Google released its instant messaging client late last night, based on open standards, so everyone here has switched over all IM traffic to Google Talk.
The bad news is that it’s Windows-only for the time being.
The good news is that the Mac’s iChat is compatible (as are most Jabber clients).
Effective immediately, you can reach either Karen or myself via Google Talk at these addresses on Google’s Jabber server:
After laying dead at the side of the road for a full three years, there’s a glimmer of resurgence in the corporate national media—but just a glimmer. The function of a national media—both corporate and independent—is to focus the country’s attention on the main issues of the day. Untortunately, the independent media can serve as the canary in the cultural coal mine—pointing out the important trends and stories—but little more. It’s the corporate media that has to focus the nation’s attention with laser-like percision on the issues of the day. For three the independent media (disclosure: I’m an employee of a national independent magazine) has been serving their function, but the national corporate media have been asleep at the wheel, collectively dropping the editorial ball and looked the other way as it was kicked to the gutter.
Investigative journalism is hard and expensive. It’s going to be a while, if ever, before the blogosphere can support this kind of necessary endeavor. For the near term, at least, the national corporate media has to get back on its collective feet and get back in the game.
My neighbor, Sheryl Jean, has written an excellent investigative article for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press on the alleged improprieties of mortgage giant Ameriquest. Individual consumers are suing Ameriquest Mortgage Co., a subsidiary of ACC Capital Holdings, while the mortgage company is trying to cut settlement deals with the attorneys general or regulators in 30 states, including Minnesota. According to Jean’s report, Ameriquest set aside US$325 million late last month to settle outstanding investigations by the states. Meanwhile Minnesota customers are charging that Ameriquest “charged them exorbitant fees, failed to disclose loan terms and provide documents before closing, inflated home appraisals, forged documents, and used bait-and-switch sales tactics.”
My cynical side says the real estate bubble has finally popped when the corporate dailies are going after big mortgage companies like Ameriquest. My optimistic side says this is community journalism at its best and we need to do everything we can to encourage it.
Update: Sunday, 14 August 2005 04:45PM CDT: Add to this my pal Julio Ojeda-Zapata’s coverage of Verizon’s EV-DO rollout in the Twin Cities and the corporate media is clearly starting to feel its oats:
“But Verizon’s steep prices and tech headaches mean you must weigh your options carefully before committing to a wireless-data plan and the related hardware.”
Reporting on his trials of the highspeed wireless data service, Ojeda-Zapata writes that Verizon’s claims of 400Kbps - 700Kbps throughput is overstated by half:
“But in our trials on a newsroom laptop, we sometimes managed only 200 to 300 kilobits. Verizon said indoor use may mar performance. It added that our loaner card may have been partially incompatible with laptops other than the one it provided for testing.”
Take a look at this bar chart from the New York Times purporting to show the percentage of interest-only mortgagtes in the US. What’s wrong with this picture is that the ‘05 number, pegged at what appears to be 23%, represents only the first quarter of the year compared to the other bars that represent total years. The New York Times is woefully misleading when it says, “fewer people are turning to riskier interest-only mortgages, which do not reduce a loan’s principal.” That’s not at all what this graphic indicates, and since the Q2 2005 numbers won’t be released until 1 September, there’s no way anyone—including the New York Times—can make such a statement.
To be accurate, the Times should have compared first quarters of the five years it’s reporting on.
This is exactly the kind of chart junk that Edward Tufte has been warning us about for more than two decades. The New York Times should be ashamed of itself.
But the Times is in crowded company. This morning coming out of the shower I heard a gas-bag pundit on CNN—on a program sponsored by a mortgage company, of course—railing about how “the real estate market always comes back; real estate is an appreciating asset.” Stock brokers are required to disclose that past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Why not real estate brokers?
Here in Minnesota we refer to something called “Minnesota-nice.” Rather than contradict an individual’s statements, a Minnesotan (male or female) will usually declare the statement as “interesting.” Seldom does one even hear the admirable follow-up, “On the other hand….” The idea is just declared as “interesting.” And if the respondent is asked in what way the idea is interesting, it’s then perceived as a “challenge.”
Well, someone should educate those poor Baghdad Shiites that there are simply more polite ways to dispute political elections than to go barging in to an office-holder’s building and simply “installing” a new mayor, as reported in the New York Times. The act betrays a failure to understand that if one wants to “install” a new office-holder, it’s much “nicer” to have a Supreme Court in place that happens to be in agreement with your ideas. At least this way, one avoids all appearances of a coup, and besides, it’s less expensive.
Page 134 of 256 pages ‹ First < 132 133 134 135 136 > Last ›
