Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for February 03, 2012

Sorry, Mike, Zonker just has more charisma.

Yeah, and when’s the last time you heard someone say he was “too doonesburied.”

Are those things real?

QR codes are the probable successor to barcodes (you can’t encode enough information in a barcode). At the moment the’re still mostly being used for novelty stuff like this, though.

Art conceals art. Business conceals information.

LIsa, they’re absolutely real.

I have started to see them everywhere lately on a lot of products,

Hmm, I wonder what dot configuration you could put in that code so when it’s scanned it would show a mustache over whatever is being displayed.

I wonder if they’ll triple the donation if you type in “Viscount St. Austell-in-the-Moor Biggleswade-Brixham” instead?

That was worth a facebook post!

The Chicago Tribune didn’t carry today’s Doonesbury strip because of thoughts it was related to fundrasing or something like that.

Chicago Tribune elected not to run today’s strip on the grounds that Trudeau is promoting his “self-interest” by soliciting funds for a favored cause. I would certainly agree if he were making money from the donations, or if he was soliciting funds for a political candidate.

Actually Doonesbury has pretty heavily promoted dark-horse political candidates in the past. John Anderson in the 1980 race got a huge boost from two weeks of strips. But there was no direct appeal for contributions, and certainly no QR code or website. So this may be a first in that regard.

It still seems like a strange call by the Trib to me. But I’m not annoyed at them this time – they ran yesterday’s strip which suggested that people bypass the paper and read the strip online for free. Which is a pretty snarky thing for GBT to do, frankly.

Everything ok, DT?

Chicago Tribune today did not print the script.

From the paper, "The comic strip broke from its satirical mission in order to deliver a direct fundraising appeal for a specific charity that the author favors. The Tribune’s editorial practices do not allow individuals to promote their self-interests

Plus, “Zonker” is easier to type, especially on a phone.

I love that Zonker is the voice for improving education.

Incidentally, while the QR codes have limited distribution around here, they are much more common in some parts of the world, such as Japan. So Doonesbury readers are in on the ground floor of what is one of the coming things.

Not to be outdone in the embarrassment division, Georgia (as usual) had a Congressweasel (Gingrey)actually walk out becouse the President was “politicizing” the prayer breakfast…My sister says that, as a doctor, he already thinks he’s God & therefore doesn’t have to pray..Seriously, though, am I the only one who thinks it’s a shame we have to support public schools through charity?Can I make a donation to repair my favorite bridge?When I discuss the “Buffet Rule” with friends, they say fine, let him send all he wants to the IRS. That’s not the point. You can’t run any country on charity. We need to pay for the things we need as a society.

DOD maling received yesterday had qr code next to the stamp in the machine franking; hmmmm, wonder what it said? We can assume charge codes to P.O. etc, but, who has readers and ability to break down these codes?

The code does work (or you could just type donorschoose.org into a browser) – and I’m surprised people are unfamiliar with them. Are they not common in the States yet? I see them everywhere up here (Calgary, Canada), ads on buses, papers, even the zoo uses them on displays – you can use a QR scanning app on smartphones and it typically decodes to a website address you can then tap on to open the page.

Rather shabby of papers to not run the strip because of “promoting a favoured charity” – I mean, really? That’s a bad thing? Promoting ways to help public schools? Perhaps a little Procustean in the application of their rule, me thinks. I think it more comes down to is papers like the Chicago Tribune and Denver Post just not liking the political slant of Doonsbury (skewering all stripes, but rightly finding more to target on the right).

Ooooh, I love Trudeau’s new do gooder format.

You can put one on your business card and others can scan it with smart phone and have your website with all your contact information entered into your phone, all at once.

Ok, DT Pi, don’t make me come out to the Inland Empire looking for you.

“Zonker appears to have gained weight.”

Several cases of the munchies will do that to you. :)

Public schools already get plenty of “donations” from taxpayers. If they’d quit squandering money on children who refuse to behave/learn and union members who refuse to work/teach, they’d have plenty to go around.