Archive for the 'Paper & Ink' Category
July 26, 2011
11/24/11 Update: It’s mostly back to Twitter for me. I’ll probably redesign this site sometime in the next year, but for the most part will not be actively blogging.
I am a bit irritated by the newly aggressive ad placement by WordPress.com. I have no control over that and would prefer no ads whatsoever, but WordPress charges for that. I will probably explore other hosting options if I do revive the site.
In the interim, I am more likely to share longer-form content on Google+. Go to my Google profile and put me in one of your circles for that stuff. You can also subscribe to my occasional public updates on Facebook, though I reserve friending for actual acquaintances.
Thanks for visiting.
Posted in Blogging, Paper & Ink, Social Media | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Blogs, Google, Tumblr, Twitter
March 13, 2011
Arthur S. Brisbane, the public editor of The New York Times, turned his attention this week to the newsroom’s use of Twitter. He quoted from an e-mail interview with me, which I am posting in full here, with a few tweaks and links.
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Posted in Paper & Ink, Social Media | 3 Comments »
Tags: Arthur S. Brisbane, Blogging, Brian Stelter, Clark Hoyt, Facebook, Hudson, news, NYT, Posterous, public editor, Reddit, Sully, Twitter, Twitter lists, YouTube
January 22, 2011
Fifteen years ago today, on Jan. 22, 1996, The New York Times — which already had a news service behind a paywall on AOL — started its free Web site, jolting newspaper publishers and editors across the land to follow suit. A happy birthday tweet prompted me to go on a memory-jogging journey with the Wayback Machine looking for another newspaper site born that month. Back then, I was working for The York Daily Record in southcentral Pennsylvania. The existential headline on this blog post is from an article I wrote for that paper in December 1995, part of a five-day series explaining the Internet. (I had been a computer dabbler since I was a teenager.)
The article is reprinted below, with permission (My favorite line: “Some people believe the Web or some future souped-up version of it will transform society. Others think the accent in ‘hypertext’ should be on ‘hype.’”) The series was later archived on the paper’s rudimentary Web site (logo at above left), a precursor to the now-thriving YDR.com. That site was pushed into the world a bit early, thanks to some bad weather.
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Posted in Blogging, New York, Paper & Ink, Social Media | 6 Comments »
Tags: blizzards, floods, History, Internet, news, newspapers, NYT, NYTimes.com, Wayback Machine, weather, Web, YDR.com, York Daily Record, York Pa.
December 5, 2010
Are you a poetry fan? Jane Rosenberg LaForge (my wife) and three other New York area writers — Lisa Marie Basile, Britt Gambino and Jim Meirose — will present a free evening of poetry and fiction this Saturday in Chelsea.
Jane is promoting her second chapbook, “Half-Life,” from Big Table Publishing. It is drawn on experiences with cancer in her family (her mother died in November 2009 and her sister in July 2010, while many of these poems were being written and revised). (I wrote last year about Jane’s first chapbook, “After Voices,” now in its second printing, about growing up with a deaf father.)
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Posted in New York, Paper & Ink | Leave a Comment »
Tags: After Voices, Books, Britt Gambino, Half-Life, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, Jim Meirose, Lisa Marie Basile, NYC, Spark Art Center
April 3, 2010
It’s still syncing.
While I prepare myself for the inevitable post-purchase depression and “why can’t I do that, Mr. Jobs” revelations, here are some unboxing pictures and a video from my Posterous page.
At some point I’ll list the pros and cons. But I’m done with the posting and tweeting today. I doubt there’s much new that I could say about it.
Technology isn’t my beat, so I’ll leave the iPad news and reviews to my colleagues at Bits. (Here’s an earlier post about how I made the purchase decision.)
For me, the iPad is first and foremost a book and media reader. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in iPhone Apps, New York, Paper & Ink | 3 Comments »
Tags: Apple, Books, Collyer brothers, comics, ebooks, iBooks, iPad, Kindle, Kindle for iPad, macs, NYT, Posterous
February 1, 2010
You’ve seen the new toy. You’ve seen the experts debate: Will the Apple iPad “save” newspapers, journalism, book publishing? Will it kill the Amazon Kindle? Is this the death of the laptop, and the PC as we know it? Has Apple just signaled the death of the ultraportable MacBook Air? Will it replace smartphones like the iPhone or Nexus One? Has Apple just pwned another media marketplace — sorry Amazon, Google, Microsoft? Goodbye, netbooks? Farewell, computers?
Blah, blah, blah. Nobody knows the future, so such pronouncements are justifiably viewed as so much hype.
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Posted in iPhone Apps, Moving Images, Paper & Ink, Social Media | 8 Comments »
Tags: Amazon, Apple, Books, computers, e-books, Google, iPad, iphone, iPod, iTunes, laptops, Microsoft, Nexus One, NYT, smartphones, technology
November 15, 2009
Time for some more plugs. My wife, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, will be joining New York University professors and students at the Liberal Studies Program’s Fall Faculty/Student Reading from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 3, at the Telephone Bar and Grill, 149 Second Avenue (between 9th and 10th Streets) in the East Village.
Also, Jane’s “After Voices” poetry chapbook — published last month by Burning River of Cleveland — is now available at the McNally Jackson Book Store in SoHo, one of the few remaining interesting indie bookstores left in Manhattan.
Posted in New York, Paper & Ink | 1 Comment »
Tags: After Voices, Burning River, East Village, McNally Jackson Bookstore, Poetry, Telephone Bar
October 25, 2009
Updated, Nov. 15. Time for a plug. I’m pleased to announce that “After Voices,” a poetry chapbook by my wife, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, was released last week by Burning River of Cleveland. Jane has been laboring over these poems for a couple of years. Some people have asked, what is a chapbook? One definition: a short booklet containing poems, ballads or stories. Jane’s chapbook includes 12 poems and an essay arranged around the theme of her father’s deafness. (He is already disputing some of the facts. Fun times!)
Jane plans to read some of the poems at a New York University faculty-student reading in the East Village in December.
A hard copy of the chapbook can be ordered online for $6 a copy from Burning River. A PDF version can be downloaded for free (it includes a bonus poem not in the print edition). It will eventually be available as a digital book in epub format from Project Gutenberg. You can also buy a copy at Visible Voice Books in Cleveland, Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in SoHo, and the McNally-Jackson Bookstore, also in SoHo.
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Posted in New York, Paper & Ink | 3 Comments »
Tags: Adirondack Review, After Voices, Bateau, Books, Burning River, Burnside Review, Cleveland, deafness, Housing Works Bookstore, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, La Petite Zine, Makeout Creek, Morgan Conservatory, Noun Versus Verg, Ottawa Arts Review, Poetry, Tipton Poetry Journal, Visible Voice Books
August 9, 2009
Well, this is one cost of early technology adoption. I bought an original Kindle in April 2008, and it has served me well, so I can’t complain too much.
Recently, I noticed a sort of smudge developing in the upper left corner of the screen, even when the machine was turned off. There were also slight streaks of white lines going vertically down the screen, with a washed-out appearance at the top. I could still read books, but it was sort of annoying. I decided to see if Amazon tech support could offer any advice.
I wasn’t looking for a replacement, although I wouldn’t have minded a sort of cash-for-clunkers trade-in discount on a Kindle 2 or a DX. Mainly I was hoping this was an easy problem that they had learned how to fix. If they couldn’t, I would live with it.
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Posted in Blogging, iPhone Apps, Paper & Ink, Social Media | 9 Comments »
Tags: Amazon, Apple tablet, Books, customer service, ebooks, iphone, Kindle, New York Times, Posterous, tech support, Twitter
April 5, 2009
I just finished reading “The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century,” by George Friedman, and I hope he is wrong about nearly everything.
His thesis is that we humans don’t have much choice in our international politics, that we are guided by geopolitical considerations, and that armed conflict is inevitable. The book is an odd mix of plausible scenarios and wacky Star Wars fantasies.
Perhaps that is not surprising, coming from a fellow who is the chief intelligence officer and founder of Strategic Forecasting Inc. (Stratfor), a private intelligence agency whose clients include foreign government agencies and Fortune 500 companies (and plain old citizens willing to pay $199 a year for newsletters).
There is a some fresh thinking in the book, but ultimately it suffers from a failure of imagination.
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Posted in Paper & Ink | 3 Comments »
Tags: Anathem, Battlestar Galactica, Books, George Friedman, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Neal Stephenson, Stratfor, The Black Swan, The Long Now, The Next 100 Years
