The River

When I took “Contemporary Danish Architecture” at the University of Copenhagen (my college semester abroad), our professor didn’t hesitate to stray to another part of Scandinavia to extol the virtues of Eero Saarinen’s groundbreaking work on the TWA terminal at JFK airport.

Now, at a time when I’m spending lots of dollars and hours with Jet Blue, the airline will participate in plans (free registration) to re-open the historic terminal in conjunction with its increased commitment to the hub. Gotta like that. I can’t wait to roam terminal 5 someday.

Gothamist link on the reopening.

A photo at Great Buildings.

Michael Gartenberg has an amusing take on the Google stock fiasco (warning, BIG file) that’s coming to light today:

Hmmm… let’s see. You own options on Google at $.30 a share but Google might have given them to you illegally, which is a wee bit of a problem for them. Fortunately for Google, they can fix this problem and they’ve offered to give you the $.30 a share in a buy back and call it even… plus interest. You could help them out and agree to this idea or you could hold the shares and sell them post IPO for a gazillion dollars…. Which would you do?

The especially difficult thing about Google’s situation is that many of the folks involved here are employees (the others are former employees and consultants). We’re talking a maximum of 1184 people here (Some enumerated in the various stock option grants detailed in its filing are likely duplicates). This is not the way to engender employee love of Google, and the last thing any company needs, especially during the uncertain pre-IPO time, is internal dissent.

America Online continues its spam-fighting agenda by buying Mailblocks. EarthLink already has challenge/response technology in place, but this could really ratchet up the number of “challenge” e-mails wending their way through the ether.

UPDATE:

Fred comments.

David weighs in.

UPDATE2:

Matt speaks his mind.

There’s been a discussion going on lately after Jason Calacanis of Weblogs Inc. approached Fark about buying ads on its site… and discovered editorial was for sale, too. Calacanis was very disappointed: “I feel like I can never trust Fark again.”

My colleague Gary says:

Fair enough. Blog’s are cool. And they serve a very useful pupose of directing us to the cool, the interesting and the odd. If someone wants to imbue their blog with strict journalistic ethics, that’s great. If not….so what?!

And I say… it’s all about disclosure. As Calacanis says, “Fark.com could easily just put ‘Advertisement’ by the stories and their readers would click them 2x as much just to support Fark. It is so dumb.” No, blogs shouldn’t necessarily be held to the same standards as the New York Times, but — and I think most blog readers and writers would agree — it’s important to be up front about what’s going on. Isn’t blogging all about telling it like it is?

Along those same lines, Forbes.com has gotten all into the realm of controversy with its decision to test Vibrant Media’s IntelliTXT. It’s really weird, I must say, to be reading a news story that mentions the FDA, then see the words “the FDA” are a link, then mouse over it to find the link is actually an ad. Same goes for the word “cash” in the same story. What’s especially strange about it is that — unlike the Motley Fool UK — Forbes.com doesn’t take the opportunity to explain to readers what’s going on. There’s no “about this ad” link in the ad itself, and there’s no separate link to an explanation — at least not one that I can see (and I’m looking!) . There was also no decision to put the advertising inks in a different color — the Motley Fool UK used green.

UPDATE: Calacanis has a new post about Fark.

I must add my voice to the choruses echoing from my colleague’s blogs. I’ve been fooling around with Lookout for long enough now to give it my endorsement. Good stuff — and sorely needed. As a journalist, I am constantly bombarded with e-mails: press releases, requests for meetings and general discussion. Our IT guy marvels at the size of my Outlook mailbox file. But I dare not throw things out because they are — as Battelle frequently notes — a permanant record, not to mention a great resource for contact information too nascent to add to my address book. Lookout makes the necessary actually possible. I can efficiently search not only my e-mail, but also my documents file. Amazing.

Download link here.

Rushkoff on voting against George Bush:

And I believe it is okay to vote purely to rid the nation and the world of a dangerous, misguided, deluded sociopath and the rapacious clique who control him – while there’s still enough integrity in the voting system to exercise such authority over the executive branch. This may be our last chance to use our blogs and our voices towards such a purpose.