"tectonic shift"

okay, we all know this is happening...china/india/the east more generally are overtaking the US in economic prowess. even the BBC says so. could the dollar's drop be one of the first material indicators?

generally, things aren't looking too hot for us 'mericans. man, is it going to suck for us when english is no longer the universal language. and of all the languages to overtake ours, it just had to be chinese, didn't it? with that ridic tonal system, and nightmare alphabet of crazy characters. it does make one wonder whether it's harder for english speakers to learn chinese, or the other way around...

can someone please write a pithy, well-researched article about this? thanks.

PROOF that the world is ending

and it's definitive.

can't tell you how many times i've said, "the world is obviously ending," and been countered with, "don't you think the market and financial people would be worried?"

well, we have arrived, ladies and gentleman. financial markets are officially worried. so much so, in fact, that they're running to the SEC for reassurance! here's the letter they wrote, and here's what the Washington Post had to say.

the only possible way you could counter this proof is by claiming (and this is asserted obliquely in some of the coverage), that financial institutions are worried about federal measures on climate change that will place economic constraints on them, rather than the effects of climate change on them directly. but read closely, folks, and you'll see that i'm correct. what we have here is the proof. it's the economy, stupid, and this is no exception!

digital -> print

earlier today, i had to sit through another excruciating conversation on the best ways to repackage radio content for the web. and then, while browsing the beloved internets, something caught my eye:

The New York Times' DealBook blog (a truly awesome resource for anyone reporting on $ matters) will be publishing a stand-alone section in the print version of the paper on October 3rd.

now hang on just a sec. weren't all those newfangled bloggie-thingamadoo's gonna mean the end of print? did we ever think the process would work the other way around? not that i'd pick up a paper copy of The Times on October 3rd to see the DealBook section (and i don't think that's their idea), but if they decided to launch a DealBook magazine that was in any way similar to the blog, i might be interested in checking that out...with an important caveat:

it would in some way have to reproduce the immediacy and insider feel of the blog version.

now i for one i think that's possible, and in some instances, perhaps even preferable to the blog. i leave it to all the creative print people out there to figure out just how best to do it. but the point of all of this is: magazines can start as blogs, and what with the viral info spreading potential of the web -- they should.