This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on February 23, 2009). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.
Sometime between February 18th and February 23rd, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!
- Reality TV Helps Break Down Racial Barriers: "Despite decades of public pressure on the major networks to diversify, the lead characters in all but a handful of prime-time scripted shows this season are still white — and usually young and affluent. In contrast, reality programs consistently feature a broader range of people when it comes to race, age, class and sexual orientation."
- Can You Really Just Waltz Into SAM, Say You Have No Money to Pay the Suggested Donation, and Be Let In?: Apparently, yes you can: "Before I could finish, she said, 'Oh–absolutely, here you go,' and handed me a ticket printed with '1.00' in the corner. She was the epitome of friendliness. As we passed a museum guard, who'd heard the interaction, she smiled and gave us directions to Hopper. We looked at Hopper's women, and looked at women looking at Hopper's women." This is really neat — good for you, SAM!
- Re: The P-I’s Online Plan: "It's hard to overstate how big a change this represents. For a daily newspaper to abandon its belief that important local news should be conveyed first through its own trusted reporters, and its own trusted reporters only, is a tremendous shift. It fits with something else that's been becoming more clear lately: Hearst wants to hold on to the P-I brand, and the online traffic that comes with it, but it is ready to jettison a lot of old notions about what makes a journalistic enterprise."
- The Mystery of Ireland’s Worst Driver: "It was discovered that the man every member of the Irish police's rank and file had been looking for – a Mr Prawo Jazdy – wasn't exactly the sort of prized villain whose apprehension leads to an officer winning an award. ¶ In fact he wasn't even human. ¶ 'Prawo Jazdy is actually the Polish for driving licence and not the first and surname on the licence,' read a letter from June 2007 from an officer working within the Garda's traffic division."
- Wil Wheaton: Spoiler Alert: WATCHMEN is fucking awesome.: Wil says good things about the Watchmen movie in his (actually spoiler-free) review, which I was going to link to anyway after reading it in Google Reader, but when I tried to click through to Wil's site to link the page, I got this, which I thought was funny: "Your request to URL 'http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/02/spoiler-alert-watchmen-is-fucking-awesome.html' has been blocked by the Webwasher Real-Time Classifier. The page was classified as sexual, erotic or adult content (90% probability in meta information) which is not allowed by your administrator at this time. "
- Writing Star Trek Novels, Or, Why Don’t You Get a Morally Acceptable Job?: Vonda N. McIntyre: "Years later, the opportunity to write a Star Trek novel came along. The folks who invited me to write it knew I'd been fond of the series and they trusted me to treat the characters with some respect.¶ My editor happened to be coming to a convention in Seattle just before the book was due, and asked me to give him the manuscript there, so I did. ¶ To my surprise (and not a little discomfort), my editor sat himself down in the middle of a small party and started reading. After he'd read fifty pages or so, he said, 'Paramount will either love this, or they'll really, really hate it.' ¶ Fortunately, the former."