17 November 2002

Bookshelf: Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: Reflections at Sixty and Beyond Larry MvMurty -- In his short retrospective on turning 60, writer Larry McMurtry bemoans the decline of the family mealtime. It took television only one long generation to destroy the family dinner table; where, when, and how someone ate came to be determined by what there was to watch. The order of precedence migrated: who got the best piece of chicken came to be less important than who got to choose which program to watch. Siblings fought more bitterly over program choice than theya ever had over food. Then someone invented the TV dinner -- after which it became rarer and rarer for a whole family to gather round the old kitchen table. "The old bonding power of the family dinner table was lost as the center of the family life gradually shifted from the kitchen to wherever the TV was; female energies shifted too, from the preparation of food and the cleaning up that took place after a meal to just being sure that the freezer was stocked with plenty of frozen pizza. "No sooner had the television set become a common-place in American homes than the parents began to be apprehensive about its effects. 'We never eat together anymore' became a common lament, sounded often by parents who must have sensed that something valuable -- they may not have been quite sure what -- was going away or being lost. As the children grew into teenagers it became rarer and yet more rare to see them in the house at mealtimes; and then the very concept of mealtime began to lose its force. What is mealtime now, in America? It's become a meaningless concept.   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Will Bon Jovi Build Irish Electronic Fan Relationship The band Bon Jovi is taking a novel approach to marketing "Bounce." When fans buy the CD, they will receive a unique serial number that they can then use to register at a Bon Jovi Web site. Members of "American XS," as the program is called, will be notified regularly via e-mail of "Bon Jovi exclusives," and I wo nder if they extend to the band's Irish play date. The new approach represents one of the music industry's biggest efforts to fight piracy by inducing fans to purchase albums in order to get freebie add-ons. "I would like to think this is the beginning of the process where the labels start to think more about the added value," says Jay Berman, head of International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. "The industry's initial reaction to piracy was to fight back. Now the reaction is that we've got to do something positive, and this is the start of it." [Wall Street Journal]   [Comment on Shoptalk]

The Indispensable Internet CNET -- Eighty-six percent of today's college students are hooked up to the Web, and 79% say being online has had a positive influence on their lives overall, according to the latest survey from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Not surprisingly, nearly three out of four college students check their e-mail every day and use the Web for library research. A majority of students report improved relationships with classmates, thanks to the Internet, and nearly half say that using e-mail allows them to voice an idea to a professor that they likely would not have expressed in class. And while the high-speed connections on most college campuses do enable more media downloading, students use the Internet just as frequently for academic purposes, making use of course-related mail lists, e-mail and Web sites. "Today's 18-year-old college freshmen were born the same year as the PC was introduced, and they have grown up with these technologies," says the report's author, Steve Jones. "To them, the Internet and e-mail are as commonplace as telephones and television -- and equally as indispensable. This generation is going to end up making the Internet a major part of their lives as they go into the work force. The folks who are trying to market broadband are missing out if they're not targeting this wired market."   [Comment on Shoptalk]

White Vans: NRO Snapshot DULLES AIRPORT -- You can see one of the perimeter fences for the $300m National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) on one of the side roads to Dulles. During my days in the Pentagon, we used NRO satellite data. Actually, we didn't use their data, since NRO doesn't really exist. I think Eisenhower started the NRO to collect intelligence data. The NRO kicked into high gear when satellites and spy planes started generating miles of images. It's hard to pick out the NRO budget among the trillions of dollars spent by the US government, but it's not hard to find someone from NSA, CIA or USAF who works inside the NRO complex. And the director of the NRO just happens to control the Pentagon's $68bn space budget. In 1998, a Titan 4 rocket exploded shortly after launch from Cape Canaveral, carrying an NRO satellite worth $1bn.   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Bookshelf: Imperial Lives and Letters of the 11th Century Theodor Mommmsen -- This German historian (1817-1903) achieved widespread recognition for his studies of ancient Rome, won the Nobel Prize for literature 100 years ago, one year before he died. Mommsen's famous "History of Rome," written between 1854 and 1885, combined a focus on the political history of the Roman republic with broad concern for aspects of social and cultural life, based on the critical examination of texts, artifacts, and monuments. He also wrote two other major scholarly, one on Roman Constitutional Law and the other on Roman Criminal Law. The Romans had never codified their law, and Mommsen was the first to undertake the task, which he considered an even more significant contribution to scholarship than his History. The son of a Protestant minister, he grew up in Oldesloe, and studied jurisprudence at the University of Kiel; then, after receiving his master's and doctor's degrees, he spent three years in Italy on a research scholarship at the Archaeological Institute in Rome. Here he became a master of epigraphy -- the study and interpretation of inscriptions -- which Mommsen was to make a source work that complemented the traditional literary approach to understanding life in the ancient world. Returning home, Mommsen enjoyed, in turn, professorships at the universities of Leipzig, Zurich and Breslau, where he wrote the first three volumes of his Roman History. Critically examining hitherto unquestioned traditions, he rejected the Enlightenment's idealization of the classical age and used the political and sociological vocabulary of the 19th century to demythologize Roman history. Mommsen had a long and happy marriage with Marie Reimer, a bookseller's daughter, who bore him 16 children. When he died just four weeks short of his 86th birthday, Mommsen had attained mythical status among his contemporaries.   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Rock Journalism Frank Zappa -- "Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read."   [Comment on Shoptalk]

USB On the Go PC WORLD com -- Qualcomm has licensed TransDimension USB-on-the-Go (OTG) technology that will allow peer-to-peer and direct connections between phones and other devices without a personal computer. When OTG is integrated into a handset, users will be able to connect their phones to USB printers, portable keyboards, CD ROM drives, MP3 players, and digital cameras. They also will be able to synchronize cell phone data with handhelds and use their cell phones as modems when attached to a handheld that doesn't have integrated wireless. OTG poses formidable competition to Bluetooth, because USB is prevalent on most devices. [ Infoworld and Newsscan]   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Talk is Cheap, but Not if You're Irish Brian Carey -- Irish Vodafone subscribers, particularly the pre-paid, gab at a rate of up to 100 percent more than Vodafone customers in the UK. That's the conclusion Brian Carey makes, after reviewing Vodafone numbers that show the average Vodafone Ireland customer is paying mobile phone bills that are 20 percent higher than customers in the UK. Pre-paid Ready to Go users bills are 67 percent higher than pre-paid cusomters in the UK. And it's down to the fact that Irish people rabbit on more, not because tariffs are higher.   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Broadband Internet for Irish Schools The Irish Department of Education will commission a report on the feasibility of providing schools with broadband access as part of its blueprint for the future of ICT in Irish education. The department actually is concerned more about cost-per-minute, not speeds of download. The deparment has a fund of €25m for its blueprint for the future of ICT in Irish education programmes for each of the three years from 2001 to 2003.   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Riverdeep and Ireland Inc Wall Street Radio -- David Rocker continues belittling Riverdeep's portfolio estimates. He challenges how Riverdeep can mak a $57m acquisition and claim their goodwill increases by $89m. He smirks at Riverdeep delisting from Nasdaq and points out how the company does not help the image of Ireland Inc in the eyes of the international investment community.   [Comment on Shoptalk]

European Twentysomethings Live at Home ESRC -- Professor Richard Berthoud from the Economic and Social Research Council reports that Irish twentysomethings are likely to remain living at home with their parents far longer than their European counterparts. Only half of Irishmen surveyed had left home by the age of 26, roughly three years later than their British counterparts. Two fiscal realities bear down in Ireland -- it's impossible to find reasonably priced car insurance and real estate costs too much to buy or rent.   [Comment on Shoptalk]

Revolt over Spending Cuts SUNDAY-TIMES co uk -- Emily O'Reilly tops the front page and relates that the Irish government faces a new wave of internal dissent after several backbenchers warned ministers against hijecking scarce public funds to bolster their own popularity. John McGuinness, one of the most outspoken backbenchers, fired the first salvo yesterday, stating that he would defend the spending estimates published last Thursday but expected the burden to be shared right across the government. "I know many colleagues feel the same way, but some feeel they will be penalised if they are seen to be rocking the boat," he said. "I am not going to tolerate any minister hijacking the public purse to look after their constituency at a time when everyone is being asked to accept the spending cuts." The Carlow-Kilkenny backbencher said he would not be treated like a second-class TD. "I was elected like everyone else in the Dail and I am predicting there will be uproar in the party if every minister does not pull their own weight and ensure a fair distribution of the available resources," he said. FP   [Comment on Shoptalk]

You Have the Poor Always with You David McWilliams -- Historians are fascinated by the reasons for the 4th century transition from classic patronage (where the rich citizens looked after the poor ones in the name of the Republic) to the much more inclusive charitable activities of the Christians. Economics may well help explain this. The new rhetoric about the poor came from the likes of Saint Augustine and Saint John who came from North Africa and Syria, places characterised by massive economic booms in the fourth and fifth centuries. Just as the Dickensian obsession with the poor in Victorian England spawned the Salvation Army and the like, a degree of "relative poverty" -- rich and a significant poor living side by side -- is needed to kick-start discussion on the poor. x: 261   [Comment on Shoptalk]

First Time Irish Home Buyers Hit KILEKENNY, Ireland -- The Irish government has eliminated money paid to first time home buyers. But that hasn't resulted in decreases to the selling prices. In Dublin, most estate agents claim the market is robust, with prices going up around 20 percent this year. Around 40 percent of the price of a house goes back to the government through PAYE, PRSI, Corporation Tax and VAT. Agents estimate that about half of all first time buyers currently receive parental assistance. Scrapping the first time buyers' grant alienates a significant proportion of the population that aspires to ownership. Although most new owners may still find the funds for a purchase, they will lose € that would go into fitting out the house. In the case of an Irish home, that means some rooms will go unfinished for several years, perhaps until the next Irish general election in five years' time.   [Comment on Shoptalk]