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KURTZ (voice-over): So far, of course, the president hasn't done that except for including Major Garrett in a round of interviews with network reporters. |
KURTZ: And we appreciate those journalists who came on the program to answer questions instead of just asking them about their lives and careers. |
Still to come, an air of unreality. How did these folks, Jon and Kate and Octomom and the Salahis, reach the point where real journalists were scrambling to interview them? A look at what makes those stories tick next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) |
KURTZ: Once upon a time, we in the news racket chronicled reality, or as close an approximation of reality as we could manage. Now we get sucked into covering reality television and all the whack jobs who are desperate to be on it. |
KURTZ (voice-over): The first reality shows, though no one called them that, were syndicated talk shows hosted by the likes of Phil Donahue, Oprah Winfrey, Sally Jessy Raphael and Jerry Springer. Suddenly, ordinary people with problems could get on national television and folks realized that the crazier the problems, the better chance they had. |
But there were real world consequences. |
On the "Jenny Jones Show" in the '90s, a gay man Scott Amedure confessed to his friend Jonathan Schmitz that he had a crush on him. An apparently humiliated Schmitz murdered Amedure, whose family sued the program, unsuccessfully, as it turned out, for failing to find out about Schmitz's history of mental illness. |
Soon, grade B celebrities started getting reality shows, and we got to watch Ozzy Osbourne and Paris Hilton doing, well, not much of anything. |
PARIS HILTON, SOCIALITE: A chai tea latte. |
KURTZ: Along came "Survivor" and "Big Brother," where people would eat worms and otherwise embarrass themselves, or vie for the privilege of being canned by Donald Trump. |
KURTZ: Seemingly harmless programs like "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" also masked backstage problems. Atlanta's Harper family, who received the show's biggest house, faced foreclosure after using the home as equity for a $450,000 loan. At least four other "Extreme Makeover" families have lost or had to sell the houses they won. |
What won't people do to get on reality TV? |
GOSSELIN: What planet do you live on? |
KURTZ: Jon and Kate Gosselin basically exploited their eight kids and blew up their marriage on their way to tabloid fame. |
Richard Heene came off as an angry and eccentric husband when he was on "Wife Swap," then concocted a scheme to make everyone believe his son was trapped in a runaway balloon. And cable television covered it live. |
Nadya Suleman recklessly gave birth to 14 children, and having no way to support them, now has an "Octomom" reality show in development in Britain. |
And Jaimee Grubbs, the woman who says she had an affair with Tiger Woods, had appeared on VH1's oddball dating show "Tool Academy." |
Which brings us to Michaele Salahi, who is competing for a spot on Bravo's forthcoming "Real Housewives of D.C." It's no accident that a camera crew was trailing her when she and her husband crashed that White House State Dinner, turning them into instant stars and landing them on "The Today Show." |
KURTZ: We're back live. |
And there's a larger question here as we look back on the unreal reality of 2009. Why do serious or what used to be serious news organizations spend so much time on Jon and Kate and Octomom and Tariq and Michaele Salahi and "Balloon Boy's" crazy father who was just sentenced to 90 days in jail? Aren't we rewarding these strange and manipulative people by giving them the spotlight they so obviously crave? |
Journalists can't stop this circus, of course, but they shouldn't be serving as ring leaders. |
Still to come, trashing Twitter. Brian Williams thinks all of those short messages are a waste of time. We'll show you why he's -- what's the word? -- wrong. |
KURTZ: Brian Williams is a talented anchor and pretty good comedian. But when it comes to Twitter, well, let's just say he's a tad out of touch. |
The NBC newsman tells "TIME" magazine that, "I see it as a kind of time suck that I don't need anymore of. Just too much 'I got the most awesome new pair of sweatpants.'" |
Now, I learn smart things from smart people on Twitter every day that have nothing to do with what pants people are wearing or not wearing. Here's just one example. |
NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen tweeted an idea about improving the Sunday morning talk shows. He says the programs, rather than letting politicians get away with distortions, should offer an online fact check each week of exaggerations and lies. For the guests, says Rosen, the format beckons them to evade, deny, elide, demagogue and confuse, but then they pay for it later if they give into temptation and make that choice. I happen to think that makes a lot of sense toward holding officials accountable. |
What do you think, Brian? Oh, you didn't catch that on Twitter? Pity. |
Well, happy New York and a healthy 2010 to all our viewers. And now this is called a toss, I'm turning things back over to Jessica Yellin for more "State of the Union." |
order of the atomic process inputs |
From: <titi@cs-gw.utcluj.ro> |
To: <www-ws@w3.org> |
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0306120133230.6591-100000@cs-gw.utcluj.ro> |
Suppose trying to use planning in the composition of services. Consider an |
atomic process: checkFlight, having as input the departureLocation and |
arivalLocation. When parsing the Process ontology, a translation between |
this atomic process and an operator like |
(checkFlight ?departureLocation ?arrivalLocation) |
is needed for working with the planner. When parsing the atomic process |
and translate it to RDF triples, there is no guarantee that the |
input departureLocation will be translated to the first |
parameter of the operator above (as in RDF there is no natural order of |
statements). Is there any mechanism in OWL-S such that when having several |
Thank you, |
Received on Wednesday, 11 June 2003 18:56:39 GMT |
Quote Originally Posted by BradS View Post |
Theory and evidence go together. Either one absent the other is pretty useless. |
Perhaps I misunderstand. Not sure what you're saying, but ponder this: If theory is assumed correct, but there is no empirical evidence to back it up, I agree that the theory was not directly helpful. (Indirectly the theory can still be useful. It isn't possible to prove every theory correct [theorem?]). Conversely, however, if practice and use reveals that something works, why does it matter what the theory says? That part does not make sense to me. If it works, it works! |
Senior NFL Columnist |
Kelly nice hire for Eagles if he leaves read-option behind |
I was spending Wednesday dissecting read-option tape when news hit that Chip Kelly would be the new coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. |
My thought: Oh, boy. We're getting more of this crap. |
The read-option has become the NFL's new wave, an idea many think is progressive and the way offense will be played for years going forward. |
I don't buy it. |
Neither do some of the league's coaches. |
"One offseason and it's figured out," said one NFL coach this week. "So many more teams are using it now, there will be a focus on it. In the past, only a few teams used it. Now it's a priority. The more teams use it, the more we will study to stop it." |
More on Eagles and Kelly |
Related links |
More NFL coverage |
Kelly's aggressive, up-tempo offenses at Oregon featured a lot of read-option. The quarterback ran lot. The quarterback got hit a lot. That has to change in the NFL. |
I do love Kelly's fast-paced approach to offense. More plays mean more chances to score. His teams got lined up and went. No dilly-dallying. That's always been something I believed would work in the NFL. Why waste time? Get going. Put pressure on a defense. |
Look at the Patriots. They get after it and have success with it, even if it's a different offensive style with Tom Brady. Kelly helped teach his up-tempo style to the Patriots during a visit there a few summers ago. |
What needs to change for Kelly in the NFL are the quarterback runs and hits. In college, if your quarterback gets hurt, you bring in a new one. There usually isn't much of a drop-off, and we've seen that at Oregon. The offense works no matter who is running it. |
That's proven out over time. When one gets hurt, the other goes in and it doesn't miss a beat. |
In the NFL, the quarterbacks are the team. If yours goes down, you are usually done. The possibility of winning a Super Bowl vanishes. |
You have to protect the quarterback, not expose him. As I watched the tape of the read-option teams this week, one play really stood out. It was Atlanta's Sean Weatherspoon blasting Robert Griffin III and sending him into orbit. He didn't return to that game. |
We know what happened to RG3 when he hurt his knee. And, yes, it didn't happen on a read-option play, but his instincts as a runner contributed to it. He needed to slide. |
Exposing quarterbacks to nasty, violent defensive players in college is OK. In the NFL, you're asking for it. Those defensive players are assassins. |
That's why I think Kelly will change. He's smart. I imagine his time in New England taught him the importance of the pocket passer. He can still use his fast pace with that type of quarterback to put pressure on the defense. |
You don't have 20 kids to pick from to play quarterback in the NFL. This isn't college. You can't just go from Dennis Dixon to Jeremiah Masoli to Darron Thomas to Marcus Mariota without missing a beat. |
So Kelly will have to change with the Eagles, even if the read-option zealots -- they are becoming cult-like by the way -- don't want to hear it. |
I love coaches like Kelly who play with an edge, not afraid to take chances. Playing not to lose rather than to win has been too much of a norm in the NFL. Kelly is cutting-edge aggressive. It's too easy to just say he's a college coach who will fail, comparing him to Steve Spurrier. |
One thing Kelly has to realize is that he can't just stockpile speed. That was his edge at Oregon. In the NFL, you have to draft it. You can't just recruit it. That's why having a passing quarterback is a must. They are the great equalizers in the game. They cure your ills -- and you will have them. |
So Kelly as coach of the Eagles is a nice hire. I just hope his read-option stays back in Oregon with Phil Knight. You can bet the quarterbacks hope so too. |
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Tough Government Gas Mileage Rules Good for Drivers, Auto Industry |
Cars are getting better and more efficient, with hardly any downsides. |
The Ford logo is seen on cars for sale at a Ford dealership Sunday, July 1, 2012 in Springfield, Ill. |
It's usually a bad idea for Washington to tell companies what to sell, or consumers what to buy. But every now and then, government mandates accidentally do some good. |
[Photo gallery: Nation Gripped by Drought] |
Fuel economy standards have become a surprising example of tougher government rules that benefit practically everybody. In 2007, the Bush administration raised the gas mileage requirements automakers had to meet. Then in 2009, the Obama administration raised them further. Those rules, which are about to be finalized in detail, will require each automaker's fleet to average a lofty 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025—roughly double the mileage requirement of just five years ago. |
The aggressive new standards are controversial, especially among Republicans opposed to activist government. GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney, for one, characterizes the new rules as just another effort to "insert the federal government into the life of the private sector." He has suggested that if elected, he'll roll back or even seek to eliminate federal mileage standards. |
Yet so far, the new mileage rules have generated tangible benefits for consumers, with few of the downsides opponents have predicted. "Without a doubt, the new rules have been a win-win for everybody," says Jesse Toprak, of the car-research site "It's a win for consumers, a win for manufacturers, and a win for the environment." |
[See a defense of the Chevy Volt.] |
Automakers have been rolling out new technology and other innovations that boost mileage, such as advanced powertrains and transmissions, lighter components, and even fix-a-flat canisters in lieu of a traditional jack and spare tire, to save weight. Since 2007, the average fuel economy of cars purchased has risen from 20.1 miles per gallon to 23.6 mpg, according to the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute. |
The mileage of some popular vehicles has improved by more. A 2013 Nissan Altima with a standard four-cylinder engine averages 31 mpg, for example, up from 26 mpg in 2007. That's a 19 percent improvement. The most powerful Ford Explorer went from 16 mpg in 2007 to 20 mpg today, a 25 percent gain. The biggest efficiency gains typically occur when automakers retool a model—which typically happens every five years or so—and outfit it with the latest technology. So more big mileage gains will be coming as more models turn over. |
Boosting fuel economy by four or five miles per gallon might not sound earth-shattering—until you bank the savings. A 5 mpg improvement would save about $525 per year for a motorist who drives 15,000 miles annually, if gas were at $3.50 per gallon. With gas at $4 per gallon, the savings would amount to $600 per year. |
[See why the SUV era is officially over.] |
Some car enthusiasts have argued that the new mileage rules would force automakers to depower cars and build blasé econoboxes reminiscent of the 1970s, when soaring oil prices led to the first government fuel-economy requirements. Back then, automakers built some truly dreadful cars in order to comply with the rules, such as the Dodge Omni and the Ford Mustang II, an emasculated version of the iconic muscle car. |
But they're not making that mistake again. Instead, automakers have found ways to coax more power out of smaller engines, so drivers don't have to give up performance or other amenities they've gotten used to. The four-cylinder engine on the new Altima, for example, generates 182 horsepower, compared to 175 horsepower on the lower-mileage engine it's replacing. Ford now offers a V-6 "ecoboost" engine on its F-150 pickup truck that generates more horsepower and torque than a V-8 that's available—with slightly better mileage. |
The new technology that's behind such efficiency gains does cost extra money, fueling another concern about the tougher mileage rules: They'll force car buyers to pay more out of pocket, whether they want higher mileage or not. And car prices have in fact gone up over the last couple of years. TrueCar says the average price paid for a new set of wheels has risen from about $27,300 in January 2010 to $30,400 today—close to a record high. |
But other factors besides high-mileage technology seem to be pushing prices up. In general, car buyers have been shifting to smaller vehicles, as a cushion against gas price spikes that now seem to occur every year or two. But buyers have also been selecting more features, ranging from leather upholstery to navigation systems to rear-view cameras. So they're buying smaller cars with more options. Low interest rates have also allowed many buyers to load up on features while still ending up with a lower monthly payment than they had on their last car. |
This is good news for automakers, because they're able to make better profits on small cars that typically have razor-thin margins. In fact, for years, the Detroit automakers lost money on most of their small cars, which they built mainly to push up their fleetwide mileage ratings. As a money-losing venture, however, small cars got little of the attention or resources that profitable trucks and SUVs got. That turned into a huge liability when gas prices soared in 2008 and buyers began clamoring for high-mileage vehicles. General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler had few compelling models, and their sales plummeted, while the Japanese and European carmakers did better. |
The new mileage rules could still end up costing buyers money, as the targets get tougher and automakers end up with little choice but to push customers into expensive high-mileage technology. But the cost of fancy new systems usually falls as more people buy them. Meanwhile, automakers are doing everything else they can to become more efficient and cut costs, lest rising prices cut into business. Somehow it seems like car buyers will continue to benefit. |
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lostn'foundagain's picture |
Not in school..... |
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