An Annoying Change Over at Nytimes.com

Back when the New York Times first set up their webpage at http://www.nytimes.com, I found myself visiting it fairly frequently. Growing up in a newspaper-oriented family in New York City, I was an avid reader of the Times, the Post, Newsday, and of course, The Daily News (where my father worked from before I was born until the day he died). The Times required registration to read articles on their webpage, but this never struck me as an onerous thing, as they didn't sell your email address to anyone and allowed you to opt out of receiving their bulk emails.

They did make a point of reserving the right to change over to a "pay" format at some point, but so far, they never have done so. I presume they continue to support the cost of the webpage via advertising and other sources.

One nice benefit of their webpage was the ability to email articles to friends. Frequently, when reading the newspaper, I would find articles I wanted to share with someone, generally gnomi. In the old, pre-Internet days, I would have to save the article until she had a chance to read it. Now, I could send a copy of the article to her, or to any friend, with just a few clicks of the mouse. I could also send myself a copy of the article as well. They also had the option of just sending the link, but the link was always included with the emailed full article, so I rarely used that option.

Last week, however, they changed their system. Apparently, from now on, when you click on the link to email an article to a friend, you can no longer email the full text of the article. All you can do now is send an email which contains a link to the article. I presume that if you do this and your friend is not a registered user, they will still be allowed to access the full article, but I'm not sure about that at the moment. What I do know is that I am annoyed by this change. Yes, I know that a lot of other news sites never had the option to send the full article, just the link, but I never liked that system. Sometimes I wanted a copy of the article for my own reference because I thought I saw the seeds of a good story in it. I presume that the NY Times has switched over either to protect their copyrights or get a better idea of how many people are actually reading the emailed articles. Maybe both, but the first seems more likely, as they make a point of charging for content over a week old. And I know that they have the right to decide precisely how they want to offer their content.

But when you've gotten used to a system that works well, and when they change it by fiat without any warning to their registered users...that's annoying.

Changes at Mabfan's Musings

Those of you who read my entries via a Friends page are probably not aware of the changes I've made over here on my blog, so I thought I would bring it to everyone's attention, for your amusement and edification. And those of you who are visiting from elsewhere have probably reloaded my page and gone, "Huh? What?" Since Howard Waldrop taught me back at Clarion over ten years ago that you should never do anything to make your readers go "Huh? What?" I thought I'd explain.

Basically, I woke up yesterday morning and decided that I wanted this blog to have a more "professional" feel. LiveJournal supports a variety of different customizations for paid users, so I investigated those styles and pick one that I liked. gnomi suggested the layout called "Component" and I went with it. If you're reading this from the main page at http://mabfan.livejournal.com, you can see that my profile is on the upper right, with a calendar underneath and a list of links. (Well, one link so far, to Analog magazine. Where else?) There's a clear path to my website, and links to all the usual LiveJournal stuff (such as my user info) can still be found along the top.

Over the next few months, I imagine I'll be tinkering with the blog a little more. I need to come up with a list of appropriate links, after all, and a line of description somewhere would be nice as well. I'm also thinking of creating new headings for each entry, to give them appropriate categories, such as "Personal," "Writing," "Links," etc. Then again, it might be too much trouble.

One other note, primarily for non-LJ users. I've enabled anonymous commenting on this blog so visitors from outside of LJ-land can participate in the discussions. There are only two rules to keep in mind. First of all, I'd appreciate it if you'd end your comments with your name and perhaps a link to your own blog or webpage; otherwise we'll have no idea who you are, since Anonymous comments have no other indication of who posted them. And secondly, I reserve the right, as always, to delete any comments for whatever reason. (I suspect most LJ users enforce this second rule in their own blogs; I'm just making it explicit.)

Books Read - January 2005

Inspired by gnomi, who participates in the LiveJournal 50bookchallenge community, I've decided to blog about some of the books I've read recently. Maybe I'll get to 50 books by the end of the year without being an "official" part of the challenge! To wit, here are the five books I finished in the month of January, with comments:

#1 Hype and Glory by William Goldman: I'm very fond of Goldman's books on screenwriting (such as Adventures in the Screen Trade), as well as his movies (such as The Princess Bride). When I heard of this book, I ran to the library to read it. Goldman spent one year serving as a judge for both the Cannes Film Festival and the Miss America pageant, and his memoir of the year reads like much of his work does -- you're sitting down with a friend for an informal, personal chat about his experiences. Frankly, I don't care much about either competition, but Goldman made the behind the scenes stuff fascinating.

#2 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon: Recommended to me by taxonomist. The novel is narrated from the first person Point of View of an autistic child, who is trying to solve the mystery of who killed a neighbor's dog. What I found remarkable about this book was two things: 1. Haddon captures the voice of the autistic child very well. It may not be how an autistic child really views the world, but it certainly felt like it. 2. There's much more going on than the killing of the dog...

#3 Sky Coyote by Kage Baker

#4 Mendoza in Hollywood by Kage Baker: These two books are the second and third of Baker's series about the Company; last month I read the first one, In the Garden of Iden. They had been recommended to me before but I had never got around to them. Now I wish I had sooner. The premise is simple: a future corporation has discovered time travel and immortality, and uses these tools to create an immortal race of cyborgs out of abandoned children who were lost to history. These cyborgs will arrive at the future the long way; in the meantime, they work for the Company preserving historical artifacts for the mortal owners, who live in the year 2355. Baker keeps hinting that something more is happening underneath the surface, and I can't wait to see where these books lead. The latest one was just published, and so I'm reading as fast as I can.

#5 Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell: Gladwell's The Tipping Point, about social epidemics, was a fascinating read; this one, about the way we make snap decisions and how often they are correct or incorrect, is just as good.