Letters to the Editor
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@ QS
This pretty much describes what I did for a living for the last 20 years of my working life:
All the data from generations of heterogenous applications had to be extracted, transformed and loaded from existing data stores into a new data warehouse to do any data mining.
The data in my case was bibliographic data, not customer data, but the rest was pretty much as you describe it -- the labor-intensive front-end, the endless list of anomalies to be resolved, the potential for unanticipated errors. I remember thinking on more than one occasion that if I'd worked for the DIA or NSA instead of the University of California, I'd have to flee in horror, especially since it was plain that the inherent error rate in data conversion interested no one above the rank of corporal.
For me, the conclusion is inescapable: we're preparing a social Armageddon of the highest order for ourselves. What's coming won't be the Sixties redux, I'm afraid, but rather the Thirties redux without the safety valve of the New Deal.
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Rotting Corpse
The subject today, which is now depressingly familiar, is the continuing degradation and subsequent demise of print media as the vehicle the founders intended for the political discourse democracy requires, which now seems a distant memory.
In a futile, relentless, and ultimately self-defeating pursuit of a "readership" resolutely hostile to actual reading, the heedless, Epimethean corporations that now have absorbed our "free press" have chosen to cheapen their "product," appealing to the "Survivor" set, rather than realizing the simple fact that in so doing they lose the faithful and render useless the higher knowledge that is really their only selling point in a fast-paced, dumbed-down world.
As Anonymust pointed out, the futility of making the product cheesy and indistinguishable from the offerings excreted by their broadcast brethren, even great newspapers relinquish their reason to exist, not to mention any residual prestige they may have retained from the past. And I would add to WT's thought that Sulzberger ought go about in disguise, that his rag no longer carries any whiff of erudition the reader might hope to gain from familiarity with it. It's the readers who need a disguise. Maybe hide your NYT under a copy of People. To have one's intelligence insulted repeatedly by nearly every writer on the op-ed page with utter falsehoods, rote dismissals of actual thinkers like Chomsky, always based on the ignorant and arrogant assumption that the reader doesn't know better, is to ask for the shovel to dig your newspaper's grave. The pursuit of "balance," which is currently fashionable but absurdly indifferent to truth, appeals only to those too addlepated and dumb to read a newspaper anyway. Does anyone who believes a word Kristol types spend $1.25 and a half hour reading anything, except perhaps on the toilet?
Nice business plan. Why not market mink coats to PETA?
PS... Bahhummingbug.. I'm glad to know that I've still got you, and your gun, where I want you. What are you pouring tonight?
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@QS
2.'Not really a database but a way of searching other databases' - Just who designs those algorithms, according to what kind of review, and how often are they revised?
Maybe AT&T?
AT&T Invents Programming Language for Mass Surveillance
http://cryptogon.com/?p=1550
Synthetic Environments for Analysis and Simulation
June 30th, 2007
Simulex Inc.’s Synthetic Environments for Analysis and Simulation system is almost certainly how the priests of the technocracy are now maintaining “normal” operations, and, more importantly, how They plan to kill most of us off.
The system allows for terra scale datasets with granularity of results down to one node (individual). It has a physics engine for tracking any number of people (or other elements) in virtual cities or spaces. It can correlate any amount of social, economic, political, environmental or other data with the behavior of groups or individuals on the ground. The U.S. Government, and some of the most powerful corporations on the planet are using the SEAS system...
http://cryptogon.com/?p=956
reads like tin foil head gear but I think this guy is not wearing one yet.
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Carney/Fisa ads
It was all designed to fit together. The TV ad and billboard are very thematic and simple -- the TV ad is focused on how un-American these spying powers and amnesty are (just like they have in Russia and Communist China!).
The radio ad (because it's longer - 60 seconds) is more elaborate. And the newspaper ad is designed to supplement all that with more information.
Fascinating plan.
Glenn, I really REALLY hope that this effort of yours exceeds expectations. What a weapon this could be if it works!! Never have I been so excited about the prospect of using a legitimate tactic like a bombardment of HONESTY to dethrone the worst of the worst in congress...one at a time. I have a really good feeling abou this.
I hope this strategy will be coupled with a well-funded lefty candidate running on a more constitutionalist, non-imperialist platform.
I'd imagine that if the numbers come back verifying the effectiveness of such an ad campaign, another bombardment will be ready to go??
I realize I'm getting ahead of myself...but who's next??!?
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Kansas and Idaho are caucus states...
...and as such, the numbers are simply not comparable to numbers from primary states.
But that does not change the fact that Kristol was wrong.
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Pithiness!
"It's the readers who need a disguise. Maybe hide your NYT under a copy of People." - Cocktailhag
Thanks for that!
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A perfect match
"[b]landly written, intellectually lazy, and -- worst of all -- hopelessly predictable"
I don't know about you but this sounds like New York Times material to me.
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Cocktailhag's comment just reminded me of something else...
A coworker recommended a fake documentary for its satire: "Bob Roberts." It stars Tim Robbins, who also wrote it, and collaborated (with his brother?) on some of the songs. (The music, though RightWing, is still pretty good... as long as you don't pay too much attention to the lyrics.) Robbins' character is a RWA folk-singer who runs for the Senate... just imagine that for a moment. Lots of musical humor/allusions for those who care about such things. Think Woody Guthrie (influenced by Dylan) channels Grover Norquist.
I really liked it, and it seemed especially prescient to me, given that it was released in 1992. I know its themes were probably obvious to those who were paying more attention than I was then, but Robbins clearly understood then what we're all discussing in these threads now. At that time, I was just trying to keep up with election news and find another job. Iran-Contra is also a recurring motif...
A great cast, including cameos of stars playing newsfolk (heh, heh). And Gore Vidal as a senatorial candidate. A revelation.