Posted: February 2nd, 2009 | Author: Agitationist | Filed under: blogging, favorites | Tags: blogging, google | No Comments »
Every week a handful of posts catch my attention, so I thought I’d start collecting a few of them for you. Here are a few that stood out this week:
“Well, Sorta, Bob…” by John Battelle demonstrates old-media short-sightedness at its silliest. And yes, today AOL is “old media”. Someday this quote will be pulled out of the dusty archives and laughed at, much like the record executive who rejected the Beatles because “guitar groups were on the way out”:
Speaking at a business school, former AOL honcho Bob Pittman said:
“Television is still America’s hobby. … I don’t think there’s a chance that the Internet is going to replace television,” he said. “It’s not going away, it’s still the most persuasive of all media.
“Internet video is usually about three minutes long and is either wildly entertaining or wildly informative, but it’s not doing the same thing as television.”
Well, no. The Internet won’t kill video. It’ll just eat it entirely, assimilate it, and turn it into a function of the web. Once television becomes an application of the web, it’ll be much, much better. I for one can’t wait.
“Google Launches Tools to Test for Bandwidth Throttling” by Josh Catone”. Debate all you want about whether Google lives up to its credo “Don’t be Evil”. At the very least, they’re flexing their considerable muscle to stand up to the ISPs, which for the most part ARE evil:
[...] M-Lab will offers tools that allow users to determine what is causing network slowdowns, if their connection is being throttled by their ISP, and allow researchers to access and share that information.
In other words, this is Google’s latest salvo in their campaign for network neutrality.
[...]Measurement Lab is launching with three tools that “help users attempt to diagnose common problems that might impair their broadband speed, as well as determine whether BitTorrent is being blocked or throttled by their ISPs.”
[...]Google’s announcement of M-Lab comes as net neutrality is in the news again today, thanks to an announcement from Cox Communications — American’s third largest cable provider — that it plans to begin testing a new method of “congestion management” in February that would throttle network traffic based on perceived time-sensitivity.
Speaking of the controversial subject of Google’s evilness, Noisy Channel’s Daniel Tunkelang reports on “Is Google Evil? The Great Debate”. Yes, someone actually had a real live debate. Daniel summarizes the debate into bullet points (read the original post for detail and analysis):
Those arguing in favor of the motion, i.e., that Google does violate its “don’t be evil” motto, made what amount to four points:
- Google’s China policy is evil
- Google is evil by its own standard
- Google does evil by monopolistic abuse of market power
- Google is guilty of hubris
Those arguing against the motion made these five points:
- Google’s China policy virally spreads democracy
- Google is not like other greedy corporations
- Much of the evil attributed to Google is more correctly attributed to governments
- Google is no more evil than the internet as a whole
- If Google is evil, then humanity is evil
And speaking of evil, the free flow of information is still illegal in in the world’s most populous country, as demonstrated in “Obama Faces Chinese Censorship” by Apurba Sen:
Barack Obama’s campaign & election has been followed by a large section of Chinese internet population & his immense popularity among Chinese has emerged out in various surveys. However many were disappointed, if not downright annoyed when his inauguration speech faced Chinese censorship for his references to communism & dissent.
AP Reports: The Chinese translation of the speech, credited to the Web site of the official English-language newspaper China Daily, was missing the word “communism” in the first sentence. The paragraph with the sentence on dissent had been removed entirely.
The censored version was carried by Xinhua, the official news agency, and posted on popular online portals like Sina and Sohu. Another portal, Netease, used a version without the paragraph mentioning communism, but retaining the part about dissent.
So what’s getting your attention?
Grain Edit- suggested by reader/friend Rachel, Grain Edit is after my own heart. Seamlessly combining classic vintage mid-20th Century found design objects (from matchbooks to movie posters) with new designers in the same classic styles, Grain Edit has a well-defined aesthetic that is, in my humble opinion, exactly what the world should look like.
LP Cover Lover - ah, the art of the album cover. The great ones are almost as great as the bad ones. You’ll find thousands of both (mostly the bad ones) at LP Cover Lover. The collection of Christian LPs featuring beehive hairdos could make a huge web site all on its own. But there is so much more. This is what makes the internet great.
Type Theory - if you’re a typography nut, you’ve come to the right place. And if you know you love Helvetica but haven’t dug much deeper, prepare for a master course. Type Theory concentrates on contemporary work, but throws in some vintage goodies for us retro fiends as well. And as the name indicates, Type Theory gets deep into the reasons why it all works.
Things Magazine - this fine blog is connected with the occasional print magazine of the same name, which is apparently “about objects and their meanings”, and it’s worth reading. But they really got me with their excellent collection of paperback book covers, especially the Pelican Project. 
Typo Gabor - OK, I’m going out on a limb here, since this collection of ”Galeries Pédagogiques de Design & Typo” is completely in French. But following the links reveals some excellent galleries of contemporary work, homages to great designers and typographers, and enough design inspiration to keep me coming back, whether I can read it or not.
BAGnewsNotes
Movie Title Screens
Design Observer
Waxin’ & Milkin’: A Visual Mixtape
