Great bad review (via). Even better bad review (via).

(PS: Crash Bonsai!)

Of all the wonderful things Current TV has done for the world, I think the best will be introducing it (the world) to Joe Hanson, a.k.a. Binowhite, a.k.a. B-Whizzle. I found Joe during my hour-long binge in the recently hott Current Studio, where you can preview the pods people have submitted and vote whether they should appear on-air. It’s definitely the best part of the site (excellent blog notwithstanding). Go check out my favorite VC², Binowhite. I can’t wait to see what Joe gets into next.

While in Gameworks at Tampa last weekend, I discovered the new recreational craze that’s poised to grip the nation: 3-puck, 2-paddle air hockey (I have no idea who those people are, but they’re playing 3P2P). Let that sink in for a moment. Three pucks. Two paddles. Eternal glory.

It’s called the SEGA Hockey Stadium, and it’s pretty much worth lobbying City Hall to bring it to your town.

Adrian Holovaty reports that the Lawrence Journal-World has just made it “stupidly simple” to add Google Maps to its news stories online. This is something that Friend Of Snarkmarket Larry Larsen has been stumping for for quite some time.

I’m seeing this Reuters article everywhere, talking about how Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia has issued an announcement that the site will be tightening its editorial controls, freezing some content to prevent vandalism.

The article is wrong. Reuters should issue a correction. Wales has clarified that he was talking about creating a static snapshot of the site, with verified information, which would exist alongside the dynamic content. They’re calling the project Wikipedia 1.0, and they’ve been talking about it since at least last year.

Besides, Wales says, Wikimedia doesn’t really work by making “announcements.” They effect change through discussions and concensus-building. He’s calling for tighter editorial controls on Reuters (and Slashdot), though.

Update: Well, here’s one correction, from Steve Outing at E-Media Tidbits. Still waiting on Reuters.

The lack of screenshots, feature listings, or even an explanation of exactly what it is all prevent me from guessing whether Meetro doesn’t suck. (You have to actually download and install the app, which is totally played out. See more snark from Jason Pettus. And Stowe Boyd at Corante actually did post a screenshot.) But it appears to be a location-based social networking thingie that guesses where you are based on WiFi signals and tries to find other folks around you who match your profile. See also: Mates | PlaceSite | Dodgeball.

I think this location-based networking business has huge potential, especially as cell phones and other ubiquitous devices become sophisticated enough to partake in it.

When digital social networking is paired with analog social gathering places, I think people will go a bit nuts for it. Imagine a sort of venue-oriented version of the new HotOrNot Meet Me site. (The principle behind the site is that you look at a rotation of photos of random people, clicking yes if you’d like to meet each person, and no if you have no interest. If you click yes, your own photo goes into the other person’s photo rotation, and if they click yes for you, you’re both notified.) Or say you’re relaxing in the park, and you decide you want to pull together a pickup Ultimate Frisbee game. Send out the Meetro bat signal, and bam! Ten other people chilling in the park decide they’re down for it, and the game is on.

One downside for Robin — MeetRo.com is now taken. MeetRoSlo.com, however, totally still available.

I’ve just finished reading my second biography this summer of a subject whom the biographer(s) claim is underrepresented in the history books. (The other.)

This latest book was well-paced, thoroughly footnoted, and boasted a very well-respected author. Biographies often seem like they’re pasting together scattered shreds of the subject’s life to try to divine some pattern that isn’t there, and this one didn’t seem to do that too much.

But the entire time I was reading both books, I found myself questioning the authors’ claims that their subjects were unfairly sidelined by history. Not doubting, necessarily, just constantly refreshing a mental note that the authors have much to gain from inflating the person’s importance. This tendency probably isn’t helped by the fact that a third book I read this summer was a novel about two biographers chasing the life of an obscure but untalented singer whom they argue history overlooked.

So how do you gauge a person’s objective influence on history? The easy answer is to just read another biography of the same person or a related one. But then, after you traipse through 600 pages on someone’s life, are you really that excited about seeing the story retold one more time from another point of view?

Maybe it’s not important, and we should just enjoy the account of a fascinating life, aside from any question of its influence. But that’s no fun.

I just posted a looooong item on morph advancing the argument that the Internet has not (just) sped the news cycle up, it’s slowed it down considerably. I’d love to hear your thoughts, if any strike you. (Except for your comments on my use of the profoundly dubious phrase “hot breaking scoop.”)

It’s common knowledge that since the advent of 24-hour news networks, the cycle of news has sped up considerably. With the rise of the Internet, it’s gotten even faster. In this world of up-to-the-nanosecond news, we’ve learned, facts and context are thrown to the wind as our information train wreck speeds down the tracks.

Right?

Let’s play devil’s advocate.

My argument: The Internet is slowing the news cycle down. Way down. It’s so slow, it’s turning the clock backwards.

Read more…

Is it just me, or was the news storm swirling around this weekend’s bombing in Egypt a good bit more humble than the one around the London bombings? Since I was out Friday night, I didn’t get the word until checking the papers Saturday morning. By that point, the news cycle was revolving around the fact that the terrorism-related death toll of the innocent in London had belatedly risen to 53.

I know terrorism-related deaths aren’t quite as alien to Egypt as they are to Great Britain, but shouldn’t news outlets strive for at least a pretense of parity in their coverage of each disaster?

I might also be completely wrong in my assessment of the relative play given to each story, but nothing in the Egypt coverage leads me to suspect the bombings there will still be getting front-page mentions in the national papers two-and-a-half weeks from now. Call me on this if it’s not so.

To be fair: The editors may just be accused of going where the readers are. First and only Metafilter thread on Egypt bombings: 37 comments. First of at least a dozen threads on the July 7 London bombings: 712 comments. There are probably many more British MeFites than Egyptian ones, but dang.