Monthly Archives: May 2010

What if they can’t plug the well?

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Doc Searls

When news came on April 21 that Transocean‘s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig had exploded — killing eleven, sinking the rig, and leaving an open oil well gushing a mile down on the ocean floor — my first thought was, What … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 29 Comments

Dig your Ordovican great-Xth granddaddy/mommy

Posted on May 24, 2010 by Doc Searls

Or let the paleontologists dig it for you. That’s what a team led by Yale researchers did last year in southeastern Morocco’s Lower and Upper Fezouata Formations. The result is covered by LiveScience in Oldest Soft-Bodied Marine Fossils Discovered . … Continue reading →

Posted in Geology, Life, Photography, Travel | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Mathman Sums Up

Posted on May 23, 2010 by Doc Searls

I came late to love math. Not sure why, but my grasp of the concepts (which is far from great) is not matched by skill or speed at calculation. There always seemed to be teeth missing in the gears of … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Life | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Reputation vs. Branding

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Doc Searls

Branding has jumped the shark. The meme is stale. Worn out. Post-peak. If branding were a show on Fox, it would be cancelled next week. I can witness this trend by watching links going to three posts I made last … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Business, News, Sports | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 35 Comments

Manners vs. Mores

Posted on May 12, 2010 by Doc Searls

Until her Supreme Court nomination turned Elena Kagan into big-time news fodder, there was not an abundance of great pictures of her to be found on the Web. Among the better ones to be found were a couple I had … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Blogging, history, Journalism, News, Photography, Politics, problems | Tagged , , , , | 27 Comments

TTT vs. The News Cycle

Posted on May 8, 2010 by Doc Searls

In the old days the “news cycle” was the interval between the news media’s pumpings: the paper’s daily print run, the TV station’s morning and evening news programs. Now that cycle is as short as the TTT: Time To Tweet. … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Journalism, News | 4 Comments

Fee Enterprise

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Doc Searls

…in the mid-Atlantic and New England states between 1800 and 1830, turnpike companies accounted for 27 percent of all business incorporations. That’s from Turnpikes and Toll Roads in Nineteenth-Century America, by Daniel B. Klein, Santa Clara University and John Majewski, … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Past | 12 Comments