The New Vernacular » 2005

Friday, July 29th, 2005 at 9:34 am | In Politics | 5 Comments

I turned on C-SPAN (yeah, that C-SPAN) this morning while eating breakfast and caught a bit of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R) speech to the Senate on his new stance stem stell research.

From the NY Times:

In a break with President Bush, the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, has decided to support a bill to expand federal financing for embryonic stem cell research, a move that could push it closer to passage and force a confrontation with the White House, which is threatening to veto the measure.
Mr. Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon who said last month that he did not back expanding financing “at this juncture,” is expected to announce his decision Friday morning in a lengthy Senate speech. In it, he says that while he has reservations about altering Mr. Bush’s four-year-old policy, which placed strict limits on taxpayer financing for the work, he supports the bill nonetheless.

“While human embryonic stem cell research is still at a very early stage, the limitations put in place in 2001 will, over time, slow our ability to bring potential new treatments for certain diseases,” Mr. Frist says, according to a text of the speech provided by his office Thursday evening. “Therefore, I believe the president’s policy should be modified.”

Wow, maybe common sense and, dare I say, ethics beyond strict, almost-fanatical, positions do sometimes come out in national politics.

Wednesday, July 27th, 2005 at 3:04 pm | In Media, Politics | 1 Comment

Steven Johnson, the author of “Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter” writes an open letter in the LA Times to Senator Hillary Clinton who is suggesting $90 million investigation into the effects of video games on children in the wake of hack to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that unlocks a sexually explicit mini-game.

While Rockstar Games, the company that produces GTA, was stupid to include the mini-game (even if locked) within the final version, most people are overlooking the fact that anyone playing the game has to download an outside program to unlock the mini-game (not something one could accidentally stumble upon).

In his letter, Johnson focuses on the benefits of today’s complex video games:

The great secret of today’s video games that has been lost in the moral panic over “Grand Theft Auto” is how difficult the games have become. That difficulty is not merely a question of hand-eye coordination; most of today’s games force kids to learn complex rule systems, master challenging new interfaces, follow dozens of shifting variables in real time and prioritize between multiple objectives.

In short, precisely the sorts of skills that they’re going to need in the digital workplace of tomorrow.

Johnson also cites several studies that show violent actions among adolescents has gone down since 1975.

Having read his book, I don’t agree with all of Johnson’s conclusions, but he makes some good points on the topic of video games. Not all games are bad, especially in comparison to the other activities that they often replace.

Basically, parents need to monitor what their children play and ensure that they only sit in front of a screen in moderation. Video games can’t hold a candle to a good game of kick the can.

Bonus: Steven Johnson has a great blog too

Friday, July 22nd, 2005 at 10:08 am | In Technology | 11 Comments

Once in a while, when I’m talking to family or friends about my blog or blogs in general, I get a few common questions that are difficult to answer without access to a computer. For the sake of convenience, I’ll to answer some of them here (with links).

What blogs do you subscribe to?

A list is provided at the bottom of this post.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for “Real Simple Syndication” and is a way for the information from blogs to be exported in a format that can be read by applications called RSS readers. Most look similar to an e-mail program and allow users to read blog entries without having to go to each blog Web site individually. Recently, RSS has grown beyond the realm of blogs and has come to include comics, weather reports, sports recaps, headlines and pretty much everything under the sun.

Wikipedia article on RSS

About.com article on RSS feeds

Does The New Vernacular have an RSS feed?

Yes

What RSS reader (aka news aggregator) do you use?

There are two kinds of RSS readers, downloadable applications that run as a program on your computer and act similarly to e-mail programs like Outlook, and online applications that work more like online e-mail accounts like hotmail or gmail.

The reader that I use is Bloglines, an online application that allows you to access your feeds no matter what computer you are on. Bloglines is easy to use, has a clean interface and gives recommendations of new blogs you may like based on your current subscriptions.

Wikipedia article on News Aggregators

Blogs and RSS feeds I subscribe to (by category):

U.S. Politics

WI Politics

Tech

News

Fun Stuff

Comics

Get Fuzzy

Sports

Media

Celebrity Blogs

Zach Braff’s Garden State Blog

TV

Links

Culture

History

Odd Wisconsin

Movies

Ain’t It Cool News

Friday, July 22nd, 2005 at 9:56 am | In Design, Other | 2 Comments

I haven’t been posting much lately, mostly because I’ve actually been busy. But not today. Here’s some of the stuff I’ve been working on at the Wisconsin Historical Society:

What are you waiting for? Go learn something already.

Friday, July 15th, 2005 at 2:09 pm | In Media, Politics | 1 Comment

A casual-friday masterpiece from Rocketboom

From the July 13th White House Press Briefing

MR. McCLELLAN (speaking about the Karl Rove investigation): I think we’ve exhausted discussion on this the last couple of days.

Q You haven’t even scratched the surface.

Q It hasn’t started.

Full Transcript

And just in case anyone reading this is thinking that I believe Karl Rove should immediately be fired or removed from his position in the Administration, I don’t. From what I’ve been reading, it seems like Rove acted in bad faith on partisan lines to punish Wilson for his comments on the Iraq War, but didn’t necessarily commit a crime or do anything that would warrent dismissal.

To paraphrase McClellan: this is an ongoing investigation. I’ll comment on it when the time is appropriate. And when I feel like writing more. I mean, come on, it’s a sunny 80 degreees outside on a Friday afternoon.

Wednesday, July 13th, 2005 at 3:13 pm | In Media, Entertainment | 5 Comments

My roommates and I were watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Monday when the fake news show debuted it’s new set design. We all agreed that the new layout, while a bit more “newsy”, is also pretty damn ugly.

Although I missed last nights show, I just caught a clip of the beginning and noticed that J-Stew himself acknowledged that many people have a negative opinion of the new set.

People are talking about the new set, and they don’t like it… some people don’t like it, and others don’t like it very much

Dana Stevens, TV critic for Slate.com, shares her opinions of the new set

The rest of the clip is about the Karl Rove’s role in the Plame controversy. I recommend watching the whole thing, because Senior Journalistologist Stephen Colbert has some in-depth analysis of the ramifications of Rove’s involvement.

Bonus: Watch White House Press Secretary get browbeaten by the White House press corps for not answering any questions about Rove’s involvement or the investigation

Video from crooksandliars.com

Thursday, July 7th, 2005 at 7:22 pm | In Media, Politics | 4 Comments

Wow, it sure didn’t take people long to try to take advantage of the tragic bombings in London this morning.

I visited Fresh Politics (a blog edited by Penn sophomore and fellow Nicolet-alum Taylor Buley) this afternoon and found an ad for the book “The Personal Security Handbook”.

The description of the book on Amazon.com begins:

“The duct-tape-and-plastic-sheeting mania of early 2003 shows that most Americans need clear-headed information about how to stay safe in the post-9/11 world. This book is a practical resource in that effort.”

The book itself seems fairly harmless. Buy it, don’t buy it, whatever. But the headline for the ad read “Bombs in London - Storms in the Gulf”. Not even 24 hours have passed since the bombings in London and already someone is trying to play upon our fears to sell a book. Pretty shady if you ask me.

It seems as though it’s a handbook in how to deal with the fear created after 9/11 by the exaggeration of threats in the government (the Bush administration - remember WMD’s?) and the media (Fox News ALERTS for Michael Jackson being seen in a Toys ‘R Us).

Frankly, even with today’s attacks in London, I’m really no more afraid for my life than I was four years ago. And I definitely don’t need a guide book to tell me how to stay safe.

“The Personal Security Handbook” is Silver Lake publishing, which also published Taylor’s blog-related book, The Fresh Politics Reader: Making Current Events And Public Affairs Relevant to Young Americans.

Thursday, July 7th, 2005 at 10:50 am | In Media, Politics | 3 Comments

Following the incarceration of Judith Miller for refusing to reveal her source, the Hartford Courant has come up with reasons (other than the obvious) that reporters shouldn’t be thrown in jail.

Here are just a few of the reasons why it’s not a good idea to be sending reporters to the Big House:

Order: Reporters would not set a good example when it comes to following directions. You can’t just tell them what to do.

To get a reporter to do anything, a guard would have to: ask nicely; explain the order in detail; debate at length whether the reporter has a better approach; and then begin the process anew after the reporter failed to do what had been agreed upon.

Accommodations: In general, reporters are not the type of people to become overly concerned with things like clutter, organization, sanitation or the possibility of an epidemic. Confining a reporter to an 8-by-10 cell is the equivalent of institutionalizing a landfill.

Language: Prisoners may curse and swear, but they are amateurs compared to seasoned reporters.

After associating with reporters for any period of time, the average inmate would be so negatively influenced that he would be virtually unemployable upon release (except at a newspaper).

Attire: The prison dress code would be compromised to such an extent that the orange jump suit, the muscle T-shirts and the do rag would seem like high fashion when faced with a newsroom style that features khaki, knockoffs, comfortable sizing and a lack of commitment to the iron.

Original Courant article

Friday, July 1st, 2005 at 11:54 am | In Wisconsin, Entertainment | 3 Comments

All this week, Zach Braff has been in town shooting his new movie, The Last Kiss, with Rachel Bilson here in Madison. Part of the movie is set in Madison and they’ve been shooting on Bascom Hill, the Union and up by the Capitol. I wish I had known about it sooner so I could’ve been an extra. I’ve got no idea whether the film will be any good or not, but I’ll recognize all the locations, so I’m sure I’ll go see it.