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One of the more interesting aspects of having an RSS reader is that, assuming you catch the original post, you can see when someone publishes an update to their original post. Take for example this set of postings from Slate magazine, shown in order of most recent publication:

I am not sure why they chose to change the word “jihad” to “war”, especially considering that the article title still uses “jihad” in the title. Either way, I’m curious whether or not major (and minor, for that matter) media publications should disclose when they make changes of any sort, no matter how innocent, after publication. I can see how the argument can go both ways. On the one hand, some weblogs, such as Boing Boing, use the strikeout font to indicate when they’ve made changes after publication, usually to correct for factual errors. As you can imagine, this is perhaps the stupidest way an awkward to achieve such disclosure. On the other hand, the corrections page tends to get buried in the back of a publication, leaving the more attractive space free for errors. Even with the corrections model, though, it is becoming easier to have a permanent space for corrections (the message being “we are always going to make mistakes”).

This particular instance is probably more benign than in other instances, where substantive content is radically changed. I also receive alerts from Reuters, and those articles always contain a summary of the changes that were made as a caption at the beginning, although the specific details are not disclosed. This may be the most reasonable balance on the internet, since the corrections pages will not necessarily be stumbled upon as it would be in a print publication.

My question is this: is it better to have a full disclosure policy (à la Boing Boing), a limited disclosure policy (the Reuters model), or to simply make changes and hope no one notices (the Slate way)?

UPDATE: Ironic, I know, but the entry was edited so the pop-up image would display correctly.

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In today’s Washington Post, George Will has an article that chronicles the Dust Bowl. The story is in the context of “warnings of environmental apocalypse” and serves as an illustration of a real one; the problem is, the dust seems to have settle in Will’s head.

There is something of a logical disconnect between the entirety of Will’s article and the very last sentence.

The earth turned out to be more durable, and the people who wrested their livings from it more resilient, than had been thought.

This sentence poses two problems. Firstly, it downplays the true hardships that Will himself purported to chronicle. Secondly, it reaches a conclusion that an “environmental apocalypse” is really more of a mild inconvenience. John Steinbeck’s masterpiece Grapes of Wrath seems to reach the opposite conclusion as Will.

Arguably, the damage from the Dust Bowl can still be seen. While there aren’t clouds of dust reaching towards the stratosphere anymore, the fertile prairie land has not recovered. Many farm communities in the plains are just as impoverished today as they were during the Dust Bowl, and survival exists only through a series of government subsidies and a bit of luck. A new environmental apocalypse, with effects that will reach far beyond those seen in the 1930′s, could not only bring about a new Dust Bowl, but could have a more permanent impact on the American landscape.

Mr. Will, this is not something that will just “blow over”.

Apple announces today that it will add a new feature to the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) called Complete My Album. The premise of this features is that people should not be penalized for trying out an album by buying only on track, only to have to buy the track again in order to gain access to “Album Only” content. This feature is only valid for six months after the initial purchase, but that should be a sufficient period of time for most listeners.

I was actually looking for this sort of feature just recently. This move should strengthen the iTMS business model.

I’ve been out of the political loop lately, largely because I live about 4,240 miles from home (according to Google Maps). Today was a pretty lousy day outside, so I’ve been in studying. After having enough of that, I decided to tune into the Senate hearings regarding the firings of eight U.S. Attorneys on C-SPAN 3. It wasn’t nearly as lively as the absolute beat-down handed to Lurita Doan, GSA Administrator, but it was Washington theatre at its finest. The Senate being what it is, there was a lot of downtime and gaps in the hearing. To fill time, C-SPAN turns to Washington Journal.

For those who don’t know, WJ is C-SPAN’s call-in show, inviting viewers to comment on hot button issues being debated. It is, in essence, a soap box for the elderly and the mentally disfunctional. The program is quite entertaining, but only for about 10 minutes or so.

C-SPAN in general is an interesting television phenomenon. It is, on many occasions, the driest and most mundane channel on cable television. However, it does command a very loyal following. I think, too, that it is a very valuable resource for anyone interested in politics. As with most forms of higher learning, it is important to go to the primary source once in a while, and there is nothing more primary than House and Senate proceedings.

Bonus content!
For your viewing pleasure, I present the Doan House testimony. This is a painfully clear example of government in action (read: inaction?) under the present administration.

I know everyone’s going on and on about the iPhone, so I’ll spare everyone the posting. Instead, I want to talk about the other big product from MacWorld: the Apple TV

At first, the product sounds interesting. It does provide high definition content and has the connections to do so. It is wireless, using the 802.11n (draft) standard. If combined with the new Airport Extreme (also based on 802.11n), it should be a pretty speedy device. The device is not, however, all that it could be.

On possibility was that the Apple TV could have been a TiVo competitor. It could have been a one-stop DVR and media center, connecting the television to the iPod. This model does not make much sense, though, considering Apple’s recent venture into the sale of television shows and movies.

Another possibility was that the Apple TV could have been an iTunes device, a focal point for all of your digital media. You could connect your iPod, make purchases from iTunes, and generally centralize digital media across an entire household. But the Apple TV fails at this, too. It has a paltry 40GB HDD, half the storage capacity of the largest iPod, not that an iPod can be connected to the device, anyway. Apple TV does not seem to be able to pull content itself; instead, content must be delivered to the device (except possibly for movie trailers, but how often do people watch those) over the network.

I was anxious to see what Apple had in mind with their Apple TV (formerly iTV). However, instead of expanding upon their domination of the American media market, Apple has unveiled a device that is mediocre at best that appeals to no consumer. If the iPhone had not been the flagship product yesterday, Apple’s stock would have plummeted 7 points, not grown. You dodged a bullet on this one, Steve.

This will be the 201st entry on my website since moving to my current hosting company. I’m rather proud of my achievement, since I honestly didn’t expect to write as much as I had. While 200 posts seems like a lot, there were many more entries that were never written. Most of the unwritten posts were related to some news story that I’d seen and thought I would share with my reader(s). A few stories that I never wrote would have been original pieces. Since there are so many stories in my draft pile that I know will never be written, I thought it might be nice to compile a list of all the stories that I would have written into one list.
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On the train ride to Baltimore today, I was listening to NPR’s On the Media. On the program, they had a guest discussing the success and failure of the spinach industry (if it is an industry in an of itself) in marketing their product. One of the many points made during the current E. coli outbreak in spinach crops. The guest, Michael Pollan, suggests that if the outbreak was in contaminated hamburger, which has happened more than once, the government’s response would have been completely different.

I think this guy might be on to something.

Escherichia coli O157:H7, the strain that is making everyone sick, is a micro-organism that grows in the small intestines of mammals, largely cows. It only infects plants like spinach through contaminated water, run-off from fields and such.

The last time the hamburger supply was contaminated with E. coli, the government did not tell the American public en masse to throw out hamburger; instead, the government told Americans to “cook your hamburger thoroughly”. This time, with spinach, the government is instructing that all bagged spinach be thrown out. Why the difference? Certainly, it is more likely that spinach will be consumed raw rather than cooked, creating a bigger health risk. But isn’t the risk of undercooked hamburger just as great? Why not tell everyone to cook their spinach for a while instead of wasting tons of produce? Wouldn’t it be more consistent to either throw out both potentially contaminated beef or cook potentially contaminated spinach? What’s going on USDA?

Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I think the beef lobby has a bit more clout than the Popeye lobby.

Despite an article the Washington Post’s ‘Unconventional Wisdom’ column, Jon Stewart is not poisoning democracy. At least, not as the article indicates.

The argument, based on a study conducted by Eastern Carolina University, suggests that Jon Stewart is making college students so cynical of the voting process and the candidates that they won’t go out and vote. I don’t think Jon Stewart could, all by himself, cause such skepticism and cynicism about politics.
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