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All rights reserved. webmaster@world-of-newave.com (Webmaster) Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:06:01 GMT Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:06:01 GMT Newave Lisa XML Engine v1.0 - http://www.world-of-newave.info/about.htm 60 http://www.world-of-newave.info/images/wi8831.gif World-of-Newave.info - Knowledge and Informational Database http://www.world-of-newave.info/ 88 31 {NEWS > BREAKING NEWS} - Gallery: Culinary Gadgets Make Thanksgiving a Geek Holiday http://articles.world-of-newave.info/news/breaking-news/gallery-culinary-gadgets-make-thanksgiving-a-geek-20081125228.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/news/breaking-news/gallery-culinary-gadgets-make-thanksgiving-a-geek-20081125228.htm Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT : Thanksgiving is traditionally a time of getting together with family and friends, cooking a delicious feast and showing off one's most over-the-top kitchen gadgets. Forget the perfect garlic press you bought two years ago. The rabbit-ear cork puller? Passé. What you need to make this Thanksgiving special is, of course, some new, high-tech cooking gear. Read on for the top picks from Wired.com's Gadget Lab. Left: Frontgate Oil-Less Turkey Fryer What?s the trick to a flawless Thanksgiving? Deep-frying a turkey to deliciousness without burning down your house and immolating your family in the process. Stop structure fires and spare your loved ones from third-degree burns with the Frontgate Oil-Less Turkey Fryer. This contraption uses propane heat, "infrared cooking technology" and not an ounce of oil to fry your favorite flightless bird to juicy completion. $200, frontgate.com : Hotshot chefs like Thomas Keller (and Wired's Neil Gellar) are proponents of the sous vide cooking method: That's French for "under vacuum," and it refers to a process of cooking vacuum-sealed food at very low temperatures. Impress your guests with dishes made with devices like Clifton's Food Range, which uses a combination of low pressure and low cooking temperatures to slowly imbue vittles with unparalleled flavor and texture. Stuffing sous vide? There's a dish we can definitely, uh, gobble up. $700 and up, cliftonfoodrange.co.uk : If you want to give your turkey a smoky flavor this Thanksgiving, there's a much better option than locking it in a closet with your cigar-smoking Uncle Raul. With PolyScience's Smoking Gun, you can flavor virtually any food item by directly infusing it with smoke in a single shot, or you can trap the smoke in a bag to marinate meats and create more enduring aromas. The Smoking Gun uses a pipe bowl to burn chunks of flavored sawdust. Once lit, an internal fan sucks air from the bowl and pushes the smoke out though the plastic barrel. The gun comes with a few chips of mesquite sawdust, but you can use a burr grinder to make your own woody flavors from whatever wood you like. The best thing about the Smoking Gun is that it's relatively cheap at $50. The downside is that anyone can buy it, and we're sure not everyone has enough responsibility to take care of a contraption that sets fire to wood (or other cellulose substances — we're just saying) for the sole purpose of creating smoke. $50, cuisinetechnology.com : The challenge of following a cookbook recipe is getting the execution and timing right while reading tiny, sauce-stained words on a page. The miBook, a portable video player, aims to solve that problem. The device comes preloaded with cooking video guides, walking you through recipes and stopping automatically after each step, giving you time to do what you just saw. If the company put Giada de Laurentiis clips on this gadget, I can guarantee it would have more male customers than female. $130, mibook.com : The Spice Gun is a chef's deadliest weapon. You load the gun in the revolver with your spice bottles as if they were bullets; pulling the trigger shoots a burst of flavor into your dish. Pepper? Blam. Basil? Bang! Paprika? Kapow! Awesome — it'd probably be an effective weapon for torturing Guantánamo Bay prisoners, too. It's a shame the gun's still just a concept design. But maybe if we wish hard enough we'll be tucking this bad boy under our apron strings one day. Not yet available, designboom.com : It's never advisable to place your whole hand in a fire, but the promise of a rich, juicy, deep-fried turkey will make otherwise smart people do really stupid things. Enter the Litwin Turkey-Frying Safety System. This rig is a locking attachment used with turkey deep fryers (of 30 to 40 quarts). It holds the bird upside down as you crank it down into the oil. This is not only safer than trying to chuck it in by hand but also allows the cook to prepare the rest of the feast without worrying that the turkey will fall neck first into the fryer. $50, litwinsafetysystem.com : If you're especially nervous about food-borne bacteria, this food sanitizer will put most of your fears to rest. The CulinaryPrep mixes up citric acid and basic salt powders (at $2 a package) with water in a washing machine/vacuum-style contraption that kills 99.5 percent of all food bacteria. You can put in everything from chicken to fish (except chopped meat), and can even use the tumbler to marinate foods and speed up the prep process. Granted, it takes up quite a bit of space on the counter and its price is a bit steep given the state of the economy, but it might just be worth it: With this on your counter, you can rest easy about your food and go back to worrying about the germs on doorknobs. $350, culinaryprep.com : Like magicians, experienced cooks can measure the temperature of a pan with the wave of a hand. But beginning chefs — and the extremely neurotic — will appreciate that ThinkGeek's pan has a digital thermometer built into it, along with a digital readout on the handle. Cooking is an art, sure — but it's a science too, meaning precision is key. $50, thinkgeek.com : Yeah, you could be boring and toss your yams into a standard blender to puree them. Or you can bring the fight to the food with a device like the Immersion Blender. Basically the lovechild of a handheld drill and a Cuisinart, this 9-volt portable blender can chop, dice, slice or grind virtually any foodstuff you have at the ready. $100, brevilleusa.com : Those Oakleys are so last year. For Thanksgiving, these onion goggles are the way to go with their hip wraparound frame. The idea is to help ward off the sulfuric compounds that sting and tear up your eyes when you're peeling and chopping onions. With fog-free clear lenses, they are handy for most kitchen prep work. It may sound hard to believe, but even Consumer Reports gave these specs a qualified recommendation. And when you're done, maybe you can even step out in them and start a new fashion trend. Then again, maybe not. $20, rsvp-intl.com : Carving the bird is a job that few people look forward to. But if you are the man of the house and need to step up, then it's a good idea to be armed with an electric knife. The power tool promises to produce no-mess thin slices. Bonus: You can hold it menacingly when Uncle Jimmy and the rest of the family are driving you crazy. $50, cuisinart.com : Sure, you are a great cook. Proof? The pie in the oven, the stuffing in the baking pan and the potatoes boiling on the stovetop. But occasionally — just maybe — something happens and you forget to take the pie out soon enough, the stuffing burns and the potatoes boil over. Suddenly, your Thanksgiving meal is toast. Worse, it's on fire. It's situations like this one when you need a handy — and stylish! — fire extinguisher like this one to put the blaze out in a hurry. And when you are done, head to Denny's. $30, homehero.com Wired.Com Gallery: Culinary Gadgets Make Thanksgiving a Geek Holiday {new window}   Www.Wired.Com - : Thanksgiving is traditionally a time of getting together with family and friends, cooking a delicious feast and showing off one's most over-the-top kitchen gadgets. Forget the perfect garlic press you bought two years ago. The rabbit-ear cork puller? Passé. What you need to make this Thanksgiving special is, of course, some new, high-tech cooking gear. Read on for the top picks from Wired.com's Gadget Lab. Left: Frontgate Oil-Less Turkey Fryer What?s the trick to a flawless Thanksgiving? Deep-frying a turkey to deliciousness without burning down your house and immolating your family in the process. Stop structure fires and spare your loved ones from third-degree burns with the Frontgate Oil-Less Turkey Fryer. This contraption uses propane heat, "infrared cooking technology" and not an ounce of oil to fry your favorite flightless bird to juicy completion. $200, frontgate.com : Hotshot chefs like Thomas Keller (and Wired's Neil Gellar) are proponents of the sous vide cooking method: That's French for "under vacuum," and it refers to a process of cooking vacuum-sealed food at very low temperatures. Impress your guests with dishes made with devices like Clifton's Food Range, which uses a combination of low pressure and low cooking temperatures to slowly imbue vittles with unparalleled flavor and texture. Stuffing sous vide? There's a dish we can definitely, uh, gobble up. $700 and up, cliftonfoodrange.co.uk : If you want to give your turkey a smoky flavor this Thanksgiving, there's a much better option than locking it in a closet with your cigar-smoking Uncle Raul. With PolyScience's Smoking Gun, you can flavor virtually any food item by directly infusing it with smoke in a single shot, or you can trap the smoke in a bag to marinate meats and create more enduring aromas. The Smoking Gun uses a pipe bowl to burn chunks of flavored sawdust. Once lit, an internal fan sucks air from the bowl and pushes the smoke out though the plastic barrel. The gun comes with a few chips of mesquite sawdust, but you can use a burr grinder to make your own woody flavors from whatever wood you like. The best thing about the Smoking Gun is that it's relatively cheap at $50. The downside is that anyone can buy it, and we're sure not everyone has enough responsibility to take care of a contraption that sets fire to wood (or other cellulose substances — we're just saying) for the sole purpose of creating smoke. $50, cuisinetechnology.com : The challenge of following a cookbook recipe is getting the execution and timing right while reading tiny, sauce-stained words on a page. The miBook, a portable video player, aims to solve that problem. The device comes preloaded with cooking video guides, walking you through recipes and stopping automatically after each step, giving you time to do what you just saw. If the company put Giada de Laurentiis clips on this gadget, I can guarantee it would have more male customers than female. $130, mibook.com : The Spice Gun is a chef's deadliest weapon. You load the gun in the revolver with your spice bottles as if they were bullets; pulling the trigger shoots a burst of flavor into your dish. Pepper? Blam. Basil? Bang! Paprika? Kapow! Awesome — it'd probably be an effective weapon for torturing Guantánamo Bay prisoners, too. It's a shame the gun's still just a concept design. But maybe if we wish hard enough we'll be tucking this bad boy under our apron strings one day. Not yet available, designboom.com : It's never advisable to place your whole hand in a fire, but the promise of a rich, juicy, deep-fried turkey will make otherwise smart people do really stupid things. Enter the Litwin Turkey-Frying Safety System. This rig is a locking attachment used with turkey deep fryers (of 30 to 40 quarts). It holds the bird upside down as you crank it down into the oil. This is not only safer than trying to chuck it in by hand but also allows the cook to prepare the rest of the feast without worrying that the turkey will fall neck first into the fryer. $50, litwinsafetysystem.com : If you're especially nervous about food-borne bacteria, this food sanitizer will put most of your fears to rest. The CulinaryPrep mixes up citric acid and basic salt powders (at $2 a package) with water in a washing machine/vacuum-style contraption that kills 99.5 percent of all food bacteria. You can put in everything from chicken to fish (except chopped meat), and can even use the tumbler to marinate foods and speed up the prep process. Granted, it takes up quite a bit of space on the counter and its price is a bit steep given the state of the economy, but it might just be worth it: With this on your counter, you can rest easy about your food and go back to worrying about the germs on doorknobs. $350, culinaryprep.com : Like magicians, experienced cooks can measure the temperature of a pan with the wave of a hand. But beginning chefs — and the extremely neurotic — will appreciate that ThinkGeek's pan has a digital thermometer built into it, along with a digital readout on the handle. Cooking is an art, sure — but it's a science too, meaning precision is key. $50, thinkgeek.com : Yeah, you could be boring and toss your yams into a standard blender to puree them. Or you can bring the fight to the food with a device like the Immersion Blender. Basically the lovechild of a handheld drill and a Cuisinart, this 9-volt portable blender can chop, dice, slice or grind virtually any foodstuff you have at the ready. $100, brevilleusa.com : Those Oakleys are so last year. For Thanksgiving, these onion goggles are the way to go with their hip wraparound frame. The idea is to help ward off the sulfuric compounds that sting and tear up your eyes when you're peeling and chopping onions. With fog-free clear lenses, they are handy for most kitchen prep work. It may sound hard to believe, but even Consumer Reports gave these specs a qualified recommendation. And when you're done, maybe you can even step out in them and start a new fashion trend. Then again, maybe not. $20, rsvp-intl.com : Carving the bird is a job that few people look forward to. But if you are the man of the house and need to step up, then it's a good idea to be armed with an electric knife. The power tool promises to produce no-mess thin slices. Bonus: You can hold it menacingly when Uncle Jimmy and the rest of the family are driving you crazy. $50, cuisinart.com : Sure, you are a great cook. Proof? The pie in the oven, the stuffing in the baking pan and the potatoes boiling on the stovetop. But occasionally — just maybe — something happens and you forget to take the pie out soon enough, the stuffing burns and the potatoes boil over. Suddenly, your Thanksgiving meal is toast. Worse, it's on fire. It's situations like this one when you need a handy — and stylish! — fire extinguisher like this one to put the blaze out in a hurry. And when you are done, head to Denny's. $30, homehero.com
See the latest multimedia and applications including videos, animations, podcasts, photos, and slideshows on Wired.com {...}
Published: November 26, 2008, 5:00 am - Indexed: December 1, 2008, 10:14 am - Page Size: 37KB
Category: News > Breaking News

]]> News > Breaking News {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Media Matters: When did experience become a flaw? http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/media-matters-when-did-experience-become-a-flaw-20081194732.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/media-matters-when-did-experience-become-a-flaw-20081194732.htm Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:56:43 GMT Midway through Bill Clinton's first year as president, Time magazine reported that among the new president's problems was "a staff that has almost no White House or executive experience," pointing to then-political director Rahm Emanuel as a prime example. Fast-forward 15 years: President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Emanuel to serve as his chief of staff. With years of high-level White House work under his belt, not to mention the connections and clout that come from having been one of the most powerful members of Congress, it would be quite a stretch to say that Emanuel lacks the experience to effectively serve Obama. So this time, some in the media have a different complaint. As CNN's Anderson Cooper put it, Emanuel is "probably the ultimate Washington insider. ... [T]he critics will say, well, look, if Obama is talking about change, why is he having a Washington insider?" So: Emanuel was insufficiently experienced to serve as political director in 1993 -- and now we're to believe that he's too experienced in Washington to serve as chief of staff? What gives? Was there a brief window in 2003 in which Emanuel's level of experience was just right? Or is there something strange about the media's assessment of President-elect Obama's staffing decisions? That Time assessment of Emanuel in 1993 was not unique. For 16 years, there has been near-universal agreement that the Clinton administration's early struggles (real and perceived) were in large part due to a lack of White House and Washington experience on the part of Clinton's staff. Clinton hadn't even taken office before USA Today reported in December 1992 that the "limited Washington experience" of the incoming White House chief of staff, Mack McLarty, "raises the specter of Jimmy Carter's inexperienced inner circle." Six months later, Newsweek noted that McLarty's "lack of familiarity with Washington ways is now considered a political liability." The influential journalists Jack Germond and Jules Witcover later wrote that the choice of McLarty had been "a major surprise and the brunt of considerable criticism, on grounds that McLarty, like Clinton himself, was inexperienced in the Washington meat grinder." By mid-1994, when a staff restructuring resulted in Leon Panetta's appointment as chief of staff, an Albany Times-Union editorial was typical of media reaction: [Clinton's] sudden shuffle of White House staff is the latest evidence that he has finally grasped a central fact of Washington political life: It's not the place for the inexperienced, no matter how well-intentioned they may be. [...] He's also learned that the chief of staff position is no place for a neophyte. It takes someone with Mr. Panetta's credentials as an insider to fill this pivotal post. That's all the more true at a time when the White House is trying to push through key health care and welfare legislation. During a January 2001 look back at the Clinton presidency, Nightline host Ted Koppel summed up years of conventional wisdom: "The new president had put together a staff with virtually no experience in governing from the White House" -- something Nightline made clear was a mistake. When President George W. Bush chose Andy Card, who had served in senior White House roles in two previous administrations, as his chief of staff, the selection -- along with decisions to put other longtime Washington insiders in key positions -- was received favorably by the news media. Three days into Bush's presidency, CNN's Bill Schneider told viewers that "Bush is now surrounded by a lot of insider Washington deal makers, who have a lot of experience; like Dick Cheney and Andrew Card, his chief of staff; Paul O'Neill at treasury, and Donald Rumsfeld at defense. I think, a hard line and a smiling face and a willingness to make deals -- that could be a formula for success." A month later, The Washington Post ran a 2,000-word profile of Card that emphasized the benefit of Card's experience and portrayed him as bringing efficiency and order to the White House. So, the history is clear: President Clinton was lambasted by the news media for not having enough old Washington hands on his staff; President Bush was praised for choosing veterans of previous Republican administrations. Which brings us back to the present, and to the bizarre spectacle of journalists and pundits blasting Barack Obama for choosing staff members and Cabinet secretaries who are experienced and qualified. Here, for example, is MSNBC's Chris Matthews, noting that Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, John Podesta, and Rahm Emanuel either have or are reported to have roles in Obama's transition or administration: This is what you do when you don't have elections. You simply promote the people ... who had the deputy jobs. You can do this in any bureaucratic state. You could do it in the old Soviet Union, do it anywhere you have a bureaucracy. You don't need to hold elections to promote deputies to the top job when it comes time, right? You don't need elections for this crap, do you? ... You just keep promoting people from within in any old, tired bureaucracy. That's what you do. This is nothing short of insane. Eric Holder, reportedly Barack Obama's choice for attorney general, did indeed have one of the "deputy jobs" at the Justice Department -- in the Clinton administration, not the Bush administration. It's a pretty safe bet that if we didn't have an election a few weeks ago -- if the Bush administration were continuing indefinitely -- Eric Holder would not be the next attorney general. It's an even safer bet that Rahm Emanuel would not be chief of staff. Much of the nation may wish the Bush administration never happened, but it did. None of the people Matthews mentioned are being "promoted from within" -- not a single one. (Matthews, by the way, was unconcerned about hiring officials from former administrations when George W. Bush was doing the hiring: In 2001, he praised Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell as "real heavyweights in terms of experience.") Matthews' MSNBC colleague Pat Buchanan is very much on the same page, repeatedly complaining that the incoming Obama administration will be filled with "retreads." Yes: Pat Buchanan, born and raised in Washington, D.C.; educated at Georgetown; a veteran of two GOP White Houses and himself twice a candidate for the presidency; a 20-year fixture on cable news -- that Pat Buchanan is complaining about too many "retreads." That was a common theme on MSNBC, where longtime Washington insiders Chris Matthews, David Gregory, and Christopher Hitchens -- among others -- suggested that the choice of former Clinton administration officials was contrary to the idea of "change": Chris Matthews: "The possibility that Barack Obama might pick Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state has a lot of people asking, 'Whatever happened to change, the change we can believe in?' " David Gregory: "Is this change you can believe in? The Obama team is going to face these questions about big-time Clinton administration people into the fold now in some of the biggest jobs in the Cabinet. Eric Holder certainly fits that bill." Christopher Hitchens: "This is the woman who, if you were for change that you can believe in, whichever change it was, you were voting against. ... [I]t's Clinton redo, not just Rahm Emanuel. Whatever this is, it's not change." This has been a sentiment expressed commonly in the media, nowhere more frequently than on MSNBC, but the suggestion that bringing on former Clinton administration officials -- even Clinton herself -- is inconsistent with a desire for change is pure bunk. Asserting such inconsistency requires some deeply flawed assumptions: that everyone who worked in the Clinton administration is alike; that the Clinton and Bush administrations pursued identical policies with identical effectiveness; or that the desire for "change" is simply a desire for change in the types of people who hold government jobs. People want a change in policy and a change in effectiveness. They want a change from George W. Bush, of whom disapproval is near-universal. The idea that 67 million people voted for Barack Obama because they disliked the Clinton administration is ludicrous. It ignores the wide and deep disgust with the direction Bush has taken the nation and the stunning incompetence with which he has done so. And it overlooks the obvious fact that people voted for Barack Obama because they like him and they like his policy positions. But there is no evidence -- none -- that the nation as a whole has a deep desire to shun some of the people most qualified and experienced for administration jobs simply because they worked for Bill Clinton. Hard-core Republicans and Washington journalists may have such a desire, but that's about it. The whining from journalists about Clinton alumni in the Obama administration is even sillier when you consider that they would presumably criticize Obama if he chose people without prior White House experience, as they criticized Bill Clinton. So the only way Obama can escape criticism is if he hires a bunch of people who worked in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Perversely, after two straight elections in which the American people convincingly rejected failed Republican rule, the punditocracy would be less likely to criticize Obama for abandoning his promise of change if he retained the services of the very Bush administration officials who screwed up the country so badly in the first place. No piece of transition news has rankled the chattering class as much as the rumored selection of Hillary Clinton to be secretary of state -- not, in most cases, because they think her unqualified, but because they just don't like her. Christopher Hitchens, for one, lashed out at the news on MSNBC, leading the cable channel to treat his comments as though they were both surprising and important. They are neither. Hitchens hates the Clintons. Maybe not as much as he hates Mother Teresa, but there is little doubt that he hates them. Christopher Hitchens criticizing a Clinton is roughly as surprising as a Boston native speaking ill of New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter. Despite the fact that there is no indication that anyone outside of its own studios cares what Christopher Hitchens has to say about the Clintons, MSNBC has played his comments over and over again, and even invited him back on the next day to interview him about their previous interview of him. Host David Gregory explained MSNBC's obsession with Hitchens' comments by insisting -- all evidence to the contrary -- that "everybody is talking about" them. Hitchens' bizarre comments about Hillary Clinton included his claim that he has never heard that she is respected by military leadership -- a claim that, if true, merely confirms that Hitchens knows far too little about Clinton for his assessment of her to be taken seriously. And he claimed that in 1993, Hillary Clinton instructed her husband not to intervene in the Balkans because she was afraid that it would interfere with her health-care initiative -- but the book he cited to support his claim does not do so. As Media Matters' Eric Boehlert noted this week, the media has been essentially alone in their anguish about Clinton serving as secretary of state: The press represents nobody but the press on this topic. Meaning, the press has no political cover on this story because there's no partisan angle to the SoS story, which means their long-running Clinton hatred is just sort of out there, exposed for all to see. Think about. It's been virtually impossible to find any senior members of Congress--Republican or Democrat--who publicly oppose Clinton as the SoS, which in and of itself is rather astonishing. And within the liberal blogosphere, where one might expect there to be vocal opposition to Clinton since so many within the netroots opposed her during the primaries, most A-list writers have been extremely quiet in terms of airing opposition. [...] So, if you're keeping score at home, that means the Obama White House is in favor of Clinton, Republicans in Congress are in favor, Democrats in Congress are in favor, and liberal activists are, essentially, in favor. (And so are most Americans.) In the early stages of the last two administrations (both the result of "change" elections), the media made much of the importance of new presidents bringing on old hands with White House experience. Suddenly, they portray such moves as inconsistent with the idea of "change." There are really only two possible explanations for this inconsistency: They are blinded by their hatred of the Clintons, or are desperate for something -- anything -- to use as an excuse to criticize Obama. Either way (or both), they look like fools by coming down in favor of inexperience. America is a nation at war, with stock and housing markets that are falling faster than a flock of turkeys dropped out of an airplane, a broken health-care system, and countless other problems -- and the punditocracy thinks Barack Obama should refuse to hire anyone who worked in the most successful administration of the past several decades. Incredible. Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America. Mediamatters.Org Media Matters: When did experience become a flaw? {new window}   Mediamatters.Org - Midway through Bill Clinton's first year as president, Time magazine reported that among the new president's problems was "a staff that has almost no White House or executive experience," pointing to then-political director Rahm Emanuel as a prime example. Fast-forward 15 years: President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Emanuel to serve as his chief of staff. With years of high-level White House work under his belt, not to mention the connections and clout that come from having been one of the most powerful members of Congress, it would be quite a stretch to say that Emanuel lacks the experience to effectively serve Obama. So this time, some in the media have a different complaint. As CNN's Anderson Cooper put it, Emanuel is "probably the ultimate Washington insider. ... [T]he critics will say, well, look, if Obama is talking about change, why is he having a Washington insider?" So: Emanuel was insufficiently experienced to serve as political director in 1993 -- and now we're to believe that he's too experienced in Washington to serve as chief of staff? What gives? Was there a brief window in 2003 in which Emanuel's level of experience was just right? Or is there something strange about the media's assessment of President-elect Obama's staffing decisions? That Time assessment of Emanuel in 1993 was not unique. For 16 years, there has been near-universal agreement that the Clinton administration's early struggles (real and perceived) were in large part due to a lack of White House and Washington experience on the part of Clinton's staff. Clinton hadn't even taken office before USA Today reported in December 1992 that the "limited Washington experience" of the incoming White House chief of staff, Mack McLarty, "raises the specter of Jimmy Carter's inexperienced inner circle." Six months later, Newsweek noted that McLarty's "lack of familiarity with Washington ways is now considered a political liability." The influential journalists Jack Germond and Jules Witcover later wrote that the choice of McLarty had been "a major surprise and the brunt of considerable criticism, on grounds that McLarty, like Clinton himself, was inexperienced in the Washington meat grinder." By mid-1994, when a staff restructuring resulted in Leon Panetta's appointment as chief of staff, an Albany Times-Union editorial was typical of media reaction: [Clinton's] sudden shuffle of White House staff is the latest evidence that he has finally grasped a central fact of Washington political life: It's not the place for the inexperienced, no matter how well-intentioned they may be. [...] He's also learned that the chief of staff position is no place for a neophyte. It takes someone with Mr. Panetta's credentials as an insider to fill this pivotal post. That's all the more true at a time when the White House is trying to push through key health care and welfare legislation. During a January 2001 look back at the Clinton presidency, Nightline host Ted Koppel summed up years of conventional wisdom: "The new president had put together a staff with virtually no experience in governing from the White House" -- something Nightline made clear was a mistake. When President George W. Bush chose Andy Card, who had served in senior White House roles in two previous administrations, as his chief of staff, the selection -- along with decisions to put other longtime Washington insiders in key positions -- was received favorably by the news media. Three days into Bush's presidency, CNN's Bill Schneider told viewers that "Bush is now surrounded by a lot of insider Washington deal makers, who have a lot of experience; like Dick Cheney and Andrew Card, his chief of staff; Paul O'Neill at treasury, and Donald Rumsfeld at defense. I think, a hard line and a smiling face and a willingness to make deals -- that could be a formula for success." A month later, The Washington Post ran a 2,000-word profile of Card that emphasized the benefit of Card's experience and portrayed him as bringing efficiency and order to the White House. So, the history is clear: President Clinton was lambasted by the news media for not having enough old Washington hands on his staff; President Bush was praised for choosing veterans of previous Republican administrations. Which brings us back to the present, and to the bizarre spectacle of journalists and pundits blasting Barack Obama for choosing staff members and Cabinet secretaries who are experienced and qualified. Here, for example, is MSNBC's Chris Matthews, noting that Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, John Podesta, and Rahm Emanuel either have or are reported to have roles in Obama's transition or administration: This is what you do when you don't have elections. You simply promote the people ... who had the deputy jobs. You can do this in any bureaucratic state. You could do it in the old Soviet Union, do it anywhere you have a bureaucracy. You don't need to hold elections to promote deputies to the top job when it comes time, right? You don't need elections for this crap, do you? ... You just keep promoting people from within in any old, tired bureaucracy. That's what you do. This is nothing short of insane. Eric Holder, reportedly Barack Obama's choice for attorney general, did indeed have one of the "deputy jobs" at the Justice Department -- in the Clinton administration, not the Bush administration. It's a pretty safe bet that if we didn't have an election a few weeks ago -- if the Bush administration were continuing indefinitely -- Eric Holder would not be the next attorney general. It's an even safer bet that Rahm Emanuel would not be chief of staff. Much of the nation may wish the Bush administration never happened, but it did. None of the people Matthews mentioned are being "promoted from within" -- not a single one. (Matthews, by the way, was unconcerned about hiring officials from former administrations when George W. Bush was doing the hiring: In 2001, he praised Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell as "real heavyweights in terms of experience.") Matthews' MSNBC colleague Pat Buchanan is very much on the same page, repeatedly complaining that the incoming Obama administration will be filled with "retreads." Yes: Pat Buchanan, born and raised in Washington, D.C.; educated at Georgetown; a veteran of two GOP White Houses and himself twice a candidate for the presidency; a 20-year fixture on cable news -- that Pat Buchanan is complaining about too many "retreads." That was a common theme on MSNBC, where longtime Washington insiders Chris Matthews, David Gregory, and Christopher Hitchens -- among others -- suggested that the choice of former Clinton administration officials was contrary to the idea of "change": Chris Matthews: "The possibility that Barack Obama might pick Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state has a lot of people asking, 'Whatever happened to change, the change we can believe in?' " David Gregory: "Is this change you can believe in? The Obama team is going to face these questions about big-time Clinton administration people into the fold now in some of the biggest jobs in the Cabinet. Eric Holder certainly fits that bill." Christopher Hitchens: "This is the woman who, if you were for change that you can believe in, whichever change it was, you were voting against. ... [I]t's Clinton redo, not just Rahm Emanuel. Whatever this is, it's not change." This has been a sentiment expressed commonly in the media, nowhere more frequently than on MSNBC, but the suggestion that bringing on former Clinton administration officials -- even Clinton herself -- is inconsistent with a desire for change is pure bunk. Asserting such inconsistency requires some deeply flawed assumptions: that everyone who worked in the Clinton administration is alike; that the Clinton and Bush administrations pursued identical policies with identical effectiveness; or that the desire for "change" is simply a desire for change in the types of people who hold government jobs. People want a change in policy and a change in effectiveness. They want a change from George W. Bush, of whom disapproval is near-universal. The idea that 67 million people voted for Barack Obama because they disliked the Clinton administration is ludicrous. It ignores the wide and deep disgust with the direction Bush has taken the nation and the stunning incompetence with which he has done so. And it overlooks the obvious fact that people voted for Barack Obama because they like him and they like his policy positions. But there is no evidence -- none -- that the nation as a whole has a deep desire to shun some of the people most qualified and experienced for administration jobs simply because they worked for Bill Clinton. Hard-core Republicans and Washington journalists may have such a desire, but that's about it. The whining from journalists about Clinton alumni in the Obama administration is even sillier when you consider that they would presumably criticize Obama if he chose people without prior White House experience, as they criticized Bill Clinton. So the only way Obama can escape criticism is if he hires a bunch of people who worked in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Perversely, after two straight elections in which the American people convincingly rejected failed Republican rule, the punditocracy would be less likely to criticize Obama for abandoning his promise of change if he retained the services of the very Bush administration officials who screwed up the country so badly in the first place. No piece of transition news has rankled the chattering class as much as the rumored selection of Hillary Clinton to be secretary of state -- not, in most cases, because they think her unqualified, but because they just don't like her. Christopher Hitchens, for one, lashed out at the news on MSNBC, leading the cable channel to treat his comments as though they were both surprising and important. They are neither. Hitchens hates the Clintons. Maybe not as much as he hates Mother Teresa, but there is little doubt that he hates them. Christopher Hitchens criticizing a Clinton is roughly as surprising as a Boston native speaking ill of New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter. Despite the fact that there is no indication that anyone outside of its own studios cares what Christopher Hitchens has to say about the Clintons, MSNBC has played his comments over and over again, and even invited him back on the next day to interview him about their previous interview of him. Host David Gregory explained MSNBC's obsession with Hitchens' comments by insisting -- all evidence to the contrary -- that "everybody is talking about" them. Hitchens' bizarre comments about Hillary Clinton included his claim that he has never heard that she is respected by military leadership -- a claim that, if true, merely confirms that Hitchens knows far too little about Clinton for his assessment of her to be taken seriously. And he claimed that in 1993, Hillary Clinton instructed her husband not to intervene in the Balkans because she was afraid that it would interfere with her health-care initiative -- but the book he cited to support his claim does not do so. As Media Matters' Eric Boehlert noted this week, the media has been essentially alone in their anguish about Clinton serving as secretary of state: The press represents nobody but the press on this topic. Meaning, the press has no political cover on this story because there's no partisan angle to the SoS story, which means their long-running Clinton hatred is just sort of out there, exposed for all to see. Think about. It's been virtually impossible to find any senior members of Congress--Republican or Democrat--who publicly oppose Clinton as the SoS, which in and of itself is rather astonishing. And within the liberal blogosphere, where one might expect there to be vocal opposition to Clinton since so many within the netroots opposed her during the primaries, most A-list writers have been extremely quiet in terms of airing opposition. [...] So, if you're keeping score at home, that means the Obama White House is in favor of Clinton, Republicans in Congress are in favor, Democrats in Congress are in favor, and liberal activists are, essentially, in favor. (And so are most Americans.) In the early stages of the last two administrations (both the result of "change" elections), the media made much of the importance of new presidents bringing on old hands with White House experience. Suddenly, they portray such moves as inconsistent with the idea of "change." There are really only two possible explanations for this inconsistency: They are blinded by their hatred of the Clintons, or are desperate for something -- anything -- to use as an excuse to criticize Obama. Either way (or both), they look like fools by coming down in favor of inexperience. America is a nation at war, with stock and housing markets that are falling faster than a flock of turkeys dropped out of an airplane, a broken health-care system, and countless other problems -- and the punditocracy thinks Barack Obama should refuse to hire anyone who worked in the most successful administration of the past several decades. Incredible. Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America.
Media Matters - Media Matters: When did experience become a flaw? {...}
Published: November 22, 2008, 1:56 am - Indexed: November 23, 2008, 1:26 pm - Page Size: 23KB
Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance {NORTH AMERICA > RENTALS} - 3ba: FURN: 2400 Square Foot 3/3 At The Brocklebank. *12/1* GAVIN (nob hill) $8000 3bd http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/business-and-economy/real-estate/rentals/3ba-furn-2400-square-foot-3-3-at-the-brocklebank-12-20081048831.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/business-and-economy/real-estate/rentals/3ba-furn-2400-square-foot-3-3-at-the-brocklebank-12-20081048831.htm Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:55:51 GMT Fully Furnished Corner 3/3 At The One And Only BROCKLEBANK, Built In 1926. 2400 Square Foot Apartment Available Furnished Or Unfurnished. Views Views Views With Eastern And Northern Exposures. Grand Nob Hill Property Featured As "Madeleine's" Residence In Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 Classic Film *Vertigo*, With Kim Novak And Jimmy Stewart. Includes 1 Car / SUV Garage Parking. Extra Spots Available. Old World Property In Every Respect With 24 Hour Doorman. Mason @ Sacramento ( Nob Hill Proper ) Ready For Occupancy December 1. $8000/month. Details: • Spacious, Bright, Sunny, & Stylish 2 Bedroom + Office Or 3 Bedroom, 3 Bath Apartment • Approximately 2400 Square Feet Of Living Space • Very Large Entrance Foyer • Hardwood Floors, Crown Moulding & High Profile Moulding Throughout • Massive Living Room And Formal Dining Room • Contemporary Kitchen With Gas Stove, Dishwasher & Disposal • In-Residence Washer / Dryer Laundry • 1 Car / SUV Garage Space Included • All Kitties & Doggies Considered $8000/month. Ready For Occupancy December 1. For Occupancy Terms Shorter Than 8 Months, Broker Service Consideration 10% Of 1 Month's Rent. Owner Seeks Conscientious Residents With Appropriate Income Or Assets & Credit History. Gavin Coombs Corporate FURNISHED Listings: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sub/sfc?query=gavin Gavin Coombs Traditional UNFURNISHED Listings: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/sfc?query=gavin WHEN INQUIRING Please Forward Link(s) For Property(ies) Of Interest And Provide The Following Information Via Email: • Reason For Move • Are You Seeking Unfurnished Or Furnished? • Preferred Occupancy Date And Expected Lease Term • Subject Property(ies) Of Interest • Neighborhood(s) Of Interest • Rent Ceiling • # Of Occupants • # Of Sleeping Bedrooms / Beds Required • Minimum # Of Bathrooms Required • # Of Parking Spaces Required • Pets? Weight, Breed, And Age • Name And Cell # • Preferred Date(s) & Time(s) To View "THE BEST WAY TO SECURE A NEW PLACE 101"... HELPFUL INFO FOR THOSE SEEKING TO RENT IN SAN FRANCISCO: If You're Looking To Put Your Best Foot Forward, Have The Following Info Prepared To Present & Any Agent Or Owner Should Love You. • Cover Letter Describing Your Situation • Pet References, If Applicable With Photocopies Of The Following: • Driver's License Or Passport • Credit Report With FICO Score From: www.MyFICO.com www.Equifax.com www.Experian.com www.Transunion.com • Most Recent Pay Stub -or- Job Offer Letter With Start Date And Salary And A Clear Idea Of Total Annual Household Income Advantageous, But Not Essential: • Bank Statement Or Financial Statement Reflecting Savings ••• Providing The Above Documentation ••• ••• Along With The Application You're Given ••• ••• Ensures You're Best Poised For Leasing Success ••• GAVIN COOMBS Honored BEST SF Leasing Consultant 2007. As Nominated By SF Landlords And Tenants & Ordained By The SF Apartment Association. The Gavin Coombs Companies, Incorporated. Investments | Sales | Luxury Leasing | Relocation Furnished Short Term Corporate & Traditional Unfurnished Rentals. Realtor. Broker. Agent. Designer | Vision. Decision. Action. Fruition. Charter Member, San Francisco Association Of Leasing Professionals. Member, PPMA, SFAA, SFAR, SPOSF, NAR, CAR, CA DRE # 1799029 Rights To All Posted Text And Information Contained Herein Reserved. The Gavin Coombs Companies, Inc Champion All Fair Housing Principles. GCCI Residential Leasing Listings Are Offered Exclusively On Craigslist. Photos Available For Most Properties. Photos Not Posted In CL Postings. The Gavin Coombs Companies, Inc. | 1998 - 2008 www.RentalRadar.com San Francisco & All California #1 Top Producer, Luxury Residential Leasing. *** Knock Knock 4 Barack!!! www.my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/gavincoombs *** GCCI Contributes Monthly To The St. Anthony Foundation. www.stanthonysf.org/home.html Sfbay.Craigslist.Org 3ba: FURN: 2400 Square Foot 3/3 At The Brocklebank. *12/1* GAVIN (nob hill) $8000 3bd {new window}   Sfbay.Craigslist.Org - Fully Furnished Corner 3/3 At The One And Only BROCKLEBANK, Built In 1926. 2400 Square Foot Apartment Available Furnished Or Unfurnished. Views Views Views With Eastern And Northern Exposures. Grand Nob Hill Property Featured As "Madeleine's" Residence In Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 Classic Film *Vertigo*, With Kim Novak And Jimmy Stewart. Includes 1 Car / SUV Garage Parking. Extra Spots Available. Old World Property In Every Respect With 24 Hour Doorman. Mason @ Sacramento ( Nob Hill Proper ) Ready For Occupancy December 1. $8000/month. Details: • Spacious, Bright, Sunny, & Stylish 2 Bedroom + Office Or 3 Bedroom, 3 Bath Apartment • Approximately 2400 Square Feet Of Living Space • Very Large Entrance Foyer • Hardwood Floors, Crown Moulding & High Profile Moulding Throughout • Massive Living Room And Formal Dining Room • Contemporary Kitchen With Gas Stove, Dishwasher & Disposal • In-Residence Washer / Dryer Laundry • 1 Car / SUV Garage Space Included • All Kitties & Doggies Considered $8000/month. Ready For Occupancy December 1. For Occupancy Terms Shorter Than 8 Months, Broker Service Consideration 10% Of 1 Month's Rent. Owner Seeks Conscientious Residents With Appropriate Income Or Assets & Credit History. Gavin Coombs Corporate FURNISHED Listings: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sub/sfc?query=gavin Gavin Coombs Traditional UNFURNISHED Listings: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/sfc?query=gavin WHEN INQUIRING Please Forward Link(s) For Property(ies) Of Interest And Provide The Following Information Via Email: • Reason For Move • Are You Seeking Unfurnished Or Furnished? • Preferred Occupancy Date And Expected Lease Term • Subject Property(ies) Of Interest • Neighborhood(s) Of Interest • Rent Ceiling • # Of Occupants • # Of Sleeping Bedrooms / Beds Required • Minimum # Of Bathrooms Required • # Of Parking Spaces Required • Pets? Weight, Breed, And Age • Name And Cell # • Preferred Date(s) & Time(s) To View "THE BEST WAY TO SECURE A NEW PLACE 101"... HELPFUL INFO FOR THOSE SEEKING TO RENT IN SAN FRANCISCO: If You're Looking To Put Your Best Foot Forward, Have The Following Info Prepared To Present & Any Agent Or Owner Should Love You. • Cover Letter Describing Your Situation • Pet References, If Applicable With Photocopies Of The Following: • Driver's License Or Passport • Credit Report With FICO Score From: www.MyFICO.com www.Equifax.com www.Experian.com www.Transunion.com • Most Recent Pay Stub -or- Job Offer Letter With Start Date And Salary And A Clear Idea Of Total Annual Household Income Advantageous, But Not Essential: • Bank Statement Or Financial Statement Reflecting Savings ••• Providing The Above Documentation ••• ••• Along With The Application You're Given ••• ••• Ensures You're Best Poised For Leasing Success ••• GAVIN COOMBS Honored BEST SF Leasing Consultant 2007. As Nominated By SF Landlords And Tenants & Ordained By The SF Apartment Association. The Gavin Coombs Companies, Incorporated. Investments | Sales | Luxury Leasing | Relocation Furnished Short Term Corporate & Traditional Unfurnished Rentals. Realtor. Broker. Agent. Designer | Vision. Decision. Action. Fruition. Charter Member, San Francisco Association Of Leasing Professionals. Member, PPMA, SFAA, SFAR, SPOSF, NAR, CAR, CA DRE # 1799029 Rights To All Posted Text And Information Contained Herein Reserved. The Gavin Coombs Companies, Inc Champion All Fair Housing Principles. GCCI Residential Leasing Listings Are Offered Exclusively On Craigslist. Photos Available For Most Properties. Photos Not Posted In CL Postings. The Gavin Coombs Companies, Inc. | 1998 - 2008 www.RentalRadar.com San Francisco & All California #1 Top Producer, Luxury Residential Leasing. *** Knock Knock 4 Barack!!! www.my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/gavincoombs *** GCCI Contributes Monthly To The St. Anthony Foundation. www.stanthonysf.org/home.html
3ba: FURN: 2400 Square Foot 3/3 At The Brocklebank. *12/1* GAVIN {...}
Published: October 27, 2008, 12:55 am - Indexed: October 27, 2008, 3:01 pm - Page Size: 10KB
Category: Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Business and Economy > Real Estate > Rentals

]]> Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Business and Economy > Real Estate > Rentals {INTERNET > SEARCHING} - SearchDay | Assembling Your Landing Page Optimization Dream Team http://articles.world-of-newave.info/computers/internet/searching/searchday-assembling-your-landing-page-optimization-2008128682.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/computers/internet/searching/searchday-assembling-your-landing-page-optimization-2008128682.htm Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:00:43 GMT Today's search engine marketing news and opinion: Assembling Your Landing Page Optimization Dream Team, Part 2; Is Your Site Browser-Ready for the Holidays?; Only 11% of Social Network Users Will Make a Purchase Based on Advertising; and more. Searchenginewatch.Com SearchDay | Assembling Your Landing Page Optimization Dream Team {new window}   Searchenginewatch.Com - Today's search engine marketing news and opinion: Assembling Your Landing Page Optimization Dream Team, Part 2; Is Your Site Browser-Ready for the Holidays?; Only 11% of Social Network Users Will Make a Purchase Based on Advertising; and more.
SearchDay | Assembling Your Landing Page Optimization Dream Team - Search Engine Watch (SEW) {...}
Indexed: December 1, 2008, 10:00 am - Page Size: 45KB
Category: Computers > Internet > Searching

]]> Computers > Internet > Searching {INTERNET > GOOGLE} - The art of the field study http://articles.world-of-newave.info/computers/internet/searching/search-engines/google/the-art-of-the-field-study-2008129751.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/computers/internet/searching/search-engines/google/the-art-of-the-field-study-2008129751.htm Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:43:33 GMT I'm Dan Russell, a member of the Search Quality team doing user experience research. This post is part of our ongoing series to talk about the Search Quality team at Google, showing a bit of what we do in the day-to-day course of improving the quality of the user experience.The role of "user experience" research is to try and get the inside story on what people do when they search. We're constantly asking: What's the user's experience of search? What works and doesn't work for them? What are they looking for? What DO they want?To understand the full richness and variety of what people do when they are using Google, we spend many hours in the field, watching people search and listening to what they say as they do this. We hear it when they're happy, and when they're terribly frustrated. And perhaps most importantly, we also pay attention to the things they don't say -- the inexpressible "gotchas" that slow users down or get in the way of their search.It turns out that people are masters of saying one thing and doing another, particularly when it comes to nearly automatic behavior. We find that searchers often turn so quickly to Google that they don't really think too much about what they're actually searching for. It's surprising, but often we'll see people trying to find out something about a topic, but then never actually mention the topic itself. That is, there's often a big discrepancy between what they'll tell me (the human observer) they're trying to do, and the search terms they enter into Google. One person I shadowed for the day spent ten minutes trying to find the schedule of the ferry that runs between San Francisco and Larkspur, but somehow only thought of adding the word "ferry" much later in their search.We also study eye tracking. The eye makes a complex scan path over the search results, building up a composite picture of what is presented on the page. It's clear that what actually happens is a very rapid scan and assessment of each result as they are seen. In those milliseconds between the eye landing on the first fixation and seeing a few results, all kinds of decisions and choices are made--nearly all of them subconsciously.In this short video, you can see three different searchers all looking for the same thing (in this case, a child's backpack). The red dot is the searcher's gaze moving around on the search results page. Notice how methodically the gaze moves from result title to title, occasionally inspecting the snippet text to gain more detail about the result.(Video courtesy of Kerry Rodden) So the job of figuring out what people actually do when they search isn't as simple as asking someone what they search for during the day. It's basically impossible to give an accurate telling of what you saw (or didn't see) on the results page while actively searching for a high quality results.Memories of your own behavior are also notoriously unreliable. People's search behavior in the lab is often different than when they're at home or at work. This is a natural (and expected) side effect of lab studies: people will work especially hard to please a researcher. If we ask them to search for a pair of brown shoes they'd like to buy for themselves, in the lab they'll find the first pair that seems reasonable and then stop, satisfied. If it was real, they would go on and spend more time. We still do lab studies, but we know what to watch for, and what to ignore.Data from field studies gives us insight into how people respond to the Google experience in ways that we can't otherwise measure.For instance, in several field studies we discovered that many of the people who went to the previous version of the Advanced Search page had a strong, almost visceral negative reaction when the page appeared. The text of the original page had language that many people saw as intimidating--words like "Domain," "Usage Rights" and "Safe Search" can be a bit much if you're not sure what they mean.The old Advanced Search page was a little off-putting (click on the image to see a larger version):Based on our field studies, we dug more deeply into how people were actually using our Advanced Search page, and quickly discovered that, indeed, a large number of users were going to the page, and then leaving it without ever filling in any of the slots.Armed with this insight from field studies, we redesigned the page, simplifying it by removing terms that were unclear to the average user (the word "occurrences," for example, just didn't mean anything to many of the Advanced Search page users), moving rarely used features (numeric range searches, date searches, etc.) into a part of the page that was expandable with a single click. That made them easy to get to for people who knew they wanted to search with those restrictions, but out of the way in a non-threatening way.One of the other things we noted in the field study was that people often didn't understand how the Advanced Search page worked. So we added a "visible query builder" region at the top of the page. As you fill in the blanks, the box at the top of the page fills in with the query that you could type into Google. It was our way of making visible the effects of advanced search operators.The Advanced Search page post-redesign (click on the image to see a larger version):The good effect of these changes quickly became clear. The number of users that bounced out of the Advanced Search page dropped significantly. Interestingly, the total number of Advanced Search page users didn't increase significantly... at least not yet. By improving the UI on the page, we hope to attract even more searchers to the large range of search options available on Google.In the end, this example shows the kind of insights that field studies can bring. As with the eye-tracking example, asking someone about their emotional response to a web page just isn't a useful way to get that data. But watching them in situ, as they actually use Google to go about their daily search lives can reveal all kinds of remarkable, otherwise undiscoverable, and actionable insights into searcher behavior.Posted by Daniel Russell, Uber Tech Lead, Search Quality Blogger.Com The art of the field study {new window}   Www.Blogger.Com - I'm Dan Russell, a member of the Search Quality team doing user experience research. This post is part of our ongoing series to talk about the Search Quality team at Google, showing a bit of what we do in the day-to-day course of improving the quality of the user experience.The role of "user experience" research is to try and get the inside story on what people do when they search. We're constantly asking: What's the user's experience of search? What works and doesn't work for them? What are they looking for? What DO they want?To understand the full richness and variety of what people do when they are using Google, we spend many hours in the field, watching people search and listening to what they say as they do this. We hear it when they're happy, and when they're terribly frustrated. And perhaps most importantly, we also pay attention to the things they don't say -- the inexpressible "gotchas" that slow users down or get in the way of their search.It turns out that people are masters of saying one thing and doing another, particularly when it comes to nearly automatic behavior. We find that searchers often turn so quickly to Google that they don't really think too much about what they're actually searching for. It's surprising, but often we'll see people trying to find out something about a topic, but then never actually mention the topic itself. That is, there's often a big discrepancy between what they'll tell me (the human observer) they're trying to do, and the search terms they enter into Google. One person I shadowed for the day spent ten minutes trying to find the schedule of the ferry that runs between San Francisco and Larkspur, but somehow only thought of adding the word "ferry" much later in their search.We also study eye tracking. The eye makes a complex scan path over the search results, building up a composite picture of what is presented on the page. It's clear that what actually happens is a very rapid scan and assessment of each result as they are seen. In those milliseconds between the eye landing on the first fixation and seeing a few results, all kinds of decisions and choices are made--nearly all of them subconsciously.In this short video, you can see three different searchers all looking for the same thing (in this case, a child's backpack). The red dot is the searcher's gaze moving around on the search results page. Notice how methodically the gaze moves from result title to title, occasionally inspecting the snippet text to gain more detail about the result.(Video courtesy of Kerry Rodden) So the job of figuring out what people actually do when they search isn't as simple as asking someone what they search for during the day. It's basically impossible to give an accurate telling of what you saw (or didn't see) on the results page while actively searching for a high quality results.Memories of your own behavior are also notoriously unreliable. People's search behavior in the lab is often different than when they're at home or at work. This is a natural (and expected) side effect of lab studies: people will work especially hard to please a researcher. If we ask them to search for a pair of brown shoes they'd like to buy for themselves, in the lab they'll find the first pair that seems reasonable and then stop, satisfied. If it was real, they would go on and spend more time. We still do lab studies, but we know what to watch for, and what to ignore.Data from field studies gives us insight into how people respond to the Google experience in ways that we can't otherwise measure.For instance, in several field studies we discovered that many of the people who went to the previous version of the Advanced Search page had a strong, almost visceral negative reaction when the page appeared. The text of the original page had language that many people saw as intimidating--words like "Domain," "Usage Rights" and "Safe Search" can be a bit much if you're not sure what they mean.The old Advanced Search page was a little off-putting (click on the image to see a larger version):Based on our field studies, we dug more deeply into how people were actually using our Advanced Search page, and quickly discovered that, indeed, a large number of users were going to the page, and then leaving it without ever filling in any of the slots.Armed with this insight from field studies, we redesigned the page, simplifying it by removing terms that were unclear to the average user (the word "occurrences," for example, just didn't mean anything to many of the Advanced Search page users), moving rarely used features (numeric range searches, date searches, etc.) into a part of the page that was expandable with a single click. That made them easy to get to for people who knew they wanted to search with those restrictions, but out of the way in a non-threatening way.One of the other things we noted in the field study was that people often didn't understand how the Advanced Search page worked. So we added a "visible query builder" region at the top of the page. As you fill in the blanks, the box at the top of the page fills in with the query that you could type into Google. It was our way of making visible the effects of advanced search operators.The Advanced Search page post-redesign (click on the image to see a larger version):The good effect of these changes quickly became clear. The number of users that bounced out of the Advanced Search page dropped significantly. Interestingly, the total number of Advanced Search page users didn't increase significantly... at least not yet. By improving the UI on the page, we hope to attract even more searchers to the large range of search options available on Google.In the end, this example shows the kind of insights that field studies can bring. As with the eye-tracking example, asking someone about their emotional response to a web page just isn't a useful way to get that data. But watching them in situ, as they actually use Google to go about their daily search lives can reveal all kinds of remarkable, otherwise undiscoverable, and actionable insights into searcher behavior.Posted by Daniel Russell, Uber Tech Lead, Search Quality
Indexed: December 1, 2008, 9:43 am - Page Size: 10KB
Category: Computers > Internet > Searching > Search Engines > Google

]]> Computers > Internet > Searching > Search Engines > Google {INTERNET > GOOGLE} - Accessible View: An ARIA for web search http://articles.world-of-newave.info/computers/internet/searching/search-engines/google/accessible-view-an-aria-for-web-search-2008129931.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/computers/internet/searching/search-engines/google/accessible-view-an-aria-for-web-search-2008129931.htm Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:42:52 GMT From time to time, our own T.V. Raman shares his tips on how to use Google from his perspective as a technologist who cannot see -- tips that sighted people, among others, may also find useful.In the spirit of a recent post discussing some of our search experiments, last week we launched an opt-in search experiment we're calling Accessible View, which makes it easy to navigate search results using only the keyboard. Like many of our recent accessibility-related enhancements, this experiment is built using the basic functionality provided by W3C ARIA and Google-AxsJAX, an evolving set of HTML DOM properties that enable adaptive technologies to work better with AJAX-style applications.The Accessible View experiment is another step toward making our search results more accessible for everyone. In July 2006, we launched Accessible Search on Google Labs, where the goal was to help visually impaired users find content that worked well with adaptive technologies. We continue to refine and tune the ranking on Accessible Search. And with Accessible View, users can easily toggle between regular Google search results and Accessible Search results by using the 'A' and 'W' keys.When we designed the Accessible View interface, we first looked at how people used screen readers and other adaptive technologies when performing standard search-related tasks. We then asked how many of these actions we could eliminate to speed up the search process. The result: a set of keyboard shortcuts for effectively navigating the results page, and to arrange for the user's adaptive technology to speak the right information during navigation.We've also added a magnification lens that highlights the user's selected search result. Since launching Accessible Search, one of the most requested features has been support for low-vision users. While implementing the keyboard navigation described here, we incorporated the magnification lens first introduced by Google Reader.Bringing it all together, we implemented keyboard shortcuts that extend what was originally pioneered by the keyboard shortcuts experiment. These shortcuts help users navigate through different parts of the results page with a minimal number of keystrokes. The left and right arrows cycle through the various categories of items on the page (e.g., results, ads, or search refinements), and the up and down arrow keys move through the current category. Power users can leave their hands on the home row by using the h, j, k, and l keys. In addition, we enable an infinite stream of results viewed through the n and p keys ? so you can move through the results without getting disoriented by a page refresh after the first 10 results.KeyBehaviorj/knext/previous resultn/pnext/previous result, scroll if necessaryenteropen current resultup/downnext/previous resultleft/rightswitch categories (results, ads, refinements)ajump to ads Aswitch to Accessible Search resultsWswitch to default Google resultsrjump to related searches Try out the experiment and give us your feedback.Posted by T.V. Raman, Research Scientist, and Charles L. Chen, Software Engineer Blogger.Com Accessible View: An ARIA for web search {new window}   Www.Blogger.Com - From time to time, our own T.V. Raman shares his tips on how to use Google from his perspective as a technologist who cannot see -- tips that sighted people, among others, may also find useful.In the spirit of a recent post discussing some of our search experiments, last week we launched an opt-in search experiment we're calling Accessible View, which makes it easy to navigate search results using only the keyboard. Like many of our recent accessibility-related enhancements, this experiment is built using the basic functionality provided by W3C ARIA and Google-AxsJAX, an evolving set of HTML DOM properties that enable adaptive technologies to work better with AJAX-style applications.The Accessible View experiment is another step toward making our search results more accessible for everyone. In July 2006, we launched Accessible Search on Google Labs, where the goal was to help visually impaired users find content that worked well with adaptive technologies. We continue to refine and tune the ranking on Accessible Search. And with Accessible View, users can easily toggle between regular Google search results and Accessible Search results by using the 'A' and 'W' keys.When we designed the Accessible View interface, we first looked at how people used screen readers and other adaptive technologies when performing standard search-related tasks. We then asked how many of these actions we could eliminate to speed up the search process. The result: a set of keyboard shortcuts for effectively navigating the results page, and to arrange for the user's adaptive technology to speak the right information during navigation.We've also added a magnification lens that highlights the user's selected search result. Since launching Accessible Search, one of the most requested features has been support for low-vision users. While implementing the keyboard navigation described here, we incorporated the magnification lens first introduced by Google Reader.Bringing it all together, we implemented keyboard shortcuts that extend what was originally pioneered by the keyboard shortcuts experiment. These shortcuts help users navigate through different parts of the results page with a minimal number of keystrokes. The left and right arrows cycle through the various categories of items on the page (e.g., results, ads, or search refinements), and the up and down arrow keys move through the current category. Power users can leave their hands on the home row by using the h, j, k, and l keys. In addition, we enable an infinite stream of results viewed through the n and p keys ? so you can move through the results without getting disoriented by a page refresh after the first 10 results.KeyBehaviorj/knext/previous resultn/pnext/previous result, scroll if necessaryenteropen current resultup/downnext/previous resultleft/rightswitch categories (results, ads, refinements)ajump to ads Aswitch to Accessible Search resultsWswitch to default Google resultsrjump to related searches Try out the experiment and give us your feedback.Posted by T.V. Raman, Research Scientist, and Charles L. Chen, Software Engineer
Indexed: December 1, 2008, 9:42 am - Page Size: 6KB
Category: Computers > Internet > Searching > Search Engines > Google

]]> Computers > Internet > Searching > Search Engines > Google {INTERNET > V} - Getting Traffic http://articles.world-of-newave.info/computers/internet/on-the-web/weblogs/personal/v/getting-traffic-2008122252.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/computers/internet/on-the-web/weblogs/personal/v/getting-traffic-2008122252.htm Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:08:05 GMT It's very hard. It's taken over 3 years for this site to get ~200 readers (not page views) a day. Even then, it's mostly spiders scurrying around on the internets, sucking up all the content they can find. I guess some of them must be spambots or something more nefarious. Anyway, just another time to plug my content on tumblr. Maybe MT 4 will be as easy to use as tumblr for those one off photos from your phone that you don't want to post on Flickr or that crazy quote that you wanted to stick somewhere but didn't have time to give any context. We'll see. Patandkat.Com Getting Traffic {new window}   Www.Patandkat.Com - It's very hard. It's taken over 3 years for this site to get ~200 readers (not page views) a day. Even then, it's mostly spiders scurrying around on the internets, sucking up all the content they can find. I guess some of them must be spambots or something more nefarious. Anyway, just another time to plug my content on tumblr. Maybe MT 4 will be as easy to use as tumblr for those one off photos from your phone that you don't want to post on Flickr or that crazy quote that you wanted to stick somewhere but didn't have time to give any context. We'll see.
Getting Traffic - Vertical Hold {...}
Indexed: December 1, 2008, 9:08 am - Page Size: 8KB
Category: Computers > Internet > On the Web > Weblogs > Personal > V

]]> Computers > Internet > On the Web > Weblogs > Personal > V {ISSUES > THE SOUTH} - MySpace Page http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/territorial-disputes/united-states/the-south/myspace-page-2008126641.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/territorial-disputes/united-states/the-south/myspace-page-2008126641.htm Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:03:15 GMT If major corporations can do it so can ASP. We have a new MySpace page- Visit us and "be our friend" Blogger.Com MySpace Page {new window}   Www.Blogger.Com - If major corporations can do it so can ASP. We have a new MySpace page- Visit us and "be our friend"
Indexed: December 1, 2008, 9:03 am - Page Size: 1KB
Category: Society > Issues > Territorial Disputes > United States > The South

]]> Society > Issues > Territorial Disputes > United States > The South {RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY > ONTARIO} - St. Mark's Newsletter Available http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/religion-and-spirituality/christianity/denominations/anglican/anglican-church-of-canada/churches/ontario/st-mark-s-newsletter-available-2008124731.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/religion-and-spirituality/christianity/denominations/anglican/anglican-church-of-canada/churches/ontario/st-mark-s-newsletter-available-2008124731.htm Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:36:54 GMT The latest issue of our newsletter, The Spirit of St. Mark's, is now available on our Publications page.Items for the next newsletter should be in by February 1, 2009 Blogger.Com St. Mark's Newsletter Available {new window}   Www.Blogger.Com - The latest issue of our newsletter, The Spirit of St. Mark's, is now available on our Publications page.Items for the next newsletter should be in by February 1, 2009
Indexed: December 1, 2008, 8:36 am - Page Size: 1KB
Category: Society > Religion and Spirituality > Christianity > Denominations > Anglican > Anglican Church of Canada > Churches > Ontario

]]> Society > Religion and Spirituality > Christianity > Denominations > Anglican > Anglican Church of Canada > Churches > Ontario {NEWS > BREAKING NEWS} - Dec. 1, 1952: 'Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty' http://articles.world-of-newave.info/news/breaking-news/dec-1-1952-ex-gi-becomes-blonde-beauty-2008129761.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/news/breaking-news/dec-1-1952-ex-gi-becomes-blonde-beauty-2008129761.htm Mon, 01 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT 1952: It's front-page news when George Jorgensen Jr. is reborn as Christine Jorgensen, gaining international celebrity and notoriety as the first widely known person to undergo a successful sex-change operation. Jorgensen, who grew up in the Bronx, in her words, a "frail, tow-headed, introverted little boy who ran from fistfights and rough-and-tumble games," was drafted into the Army just after World War II. Military service only reinforced Jorgensen's belief that she was, in fact, a woman trapped inside a man's body. After receiving her discharge, Jorgensen returned home and first heard about "sex-reassignment surgery," which was being performed only in Sweden. (It was illegal almost everywhere else, including the United States.) Encouraged, Jorgensen began taking female hormones on her own, then headed for Sweden. She never made it. Stopping in Denmark to visit relatives in Copenhagen, Jorgensen was introduced to Christian Hamburger, a Danish surgeon who specialized in the kind of surgery she was seeking. He agreed to take the case and put his patient on hormone-replacement therapy as they prepared for surgery. Several surgeries were required, the first one consisting of castration, which was only carried out after permission was obtained from the Danish minister of justice. At the time of Jorgensen's transformation, Hamburger did not give her an artificial vagina, so she remained "anatomically incorrect" for several years before undergoing a vaginoplasty in the United States. The hormone therapy resulted in profound changes to Jorgensen's body. Fat was redistributed, and she began to take on the contours of a woman. Subsequent surgeries completed the process until she was ready to step into the spotlight. Jorgensen's sex change, which may have been leaked to the press by Jorgensen herself, hit the headlines Dec. 1, creating an international sensation. "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty" screamed the banner of Jorgensen's hometown New York Daily News. In fact, Jorgensen was not the first person to undergo sex-reassignment surgery. During the rollicking Weimar period, German doctors performed the surgery on at least two patients. The difference, in Jorgensen's case, was that she underwent hormone-replacement therapy in conjunction with the surgery. The earlier surgeries were strictly cut-and-paste. Although Jorgensen complained frequently about the jackals of the press, she did become something of a publicity hound and took most of the tasteless remarks with good grace, laughing off jokes such as, "Christine Jorgensen went abroad and came back a broad." She turned to acting and became a nightclub singer as well, performing, predictably, "I Enjoy Being a Girl." But Christine Jorgensen's world was not an enlightened one, particularly when it came to transgenderism. She paid the cost for this lack of sophistication. A first announced engagement fell through, and a second one failed as well, when the state of New York refused to issue the couple a marriage license. Her intended husband also lost his job when the marriage plans became known. She later traveled the lecture circuit, talking about her experiences and advocating for the nascent transgender cause. Jorgensen died of cancer in 1989, a few weeks short of age 63. Source: Various Wired.Com Dec. 1, 1952: 'Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty' {new window}   Www.Wired.Com - 1952: It's front-page news when George Jorgensen Jr. is reborn as Christine Jorgensen, gaining international celebrity and notoriety as the first widely known person to undergo a successful sex-change operation. Jorgensen, who grew up in the Bronx, in her words, a "frail, tow-headed, introverted little boy who ran from fistfights and rough-and-tumble games," was drafted into the Army just after World War II. Military service only reinforced Jorgensen's belief that she was, in fact, a woman trapped inside a man's body. After receiving her discharge, Jorgensen returned home and first heard about "sex-reassignment surgery," which was being performed only in Sweden. (It was illegal almost everywhere else, including the United States.) Encouraged, Jorgensen began taking female hormones on her own, then headed for Sweden. She never made it. Stopping in Denmark to visit relatives in Copenhagen, Jorgensen was introduced to Christian Hamburger, a Danish surgeon who specialized in the kind of surgery she was seeking. He agreed to take the case and put his patient on hormone-replacement therapy as they prepared for surgery. Several surgeries were required, the first one consisting of castration, which was only carried out after permission was obtained from the Danish minister of justice. At the time of Jorgensen's transformation, Hamburger did not give her an artificial vagina, so she remained "anatomically incorrect" for several years before undergoing a vaginoplasty in the United States. The hormone therapy resulted in profound changes to Jorgensen's body. Fat was redistributed, and she began to take on the contours of a woman. Subsequent surgeries completed the process until she was ready to step into the spotlight. Jorgensen's sex change, which may have been leaked to the press by Jorgensen herself, hit the headlines Dec. 1, creating an international sensation. "Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty" screamed the banner of Jorgensen's hometown New York Daily News. In fact, Jorgensen was not the first person to undergo sex-reassignment surgery. During the rollicking Weimar period, German doctors performed the surgery on at least two patients. The difference, in Jorgensen's case, was that she underwent hormone-replacement therapy in conjunction with the surgery. The earlier surgeries were strictly cut-and-paste. Although Jorgensen complained frequently about the jackals of the press, she did become something of a publicity hound and took most of the tasteless remarks with good grace, laughing off jokes such as, "Christine Jorgensen went abroad and came back a broad." She turned to acting and became a nightclub singer as well, performing, predictably, "I Enjoy Being a Girl." But Christine Jorgensen's world was not an enlightened one, particularly when it came to transgenderism. She paid the cost for this lack of sophistication. A first announced engagement fell through, and a second one failed as well, when the state of New York refused to issue the couple a marriage license. Her intended husband also lost his job when the marriage plans became known. She later traveled the lecture circuit, talking about her experiences and advocating for the nascent transgender cause. Jorgensen died of cancer in 1989, a few weeks short of age 63. Source: Various
Get the latest in science news, including space, physics, planet earth, discoveries, NASA, satellites, and space travel from Wired.com {...}
Published: December 1, 2008, 5:00 am - Indexed: December 1, 2008, 9:35 am - Page Size: 49KB
Category: News > Breaking News

]]> News > Breaking News