and the changes were far-reaching -- probably helps to explain why Saturn took every bit of 8 years, from early 1982 concept to a 1990 reality with cars in show rooms.

The 1991 Saturn was greeted with great fanfare. It made the cover of TIME magazine as an American comeback story, and it won the hearts of quite a few Toyota and Honda fans. But all was not well in the land of Saturnalia -- sales (originally forecast at 500,000 units) peaked in 1994 at only 286,000 units. The Go-Go 90's became dominated by SUV's and Saturn lost out in that transition. The promised quality never quite materialized; Saturn is still behind Pontiac (an "old school" company) in car quality rankings.

Saturn became the source of satire as a "car cult" where the purchasers form a sort of bizarre clique -- the cult aspect was played up on an episode of the Ellen show. The product, until very recently, featured mostly bland, boxy cars -- in fact the "revolutionary" 1991 model showed a non-revolutionary resemblance to a 1983 Buick Skyhawk. Another curse, almost impossible to overcome, is that Saturn became branded as a "chick" vehicle -- something primarily appealing to women (who sexistly are considered to be unsophisticated in picking out cars).

So, whither the Saturn in 2009? Saturn has become more conventional now, with a smattering of SUV's and car models based on the German Opel Division. What of the heralded manager-union consortium? Well, it turns out that neither managers nor unions really liked it -- it made strange and uncomfortable bed fellows. In light of the 2008-2009 financial melt down and $4 gas prices, one has to ask if there might be motivation to try it all again.

My own crystal ball says that Chevrolet will be the small car division for any future experimentation -- no more consortiums. Saturn was an idealistic attempt to change "what is" with "what can never be". Let's hope that 2009 is a more practical, practiced approach -- let's replace "what is" with "what should and can be".

© 2009 blogSpotter

Cinema '77

Star Wars gave us the force -- Picture courtesy of 20th Century Fox

by blogSpotter
Let's get in the Wayback Machine and travel back to 1977. To those of us old enough to remember, it was an exciting time in many ways. I'd like to focus on the popular culture of that year, but first let's look generally at '77, the year that was:

• Apple Computer Inc. was incorporated; Tandy Corporation introduced the TRS-80 Model 1 computer
• Scientists identified the obscure bacteria causing Legionnaire's disease
• Jimmy Carter became our 39th president
• Roots was a huge hit on ABC
• James Dobson founded Focus on the Family; gays protested Anita Bryant's anti-gay rhetoric in San Francisco
• The punk band The Clash, debuted with The Clash. The Sex Pistols gave us Never Mind the Bollocks ...
• Star Wars became the highest grossing film of that time
• David Bowie released Heroes

1977 was a year of technological and political foment -- a cultural squall of oceanic proportions if ever one occurred. ’77 put us on the threshold of personal computing. Dobson and Bryant were harbingers of the approaching “culture wars” which we still are fighting in 2009. Punk Rock (never my personal preference) provided a schizo alternative to disco and Top 40 music. But to cinema junkies like me, 1977 stands out most of all because of the outstanding movies it gave to us. If movies are a reflection of the era, ’77 was momentous. In any typical year we are blessed if we have a couple of great movies, much less movie milestones. ’77 gave us six milestones:

Star Wars – Lucas’ panoramic sci-fi allegory innovated amazingly realistic special effects, and his “Force” fired the imaginations of generations to come. It basically created an industry and cultural subtext which is still alive and well today. Anyone should be so lucky to create another Star Wars (even Lucas himself).

The Goodbye Girl – Neil Simon’s screenplay about a recently dumped mother sharing her New York sublet with a barely employed actor is Simon’s very best work. It’s touching and hilarious – in 32 years it has aged nary a day. Goodbye set a casual tone and approach (much like Annie Hall) which greatly influenced future movie making.

Annie Hall – Arguably Woody Allen’s “magnum opus”, this movie brought a brazen and probably overdue reality and sensibility to interpersonal relationships. The movie made piercing fun of hypocrisy and bullshit in general. It had the most fun of all with its lead characters who weren’t afraid to look silly at all. They were about finding and being who they are.

Saturday Night Fever – This disco dancing epic is not in the league of the others, but stands 30 feet high as a paean to the 70’s, the fashions, the John Travolta-ness of it all. The Bee Gees music puts it right over the top and makes it infinitely fun to watch.

Looking For Mr. Goodbar – This movie broke ground in dealing with sexual addiction and the severely dysfunctional life of a woman wrestling her private demons. This movie dealt frankly with topics which had previously existed below the radar in general society. It shined a klieg light where none had shown and made us more aware of ourselves.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind – This movie is already covered at length in a previous blog of mine. Encounters gave us an altogether different view of alien life forms and how they might affect us. Like Lucas in Star Wars, Spielberg gave us monumental technical achievements and a haunting alien melody that still catches our attention 30 years later.

So what was 1977? It was a wonderful convergence where some of the best writers and directors were at the top of their games – some fresh-faced newcomers and others more seasoned. Years like ’77 are very few and far between. The next time you come across one of these on TBS, make some popcorn and enjoy a cinematic blast from 3 decades past.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Bring Back Glass-Steagall

The Federal Reserve HDQ -- needs to be a Glass house -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Barack Obama and our Democratic congress are doing a great deal toward pushing an economic stimulus package. This is a good move -- a tried-and-true Keynesian tonic (called "pump-priming") used in the 1930's. Some people are under the wrong impression that it took the logistical wheels of WWII to get us out of the Depression; noted economist Paul Krugman points out that the Roosevelt programs such as WPA were slow to give stimulus but were finally doing their magic by the end of the 1930's. Government has to step in as the consumer, if no one else will.

What I would now find appalling (given our new Depression) is granting $800 billion to known thieves (basically) while making no requirement toward a change in behavior. Giving AIG or Wells Fargo a bail-out with no behavioral therapy attached would be like giving paraldehyde and a sermonette to a bad alcoholic. The behaviors we witnessed in the last nine years border on criminal (and sometimes as in the Madoff, case cross that line handily). We CANNOT give the henhouse back over to the foxes that already raided it once – it would compound the theft and financial vandalism already committed. My own thought is that we should bring back the 1933 Glass-Steagall (GS) act in some form or fashion.

What is the GS Act? It’s depression era legislation enacted by two Congressional Democrats at the most desperate low-point of 1933. The main accomplishment of GS was to separate commercial banking from investment banking, yielding two great advantages: (1) Preventing conflicts of interest that accompany a single entity that both lends and uses credit. And (2) Encouraging safe and conservative investment policies for Depository institutions whose primary purpose is to preserve the value of customers’ deposits. It should be noted that other countries adopted this same financial firewall from our example (most notably China), and reap the benefits even now.

Unfortunately, in the Internet Boom of the Go-Go 90’s, the Congressional Democrats allowed Republican free market proselytizers to talk them into going along with a repeal. The arguments were along these lines: "We’re losing market share to foreign companies that don’t have the restriction.” (We by the way refers to rich people, not you or me -- the money market investor). "Conflicts of interest could be managed by making the commercial and investment arms of the same company be separate subsidiaries" (And that helps how?). It’s now thought that repeal of GS led to our current bad situation. It’s to the everlasting shame of gung-ho Clinton Democrats that they went along with Phil Gramm on the repeal of such an important system safe-guard.

With all that is being spent, and all the gnashing of our teeth, it would be great to see that we’ve been restored to a nation of of laws. People are only human and the greed motive is ever-present – we need to structure our institutions so that peoples' greedy natures are met with other peoples' common sense and desire for self-preservation.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Hulu Meets Apple TV

Our options have multiplied -- Picture courtesy of hulu.com

by blogSpotter
Today's blog is 3-pronged -- it covers a technical conquest, a kudos to the entertainment industry (for its latest tech developments) and a comment on the dire situation of “old media”.

ANOTHER MOUNTAIN CLIMBED
I bought my Apple TV set top device in 2007. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed renting iTunes movies from it, in all their high-def glory. But through much of the time I've used it, Apple TV has come across like a C student -- not living up to its potential. In the intervening 2 years, the industrious folks at www.awkardtv.org have added a host of new services that can be installed with a USB “patch stick”. These include hulu.com, joost.com, XBMC, Boxee, nito TV, SHOUTCast and even a “couch surfer” web browser. Last week, I created the USB stick and did the install with relative ease. I’ve now been enjoying the many kitsch offerings which brings me to …

HULU.COM
NBC and Universal studios have set aside a number of TV series and movies that can be streamed for free viewing -- the only price is short, infrequent commercial breaks. The TV offerings are a fantastic mix from every TV decade: Dragnet, Adam 12, Partridge Family, ALF, 30 Rock and many, many others. I’ve also viewed the 1988 Cher movie Moonstruck and yesterday wasted two hours watching shows from Who’s The Boss?, Season One. Who says I have nothing to do? Hulu is offered under the framework of Boxee, which also offers fantastic internet radio stations. These sound great on my home stereo -- a satellite broadcaster would charge $30/month for this service -- SHOUTCast gives it to you for free. That is now my segue over to…

OLD MEDIA, DOWN FOR THE COUNT
Here are but some of the businesses and organizations being hit by the new digital download glut…
o CD/Record stores (mostly gone already)
o Book Stores
o Video Rental Outlets
o Libraries
o Newspapers and magazines
o Network television

Some of the above are all but gone now. Others that were struggling have been belly punched by the new recession. Virtually all my news magazines have become thin with less ad space. I sincerely hope that all these enterprises find a way to profit in the Internet Economy. Artists, authors and journalists should be compensated for their work no matter the venue -- some industry analysts have suggested that the Internet Economy simply takes out the middle man. Maybe so, but Old Media help us along in different ways. They separate the wheat from the chaff, as well as offer media in appealing, discrete, quality, virus-free packages.

IN SUM
Let us hope that the 21st century can give artists and actors a fair shake for their work, while letting us geeks enjoy the instant gratification of streaming media and instant downloads. Speaking of which, please give hulu.com a look-see if you haven’t ready -- all you need is an internet-connected PC.

© 2009 blogSpotter

State of the Blog Address

My fellow Americans ... -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
In January 2007, I had a special blog article touting Strange Fascination's 2nd anniversary. SF just turned 4, and I feel the need to honor the occasion but more as a formality than a celebration this time around.

LESS FLIM FLAM
For a while, I sent out a "latest blog" email to a list of friends and associates to get an audience. What I noticed is that people would respond as friends, only because I sent a tickler -- they didn't really care to check back for the content alone. Getting past hurt feelings, I have to admit that my blog tends toward nerdy, iconoclastic (and porn-deficient) topics. I still would prefer to draw readers based on content. I've suspended the reminder notes, except for once in a very blue moon. "Ain't to proud to beg", as the song says but when begging doesn't work it's time to give it a rest.

DEAD WOOD
When I wrote two years ago, I was all enthused with creating an on-line ezine -- one with syndicated content, that would draw people far and wide. But there are and were several problems with that idea. A lot of syndicators saddle you with site-cluttering advertisements in exchange for the free content. Many of the Amazine articles were infomercials in disguise. Another site that gave me free web hosting changed its business model without telling me, and the links all went dead. This leads me to a 3rd topic ...

WORK , WORK and MORE WORK
To do justice to a web site, you really need to monitor it constantly. I see how ‘real’ publications need an entire staff. Here but some of the things to gobble up your time: article content, artwork, advertising, promotion, legal/copyright issues, fact checking and even marketing research. (Each Google ad is assigned a channel and these need to be compared if time allows). At one time I was manically writing 3 blogs and finally became aware of the impossibility of that.

CONTENT
On this blog, I’ve hacked away much of the dead wood, and am considering even more of a spare look (less ad space, more blog). My topics have become more mundane in the last couple of years. I actually like off-beat, weird stuff but nobody else does – that leaves me with a lot more of politics, movie reviews and technical articles. For those with an artsy bent, a poetry link has been added. Maybe the muse of weirdness has left me but I think it’s more a response to the responses I’ve gotten. I love science and philosophy but maybe those topics just find a more receptive audience at a Mensa meeting or a UU Sunday discussion.

I’ve had a couple of long stretches with writer’s block, but my imagination usually finds its way back. All of that said, stay tuned if you’re already here, looking. I might surprise you with something, who knows.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Cloud Nine Computing

HP Mini -- good things come in small packages -- Picture by blogSpotter

by blogSpotter
Today I’d like to talk about my favorite new thing, netbooks. What is a netbook? It’s a new class of small laptop computer that loosely fits this criteria:

• 7-11 inch screen
• 2-3 pounds
• cost below $400
• small (or missing) hard disk drive
• Windows XP or Ubuntu Linux OS
• Intel Atom processor

The term “netbook” has been around awhile – Psion tried (but failed) to use the term as a trademark 15 years ago for it’s clamshell PDA’s. Oracle’s Larry Ellison bandied the concept of a “network desktop” computer back in the mid-90’s but it didn’t fly then – just turns out he was 10 years too soon with the concept. Also in the mid-90s, Microsoft licensees launched a whole line of Windows CE devices (HP Jupiter, e.g.) but they were seen as inferior, hobbled Widows-Lite machines. Apple’s MacBook Air (introduced January 2008) is netbookish in concept (paper thin, no CD-DVR drive), but its $1800 asking price is a serious transgression of the netbook criteria. Also at 13”, the screen size puts it a little outside of the category.

The genuine netbook made its quiet debut with the ASUS Eee PC in 2007. There was marked interest in it and it was soon joined by Acer Aspire, HP Mini, Dell Inspiron and several others. With the economic meltdown of late, netbooks provide capable albeit low-end PCs for a very affordable price. They also fill a niche above the smart phone strata for those who want full screen, non-hobbled windows in a very portable package.

All of this is well and good but one might ask, “How do you get away with such a small drive?”. The answer lies in a new concept called cloud computing.

CLOUD COMPUTING

I won’t go into great detail about this, except to say that cloud computing is the concept of keeping all your data (and increasingly your apps) on remote web servers. Your netbook drive (in theory) just needs to be large enough to hold your OS plus a few basic configuration files. I have a new HP Mini with a 16GB solid state drive. That happens to cover my needs right now; I’ll tell you why I’m not enamored of cloud computing. Imagine if your gonads were detachable. Would you feel good about putting them in someone else’s lockbox? Here are two over-arching concerns about cloud computing…

1) Network data can always be hacked – Do you really feel OK about putting financial or health records on a public server? As a software developer, I’ve never seen a database or file that can’t be hacked by somebody with inside knowledge. Never.

2) Servers go down – Do you want do-or-die software under someone else’s custody? My AT&T email is frequently on the blink. I have nary a company web site that doesn’t come down for maintenance and other issues periodically. I’d like my bread-and-butter apps to be always at the ready, along with my data.

So where does that leave me? It leaves me with a really cool, lightweight HP Mini that does everything I need, without putting the gonads where they don’t belong. Please pardon that tasteless mixed metaphor, and the next time you go to Best Buy or Frye’s – check out the netbooks.

© 2009 blogSpotter