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IU / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
6
Dec 16

Who watches the watchers watching me?

Oh, just trying out some new eye-tracking software in the incredible new ICR labs that are coming online in the new building.

The usual Tuesday night stuff.

This software is so cool. That camera above the monitor catches and follows your eyes and then gives the person doing the research, who is sitting on the other side of a full-sized partition a real-time look at everywhere your eyes are going on the computer screen. So if I wanted to put an action sequence from a movie up, or some newspaper or magazine layout or anything, on the screen, we could then see what you glanced at, when, and for how long. It does a whole lot of other things, too, but it probably would sound weird out of context.

You do that with several dozen subjects and you’ve got yourself a study sample. Very neat Tuesday night stuff.

IU / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
1
Dec 16

Testing 1-2-3, testing, testing

We are very fortunate that we have such a diligent watch-cat. This is her bird window of late.

We put a few kitty condos on top of one another so she can sit at window height and stare into this bush and watch all of the little thrushes and things that are still hanging around. There’s a cardinal in there that is taunting her. About 15 yards away are the bird feeders and I guess this is a good place for the birds to hide until it is there turn. But Allie, she’s a smart one, and she has got these birds figured out.

Never mind that there are other windows with a direct view of the bird feeder where the birds are moving around and she can’t be bothered to stare at them from that window. There are just somethings I don’t need to understand, I guess.

Poinsettias on campus:

And I’m in the studio doing microphone checks. We’re doing a training session.

I’ve demonstrated, once again, my literacy by reading words from a scrolling prompter. It’s a skill I have, one of few. But it is one we teach. One day I’m going to tell them that I learned to read from a prompter by running the scroll myself. No one will be impressed, because this setup here is comparatively incredible and they might never have to try it.

IU / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
30
Nov 16

The sidewalk went out for henna

Or, the murder of maple leaves:

This was on a campus sidewalk near our building. You don’t have to go far just now to see the crime scene that brings on winter.

IU / journalism / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
9
Nov 16

The weary Wednesday

The day after election night coverage is always a long one. I mentioned last night the first election I covered. It was a late night, well after midnight, before I was done. The next election I covered I slept for about two hours in my car. They are long, fascinating days full of interesting work. But the following Wednesday is a different, more exhausted experience.

Last night I paused in the IDS newsroom to check in their coverage. That’s an incredible paper. Here’s their front page today:

While the students worked late into the night last night, Ernie Pyle, was banging out copy early this morning:

And this evening Allie is still busy exploring all over:

IU / journalism / memories / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
8
Nov 16

Election night coverage

Well, that was something.

Election night was a big deal in our new building on campus. We had live reports from the public television station, various political panels and all kinds of working student media. And, of course, on the big screen, we watched all of the national and international coverage. And at one point I looked up and I saw one of our students reporting on statewide television. That’s the young lady on the right:

She did a nice job, because she’s a talented reporter. We expect big things.

Elsewhere, the reporters at the IDS, the ridiculously successful campus newspaper, were planning tomorrow’s layout:

And in the newsroom they were waiting for numbers to roll in:

Meanwhile, over in a few of our production booths we had students doing a talk show on WIUX, the student radio station.

And of course my friends at IUS-TV had an election special tonight as well. You can see that right here:

The first election I covered, I was also in college. I wrote a story about the election of a new congressman — he would go on to become a two-term governor and when I interviewed him they were still whooping and hollering in the background — and a junior U.S. senator. That was a pretty great opportunity, and it set me off on a few great years of political news coverage. And me and my peers didn’t have the possibilities afforded to us to these young reporters. Imagine what they might do in the next 15 or 20 years.