Towse: views from the hill

December 1, 2007

Fluther: What is Fluther?

Filed under: app,resource,web2.0 — Towse @ 9:09 pm

Fluther: What is Fluther?

October 22, 2007

Archives, come get your archives … (Time Magazine)

Filed under: journalism,resource — Towse @ 7:06 am

Time Magazine archives back to 1923 are now available online and FREE!

Time‘s search algorithm doesn’t work so hot. They claim that if I put “sally j towse” into the search engine, it will return only articles that contain “sally j towse,” but it appears to return articles that include “sally” or “j” or “towse.”

When I pop simply “towse” in, I get a Towse going back to the 20s and 30s, but not my Letter to the Editor that Time used back in the 90s.

Special collections, covers, and more.

Thanks, Time!

October 21, 2007

Archives, archives, ARCHIVES!

Filed under: news,resource — Towse @ 7:59 pm

On the heels of the Daily Show opening its archives to the world FOR FREE!, comes word (1) via Sour Grapes’ Google Reader cache and (2) via link from the article that Grapes’ snagged of more archives coming online.

(1) The Economist will put the Economist Historical Archive 1843-2003 online for a free look initially and then on a subscription basis — fees not given.

(2) As of Nov 3d the Guardian and Observer newspapers will be available in an online digital archive. Free for November. Fee-structure post-November not given.

The first phase of the Guardian News & Media archive, containing the Guardian from 1821 to 1975 and The Observer from 1900 to 1975, will launch on November 3.

It will contain exact replicas of the original newspapers, both as full pages and individual articles. and will be fully searchable and viewable at guardian.co.uk/archive.

Readers will be offered free 24-hour access during November, but after this trial period charging will be introduced.

The rest of the archive will launch early in 2008, making more than 1.2m pages of digitised news content available, with Observer content available from its launch as the world’s first Sunday newspaper in 1791.

[continues …]

Hope springs eternal that both archives will discover, as the NYT did, that fees are not the way to go, that revenue generated by selling advertising based on page hits from a shipload of people is more lucrative than charging a fee to a coracle full.

June 27, 2007

FOIA – CIA releases the "Family Jewels"

Filed under: history,politics,resource,URL — Towse @ 12:48 am

Available online at the CIA FOIA site

Two significant collections of previously classified historical documents are now available in the CIA’s FOIA Electronic Reading Room.

The first collection, widely known as the “Family Jewels,” consists of almost 700 pages of responses from CIA employees to a 1973 directive from Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger asking them to report activities they thought might be inconsistent with the Agency’s charter.

The second collection, the CAESAR-POLO-ESAU papers, consists of 147 documents and 11,000 pages of in-depth analysis and research from 1953 to 1973. The CAESAR and POLO papers studied Soviet and Chinese leadership hierarchies, respectively, and the ESAU papers were developed by analysts to inform CIA assessments on Sino-Soviet relations.

According to ABC News The recruitment of mafia men to plan the assassination of Fidel Castro, the wiretapping and surveillance of journalists who reported on classified material, and the two-year confinement in the United States of a KGB defector — those are just a few of the past CIA activities revealed in documents released Tuesday. [...]

Update:A more in-depth look at some of the “activities inconsistent with the Agency’s charter” from The Seattle PI.

June 25, 2007

[URL] Swivel

Filed under: information,resource,URL,webstuff — Towse @ 5:17 pm

Love data and mashups and obscure weird factoids and coincidences?

Check out Swivel.

For a taste of what’s on-site, check out Tasty Data Goodies

June 15, 2007

[URL] morguefile.com Where photo reference lives.

Filed under: photographs,resource,URL — Towse @ 2:12 pm

morguefile.com Where photo reference lives.

A place to keep post production materials for use of reference, an inactive job file. This morgue file contains free high resolution digital stock photography for either corporate or public use.

The term ‘morgue file’ is popular in the newspaper business to describe the file that holds past issues flats. Although the term has been used by illustrators, comic book artist, designers and teachers as well. The purpose of this site is to provide free image reference material for use in all creative pursuits. This is the world wide web’s morguefile.

Amazing resource. (Oooh. Shiny! Pretty pictures!) Thanks, SourGrapes.

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