Eubie's notes

JFK’s assassination is a dividing line for me. I’m on the side that doesn’t remember where I was when everyone else heard the news. I’m in the baby-boom generation, born between 1946-1964, but I don’t feel too much like a boomer. The assassination is one reason why.

Another is that boomer stories are usually a decade out of synch of my life. When the news media wrote of how boomers were handling turning 50, I was still approaching 40. Now the stories are about boomers approaching retirement. That’s still 20 years away for me.

JFK’s assassination is a pivotal time in people’s lives if they can recall their feelings on that day. The moon walk was pivotal to me. I remember where I was, the anticipation of the event, and sitting in front of the TV late into the night at a motel in Mississippi where our family was vacationing. I was still young enough 10 p.m. was late.

When I mentioned the moon walk to an economics class I taught in the ’80s more than three-fourths of the class did not personally recall the event. The significance to them was absorbed from hearing the recollections from those who saw it and from seeing it replayed later on TV. That’s the way JFK’s assassination is significant to me.

UPDATE: Later in the day I saw this piece by Terry Teachout. He’s on my side of the dividing line and adds another dividing line between older and younger boomers: facing the Vietnam draft.

Online Journalism Review reports how more newspaper newsrooms are now more integrated between print and online. The online folks can now come up from the basement.

The December issue of Consumer Reports has a story about a bank’s maintenance fee of $2.50 a month on gift cards quickly erode the value in the cards. It’s surprising how much it costs to keep up with money.

Another radio station, this one in Birmingham, Ala., has switched to all Christmas music through the season. Clear Channel Station WLYT 102.9 in the Charlotte area began Christmas music Nov. 1. It’s not as surprising that there is an Internet radio stations playing all Christmas music.

Wal-Mart keeps its prices low by keeping pressure on its suppliers, according to this article in the December Fast Company. Productivity gains at Wal-Mart alone account for 12% of the overall economy’s productivity gains in the late 1990s. “Wal-Mart no longer has any real rivals. It does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined.”

Rail guns were one weapon considered during the Reagan-era’s “Star Wars” defense. PowerLabs Electro Magnetic Weapons keeps up with the developments.

Daniel Bazac offers Search the Web More Efficiently: Tips, Techniques and Strategies.

Microsoft is beta testing its newsbot to compete against Google. Dan Gillmor enters the debate about whether the NY Times was correct on Microsoft wanting to buy Google. Gillmor goes for Gates’ denial over NY Times unnamed sources.

A group blog from those attending the Online News Association meeting this weekend in Chicago. Jeff Jarvis also has notes about the conference here.

Here are other blogs of the conference: Mary Hodder with bIPblogl and Staci Kramer guest blogging for paidcontent.org.

The speech Jack Fuller of the Chicago Tribune is getting the most attention because of statements that the Tribune has spent more than $600 million on its online efforts and the biggest mistake was not charging for content from the beginning. Here are other blogs: New York University’s Read Me, Online Journalism and Poynter in Convergence Chaser .

Pittsburgh Business Journal has a story about a company setting the premiums you pay for employee health insurance based on what you pay. Sacramento Business Journal reports The University of California will begin a similar premium plan next year.