Author: Joe Wilcox

Society by Joe WilcoxDec 22, 200510:10 am

Who Really Did Steal Christmas from Lonaconing?

I’ve got some advice for Idea Grove, make your weblog more usable. It’s unclear when posts are made, other than the month, and the only RSS feeds I can see are for services. Hello! Earth to Idea Grove, if your goal is through your Media Orchard weblog “to cultivate fresh thinking about the media, marketing and public relations”, a little easier communications would go along way. I did get the feed, but I should have been able to easily subscribe without signing up for a RSS service.

OK, griping aside, now is the real topic of this post. Media Orchard has a great take on Lonaconing, Md.’s lightless Christmas. Local power company and Verizon pulled the plug on the town’s Christmas lights, which, in the past, strung from the companies’ polls. Townspeople responded by putting a giant Grinch nearby the local Verizon office with sign, ”Who really did steal Christmas from Lonaconing?”

Web by Joe WilcoxDec 21, 20058:35 pm

Where Did the Joy Go?

I still ponder exactly what to do with my blog. I am considering five choices: Blogger (mixed feelings); MSN Spaces (least likely); .Mac (I’ve got an account with 2GB of storage and could use software client to post, but so-so likelihood); Yahoo! hosting using MovableType or WordPress (highly likely); or TypePad (also highly likely, and what I’ve got now).

The latter two options could lead to lots of work, and I find myself resistant. What I want is to create an inviting blog with lots of photos, too, possibly using Flickr, Slide, or both. Actually, there’s quite a bit I’d like to do with my blog, with respect to personalization, beyond using canned templates.

News Media by Joe WilcoxDec 20, 20057:50 pm

The Times Does Proud

Blogging is a fun, and it’s a great way for creating community across many different types of boundaries. Some bloggers have influence, too, as evidenced by the Sony rootkit DRM or Thomas Hawk’s PriceRightPhoto debacle. But for all the talk about bloggers changing information dissemination and even some bloggers deserving press credentials, the real influence, the credibility remains with real journalists.

And New York Times has done some great investigative journalism of late. Two big stories from the last week—the kind of stuff that requires real reporting and deep editorial soul searching: “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers without Courts” and “Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World“.

People by Joe WilcoxDec 20, 20057:37 pm

A Desperate Plea

While I wrote the next post, my daughter pleaded for some attention (poor girl has had the stomach flu). She made her point, by sending IM: “OK, I shall leave and shrivel now”. I got […]

Ethics by Joe WilcoxDec 18, 20059:45 am

I Don't See the Justification

Yesterday’s SouthCoastToday.com story about a student’s investigation by the Department of Homeland Security is breath stopping. Apparently, the “senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung’s tome on Communism called The Little Red Book“. I have to admit that Mao’s communist manifesto wouldn’t be on my reading list, but like this kid I probably would want it for research on a college paper about communism.

Cold War is over, right? The war on terror is against Muslim extremists. Right? Last I checked, Muslim extremism doesn’t have much in common with atheistic communism. So why is a kid filling out a university library book request on communism, “leaving his name, address, phone number, and Social Security number” getting “visited at his parents’ home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security?” And I have to ask: The Feds are monitoring library book requests now?

Pulp Media by Joe WilcoxDec 17, 20058:57 pm

‘It’s a Wonderful Life’

Before movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” became a holiday mainstay in the United States, largely because the film’s copyright had expired, I first saw it in the middle of the night in June 1979. That’s right summer, not Christmas

I worked at a local factory, a summer job for me, doing third shift. I liked the late hours because of better pay and my tendency to rumble around late night like a spectre. This night I had off, but couldn’t sleep (it wasn’t my bedtime until dawn), so I caught the 2 a.m. Night Owl late show on one of the local TV stations.

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 12, 20055:49 pm

Sweet Memory

Last week I upgraded the memory on my 1.67GHz PowerBook G4 to 2GB. The computer came with 1GB of memory, which used to be plenty. But with Apple’s Aperture and bunches of programs running, more […]

Society by Joe WilcoxDec 11, 20055:07 pm

CBC Makes History

It is amazing the way the Web can be a great tool for history. The CBC—that’s Canadian Broadcasting Corporation—has a video clip of the John Lennon and Yoko Ono Bed-In, June 8, 1969. The video features […]

Money by Joe WilcoxDec 11, 200510:29 am

Steve Makes a Good Case

In today’s Washington Post, AOL founder Steve Case eloquently argues that Time Warner should split into four companies. He writes that in early 2002: “I proposed to the company’s board that it was time to ‘liberate’ and split the conglomerate into four freestanding companies—Time Warner Cable, Time Warner Entertainment, Time Inc. and AOL—each with its own strategy, stock, balance sheet, management team, and board.”

He contends that the four units would “benefit from the separation” and “that other parts of Time Warner would achieve similar results if set free from the conglomerate. Time Warner has proven to be too big, too complex, too conflicted and too slow-moving—in other words, too much like a classic conglomerate—to seize new opportunities”. He sees big potential from separation, and I can’t disagree.

Money by Joe WilcoxDec 10, 20058:17 pm

Pop!

The Dec. 19, 2005, Business Week piles on more worrisome indications that the housing bubble is deflating. The story focuses on Loudon County, Va., once one of the hottest real estate markets in the country that is now cooling off. As sales slow, sellers are cutting prices. According to Business Week, “From August to October, the median sales price for houses dropped from $506,100 to $480,000”. I expect falling selling prices and rising days on the market to be the norm in most housing markets, if not now within a short time.

I first blogged on the housing bubble in August, a year after I started warning people trouble was coming. Coincidentally, not a week following the post, a good friend asked me about real estate as an investment. She had come into inheritance money and looked to help another friend, who had been successfully speculating on houses in Pennsylvania. I strongly recommended against real estate as an investment. I hope she took the advice.

Critters by Joe WilcoxDec 9, 20058:08 pm

Bun Bun Backyard

I like the way these photos capture some of Bun Bun’s character. The rabbit is one of two that my daughter cares for. Bun Bun (not her real name) stays in my basement office. Little Bun […]