Globalisation part II: your local news goes on tour

Following his observations on the evolution in news delivery (i.e. mass redundancies of journalists) at Global Québec and my post about virtual newsroom architecture Steve Faguy makes some interesting observations about what a green screen to do for local newscasts during the regular newscaster’s vacation. If a newscaster can go on holiday and be replaced by another presenter in another province in front a greens creen, why not just get Jamie Orchard to pack a fold up green screen to take with her to Punta Cana?

Introducing the absence of Garfield

Some examples of a recent discovery, the surreal online cartoon / blog Garfield Minus Garfield.

Irishman Dan Walsh conceived Garfield Minus Garfield earlier this year, and the cartoon has proved to be a phenomenal hit.

Walsh explains:

Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.

A new strip is uploaded most days, and with the blessing of Jim Davies (the creator of the original Garfield strips) a book is on the way.

“Everyone lives on a hill in Sheffield” - Jarvis Cocker

Jarvis Cocker, the boy from Intake who’s done good (and who now lives in Paris) recently produced a two part radio documentary for the BBC called Jarvis Cocker’s Musical Map of Sheffield. The programmes are being rebroadcast this week, starting yesternight and continuing tonight at midnight on BBC 6 Music. Not only is this a brilliant little trip down an increasingly nostalgic memory lane for me, it’s also a brilliant aural work, very much what I would aspire to one day produce either through the podcast or other means.

Don’t fret if you’ve missed the first episode, because both will be on the iPlayer for a week after broadcast. And don’t fret if you get interupted while listening, because the handy new version of the iPlayer remembers where you were if you accidentally close the window or if your wireless connection burps.

Shipping rates

AbeBooks is one of a number of handy websites for sourcing discounted books from around the world. It’s also preferable to the big online stores like Amazon because instead of buying books from one multinational source, Abe and others put you in touch with individual book sellers and bookshops who’ve uploaded their inventory.

That means each seller has their own delivery rates, depending on the number of books ordered and the delivery speed. And for every seller, another chance for a computer glitch to mess up the numbers. So while £8.69 isn’t an extortionate amount for trans-Atlantic postage, I’d expect slightly faster delivery…

WordPress meltdown

Sorry, no posts from me this week… work has piled up and WordPress has “upgraded” to a new publishing interface, which has buggered my attempts to post images. I’ll take the time it’ll need to relearn WordPress once I’ve cleared this backlog.