I have stumbled across a couple of musings on the MSM from different perspectives that throw into sharp relief a lot of the problems with our present media that we regularly discuss on this site. First, from my friend Jim Wright comes an insider’s view of the biggest Alaska story to hit since Sarah Palin: “Alaskan Middle School Students Scare Moose to Death“.
Internet
Nietzsche’s Lessons for the Internet
From Something Positive
If you you don’t know what a LOLCAT is here are some examples.
I can emphasize with the character’s shock. I recently spent several hours over the course of two days trying to explain to someone on the Mythbusters forum why their little gadget didn’t work as they thought it did. I gave up when they declared it a version of a perpetual motion machine. I have no idea why I spent so much time. At first I was intrigued by the physics, but after I figured it out I kept banging my head against a wall trying to explain to the guy basic scientific method and the concept of conservation of energy.
Clausewitz, On War Book 3: A consideration of cyber strategy
Our long dead Prussian friend understood that tactics change with time and technology, and that strategies remain similar even if the metaphors change. When he tells us that strength of will is more to make a change in strategy versus tactics) p. 178) he recognizes that which is the parasitic force of decision. He identifies in one paragraph they “why” of how cyber warfare has existed and been known for nearly four decades yet has no mind share among generals. Only recently has the public picked up on the issues and the media reported incidents closely aligned with cyber warfare.
Failed Experiment?
Glenn gives us a heads up to what might be the beginning of the end of Pajamas Media.
I wrote about Pajamas Media back when they started. At the time I had grave misgivings, mainly because I couldn’t figure out how there could possibly be enough money coming in from ads on blogs to pay everyone a decent wage. Looks like that was exactly the problem.
Now it would appear that PM is dismantling their blog advertising to focus exclusively on their own television productions. This is something that sounds really iffy to me. And when I say “iffy”, I mean from the standpoint of something that someone would actually want to watch. But I’m hardly an expert on the PJTV content because I only ever watched three episodes of Poliwood before deciding that I could spend my time better elsewhere.
I’m not trying to sound harsh, just assess the situation in a realistic manner. A simple glance at PJTV’s home page reveals a fair amount of content. But the majority of it is by people I’ve never heard of before, and whose opinions I don’t care about. The few that I have come across before in the past, such as Austin Bay, have other places where I can go to find their opinion. Why check PJTV’s home page and wait until, every so often, they have someone I want to hear when I can narrow down the search?
There are a lot of things I like about blogs, but the way that readers can carry on a conversation with the author has got to top the list. It is easy, since you can cut-‘n-paste a passage from the essay on to your comment before stating that the author is brilliant or a schmuck. You can even add a link or two to prove your assertion of brilliance or schmuckitude.
It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do this with a video even if they would allow comments. Oh, you might be able to transcribe what was said, but the ease of cut-n-paste is gone. You also would have to sit through the entire thing, in real time without being able to skim like you can with the written word, to make sure that there was no hedging or clarification that would invalidate the point you were trying to make. You could be leaving comments on five or six blog posts in the same time you are waiting to speak your mind on one 19 minute gabfest. Who wants to spend their time this way?
Four years ago I said that, although I wished them well, I thought Pajamas Media was doomed to failure. The same thing goes for PJTV. Try as I might, I cannot see how this will be a success.
I doubt it will take four years more to prove if I’m right.
First Video of Saber Fencing
Via Milo we get this fascinating video of two athletes going at each other with sabers.
It seems that the video was taken from a flip book that was printed circa 1880. Looks great!
Take a look, everyone. 19th Century media translated into video we see on The Internet. Why didn’t I just embed the YouTube video here? Because the guy who worked on bringing us this short video deserves some traffic.
Anyone who doesn’t think this is neat as all get out has no sense of wonder.