Macworld keynote

Speaking of Mac stuff, I plan to be at the Tyson's Corner Apple Store for the Macworld keynote tomorrow (since it seems to be impossible for me to ever connect to Apple's live event streams through my DSL, whether I'm on my OS 9, OS X or Windows box).

Any readers going? Drop me a line or say hi; I'll be the guy with thinning hair... and a goatee... uh, who is kinda short... with gray sideburns... Oh, screw it, half the people there will look like that. Take a chance. :)     1 comment(s)  

You could always wear a hat proudly proclaiming your name so everyone would know who you are.

Just a thought.
      ...posted by Neil on January 7, 2003 3:31 PM

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 Jaguar coming

We'll soon be jumping on the Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2) bandwagon; I'm looking forward to the vaunted performance improvements, and hope that most of the kinks are worked out by now (since they've updated it three times already).

I'm particularly excited about trying out the NetNewsWire Pro beta (which needs Jaguar). It might change entirely how I do the weblog. (It won't look different to you, of course.)

Also, iCal looks neat (if they ever get the bugs out, that is).  

 Sunday show blahs

I've surprised myself by watching less and less TV political coverage over the last year (especially the Sunday shows), even though it's easier than ever thanks to our TiVo. There are any number of reasons I can come up for this, for instance: it hasn't been a presidential-campaign period; the pool of guests has been ever more filled with party-line hacks spouting the same key phrases all morning (many of which are patronizing, misleading and annoying to hear even once, let alone on every show); and (the most likely reason) I get plenty of political news and differing viewpoints online and don't expect to hear anything new or surprising on Sundays any more, so it's a waste of time.

I do still try to catch certain shows (like Washington Week and the Friday wraps on the NewsHour), largely because they include reporters who are willing to give anecdotes and impressions that may not have made it into their stories; you get some additional sense of what's really going on behind the scenes ("the scenes" being the Sunday shows themselves, among others). The journalists, while they may have personal agendas which influence what they say, at least don't all have the same agenda (or one of only two narrow agendas).

Steve Chapman writes about his own lack of interest:

TV, Cokie Roberts and the real Sunday morning news [Chicago Tribune]

In many journalistic circles, it is considered a solemn obligation, and even a pleasure, to pass Sunday morning in front of the tube. ... In my younger days as a journalist, I used to make a habit of tuning in, feeling it was essential to keeping abreast of national events and writing well-informed commentary. But eventually it became apparent to me that what I was gaining in information, I was losing in perspective. I was mistaking the current for the important.

...Another reason for my inattention is that anything important said on these shows will be in the newspapers on Monday, since news is usually scarce on Sunday. And if you want the whole context of the distinguished senator's thoughts about this nomination or that bill, you can always find a transcript online -- and read it in a tiny fraction of the time it takes to watch the show.

...most of the "news" on these programs is as predictable as Wonder Bread. [Cokie Roberts]: "Over the years politicians have gotten more scripted. They have media consultants who tell them how to do it. They've learned how to speak in 11-second sound bites... So it is irritating, and you do try to think of something that maybe they haven't thought of so that they are thrown off the script a bit, but it's hard to do."

I didn't know Washington Week was doing transcripts now; I just stumbled on it when I looked up the link. Hmm. I may not need to watch that one either.

(Is this a problem for shows that put transcripts up? Will talk shows lose funding because of declining viewership even if the number of people getting the information remains consistent?)