Blogs / Cosmic Variance

I forgot to mention in my previous post that another excellent radio program I love is NPR’s On The Media, that you can alos podcast, stream, or download.

Last Friday’s program was interesting and funny. Actually, it always is. The first part had an interesting discussion about terrorism, sparked off by the fact that the folks in the White House have decided to rename the “War on Terror” to “The Global War Against Violent Extremism”. [update: It's actually "The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism"; the presenters misspoke.]

The next segment was hilarious, even though in a serious and definitely non-funny context. There was an observation that there were two almost identical defiant quotations over a week apart from random unidentified Iraqi citizens about two separate insurgent attacks. So they had an interview with Mr. Unidentified Iraqi, who seemed unable to say anything else in the interview other than the identical words of the quotation again….

Then there’s excellent discussion of how the media seem to have problems reporting properly on “difficult numbers” (such as just how much is spent on international aid) on various issues, and a very intersting segment about the appalling state of journalism on health issues. (e.g. more time is given by the major TV networks to weather “news”, and training of weather news journalists than is given to health news. And this is where people get most of their health information…..)

There’s also another excellent segment about media coverage failings in important educational matters: Even though heat waves kill more people (more…)

Don’t be fooled into thinking that Internet pioneer Al Gore has been simply experimenting with facial hair while others talk him up for another Presidential campaign. No, he’s been hard at work launching a new TV network: Current TV, scheduled to debut today.

This is no video Air America, a liberal counterpoint to the RNC propaganda machine at Fox News. No, the hook here is style, not substance. From Current TV’s manifesto:

There’s plenty to watch on TV, but as a viewer, you don’t have much chance to influence or contribute to what you see. This medium – the most powerful, riveting one we have – is still a narrow vision of reality rolled out in predictable 30-minute chunks. It’s still a fortress of an old-school, one-way world.

We want to bust it open.

We’re rethinking the way TV is produced, programmed, and presented, so it actually makes sense to an audience that’s accustomed to choice, control, and collaboration in everything else they do.

So, we’re creating a network in short form. Whenever you tune in to Current, you’ll see something amusing, inspiring or interesting. And then, three minutes later, you’ll see something new. It’ll be a video iPod stocked with a stream of short segments and set to shuffle.

Oh good. Because, when I turn on TV, my overwhelming impression has been that the typical American’s attention span has become too darn long. Contemporary television encourages a contemplative, thoughtful mood, and it must be stopped. Far too many oppressive 30-minute chunks of programming to sit through. In the future, nothing will be longer than the length of an average pop song!

In academia, just to take an example, the consequences will be substantial. Forget about students taking four courses per semester that drone on for hours at a sitting — they will sift through two hundred distinct iLectures each week, on topical and exciting subjects of their own chosing, none over five minutes long and many taking just a single minute! Physics conferences will have twenty talks per hour, in which each speaker can choose to show either one picture or one equation. To ensure that the field doesn’t grow stale and predictable, professors over the age of 35 will be hauled out back and shot. And the Harry Potter septology will be the last of those long-form “books” to be popular — in the future, written materials will be prohibited from overflowing a single page. And will be printed in an oversize, “edgy” font.

Also, in the future the only kind of food to be served in restaurants will be candy.