More Access at the New York Times

The New York Times has followed through with its change in policy. The ‘pay for’ sections, formerly known as TimesSelect, have been eliminated. The notice on the New York Times states:

“…All of our Op-Ed and news columns are now available free of charge. Additionally, The New York Times Archive is available free back to 1987.”

link: New York Times

You may not agree with the editorial positions taken but the writing is excellent. You may want to make the New York Times one of your daily visited sites (again)…

Catherine Forsythe

[tags]new york times, access, free, oped[/tags]

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Does Not Serve Pet Owners Well

As pet owners know, this year has been fraught with anxiety about the safety of pet food. There have been numerous pet food recalls and some pet owners have had the misfortune of seeing the untimely death of a beloved pet.

Through this chaos, one of the government agencies that is mandated for the safety of food products is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The expectation would be that the FDA would warn people what pet foods are not safe and what pet foods have been deemed safe for pets. It seems that the FDA is not doing this in a timely fashion. Do you know if your pet food is now safe for your pet?

Today is September 24, 2007. If you look at the present FDA page for the latest update on the pet food recall issue, the latest update was July 23, 2007. In my opinion, I do not think that level of attention to the pet food recall issue is acceptable. To have the ‘latest’ update to be two months ago does not serve the pet owners well.

Catherine Forsythe
Director of Operations
FlyingHamster

[tags]u.s. food and drug administration, pet food, security, updates, pet food recall[/tags]

Microsoft Interested in Facebook

The value of Facebook must be astronomical. Microsoft is considering being a stake holder:

“Microsoft Corp. is in talks to invest up to $500 million in online social networking company Facebook Inc., according to a report Monday in the online edition of The Wall Street Journal.”

link: Microsoft considering Facebook investment: WSJ

It seems that Google is expressing a similar interest in Facebook. The Facebook traffic is a key demographic that is coveted by advertisers. There must be enough projected clicks to justify spending a half a billion dollars - and see a near future return on investment.

Catherine Forsythe

[tags]facebook, microsoft, google, investment, demographic, advertising, value[/tags]

Effectiveness of Surveillance Cameras

There are some interesting statistics emerging from the United Kingdom - a place which has been called the ‘Surveillance Society’. The longstanding assumption has been that surveillance cameras deter crime. However, this premise is being challenged:

“…A comparison of the number of cameras in each London borough with the proportion of crimes solved there found that police are no more likely to catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those with hardly any.”

link: Tens of thousands of CCTV cameras, yet 80% of crime unsolved

It seems that the empirical data are at odds with some of the operating assumptions. The advocates of surveillance cameras have a ready response to these data. And that response is ‘more cameras’.

Catherine Forsythe

[tags]surveillance cameras, security, crime, united kingdom, empirical data[/tags]

Soccer: Not Suited for American Television

One thing that is blatantly obvious when watching soccer on North American television is that it does not fit easily into the television advertising paradigm. There are no predictable breaks in the action. Soccer, at the FIFA level, is two halves of forty five minutes. The game official handles the ball as little as possible. For example, if the ball goes out of bounds, the game official does not need to hand off the ball to the player. As much as possible, there is little to interrupt the flow of the play.

The question becomes ‘where do you put the advertising?’. It is unusual for a sporting event to play on for forty five minutes without a pause in the action. A natural pause in the play is an opportunity to present a commercial. If the advertising were to take a minute or two or three away from the soccer action, the fans would be annoyed. Very annoyed. - In some parts of the planet, if this occurred, there would be riots. Seriously.

North American sports lend themselves to commercial interruption. Think of the pauses in sports such as football, baseball, basketball, hockey and so on. Even the spectators at the televised games expect a ‘television interruption’ and play resumes after the commercials are aired.

In soccer, there may be a pause for an injury. However, the length of time for that pause is not predictable. And the injury is important information to the viewer. It is a decision point in the game and to place a commercial there would not be wise. So therein lies a major hurdle for presenting soccer on television. Advertisers want predictable air time when the viewer will not be antagonized with an advertising pause. During a soccer game, those moments are rare.

Catherine Forsythe

[tags]soccer, advertising, television, commercials, fifa[/tags]

Soccer: Not Suited for American Television

One thing that is blatantly obvious when watching soccer on North American television is that it does not fit easily into the television advertising paradigm. There are no predictable breaks in the action. Soccer, at the FIFA level, two halves of forty five minutes. The game official handles the ball as little as possible. For example, if the ball goes out of bounds, the game official does not need to hand off the ball to the player. As much as possible, there is little to interrupt the flow of the play.

The question becomes ‘where do you put the advertising?’. It is unusual for a sporting event to play on for forty five minutes without a pause in the action. And this is an opportunity to present a commercial. If the advertising were to take a minute or two or three away from the soccer action, the fans would be annoyed. Very annoyed. - In some parts of the planet, if this occurred, there would be riots. Seriously.

North American sports lend themselves to commercial interruption. Think of the pauses in sports such as football, baseball, basketball, hockey and so on. Even the spectators at the televised games expect a ‘television interruption’ and play resumes after the commercials are aired.

In soccer, there may be a pause for an injury. However, the length of time for that pause is not predictable. And the injury is important information to the viewer. It is a decision point in the game and to place a commercial there would not be wise. So therein lies a major hurdle for presenting soccer on television. Advertisers want predictable air time when the viewer will not be antagonized with an advertising pause. During a soccer game, those moments are rare.

Catherine

One Laptop Per Child: “Give 1 Get 1″ Promotion

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project needs to raise some money. To that end, it has started the “Give 1 Get 1″ promotion. Nicholas Negroponte, the OLPC chairman, “is reaching out to the public to try to give the laptop campaign a boost. The marketing program, to be announced Monday, is called “Give 1 Get 1,” in which Americans and Canadians can buy two laptops for $399.”

link: Buy a laptop for a child, get another laptop free

It’s for a great cause. It’s a tax deductible donation. And you have a laptop that will be part of tech history. Orders will be accepted from November 12 to November 26. Please set aside some funds if you possibly can support OLPC…

Catherine Forsythe

[tags]one laptop per child, promotion, free laptop, tax deduction, nicholas negroponte[/tags]

Google Video Presentation on Security

There is a lengthy ( 49 minutes ) video from Google on security. It is “What Every Software Engineer Needs To Know About Security”, with Neil Daswani, a Google engineer. It discusses things like cross site scripting, SQL injection attacks and protecting from systems vulnerabilities.

link: Neil Daswani Presentation

This is done in a university lecture style - and well worth viewing.

Catherine Forsythe
Director of Operations
FlyingHamster: http://flyinghamster.com/

[tags]google, security, neil daswani[/tags]