Cybermag
in Tabloid Love Nest
One goal of Slate is to help
you to stay efficiently abreast of developments you aren't wildly interested
in. You may have skipped all those worthy newspaper articles about that coup in
Burundi, but we hope you'll feel guilty enough to read a short "Gist" column on
the subject. (Relax, that's only a theoretical example. There wasn't a coup in
Burundi. As far as we know.) In that spirit, we introduce a new feature this
week called "Keeping Tabs," which will track developments in the world of the
tabloids. (It will be posted Wednesday evening, Aug. 6.) Slate readers, of
course, are much too morally austere to have any genuine interest in the sex
lives of Hollywood stars, the diets of talk show hosts, and suchlike paranormal
phenomena. But we all have a duty to stay well informed of what engages other
people. And Washington writer Emily Yoffe has heroically volunteered to wallow
in the mud on our behalf and distill it into a palatable essence.
Weld
Done
Last week was not the first
time Bill Weld quit a high-profile job in a high-profile manner. At dinner in a
leafy Washington neighborhood a decade ago, the talk turned to real estate: The
Welds' house down the street is for sale. Is that William Weld, head of the
Justice Department's Criminal Division? Is he leaving town? Yes, he's moving
back to Massachusetts--his wife's up there now, checking out schools. Many
weeks later, a front-page story in the Washington Post reported that
Weld and another top Justice official "abruptly announced their resignations
yesterday" as an act of "conscience" over revelations about ethically
questionable behavior by Attorney General Ed Meese. Meese had no advance
warning that Weld's "mounting frustration" had reached the breaking point. So
we have long harbored the suspicion that Bill Weld, jolly and appealing
character that he is, might be a bit, um, self-styled--an impression discussed
in this week's "Assessment."
That said, it should be noted
that Slate is forever in the debt of the Weld family. David Weld, the
governor's nephew and then a Microsoft employee, came up with the name Slate
last year, at a moment when we had almost despaired of finding any name for our
magazine that was both euphonious and trademarkable.
In Your
Interface
There are two new ways to
enjoy Slate without soiling your fingers in the World Wide Web. Our popular new
feature, "Today's Papers"--a summary and analysis of the front pages of the
five major national newspapers--can be e-mailed to you every morning, Sunday
through Friday, free as sunshine (for now). Today's Papers appears on our site
overnight and soon (next week, we hope) will be in your e-mail box by breakfast
time on the East Coast. At the moment it's a bit later than that. There's an
easy e-mail sign-up form at the top of Today's Papers. Or you can sign up by
sending e-mail to [email protected], with the message
"subscribe papers" on a line by itself.
Then there's PointCast, a "push" service that
puts news and information on your screensaver. A selection of articles from
Slate is now among the features PointCast will automatically download for you.
Getting your Slate this way is as easy as dismantling a medium-sized nuclear
power plant. Simply go to www.pointcast.com, download the PointCast
installation software, install the software, configure the software (using the
easy-to-misunderstand instructions), then go looking for Slate, which can be
found by simply right-clicking on the box labeled "connections," choosing the
"personalize" option, clicking the "add" button, then clicking on "news and
weather," then scrolling halfway to Ohio until you come to a listing for Slate,
and then clicking on "subscribe." That's all there is to it!
And don't forget the other
ways Slate can come to you, instead of your having to come to us. Slate on
Paper, our weekly all-text edition, formatted for print-out on standard 8½ x 11
paper, is also available by e-mail (free) or on actual paper by actual U.S.
mail ($70 a year). To sign up for e-mail delivery click here or e-mail [email protected]. To get the paper mail delivery, call
800-555-4995.
If you sign up for Hotmail, a (free, natch) Web-based e-mail service, you can get
Slate's table of contents delivered to you every week. And we also continue to
support Slate delivery by FreeLoader, another "push" software product that,
sadly, has gone to its reward.
The new version of
Microsoft's Web browser, Internet Explorer 4.0, due out next month, will allow
(but--Microphobes please note--not require ) automatic download of Slate.
(You can download a trial version of IE4 now, if you want.) We have humbly petitioned
the poo-bahs at Netscape Corp. to include Slate in the Inbox Direct feature of
their own new browser, Netscape Alligator 4.0 (we think it's called). But so far
they seem determined to deny their customers this valuable opportunity.
Down the road, we anticipate
even more advanced "push" features. Our "Summary
Judgment" department, which saves you the trouble of reading reviews, will
be upgraded into a service that will implant the consensus opinion on all the
new movies, books, television shows, etc., directly into your brain, saving you
the trouble of reading and seeing the books and shows themselves. Also, while
PointCast packages news and information as your screensaver,
SlateCast TM will package acute witticisms about the news directly
onto your voice-mail answering message--in your own voice--thereby completely
eliminating the need to develop or even to express your own opinions.
Finally, for those who still
enjoy having their own opinions, Slate will soon offer a new "personalization"
feature. The inspiration is published accounts of Bill Gates' new house, which
reportedly learns guests' preferences in music and art and adjusts itself
accordingly as you stroll from room to room. Slate BiasServer TM
applies this concept to the magazine world: You'll register your views just
once, and Slate will thereafter recognize your browser and serve up opinion and
analysis that reconfirm your prejudices. You'll be able to cruise from article
to review to column to department with a growing feeling that you're absolutely
right about everything. Just like the editors of Slate ourselves.
--Michael Kinsley
