Today on Talbird Circle, just off the quad, this was hanging over passing students:
I love the spring, the variable of the local weather. It looks like England one day and the Caribbean the next. We can have 40 degree swings. Pollen makes every car look like a school bus. It seems too warm for March, but then, hey, it is March. And spring is just 14 minutes away.
A couple of meetings today. Some reading and critiquing the paper. There was even a little grading. I made good time getting off campus, covering some of the distance in the lingering daylight. As I closed the garage door at home the rain came. It was a day of good timing like that. One person left as another person came along. Everyone I needed to run into I ran into while I was looking for them.
The signs are everywhere — the signs of crossover. We’re not there yet, but publishers are starting to sense that the time when their business models become more about digital and less about print gets closer every day.
Since the web’s dawn, publishers have lived in a mainly print/somewhat digital world. We’re on the brink of a heavily digital/somewhat print world. The difference means hundreds of billions of dollars, euros, pounds, and yen to content creators and distributors. Get it right, and you win the prize: America’s Next Top (Business) Model.
This is a story from last year, but it is making its way back around today. It is a cute read. Maybe the best part is that a reporter pretended to try to interview a pigeon.
I’m going to pedal around the county and collect pictures of all of the historic markers. That should be a few days of riding and weeks worth of pictures. There’s even an interactive map in the banner!
And now, the day that leaps. I hope you enjoy at least 25 percent of this video that explains the quadrennial correction:
And now for a truly creepy video:
The first version of that story, which I saw on television and haven’t yet discovered online, had the father irate. After which he confronted his family and, writing later (to Target, I think) admitted that he had not been up-to-date on the details of his home. That wouldn’t be an awkward or uncomfortable conversation, would it?
VisitedIntermark on a field trip today. This is the second year I’ve taken students there, and they do a great job. One of their account executives tells the class about the work he does. A public relations expert talks about her day. Two former internships who now have full time jobs there talk about their experience — they pitch to actual clients in their internships — and then there’s the social media talks. Media planning, the creative types and then the video production crews show off their work.
The students come away with an idea of what happens in a full service public relations and marketing shop. (It is an intro course.) Some people get a sense of what they might like to do; others may decide this isn’t for them. Someone asked about if they get discounts on car deals with the dealerships they promote.
I wanted to ride this morning, but Monday mornings race by and this morning needed to linger a bit. Besides, it had rained and … OK, maybe I didn’t want to ride this morning. I was a bit sore last night, actually, aching in places I haven’t in a good long while. And that’s probably the perfect reason to clip in.
Also I need to find out where the guy in the neon yellow jacket went yesterday. I turned onto one road behind him, met a cyclist heading the other direction and decided to overtake the guy in the loud jacket.
What if the cyclist going the other way turned around? He should see me put this guy between us so he can, naturally, destroy me with ease, I thought.
And then I realized where I was.
I could pace and pass this guy, but I struggle on the next hill and he’ll get me back there. That would be embarrassing.
So I decided to close the distance, but not force the issue. At the next intersection, from about 40 yards back, I watched him turn left. When I made the intersection — going straight — I glanced after him but he was gone. That was impressive. Or he might be missing out there somewhere.
That was yesterday’s 32 mile ride. Today damp asphalt and things to do kept me inside.
Class today. The conversation was led by a group discussing online media. One of the guys was controlling every computer in the room and a low-orbit satellite from his iPad. He was a good choice for this topic and, as usual, it was a great job. I have very sharp students.
I’m also buried in a spreadsheet. And I have a stack of things to grade, a few more phone calls to make. I have plenty of school work to do. So this is brief.
Hopping aboard a bike, former Bogota, Colombia, Mayor Enrique Penalosa took a six-mile ride through the good, the bad and the ugly of Birmingham in advance of today’s Sustainable Smart Cities Conference.
After biking through depopulated portions of Titusville and Elyton, marred with abandoned and burned-out houses and grim housing developments, Penalosa was aghast.
“What I saw today was one of the most depressed areas I have ever seen,” he said.
He suggested that residents in the sparsely populated areas be bought out to make way for a “crazy” project
When a mayor of Bogota is telling you your business …
Romney recalled he was “probably 4 or something like that” the day of the Golden Jubilee, when three-quarters of a million people gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the American automobile.
“My dad had a job being the grandmaster. They painted Woodward Ave. with gold paint,” Romney told a rapt Tea Party audience in the village of Milford Thursday night, reliving a moment of American industrial glory.
The Golden Jubilee described so vividly by Romney was indeed an epic moment in automotive lore. The parade included one of the last public appearances by an elderly Henry Ford.
And it took place June 1, 1946 — fully nine months before Romney was born.
I love false memory stories, and only partly because the earliest memory I can muster (and that’s a good word) is, when I describe it to my mother, something that can’t possibly have happened.
If Romney isn’t cynically pandering with the idea that no one would bother to cross-reference the dates, this is a simple mistake. Of course no mistake on the campaign trail is simple. And this story, which is far more likely Romney’s re-telling of a story he heard in his family his entire life, is probably just a planted memory. Sometimes you can’t win for losing.
So then why are there so many attempts to regulate it? Under the guises of piracy, privacy, pornography, predators, indecency, and security, not to mention censorship, tyranny, and civilization, governments from the U.S. to France to Germany to China to Iran to Canada — as well as the European Union and the United Nations — are trying to exert control over the internet.
Why? Is it not working? Is it presenting some new danger to society? Is it fundamentally operating any differently today than it was five or ten years ago? No, no, and no.
So why are governments so eager to claim authority over it? Why would legacy corporations, industries, and institutions egg them on? Because the net is working better than ever. Because they finally recognize how powerful it is and how disruptive it is to their power.
Jarvis was the president of Advance Internet during much of my time with the company.
Cards and flowers were left and candles were lit at the corner of Dean Road and Samford Ave. tonight in honor of a hero.
Johnny Richmond, affectionately known as Mr. Penny by students at Dean Road Elementary School where he worked for 37 years as a custodian and crossing guard, suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound Monday morning, according to Auburn police. News outlets have backed off earlier reports that Richmond later died from his injuries, and as of 9 p.m. Monday list him as being on life support.
I wrote the next piece, the short, just-in-case bit of copy that you hope never has to run. Right now he’s hanging on. He’s seemingly one of those people that you can’t find anyone that has anything remotely to say about him. This is Mr. Penny:
Jeremy did that interview in 2011, after the community rallied to raise money to send him and his wife to the BCS National Championship game. We live in a great place.
I realized today that I need a new gimmick for the site. Thursday is usually a day with extra content here, and now I’m out of material. Last Thursday we wrapped up the section on my grandfather’s textbooks.
Not to worry. I have an idea. Now we’ll just have to make it work. Maybe by next week it will be ready to roll out.
Read a little. Wrote a little. Remembered how many people I still need to call this week. Somehow the day got away from me a bit.
A great essay by Jason Farman on using disruptive technologies to a classroom advantage:
I was excited by the potential of the iPad and other mobile technologies as a means to practice different forms of engagement. I am now a strong believer that these tools, when used correctly, truly foster a deep sense of interpersonal engagement between the students and with the spaces they move through.
I’ll finish up by getting on my soapbox and preaching to the choir (among other clichés): Soon, if it hasn’t happened already, every teacher in higher education will have to develop a strategy for mobile phone use in the classroom (whether that be to integrate the technology or to ban it). Currently, mobile phones are the most pervasive computing technology in existence. There are currently over 5.3 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide. In a planet of around 7 billion people, that’s around 76% of the world that has access to — and uses — a mobile phone. Almost all of our students have them. The mobile device is something that they have on them throughout the day and has become embedded into the fabric of their everyday lives.
While it will be some time before the same can be said of tablet computers like the iPad, it is still worth noting at this stage that simply responding to these pervasive technologies by banning them from the classroom does little to address the importance of these media in our students’ everyday lives. From my perspective, as an educator, I must respond those practices that have become pervasive in the lives of my students, demonstrate that there are many ways to use these tools, and, ultimately, show them how to analyze and critique their own everyday practices. I am taking small steps toward figuring out the best techniques to achieve those goals.
Did manage to sneak in a few miles on the bike. I’m still adjusting to my new shoes and clips, so riding behind the neighborhood seemed like a good idea. While getting acquainted with the new gear my feet have been taking a beating. About four miles in my arches start complaining. After about 10 miles I had to take a break, just to rest my barking dogs.
I never think of my feet as dogs until they hurt. And on those rare occasions they snarl. That’s a good description for today.
So after a bit of standing around I hoped back on the bike and raced the daylight home.
The local bike shop says all of this should be better in three or six rides. Two down, some pain still to go.
It isn’t that there’s a statue in the back of the truck — it must be contemporary, you can’t imagine any classic piece from the Vatican’s collection would be carried around in the back of a Nissan.
It can’t be that the rope is looped around the neck, though at first blush that does make you stop and wonder about the driver’s mood when they put it there.
it is the way she just stares through you.
I have a rope around my neck. I’m in a … Nissan.
Check out the latest on The Samford Crimson. It is a nicely colorful front page this week, post-Step Sing.
The copy is pretty good, except for the typos that slipped through the cracks at 2:30 this morning. The editorial staff is always chagrined when I point them out at 10 a.m.
Things to read: This is severe weather awareness week in Alabama. Were you aware the person in charge of maintaining the tornado sirens has been placed on leave? (Public service note: Do not rely on outdoor sirens. Watch the weather. Buy a weather radio or download the weather apps.)
Alabama’s exports? So glad you asked. Just happened to stumble across a story about that today, hence this entire paragraph, and the subsequent BBJ blockquote:
Alabama exports rose to a record high in 2011, according to a press release from Gov. Robert Bentley’s office.
Exports from the state increased 15.4 percent in 2011 to $17.9 billion, which was up from $15.5 billion last year.
Two prominent non-profit news outlets are shutting down. Alan Mutter has a terrific analysis:
Evidently beguiled by seeing their stories in the pages of the New York Times, two high-profile journalism start-ups failed at building sufficient audience for their own brands.
[…]
Yet, each of them seems to have stumbled in a different way.
The Chicago Cooperative concentrated all but one of its hires on journalists, including several prominent and well-compensated individuals who devoted most of their efforts to putting the best possible work into the NYT. While readers may have appreciated the articles in the newspaper, scant attention appears to have been paid to converting them into individual or corporate supporters of the venture itself.
The Bay Citizen, on the other hand, invested heavily on development …
He goes on to run through the numbers, and his commenters comment on the quality and the competition. The earlier portion of his analysis is cutting, but he has sources who suggest that both Cooperative and the Citizen were working in a bad model.
The only thing worse than a bad model is bad model security. What happens if that rope slips? Where does that garden decoration go from there? Gnomes are so much cheaper. And only slightly more creepy. The Travelocity gnome has helped a lot in that respect.
