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| Sunday, August 15, 2004 |
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As we've been saying 
| | As a professional journalist, here are two simple observations: writing an article for a magazine, or a newspaper is like painting; while blogging is taking photographs. The end product in both cases is beautiful, just the end results and reactions are slightly different. Secondly, blogging is a "self correcting" media. You screw up, and people let you know in real time. As someone who gets paid to write, think about how cool it is that you have group-intelligence at your disposal, and you are less likely to make a mistake in your day job. There are three folks — you know who you are — who post so regularly in the comments section, and always keep me honest. And think about it — if there was no blogging we would all be denied Elizabeth Spiers' wit, and Choire's early morning verbal whip-lashing. |
| | Agreed, except that the time isn't quite real, and that blogging isn't a medium. It's a Web-based form of journalism. And the Web isn't a medium, either; but rather a place, an environment, a collection of locations. Like a marketplace, or a commons. |
| | I was never comfortable calling nearly everything a medium, even when McLuhan was pioneering the practice. I don't expect to make much of a dent in the practice here, either, but I still like to try. |
| | All quibbles, of course. Om gets it. |
Can't somebody get the Matrix to work?
| | Go to United's site, click on Cars, and then on Avis' "book now" link at the top of the page. Try to rent anything other than the specials, which they probably offer because they can't otherwise unload the inventory. Can't be done. |
| | Try Budget and find out that it has no cars where you want to pick one up. |
| | Then try National. Select a pickup location that isn't an airport, from the search window that pops up from the "location" link above the fillout box in the form. Watch the system return a "Javascript error". Try again. Get a new javascript error that says you need to pick an airport location. Use the location link search thing to get a more accurate way of specifying the airport than the usual three-letter identification, if such a thing exists. Watch it tell you EWR is "NEWARK ARPT" and "EWRT01" in the two boxes it provides for return location where most other rental car service forms only provide one." Hit "continue" and watch the system return a new javascript error that says "no airport location selected". Try again with a different browser. This time get a "server error". |
| | Try Alamo. Go through the same routine as with National, which is owned by the same company, and shares locations as well. Succeed. |
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