This is why we need to keep newspapers around

By J. Thomas Duffy

I have been a newspaper junkie for much of my life.



Even very young, five, six-years-old, I would race up to my grandfather's corner store, and read the paper before school, going back-to-front, having to scope out, first, how my favorite sports team made out the night before.

There was so much stuff to be wondered by.

Aside from the hard news, and the Op-Ed Pages, newspapers are necessary for something much, much more;

Filler articles, and the local answer man, or advice giver.

These items are gold and a really good item makes trekking through the paper a most satisfying experience.

Today's 'The Boston Globe' has such an item.



It comes from the "Ask Dr. Knowledge" column (who is actually, a local Physics professor);

Why is drinking a milkshake through a straw harder than a soft drink?

Q - If I order a soft drink at a fast-food restaurant, I can drink it with a thin straw or a wide straw, with little difficulty either way. When it comes to a milkshake though, I can’t get anything at all through the narrow straw. Why?

A - The first thing to notice about the milkshake is that it’s viscous, which is the scientific way of saying that it’s sticky. Water is somewhat viscous, too, but much less so.

[snip]

If you can just manage to suck up a milkshake through the wide straw, however, you would need 16 times the suction to get it up the narrower one at the same rate.

There is more detail Dr. Knowledge provides the benighted milkshake drinker, so check that out.



What marveled me was that there was someone out there, so stumped, so fraught with anxiety, so lost over the complexity of straws, parched, maybe jonesin' for a milkshake, and perpetually stymied by those darn straws, the straw being Lucy-and-the-football, that they wrote (perhaps emailed) the local newspapers' "Dr. Knowledge" in a quest to have their life reunited with the tasty ice-cream, milk and syrup libation.

And, I have to wonder, if, in the Doc's answer, the part about needing "16 times the suction", if he was, slyly, telling the questioner that, you gotta really suck, both, to drink the milkshake, and, to send in a question like that.

This is why we need to keep newspapers around.

Bonus Links

Michael Sokolove: What’s a Big City Without a Newspaper?

Will Bunch: Apple's tablet will NOT save journalism

Danny Sullivan: Google CEO Eric Schmidt On Newspapers & Journalism

Clay Shirky: Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable




(Cross Posted at The Garlic)

Twitter me stupid

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Now this is truly exciting:

Consolidating its position at the cutting edge of new media technology, the Guardian today announces that it will become the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively via Twitter, the sensationally popular social networking service that has transformed online communication.

The move, described as "epochal" by media commentators, will see all Guardian content tailored to fit the format of Twitter's brief text messages, known as "tweets", which are limited to 140 characters each.

As someone who has written for The Guardian, struggling to edit my pieces down to 1,500 or even 1,000 words, I welcome this development with open arms, enthusiastic praise, and sustained applause. (It won't be easy to applaud with my arms open to their widest, but I'll try.)

Seriously, it's about time. Who has the patience, determination, time, and intellectual resources these days to make it all the way through a news article, let alone an opinion piece? The world is moving faster and faster, our lives are moving faster, and we just don't have the luxury anymore of sitting down with a cup of tea, or whatever your beverage of choice happens to be, and struggling through so many... words. Plus, grammar is so yesterday. The kids aren't into it, and can you blame them? Why make life more difficult than it has to be? (And don't even get me started on spelling. I mean, who cares?)

Even this blog... what's the point? Even our shorter posts verge on inexusable excess. We all know that the print newspaper industry is more or less dead. Well, so is the blogosphere. I mean, the freedom is great, and it's been a lot of fun to come out here day after day and spill my thoughts out into the virtual world, but I realize now that I must adapt, change with the times, maybe even a little ahead of the times. And the future is Twitter, which is sort of like the blogosphere, except that posts are, like, a line or two at most, and where we can hurl our opinions out into oblivion with relentless self-indulgence. Seriously, who needs a thousand words for anything? That's just too much, and you're just being selfish if you think otherwise.

The economic crisis? If you can't express yourself in 140 characters or less, then keep your opinions to yourself. Afghanistan? Same. As Rush once put it, "Conform or be cast out." (But if you want to intersperse your opinions with updates on every little facet of your life, from your eating habits to your bowel movements, hey, more power to you.)

Bow down, my friends. The stupidification of civilization is upon us. Smile, get with the program, and tweet away.