Welcome to Wired News’ 2006 Foot-in-Mouth Awards program. You, the readers, have sent us your picks for the lamest quotes from or about the world of technology during this eventful year. We have selected the “best” of those and present them to you now.
Category: Media
Frank Stanton Obituary
ith the 1960 Presidential election approaching, Dr. Stanton persuaded Congress to suspend the “equal time” provision in the Federal Communications Act. That made it possible for the networks to televise debates between the Democratic nominee, Sen. John F. Kennedy, and his Republican rival, Vice President Richard M. Nixon, without including candidates of smaller parties. The debates signaled the arrival of television as a dominant force in presidential politics.
Dr. Stanton bore much of the criticism when Washington objected to CBS News’s coverage of the war in Vietnam, though he denied a frequently told tale that President Johnson had telephoned him at home to curse him for broadcasting a report by Morley Safer showing Marines burning down peasant huts in Cam Ne.
Goodbye VHS, Farewell Fair Use
As VHS tapes and VCRs head the way of Betamax and phonographs, commentator Bill Hammack warns that the right to fair use is in danger of disappearing right along with them.
Back in the 1980s, the Supreme Court ruled VCR makers couldn’t be held liable for copyright infringement.
That gave consumers the right to make personal copies of TV shows and movies using a VCR.
The new digital media that are erasing the VHS format are also erasing our rights.
A few years ago, a Judge issued a catch-22 ruling: Yes, she said, we can copy commercial DVDs too. But no one can sell the software to do that.
NASA Live Video Stream
24 Hour US Air Traffic Animation
This is a very interesting sight. It depicts flights across the U.S. in time-lapse over a couple of 24 hour periods.
It has already garnered nine awards:
#49 – Most Viewed (All Time) – Arts & Animation – All #39 – Most Viewed (All Time) – Arts & Animation – English #87 – Top Rated (All Time) – Arts & Animation – All #37 – Most Discussed (All Time) – Arts & Animation – All #27 – Most Discussed (All Time) – Arts & Animation – English #46 – Top Favorites (All Time) – Arts & Animation – All #39 – Top Favorites (All Time) – Arts & Animation – English #79 – Recently Featured – All #16 – Recently Featured – Arts & Animation – All
Search Wisconsin Political Blogs
WisOpinion. A good idea.
A New Goofy Short: “How to Install Your Home Theater”
It is not surprising that Mr. Lasseter is using short films to train and test the artists: he and his fellow Pixar animators spent almost 10 years making shorts, learning how to use computer graphics effectively before they made “Toy Story” and the string of hits that followed. Pixar continues to produce a cartoon short every year, and has won Oscars for the shorts “Tin Toy,” “Geri’s Game” and “For the Birds.”
Four new shorts are in development at Disney: “The Ballad of Nessie,” a stylized account of the origin of the Loch Ness monster; “Golgo’s Guest,” about a meeting between a Russian frontier guard and an extraterrestrial; “Prep and Landing,” in which two inept elves ready a house for Santa’s visit; and “How to Install Your Home Theater,” the return of Goofy’s popular “How to” shorts of the ’40s and ’50s, in which a deadpan narrator explains how to play a sport or execute a task, while Goofy attempts to demonstrate — with disastrous results. The new Goofy short is slated to go into production early next year.
I’ve long enjoyed short films. Clusty has more.
Books and the Future of Publishing
Michael Maiello and Michael Noer:
Are books in danger?
The conventional wisdom would say yes. After all, more and more media–the Internet, cable television, satellite radio, videogames–compete for our time. And the Web in particular, with its emphasis on textual snippets, skimming and collaborative creation, seems ill-suited to nurture the sustained, authoritative transmission of complex ideas that has been the historical purview of the printed page.
But surprise–the conventional wisdom is wrong. Our special report on books and the future of publishing is brim-full of reasons to be optimistic. People are reading more, not less. The Internet is fueling literacy. Giving books away online increases off-line readership. New forms of expression–wikis, networked books–are blossoming in a digital hothouse.
Verizon’s Blog
Interesting to see the Big Telco jousting with their competitors. Unfortunately, we Madisonians are a long way away from fiber to the home, something Verizon is installing in many markets.
Yahoo’s Peanut Butter Manifesto
It will be interesting to see how Terry Semel reacts to Brad Garlinghouse’s “peanut butter manifesto,” which was essentially open letter accusing Terry of incompetence. Garlinghouse took pains to note that Yahoo’s problems come “straight from the top.” He also obviously either leaked the memo himself or knew that it would be leaked (little difference). Regardless of what happens, Yahoo shareholders should thank him.