Santigold. Go (Featuring Karen O – of the Yeah yeah yeahs)
insignificances
same old same old – new wrapping, though
Just embarrassed my daughter (8) crazy, in the presence of a friend, dubbing myself:
That’s right: Daddy Cool. Who’s your daddy?
Yup, that’s what the blog’s been looking like for the past couple of days, while I thought I’d have the time to redesign it all – which, unfortunately, I did not. But I’m definitely on the right path, aiming for an ultra-minimalistic design.
But I realise that I simply do not have the time to get the job properly done in a matter of days. This is going to take weeks, so I’ll just take it down for maintenance again, every now and then, if you don’t mind.
You will notice, in time, that the blog is going to be a lot less serious (for want of better words), much less ambitious, too, but hopefully much more frequent.
For now: Welcome back. It’s definitely been a while.
Three quarters of a year curating other blogs and news sources at eight o’clock sharp every single morning just wasn’t for me, it seems. Which is why I shut down The calculable (the calculable.org domain soon to expire, but content will remain at calculable.wordpress.com) last June, paving the way for the reopening of Insignificances, to be filled with sporadic content once in a blue moon.
Which suits me just fine, as I’m afraid the schedule is too full already.
But I havent’ given up on curating stuff altogether. After playing with Tumblr for some time (which is a great community-based tool, by the way), I’ve decided to give Scoop.it a go, where I curate thing under the title Affinities. Please go have a look-see.
At any rate: Welcome back – when and if I find the time to publish.
As an act of compassion for – and in solidarity with – the old media, whose inevitable demise has become painfully apparent over the last couple of years, I have decided to discontinue Insignificances for now, both in its English and Norwegian incarnations.
No, really. But I must admit to ulterior motives, the real ones chiefly being lack of time – and the fact that all the fun went out of self-hosting. In addition, quite frankly, I’m tired of blogging serious posts (which was this blog’s intention). I do that for a living. In all honesty, I appreciate having the ability to distinguish between pastime and work – which is something I all-too rarely get to do. As a result thereof, comments are no longer possible, relieving me of the gatekeeper responsibilities. I will however keep blogging over at WordPress.com.
You can always keep tabs on my whereabouts at Magntize. Who knows: I may even decide to re-open.
A recent survey, carried out by the Sentio Research Group, on behalf of Norwegian dailies (and sworn anti-EU newspapers) Klassekampen and Nationen, concludes that 64.9 percent of the Norwegian electorate are opposed to the idea of Norwegian EU membership, whereas a meagre 24.9 percent are in favour.
Even among traditionally EU-friendly conservatives the EU resistance appears to be on the rise. As much as 38 percent of the Conservative Party’s voters are against membership, according to the survey.
I post this as a mere observation, not as an invitation to debate. Suffice it to say I am saddened by the news. As for my personal views on the matter, please see EU category.
I read an article over at Mashable today, labelled New York Times Will Go Out of “Print” Sometime in the Future, which should come as no surprise, as most newsprint is likely to be extinct within a couple of decades, probably sooner. The “Gray Lady” will no longer be a physical newspaper, according to NYT’s publisher and chairman Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. And furthermore:
“We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD,” he said to attendees of the International Newsroom Summit.
That is all as one might expect. After all, we no longer use black and white TV’s, do we?
The really baffling thing about the New York Post however, is how, with the Internet edition’s sky-rocketing traffic figures, it should be possible to generate respectable revenues, wouldn’t you think? Sadly, that isn’t so. Or, again, to quote Mashable:
[…] it’s taken most news outlets quite a bit of time to come around to the realization that print isn’t the be-all-end-all of journalism. By delaying innovation, many publications have put themselves in financially dire straits while scrambling to catch up with web-friendly revenue models.
This particular newspaper has flirted with various revenue models for online content over the past several years. Readers will be subject to a metered paywall beginning next year.
[…]
NYTimes.com had previously toyed with another paywall-type mode, called TimesSelect, around three years ago. The change wasn’t as lucrative as the paper had expected; still, Sulzberger sees the experiment as educational, not necessarily a failure.
In response to my assertion the other day, that more online newspapers should try NYT’s formula for success, the CEO of Norway’s leading online tabloid, VG Nett, told me that “NYT is extraordinarily boring to look at, and unprofitable to boot,” which, ties in nicely with the information shared by Mashable (above). That said, I can’t help concluding that they must do something right, producing this kind of statistics:
Detail from Dagbladet.no's frontpage.
You don’t get that kind of figures if you’re “extraordinarily boring”. The VG Nett CEO is right though: NYT has proven itself utterly unprofitable, but ask yourself, if you love good journalism, which do you prefer, the NYT way or the Norwegian model (Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet.no, see screendump to the left)? The latter characterised by an extremely cluttered use of (huge) photographs and (equally huge) ads. Looks like the advertiser’s own website, doesn’t it, with a bit of news squeezed in on the middle.
I’m really sorry, but that really doesn’t cut it. With me, anyway. Then again, the difference between Norwegian online dailies and the New York Times is enormous. Looking at the NYT again, you have to admit there’s plenty of room for a few more ads. Don’t tell me that the advertisers aren’t interested in reaching 32 million unique users a month!
Remember when Salon.com launched their freemium model back in the 1990′s? Apparently quite a few of the magazine’s loyal readers were quite prepared to pay not to see the paid-for splash screen. I didn’t count myself among them, living by the maxim Information wants to be free, but I really didn’t mind the ads. You really can’t if you want it to stay that way. It would seem, though, that the New York Times is opposed to the cluttered appearance of Norwegian news sites, for which you really cannot blame them, but to think that this will save “The Gray Lady”:
Sorry, Mac (pun partly intended)… I don’t buy into that either. Norway’s equivalent to New York Times, former broadsheet Aftenposten, degenerated to a tabloid over the last decade, seems to believe there’s future in the iPad. According to editor-in-chief Hilde Haugsgjerd today,
[…] By charging a user fee from day one, we break the Internet dailies’ trend. The product will have a whole different set of qualities, and we are convinced that the advertisers are willing to pay more – for instance by enabling them to buy fullpage ads, Ms Haugsgjerd explains.
— My translation
Oy vey… We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we.
But I can tell you this much: There’s absolutely no reason why New York Times shouldn’t succeed with a free Internet edition, with a free iPad edition, for that matter. If they are willing to let the advertisers in.
Top photograph: The New York Times headquarters. Photographer: Haxorjoe/Wikipedia
The first real blogs to surface at the turn of the century, or thereabouts, represented a huge leap in the media disruption, later manifesting itself in the demise of numerous newsprint outlets and the subsequent plunge in the old media’s revenues, further manifested by the coming of Facebook, Twitter and similar phenomena, rendering most news corporations’ quest for a sustainable business model, by way of pay walls and mobile apps, a rather desperate one.
Along came the automated aggregation tools, such as Paper.li, enabling the private news consumers to compile their very own newspapers, based on tweets, stories, links and video clips from a number of sources, of his or her very own choice. The beauty of it is that there’s really no rocket science involved. Truth be told, the concept isn’t entirely new either. As I started researching the phenomenon, I suddenly remembered my old account with The Twitter Tim.es, in principle based on Paper.li‘s idea, if in fact it’s not the other way around.
Journalism’s decline
As you may have surmised already, I am a bit of a media buff. Can’t be helped, after some 30 years in the trade. On the whole I am very pleased with the general development, rendering newsprint a thing of the past in the Petterson household. I do however not subscribe to the idea that the quantity of social media represent an improvement in the quality. In general terms we must admit that the quality of journalism, even in the old media, has seen a downturn, in spite of the technology’s added value, in terms of audio and video streaming, live reporting via Cover it Live, Twitter integration, great, animated infographics opportunities, and real-time commenting. Sadly the majority of our tech enthusiasts and social media advocates seem to take the opposite stance, making out the means an improvement in their own right, ignoring the impeding consequences for the written word – or the thoroughness with which journalism is practised.
Get your media kicks over @ media3oh Daily
In an attempt at exploring even that aspect of the growth of social media, and the consequential demise of journalistic quality, I set out to launch a blog the other day, prepared to invite some of the most influential and experienced media (and “new” media) experts as occasional contributors. I’m happy to announce that the project stranded, even before launch (as you will see), only to be replaced by the obvious Paper.li alternative; media3oh Daily, as seen to the right, with reference to Media 3.0, of course.
The daily digest regenerates every 24 hours, with stories, links and flicks provided by top notch media resources throughout the world, based on this Twitter list, growing by the day (please leave a comment if you have any suggestions).
The editor is dead, long live the editor
Now that we’re all our own editors, the institutional media find themselves in a more vulnerable position than ever before. Their feeble attempts at alienating even more of their up until recently loyal users by raising pay walls around their content, and launching freemium solutions, will only add to services such as Paper.li – and others, even more sophisticated, to come.
The Apple enthusiasts among you will of course appreciate the fairly recent Flipboard app for iPad, sporting a really appealing interface, even if it resembles the Paper.li service – in principle.
I have noticed how the social media optimists depict the technological development an improvement for journalism, which it could well be, but I fear it’s more of an excuse not to exercise proper journalism.
Norwegian blogger Chrstoffer Biong published a blog post last week (in Norwegian), criticising a severe case of misinformation in an extremely protectionist agricultural campaign, launched by the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food; Nyt Norge (Enjoy Norway), set up to prevent import of food and beverages, and, of course, promote same of Norwegian origin. He is now threatened with legal action from same authorities, on pretext of his illustrative use of the Nyt Norge logo, as a copyrighted property.
There can be no doubt that blogs writing in favour of the campaign would not receive threats of legal prosecution, whereas critical voices are threatened to silence. Granted in the letter Mr Biong received from the Nyt Norge lawyer, Ms Nina Hegdal, he is instructed to remove what they see as unjustified use of their logo only, which may seem a fair demand, if it hadn’t been for the fact that it’s used in a series of satiric campaign mock-ups – which, in the view of the public, and legal custom, is considered fair use.
Imagine, if you will, that bloggers and the press were denied any use of the BP logo in relevant articles on the Mexico gulf disaster. Unthinkable, of course. In Norway: Not so (or so they would have us believe).
Mr Biong’s real offence lies in pointing out the intentional misinformation in a campaign setting out to render Norway’s agricultural products healthier and better than that of the European Union’s, for instance, while in reality it is the other way around. In fact, some of the organisations behind (alongside the Ministry of Agriculture and Food) the campaign make out the very core of Norway’s EU opposition.
We like to see ourselves as a modern democracy, with obvious rights, such as freedom of expression. This blatant attempt at intimidating a private citizen, whose only crime is to voice his opinion, is a mockery of everything we hold sacred, such as democratic values.
Finally, a sample, one of many similar, from the campaign – even if it contains a logo:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upzhwud87q
Late addition: The whole affair reminds me of Norwegian farmers’ conduct in similar situations, such as earlier this year, when a good friend of mine made a huge mistake: That of using a blog title reading Bloody peasants (in Norwegian). It nearly cost him his job.
Photo: Norwegian sheep. Photographer: Jeroen Hellingman/Wikipedia
The world press went completely bonkers Sunday night, remaining frenzied, in the wake of The Guardian’s, The New York Times’ and Der Spiegel’s publication of extracts from some 90,000 classified logs from WikiLeaks, documenting alleged mistakes and unnecessary civilian casualties, by the hands of NATO-lead ISAF forces in Afghanistan.
Time, or rather lack thereof, forbids me to investigate the matter in detail, if at all, but whenever this amount of classified documents becomes public domain, there’s much cause for alarm. Yes, I’m all for unearthing inappropriate conduct, especially when civilian lives are in harm’s way, as in this incident, published by just WikiLeaks earlier this year:
In supporting it, however, there’s no need to uncritically condone the bulk release of some 90,000 logs, of which there’s bound to be faulty, potentially doctored material. I’m full aware that said newspapers (and magazine) have spent the last couple of weeks confirming loads of logs, finding them above board and in order, but they cannot possibly have managed to cover more than a fraction.
Even so, we need to take into account that we’re still dealing with classified material. Classified for a reason. By making it available to a world audience, WikiLeaks and their media cohorts expose tactical routines, secret designations, possible identities and so forth and so on. Yes, they are right to reveal unjustified civilian casualties, which, in my humble opinion, could well be done without publishing the sum total of 92,000 classified military reports.
You may well ask who stands to gain. This much, I think, is certain: Not the ISAF soldiers and their safety, not the Afghan people, whose safety largely depends on the safety of the former.
In short, since I’m so pressed for time: Dear WikiLeaks, please continue to share grave mistakes with serious implications for Afghan (or Iraqi) civilians or ISAF soldiers, even, but in doing so, please consider the overall consequences, too – and leave irrelevant material be, however classified.
Uncovering secrets for uncovery’s sake, is nothing short of stupid.
Photo: Norwegian troops running operations in the Faryab Province, Afghanistan. Wikimedia Commons
I’m not in the habit of indulging in personal matters, not in this blog anyway, but will make a rare exception, as a novelty, if you will, pertaining to my family’s life in the wastelands – or rather; on a semi-desert island, as it were.
You may, upon reading this account, find it hard to believe the likeliness of people living here at all, given the circumstances I’m about to share. Nevertheless, some really do. In our case some 2800 individuals, spread across a 255 km² area, making up the group of islands that is Tysnes, including our very own small community, shown in this Google Street view reproduction:
View Larger Map
A community made up by some 400 widely spread inhabitants, supposed to maintain the future existence of a supermarket, a post office and a bank outlet. As you will know, such ambitions are futile, as their basis for a sound business would require twice that number, at least – or so one would think.
Then of course, they dismantled the post office almost a decade ago (admittedly: as they’ve done all over the country), to resurface as a reduced service, ran by the supermarket. The bank outlet was abandoned by the local bank at this year’s beginning and, to top it all, last Saturday saw the dismantling of our local supermarket, which insides looked something like this on Monday:
As luck would have it, though, another supermarket chain decided to have a go at our 400-people customer basis, reopening on 1 July, which is all pretty fine and dandy – if, in the meantime, you have alternate sources for groceries, mail, pharmaceutical products and so on. Which, in our case, sadly isn’t so.
Meanwhile we shall have to commute to the community’s commercial centre, some 11 kilometres away, by an infrequent bus or by tagging along whenever my in-laws decide to make the trip – as we’re environmentally sustainable, insofar that we’re car-free (which, under the circumstances, is a long way from being carefree).
In all honesty, I thought the place the proverbial ghost town (provided you keep the term “town” out of the equation) prior to the mercantile discontinuations. Clearly, I had seen nothing yet. The now absent supermarket served as the community’s life nerve, offering a place to chat over a cup of coffee and the gathering of vital information on local goings on, by way of rural gossip and the notices pinned to the bulletin board. We do however still have the local community portal Lundegrend.no, ran by yours truly, by the way. If it hadn’t been for the fact that the website relies on said notices and gossip, it could very well serve as an alternative, indeed.
I know… If it’s all half as bad as I would have you believe, then why oh why do I live here?
I can see why you ask, really I do. The answer isn’t as straight forward as you might think, but in order to keep it short and sweet, this is where my wife is born and bred. As her homesickness grew to intolerable proportions, I decided that I was prepared to be unhappy in order for her to be happy, in repayment of same service rendered – so far a partial success, to the extent that I’ve only succeeded with the former, not the latter. I suspect it’s all to do with the lacking appreciation of the mere fact that it’s even remotely possible to be unhappy in such a place. The very thought, I think, strikes the local population (among whom I count my wife) not only as unthinkable, but highly offending – as if nearly half a century’s urban life is instantly convertible to an event-less rural existence. Whereas urban dissatisfaction is self-evident (yeah, I know…).
I think it’s safe to say that it does take a little getting used to. Certainly more than merely ten months, and yes, it has rendered me profoundly unhappy, which is no big deal, really, as it is something I’m prepared to embrace, if the effect on my spouse is the opposite one – which, after ten months, it remains to see.
Besides: In truth, most people are deeply unhappy, aren’t they? And please, do not read this as an invitation to introduce me to Mister Christ.
On the upside, on the other hand, the sceneries around here are absolutely breathtaking, if you, unlike me, are into that sort of thing – as shown in a video I edited for the local authorities a couple of weeks ago, based on a number of stills:
I am happy(?) to add that I am not the only one to suffer a severe case of cabin fever. My better half uses every opportunity to flea flee the place, as is the case even as I write this.
Surprisingly, I find that the propensity to roam the neighbourhood, axe-in-hand (hence the Jack Torrance photo from The Shining), seems remarkably absent, though – mostly ascribed to an all-too busy schedule. Work-wise, that is. Then again, you know how it goes >
Come to think of it, I’m beginning to feel a bit like “Number six”: