In case you needed any more evidence I'm a geek...

From 2007_02_23

I got this in the mail today. It's my long-awaited Xbox Live Diamond card! The chicks will dig it.

Actually, there is a practical benefitto having this. Supposedly, I get all manner of discounts at non-geeky places such as Carl's Jr., TigerDirect and GameStop. Oh, wait...

Future-of-Journalism story roundup

• Slate's Jack Shafer argues that the 20% profit margins to which newspaper publishers have become accustomed are a historical anomaly. He contends newspapers have a choice: 1) Lower profit expectations to 10% or so and invest anything above that back into the product. 2) Buoy margins with cost cuts that end up killing the golden goose.
• Jeff Jarvis says running newswire copy and maintaining costly non-local news bureaus don't make sense in an age of hyperlinks. In discussions with my wife -- a newspaper graphics artist making the transition to the Web -- I've come to the same conclusion.
• Cnet reports that bloggers think Microsoft's new Reader software (not to be confused with this Microsoft Reader) is dead on arrival. When I first wrote about this software several months ago, I praised its ability to prioritize stories and highlight photos and graphics with a newspaper-like layout. But I also wondered whether users would have to download a separate application for each publication they wanted to to read. Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Apparently no one at Microsoft or any of its publishing partners realize that most people prefer a single application to read everything: it's called a Web browser. As I said in my initial review, Microsoft's Reader should be a browser plug-in that can work with any specially formatted site, not a standalone application -- and certainly not a set of them.

Narrowing the Religion Gap?

An interesting piece in last week's New York Times magazine about the odd political pole reversal in the 2008 race. That is, the Democratic frontrunners seem more "religious" than their Republican counterparts.

Try a quick political thought experiment. First, form a mental picture of the Democratic front-runners for president — Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Now do the same for the leading Republican contenders — John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. Next (and this is the key step), imagine each of them in church, sitting in a pew, head bowed, or better still, at the pulpit, delivering a homily or leading the congregation in worship.

Of course, the article doesn't mention Republican Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon, or Democrat Joe Biden, who doesn't seem very religious at all. But then again, those two aren't the leading 2008 contenders in their party.

Source: New York Times

Scientist Bush

First the flight suit, now this. If you ask me, I think he's a little too old to be dressing up in costume.