learnandteachonline.com

Yes, the Hardball host started a fundraising phenomenon in the 6th congressional district in Minnesota with his Oct. 17 MSNBC interview with incumbent Michele Bachmann. She called for a media investigation into members of congress to see which of them might be anti-American.

But, Chris, come on. Be a little generous to the internet effect. You implied on Monday night's show that it was entirely the power of your show that drove outraged viewers to contribute hundreds of thousands to Bachmann's opponent.

You did good, but what you did was to start a viral effect. Check out the blogs that helped spread the influence of your interview in the first few days. Factor in the rabid use among politics junkies of microblogging tools like Twitter that have replaced our RSS readers to pass around these blog and video links, and there you go.

A single interview in isolation would not have caused the Democratic National Committee to take notice of Elwyn Tinklenberg's campaign. Thank you for getting the snowball rolling, but individual contributions flooded in from the combined influence of your interview and the net effect. The DNC recognized the resultant phenomenon. There was a team at work here, and as quarterback it would be gracious of you to acknowledge the whole squad.

I was about to get all huffy, but no.

Hulu offers embeddable video. If you're trying it out with a local file, as I did, and thought it wasn't resizable -- that it was clipped rather than scaled from the 512-pixel width -- just publish it anyway. It actually does scale like YouTube or most other embeds, once you get it online.

For example here is last night's SNL Weekend Update.

I've limited the width to 450 pixels because that's the space I have available for it in the main column of my blog.

These days, to figure the proportion for such things, I fire up Paint Shop Pro. (I don't want to pay for Photoshop at home, and though I remember how to solve for X, I've grown too lazy to haul out the pencil.)

I think I threw away my proportion wheel 35 years ago right after I took a newspaper editing class. You'd measure a photo, then slide the wheel to match up the photo width with the column width. The wheel calculated the column height, so you could draw a box of the correct number of column inches on your layout, and a percentage, so you could scribble it on the photo with a grease pencil.

When Dave mentioned finding more ways for the backchannel to participate in conferences, it reminded me of an abandoned experiment to use Moodle, the open source LMS, to encourage conference discussions to continue after the fact. It would be for both virtual attendees and people who were there, but want to continue on with an important topic or two after the conference has ended.

I may get back to the project, because:

1) I'm kind of a hermit myself and would like a way to get more involved in conferences I don't want to show up for or can't afford to attend.

2) It seems to me if you're attending a conference virtually, there isn't a huge need to participate in real time (though I do see the draw of the togetherness aspect, and the new cheap or free video streaming makes the real time participation more feasible than it's ever been). Attending later is a little like the timeshifting media.

3) Most important, in our online ADD-world, some key ideas tend to be forgotten too quickly. There's so much info to take in that you tend to move on to the next thing the next day or next hour. I'd like to see conference-goers choose one or more topics they think are worthy of exploring in more depth, then take them online.

It's a kind of a hybrid of conferences and online learning. I suppose for some industry-oriented conferences you could even make them formal enough to qualify for continuing ed credits. Why not?

NYT story on two new movie services launching today.

Skeptics are grumbling about the price, saying online prices should be less than DVDs. Sure, but that's easy to change. It's not going to discourage anybody for the rest of their natural lives. Let the market talk.

iTunes is offering condensed versions of the NCAA championship games for $1.99 each or $19.99 for all 63 condensed games.

I think I'd rather see highlights than abridgements. I never trust the judgement of editors who abridge books, and this is the same thing.

Sorry I can't link to the deal. The link that came in my e-mail is for iTunes users only. I don't like to give out restricted links like that.

You get these the next day. It reminded me of an idea I've had for a long time about sports on non-broadcast outlets, like cable TV or now podcasting. HBO has shows by Bob Costas and Bryant Gumbel, but it doesn't exploit its advantage. They use fowl language in movies. Why not in sports shows? Talk about sports the way guys really talk about sports.

The leagues might not think it's a good PR move to sell play-by-play coverage using blue language. But, an amateur could do a podcast the way some TV shows have offered commentary tracks played in sync with recorded shows.

I get a kick out of the way guys watch sports, especially when there are two or more avid emotional fans watching together. That's the mood I think would work best. "DID YOU SEE THAT?!! GUY'S A F***ING JOKE. COME ON!"

But the new Technorai feature is reading lists.

CBS-TV is going to sell downloadable episodes of Survivor -- directly.

"Jack Bauer" is the top search on Technorati.

I kept to my resolve and didn't watch the continuing season opener on Monday night either. I'm going to consume it on my own terms. (Boy, was I ever tempted to take a peek, though.)

Rex Hammock is a fan of 24, too.

I'm an Amy-come-lately to the show. I didn't join the collective tonight for the fifth season double-header opener for two reasons:
    1) I haven't finished watching season four yet, and
    b) I think I want to watch it on my own schedule.

CBS-TV just put three series on Comcast's OnDemand service for 99 cents an episode.

I think iTunes finally cracked the micropayments mental block. Took long enough didn't it? I don't know why. I'd far rather spend a little at a time than commit to a subscription. I suppose early on when Cybercash first started it was the hassle of signing up, same with MS wallet and others. When you take away the hassle it's a winner.

I keep meaning to tell you about something I heard on the drugstore instore PA before Christmas (yes, at my dear Walgreens). It was a house commercial for iTunes gift cards that invested a good half of its time explaining that you don't need an iPod to use iTunes.