Thursday Apr 10 2008
Remember a year ago on April 12th when I lamented that is was still snowing in our fine state? Today is, (hopefully our last,) snowy wet day for THIS spring. Here’s interstate 70 at Georgetown, west of Denver.
Earlier this week the story “Death by Blogging” made the rounds of almost every newspaper, blog, and water cooler in the country. The original New York Times article by Matt Richtel studies mostly free lance bloggers who maintain 24/7 schedules to be first in publishing a new story or hot rumer. I instantly thought “ok, this sounds like an article written with the headline first, and the story to match it.” Similar to “Driving while on cell phone equal to drunk driving.”
This story is nothing more than made up sensationalism. A scary techy headline about the dangers of our modern culture. Its overstating the obvious to say a high pressure job takes a toll on your health and personal life, but there’s no such thing as “dropping dead from blogging.” Slate Magazine’s Timothy Noah agrees, and in this rebuttal examines this made up story and trend.
From Noah’s April 7 article:
Richtel strongly implies that bloggers drop dead because they work in their apartments or houses all day and never get out. Never mind that Russell Shaw, a 60-year-old tech blogger who provides 50 percent of Richtel’s evidence that blogging kills, died while reporting on-scene at a conference 3,000 miles from his home and that “it’s not clear what role stress played in his death.” We never learn any circumstances surrounding the death of Marc Orchant, the 50-year-old tech blogger who provides Richtel’s remaining evidentiary 50 percent, and Malik, the blogger who survived, disappears entirely from the story after his cameo appearance in the above-mentioned to-be-sure graf.
More news of interest…
I posted earlier this week on the Fort Collins Bike Library Bike sharing program. MSNBC has an article about the popularity of bike sharing programs in the U.S.
I have no idea who this guy is, but his blog “Denver Bike Paths” is full of photos and recent info on our local trails. Check out his info if you’re recreationally biking Denver soon.
There’s nothing wrong with the MD-80. Except that you can’t get on one today. Cranky Flier lays out the details and reasons for the MD-80 groundings. Hopefully this wiring issue will solve this coffee maker problem too.
I follow airline and travel news but living far from Delta territory this one completely escaped me. So if you’ve been living in a cave too check out Katherine Lee, aka “Deltalina,” the well spoken and attractive face of the new Delta Air Lines safety video. Stylish and well done, but at 4.5 minutes long can they show it before the plane taxis to the runway? Check out the “sparkle” at 4:01.