Sunday, January 30, 2005

Sunday Information Overload Inspired by SKB's Friday Bird Blogging, maybe I can be disciplined enough to have a regular weekly posting under this heading for things I don't have time to read or write about in detail... most of which, of course, I will succumb to temptation and read in the process of posting the links. Oh well, there goes the afternoon... The New Republic magazine, for instance, has a profile of Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen that I wouldn't have seen if not for catching up with SKB's non-bird output of the past week. (The full text is in the printed magazine, but SKB has  a summary and discussion.) J has discovered that some of her favorite radio shows are being podcast. The Washington Post surveys some of the ways that people try to make money with blogs. (Thanks to Steve for the pointer.) John Perry Barlow is just a magnet for cutting-edge social technology and beautiful women; in this case, the technology is Skype, the Internet phone service that I've heard a lot about on podcasts. Having worked for a boating magazine after covering higher education as a beat for a major newspaper, I found a good dose of deja vu in this week's MetroPulse, with its cover story about the big boat builder in town and an inside story about the University of Tennessee president's plans and state budget politics. Speaking of the local "alternative newsweekly," while reading about a recent staff departure there I decided to check the paper's profile at the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and stumbled upon this article about its ownership changing hands a couple of years ago. I'm still new here; my local media education continues. GovTrack.us sounds like a good resource for political reporters, issue-watchers or others. It works as a search engine, but also delivers word on legislative votes by e-mail or RSS feed, according to the New York Times. Subtitled "Knowledge about government is power," GovTrack also has a blog about its latest developments. Sample: I searched for "Tennessee" and discovered a Georgia legislator's proposed study for a new interstate to Knoxville. Finally, it was nice to see the Times tech section reporting on something I've been recommending to students for more than a year -- using a camera's old SmartMedia cards and a small card reader as a computer file storage device. Mine isn't as slick as the new product reported there, but it works. 4:00:25 PM    comment []

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