01 September 2002
Dan Bricklin has some pictures of the collection at the Computer History Museum at Moffett Field in Silicon Valley. They're a great crowd; I've talked to them a few times and have been intending to do a story on them when I'm out in Calif. but somehow the timing has never worked out. I love looking at this kind of stuff, especially when, as Bricklin points out, it's not overly-curated and cleaned up. By the way it's worth subscribing to their mailing list if you are in the Bay Area or travel out there regularly -- they get some excellent lecturers in and the questions from the crowd are always about the most intelligent you'll ever hear anywhere. And you can often spot a few of computing's pioneers in the audience as well.
5:23:35 PM  #   your two cents []
USA Today: I remember when the paper launched, and there was much questioning in the US about whether a national paper could draw a readership and survive. While most (all other?) nations have at least one national daily, many argued the US was too big, too varied in its regions and populations, to want something national. Clearly there is indeed a market -- and a domestic one at that, as opposed to the Americans-abroad market the Intn'l Herald Tribune goes for -- though the sacrifice to a broad market is a bland if perky and easy writing style and sweeping rather than detailed stories. I find the paper's style annoying in the extreme myself and wonder why the writing can't be less dumbed-down and more intelligent and stylish (as opposed to stylised).   <<McJournalism Triumphant: 'USA Today' Turns 20. Plastic::Media::Print Media: "USA Today, the self-declared 'Nation's Newspaper,' turns 20 years old on September 15th. With 2.2 million readers, it has the largest circulation of any daily newspaper. " [Plastic]>>
3:41:45 PM  #   your two cents []
From Privacy Digest: Gartner - Customers Are the Final Judges of Privacy Violations. <<Web ad firm DoubleClick settled an investigation by U.S. state attorneys and agreed to certain privacy practices. Companies should heed customer perceptions -- not just legal definitions -- in their marketing efforts>>
3:27:43 PM  #   your two cents []