October « 2014 « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

October, 2014

I will, in fact, run to wait

Looking forward to tomorrow. Our student journalists have a big story coming out. It is complex and sensitive and it is well done, a compliment to the people who’ve worked on it. I read it tonight — which is unusual, as an adviser I do not interfere with their editorial decisions, meaning I generally see everything as a regular consumer — and I’m proud of the work they’re doing.

This is a fun, loud, sharp, sarcastic group. They do their work throughout the week and they put their newspaper to bed early on Tuesday nights. But not this week. Tonight was a late night with lots of copy and good quotes and ink on hands. There was plenty of layout experiments and squibble marks and bleary-eyed readings of federal definitions.

The work is good. It is honest and fair and thorough. Our editor-in-chief has spent a lot of time writing it. She’s proven why the job is hers and is proving why she can handle the investigative work. I think she’s going to be proud of it all, after she has put the story to bed and steps away from it for a minute or two.

In the copy room … I’m making copies. I had to re-load the machine with paper. No one ever considers the humble wrapping paper that holds the copy paper together. Maybe we should:

But I always like jam with my paper.

International Paper, under their Hammermill brand, has a program with St. Jude. One of their patients drew the fish.

Now I want to copy more things, to see what is on the next ream of paper.

Things to read … because someone put it on paper. Or a server.

Getting the truly geeky out of the way first: How A/B testing became publishers’ go-to traffic builder.

Journalists’ obituaries are usually a bit self indulgent, but this is a good one about an important figure in the industry: Ben Bradlee, legendary Washington Post editor, dies at 93:

See? Ben Bradlee and ‘the best damn job in the world’.

Few ever think about the importance of Barber, just north of Birmingham, but that place is important: Motorsports museum’s economic impact far reaching.

I’m not going to think about racing for at least a week, but here’s one last important economic story: Talladega Superspeedway impact transcends the track.

In a random musical moment I wondered: Whatever happened to Live?

Turns out they have a new album, their first in something like eight years, coming out next week. Here’s one of the new tracks:

But that’s not Ed Kowalczyk. He’s not been with the band in years. (Apparently it was not an amicable breakup.) He has a solo album out. And, in this just-released video, he smiles. This seems unnerving, somehow:

That’s what happens when you wonder about things from 15 years ago.

Here’s a thought exercise: Isn’t it interesting how things are so different for you than they were 15 years ago? Isn’t it even more interesting how things are so similar? Discuss.

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20
Oct 14

Monday’s deep diving

Here are a few video clips from the day at the races. I didn’t shoot much of anything worthwhile and certainly not enough to tell an actual story, he said, again. But I have the video and it doesn’t have to live on my phone forever. So I threw a few of them together and called it “Things with engines moving very fast.”

And so another week begins, with the strings that drew the last week to a close pulling loose and then taut against the tendrils that start this week. In a conversation with a student on Friday evening barbecue kept coming up as a story example, which I interpreted as a clue that I needed barbecue. So I had some kind or another on Friday night, Saturday and last night. After dinner last night there was laundry and the blur of one week turns into the whirr of the next. Here we are.

Today we discussed feature stories. It was great, we sat out under an oak tree and batted around ideas that students are working on. It was a beautiful afternoon under a shade tree.

And then back to the newsroom, where I fixed something I’d broken Friday night. That took about an hour, wrapping up the ends of something I’d begun at the end of last week. And then office work, trying to wrap up the ends of a department project that goes on and on.

Also, there is a ceiling tile to replace. We had a saggy slab of high density mineral fiber pulp that finally gave way. And now all of the cold or warmth from outside is falling in through the attic. So a call to the nice people in the facilities department, who gave me a promise that they would come, sometime soon, to fix the problem.

There are, of course, also the tedious and silly routines and errands that really fill our day. Most of this particular day’s chores won’t even mean anything in the long run. It is a Monday, after all.

Things to read … because it is a Monday.

And now we’ve localized the American Ebola story, Alabama teacher on leave after traveling aboard same plane, but on a different day, as Ebola patient:

The Phenix City Board of Education placed a high school teacher on paid leave after learning the employee traveled on the same airplane that carried a person with the Ebola virus the previous day.

The school board placed the Central High School teacher on 21 days of paid leave despite the Centers for Disease Control and the Alabama Department of Public Health insisting there is no risk of the teacher being exposed to Ebola.

Superintendent William Wilkes wrote in a letter to parents dated Oct. 19 that the teacher was being placed on leave for the incubation period of the Ebola virus “out of an abundance of caution.”

The comments are almost all with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

I usually don’t enjoy Q&As, but this one is entertaining on a variety of subjects, In Conversation Marc Andreeseen:

You could probably bring in the whole online-education movement. But for me, the question is, who does the best with online schooling? And it’s mostly autodidacts, people who are self-starters. They’ve found that people from low-income communities actually get the least out of it.

It’s way too early to judge, because we’re at the very beginning of the development of the technology. It’s like critiquing dos 1.0 and saying that this will never turn into the Windows PC. We’re still in the prototype experimental phase. We can’t use the old approach to teach the world. We can’t build that many campuses. We don’t have the space. We don’t have money. We don’t have the professors. If you can go to Harvard, go to Harvard. But that’s not the question. The question is for the 14-year-old in Indonesia staring at a life of either, like, subsistence farming or being able to get a Stanford-quality education and being able to go into a profession.

The one other thing that people are really underestimating is the impact of entertainment-industry economics applied to education. Right now, with MOOCS,11 the production values are pretty low: You’ll film the professor in the classroom. But let’s just project forward. In ten years, what if we had Math 101 online, and what if it was well regarded and you got fully accredited and certified? What if we knew that we were going to have a million students per semester? And what if we knew that they were going to be paying $100 per student, right? What if we knew that we’d have $100 million of revenue from that course per semester? What production budget would we be willing to field in order to have that course?

You could hire James Cameron to do it.

You could literally hire James Cameron to make Math 101. Or how about, let’s study the wars of the Roman Empire by actually having a VR [virtual reality] experience walking around the battlefield, and then like flying above the battlefield. And actually the whole course is looking and saying, “Here’s all the maneuvering that took place.” Or how about re-creating original Shakespeare plays in the Globe Theatre?

Sorta makes you want to invest in VR, doesn’t it?

And, finally, speaking of James Cameron, here’s some deep diving that should be filmed. It would be a 12-minute long film. New World Record for Deepest Scuba Dive:

Due to the requirements of decompression and the need to expel nitrogen, the ascent to the surface required a staggering 14 hours.

Sorta makes breaking the surface anticlimactic, no?

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19
Oct 14

Talladega 500

We received tickets to the big race at Talladega Superspeedway. It was a great day. Everything worked out perfectly, the weather was grand. We were on time. We did not get sunburns and were entertained by a little bit of everything.

We drove up, fighting no traffic, walked a far shorter distance than we’d anticipated, waited in the shade for a few moments at the Will Call window and then walked a few hundred yards to the gate and to the proper section. We were sitting about 100 feet off the finish line. It was a perfect afternoon to be outside and we had a grand view of everything.

There were pre-race interviews, a parade of antique military vehicles, driver introductions and there was something called sky-typing:

Then eight retired military service members jumped out of a plane with flags attached to their rigs:

We saw a flyover synched with the military band playing the national anthem:

And, of course, the race fans:

Here’s the pace car for the day’s race:

Brian Vickers had the pole, he would finish 20th:

Dale Earnhardt Jr lead the most laps throughout the race, but his day ended with a disappointing 31st, which eliminates him from the championship race.

For a time it seemed that we would see a little history. Danica Patrick had a strong run toward the end of the race, but caution flags and the last pit stop worked against her:

Brad Keselowski won the Geico 500, advancing in his championship chase:

But, really, you’re hear for the fans. Here are a lot more of them:

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18
Oct 14

A fine Saturday

Lovely day, beautiful weather. Perfect sun. It would be great to sleep in. We woke up early to go to the Syrup Sopping. They estimate somewhere around 20,000 people roll into the tiny little village — really, it seems to small to call it even a village — for arts and crafts and friends and music and syrup and biscuits.

We stroll around for a while, looking at the things we don’t need to purchase. Usually we see the puppies and I wonder how we’re going to walk away without adopting one. We did not see them today, though. They have, we decided, all found good homes.

We heard the musical performers from a distance, but did not see them play. We saw a few people we knew. We watched students working on a video package. I had a biscuit dipped in freshly made cane syrup.

We bought a few bottles of the good stuff and some local honey. We picked up two bags of kettle corn. The syrup and honey will last the year. The popcorn might survive the week, but don’t bet on it.

We also saw cyclists this morning. As ever, I wished I was on my bike:

Instead we went home and watched football, which was fun. We played with Allie, which was better:

I visited Walmart for supplies. Picked up a few snacks and some Ibuprofen and greeting cards. I stood in line and marveled at how people struggle with the self checkout system and, simultaneously, the hands on technique provided by the disinterested staffer tasked with monitoring their progress. There should be a certification test for the self checkout. And there should be some customer service training for the non-cashier.

But the odd delays of the slow older gentleman who did not understand UPC codes and struggled mightily with how to pay the articulate machine, compounded by the diminished capacity of offline self checkout stations and the helplessness of it all since the express lane was stocked full of people who didn’t understand the concept of the number 20 got me outside and just the right moment:

And then more football, followed by more football. It was a fine Saturday.

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17
Oct 14

The ball joint and groove

I don’t read a lot of FAQ pages, but maybe I should start. The random question can be the best. You’ll see why below.

I left campus at 7:30 tonight. I had a meeting until about 7 p.m. with students. Students gathered until 7 p.m. on a Friday night. They did this after working late into the evening last night o put their paper to bed. And then they sat around in the earliest part of their weekend and talked with me about their work. Their dedication to their craft is so very admirable.

And then, at home tonight, I learned that our postal crew understands humor. Specifically, irony, a bend across the link of the envelope, right on the stamp that says “Do Not Bend.”

Fortunately, they also understand unwanted mail. I must get this same envelope every other month. I open it, remove the return envelope, skim the contents and practice my best wrist-rotating exercises 16 times. Sometimes I get another rip and tear in there. Sometimes the tension of the paper is too much and I think back to that year we managed to get a huge stack of unnecessary phone books. YouTube was just becoming a fixture. I found videos teaching me how to rip phone books. I managed to perfect the technique, at least one svelte editions of the phone books. Now, I’m destroying junk mail. It has much greater tensile strength.

If they’re going to bend it — it is more malleable than a phone book — the mail carrier may as well just keep the thing themselves, right?

Things to read … because when you see good things, you shouldn’t keep it to yourself.

Syracuse basketball’s Orange Madness: Details on selfies, student dunks, legends:

Why selfies and not autographs?

“We just felt like it would be more of a keepsake for our fans to take pictures and pass them around on social media,” Donabella said.

It has never occurred to me to get the autograph of a college athlete. I’ve covered a lot of them, and I’ve watched and cheered for many, many more, but autographs, no. I once sat on a sofa and talked dry cleaning with the fastest man in NCAA track and field. But it never occurred to me to take a photograph with him. (“Back in my day … “)

I have a few autographs of a few others — my first one, I think, is a now faded slip of paper with Kenny Stabler’s name scrawled on it. Later I managed to get a few photographs with famous people. I prefer the photos. Though the Stabler story is pretty good.

The explanation is easy, Twitter Is Finally Explaining Its Suggested Tweets Strategy:

When Twitter first started testing these suggested tweets a few months ago, it didn’t explain the change very well to users, most of whom were confused and even angry when they started seeing content in their stream from people they didn’t follow. Twitter often experiments with new features without adding much of an explanation early on.

Thursday’s blog post is Twitter’s attempt to quell those concerns and offer some insight into the company’s strategy.

They are doing it to frustrate me. If I wanted those extra tweets they’d be in my feed. So you’re offering me discovery by way of people I follow. They have a way to share information with me already, using the retweet button. When you add the favorite button to all of that, well you’re just making buttons redundant, you’re messing up the temporal flow of things and just being tedious, all based on an algorithm.

I have a lot of thoughts on this subject. It all boils down to humanism.

If this story is even close to true … 19-year-old dies naked on cell floor of gangrene; lawsuits target deaths in Madison County jail”>

Your daily Ebola update:

Advisory on Ebola coverage

Amid Assurances on Ebola, Obama Is Said to Seethe

You don’t see the word “seethe” in headlines very often.

Finally, we’re going to the race at Talladega this weekend. We’re trying to figure out how much time to allow for traffic. I’m reading Yelp reviews and random things people have written on various sites (“Leave home: August | Leave the race: After the national anthem.”)

I found myself reading the Superspeedway’s FAQ:

18. Can I get married at Talladega Superspeedway?

Couples wishing to exchange vows on speedway property may do so within the confines of their spot in one of the parks. Weddings are not allowed on speedway property that is used for competition during race weekends.

We got married in lovely and historic downtown Savannah, Georgia. I am now kicking myself I didn’t think of the race track.

I’m sure someone wants to marry during a yellow. Someone else wants to marry and cause a yellow. I wonder if the minister says something like “If anyone has any reason why these two should not be wed or why Jeff Gordon shouldn’t be put into the wall in turn four, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

And, of course, the F in FAQ stands for “Frequently.” If it means anything, it wasn’t the last one on the list, either.