Half Past Noon

I’ve finally moved Half Past Noon to a new host home. The site should exhibit a little more pep, now. I also gave it a new look, and hope to re-add the post box for contributors at the top. I hope you like it!

Somehow some Wordpress plugin added spam links to the bottom of the site. Irritating! I can’t isolate which plugin it was, too.

Please, can we keep it?

This post is merely to say that, once I hit “Post It,” I’ll have more HPN posts than Austin.

Who needs Facebook, eh? Will my HPN bros abandon this our blog? Please, don’t make me get hipper than I already am.

A couple quotes from Clay Shirky, whose article on the newspaper publishing industry has a very high level of face-melting insights-per-paragraph:

Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven’t been ordinary, however. Inside the papers, the pragmatists were the ones simply looking out the window and noticing that the real world was increasingly resembling the unthinkable scenario. These people were treated as if they were barking mad. Meanwhile the people spinning visions of popular walled gardens and enthusiastic micropayment adoption, visions unsupported by reality, were regarded not as charlatans but saviors.

When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse. This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the fabulists has different effects on different industries at different times. One of the effects on the newspapers is that many of their most passionate defenders are unable, even now, to plan for a world in which the industry they knew is visibly going away.

Later…

Print media does much of society’s heavy journalistic lifting, from flooding the zone — covering every angle of a huge story — to the daily grind of attending the City Council meeting, just in case….

The newspaper people often note that newspapers benefit society as a whole. This is true, but irrelevant to the problem at hand; “You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!” has never been much of a business model. So who covers all that news if some significant fraction of the currently employed newspaper people lose their jobs?

Also…

It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.

Okay, so it’s only 500 posts, but I still think it’s worth noting. I’ve collected my Top 10 HPN moments to celebrate. Enjoy, and may there be 500 more.

10. Surprisingly near the beginning, Austin introduced the word “underwhelming” to our blog. (It was banned not long after.)

9. The first time that Austin crapped up the blog (or at least, the first time that Chris publicly complained.)

8. Arguably our biggest hit on Google.

7. For whatever reason, search engines also like Austin’s “the killers suck” post.

6. My favorite David Dark video.

5. And I’ll never forget Chris’s dedication. Thanks, bro.

4. Austin’s moment of internet celebrity.

3. Have we forgotten Paris Hilton’s pre-election moment of brilliance?

2. Austin reviewed Crunchy Cons over six months ago, and he still hasn’t read the book.

1. David Dalbey declared that this video justified the existence of the internet. How could it not be #1?

And as an aside, post statistics for our six faithful authors:

A – 139 posts
B – 22 posts
C – 88 posts
D – 118 posts
F – 126 posts
G – 6 posts

I know we’re all always reading books, watching movies, and listening to movies. I also know that we’re often on the look-out for new such things to engage and enjoy. Which naturally leads to the following suggestion: why don’t we make a concerted effort to post more about the said things?

This is more for everyone else besides me: I already talk a lot on here about what I’m reading, watching, listening to, etc. I would love to hear, for example, what Gabe thinks of The Dubliners, what Davey is learning about economics, why documentaries fascinate Austin (and others), what Rush and country music are currently doing to Brian, and, well, just any random comment that Chris might be able to offer about whatever it is he’s grooving to these days.

Just a thought. Feel free to be enthused or disregard as the spirit moves you.

You all think kittens are cute and harmless?

… completely rocks. I love, love, love it. Thanks a thousand times, Austin: upward and onward.

We had an HPN meeting last night. Pictured above (L-R) are Chris, Frank, Austin, Davey, and Brian, admiring our body of work.

As we discussed, one contributer recalled a line from the Bhagavad Gita: “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

“Now we are all sons of b—–s.” said another.