no, I’m not talking about david carson’s deconstruction masterpiece, but rather this story on how *gasp* gen-x/y is no longer reading newspapers!

yeah, I know… old news, right? why is this different from oh, 1999, when the internet boom was at its peak? no one was reading newspapers then, even fewer are now. this is, after all, the reason why sites like the new york times and washington post started asking for registration, and why salon went pay-only.

there are two reasons why there’s been more of a drop-off in readership/viewership in recent times than ever before, the most important being the explosion in the number of weblogs (blogs) and their acknowledgement as an “alternative” news outlet. blogs feature content that is both timely and up-to-date (and usually accurate) that newspapers and network news broadcasts could never hope to keep up with. there is that whole biased-reporting thing, but for every libertarian zealot, you’re sure to find a religious nut. it all evens out.

the other reason is the growing acceptance of rss/atom syndication. syndication is like channel surfing, but only on your favorite channels, so you don’t have to skip through the home shopping network.

rss evolved from “push” technology. remember that? it was supposed to be the next big thing, where content producers were going to stream live data to you constantly, like a cnn ticker stapled to your forehead. turns out all we ever got was ads and a bloated mess of information, not to mention a very clogged network from all of the useless data being streamed. without being able to customize the content, people quickly grew tired of “push” and it died pretty quickly.

rss on the other hand, allows you to customize what you want to see, generally without advertising or eye candy involved. the idea is to strip out all the useless stuff and leave just the bare information – either full articles as they arrive, or just a preview of what’s been updated. it’s not meant to replace, but rather to complement the web. instead of visiting your favorite websites one after the other, you can see what’s new one each one at a glance, and decide for yourself whether or not it’s worth your precious time.

the next time you want to complain about table manners to your family, make sure it’s not this guy. or better yet, skip inviting drifters to family events.

at least they didn’t blame violent video games this time around. although I hear turkey-eatin’-stabbin’-drifter 2 is pretty popular these days.

after a good 5 years since the last refresh, volkswagen has redesigned the jetta… and as a jetta owner, I have to say it’s about time, and also,”blah”. the damn thing looks like a camry (with a honda civic nose). what happened? vw used to be about being different… or at least it was when I got mine. everyone else was buying boring cars like the civic, the sentra, the corolla. but a couple years later — when everyone and their grandma started buying jettas and passats like crazy — the volkswagen brand got way too mainstream, and vw’s management didn’t know what to do with their newfound popularity. so some genius at vw saw all the hipster parents and yuppies buying their cars, and decided to make the entire line more ‘upscale’. which is kind of like trying to sell a saturn to a mercedes owner. if you have the money to buy a $70,000 car, why spend it on a vw? not only was the image not there, but the company was also stealing sales from their pre-existing upscale brand, audi.

oh well, I guess it doesn’t really affect me since I already know what my next car will be. I won’t be buying another volkswagen; they’re dead to me.

hello, china speaking. we saw those weird exercises you were doing at recess as a threat to our popularity, and decided we’re going to beat the hell out of you. (psst! mouse over link for ny times login).

to summarize, apparently china has moved on from silencing the “opposition” in its own country (most notably the falun gong movement) to start working on ours. hey, it worked with us and democracy, right? if it’s good enough for us, it’s good enough for you, mr. iraqi-insurgent.

it doesn’t help that we are a country populated by the insensitive and hypocritical. these are the same upstanding citizens who voted for “moral values” in this country, yet they don’t seem to care what happens to the people that actually live in it. take this genius, for example:

“The pictures are so gross, but when you see it day after day you just get desensitized,” said Staci Singer, a stockbroker for TD Waterhouse, as she stood on Water Street last week, a few feet from Falun Gong demonstrators. “I just wish they’d go away.”

what a stupid bitch.

I’ll go out on a limb here and say the allegations are true. seriously, if you were getting your ass kicked for believing there’s a “spiritual wheel” in your tummy, would you want to talk about it? hell, half the rape victims in this country refuse to come forward. most people would rather just keep quiet and move on with their lives. trouble is, this is a spiritual, quasi-religious matter. you can’t convince people to give up their faith that easily, especially not if it’s guaranteed by the thing that those guys wrote in philly. you know, the one that arnold’s fans want to change.