The world's shortest commencement speeches

Unless it's a celebrity speaking, and sometimes even then, commencement speeches are too long and too boring. Usually.

But the LA Times shows us some short commencement speeches.

One afternoon in 1992, [Richard] Moore sat waiting under a blazing sun to deliver his address to 12th-graders at Crossroads School in Santa Monica.

The ceremony "took place on asphalt between buildings and below basketball hoops," one parent, Ralph Saltsman, told The Times. "Innumerable speeches preceded Mr. Moore.

"When he rose to speak, he paused, looked out over the audience with great presence and said, 'Feelings.' He paused again and continued to gaze out over all assembled. Then, with feeling, he said, 'Adventures.' And paused again before concluding with 'Ideas.' "

Then Moore sat down, his impromptu three-word commencement address finished.

Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere

Via NewMexiKen.

The New York Times had a story on why bloggers stop blogging. It's no secret that the amount of bloggers who actually make money off their blogs is about the same as the people who are making money playing sports -- only the biggest of the big make money, and the rest of us are playing pickup games at the park for fun.

From the New York Times story:

Richard Jalichandra, chief executive of Technorati, said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the Internet, but “it’s probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views.” He added, “There’s a joke within the blogging community that most blogs have an audience of one.”

That’s a serious letdown from the hype that greeted blogs when they first became popular. No longer would writers toil in anonymity or suffer the indignities of the publishing industry, we were told. Finally the world of ideas would be democratized! This was the catnip that intoxicated Mrs. Nichols. “That was when people were starting to talk about blogs and how anyone could, if not get famous, get their opinions out there and get them read,” she recalled. “I just wanted to post something interesting and get people talking, but mostly it was just my sister commenting.”

I have written a few blogs. I have stopped nearly all for various reasons, so I relate with this article.

That said, I still have fun writing this blog and don't see that changing any time in the immediate future.

A newspaper-backed Craigslist competitor?

For some reason, I don't see this as working -- or if it does, then it will take a long time to actually work.

Newspapers may create an alternative to Craigslist, the website that has killed classified ads. Apparently, the American Press Institute issued a white paper about possibly setting up the Craigslist competitor:

The paper concedes that Craigslist has become a prominent brand "with a huge mass of users" and that "it will be difficult to draw traffic away." But it suggests that Craigslist may be vulnerable because of its "cumbersome and very basic" user interfaces and its recent widely publicized "front-for-prostitution" reputation. The paper quotes one publisher describing Craigslist as "a flea market on the bad side of town."

It's like Google. People are so used to using Craigslist right now that it will take something earth-shattering to shift people's behavior from firing up Craigslist when looking for things they would have previously turned to newspapers for.

First pitches

Jim Caple at ESPN's Page 2 has a cool story about ceremonial first pitches that are thrown before the game. Caple himself threw out a first pitch at a Minnesota Twins game, and he related his story.

But if that's too much reading for you, you can just watch this video of horrible first pitches from SportsCenter:

Best wedding invite ever?

From Utne, via (@radlien).

Kobe Bryant Puppet Finds LeBron James Puppet Dead In Apartment Bathtub

The Onion is always hilarious.

Always.

A few interesting stories before the NBA Finals

The NBA Finals kick off tonight and the Los Angeles Lakers are facing the Orlando Magic. The anticipated puppet vs puppet match up between Lebron James and Kobe Bryant (if you don't know what I'm talking about, see this) didn't come to fruition.

And we won't be seeing any Bryant vs. Dwight Howard commercials because Howard is sponsored by Adidas (the puppet commercials were made by Nike).

So what will we be seeing?

Well, a key player for the Lakers is Lamar Odom. Odom who, apparently, can blame his erratic play on his sweet tooth. Or something like that.

We will also see former streetball star Rafer Alston (nickname: Skip to my Lou) as the starting point guard in the NBA Finals. The Washington Post profiled Alston.

And if you have 35 minutes to kill, Bill Simmons had NBA legend Jerry West on his podcast (mp3 here). West is a very smart man, he was a great player, an equally great general manager and, if I can judge by this podcast, a humble man. His prediction: the Lakers will win.

West played for the Lakers and was the general manager for the Lakers for years.

Future of news gathering: Non-profits

I work for a non-profit that reports the news (the New Mexico Independent).

So I'm pretty interested in the question of the future of news reporting. Not the future of newspapers, necessarily, but what will be next in the evolution of news reporting?

And this blog post at Open Left is interesting.

Chris Bowers writes:

It isn't just that people are willing to produce quality content either for free or for prices that don't approach profitability. It is also that the Internet has led to a growing perception that just about all information should be free. Consumers are demanding free information, and lots of people are willing to give it to them.

Good luck finding a for-profit business model to compete against that. Eventually, if you want to make a living producing news, you will have to do it with an organization that is not interested in, and does not rely upon, making a profit.

Headline of the day from ESPN.com

From ESPN.com:



That would be Chien-Ming Wang, the Chinese pitcher who is coming back from an injury and a stint in the bullpen for the New York Yankees.

Wang pitched into the fifth inning and allowed five runs. As of this point, the Yankees are losing to the Texas Rangers 5-1. Edit: Now it's 5-5. I think I jinxed the Rangers. Final update: The Yankees won 8-6. Damn them.

Hat tip to @arjunjaikumar, who is a Boston Red Sox fan.

A new angle on Tianamen Square's "Tank Man"

Yesterday, I wrote about four iconic photos of "Tank Man" in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.

We've all seen them, they are among the most famous photographs in history.

But now they New York Times' "Lens" blog (the New York Times blogs all have one-word semi-zen names -- the baseball blog is "Bats" for example) shows us a never before seen photo from a different angle.

Mr. Jones’ angle on the historic encounter is vastly different from four other versions shot that day, taken at eye level moments before the tanks stopped at the feet of the lone protester. Wildly chaotic, a man ducks in the foreground, reacting from gunfire coming from the tanks. Another flashes a near-smile. Another pedals his bike, seemingly passive as the tanks rumble towards confrontation.

The photograph encourages the viewer to reevaluate the famous encounter. Unlike the other four versions, we are given a sense of what it was like on the ground as the tanks heaved forward, the man’s act of defiance escalated by the flight of others.

Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of Tank Man's heroic stand. Still, to this day, no one knows who he is or what happened to him.