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The People Formerly Known as the Audience
The people formerly known as the audience wish to inform media people of our existence, and of a shift in power that goes with the platform shift you’ve all heard about.
Think of passengers on your ship who got a boat of their own. The writing readers. The viewers who picked up a camera. The formerly atomized listeners who with modest effort can connect with each other and gain the means to speak— to the world, as it were.
Now we understand that met with ringing statements like these many media people want to cry out in the name of reason herself: If all would speak who shall be left to listen? Can you at least tell us that?
Tim Porter has more.
DCStat: Data for Digital Democracy
Starting in mid-June, [the city of Washington] DC began releasing operational data from a variety of city agencies to the Internet, in several XML formats including RSS and Atom.
BioPassword
BioPassword (Authenticates computer users based on the way they type on a keyboard.):
BioPassword offers the only multifactor authentication software that combines the user’s login credentials (userID and password) with the behavioral biometric of keystroke dynamics (unique typing rhythm) to provide a low-cost accurate security solution that is specific to the user, requires no change in user behavior, monitors and authenticates credentials and is immediately deployable across the organization and the Internet without the need for expensive hardware tokens, cards or other security devices.
Judge Rules That Prosecutors Violated the rights of 16 KPMG Partners
Those who commit crimes – regardless of whether they wear white or blue collars – must be brought to justice. The government, however, has let its zeal get in the way of its judgment. It has violated the Constitution it is sworn to defend.
That’s the money quote in Judge Kaplan’s stunning 88-page opinion, in which he found that prosecutors violated the constitutional rights of a group of former KPMG partners by pressuring the firm not to pay their legal bills. We’re going to take the liberty of reprinting the opinion’s entire preamble, which contains remarkably clear, riveting writing:
Lattman further posts his views on the winners and losers via this ruling along with a roundup of other commentary.
Law Professor Linda Beale has a few words as well.
Pelli’s Minneapolis Public Library
Photo by
Sopheava
Overture Center Architect Cesar Pelli’s Minneapolis Public Library recently opened. Check out the Flickr photo set for a number of perspectives. More on the Library:
The new Central Library features 25 community meeting and study rooms, a state-of-the-art auditorium, an updated children’s library, a center for new Americans, a space especially for teens, and 353,000 square feet of additional access to knowledge-enhancing resources.
With one-of-a-kind architecture, design and resources, the new Central Library is a destination spot for residents, the downtown workforce and visitors interested in experiencing the library’s extensive collection; attending special events, performances and author readings; or simply relaxing with a cup of coffee in a warm, welcoming place.
Well worth checking out as Madison considers a new downtown library (please keep Kenton Peter’s metallic designs away…)
Body Worlds
Gunther von Hagens’ BODY WORLDS exhibitions are currently showing in North America. “The human body is the last remaining nature in a man made environment,” he says. “I hope for the exhibitions to be places of enlightenment and contemplation, even of philosophical and religious self recognition, and open to interpretation regardless of the background and philosophy of life of the viewer.”
Body Worlds can be seen now at the Science Museum of Minnesota and is well worth the trip.
Southwest Utah Trip: Lower Calf Creek Canyon Hike
N˚ 37 47.618′ W˚ 111 24.896′
McCurrencies
Happy 20th birthday to our Big Mac index.
WHEN our economics editor invented the Big Mac index in 1986 as a light-hearted introduction to exchange-rate theory, little did she think that 20 years later she would still be munching her way, a little less sylph-like, around the world. As burgernomics enters its third decade, the Big Mac index is widely used and abused around the globe. It is time to take stock of what burgers do and do not tell you about exchange rates.
The Economist’s Big Mac index is based on one of the oldest concepts in international economics: the theory of purchasing-power parity (PPP), which argues that in the long run, exchange rates should move towards levels that would equalise the prices of an identical basket of goods and services in any two countries. Our “basket” is a McDonald’s Big Mac, produced in around 120 countries. The Big Mac PPP is the exchange rate that would leave burgers costing the same in America as elsewhere. Thus a Big Mac in China costs 10.5 yuan, against an average price in four American cities of $3.10 (see the first column of the table). To make the two prices equal would require an exchange rate of 3.39 yuan to the dollar, compared with a market rate of 8.03. In other words, the yuan is 58% “undervalued” against the dollar. To put it another way, converted into dollars at market rates the Chinese burger is the cheapest in the table.
Lefsetz FM Playlist
Yesterday was Mike Marrone’s fiftieth birthday. And he had the idea that I should substitute for him on the Loft. So, when I was at XM two weeks ago, we created six hours of programming. I couldn’t turn on the radio yesterday until about four, an hour after I started, but when I pushed the button on my boombox, I was shocked. Because it was my choices. And then me, coming over the airwaves.
Now Mike has got 13,000 plus songs in his library. And I was rushing to catch a plane. So, I quickly picked tracks. After hearing myself I was so elated that I fired up my Inno and recorded what was left of my show. People always ask me what I listen to, well, here you go.