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journalism

42 is no longer the answer

And now a quick study in shutter speeds. This first moody shot was taken in bright, filtered morning sun at 1/4000th of a second at f/6.3. This would fall under the category of “Usually looks better in the camera’s LCD than on the computer screen:

Now, the same shot. Just a few heartbeats later, the composition altered only by the vagaries of imprecise body movement. Our subject is still in the bright, filtered morning sun. I shot this one at 1/400th of a second at f/6.3:

Mostly I’m amazed she stayed perfectly still for that, even at high shutter speeds.

Actually, she doesn’t mind the camera so much. She will not cast her countenance upon your phone, however. Every shot I’ve ever managed with the phone has been by some means of deception or another. And the camera is much larger and has the always-popular swaying strap.

Today’s study in autumn foliage is to the opposite side of the dogwood, where we can study the new buds, already present and patiently waiting for next year. Even if you grow maudlin at the passing into winter, there is always a sign of escape. Dogwoods, then, can be instrumental for your morale, should you need them.

The paper is happening as I write. Who knows where the paper is when you read this. The next newspaper could be happening. Next year’s staff could be happening over a newspaper next year. This could be printed in a paper at some later date when you read this. This could be the first thing anthropologists pull up when they figure out how to connect their power with ancient power supplies a few millennia from now.

Cats and leaves. Yes, great-great-great-great grandchildren, this is what we often did with the Internet at a slow moment. It truly was a marvelous time. Now come grab some of this hard candy before promptly getting off my lawn.

Spent the morning in the office, pecking away at things. Spent the afternoon in the library, pecking away at things. Spent the evening on The Editing Of Things. Now this, and then back to pecking and editing.

The thing I am editing is the upcoming family present project, which I have sort of alluded to here in passing from time to time. We are presenting the finished product this coming weekend, which means I am now finishing up the actual project. I’m ready for it to be done because I am anxious to deliver it because I am uncertain at how it will be received.

You always are, when you make something, aren’t you? How will this go over? It isn’t the same if you’re just buying a thing. Doesn’t fit? Wrong color? No problem. I have a receipt. What’s one trip to the store? To make something, to envision it, and to put in the effort, to visualize and re-visualize the finished version, to contextualize and add and subtract from the context of what it all means, to put it all together, hoping there are no typos or that everything is straight or accurate or the right color or under the proper protocol and on and on. It can get to you, if you are a crafty person.

My friend Kelly, who is easily one of the two or three craftiest people I know, agrees with me about this. You start out doing something, decide to do a nice thing for someone and then you introduce a little anxiety and stress about this nice thing … it is amazing, I think, that anyone ever makes anything for anyone.

But, then, I am not especially crafty.

I do, however, admire those that are. Even more so than I usually do. Which is why it is hard to let go of things people occasionally make for you. Which is why I always look forward to when the leaves turn because behind that comes cooler weather and that means I can dig out the awesome blanket that Kelly made me years ago. It is colorful and warm and sturdy and it was made with love.

Which I think will be the theme of the inevitable speech that will surely be given with this project this weekend. As it should be. That’s what it has been, an exercise in searching and exploring and persistence and assistance and, ultimately, love.

So, really, I’m down to the giving. With the giving comes some receiving, he said, staring off into the future, but also the past, while in the middle of The Editing Of Things.

I’m not a crafty person, but there are few things I’ve looked forward to giving so much as this. All will be revealed this weekend.

Today I learned that there are believed to be some 8.8 billion planets in our galaxy alone that fit in what we think of as the Goldilocks zone for life, as we know it. Tonight I got to use the expression “If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.”

I always smile when I get to use one of the old journalism cliches — which are the only ones you needn’t avoid like the plague, it seems. Even more with this. Verify what you’re told, being the point. If an astronomer tells you there are 8.8 billion planets, any of which could support life, just roll with it. “And the people that live on two or three of those planets, at least, are made of cookie dough. Hey, we’re astronomers. What are you going to do?”

Some of that is just how we perceive and conceive things. Comedian Steven Wright said “Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he’ll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it.” Whether or not you look up that quote probably says a lot about how you perceive and conceive reality and me in it. Whether he stole it from someone else, says a different thing.

But we all like cookie dough.

And that conversation right there, that’s probably how quantum physics or postmodernism or postmodern quantum physics got started.

Things to read …

Look how transparent Apple is and is not in this transparency report. And scroll to pages three and four to see tables demonstrating what your government is doing in your name. Compare that to other countries. Come up with your own observations.

This may be another perspective on something I’ve already linked to here, but I’m of the opinion that all of these perspectives matter. So let us Kirsten Berg’s thoughts on America’s Shackled Press:

Since its establishment by a group of American correspondents in 1981, the Committee to Protect Journalists has focused on defending the rights of its counterparts abroad, naming and shaming the most egregious offenses against press freedom around the world. Incarcerations in Iran. Crackdowns in China. Retaliations in Russia. Slayings in Syria.

But now, for the first time in its history, the CPJ said it felt compelled to commission a special report on its home country: The United States.

It’s an irony that is not lost on Joel Simon, the organization’s executive director. But, as he told an audience at the New America Foundation last Thursday, the recent actions taken by the Obama administration—from its aggressive pursuit of leakers to the campaign-like media relations firewall it erected to control the information that comes out of government agencies—led them to conclude that there had been a fundamental, chilling shift in the ability of journalists in this country to report the news.

This is the second of such features I’ve read recently. I like these stories. Doing good in the community, giving people confidence, meeting police officers and beating them up in the name of science? Good stuff. Lee County Sheriff’s Office offers class aimed at empowering women:

Alicia Cohill delivered one final blow to the aggressors and ran back to a cheering group of women.

“It’s exhilarating,” she said, catching her breath. “You kind of go to that place. Especially the last one, when you have to close your eyes and rely on touch. Once they grabbed me, it was automatic… It takes you out of your comfort zone. You just kick butt.”

While the women also learned grappling and quick escape techniques, Jones said the course is not just about physical self-defense.

“It is not a self-defense course, per se,” he said. “It is also about awareness, giving women the tools they need to avoid becoming a victim.”

Plus you get to wear the cool pads.

More here. If you are tempted to leave now, dear anthropologists of the future, please scroll on through. Our society’s answers to the meaning of life are hidden in these pages. Hint: It is the cookie dough.

friends / journalism / links / Monday / photo / Samford / things to read — Comments Off
4
Nov 13

The kind of Monday where the traffic clears before you get there

I got a call on the drive into work. It was a friend who was some miles ahead of me on the interstate. He was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and was thoughtful enough to offer this heads up. He screen capped a picture of his favorite traffic app map and sent that to me. I compared what his phone said to what my phone said. I was able, while safely not in traffic, to consult a news source on line. Ten miles of interstate were closed.

Surely this means there was a nuclear reactor meltdown at a place where no one realized there was a nuclear reactor meltdown.

By the time I made it to the area, after a bite of lunch to wait out the traffic, it was all gone. The road had reopened. There was a car, Brian said, that had ran off the road. He also sent pictures of a fender-bender or two, the sort of thing that happens in the backup of a larger accident and just ruins your week. He never saw anything that merited a 10-mile shutdown.

Which still doesn’t mean that there aren’t spent fuel roads on some county road overpass.

But my friend called me from his stationary vehicle with a phone he wears on his hip. That signal went off a tower, probably to a satellite synched up to a static Mercury orbit, came back down to me and we conferred like air traffic controls. Then he sent me digital imagery, the stuff no one would have conceived of 50 years ago. And then he beamed me photographs, which would have been a fanciful plot device in a television show even 20 years ago.

And, what a world, we do all of this without thinking.

The only problem with autumn this far south — he said with a vacant sigh, as if any sigh could truly be vacant — is that it doesn’t last very long. Three days, The Yankee says. She’s being sarcastic about it, but only just. So you spend a little time in this beautiful weather, and it has been amazing the last few days, lingering a little bit longer under each tree, for no other reasons than you can and should.

The only problem with autumn anywhere — he said with a more resigned sigh, as if any sigh could be anything more than resigned — is that it is impossible to capture the feeling of autumn, even the muted version we get, in an image. You don’t get the sun just right and the air feels different and the smells you never notice are just shifting in that way that makes you notice them for 23 minutes on a Tuesday, but not again until some day early next spring. If spring is a shout to the senses and summer is a testament of being able to filter out the overwhelming then fall is a gentle nod at imperceptibility. It only barely says “I’m coming.” It usually only whispers “I’m here andnowI’mleaving.” There’s a big heave at the end, of course. “I was there.” Those are the leaves on the ground.

Makes you wonder why we call them leaves.

Here are a few from the yard. By the time I am back under this dogwood the entire thing will look sickly.

I’ll post a few more pictures like this this week. I know you can’t photograph autumn. I know it never catches the moment and, at the end of the day, you have nothing more than multihued tree extremities. But I keep trying, every year.

In class today we talked about public relations, what it is and isn’t. And we began discussing the all-important press release. This evening I worked on The Editing Of Things, which isn’t as ominous as it portends, just unending. I had a soup-and-sandwich dinner, because it was as cold inside as outside, which is to say mildly chilly outside, and ridiculous indoors.

I dipped the toasted herb focaccia bread into the vegetable soup, the flavors of which did odd things to the asiago, roasted tomatoes and basil pesto sauce on the slices of turkey. I say that just to make it sound healthy and exotic. Especially after I just mistakenly saw the nutritional value of that sandwich. Looks like I’ll need a new usual.

Things to read …

The list really shouldn’t include this. A local columnist, in his well-placed displeasure with people that have been elected to office and subsequently gotten themselves in heaps of legal trouble and the community in historic financial trouble, has gotten vivid:

That era of debt and corruption is going to burn for a lifetime. We laid ourselves down with Langford and these banks, and some of these lawyers, and woke up itching with an STD we can’t shake.

Commissioner George Bowman, the lone vote against the new deal, was right when he said poor people will be disproportionately hurt by perpetually rising rates.

Poor people are going to get hosed. Poor people – all residential customers but especially the poor – are going to get hosed worse than they did before the bankruptcy or during it. They are going to get hosed in perpetuity.

Shame there’s no municipal-grade penicillin.

Here’s the story: ” I was supposed to be there for her at that moment and I was.” The video is worth 53 seconds of your time:

The newest Pew surveys are out, and there’s so much to unpack. It all defies excerpting in a place like this, so I’ll just give you the headline, which is not as good as the actual read: Twitter News Consumers: Young, Mobile and Educated.

Follow me on Twitter, there is occasionally something for most everyone there. And be sure to come back tomorrow for more leaves and various other observations of the modern condition!

cycling / Friday / iPhone / journalism / links / photo / things to read — Comments Off
1
Nov 13

Broke 4,000 miles

I call this one “Where I’ve been, where I am and where I’m going.” I broke 4,000 miles on my bike this afternoon — not all at once, of course. It took far too long, actually. Took a few pictures, including the odometer on the Cateye. Here’s to the next thousand miles:

I got honked at today. I was doing about 26 miles per hour at the time. I’m pretty sure the full framed gentleman in his truck has never done that under his own power. But I won’t judge. Sometimes I pass trucks. Sometimes the guy inside hurls a slur. It all works out. The late afternoon and early evening was beautiful and life is grand.

That was a 30 mile ride which is, I’m embarrassed to say, the longest ride I’ve had since August. Felt like it, too. Have to ride more.

Things to read …

This is a long — but vitally important — one. And also an attractive example of modern web design. The Guardian offers NSA files decoded: What the revelations mean for you

Coolest story of the day: San Francisco Will Become Gotham City For One Day To Make A 5-Year-Old Boy’s Wish To Be Batman Come True

And since I talked about foliage yesterday … this was one of the better parts of the scenery today:

The clocks move back this weekend. Fall is here. I’d hope for more warm weather, but that is beautiful.

Auburn / books / history / iPhone / journalism / links / memories / photo / Samford / things to read / Tumblr / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
30
Oct 13

Signs of autumn: The absence of summer

It wasn’t fall today. It was 75 and clear, which means it wasn’t summer, so it may as well be autumn. The maple in the front yard, already giving up the fight, right in the heart of the tree.

The maples are always the first to quit, but they sometimes hang on a bit longer than some of the others in the yard. In the front yard we have this maple that goes yellow and a towering elm that flares yellow before burning out as a dry orange. In the backyard there is a southern red oak, a white oak and a few pin oaks — the oaks the rest of the oaks would disown if they had hardwood lawyers — another maple that turns yellow and a dogwood that will flame out as a defiant red any day now.

If you could get all of those in one spot they’d surely be a beautiful collection.

Had this in the office today:

I’m not a big pumpkin spice fan, but if you like pumpkin at all, you should try the Hersey’s Kisses. Two was plenty for me, so no need to share. But you’ll probably want to keep them all for yourself.

Things to read …

Or watch. The BBC now has a hexacopter. They have one more copter than I do. Maybe one day I’ll catch up. But check out those shots. (I’d embed it, but the Beeb’s code is ridiculous.)

I was reading last night, in Rick Atkinson’s book, about Lt. Ralph Kerley at Mortain. He only appeared briefly, but it was enough to make me look him up. Whatever happened to that guy? The Internet suggests he mustered out a lieutenant colonel and died in his native Texas in 1967.

He also shows up in this column by The Oregonian’s Steve Duin, which should really change your opinion of the deceased author/historian Stephen Ambrose:

Weiss also was furious that Ambrose had described his commanding officer, Lt. Ralph Kerley, as — after four days and nights of fighting off the Germans — “exhausted, discombobulated, on the edge of breaking.”

Not true, Weiss said: “To the dishonor of the man. Kerley was one of the coolest, most fearless men I’ve ever seen. The way (Ambrose) footnoted that looks as if he got the material from me. If in that little bit of material he took from my book he created that kind of fiction, how many other times has that been done?”

Bob Weiss was a Portland, Ore. lawyer who served under Kerley. Weiss took exception to the Ambrose depiction and then had a nasty bit of correspondence with Ambrose over some other questions of attribution. But, mostly, Weiss was worried about the way Kerley showed up in Citizen Soldiers — which also sits on my shelf, though today I’m a bit reluctant about that.

Kerley earned the Croix de Guerre, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Cross. I was at Mortain for the exact same amount of time Ambrose was, which is to say not at all, which is also to say six days less than Weiss, Kerley and the 120th Infantry Regiment of the 30th Infantry Division. I just read the Ambrose passage again … given his history let’s just call it poorly-written narrative.

Anyway, local veterans are recalling their experiences in the military:

“I flew a B-25. That’s why I’m here,” Buford Robinson said, smiling. “I flew 43 missions.”

From 1944 to 1946, Robinson served as a pilot in the Army Air Corps. He fought in the Pacific Theater of the war and participated in the rescue of 500 American POWs at Camp Cabanatuan in the Philippines.

Thom Gossom, the first African-American walk on at Auburn and the first African-American athlete to graduate from the university, got a bit of publicity today. He’s an actor today (and author), charming and engaging and wholly approachable. Here’s a story he told at homecoming a few years ago:

Quick hits:

ObamaCare screw up sends callers to cupcake shop

From Buzzfeed: Things That Took Less Time Than HealthCare.gov

How the NSA is infiltrating private networks

Insurance Insiders ‘Fear Retribution’ from WH Amid Pressure to ‘Keep Quiet’ About Obamacare

Broadcast’s Commercial Brake

And there are two new things at the Tumblr site I forgot to mention yesterday, here and here.

Allie? She’s right here:

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29
Oct 13

The Internet’s weakest syllogism

And now a brief lesson on cultural equation, or, the counter to White’s Law. Leslie White argues that “culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased.”

Wikipedia goes on to tell us that White rank-ordered technology thusly:

Technology is an attempt to solve the problems of survival.

This attempt ultimately means capturing enough energy and diverting it for human needs.

Societies that capture more energy and use it more efficiently have an advantage over other societies.

Therefore, these different societies are more advanced in an evolutionary sense.

His point being that our goal and job was to “harness and control energy.” White, who helped found the anthropological studies department at the University of Michigan, wrote this in the 1940s, so we can assume that his understanding of controlling and harnessing is similar to ours. So let us consider, briefly, the Romans. Specifically the Romans in modern England. Provincia Britannia existed from about the years 43 to 409, peaking around 150.

An excerpt from Wikipedia on the Romano-British culture:

Thousands of Roman businessmen and officials and their families settled in Britannia. Roman troops from across the Empire as far as Spain, Syria, and Egypt, but mainly from the Germanic provinces of Batavia and Frisia (modern Netherlands, Belgium, and the Rhineland area of Germany) were garrisoned in Roman towns, and many intermarried with local Britons. This diversified Britannia’s cultures and religions, while the populace remained mainly Celtic with a Roman way of life.

Where’s all this going? The lasting of history, and the harnessing of culture, as an energy:

A superb Roman eagle in near pristine condition, serpent prey wriggling in its beak, has been found by archaeologists in the City of London. A symbol of immortality and power, it was carefully preserved when the aristocratic tomb it decorated was smashed up more than 1,800 years ago – and is regarded as one of the best pieces of Romano-British art ever found.

The preservation is so startling that the archaeologists who found it a few weeks ago at the bottom of a ditch, on the last day of an excavation on a development site at the Minories, were worried in case they had unearthed a Victorian garden ornament.

It will soon be on display at the Museum of London, just 30 days from ditch to gallery. This artifact had to do with the death of someone highly valued in the culture.

And now here are modern artifacts dealing with the life of the middle. A fundraiser and fun event that allows students target their professors:

For as long as YouTube around that’s going to be there. As long as there is electricity to harness and and server to point to, culture is going to have videos like that.

And cool videos like this, worth your while if you’re interested in the genre. The groom here is a graduate from our program. The video was produced by two guys who are also veterans of our department. And they are doing some amazing work.

The One Where Drew Marries Kaitlin from Logan Dillard.

So Drew has great form when tying his shoes. Needs work on the dancing. But he’s a good fella, a good part of the culture, you might say.

Things to read … Another guy riding a bike murdered in Mobile. Bicyclist found dead in Lyons Park, Mobile police investigate. A few days ago this father of three was killed on a bike there. How close were the two murders? Close.

Mobile, according to the people in the comments of both stories, has a problem that they should remedy quickly.

A surgeon at UAB and a surgeon in Atlanta do the same procedure. UAB doctor performs surgery using Google Glass. I remember when, about 10 years ago, I interviewed a doctor who was talking about visiting with patients through a digital interface from some office a town or county or state away. It all seemed only mildly fantastical then. You know, possible, but maybe not for you. You could see how the tech would work, but you want the human doctor. And now, today, this stuff just makes you think, “Of course.” The 21st century is amazing:

It was if the surgeon had another set of hands to help during surgery to replace a shoulder.

Floating ethereally over the surgeon’s own hands, the hands guided and pointed as the surgeon worked the scalpel.

[…]

“It’s not unlike the line marking a first down that a television broadcast adds to the screen while televising a football game,” Ponce said. “You see the line, although it’s not really on the field. Using VIPAAR, a remote surgeon is able to put his or her hands into the surgical field and provide collaboration and assistance.”

UAB doctors say the technology allows a veteran surgeon to oversee and instruct in real time surgeries performed by less experienced physicians.

Some quick journalism links:

What happens when a newspaper plagiarizes itself?

Al Jazeera America Announces Accelerated Growth Plan

Code for journalists, or why journalists should learn code

Also, two things on the multimedia blog. One tortured lead and Two quick social media anecdotes. I changed the template there this evening, too. Now there’s a tea background, which is apropos.

That’ll probably be what they bury me with one day in a hundred years, tea bags. I do love the stuff so. I doubt it will last the millennia and more that the Roman carving did.