By Frank Moher You might suppose that as the editor of an online magazine, I’m glad to see the collapse of the old-school, dead-tree print guys. You might suppose wrong. I say that partly because I still write for what we used to quaintly refer to as “the papers” (ask an anthropologist near you), but […]
internet
Newspapers: no going back
By Frank Moher We are beginning to see the outlines of the newspaper industry’s survival strategy, and it’s going to be this: since what we’ve been doing doesn’t work anymore, let’s go backwards and try something else that didn’t work. Namely, charging for online content. The signs are everywhere. When John Stackhouse succeeded Edward Greenspon […]
Not so fast, Google
By Brian Brennan The CBC called. Would I like to go on the radio and talk to Donna about the Google book settlement? Hey people, you’re talking to an Irishman here. Of course, I would like to go on the radio and talk about the Google book settlement. I would like to go on the […]
@H1N1
By Frank Moher By guest blogger Dave Carpenter Word of the swine flu’s global reach travels so quickly across the web, it’s enough to leave the pandemic-aspiring virus itself a little green with envy. Yet our shiny, digital message machine becomes a double-edge sword when enlisted as weaponry against the outbreak. To wit, the Twit. […]
Other dangerous viruses
The swine flu and overnight singing sensation Susan Boyle have a lot in common, and I don’t mean that in the most obvious (and insulting) sense, so shame on you. The swine flu worked its way into Canada from the south, and the video of the self-proclaimed 47-year old virgin worked its way through the […]
The CRTC’s meddling ways
By Frank Moher I like a good government intervention as much as the next failed banker, but the current CRTC meddling with the internet should send chills down the spine of anyone who uses the instrument — like, say, you. The commissioners are looking into the question of whether or not internet service providers should […]
Disney’s tragic kingdom
The Disney corporation is a piss-poor parent. While it may be responsible for some of the finest keep-your-kids-busy-for-an-hour films ever made, it has done a reprehensible job of raising up its own young stars. If any real-life parents had Disney’s track record, social services would be on their asses before you could holler “High School […]
It’s “You’re,” not “Your”
By Bev Schellenberg I admit it: I’m a Logophile. I believe in the evolution of language. I understand that referring to something good as “rad” is no longer the norm, and that something “phat” is, if nothing else, large in all sorts of ways. With reluctance, I even accept that “a lot,” which my computer […]
First strike
isoHunt, a Canadian bittorrent site akin to The Pirate Bay, is making a preemptive strike against the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), our own little Canadian version of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). From TorrentFreak: As an act of self-defense, isoHunt has decided to sue the CRIA instead, and today Fung will file […]
Tweeting Gustav
By Frank Moher I followed Hurricane Gustav not on CNN, not on the newspaper websites (and certainly not on the newspapers themselves), but via Twitter. What, you may ask, is Twitter? Twitter is a service that allows you to post messages to the web of up to 140 characters. Initially the idea was to tell […]
