superpixel’s blog

Look, the #1 thing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants is for the US, UK and Israel to come out and say "fight for freedom in Iran!" That would be absolutely proof of his baseless accusations (that this is all a plot by our governements -- as if we could muster such solidarity from this far away in some orchestrated attack). It would be validation of his cause: the destruction and resurrection (as a Muslim theocracy) of the West.

Next time you wish to communicate complicated economic information, use PowerPoint. Our nation has become a bloated, bleary, cynical shadow of its former self. We are no longer the critical, self-motivated populace whose "can do" attitude got things done in a big way. Instead, we're easily distracted by shiny things and loud noises. Much like a cat on Ritalin, we respond best to loud noises and bright lights.

If you recall the depravity of the worst Roman emperors, you might get close to the vacuous dreamworld those clueless boneheads on Wall St. live in. Seriously, this is a problem that is going to get WORSE before it gets better. Why? Here's a juicy quote from my paper this morning:

Jason Weisberg, vice president of the Wall Street brokerage Seaport Securities, said bank employees count on performance bonuses like salesmen count on commissions.
"What are you supposed to pay them?" Weisberg asked. "Or are you not supposed to pay them? And if you don't pay them, how do you expect that employee to stay employed at that company?"

Well, you're probably NICER... Peter Schiff should get an award for telling us the hard truth: we are spending money we borrowed and we did it too much over the past 10-20 years.

Listening to NPR this morning I hear a lot of debate about a Detroit bailout (loans, whatever). Some things I hear that scare me:

So Jordan Golson rips bloggers a new one for not fact-checking a "real" journalist, and suggesting blogs are the new journalism. I'd like to take a counter-point or three.

1. The last batch of "new" journalists I studied (back in the 90's) included folks like Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and the like. It is widely known that Hunter played with the "real" facts in a way that would make any Mass Comm 101 student blush with shame. And Wolfe didn't rise to prominence by simply quoting his interview subjects and providing a few dry facts... No, the old New Journalists were prone to tell stories. Good for them!

2. Blogs are not, and will never be, a replacement for journalism. Sorry, but it's kind of like saying cable access programming will replace network TV. Sure, you're going to have a few bright spots, but overall? Not so much. Bloggers don't have an editorial staff, and typically don't have the time to dive deep into a story. That's why they publish so much faster, for better or worse. On the flipside, I like to think bloggers are more open to criticism (hence comments on posts) and willing to re-examine the facts when commenters point stuff out.

3. The final argument seems to be that "big" blogs (like TUAW, which I'll talk about in a moment) are becoming more like traditional journalism. Well, maybe but... Blogs aren't a big-budget business. Again, we don't have a large editorial staff or even copy editors. Mistakes happen. Bloggers make personal choices that some people may disagree with. Typically those who disagree are either reporters, used to a certain format for their news, and Type-A OCD grammar Nazi's who perpetually threaten to leave us forever. And then they comment again pointing out a minor grievance. We are so ashamed of ourselves!

Here's the thing, where I work, it's nice to have the ideal of perfection. It's nice to think that I sit in a room every morning with a dozen editors and we hash out the week's stories, we fact-check and we assign stuff. That doesn't happen. It has never happened. It WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

What also doesn't happen:
* I don't, as a rule, tell bloggers what to write. Bloggers are passionate about what they write. They have bias, they have personal preferences, and they have a "voice." Journalism, in contrast, is supposed to be obective, aloof and informational. We serve info with a side of sauce -- I wish people understood this.
* Most of what I do as a manager doesn't have a direct effect on TUAW, it is managerial stuff -- working on tweaks, setting up tools, investigating new tech we can use, etc. The running gag about managers is that they don't have fun. I'll admit that blogging is fun, and once I became a manager I sometimes don't want to blog for the same reason a professional fisherman might not want to eat at Red Lobster. Sometimes you've just seen enough fish, you know?
* There's no way in hell I could do what I do without my awesome lead bloggers. Mike, Dave, Christina (TUAW) and Grant, Brad and Christina (Download Squad) make things happen on the blogs every single day. Jose (Engadget Spanish) and Alberto (Autoblog Spanish) are superheroes to me, and I have no idea how they bring that A-game so consistently after all these years. Those are the frontline soldiers in our battle, along with the bloggers, and every day my teams amaze me with quality content. Is it perfect? No. If I had another full-time person to help with JUST the copy on the page, perhaps we'd be "more perfect" but until then, I barely sleep as it is! This job is a juggling act, and shit happens. People need to chillax (including me).

Ultimately I get really ticked when I see someone say shit like "TUAW has gone to crap since Chartier left" and provide no distinct pattern of a loss of quality. I can say that, if those people knew who my team was, if they knew their qualifications, and if they took the time to really read and participate, they would be a little less finicky. "Blogs" like Ars actually have a bigger full-time staff than TUAW or Download Squad. OF COURSE they are going to have less errors, meatier posts and the ability to turn hot news around faster. Sumbitch, we do what we can but no one on my team can quit their day jobs just to blog full time. And believe me, McNulty tried!

So, forgive us our trespasses and we'll forgive yours. Because blogging is an imperfect medium, just like the people in it. Not even respected newspapers are free from error or beyond reproach. We're all human. Remind yourself it's a blog and reeeelaaaaax. Dude.

This "bailout" isn't padding CEO accounts or buying diamonds for Blofeld. It's is oiling the machine of our markets and if we don't pass it there will be worse consequences than a trillion bucks added to our debt. It SOUNDS like a lot of money, but for what it'll do it might as well be the superconducting-synth-oil from the future...

The only thing Bush may have done right was to put Bernake and Paulsen in place before the shit hit the fan. Bernake did his PhD thesis on what caused the 1929 market crash and the fallout, while Paulsen used to run Goldman-Sachs and knows precisely what all this mess is about-- and the impact.

- A GPS-enabled alarm clock. Legend has it some guy has created one of these using the Bug Labs platform, but wouldn't this be relatively easy on the iPhone? This is for folks who commute via train and wind up falling asleep on the commute, in case you were wondering.