Monday


23
Feb 15

There are at least four (really bad) puns here

One more week and this becomes a thing, but today I saw this cruise down the highway.

truck

If you think of it, most everything gets shipped somewhere, one way or another. But you never really think about that, at least until you see a truck hauling logs going one way as it passes a truck hauling logs going the other way. Then it seems silly. “They’ve got logs over here, too!”

Maybe it should have sunk in and stuck in our traveling minds the first time we saw a big truck hauling other trucks, or when you saw a freighter moving most any thing that can move on its own. Everything gets shipped, even the live fish. And you hope to never think about it, or become aware of it which, in this case, would usually mean bad news puns because of an accident. “Ofishials: Traffic flounders after accidents, bystanders threaten to sushi.”

Just Coelorinchus horribilis.

(Yes, I had to look that up.)

You want to see that crudely drawn logo, you say? No problem:

truck

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the fish has a fishing pole. Like a fish can whistle.

Things to read … because I can’t whistle, either.

Boston’s Winter From Hell:

Sure, it’s not the same as an earthquake: The snow will melt, eventually. But that will bring more woes. The flooding will hurt the T, ruin roofs and basements and clog roads still more.

Where are the federal disaster funds, the presidential visit, Anderson Cooper interviewing victims, volunteers flying in, goods and services donated after hurricanes and tornadoes? The pictures may be pretty. But we need help, now.

This is more snow, seven feet in three weeks it says, than I’ve seen in my entire life, probably. And there are certainly big problems — many of them are detailed in that column. But, really?

(We’re absolutely getting two to four inches of snow later this week. I’m going to laugh at us.)

Easily the best story I read yesterday, Chasing Bayla:

Moore had engineered something that could be a breakthrough for rescuers, a way to sedate whales at sea. The man standing to his left on the Zodiac platform held the instrument Moore had conceived for the task: a pressurized rifle tipped with a dart and syringe filled with 60 cc’s of a sedative so powerful that a few drops on human skin could kill.

Bayla was probably seven tons, but you can’t weigh a free-swimming whale. If the estimate were wrong, an overdose could plunge Bayla into a catastrophic slumber and she would drown.

Moore scanned the horizon. Fishing charters and Disney Cruise Liners jockeyed for space at the shore. Ahead, the vast reach of the Atlantic met at every point with the prickling Florida sun.

He knew that the work of a lifetime shouldn’t come down to a single moment. He was the father of four grown boys. He loved his wife. His home was an island in Marion Harbor. He had published scores of peer-reviewed papers and commanded millions in grant money.

Yet the vow he had made to himself as a young man, the thing he had dedicated his career and heart to, remained unfulfilled. For Moore, nearing retirement and running out of ideas, there might be no more chances.

Blow spouted off the port bow.

That’s a slightly longer read, and it has stunning visuals. Well worth your time.

CNN … just … Does Kim Jong Un’s new look reflect a new attitude?

Journalism links:

Why Journalism Students Need a Baseline Understanding of Coding
Local newspapers are hoping online radio can be a growth area
Your ultimate guide to Snapchat
Snapchat boss sees music as a ‘really interesting opportunity’

And. finally, we return to the old Crimson archives that are still in my office. I’m trying to work through them all and file them away elsewhere. Occasionally I find some interesting things. Here’s one now. This was written in 1979 by a person who now works at a non-profit in Texas and a Kentucky physician.

Crimson

Did you know there was a rear gate? It was right here:


16
Feb 15

What is this guy hauling?

I don’t spend all of my time on the road, thank goodness, but I have enough windshield time that I see a lot of strange and boring and interesting and unusual things. I go through cities and the rural countryside and, of course, all of this is basically on the transportation corridor up from the Gulf of Mexico to points far beyond, so on any given day you can see something worth seeing in between the cars and pickups.

Today I passed this guy:

truck

I couldn’t figure out what we’re staring at there and it will probably forever remain a mystery. Safe to say I don’t see anything like that on a daily basis, but maybe you do. This could be a load of something very normal and boring. Medical devices for giants, perhaps. I wanted them, at first, to be rocket cones, but they are just a casing. And they had a fair amount of flexibility to them if they caught some wind. That would seem to be something you’d consider when designing giant rocket cone parts.

I suppose they could be for some high-end, new age silo project, or the cap of an intricate fallout shelter plan. I tried a few Google searches, but came up empty. Where would you even begin? Maybe they will be industrial strength floor protectors, or a new feature in a Katy Perry show. I’ve no idea.

Anyone?

Things to read … because if you didn’t read this stuff, you might not have any idea, either.

There’s some interesting data in this Wall Street Journal story. The Picture Gets Fuzzy at Viacom shares with us that in 2000, shortly after Stewart sat down at “The Daily Show,” the average age of viewers was 29. Now, it’s 45.

So, yes, this is an unsettled time for the Viacom property. But this is also one of those times when change is good. I imagine Comedy Central tilts young again, very soon. Either that or they’ll break with television wisdom in the most unconventional of ways. In either respect, the Daily Show run was a great success with Jon Stewart, if for nothing more than what that statistic implies. And that might be one we seldom, if ever, see again.

Google and Mattel pull the View-Master into virtual reality:

When it launches, kids will be able to explore various 3D scenes, including the streets of Paris and Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay and the solar system. While some scenes like the Golden Gate Bridge include actual images from the area, others like the dinosaur and solar system scene are enhanced with CGI technology to show, for example, what it’s like to fly through the galaxy. There’s also the option of buying additional reels (four for $15) for other immersive experiences.

I don’t spend an awful lot of time thinking about View-Master (but I should). This makes a lot of sense though, doesn’t it?

There’s a common element to all of this high-touch tech. How One College Is Using Tech to Grow Sports Beyond Football:

When the Ole Miss Rebels return to their 26-year-old ballpark in Oxford, Mississippi, this afternoon, the Southeastern Conference college baseball club and its fans will be sharing space with a decidedly modern technology: mobile tracking beacons.

The small devices are becoming ubiquitous in major league facilities, but the University of Mississippi’s athletics department — which has built up its marketing team significantly in the past few years — is the first SEC school employing them, not only to streamline foot traffic but to enhance its rewards program and spur interest in less-popular sports at a school where football dominates.

[…]

For this season, Swayze Field has 21 beacons placed strategically at all entrances and exits, concession stands, merch stores and restrooms. The system, operated by Spark Compass, a mobile marketing platform from Total Communicator Solutions, will help track fan movement at the games, showing how long people stay to watch the action and where lines are forming.

“The seating area is critical…. It gives us the most accurate dwell time,” said Mr. Thompson, a primary catalyst in upgrading the three-year old Rebel Rewards program from one involving staff scanning tickets to a mobile system that produces foot traffic heat maps and other data in real-time.

How are you using this to better serve your customers? That should be the first, middle and last question you ask. Chuck Martin, one of those good Twitter follow types, spends a lot of time thinking about beacons and was just recently writing about this.

Journalism links:

How to make news more reusable
NPR’s Generation Listen
Inside The New York Times Instagram strategy
New rules governing drone journalism are on the way — and there’s reason to be optimistic
How AP is adapting live video for digital

There are five links there, and I’d like to put their principles into a classroom. Wouldn’t that be a fun curriculum.

Maybe, if we could Instagram photos, and then tailor video footage and audio from a drone, someone could finally tell us what that truck up there is hauling.


9
Feb 15

You wonder what they’re thinking

“Be my Valentine, hooman.”

Allie

Or …

“If I were bigger I’d eat you. Since I’m not, I’ll rest my head on you and purr.”

Related: Do you know how difficult it is to build a PowerPoint when all of that is staring up at you?


2
Feb 15

Super Bowl commercials

This was my favorite of the bunch:

We talked about them in class today. The consensus winners were the puppy spot from Budweiser and this one:

The idea seemed to be that, in a different year, that spot gets overlooked and forgotten. This year it stood out. Weak field, the class thought.

The Dove dads spot was also well-received:

No one seemed to like the Nationwide spot, but a few did make the case that, yes, it was something we’re talking about and, sure, it is an important topic. Someone had missed the spot, so we watched it. It didn’t seem any better to the rest of us upon a second viewing.

Which spots did you like? Which did you dislike? And why?

“It was funny” or “It wasn’t funny” aren’t sufficient answers, though.


26
Jan 15

Welcome back

Who knows how long this will last, but as we’ve taken great nostalgic joy in noting the gas price signs in movies, we may as well document this unintentional slide in gas prices. Thanks, Saudis.

gas

Who, here, ever says that, by the way? In November of 2008 gas was nationally dipping to $1.87 — and there was no mention of the Middle East in the story. That was my first fall at Samford. We are typically a bit below the national average, but I can’t readily find a state story to verify it for that time.

Anyway, today was the first day of classes. Got into the office, noticed with resigned expectation that the printer was on the fritz. It wouldn’t be a Monday or a first day of classes if you can’t print.

And it isn’t like I ask it to print a lot. I’m going to print one syllabus here and then go down to the copy room where the Xerox machine lives and make duplicates for everyone. That machine staples. And collates. And faxes. It will also send an autoreply to those Nigerian prince emails and give you periodic updates of your stock portfolio. The Xerox machine is nice.

The HP in my office has a minimum state unsteady aerodynamic force coefficient matrix of what constitutes a paper jam is something the guys at JPL are still working on. It is a highly sensitive 20th century machine and it “jams” constantly. Take it apart and you find a wave in the paper barely perceptible to a Lilliputian’s most sensitive measuring equipment has caused the problem.

So, no, I’m not concerned about the machines taking over, just yet.

Class was fun. Met a room full of students, sitting in the room where I did my job interview several years ago. I’ve never actually taught in that room, though, until today. I sat at the front of the room, as I did on that August day, when I learned beyond doubt there’s no such thing as “summer wool.” Happily, they liked what I had to say and I’ve been having a great time working there ever since.

This class is on storytelling, so today we talked about the various challenges and obstacles. We’ll spend a day or two on information glut and go from there.

And the rest of my day was spent making phone calls. The last round of recruiting calls of the year. There are 220-some high school students on my list. I spend a lot of time on the phone. This was not one of those things we discussed in that interview, but it helps the department, which has a story to tell, a good one, and we think that those seniors should hear it.

It helps them make decisions, we figure, between how the campus sells itself and all of the literature we send them over time and then these high touch phone calls — and have you heard about our scholarships yet? — and then in the next year or so they are showing up in my classes. There are three or four from this class today whose names I remember from an old spreadsheet.

And that, I suppose, helps pay for the gas in my car.

So we’ve come full circle.