I love the New York Times. It is, without a doubt, the greatest news resource available online and offline.
This week, they opened up their entire archive for free and turned off their TimesSelect paid-article service. They've effectively made all of their content free including archives back into the 1800s. I don't have the time or motivation to get into my own perspective of the business decision to drop a pay service except to say it's extremely customer friendly. It has been blogged and discussed plenty elsewhere. I am, however, in awe at some of the historical stories available in their archives. I would encourage everyone to dive deep and explore the way news stories were reported in the past. Just a few samples:
CAPE RACE, N. F., April 15. -- The White Star liner Olympic reports by wireless this evening that the Cunarder Carpathia reached, at daybreak this morning, the position from which wireless calls for help were sent out last night by the Titanic after her collision with an iceberg.
I find it fascinating to see the first mention of a story which touched the global psyche of the world in such a dramatic way.
On September 2, the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) rejected the controversial Microsoft OOXML document format as a standard.
Electronic Frontier Finland studied the relation between corruption level and voting behaviors of the countries that participated and although the results are not definitive, of course, it is an interesting analysis to say the least. Then again, it's just an analysis.
Throughout this entire lobbying process from Microsoft, there was plenty of accusations about vote rigging. Microsoft formed special interest groups in Europe and elsewhere to support their case as well. These are pretty complicated issues that potentially touch on enormous amounts of new revenue for Microsoft if the standard was accepted so it's not surprising that they would take on an aggressive role.
However, some of the information that has come out of shows some really damaging behavior. Consider the following excerpt from a memo Microsoft sent to it's partners in Sweden trying to gain support for their initiative:
Usually, I hate memory tests because I suck at them.
Although I still sucked at this one, I found it pretty intelligent in its implementation which made me feel more intelligent in my failure of it.
I was able to hit a percentile rank of 2 in the first two tests...the third, though, would have gotten me kicked out of school.
True sporting genius does not come often but when it does, you just know it. Faceball is one such sport. We at Oceanic will be developing this sport further in Fiji. I haven't told everyone about it yet...but I will. First, I'll need to practice on...errr..with my kids.
...and now for something completely different.
1500 inmates at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center perform the ultimate punishment, having to re-create Michael Jackson's "Thriller" routine. This begins to approach the heights of weirdness but is an absolute joy to watch.
I'm hoping this is US$ rather than Fiji $.
Nifty little calculator which determines how much your body is worth to science. A bit dark, I suppose, but it's probably information you didn't have before. Politicians should immediately take an extra $75 off, though. $150 if you're a Republican in the United States.
Some of these little Flash games are so wildly addictive.
This one, called BOOMSHINE, is just awesome and visually stunning, too. Beat my score of 350 if you can (or was it 300? 250?).
Recent Comments