BlathrWayne Lorentz

Today, while reading an article in the New York Times about Walt Whitman, I came across an map of Fort Greene Park.

The map shows a boys playground, and a girls playground. We had separate playgrounds when I was in elementary school, too. I thought it was a Catholic school nun thing. I guess it was just a normal part of society, if old-fashioned.

I decided to make my own frozen burritos. For the filling, I had two choices:

1. Buy a can of ready-to-go burrito filling from the supermarket for $1.09
2. Spend $15 following a recipe from the New York Times Cooking section

Naturally, I went the hard route.

Congratulations to the New York Times for not having to print any corrections on Monday, October 10^th.

That sounds bitchy, but itʼs not. Journalists donʼt take corrections lightly. Having issued a few, myself, I can tell you that it hurts a lot, and for a long time.

One difference between bloggers and journalists is that journalists let people know when they make mistakes, and print corrections. They donʼt just pop into WordPress and silently change things.

If the largest newspaper in America canʼt keep its web site running, what chance do I have?

The New York Times has “lost” this web page. I guess thatʼs not surprising, since it also lost my newspaper today.

The New York Times app sure knows how to load ads.

Too bad it doesnʼt know how to load the news that I pay for.

This is what happens when your mapping database doesnʼt have coordinates for a town. It puts the town in Kansas.

In this case, the New York Times map jammed Newton, New Jersey in the middle of Kansas. It probably thinks other towns are there, too.

Never trust any data. Always check for NULL and improbable values.

Due to a printing error, someone somewhere is missing the first two letters from page 30 of todayʼs New York Times.

Theyʼre “F” and “o.”

Youʼre welcome.

Today I learned that one of my friends applied for food stamps because of the COVID situation. I found out about it from an interview in the New York Times. I think that makes me pretty much the definition of a bad friend.

When I was in J school, we were issued little pamphlets from the New York Times titled How To Read The New York Times. It was very useful, and one of those things that would be useful for people to read today since so many are burdened by information overload.

The instructions went something like this:

1. Throw away all of the sections you donʼt like.
2. Put the remaining sections in order of priority.
3. Look at the headlines on each page. If a headline doesnʼt interest you, move on.
4. If a headline interests you, read the subhead or the photo caption. If youʼre not interested or arenʼt learning anything new, move on.
5. Read the first three paragraphs of the article. Move on when you stop learning something new.

This method is still remarkably effective, especially for plowing through a fat pile of Sunday papers.

The only Times sections I toss are the Book Review and the Magazine. I like books, but I want to form my own opinion about them. And the Magazine is just hard to read. The paper is too glossy and the print too small for the stylish lighting in my abode.

Counterintuitively, I find the Sports section quite compelling. Even though I have near zero interest in sportsball, thereʼs always an article in there that is intellectually intriguing. A couple of weeks ago there was a good piece about how “home field advantage” is a thing of the past because teams are so pampered in their palatial practice facilities that even when they play in their home stadium, theyʼre playing on unfamiliar territory. Fun stuff.

Nice notification spam, New York Times.

I only have “Breaking News” selected in my notification settings, which the app says is supposed to be “Urgent and important stories.” By definition, the Opinion page is not breaking news.

The New York Timesʼ 500 page is 404.