>Mary Baker Eddy Goes Paperless

>The final daily print edition of the venerable Christian Science Monitor hit the stands four days ago. They haven’t abandoned traditionalists entirely — there’s still a weekly edition.

A little item rarely mentioned in this context (and one I would not have known if an old friend had not ended up in the job) is that the purchase of newsprint is the largest single item in most newspaper’s budgets. It is somewhat speculative; buying the right amount at the right price at the right time — or failing to — can make the difference between profit or loss for a newspaper. Some guy or gal you’ve never heard of, who does not own, publish, edit, report, sell ad space or lay out pages can make or break the Local Whizbang Daily. And maybe that is a little whack.

–The flip side is, a print article is well-nigh impossible to alter once it’s hit the streets, while on the Web, “Make it didn’t happen,” is altogether too easy. There are ways around — Google’s caches, if you’re fast, sites like Wayback Machine if you’re not — but none of them are as accessable or as solid as last week’s paper.

Time marches on, often in ways few saw coming. What’s over the horizon?

Update: More and better on Why The Newspapers Died from print journalism insider Joanna.

>More Big China Fun

>…Honestly, I had no idea the Red Menace was this menacing: Vast Computer Spy Network (discovered by…Canadians! They are our first line of defence, after all).

Something to consider as the clock ticks down to the 1 April activation of the “Conficker C” virus, ey?

>Sunday?

>…Sorry I haven’t posted much today. Looks like the BlogMeet will be just me and….crickets….

Maybe Tam, maybe her pal, possibly one or two others.

Update: Or, possibly Tam, Shootin’ Buddy, Kerry, Kerry Sr., Caleb, Joanna, Old Grouch, Mr. Images and the Shermlock family, plus a couple more!

>Indy BlogMeet Tomorrow!

>Broad Ripple Brew Pub. Open to bloggers and blog-readers!

(Today, for me, much digging out from under and laundry; my road-trip left me with a bit more to get done).

BlogMeet Sunday: See you there!

>By The Way…?

>There is no Moon. We’ve been had!

>Name Game

>First — as my readers faithfully pointed out — GWOT became OCO.

And now? Now NYC’s “rebuild even taller!” response to the 9/11 barbarians is no longer Freedom Tower. Nope, it’s right back to One World Trade Center.

…And it’s only a coincidence this happens at the same time as our bestest pals EVAR, Red China, has signed a long-term lease on a couple floors of the building-to-be. They’re not afraid of the word “freedom,” they use it all the time — just like in Orwell’s 1984.

>What Are You Going To Do To It?

>…That’s what Caleb asked about my new Sistema Colt. He and I have a very different take on what to do with a 1911 but I simply answered, “Clean it and shoot it,” without considering that a serious competition shooty-guy would naturally view a bone-stock 1911 as the raw material you took to the ‘smith to have turned into a gun.

I am not a total purist:

The chipped edge of the sear probably contributes to an unreasonably heavy trigger, which I will have an Actual Gunsmith correct.

The lovely wide-spur hammer bites me, unlike my .38 Super 1911’s only slightly more modest hammer. Correcting that calls for one of two changes and here I do get a little picky: the fix cannot require changes to the frame and has to be reversible. So I need either a little “beavertail” grip safety of the drop-in variety, which is tactically doubleplus uncool ‘cos that kind interferes with the proper high grip or a spurless hammer like the Cylinder & Slide Warp Speed, which I’m pretty sure would have to be professionally fitted, especially since I want to be able to put the original hammer back in. I prefer the second option but I’m still thinkin’.

Sights. Ow. The original sights are not bad; unlike my .38SA, nobody’s polished the corners off the front sight. Still, nice three-dots would work better for me. If I have modern sights installed, that’ll be irreversible.

What I’m after is to make changes that will make the gun nicer to shoot without losing the classic feel and look of the gun. I like ’em simple but not ugly.

>Number Theory On Planet Karen

>The difference between zero and one is larger than any other? Yep, it kinda is!

>Oh For Annie Oakley’s Sake

>…Marko’s gone and started the Girls With Guns flingfest again. Tam’s in the fray, too, which means odds are not so very good for the other side. Right, wrong, I dunno from the big objective, sociobiological, philosophic, with a capital T Truth* but I know who’ll lose and it will not be Tamara K.

Me, hey, LOOKIT me, my eyes are Up Heeeeere, thank you, me I normally carry around enough visible hardware of the sharp, pointy variety that a smart feller or even a merely clever one usually knows better than to get too talking-to-a-child with me. Usually is not always, which I will get to in the next paragraph. Otherhandly, some men loathe me on sight, in part because in the right mood, stalking a gun show for example, I can come off pretty butch. I’m not all nice and dainty like Mom, Sis or their gurrrrrlfriend. Hey, too bad; those sellers don’t get my money. Them: Fail!

The guys that do try to talk down? I can promise you, if you are a merchant, if you try that I will see just what I can talk you into or out of, because you’re an idiot and I can probably exploit it. Outside a commercial setting, I may give you enough rope to hang yourself in front of Ghu an’ everybody or nod a lot while making notes on how a certain type of goit behaves, ‘cos I do write and I like to work from life; could be you’ll get into print as a frikkin’ maroooooon! (“…Make y’famous…” as one Kid may’ve said). And that’s how the game is played; if you don’t like it, maybe you had better stick to sports with a referee, ‘cos I’m not gonna make nice with you like your Mama did.
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* I really do. not. know. “Sexist?” Gender is one of the first things we notice about a person, quite often followed by deciding if we’d kick ’em out of bed or not, despite the low probablity of finding out. Right, wrong or neutral, it’s one of the reasons why our species is not extinct. That doesn’t make it nice to be treated like a child (or, for the boys, a brute) but maybe if we all stuffed a sock in the whole “sexist” (agesist, racist, whatever) hot-button an’ worked on’ bein’ civil or at least minimally polite to all the losers, ijits, geeks and heros we meet, we’d get more light an’ less heat. –And okay, your ex ripped your heart out. Hey, so did mine; neither is enough to impugn an entire gender.

>It’s Oceania vs. Eurasia? –Or Eastasia?

>I can’t keep track but they can. Our dear — our very good and great friends who own and operate Red China (NASDAQ: PRC?) have decided to get all huffy over a published Pentagon report about their growing military might.

“China has constantly taken the path of peaceful development…,” spluttered a Foreign Ministry spokescommie. Y’know, like the way they “peacefully developed” Tibet. Other examples spring to mind.

This is the same country that was only the other day callin’ for a new global reserve currency t’replace the dollar. Oh, hells yeah, I trust ’em. Not.

Looky here, if China ever wants to get tough, it’ll make the GWOT* look like a hair-pulling spat at Girl Scout cookout. Of course our FedGov keeps an eye on ’em. And bein’ the United States, of course they publish some of what they’ve found out. Don’t like it, PRC? Tough. We’re watchin’.
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* Global War On Terror. Doublethinky name, real IEDs.