DISQUS

Oh right, *your* topic! Just went sailing off the track there, didn't I? :-)

I don't agree or disagree about the SUL, but Twitter remains "read only" for me to date, so I don't have a personal brand/dog in that hunt. In some ways it seems you're "S"-ing -- in the interest of fairness, objectivity, even-handedness, arms-length independence or level playing fields -- that some philosophical distinction should be made as Web services begin marking a shift from pushing predominantly bland-and-oligopolic "corporate" brands, to working in service of more everyone-for-themselves "personal" brands.

All these years, I've noticed little complaint anywhere about the unfairness of which Web sites get included in the default bookmarks in Web browsers, what gets marketed on Amazon's home page or which acts get featured on the front page of the iTunes Store -- all of which are otherwise rather brand-agnostic platforms or marketplaces. In a way, Twitter's SUL has cast a wider, more inclusive net than any of those, by showcasing some interesting, previously low profile individuals, rather than just marketing the blandly mainstream content of already popular Web destinations, or those artists providential enough to be signed and marketed by major corporate publishing and music label benefactors.

Providing some hand-holding links to potentially interesting content for uninitiated, less technically savvy Twitter registrants also seems like a "legitimate government interest," in a manner of speaking. Would it be better if users had to specify some specific interests first, before receiving recommendations from some taxonomized directory of Twitter accounts? Would such a directory be better managed by Twitter itself (like Yahoo) or by independent users (like DMOZ)?

Should the suggestions and their sort order be more randomized, or should they be based on some impassively machine-generated secret sauce calculation of rank and relevancy, such as total number of followers, "trending" accounts and/or some aggregate "TwitterRank" of followers (akin to Google results)? (Or would such rankings be hopelessly perverted by how the SUL, to date, has benefitted arbitrarily chosen individuals?)

I don't think any of those would be all that prohibitive to code -- perhaps even using Twitter's own API -- though it's clear Twitter has had a lot (of fail whale blubber?) on their plates recently. And I'm asking more rhetorically, not as much for a personally directed response. I don't know whether I may be the only one a bit foggy on the specific nitty-gritty of your position -- as opposed to the grand thrust or overall arc of your SUL objections, which I think I more or less follow.

Actually, the younger the writers are, the tougher it becomes to fathom that slight. Not sure we can blame the two of them, though -- perhaps what they first wrote got butchered by some fuddy-duddy culture snob editor, not that The New York Times would have any reputation for those.

LeVar Burton started hosting "Reading Rainbow" on PBS in 1983. Sure, I never watched it much -- I could read books without pictures by that point, thank you very much! But if at least one of those (presumably a bit literate) NYT reporters hadn't been born yet, it's hard to believe neither ever encountered the program.

Burton was still hosting episodes of "Reading Rainbow" up UNTIL 2005 -- 22 years later. By that point, some of the first children to watch it no doubt had kids of their own who were watching it. Over all those years, more people may have "met" Burton on his "kids program" than in the "Roots" miniseries or the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" television episodes and movies.

His Trekkie connection may fit better with the techie image and audience of a service like Twitter. But more than a few adults can name and fondly recall the hosts of TV programs they watched decades ago in footie pajamas, perhaps more easily than entertainers to more recently follow. Burton's also moved behind the camera as an occasional director of TV episodes, earning a title that's sometimes reputed to be every actor's dream.

Last but not least, that elitist dismissiveness toward Burton, a member of a minority group -- knocking him as long since irrelevant and out of the game when it's self-evidently not true, when he's someone who's "made good," and built on his early "Roots" success to become more than a one-hit wonder -- rankles as well, somehow.

Okay... thanks for providing a place to let me get that off my chest! I would have posted a comment on The New York Times site, but by and large the Times doesn't "do" live, up-to-the-moment visitor comments. And what, risk contradiction? Better quality control of their product? It might undercut their hallmark "arbiter of all" editorial voice.

True dat.

I feel your pain.

Unfortunately, this appears to simply collapse borders rather than forcing IE to actually respect the empty-cells style. You can simply remove the empty-cells style and this renders the same. Well, it does for me anyhow.

Bevels would be do-it-yourself, but otherwise the CAPS in Interstate Mono Black come close...

http://www.fontfactory.com/font_info.php/font_id/22987/

Similar flavor (but not fixed width)...

http://www.identifont.com/similar?BR8

And no, it's not just you...

http://www.says-it.com/marquee/

My Comcastic "get you to call" experience several years ago, living in downtown Philly, bullseye of "Comcast Country."

Apartment building, so frequent turnover. After tenants moved out/canceled service/returned cable boxes, the physical hookups weren't always disconnected. (Cheaper not to do the truck roll? Cheaper to just farm cutoffs out to contractors, who found it cheaper to just ^say^ they did it and pocket the fee? Cheaper not to have physical verification, remote diagnostics or any paper trail?)

Upshot is, future tenants could sometimes run coax from the wall faceplate directly to their television -- no cable box -- and watch unscrambled network and basic cable analog channels "for free," and never be motivated enough to subscribe. And apparently the junction boxes, or whatever they're called, were so tangled and out of sync, they no longer provided an indication of which hookups and units were legitimate subscribers. (Would have required customer calls or sifting through records -- perhaps it's just cheaper not to bother?)

Comcast's eventual solution? On the cusp of March Madness, systematically work down the block, and cut cable connections indiscriminately -- leaving behind upbeat door hangers advertising cable service, to let everyone know you happened to be in the neighborhood. (Again, cheaper -- and oughta get folks to call, right?)

Not a college basketball fan, but I ^was^ a paying subscriber -- and I did call. What I would learn is that, as a paying subscriber, fixing my cable connection qualified as a "repair," and I would have to wait several days for a repair "appointment," any ranting at this point be damned. Meanwhile, I watched Comcast trucks roll up and down the block all day long, hooking up service and delivering cable boxes to the "new subscribers" who'd enjoyed "stolen" cable service up until now... thanks to Comcast's own sloppiness about disconnects. I guess Comcast's solution worked like a charm, for them.

And just as advertised in commercials, if you sign up for service, Comcast's van will be there in a jiff. What they don't advertise? If you've subscribed for years and need your first repair, perhaps because they KNOWINGLY, METHODICALLY AND DELIBERATELY CUT YOUR CONNECTION, it's the back of the line for you. Talk about being taken for granted?

Okay, so my repair appointment "window" arrives, Comcast fails to show up, but then records they'd attempted to visit anyway, even though I was there the whole time waiting for them, and know they didn't. Years afterward, I'd learn this is a documented, systematic practice on Comcast's part.

http://consumerist.com/consumer/insiders/5-conf...

But that was it. I canceled, hacked my way through the retention team -- one place Comcast doesn't cheap out -- and promptly marched my cable box to... oh no, not to Comcast world headquarters a few blocks away. They may hand-deliver a cable box to your door when you sign up, but to get the deposit back, I'd have to drop my long-since-obsolete cable box to a field office, miles away at the city's edge, protected by bulletproof glass, in a pedestrian-unfriendly part of town, such is Comcast's antipathy to parting subscribers. Tore a pair of slacks on the way.

But after ^that,^ never looked back. By my calculations, I've saved thousands of dollars since, and have generally found better uses of my time and money than the background distraction of soon forgotten daily television -- besides, whatever I hear about enough to want to see is increasingly available online with an ever-shorter lag, or I wait for shows on DVD. Not like I read enough books, even now.

I've also had this -- great? -- story to tell, over and over, and over and over, and over and over, and over, over, and over -- and over -- again, and the fun challenge of frequently luring friends, family and coworkers to other providers. The telcoms must think Comcast to be so gauche and nouveau riche! Ho ho ho, doesn't Comcast realize the way today's sophisticated utilities rip off customers and non-customers alike is by lobbying for taxpayer subsidies, tied to commitments they won't keep? Not seizing upon passersby to mug like some two-bit street corner thug. Silly Comcast!

Oh man that is one funny vid.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_...

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22community+ftt...

It will probably only support RSS feeds. Atom support will probably be left to another developer, or not implemented at all. RSS isn't the only format. Atom seems to be a more collaborative standard (not designed by one or two people, with updates determined by one person).