Does the NY Times know how to count?

No wonder the NY Times has been struggling financially: they simply don't even know how to count!

 

Yesterday the NY Times claimed  that I had reach my monthly limit of 10 stories, but I am very confident that I have not clicked on ANY stories (okay, maybe one or two... or three) other than in Google News and in Twitter, which are not supposed to count. I am still able to click on Times stories in Google News, so I suspect it may be the Twitter side of the house that is miscounting.

 

Meanwhile, my readership of the NY Times has clearly declined, which accrues to the benefit of the Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor (as well as Reuters and AP), both sources of high quality stories.

-- Jack Krupansky

Mike Wallace and 60 Minutes

I used to love watching Mike Wallace on Biography when I was a kid. And he definitely raised the bar with his many early years with 60 Minutes. But, alas, later in its life 60 Minutes began to exemplify the steady decline in the quality of journalism in America. These days, I would not watch 60 minutes for any reason. It is now basically the epitome of "trash journalism." Wallace had a talent for picking his targets carefully and crafting his questions just as carefully. He was always laser-focused and dead-on. Both the questions and the answer had great value. These days, none of that is the case. Maybe 60 Minutes is actually the cause of its own diminished stature in that maybe most people in power know enough to stay away for fear that something, anything that might be even remotely embarrassing might pop up in an interview and that even the phrasing of questions or a moment of hesitation will be misread. Mike Wallace knew how to do it right, but those who have followed him simply don't have a clue. Yes, Mike's results were frequently sensational, but mostly because of the quality of his work, but these days the goal seems to be sensationalism at any cost and with as little attention as possibly to the quality of the work other than an obsession with slickness and edginess that hides and distorts the truth more than uncovers it.

 

In any case, here's to the good old days, the days of Mike Wallace in Biography and his early years in 60 Minutes.

-- Jack Krupansky

Getting into Prezi

I am finally starting to get into Prezi. It is in fact a very cool way to prepare and make presentations.

 

I don't yet have any hard-core, really serious presentations yet, but here's my "workspace" on Prezi:

 

http://prezi.com/user/jackkrupansky/

 

I am going to try to organize some of my thoughts on software agents in the form of Prezi presentations. I have already made a couple of initial stabs at that link above, but please consider it all "a work in progress."

 

I am just using the free offering, which means all of my work is public (which is perfect for an entrepreneur.)

-- Jack Krupansky

April Fool's Day is a perfect fit for the Occupy Movement

Usually I cringe at the silliness of April Fool's Day, but I see that it is a perfect and natural fit for the Occupy Movement, where they tweet about the way things "should" be but "sadly" aren't. Actually, that sounds a lot like what they do most of the time anyway.

• Bankers arrested! (NOT)
• Brookfield properties renames Zuccotti Park to Liberty Square and gives Occupy Wall Street control (NOT)
• Ray Kelly resigns as NYPD commissioner (NOT)
• Walmart open to unionization (NOT)
• Monsanto phases out GMOs (NOT)
• Rush Limbaugh supports Planned Parenthood (NOT)
• Moratorium on old-growth forest logging (NOT)
• GOP supportive of women's reproductive rights (NOT)
• Shell pledges money for oil spill cleanup (NOT)
• TransCanada scraps plane for Keystone pipeline (NOT)

Hmmm... most of these items have nothing to do with Wall Street per se. That illustrates perfectly how un-focused the whole Occupy Wall Street movement has been.

 

-- Jack Krupansky