Aug
28th
28th
On the “bluff” overlooking the Hood Canal.
Nifty, and available in poster size: Icons of the Web via daringfireball.
Hundreds of specially trained dogs form Italy’s corps of canine lifeguards and are deployed each summer to help swimmers. Unlike their human counterparts, these lifedogs can easily jump from helicopters and speeding boats to reach swimmers in need of a rescue. (Courtesy of Italian School of Canine Lifeguards / AP) Images: Animal Tracks
Can we agree rescue dogs are the coolest animals?
Like we needed to be reminded why dogs rule and cats signify everything that is wrong with the Internet and LIFE.
If this is real, why hasn’t anyone made it into a movie?
[88]
What Exactly Is a Doctorate? And this is almost certainly not to scale.
SEO Vs. The Truth, Vol. XXVII
It’s easy enough to do in a story meant to debunk the phrase. All you have to write is, “It’s not a ground zero mosque.”
I think “Ground Zero” should also be rejected in favor of the much more neutral “World Trade Center site” - so it is the mosque near the World Trade Center site.I see candle light vigils for tolerance in my future….
Agreed, except it shouldn’t it be “the community center near the World Trade Center site”?
[15]
SEO Vs. The Truth, Vol. XXVII
It’s easy enough to do in a story meant to debunk the phrase. All you have to write is, “It’s not a ground zero mosque.” But, what about ongoing coverage? Must you keep using the inaccurate term?
Sadly, the answer is yes, according to people familiar with SEO practices.
“I was trying to make fun of the inaccuracy by referring to it as ‘the non-Ground Zero non-mosque,’” Scott Rosenberg, co-founder of Salon, wrote in an email. “But friends told me that even such negative repetition reinforces the subliminal message [that it is a mosque at ground zero]. This sort of framing is very difficult to wriggle out of anywhere, not just on Google.”
The Associated Press has tried valiantly. On Aug. 18, Tom Kent, the AP’s deputy managing editor for standards and production, issued an advisory pointing out that the AP had deliberately avoided using the term and would continue to do so.
“The site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at ground zero, but two blocks away in a busy commercial area,” Kent wrote. “We should continue to say it’s ‘near’ ground zero, or two blocks away.”
Yet AP’s stories, even when they appear on by Yahoo News, don’t show up on the first page of a Google search or even on the first page of the more refined Google News search. When you search for ground zero mosque that is, unless the headline over the AP content, presumably written by Yahoo’s editors, includes the words “ground zero mosque.”
sinking pit of Internet despair… This Park 51 controversy is just utterly horrifying. The protests against it are the most overtly discriminatory (and the denouncements of the protests, aside from Bloomberg’s heroic speeches, the weakest) I think I’ve ever encountered having grown up in a mainly “PC” era. It feels like we are heading into some serious Our Nation’s Darkest Hours type of occasion.
[15]
Aug
24th
24th
“Social Paris”, by Urbagram. Lovely Foursquare-based density plots of NYC, Paris, and London examine the sprawl and walkability of cities by way of social networking.
(via the deplorable word)
… and knowing is half the battle?
Aug
23rd
23rd
The problem is that historically we haven’t told you how much you have to pay for a given seat until very late in the buying process. And our data tells us this angers many of you to the point that you abandon your purchase once you see the total cost … Going forward, just like almost every other business in the world, we’ll tell you up front how much you can expect to pay for a certain ticket.
Ticketmaster, The Blog (via @maura). This is actually kind of insightful and tricky. Instead of cutting the infuriating convenience fees, they just cut the infuriation.
I’ve been going to that Vincent Moon series at Northwest Film Forum over the weekend. He showed this movie both during Saturday’s “workshop” and tonight’s “clip show”. It, like a lot of his latest travel films is really next level. I could watch this stuff forever. [fiumenights]
Aug
22nd
22nd
Last night we showed up at the Center for Wooden boats with freshly-purchased picnic supplies to meet a refurbished fishing trawler. It coasted around Lake Union for a couple of hours while musicians played on deck and we passed around bottles of wine. When the rain became too much for the fancy instruments, the orchestra leader sang the role of Olive Oyl to close their set, the ship returned to port, and the show continued below deck. Pure magic.
