29 September 2001

Was this Journalism 3.0? - [ Dan Gillmor ]Êabout a new kind of reporting during the Sept. 11 attacks

"Online, I saw another kind of reporting during those awful hours and days. Via e-mails, mailing lists, chat groups, personal Web journals and non-standard news sources, I received valuable context that the major American media couldn't, or wouldn't, provide.

I think I was seeing a key part of journalism's future. Was this Journalism 3.0?

Such journalism raises questions of reliability and accuracy. We need to have better procedures to verify and trust. We'll work on it as time goes on.

This is a recent phenomenon, amplified by the Net. Traditional journalists need to pay attention, and -- in the best sense of the phrase -- take advantage of it. We will all win."

I think this is a key question for a key part of journalism's future: we need to be better able to verify and trust private news. If we don't manage that, there might be no Journalism 3.0.
(September 29., 2001, )

Das ist, wie der Name schon sagt, ein Kontrollstreifen-Modul, das die Brut eines Ceratophrys cranwelli simuliert. Ceratophrys cranwelli widerum ist ein sexbessessener Hornfrosch. Irgendetwas passiert in dem winzigen Kontrollstreifen-Modul, aber es bleibt unerfindlich, was. Auch die Anleitung hilft nicht wirklich: "You give food for frog. You must be able to keep clean. You must be able to check frog's health." Die Webseite des Autors ist zu Recht verschwunden, aber der Download funktioniert. (September 29., 2001, )

Mathematik & Computer in Filmen - Da heute auch Filme ein Thema zu sein scheinen, hier noch was für die kreativen Mathematiker und Kinogänger:

"The Math in the Movies Page" - A Guide to Major Motion Pictures with Scenes of Real Mathematics:

"Die Hard (1995) - Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson are given a five gallon jug and a three gallon jug, and must put exactly four gallons of water on a scale to keep a bomb from exploding."
"Straw Dogs (1971) - Dustin Hoffman has moved to his wife's home town in Cornwall, England in the hope of getting some astrophysics done. Somewhere along the line his wife mischievously changes a plus sign to a minus sign in a set of gravitational equations on a blackboard. The moral of this film is "don't mess with a mathematician," so, as you might expect, a great deal of violence occurs.

Zugabe: "Hollywood and Computers" vom ehrenwerten Charles Babbage Institute.

Mir fällt gerade ein, daß ich selbst auch mal einen Mathematiker in einer tragenden Rolle hatte, und zwar in einem Film über Legasthenie (doch, auch darüber kann man einen Film machen - und was für einen). Um zu zeigen, wie unverständlich Buchstaben für einen Legastheniker sind, schreibt ein Mathematiker eine Formel an die Tafel und erklärt sie. Niemand hat jemals die Formel und die Symbole verstanden. Gruß BTW an Klaus von der GMD, Kettenraucher und Besitzer einer seit 10 Jahren nicht gespülten Espressotasse. (September 27., 2001, )

"I never knew the old Vienna before the war, with its Strauss music, its glamour and easy charm. Constantinople suited me better." (The Third Man). Timeless lines like this. (September 27., 2001, )

Weil's so wichtig ist, und als Merker: CSS Layout Techniques: for Fun and Profit. Hier war noch einer: Advanced CSS Layouts: Step by Step. Und der: X Browser Publishing, von Kai "dogfood" Pahl. Thanks to the WebDev guys. (September 27., 2001, )

The Movie Event of the Minute - Based on the idea that the trailer is usually better than the movie, here are trailers for movies that donât exist.

One we like very much is the artistic documentary A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Elephant ("she paints without hands!"), but Charlton's Angels ("When someone makes a major action movie without a lot of guns... A lot of people in America get worried") or Santa Claus Is Coming To Town ("He sees you when you're sleeping...") are great too.

Popcorn anyone? (September 25., 2001, )

Wir sind gerade dabei, die Website eines Kunden mit Quicktime- und Realvideo-Webclips zu bepflastern, da kommt diese Meldung: [ MaCNN ] "RealNetworks today plans to unveil a new service called RealOne that combines the company's RealPlayer (used for streaming media over the Internet) and RealJukebox (used to manage and play MP3s and other music files) solutions. It is unclear how the move will affect future Mac development of the RealPlayer application."

Arrrggghhh!!. RealNetworks hat in den vergangenen Jahren seine Strategie, seine Tools und Formate ununterbrochen geändert; dazu kommt, daß der kostenlose RealPlayer inzwischen komplett mit Werbung und Marketing zugestopft ist und man 20-30 voreingestellte und immer wiederkehrende Werbeoptionen abwählen muss, um den Player in Ruhe benutzen zu können. Einem CNet-Bericht ist zudem zu entnehmen, daß auch noch ein Subscription-Modell auf die User zukommt. A real Real mess. (September 25., 2001, majo)

Eine Podiumsdiskussion morgen auf der Seybold-Konferenz in San Franscisco präsentiert u.a. die bekennenden Blogger Dave Wyner, Jason Kottke und Doc Searls.

[ Seybold ]: "Last week's tragedy in NY & DC was of unprecedented proportions, both on a human scale and as a news event. News gathering organizations and web sites have had years to rehearse for an emergancy like this, but many of them let us down -- either on an editorial or a production level, or both. At the same time, some news sites and orgnizations rose to the challenge in unexpected ways. A panel of people who were directly involved in running these sites will look at what worked, what didn't, and why."

Es ist offensichtlich an eine eher technische Diskussion gedacht, wobei man gespannt sein darf, ob Dave's abrupt erwachter Patriotismus dies zulässt. Ursprünglich sollte über die "nächste technologische Revolution" diskutiert werden, wie bereits vor einem Monat berichtet.
(September 25., 2001, )

Weblogs: A History and Perspective - How it all began...

[ÊRebecca's pocket ]: "In 1998 there were just a handful of sites of the type that are now identified as weblogs (so named by Jorn Barger in December 1997). Jesse James Garrett, editor of Infosift, began compiling a list of "other sites like his" as he found them in his travels around the web. In November of that year, he sent that list to Cameron Barrett. Cameron published the list on Camworld, ...." (dated Sept. 2000)

(September 24., 2001, )

Wenn in Krisenzeiten die Nachrichtenquellen reglementiert und kanalisiert werden, kann das publizierende Web nur noch sich selbst zitieren. Der traditionellen Presse geht es allerdings auch nicht viel besser.

[ NYT ]: "At a moment when the world's need for information has never been greater, the Internet's role as the ultimate source of unmediated news has been matched only by its notorious ability to breed rumors, conspiracy theories and urban legends."

[ Urban Legends: Rumors of War ]: A collection of links to pages discussing the various rumors to come out of the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States of America.

[Êindymedia Germany ]: "CNN, Indymedia und Gerüchte über jubelnde Palästinenser. (...) Telepolis verwies dagegen auf die "selbstheilenden" Kräfte eines Netzwerkes: "... Zumal gerade die dafür von der FAZ verantwortlich gemachten Globalisierungsgegner zu den ersten gehörten, die sich an eine fundierte Faktenprüfung machten. Im Weblog der Indymedia-Website erklärte am Sonntag ein gewisser Mackie, warum die Bilder nicht von 1991 stammen können: In dem Film sei ein Ford Transit einer Baureihe zu sehen, die erst seit 1995 hergestellt werde."
Hier könnte die Geschichte jetzt zu Ende sein. Ist sie aber nicht. Die Bilder scheinen tätsächlich gefälscht zu sein. (...) Die Bilder selbst waren schon irgendwie echt. Nur eben inszeniert. (...) Und tatsächlich, auch in der Online-Version des Spiegels vom 21.September ist zu lesen, daß diese Bilder gestellt sind: "Jetzt heißt es, ein Teil dieser Bilder sei möglicherweise gestellt, der Rest alt." [Êmehr... ]

Das Bizarre an diesen Diskussionen ist aber eigentlich: selbst wenn diese Szenen gestellt, alt oder sonstwie falsch waren, bedeutet das nicht, daß es keine Freudenfeiern in Palästina gegeben hat...
(September 24., 2001, majo)

MIT blogdex about NewsIsFree and Personal Publishing - blogdex, the MIT research project aimed at understanding the nature of personal publishing, about NewsIsFree, our partners for our news feed collection and for syndicating these notes:

[Êblogdex ]: "To a certain extent, NewsIsFree is a realization of much of what i hoped blogdex would become when i first started creating it. it collects, organizes and connects people to the news that they want, including some personal news content. in using it though, i have come to the conclusion that weblogs and traditional news might not mix. it's not that they cover different subject matter, or even that the writing style/quality is divided. i simply realized that i go to weblogs for a different kind of news, one which is more personally meaningful.
weblogs provide a different sort of context than normal news does, linking events and web content to an individual's personal context. traditional media tries to create the most general context, in order to appeal to the widest audience possible. when i read a weblog of someone who is similar to me in some way, i get a piece of my own context in their writing. i think that this is analogous to the warm fuzzy feeling that i get when i read weblogs, and discover that there are thousands of people out there that think just like me." [ more... ]

[ Mike Krus' Blog (Mike is one of the guys that run NewsIsFree)]: "I think traditional news and weblogs do mix. Or at least that the mix here works and helps people (at least me!) keep an eye open on events and maybe even make sense of things. But that "worm fuzzy feeling" really makes weblogs special, at least for people who know how to write and how to express themselves (I guess this excludes my blog ;-))

Oh, and someone buy this guy a SHIFT key ;-)."
(September 23., 2001, dj, majo)

Der Artikel selbst ist durchaus faszinierend, aber uralt. Eine Seite zuvor steht, daß diese Arbeiten abgeschlossen sind, der Name und die Jahreszahlen der Fußnoten (1996-97) weisen ebenfalls darauf hin, auch kann ich mich erinnern, den Artikel schon vor Jahren gelesen zu haben.

Sowas passiert, wenn man schnell mal was abschreibt. Passt übrigens prima zu Dan Gillmors Notiz von gestern: "The caution we need to inject here, of course, is figuring out what's reliable or true." Gilt leider immer: nicht nur für polemische, unzuverlässige und gerüchteverstreuende Weblogs, sondern auch für hochangesehene Publikationen mit einer 60 Mann starken Redaktion... (September 23., 2001, majo)

Figuring out what's reliable or true - [ Dan Gillmor ]:Ê"My fundamental conviction in journalism these days has only been reinforced by the outrages of Sept. 11.

What is it? Simple: My readers know more than I know.

The traditional media have done, by and large, an excellent job. I watched what happened on TV, then read the print media for more depth and context.

But the stories from real people in nearly real time, provided through online links and blogs -- not to mention the links to information going outside the normal "reliable sources" -- have been complementary and a crucial supplement. I'm still waiting to see some of this stuff in the mainstream media.

The caution we need to inject here, of course, is figuring out what's reliable or true. I have higher expectations of reliability from the New York Times coverage than a first-person account or polemic from someone I don't know. Sorting this out won't be easy. But it'll be worth the trouble.

Blogs, Web postings and e-mail didn't replace anything. They added a great deal. Traditional newsrooms should somehow find a way to fuel and assist that engine of information." (September 22., 2001, fe)

Das Fernsehen ist wieder da - Peter Glaser über die Rückkehr des Analogen

[ Die Zeit ]: "In den ersten Stunden nach den Attentaten war das Web der Informationsnachfrage nicht gewachsen. CNN zählt an einem durchschnittlichen Tag elf Millionen Page-Views, an diesem Morgen waren es neun Millionen pro Stunde. Die Suchmaschine Google ersuchte ihre Besucher, Radio und Fernsehen einzuschalten."

"Auch diesmal, während die Nachrichten-Sites off line waren, verwandelten sich Foren und Chatrooms in Medien-Mischmaschinen. Positiv, wo die Teilnehmer aus vielen verschiedenen - respektablen - Quellen ein Bild der Lage zusammenzutragen versuchten. Schaurig, wo wilde Gerüchte und wüste Emotionen hochkochten. Information ist schnell, Wahrheit braucht Zeit." (September 20., 2001, )

Viewing the video begins immediately without waiting for a certain amount of the video file being downloaded. As its starts playing, one can immediately scroll to any point in time - even to the very end of the movie. The trick is done by instantly providing ia low-quality version of a video file and then gradually improving the quality of that video over time. Selected frame sequences can be enhanced, or a specific frame can be paused and enhanced to maximum quality. FMA compressed videos are timecode and frame accurate even with low quality images. This way its possible to edit material over the network.

A splendid idea. The user must however download and install a free 2.6 MB player. A demo is here which requires the installation of the free Lite Player. The FlexBuilder application that works as a QuickTime component is used to compress the material, select differing download scenarios and determin the quality of data.
Prices are not avaliable on the web site.
(September 20., 2001, )

[ Reuters ]: Viewership for video news over the Web has been unprecedented, with many people apparently tuning in from offices and other locations around the world where television coverage of the air attacks on New York and Washington was unavailable, broadcasters said. "This has been a watershed for the Internet because there is an unquenchable thirst for news and the networks are more or less providing the same story," said Thomas Plate, professor of policy and communication studies at UCLA. "To get a different dimension of detail you can now get to Web pages of foreign newspapers and get a different perspective and see, for instance, what Pakistanis are saying," he said. (September 20., 2001, )

Für 20.000 DM kann man entweder einen veritablen Neuwagen kaufen oder Alias|Wavefronts Maya für Mac OS X. Oder man kann Cinema 4D XL komplett kaufen und einen veritablen Gebrauchtwagen dazu. (September 20., 2001, )

A Current Events Search Engine - Daypop only returns current news. While a search on Google for "World Trade" will include the World Trade Organization website, a search on Daypop will return only news articles.

[ Daypop ]: "Daypop crawls the living web at least once a day to bring you the latest information relevant to your searches. The living web is composed of sites that update on a daily basis: newspapers, online magazines, and weblogs. Weblogs are a new form of personal journalism. Think of them as opinion columns or slices of life. Newspapers give you the international headlines and weblogs give you both a subjective view of current events and a personal view of the author's life. Currently, Daypop indexes over 2700 of the best news sites and weblogs on the net every day."

This is just extremely practical. A weblog, telling the story of Daypop, is here. We have of course added it to our newsfeed section (in the middle of that page). (September 19., 2001, )

[ ITN ]: "In the words of one Slashdot.org user, the World Trade Centre attack has become the "tale of two media" - on one hand the traditional broadcast and print outlets, and on the other the libertarian 'personal journalism' of the Web. (...) Where traditional media have been thwarted from reporting fully the conditions in the city because of no-fly rules and bomb alerts, the residents are online, recording the reality on the streets." [ more... ]

wtc-filter is a new blog that collects articles and links relating to the 11 september attack, mainly from "traditional" international news outlets. On the other hand, here's September Disaster VirtualNetWiki, a sample collection of personal sites, including an Associated Press personal stories site.
(September 19., 2001, )

Reichhaltige Quicktime-Site - qtcentral.de heißt eine noch im Aufbau befindliche Infosite, die schon jetzt eine Menge bieten kann.

Dazu gehören Einstiegskurse, Reports, Infos über Codecs, Tips, FAQs, Links und andere Themen. Manchmal erscheint die Einordnung der verschiedenen Angebote etwas willkürlich (Anleitung zum Basteln von Media Skins unter "Reports"?), trotzdem scheint hier ein gut recherchiertes Informationsarsenal über "everything Quicktime" zu entstehen. qtcentral.de beschäftigt sich auch mit verwandten Technologien wie Flash, BeHere, Pulse3D usw und ist auf keine spezielle Plattform beschränkt. Neu ist besagtes Tutorial über Media Skins, das beschreibt, wie man dem QT-Player ein neues Aussehen gibt.

Viel Glück weiter - diese Site kann man brauchen! (September 16., 2001, mjh)

The Excaliburs of Editing: Typewriters - The strange and beautiful world of early writing machines

The Classic Typewriter Page was set up in 1995 by Richard Polt, "a typewriter collector who has established one of the Web's most elaborate sites about typewriters, being a relic of the past is the point, like discovering that a sword happens to be Excalibur. "[ The New York Times ] (September 4., 2001, )

Quicktime tidbits - "Judy and Roberts Little Quicktime Page" is a must for those who need to stay tuned with the subject.

[ÊLittle Quicktime Page ]: "If you're a Dreamweaver user and you're developing pages containing movies that have to play back in the versions of Internet Explorer that don't support plug-ins (see last week's news), you'll probably want to go to the Planet Jomo web site, where you can download an extension that'll help create the now necessary Object tags for QuickTime movies

And, if you want more commentary on the whole mess (i.e. Microsoft removing support for plug-ins), read a Right On Mac column, "Restoring QuickTime functionality to Internet Explorer upgrades is not a 'fix".

Mac users: Brennan Young has an article at WorkingMac.com on Scripting the QuickTime Player. It provides a really nice introduction to AppleScript for those who've never scripted before, all in the context of creating scripts for the highly scriptable QuickTime Player. [Êmore... ] (September 3., 2001, )

[ Beachside Tech ]:"With movies, home entertainment, and even webpages getting more sophisticated in 3D with every passing day, we can expect to see more surprising achievements. More lifelike 3D animated films should be showing their polygonal heads in the upcoming years, and games will continue to push your graphics card to the limit for some time to come. The impending quest for perfect pixels may be a never-ending destiny, but I guarantee you won't notice the hours flying by." [ more... ] (September 3., 2001, )

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