Stilgherrian » freakonomics http://stilgherrian.com All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris. Tue, 08 Jul 2008 07:36:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en © stil@stilgherrian.com () stil@stilgherrian.com() 1440 Live Internet broadcasts from Stilgherrian. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris. stil@stilgherrian.com No no http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/sla_144w.jpg Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com 144 144 Freakonomics interviews Bruce Schneier http://stilgherrian.com/internet/freakonomics_interviews_schneier/ http://stilgherrian.com/internet/freakonomics_interviews_schneier/#comments Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:20:33 +0000 Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/internet/freakonomics_interviews_schneier/ There’s plenty to ponder when the Freakonomics lads (with help from their readers) interview security guru Bruce Schneier — including the news that he doesn’t bother securing his wireless network at home!

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]]> http://stilgherrian.com/internet/freakonomics_interviews_schneier/feed/ Herald falls for joke, will they withdraw? http://stilgherrian.com/media/herald_falls_for_joke/ http://stilgherrian.com/media/herald_falls_for_joke/#comments Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:54:00 +0000 Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/media/herald_falls_for_joke/ This morning the Sydney Morning Herald tells us how an economist’s research shows that AC/DC’s Bon Scott wasn’t as good a singer as Brian Johnson. Alas, it’s been exposed as a joke. Will the Herald give as prominent a place to their “correction”?

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]]> http://stilgherrian.com/media/herald_falls_for_joke/feed/ Tagged! 5 favourite feeds http://stilgherrian.com/personal/tagged_5_favourite_feeds/ http://stilgherrian.com/personal/tagged_5_favourite_feeds/#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2007 04:46:58 +0000 Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/personal/tagged_5_favourite_feeds/ Oh dear, Zhasper tagged me with one of those “tell us your 5 favourite feeds” memes. At least it wasn’t “5 things you may not know about me,” or I’d be forced to emulate Hugh MacLeod’s sarcastic reply. OK, here we go…

Actually, I’m going to give you two sets of five. My really favourite feeds are from people unlikely to play this game, but I’m sure to read them every day.

  1. Gaping Void, Hugh McLeod’s insightful cartoons drawn on the back of business cards. I also appreciate his observations on blog-led business marketing. I should also mention Indexed in this context, even though it’s not quite a must-read yet.
  2. Freakonomics, the blog of the book of the same name.
  3. I agree with Zhasper that The Bartlett Diaries is a fine political blog.
  4. Josh Spear spends his days cruising around to see what’s cool. Lucky him.
  5. Crikey. OK, I cheated. It’s an email newsletter, not an RSS feed. Sue me.

On a more personal note:

  1. If I don’t start with Out to Space and Pong’s Flickr feed, I’ll be in serious trouble.
  2. My friend and colleague Zern Liew’s Eicolab, even if he does have a rant against Apple today.
  3. Man About Town, a personal blog by my friend Richard Watts in Melbourne — always an eclectic mix of personal anecdotes and arts reviews. I’d never reveal so much of my, erm, vices!
  4. The Other Andrew’s delightfully-written personal observations would continue to fascinate me, even if I hadn’t know him for years.
  5. Bad Language by Matthew Stibbe is my daily fix of writing about writing.

Now, your responses please! And if you’re reading this but haven’t been tagged, I’d love to hear from you anyway. Post a comment! You know you want to!

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]]> http://stilgherrian.com/personal/tagged_5_favourite_feeds/feed/ The Pointlessness of News http://stilgherrian.com/human-nature/pointlessness_of_news/ http://stilgherrian.com/human-nature/pointlessness_of_news/#comments Sat, 10 Feb 2007 23:50:48 +0000 Stilgherrian http://stilgherrian.com/human-nature/pointlessness_of_news/ When I posted about the astronaut attempted kidnapping story the other day, I hadn’t realised it had already become a major global story. Now Freakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner asks: Why?

I realize the story represents a sort of perfect storm of media stickiness — a female perp and a female victim, lust, revenge, NASA, pepper spray, and of course the diaper — but I have to confess that I am overwhelmed that this has become such a round-the-clock story. Who cares, and why? They were even talking about the story on the two ESPN shows I saw pieces of last night (SportsCenter and Pardon the Interruption); in each case, the anchors sheepishly acknowledged that the story had zero to do with sports but… they simply couldn’t resist.

With 63 comments so far, there’s plenty of interesting ideas. Well worth the read. The highlights for me…

High-brow tip o’the hat to the guy who quoted Henry David Thoreau:

And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter — we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Media-awareness hat-tip to:

In this internet age, news organizations have a built-in focus group. If they post this on their site and gets lots of page views (people clicked to read the article), they know it is a “winner” so they cover it more.

And the low-brow hat-tip to the very first comment:

A woman in diapers pretty much does it for me. If you don’t understand this story then I suggest that you are sexually dead.

God I love the Internet…

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