What's another word for synonym?

I have recently made a few public records requests from the City of Greensboro. Unhappy with the slow response times, I made another request:

"Please provide me with a copy of the City of Greensboro guidelines for responding to public records requests currently in effect."

I was told they don't exist. I pressed the issue and was sent the guidelines with this explaination:

"[W]e believe that what you are referencing as guidelines are our "protocol" for handling public records requests."

Oh, protocols.

I did built that

If you are going to write an article boasting that you got where you are on your own, you might not want to title it, "Yes, I did built that."

Code Red!

(GREENSBORO, NC) Overheard outside a local restaurant from a dad to his about 7 year-old son who had picked up a hair brush lying on the sidewalk:

"Put that down! One of these days you're going to pick something up that doesn't belong to you and it's going to explode and blow your hands off."

Drone over Greensboro?

Ken B. says he saw a military-type surveillance drone flying over Greensboro yesterday morning. Was there and what was it doing?

Eye Voted

Eye Voted from Herky Fishbine on Vimeo.

Bad bot. Yahoo! Finance fail

Why editors still matter.

On the main page of the Yahoo! Finance website today, there has been a link for more than an hour to a story titled: "Wall Street rises on news central banks ready to act."

The story linked to is from June 14th, twenty-eight days ago (about the "upcoming" Greek elections, which happened more than three weeks ago).

Even more discouraging are the people responding in the comments today who do not recognize, from the date or subject matter, that this is a stale story.

Greensboro Guardian exploitation

Other than deleting inconvenient comments from his website, what does Greensboro Guardian editor Charles Davenport, Jr. do as editor?

Not fact checking.

In "Mix politics and religion? You bet!" author Addison Riddleberger premises an opinion piece on what he says are quotes from America's founding fathers on the topic of religion and government. He cites no sources. That should be a red flag for a conscientious editor and, in this case, with good reason. The "quotations" are fabrications and gross distortions. Fake, in other words, but published with editor Davenport's stamp of approval.

Davenport has already established a cavalier attitude toward intellectual rigor at the Greensboro Guardian. The partisan faithful don't seem to mind and objective readers just shrug and shake our heads. This case is different though — the author of the piece is in tenth grade and Davenport does the youngster a great disservice by not assisting him in aligning his writing with the facts. It is going to lead to a rude awakening for Addison when he discovers that, in real life, people are not as accommodating of fabrications as they are in Davenport's insular echo chamber.

Davenport had a nice teaching opportunity and, instead of doing what any good editor would do for any author, regardless of age, and instead of the extra benefit of helping a fledgling writer, Davenport exploits the young man by allowing him to put himself forth with phony information for the sake of ... well, what, exactly? An ideologically pitch-perfect bit of make believe at a boy's expense.

News & Record promoting gouging ticket scalper

(GREENSBORO, NC) The cost for one adult admission to the ACC Hall of Champions is $5. From the Hall's website, one can click to Ticketmaster to buy a ticket for $7 (including a $2 "convenience charge.")

The News & Record website has a new item in its advertising sidebar called "Local Tickets." It offers links to tickets for the Hall of Champinions from online ticket scalper Ticketnetwork -- at a cost of $21 each.

CNN fail

Ooops!

Huck goes camping

Hi,

My name is Huck...

as in Huckleberry "Huck" Finn. I live in a people house with a nice smelling cat, a tender man and an affectionate woman who have been real nice to me since I went to live with them.

The tender man and I like to go for walks every afternoon. We like Country Park, the Battleground and the trails around the lakes, but even just around the neighborhood is good exercise for both of us.

Last week, we went camping—three of us (I'm not sure where the nice smelling cat was). We all slept in a tent together at night, and during the day I took nice naps in the shade...

and the sun.

We went for long walks.

to great places.

Late one night, the tender man and I were walking back from the bathhouse. There was no moon and the man's flashlight was dimming. He walked right into a ditch on the side of the road and tumbled onto his face. He nearly split his head on a culvert -- probably would have been the end of him. He made out okay and remained in good spirits.

He got some rest and the next day we hiked to a water fall!

I had a great time!

Greensboro Guardian goes off half cocked, cuts off commentary in defense

Greensboro Guardian editor Charles Davenport, Jr. went off half cocked in condemning the Southern Poverty Law Center has having no credibility for, as he put it, "branding as 'hate speech' any language that questions the wisdom of progressive public policy."

But does the SPLC do that? I asked Davenport for examples. He offered some including blogger/author Roosh V who writes books and posts on how to "bang" women including:

A travel guide designed to help you sleep with Colombian women in Colombia without paying for it.

Interesting. How does Davenport's example of this blogger explain the SPLC's lack of credibility? He isn't saying. Davenport has cut off the conversation. Without explanation and without any indication to his readers that he is doing so, Davenport has taken to censoring comments on this topic. Very underhanded, but, fortunately, not undocumented.

Here is a screen shot of two of my comments that Davenport declined to publish without comment.

This is what the Southern Poverty Law Center said about Roosh V. I'd still like to know how Davenport thinks it destroys the SPLC's credibility:

Roosh Vörek is a Maryland-raised PUA (“pick up artist”) whose specialty is sex with foreign women; his blog is a sales vehicle for his books like Bang: The Pick Up Bible and Bang Iceland: How to Sleep With Icelandic Women in Iceland, which one Icelandic feminist group described as a “rape guide.” Vörek likes to talk about his many “notches” (seductions) and such things as “American cunts who I want to hate fuck.” He adds: “I’ll be the first to admit that many of my bangs in the United States were hate fucks. The masculine attitude and lack of care these women put into their style or hair irritated me, so I made it a point to fuck them and never call again.”

Pyscho Relations

What kind of sociopaths occupy jobs in marketing nowadays? I have to wonder because of the brutal contempt for the consumer and disregard for truthfulness these numbnuts are making hallmarks of modern public relations. This is from Enterprise car rental:

MILEAGE IS UNLIMITED WITHIN THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES WITH A MAXIMUM OF 3,000 MILES PER MONTH

I wonder if I can inform them that I'll be paying their $250 per week to rent a car up to $20 per day.

Preach it, brother

Lex Alxander on why people might be a little less trusting of people in leadership positions than New York Times columnist David Brooks thinks we ought to be:

"[W] hat really gets our goats is that if you have enough money and/or profess to believe certain things, you can commit the most calamitous misfeasances, utterly without consequence — indeed, you can make a career out of failing upward – while those who were right are marginalized and ridiculed."

Target breaks its website for the sake of spying

I use an add-on to my Firefox web browser called Ghostery, it allows me to block third parties from tracking my web usage. It does this by prohibiting them from installing tracking cookies on my computer.

My computer will allow websites to install cookies from their domain, it does not allow cross domain tracking (WebMD cannot tell Walgreens what I've been looking at there). That's unacceptable to Target.

Unless I accept cookies from consumer monitoring companies ForeSee, Gomez, Omniture, Google Adsense, DoubleClick and RichRelevance, I'm not welcome to use Target's website:

I have no interest in uninvited third parties collecting information about my "purchase histories and browsing behavior" (as RichRelevance brags is its purpose).

Target insists.

No big deal, I'll check Dick's Sporting Goods, Gander Mountain, Walmart, the Sports Authority and K-mart, all of whom offer what I'm looking for and none of whom break their websites for those of us who don't want to be monitored.

Mom & Dad celebrate 50 years

Congratulations to my mom and dad on their 50th wedding anniversary—a remarkable milestone, but ancillary to the loving family they created and nurture to this day.

JavaScript love

If necessity is the mother of invention, desire is the father of learning.

JavaScript is a scripting language that manipulates the interface between a user and information on the web. I've previously learned what I desired and left it there. I'm doing the same again now in pursuit of better local online, but this time my aspirations demand that I more deeply explore and learn JavaScript's beautifully complicated abilities—complicated on the code side for the purpose of making interaction with voluminous information easy, smooth and satisfying for the user. 

It demands deep concentration and an unforgiving attention to detail. I find it quite satisfying. I hope you'll like the results.

Marketing gobbledygook

I'm looking into Clear wireless internet and this is how they describe their internet speeds:

Average speeds up to 3-6Mbps

Why do corporations, specifically their marketing dweebs, think they cannot just be straight with people?

I couldn't get away with paying them an average of up to $40-$50, so why lay this B.S. on potential customers? Why not just tell us what the average is; or what the range is; or what the limit is instead of this meaningless gobbledygook?

Interactive precinct map of Guilford County voters on Amendment One

Inspired by Richard Gingras' ideas on the future of journalism, which include the importance of computational journalism (the use of computers in the service of journalism) I've posted to Greensboro 101 a map of precinct-by-precinct support and opposition to the amendment to the North Carolina constitution approved by voter referendum this month that prohibits legal recognition of any domestic union other than a marriage between a man and a woman.

Guilford County precinct votes on amendment one

Fun with maps

(You know who are great? The folks at the Guilford County Board of Elections. Any time, and there have been many, I've requested information from them, I've received it promptly, politely, completely and without any friction. They are consummate public service professionals.)

With their cooperation, I endeavored to pursue my first attempt at working with Google's new Fusion tables mentioned by Richard Gingras as a new tool for computational journalism.

I've never been able to find a map with sufficient detail and interactivity representing voting precincts in Guilford county. Here is mine, not quite ready for prime time, but a proof of concept. Pan, zoom and click to identify the precinct.

Locate precinct --Select-- G50 G51 G52 G53 SUM2 G54 SUM1 G55 SUM4 G56 SUM3 G57 G58 G59 H17 CG1 H18 H15 NDRI H16 G40A2 CG2 H13 G40A1 H14 H11 H12 H10 NCLAY1 NCLAY2 G43 G44 G47 G48 G45 G46 H09 H08 G49 H04 H05 NWASH H06 PG2 H07 PG1 H01 H02 H03 G74 G75 G70 G71 G72 G73 SMAD G40B CG3B G65 CG3A G66 G63 G64 G61 G62 G60 G69 G67 G68 H20B H20A GR SWASH H29A H29B JEF1 JEF2 RC1 RC2 JEF3 JEF4 H19B H19A G15 G14 G13 G12 NCGR2 G19 FR5-A G18 G17 NCGR1 G16 FR5-B NMAD MON2A G11 MON2B G10 SF1 G09 SF2 GIB SCLAY G02 G01 STOK G04 G03 G06 G05 G08 G07 JAM1 JAM2 JAM3 JAM4 JAM5 SDRI H27-B H27-A SF4 SF3 G39 G38 G37 G36 G35 G34 FR4 G33 FR3 G32 FR2 G31 FR1 G30 FEN1 FEN2 G41-A G41-B MON1 MON3 G28 G27 OR2 OR1 G29 G24 G42-B G23 H21 G26 G42-A G25 H23 G20 H22 H25 G22 H24 G21 H26 H28

The most important hour of the year for local newspaper folks

Where is local news going? What are the dead ends and distractions tempting newspapers to their demise? What does the future hold?

Richard Gingras, head of Google news products, dispenses a million dollars worth of advice in this one hour talk (here is Matt Stempeck's live blogged synopsis; but watch the whole thing if you are in the industry, you lazy toad), it is a must for anyone who works at a newspaper, from ad people to editors; from reporters to publishers.

One sage nugget:

Richard argues strongly for evergreen story pages. It is not the brand, not the site, but the story itself that is the lifeblood online. Publishers should not think about editions, or even ephemeral streams of articles, but rather living story pages. Story pages are the most valuable real estate.

If I were running a local newspaper, I would make the ideas espoused in this talk a blueprint; if fireworks aren't going off in your brain after listening, rinse and repeat until you get it; or email me and I'll try to help; or retire.