[PLUG-TALK] An a-ha! moment

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Sat, Dec 10, 2005 at 10:43:40AM -0800, Rich Shepard wrote:
>   The concept of 'blogs' finally made sense to me when I read in
> today's newspaper that blogs are today's version of Citizen's
> Band radio, popular in the 1970s and 1980s. Now I understand
> their popularity.

I beg to differ.  Blogs are today's version of the newspaper.  The
folks who work at newspapers desperately wish blogs would become
as marginal as CB, when in fact newspapers are rapidly becoming as
marginal as the Pony Express.  

Blogs are important enough to take out prominent national politicians
(left and right), while the Oregonian couldn't even take out David Wu.
Whether or not Rep. Wu should have been, the point is that newspapers
are pretty toothless.  It took the Vancouver Columbian to get rid of
Packwood, a feat that I do not expect to see repeated by newspapers
again.  Meanwhile, blogs and other non-credentialed electronic
communications have taken out at least two Speakers of the House.
I expect them to be decisive in the next presidential election.

Blogs can be pretty stupid at times, but no information source is
perfectly trustworthy.  I've seen enough misreporting in the 
Oregonian about events I've personally witnessed to be skeptical
about most things I read in there.  

IRC is the modern equivalent of the ephemerality of CB, but 
without the technological restrictions on channels and distance. 
CB is still around, and IRC will be around a long while, each
serving their respective needs.   Newspapers, with their online
content protection, are halfway between the ephemerality of IRC and
the archived permanence of blogs.  Chances are, future historians
will find archived blogs (at archive.org and its successors) much
more easily than they will find old, dead newspapers.

"Non-credentialed" communication is the lifeblood of democracy. 
The fact that some writers and readers using that communication
channel are morons does not vitiate the channel itself.  It just
means that people with better things to say should get off their
butts and say them, and blogs are a good way to do that.

Keith

P.S. I say all this as a lifelong newspaper reader, who has spent
hours at libraries pouring over old microfilms of newspapers and
other periodicals.  The quality and accessability of most online
information is better than that microfilm ever was.  When somebody
gets around to scanning all that old microfilm and putting it
online, so it can be indexed and googled, then one of the few
remaining reasons for keeping printed newspapers alive will be gone.

--- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs