An anonymous reader writes "Motherboard.TV reports, 'In Monrovia, Liberia, there’s a guy taking the matter of a lopsided, state-run media and reshaping it into a free-of-charge, independent news-aggregator—all accomplished with dry-erase board and couple markers. (Sorry, internet!) Each morning, at 10:45 AM, Alfred Sirleaf wakes up and heads down to his bulletin board to post the day’s news, culling together a slate of stories his countrymen might otherwise never see. Grateful readers line up in droves, on foot and in cars, to read these updates, in what has been described as the country's — and probably the world's — only analog blog.'"
I don't think people have been using the internet to aggregate information for display on public chalkboards "for ages."
And the point is not that this is some ingenious invention to rock civilization. The point is that you have this phase boundary of (technology and free information) against (poverty and state oppression) and this guy is using his postboard to create a bridge which lets information flow across the boundary.
It is actually a fair bit more significant than, for example, having some cool new feature designed for your next gen phone.
>>>I don't think people have been using the internet to aggregate information for display on public chalkboards "for ages."
No instead they used the wire services and chalkboards. If you time-traveled to New York City in the 1890s, especially around the central business district, you'd see public chalkboards everywhere, constantly updated with the latest news. Same thing.
Don't be a party pooper and join the web two-oh revolution. Nowadays, you hear people say snail-mail to make sure people understand it's the pen-and-paper version, biological virus to differentiate between a case of the flu and a piece of malware, or sneakernets to refer to swapping floppies (well, usb keys I guess these days).
Technologies change all the time, and those who bathe in it every day end up having skewed ways of looking at the non-tech world. Case in point, my colleague, who's a lathe/mill opera
Well, if you watch the video and actually try and read some of what is on the blackboard, you'll see it's just somebodies opinionated, baseless and highly speculative interpretation of the news filled with misinformation and twisting of facts. So yeah, it IS just like a blog. Then again, calling it "Fox" would have been more accurate.
He could take a picture of the board and then duplicate it onto paper [wikipedia.org]. News, on pieces of paper! That way they can take the news with them to read it at home, on the train...they can share it with their family and friends. Avoid the crowds of people standing around all trying to read the same board.
Some people might like to receive the news on pieces of paper at their home for convenience's sake. He could offer a pricing model whereby they commit to a certain number of months- and it could be called a
Some people might like to receive the news on pieces of paper at their home for convenience's sake. He could offer a pricing model whereby they commit to a certain number of months- and it could be called a subscription.
He explains in the video that most of his readers couldn't afford that.
So apparently Slashdot is sooo out of touch they have forgotten why the word "Bulletin" precedes the word "Board" for a bazillion years before now? They never heard of a marquee?
Besides, wouldn't every single printed op-ed page in every newsPAPER be an "analog blog?"
I mean really posting news isn't even blogging, because blog is short for weblog, not webnewscaster.
While he certainly must summarize news stories to fit on his board, he doesn't need to translate. The official language of Liberia [wikipedia.org] (founded by liberated American slaves) is English.
I know the tone on slashdot is more on the humorous side, but seriously, stop belittling this.
After the war, Liberia had no functioning utilities for over 14 years - no sewage system, no water, no electricity, no telephone. Nowhere - not even in the capital! Without painting a stereotype, Liberians aren't exactly known for their entrepreneurship. This man should really be applauded for what he is pulling up despite difficulties.
In India, many (most?) people in the cities don't have sanitation, either. And they don't have a war to blame--just a pathetic government.
Well, I don't know much about their government, (except that on a recent trip a friend's mother had to pay off cops just to visit public areas), but I suspect the state of infrastructure has more to do with plain old momentum. It's harder to change the cultural directives of a nation once it's already established. North America had the advantage of offering a fresh star
If it is a blog, how do I read his old posts? Yeah, he's got a few boards there with older stuff on it, but what about what he said last year? Does he have a huge stash of them and (carefully) store the old ones in a shed somewhere?
He uses this thing that he wipes across the board to store it in compressed format; out here we normally call it an "eraser". I don't know if he has a drawer to keep them, and I think (like most so-called 'sysadmins') he keeps using the same one over and over.
Now, I know people change their names out of admiration for or loyalty to someone in Liberia -- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's grandfather did that to her father -- so there's no guarantee that he's any relation of the president of Liberia but I wonder.
I looked around for the names of her four sons -- but couldn't find them. Even wikianswers had a post asking for their names, an as yet unanswered question. There's a certain amount of press-coverage density that's required before real transparency thrives. Liberi
It's a Rich Self-replicating Content Distribution Network (rsCDN(tm)). It complements outdoor architectures, beautifies connected ecosystems, and synergizes with the real world. Periodic maintenance ensures minimal use of vertical resources!
My mum was a schoolteacher, and some trendy young adviser came round to give a presentation on this new "multimedia" thing, and my mum's answer was "Oh, you mean just like Audio-Visual Tools? I've been doing that for thirty years."
Yeah, but the new addition of dry erase markers must modulate voltage levels into something useful, somehow... Analog electronics are at work somewhere in this high-tech device!
>>>Yeah, because newspapers, diaries, and broadsheets have never existed before.
Not just newspapers, but the idea of posting news stories on a public bulletin board dates all the way back to New York City in the 1890s..... or even earlier. People would stand outside Wall Street or store windows, and read the headlines scrawled across chalkboards. It ain't something new.
I was struck by the question is this an "analogue of a blog" or a "blog created in an analogue manner"? The former I suppose I am ok with but if the latter, I would like to point out that analogue is NOT somehow the "opposite" of digital.
More seriously, if you read the fine summary, you'd have the answer to your question. Your lame attempt at irrelevant pedantry betrays a more fundamental refusal to think or investigate what you're talking about. Do you complain that a "hot dog" is simply a canine with elevated temperature, and should not be used to name a kind of sausage? For this kind of discourse, "analog" is shorthand for computer-free and "digital" is shorthand for computer-based.
To be fair, pointing out that it's stupid to call it an analog blog is not a criticism of the Monrovian guy, it's a criticism of the bloggers who saw a noticeboard, and called it an analog blog. And it's a perfectly valid point. It's much like seeing Firefox, and exclaiming that Mozilla has copied IE's innovation of tabbed browsing. The causality is backwards, and displays cringe-worthy ignorance of the history of the subject matter.
Not for long... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously though... props to him for taking a stand!
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not for long... (Score:5, Informative)
He'll probably be properly "censored" soon.
He was arrested [nytimes.com] before and went into exile for a while as well. He's been at this for several years.
Parent
Re:Not for long... (Score:5, Informative)
Probably because it was being used to mean kidnapped or killed.
Parent
Same thing, different name (Score:3, Insightful)
Just another case of "blog" being used to describe something that people have been doing for ages. And now it's suddenly all great and shiny.
Re:Same thing, different name (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think people have been using the internet to aggregate information for display on public chalkboards "for ages."
And the point is not that this is some ingenious invention to rock civilization. The point is that you have this phase boundary of (technology and free information) against (poverty and state oppression) and this guy is using his postboard to create a bridge which lets information flow across the boundary.
It is actually a fair bit more significant than, for example, having some cool new feature designed for your next gen phone.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
>>>I don't think people have been using the internet to aggregate information for display on public chalkboards "for ages."
No instead they used the wire services and chalkboards. If you time-traveled to New York City in the 1890s, especially around the central business district, you'd see public chalkboards everywhere, constantly updated with the latest news. Same thing.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
its a fun term, but not as fun as "bob loblaw's law blog"
Bob Loblaw's Law Blog [ytmnd.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Don't be a party pooper and join the web two-oh revolution. Nowadays, you hear people say snail-mail to make sure people understand it's the pen-and-paper version, biological virus to differentiate between a case of the flu and a piece of malware, or sneakernets to refer to swapping floppies (well, usb keys I guess these days).
Technologies change all the time, and those who bathe in it every day end up having skewed ways of looking at the non-tech world. Case in point, my colleague, who's a lathe/mill opera
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well, if you watch the video and actually try and read some of what is on the blackboard, you'll see it's just somebodies opinionated, baseless and highly speculative interpretation of the news filled with misinformation and twisting of facts. So yeah, it IS just like a blog. Then again, calling it "Fox" would have been more accurate.
Re:Same thing, different name (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
is commenting allowed? (Score:5, Funny)
wait til gnaa hears about this.
Re:is commenting allowed? (Score:4, Funny)
Quite frankly, I'd love to see trolls try to get first post on the guy's whiteboard...
Parent
Re:is commenting allowed? (Score:5, Funny)
Quite frankly, I'd love to see trolls try to get first post on the guy's whiteboard...
He is using chalk to write on a blackboard you racist prick. Just because the guy is black you assume he should be writing on a whiteboard?
;-)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
what a great idea! (Score:2, Funny)
He could take a picture of the board and then duplicate it onto paper [wikipedia.org]. News, on pieces of paper! That way they can take the news with them to read it at home, on the train...they can share it with their family and friends. Avoid the crowds of people standing around all trying to read the same board.
Some people might like to receive the news on pieces of paper at their home for convenience's sake. He could offer a pricing model whereby they commit to a certain number of months- and it could be called a
Re: (Score:2)
Some people might like to receive the news on pieces of paper at their home for convenience's sake. He could offer a pricing model whereby they commit to a certain number of months- and it could be called a subscription.
He explains in the video that most of his readers couldn't afford that.
Re: (Score:2)
The point is to reach the people who aren't already reading the internet because they can't pony up the money for a connection.
whooooooooosh (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hear that? That's the sound of a joke, going right over your head.
The only joke here is that your post was modded insightful.
Loose definition of morning (Score:5, Funny)
Each morning, at 10:45 AM, Alfred Sirleaf wakes up
That's the kind of job I want.
Re: (Score:2)
Each morning, at 10:45 AM, Alfred Sirleaf wakes up
That's the kind of job I want.
Go to Africa.
Re: (Score:2)
Each morning, at 10:45 AM, Alfred Sirleaf wakes up
That's the kind of job I want.
I think that is too early to be healthy. This guy is a hard worker. I usually wake up at the crack of noon.
BB(S) (Score:5, Insightful)
So apparently Slashdot is sooo out of touch they have forgotten why the word "Bulletin" precedes the word "Board" for a bazillion years before now? They never heard of a marquee?
Besides, wouldn't every single printed op-ed page in every newsPAPER be an "analog blog?"
I mean really posting news isn't even blogging, because blog is short for weblog, not webnewscaster.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I agreed. The obvious name for what he is doing is Analog Twitter.
(ok, that made me hate myself)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Awesome and Scary (Score:2)
This is both awesome and scary at the same time.
Awesome because he's bringing news to the masses, in a way that they can afford it and understand it.
Scary because he is selecting the news they get to read, and translating it first. That means he's able to put his spin on what his readers read.
For all we know, he could be an employee of Fox News.
Re: (Score:2)
For all we know, he could be an employee of Fox News.
Did you watch the video? I think he is. He sure likes to emphasize that the UN is the devil!
Re:Awesome and Scary (Score:4, Insightful)
All news has a certain degree of "spin" to it. It's always the readers' job to challenge what they read and thus think for themselves.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Erm. Could it be that pretty much every media outlet does that? It's not like all the news sites pipe out AP feeds verbatim.
Have you read the AP feeds? The AP does it as well.
/. effect (Score:2)
what will it be when a news gets the liberia slashdot effect ?
Stop making this trite! (Score:5, Insightful)
I know the tone on slashdot is more on the humorous side, but seriously, stop belittling this.
After the war, Liberia had no functioning utilities for over 14 years - no sewage system, no water, no electricity, no telephone. Nowhere - not even in the capital!
Without painting a stereotype, Liberians aren't exactly known for their entrepreneurship. This man should really be applauded for what he is pulling up despite difficulties.
Re: (Score:2)
In India, many (most?) people in the cities don't have sanitation, either. And they don't have a war to blame--just a pathetic government.
Re: (Score:2)
In India, many (most?) people in the cities don't have sanitation, either. And they don't have a war to blame--just a pathetic government.
Well, I don't know much about their government, (except that on a recent trip a friend's mother had to pay off cops just to visit public areas), but I suspect the state of infrastructure has more to do with plain old momentum. It's harder to change the cultural directives of a nation once it's already established. North America had the advantage of offering a fresh star
Archival? (Score:2)
If it is a blog, how do I read his old posts? Yeah, he's got a few boards there with older stuff on it, but what about what he said last year? Does he have a huge stash of them and (carefully) store the old ones in a shed somewhere?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
He uses this thing that he wipes across the board to store it in compressed
format; out here we normally call it an "eraser". I don't know if he has a
drawer to keep them, and I think (like most so-called 'sysadmins') he keeps
using the same one over and over.
Alfred Johnson Sirleaf -- who's his mom? (Score:2)
I looked around for the names of her four sons -- but couldn't find them. Even wikianswers had a post asking for their names, an as yet unanswered question. There's a certain amount of press-coverage density that's required before real transparency thrives. Liberi
I have specifically blocked "Idle" (Score:2)
Why am I still seeing this type of story?
Re: (Score:2)
Anablog, perhaps?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"organic carpet"? Keep up, man!
It's a Rich Self-replicating Content Distribution Network (rsCDN(tm)). It complements outdoor architectures, beautifies connected ecosystems, and synergizes with the real world. Periodic maintenance ensures minimal use of vertical resources!
Re: (Score:2)
My mum was a schoolteacher, and some trendy young adviser came round to give a presentation on this new "multimedia" thing, and my mum's answer was "Oh, you mean just like Audio-Visual Tools? I've been doing that for thirty years."
Re:Analog Blog (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but the new addition of dry erase markers must modulate voltage levels into something useful, somehow...
Analog electronics are at work somewhere in this high-tech device!
Re: (Score:2)
>>>Yeah, because newspapers, diaries, and broadsheets have never existed before.
Not just newspapers, but the idea of posting news stories on a public bulletin board dates all the way back to New York City in the 1890s..... or even earlier. People would stand outside Wall Street or store windows, and read the headlines scrawled across chalkboards. It ain't something new.
Re: (Score:2)
I was struck by the question is this an "analogue of a blog" or a "blog created in an analogue manner"? The former I suppose I am ok with but if the latter, I would like to point out that analogue is NOT somehow the "opposite" of digital.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, analogue is the opposite of digitalis!
More seriously, if you read the fine summary, you'd have the answer to your question. Your lame attempt at irrelevant pedantry betrays a more fundamental refusal to think or investigate what you're talking about. Do you complain that a "hot dog" is simply a canine with elevated temperature, and should not be used to name a kind of sausage? For this kind of discourse, "analog" is shorthand for computer-free and "digital" is shorthand for computer-based.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I don't think that Microsoft is worried about the "too-poor-to-buy-a-newspaper" market segment.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)