Daily Blog: Scouting the Internet and World at large

This Just In

Today's feature story is from PC Magazine. In his article titled Our Modern World—Weirder by the Minute, famed tech columnist John C. Dvorak takes a look at the modern gadgets of our world. He contends that if an American from the 1920s were transported to modern times much of our technology would seem quite strange to them. Of course you can say this about nearly every period throughout time, but it still makes for humorous social commentary.

In my opinion, one of the most overlooked differences that have transpired in the last 90 years is the notion of what passes for entertainment. Wide adoption of the television was nearly 30 years away, and most Americans tuned into show with the radio. Electrical power was a luxury, and those that could afford one rarely owned more than one car. There were also no Interstate highways, nationwide chain restaurants or Super Bowl commercials.

The other most often overlooked fact about the past is that folks didn't have nearly as much free time as they have now. While we come home to the evening news, hot meals and maybe some MMPOG on the computer, our ancestors were still out in the fields and construction sites till the sun went down. Life was hard because a mere three generations ago many types time saving machinery had not been invented.

So while it's fair to say that people from the 20s wouldn't understand all our new fangled gadgetry, it's also fair to say that we don't understand what life was like back in those days either. It's doubtful that Tom Joad would have had time to listen to his IPod, even if he'd had one.

Downloading Communisim

It seems that the international row over AllOfMp3.Com will not stop. A few days ago rumor had it that the United States would pressure the Russian government into shutting down the site in return for acceptance into the WTO. Owners of the MP3 download site have fired back with their side of the story. At the same time a British trade organization, BPI, has said it would sue AllOfMp3 in court and that anyone purchasing music from the site is breaking the law.

While there may be truth to allegations that AllOfMp3 doesn't pay the correct royalties to all artists, the idea behind the site's low prices is still a valid one. Customers are charged by the amount of data they download, and not by the song. While the average 192kbs mp3 costs just a few cents a higher quality loss-less copy, the equivilant of the data on a physical CD, approaches the actual retail price of the album. This feature makes AllOfMp3.Com a favorite among audiophiles, many of whom believe that sites like iTunes and Napster are ripping off consumers by offering lower quality audio tracks at near CD prices.

Though the future of AllOfMp3.Com is undecided, hopefully the press that the site has recieved will help educate consumers about drawbacks of flat $0.99 pricing for all files, regardless of quality. I suppose one could hope that an immediate consumer backlash may change the way other "legal sites" do business. However I wouldn't hold out hope, as the recording industry has thus proven to be a slow moving, new media luddite.

There are probably more exciting topics, but nothing gets seaside vacation home owners more in an uproar than beach erosion. On the one hand you have a natural process that, if undisturbed, reshapes beaches and provides for the continually changing life of sea creatures. On the other hand you have a devastating phenomenon that can wash out roads, bridges and even your prized beach front cottage. This past week I was once again reminded of this inevitable occurrence while on Bald Head Island.

In the past I've written many times on the struggle of the BHI Village and Real Estate Developer against ravages of Mother Nature. Since 2001 I've witnessed the fury of the sea, the hastily constructed stop-gap measures and the eventual "long-term" solutions. However, in that time I've also witnessed the seemingly two tiered way of dealing with beach erosion. As you may have guessed, the most highly valued real estate gets first dibs not only on beach renourishment, but is also able to skirt the letter of the law.

A recent article in the Wilmington Star underscores this in a story about the beach at Topsail Island. The northern most part of the island has eroded badly over the past several years, and finally it looks like something will be done about it. Unfortunately the solution will be geo-textile tubes which are supposed to catch sand and help strike a balance between erosion and accretion. This is unfortunate because the tubes are not only ugly, but don't seem to solve the problem.

Information Explorer

In the world of professional sports you hear a lot of spin that claims any given sport is the "most popular". But how exactly does one measure popularity? Sure you can conduct surveys and ask people whether they identify themselves as a "fan", but doesn't popularity extend beyond that? In addition to the raw number of fans, shouldn't we look at the number of non-fans that can easily identify key things about the sport? For example I don't consider myself an NFL fan, but I can tell you who won the last Super Bowl. A popular sport no only has a lot of fans, but even more casual observers. Likewise you would also think that a popular sport would be mentioned more frequently in the press.

So the question that remains is how could you gauge such a wide variety of factors. Well for starters you could look at the number of search engine "hits" each sport gets. Granted this is in no way scientific and represents only a select group of search terms. It does however give a quick overview of exactly how much "chatter" there is on the net for a given sport. That's exactly what one of Google's new tools, called Google Trends, allows us to do.