The Failed Promise of Digital Content: A roundup of concerns

The dawn of the internet promised many things including a vast library of always available content. But as the years have passed, that utopia has not emerged.
Link rot, copyright squabbles and other issues have created an incomplete, unreliable content library online.
I’ve documented a lot of these problems in my long-running series, “The Failed Promise of Digital Content.” What follows is a roundup of articles on various subjects having to do with that broader topic. Hopefully they won’t disappear any time soon.

Link rot and disappearing content

How an Archive of the Internet Could Change History (The New York Times Magazine; June 21, 2016)

Raiders of the Lost Web: If a Pulitzer-finalist 34-part series of investigative journalism can vanish from the web, anything can. (The Atlantic; Oct. 14, 2015)

Maybe The Best Place To Store Your Favorite Photos Is On Old-Fashioned Paper (The Huffington Post; April 30, 2015)

Amber, a new tool to prevent linkrot on websites, is out in beta (NiemanLab; Feb. 4, 2015)

Never trust a corporation to do a library’s job (The Message; Jan. 28, 2015)

Missing content

Copyright Terms And How Historical Journalism Is Disappearing (Techdirt; Nov. 4, 2015)

Too many classic films remain buried in studios’ vaults (Los Angeles Times; Oct. 23, 2015)

False information online

How fake news sites frequently trick big-time journalists (Columbia Journalism Review; May 26, 2016)

Unreadable digital formats

How the father of the internet is trying to make the web last forever (Business Insider; June 20, 2016)

Threatened business models

Google’s Arbitrary Morality Police Threaten Us Yet Again; Media Sites Probably Shouldn’t Use Google Ads (Techdirt; June 15, 2016)

Photo: Abandoned and rotting boat on the estuary floor at Llandanwg, Wales. (Photo by William Warby)

Actresses who have played Jane, Tarzan’s girlfriend

I’ve seen lots of lists online showing all the actors who have played Tarzan. (Like this recent one from Wonderwall.) But there haven’t been many attempts to list all of the ladies who have played Jane Porter, his love interest.
With the release of the latest big-screen adaptation of the now public-domain novel, I decided it was time to right that wrong.
Some 21 actresses have played Jane in movies (including the silent era) and television shows. Tarzan the Ape Man has had other love interests in films and TV series, but I’m sticking with the “Me Tarzan, you Jane” original.
What follows is a list of actresses who have played the character of Jane in live-action Tarzan movies and TV shows.

Movies

Enid Markey, “Tarzan of the Apes” (1918) and “The Romance of Tarzan” (1918)
Karla Schramm, “The Revenge of Tarzan” (1920) and “The Son of Tarzan” (1920)
Louise Lorraine, “The Adventures of Tarzan” (1921)
Dorothy Dunbar, “Tarzan and the Golden Lion” (1927)
Natalie Kingston, “Tarzan the Tiger” (1929)
Maureen O’Sullivan played Jane in six Tarzan movies starring Johnny Weissmuller, including “Tarzan the Ape Man” (1932), “Tarzan and His Mate” (1934), “Tarzan Escapes” (1936), “Tarzan Finds a Son!” (1939), “Tarzan’s Secret Treasure” (1941) and “Tarzan’s New York Adventure” (1942)
Brenda Joyce played Jane in four Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller, including “Tarzan and the Amazons” (1945), “Tarzan and the Leopard Woman” (1946), “Tarzan and the Huntress” (1947), “Tarzan and the Mermaids” (1948) and “Tarzan’s Magic Fountain” (1949).
Vanessa Brown, “Tarzan and the Slave Girl” (1950)
Virginia Huston, “Tarzan’s Peril” (1951)
Dorothy Hart, “Tarzan’s Savage Fury” (1952)
Joyce MacKenzie, “Tarzan and the She-Devil” (1953)
Vera Miles, “Tarzan’s Hidden Jungle” (1955)
Eve Brent, “Tarzan’s Fight for Life” (1958) and “Tarzan and the Trappers” (1958)
Joanna Barnes, “Tarzan, the Ape Man” (1959)
Bo Derek, “Tarzan, the Ape Man” (1981)
Andie MacDowell, “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes” (1984)
Jane March, “Tarzan and the Lost City” (1998)
Margot Robbie, “The Legend of Tarzan” (2016)

Television

Kim Crosby, “Tarzan in Manhattan” (1989)
Lydie Denier, “Tarzán” (1991–1994)
Sarah Wayne Callies, “Tarzan” (2003)

Photos: Margot Robbie (top), Maureen O’Sullivan, Brenda Joyce, Joyce MacKenzie, Vera Miles, Eve Brent, “Tarzan the Ape Man” (1981) movie poster, Bo Derek, and Andie MacDowell.

Link rot, a problem with no end in sight

Every year I run a scan of Tech-media-tainment to check for broken weblinks and each year I’m saddened by how many I find.
I like to include weblinks to news articles, blog posts and websites to provide additional resources for readers. But as the years pass, a lot of those links stop working. People clicking on those hyperlinks will get 404 and other error messages.
That’s frustrating for readers. And it’s frustrating for blog editors like me. I spend a few hours every year deleting dead links, a problem known as link rot.
Link rot makes it difficult to preserve information and research online. What’s here today might not be here tomorrow. It is the biggest failed promise of digital content.
Once again I used the free online tool at BrokenLinkCheck.com to scan for web pages with broken or dead links. The tool processed 1,513 web pages at Tech-media-tainment and found 161 broken links.
Quite a few websites simply went kaput, including specialty sites and viral media aggregators on Tumblr and elsewhere.
Among the websites that shut down were those for older movies and canceled TV shows, including “Katy Perry: Part of Me,” “Terminator: Salvation” and NBC’s “Do No Harm.”
Defunct businesses that let their websites expire included the Bikini Hockey League and Lingerie Basketball League.
Another website that closed was for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. That website, Recovery.gov, was President Barack Obama’s plan to get the U.S. out of the Great Recession. I guess his administration said “Mission accomplished” and shut it down.
At least 16 of the bad links belonged to the Huffington Post. In many cases, HuffPo had run an Associated Press story, but the licensing rights likely expired.
News websites especially need to be better stewards of online content and keep weblinks from expiring. There needs to be more permanence to online content.

Photo: Huffington Post 404 error page.

Donald Trump takes a commanding lead … in porn parodies

Since announcing his bid for president, New York real estate mogul Donald Trump has been parodied in eight porn movies. And the election is still four months away.
Including earlier depictions of Trump in two porn parodies of “Celebrity Apprentice,” the Donald has been parodied in 10 porn movies. That ties him with former Alaska governor and one-time vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as the politician with the most porn parodies.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has been parodied in four porn movies, the same number as her husband Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. President Barack Obama has been mocked in five porn parodies to date.
Here is a list of porn movies featuring depictions of Donald Trump:

Celebrity Apprentass (2009)
This Ain’t Celebrity Apprentice XXX (2010)
Donald Tramp: The XXX Parody (2015)
Megyn Gets Trumped (2015)
Latinas Play Their Trump Cards (2015)
Republican Candidate Wife Swap (2016)
The Donald (2016)
Brazzers Presents Erection 2016 (2016)
Make America Gape Again (2016)
The Donald Trump Sex Tape from BaDoinkVR (2016)

Related article: List of the top real-life targets for porn parodies and exploitation.

Photos: Promotional art for “Erection 2016” by Brazzers (top) and screenshot from safe-for-work trailer for “The Donald Trump Sex Tape” from BaDoinkVR. 

‘The Shallows’ joins the ranks of the best animal attack movies

The Blake Lively shark attack thriller “The Shallows” opened this weekend to generally positive reviews. It joins the ranks of some of the best-reviewed animal attack movies in cinematic history.
It’s a small subgenre of thrillers to be sure, but one that I enjoy.
In April 2015, I compiled a list of the best-reviewed animal attack movies, based on ratings from review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. I’ve decided to update that list today.
New to the list are “The Shallows,” “Roar” and “Moby Dick” (1956).
What follows is a list of animal attack movies, ranked by percentage of positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. I also included what kind of killer animal is featured.

1. Rogue (2008), crocodile; 100% positive reviews
2. Jaws (1975), great white shark; 97%
3. The Birds (1963), birds; 96%
4. Grizzly Man (2005), grizzly bear; 93%
5. Arachnophobia (1990), spiders; 91%
6. Backcountry (2015), bear, 88%
7. The Naked Jungle (1954), soldier ants; 86%
8. Moby Dick (1956), whale, 84%
9. Black Water (2008), crocodile; 79%
10. The Grey (2012), wolves; 79%
11. The Reef (2010), great white shark; 78%
12. Roar (1981), lions and tigers, 76%
13. The Shallows (2016), great white shark, 75%
14. Piranha 3-D (2010), piranhas; 73%
15. Open Water (2003), sharks; 72%
16. Piranha (1978), piranhas; 72%
17. Creepshow (1982), cockroaches; 69%
18. Snakes on a Plane (2006), snakes; 68%
19. Alligator (1980), alligator; 67%
20. Willard (2003), rats; 64%
21. Frozen (2010), wolves; 62%
22. The Edge (1997), grizzly bear; 60%
23. Grizzly (1976), grizzly bear; 60%
24. Cujo (1983), rabid dog; 59%
25. Willard (1971), rats; 57%
26. Ben (1972), rats; 57%
27. Jaws 2 (1978), great white shark; 55%
28. The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), lions; 50%

Photos: Promotional artwork for “The Shallows.”

Lying click-bait articles: transgender celebrities and what actors look like today

The scourge of deceptive click-bait articles continues unabated.
I’ve written a couple of times about how content promotion services will use misleading photos to get people to click on article links. Often the photo has nothing to do with the article or it uses an obviously incorrect photo.
In a previous post, I cited examples of articles about transgender celebrities, which used photos of celebs who aren’t transgender. Those examples included Pink and Julia Stiles.
Here are two more examples.
One article titled “25 Transgender Celebrities We Have Come to Admire” shows side-by-side photos of actor Elijah Wood and actress Mischa Barton.
These photos have been used together so many times in articles about celebrities who look alike that a reverse image search on Google for the Elijah Wood picture suggests it might be Mischa Barton.
In this case, the article suggests they are one in the same after gender reassignment surgery. The doctors also must have made their patient taller. Wood is 5-foot-6 and Barton is 5-foot-9.

Another article titled “20 Transgender Celebrities You Need To Know!” shows two photos of actor Cillian Murphy, one dressed as a woman for the 2010 movie “Peacock.”

Another type of click-bait article tells the reader that they won’t believe what some actor or actress from an old movie or TV show looks like today.
An article titled “24 Celebs Who Aged Drastically!” uses a photo of Anna Chlumsky from the movie “My Girl” (1991). She was almost 11 when the movie was released. The article pairs her photo with that of some ugly woman.
Chlumsky, 35, is actually a very attractive lady.

Related articles:

The rise of lying click-bait photos with promoted articles (May 16, 2016)

More lying click-bait articles (June 5, 2016)

Election 2016: What would Dad do?

The 2016 U.S. presidential race has created a dilemma for many voters. Both major party candidates are equally repugnant (Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump). The majority of voters have negative opinions of each.
I’ve been trying to convince my friends and family to vote for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico. His running mate is William Weld, a former two-term Republican governor of Massachusetts.
Rather than vote for the lesser of two evils, I suggest voting with a clean conscience. In this crazy election maybe the Libertarian Party has a chance.
In July 2009, I asked my parents for their opinions on politics and the government.
Here are their responses:

My dad, James A. Seitz:

As a young lad, I wasn’t tuned into politics. My parents didn’t talk much about politics. Because my parents both went to college, they were judged to be smarter. My dad was asked to be on a county group to review some problem. It only lasted a few days. Generally they were Republicans.
I do not like what our governments are doing today. Too many elected officials are only interested in what is financially in it for “me” or “my” friends.
The federal government is going to destroy our current health system and it will result in higher costs and poorer quality treatment. Hospitals and doctors will receive less money.
Illinois government is a mess. Too many on the payroll and doing too little for the taxpayer. Look how the elected pay off their supporters by giving them state and federal jobs.
I believe we need two-term limits for all elected positions. I also believe there should be no retirement pay for elected persons. Two to four years in an office does not earn a retirement pay.

My mom, Alice L. Seitz:

The government today needs term limitations. The benefits for elected officials is far too generous today. The emphasis is too focused on themselves and being re-elected.
The founding fathers stated that this new form of government should be “by the people and for the people.” This is fast disappearing.

Of the top three presidential candidates, only Johnson is pushing for term limits. He also supports smaller government and lower taxes, which my father would have appreciated.
Dad would not have liked Johnson’s socially liberal stands like marijuana legalization and pro-choice on abortion. But I think he would have appreciated Johnson as an honest man fighting a corrupt two-party system.

Photo: 2016 presidential candidates (from left) Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson and Donald Trump. 

Other stories about Mom and Dad:

Father’s Day without Dad (June 19, 2016)

The Gorilla and the Bear (June 11, 2016)

Lessons from my father (June 19, 2011)

Looking back on the Korean War (April 25, 2010)

Pearl Harbor was my parents’ 9-11 (Dec. 7, 2009)

Today’s 9.4% unemployment is bad, but not like the Depression’s 25% unemployment (Aug. 21, 2009)

The current Great Recession has nothing on the Great Depression (Aug. 16, 2009)

Skis, Princess Elizabeth doll were prized Depression-era gifts for my parents (June 28, 2009)