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Thursday, September 2, 2010
Oddest moments in local news storytelling
I'm not sure what the author of the story was trying to convey - or whether it was just this bizarre - but how does one get from being a 66-year-old offended by turtle skinning to having a police officer draw a weapon on you? If you're Polly Foster of Kingsport, TN, it's just a small step from heroine to felon.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Make Consumers Say What You Want Them To Say
This one is too good to pass up:
Under the headline "How to get power users answering questions the way you want" a pro-smart-grid daily trade rag, Smart Grid Today, dispenses advice on how to get consumers to answer the way you want them to answer.
Pepco finds word choice makes all the difference:
" 'Utilities should use caution in phrasing questions to consumers about the smart grid since the choice of words strongly influences the answers,' Rick Morgan, a regulator with the Washington, DC, PSC, told us Wednesday," Smart Grid Today states in its August 27, 2010 issue.
The approach is of particular importance if you're trying to get government funding, as many smart grid firms are attempting as part of the greentech initiatives popular in Washington.
Maybe the headline on Smart Grid Today would better be stated:
"Leading questions? Of course we recommend using them! Listening to the consumer answer an open-ended question? No way!"
Under the headline "How to get power users answering questions the way you want" a pro-smart-grid daily trade rag, Smart Grid Today, dispenses advice on how to get consumers to answer the way you want them to answer.
Pepco finds word choice makes all the difference:
" 'Utilities should use caution in phrasing questions to consumers about the smart grid since the choice of words strongly influences the answers,' Rick Morgan, a regulator with the Washington, DC, PSC, told us Wednesday," Smart Grid Today states in its August 27, 2010 issue.
The approach is of particular importance if you're trying to get government funding, as many smart grid firms are attempting as part of the greentech initiatives popular in Washington.
Maybe the headline on Smart Grid Today would better be stated:
"Leading questions? Of course we recommend using them! Listening to the consumer answer an open-ended question? No way!"
Friday, December 18, 2009
Idiots Among Us
I'm a conservative, but I often find that other conservatives confuse passion with a lack of critical reasoning, giving conservatives a bad name when it comes to engaging in the debate of ideas.
In that vein, there's a conservative movie reviewer whose reviews, for all intents and purposes, read like those of an uneducated idiot.
Dr. Ted Baehr, whose title might imply the habits of an educated mind, appears to be one who likes to cast aspersions at "motes" without considering the "beam" in his own eye. Specifically, Dr. Baehr's review of the movie Avatar from James Cameron reaches a new low, apparently written in haste by a someone who can't quite put coherent thoughts together.
Ignoring, for the moment, the intent of Dr. Baehr's review and whether he understands the difference between environmentalism and colonialism (hint: the latter has to do with taking something that's not yours, from someone who owned it before you, via some form of "divine right" justification), let's look at the basic mistakes he makes in putting forth his argument.
Dr. Baehr's review is full of grammatical, logical and theological errors. Here are just three examples:
1. "If only someone had edited this movie, it may have been more interesting"
Ironically this sentence follows shortly after Dr. Baehr declares that "when you put spectacle first, you turn a great little movie like King King into King Bore." In other words, Dr. Baehr forgot to edit his own snipe at Cameron's editing. Both visual and textual editing require review, and Dr. Baehr fails the grammar check on this point.
2. Dr. Baehr's paraphrase of Aristotle's sequencing of "entertainment" (according to Dr. Baehr) or "tragedy" (according to Aristotle) is wrong.
"Great entertainment puts plot first, character second, dialogue third, idea forth, music fifth and spectacle last, as Aristotle noted."
Dr. Baehr, in bastardizing the tragedy list for his own entertainment purposes, missed a few of Aristotle's points. The proper order is: plot, character, thought, diction, song, melody. At least Dr. Baehr could appear to be a "learned man" by getting the sequencing right.
3. Dr. Baehr makes a disturbing theological leap of faith when he suggests that all the aliens in Avatar needed was Jesus Christ. Seriously . . .
"What the . . . aliens in the movie need to deliver them from their severe group think is the loving salvation available only through the true God, Jesus Christ."
Does Dr. Baehr really believe that aliens can be saved? If so, is he suggesting Christ went to die on multiple planets, and not just Earth?
I've sent an email to Dr. Baehr asking him to expound on those two questions.
His answers will tell us exactly what his theology consists of, which could be more dangerous than the flaws he attempts to explain in Cameron's fictional Avatar movie.
Maybe he would've been better off sticking with a single-sentence review in "movie speak" that translates just as effectively for conservative viewers as it does for liberal ones: Avatar is Pocahontas (Terrence Malick's The New World) meets Apocalypse Now.
In that vein, there's a conservative movie reviewer whose reviews, for all intents and purposes, read like those of an uneducated idiot.
Dr. Ted Baehr, whose title might imply the habits of an educated mind, appears to be one who likes to cast aspersions at "motes" without considering the "beam" in his own eye. Specifically, Dr. Baehr's review of the movie Avatar from James Cameron reaches a new low, apparently written in haste by a someone who can't quite put coherent thoughts together.
Ignoring, for the moment, the intent of Dr. Baehr's review and whether he understands the difference between environmentalism and colonialism (hint: the latter has to do with taking something that's not yours, from someone who owned it before you, via some form of "divine right" justification), let's look at the basic mistakes he makes in putting forth his argument.
Dr. Baehr's review is full of grammatical, logical and theological errors. Here are just three examples:
1. "If only someone had edited this movie, it may have been more interesting"
Ironically this sentence follows shortly after Dr. Baehr declares that "when you put spectacle first, you turn a great little movie like King King into King Bore." In other words, Dr. Baehr forgot to edit his own snipe at Cameron's editing. Both visual and textual editing require review, and Dr. Baehr fails the grammar check on this point.
2. Dr. Baehr's paraphrase of Aristotle's sequencing of "entertainment" (according to Dr. Baehr) or "tragedy" (according to Aristotle) is wrong.
"Great entertainment puts plot first, character second, dialogue third, idea forth, music fifth and spectacle last, as Aristotle noted."
Dr. Baehr, in bastardizing the tragedy list for his own entertainment purposes, missed a few of Aristotle's points. The proper order is: plot, character, thought, diction, song, melody. At least Dr. Baehr could appear to be a "learned man" by getting the sequencing right.
3. Dr. Baehr makes a disturbing theological leap of faith when he suggests that all the aliens in Avatar needed was Jesus Christ. Seriously . . .
"What the . . . aliens in the movie need to deliver them from their severe group think is the loving salvation available only through the true God, Jesus Christ."
Does Dr. Baehr really believe that aliens can be saved? If so, is he suggesting Christ went to die on multiple planets, and not just Earth?
I've sent an email to Dr. Baehr asking him to expound on those two questions.
His answers will tell us exactly what his theology consists of, which could be more dangerous than the flaws he attempts to explain in Cameron's fictional Avatar movie.
Maybe he would've been better off sticking with a single-sentence review in "movie speak" that translates just as effectively for conservative viewers as it does for liberal ones: Avatar is Pocahontas (Terrence Malick's The New World) meets Apocalypse Now.
Monday, November 30, 2009
An Impressive Choice
In a recent survey, Americans were asked to choose what they would like to do most, based on a series of options.
"Half of Americans chose laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier as a ceremony in which they'd most like to participate. That swamped the other choices: lighting the Olympic torch, tossing the coin to open a Super Bowl, starting the race at the Indianapolis 500, ringing the opening bell at the stock exchange and throwing out the first pitch at the World Series."
The result was surprising on one hand, but having had the honor of laying a wreath when I was 18, I understand the awe it inspires (and still remember, to this day, the gloves of the honor guard, sopping with sweat as they execute very precise maneuvers).
"Half of Americans chose laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier as a ceremony in which they'd most like to participate. That swamped the other choices: lighting the Olympic torch, tossing the coin to open a Super Bowl, starting the race at the Indianapolis 500, ringing the opening bell at the stock exchange and throwing out the first pitch at the World Series."
The result was surprising on one hand, but having had the honor of laying a wreath when I was 18, I understand the awe it inspires (and still remember, to this day, the gloves of the honor guard, sopping with sweat as they execute very precise maneuvers).
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Metadata: Certainly Not Boring
Especially in this interview that Peter Cervieri recorded at last week's Streaming Media West 2009 show.
Peter's interviews for his ScribeMedia.org often focuses on topics that are both timely and somewhat controversial, but metadata often doesn't fit in the latter category, unless you count Peter's triple-X rated title for the interview.
While my slightly-pseudo-Southern accent always reminds me that I talk a bit slower now than I did when I lived in my native New York, Peter did a good job of steering the conversation to cover many of the points from my recent metadata article: Metadata: What You Need to Know (And Why You Need to Know It)
Running time for the interview is 12:29
Friday, November 13, 2009
Embarrassment in Entrepreneurship?
A great quote from the founder of LinkedIn:
"If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late."
http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/technology/article/the-iterate-fast-and-release-often-philosophy-of-entrepreneurship-ben-parr
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"If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late."
http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/technology/article/the-iterate-fast-and-release-often-philosophy-of-entrepreneurship-ben-parr
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