Friday, September 16, 2005

Dan Gillmor is now writing a column for Ziff Davis -- here's his first effort for CIO Insight. As usual, Dan is not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom. "Why are companies keeping our data at all? Wouldn't they -- and we -- be better off in the long run if data wasn't collected and stored in the first place?" Good to have him on board. 8:23:07 PM   permalink   comment []

I am not a big consumer of wings. The return on investment for all that gnawing is usually pretty low and the sauce is too often either ketchup with a mild kick or pure Texas Pete. But today I went to Minj. I got the wings because that's the speciality of the house and you gotta give the house a chance. Best. Wings. Ever. Big wings. Great sauce. Cool place, too, although I got takeout because Luna was with me. There was a segment on the 2 Guys Named Chris show this morning about messy eaters being better lovers. These wings will make you into Casanova. Minj Grille, 310 S. Elm St, 273 5393. 2:06:06 PM   permalink   comment []

Chris Roush has some thoughts about the Wall Street Journal's new Saturday edition, which debuts tomorrow. I'm dreading it. I love my WSJ but this feels like it could be homework on the weekend. Or maybe more consumer porn like the stuff they dole out in section four on Fridays. I'm kind of compulsive about reading the newspapers that show up in my driveway, but this one is going to have to win me over. Glad to see this smart biz journalism blog coming out of the UNC j-school. We're quite happy to have Phil Meyer on the dais at the Converge journalism conference -- maybe he and Chris can convince some other UNC folks to come... 12:24:01 PM   permalink   comment []

Thanks for the many kind comments and emails on my column about remembering my friends and the others who died on 9/11. Some of you have told me that it took courage to write it -- but the fact is, I'm a clueless man when it comes to emotions. My wife can tell you her exact emotional temperature at any time of the day. Me, I've got to publish a damn newspaper column to figure out how sad I am. Cheaper than therapy, I guess. 9:00:45 AM   permalink   comment []

More on the firing of Daily Tar Heel columnist Jill Bandes. Update: In Romenesko's letters, an NCSU alum asks with barely concealed glee where the editor was on this one. Good question. (letter of 9/16/2005, 11:35:21 AM; still no permalinks on the Romenesko letters page...) Update: Jim Romenesko emails to say there is a permalink function for letters, even if there is no simple click-thru to permalinks on the letters page...you search the Poynter site for the relevant letter and link to the search result. 8:21:29 AM   permalink   comment []

AnonyMoses says Bush was channeling Andy Griffith last night. 7:46:38 AM   permalink   comment []

Reading Friedman for Greensboro: Today, the columnist formerly found on our op-ed pages once again sings the praises of Singapore. I'm sure he has a point about the efficiencies of the city-state, but for my money he could spend a bit more time noting the regimentation and government control that makes it sound like a fairly stressful and unfree place to live. Anyway. Friedman's big thought is about a teaching program called HeyMath, which aims to combine the best of Singaporean math-teaching methods with zippy style and could thus save America from its headlong plunge into innumerate scientific backwardness. "HeyMath's mission is to be the math Google - to establish a Web-based platform that enables every student and teacher to learn from the 'best teacher in the world' for every math concept and to also be able to benchmark themselves against their peers globally." Huh. What if we just had the best teachers in the world for our kids? Sometimes Friedman gets a little drunk on the wonders of the web. 7:42:35 AM   permalink   comment []

I enjoyed speaking to the Greensboro Bar Association last night, and although they didn't seem to think my opening joke ("I've been asked to talk for 30 minutes, or as y'all say, 'a billable hour'") was as funny as I did, it seemed to go pretty well. Lots of smart, well-informed folks in that room for whom the blogosphere is still terra incognita -- a reminder that we are at the very beginning of this new media thing. 6:37:46 AM   permalink   comment []

N&R will require registration for comments at its Letters to the Editor blog. I wish they could get people to understand that just because you can comment, you don't have to comment. If you post pretty much the same thing under several letters each day...we get it already. Liberals are bad, conservatives are bad, Bush is bad, Clinton was bad, guvment is bad...Please. Enough. I have less trouble wading through snark and profanity than I do with the reduncancy and rote positions that make the vox populi so dull over there. 6:26:23 AM   permalink   comment []

Josh Marshall on Bush's NOLA speech: "(E)very actual fact that's surfaced in the last two weeks points to just the opposite conclusion." He also wants to know why Bush's political man, Rove, is running the show down there. 6:20:15 AM   permalink   comment []

"Why on earth would a local elected official or other persons involved in the local political scene want to get involved in blogging?" At the ConvergeSouth blog-con blog, Greensboro City Councilwoman Sandy Carmany lays out some of the topics she'll cover during her session at the upcoming blog conference. 5:33:50 AM   permalink   comment []