Monday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Monday

errands / links / Monday — Comments Off
19
Jul 10

Now appearing in the garage

Finally made it into the garage project. I said last August I’d do this. I’ve intended to do it from time to time in between. To be fair, other things have happened along the way. I meant to do it last week, but didn’t feel well. (I’m getting better. Now I merely sound stuffy and can’t breathe as much as I like. I like to breathe.)

So I made it into the garage, which has made a nice storage space. Of course it was 95 degrees out as I did this. The box fan wasn’t really getting the job done.

But I threw away three big garbage bags and a box full of things. I donated an entire car full of items to the Salvation Army. I sweated a lot. There are about four more boxes to go through, but this was a day of progress. Needed one of those.

In an unrelated adventure, I managed to explode the garbage bax with kitty litter in it. I felt like a thief when I was sweeping up the trail, covering my tracks as it were. I felt like an idiot when I realized I leaked some of it into the trunk of my car. Something else to clean up.

In journalism news the spin you see coming out of this story will require a complete and utter divorce from reality and credulity:

(V)isits to The Times of London and The Sunday Times’ Websites have dropped by 66% since parent company News International put those sites behind paywalls on July 2.

Information, it seems, wants to be free. So now we’ll join former boss Jeff Jarvis, mid-explanation:

But that is based on the assumption that content is a consumable, a scarcity that drains the more it is read. Of course, it isn’t. Content is, instead, a magnet that can create relationships of value; whether that happens is up to the creator of the content and the quality of service and relevance is gives. That, dare I repeat it, is the basis of the link economy.

But note the verb that started off the paragraph above: should. Readers who read more should pay more. This is the product of journalism’s sense of entitlement.

Jarvis concluded, in this January post, that the “risks (of paywalls) are great and grave.” Why? The change, Jarvis answers:

(W)ill have me make a new economic decision every time I want to read a story: Is this unique content I will get only here (there is a good deal of that) or is this commodity information I can get elsewhere (BBC, Reuters, Washington Post, Politico, TechCrunch…). The Times then restricts our relationship and it is in that relationship that it has to find value.

Publishers, if they wanted to make money online, missed the window by a little more than a decade. There’s a hope that apps will flip the model back in their favor, but there also be someone in the app stores (or whatever surpasses them) willing to spread news or sports or entertainment for free?

Jarvis talks about that, too. Peter-Paul Koch touches on the economics.

My thoughts and research are typically more geared to the journalism side rather than the business aspects, but these are important considerations throughout the industry. I’ll let you know when I have all of the answers.

Maybe the spies know. Here’s Wired’s read on the much anticipated Washington Post spy database collection:

It includes a searchable database cataloging what an estimated 854,000 employees and legions of contractors are apparently up to. Users can now to see just how much money these government agencies are spending and where those top secret contractors are located.

Check out the Post’s nine-page list of agencies and contractors involved in air and satellite observations, for instance. No wonder it scares the crap out of official Washington: It’s bound to provoke all sorts of questions — both from taxpayers wondering where their money goes and from U.S. adversaries looking to penetrate America’s spy complex.

But this piece is about much more than dollars.

Go read it over there. I’ve talked about spies enough for one day already.

Hope you had a great, kitty-litter free, Monday today and a great Tuesday waiting for you!

Monday / site / video / World Cup — Comments Off
12
Jul 10

Reaching out for Facetime

Just to catch up from yesterday: Watched the World Cup final, pitting a disappointing Netherlands versus an underwhelming Spain. Referee Howard Webb tied his hands early with cards and that hurt the game. Spain were the better team, so the outcome is neither a surprise nor upsetting, but the manner of the resolution was unfortunate. It is a shame, really. A game, no, the game was too easily swayed by one person who wasn’t even playing.

I’d rather have seen the two sides play, but Netherlands didn’t really oblige us of that either. The legendary Oranje temper came to play late after it was clear their game plan wasn’t going to work. Spain just kept moving until the opportunity presented itself, as they had the entire tournament. The resolution was unsatisfying for everyone not already a fan of La Roja. And now we have to wait four more years.

(I watched every game. Had a great time doing it.)

We visited Ann Taylor yesterday, marking my second time in almost as many days. The Yankee visited again today, but I declined. A third time in a week was just too much. I consoled myself at the Apple Store. I did not buy anything, but did play on the iPad. I’m no better at the air traffic controller game on a touch screen than I am with a mouse, making me believe I’ve made a good career choice there.

Played with the new iPhone, which has plenty of promise. The video is incredible. The speed is good, apps look strong and so on. Now they just have to convince everyone that antennae issue isn’t a flaw, but a feature. The first time someone calls that you don’t want to talk to? Finger over the antennae and disconnect. No more “I’m going through a tunnel!” That doesn’t work when the person on the other end knows there are no tunnels in your tri-state area.

And then there’s Facetime. It will, of course, catch on when there are enough phones in circulation. If the technology holds up there won’t even be any other way to look at this. (I’d like to be able to record Facetime, but that will come too.) So acknowledging the value and quality of the HD cameras and the opportunity that comes with Facetime I’d like to point out what is really important, the commercials.

These will be the most evocative commercials since the really good reach out and touch someone ads.

Is it a coincidence that both campaigns are for phones?

Upgraded WordPress tonight. The first step, the helpful tutorial says, is to back up your files and database. I’d assumed that WordPress was doing that for me and that all of these important messages I’ve been sharing with you were being preserved on some off-site, off-the-mainland island guarded by the mist from Lost, powered by the trees from some M. Night Shyamalan movie who were advised by aggressive ninjas amped on Red Bull and dozens of John Woo explosions.

These being important messages, and WordPress having been a free service I’d only assumed they went this extra mile. Turns out a guy named Earl, asleep in a rickety old chair leaned against a dingy wall next to the On/Off button has been serving as my backup. Earl, I read in the forums, doesn’t read none too good. But I don’t hold that against the guy. He’s got a lot of blogs to back up. It is only reasonable to expect reading comprehension to deteriorate over time and volume.

So I read on, now knowing that every moment I waited the threat to my data grew exponentially. There is no threat quite like the one you know you aren’t sure about.

The second step and the subsequent 15 steps became too much to consider this late into the evening. I found a widget that will back up my site automatically, so WordPress can do this, they just don’t offer outright. Safely backed up — I chose Email, offsite FTP, three Scandinavian children memorizing things in a limerick and a bird using a chisel and hammer — I could proceed to the next steps of the upgrade.

Which were, fortunately, incredibly easy steps. Click this, click that and you’re done.

I started playing around with the capability to host multiple blogs through 3.0, which kept me up late. Just to see if I could make it work I started an irregular snapshot photograph blog. (I back-dated a few posts, just to give it something to do.) The first few steps involved in starting that second blog using the new WordPress interface are a little more confusing than necessary, but once you get that figured out it the CMS is once again as you’ve come to know and love.

Elsewhere, there’s Tumblr, Twitter and the rest of the site. Tomorrow there will be … something. Be sure to come back and check it out.

adventures / memories / Monday / photo — Comments Off
5
Jul 10

Five Fourths

Happy Fourth of July!

We’ve done this for five years now: ribs at Dreamland, fireworks over the city, this picture.

links / Monday / Samford / World Cup — Comments Off
28
Jun 10

Monday stuff

Now it makes perfect sense. It is only because you watch that there are problems with this World Cup. Look away, world, the poor officiating and obvious errors will go away. FIFA is infuriating. Even so, the games continue. Netherlands struggled to play their game and steal beat Slovakia easily. They are rapidly becoming a favorite of the remaining teams.

The Flying Dutchmen will face Brazil, who offed Chile 3-0. Suddenly, in the quarterfinals, we’ll have one of the matches of the tournament.

At the gym this evening I ran a 7:30 mile. That was painful, think I’ll have to dial it down from there. I only rode 10 miles on the bike. Showered, visited the grocery store and picked up a few things for the next few days. I felt like a big boy because I found the capers all by myself. I even told the cashier when he asked if I’d found everything OK. He was impressed, too.

And then I spent the evening working on the outcome assessment program for Samford. We test graduates on law, quantitative and qualitative. I’ve spent the last week or so harassing grads to return the material, so I can grade it. I’ve spent an hour or two telling people “No, you’ve graduated. This is for us. You can keep your diploma.”

Since there’s not much else I’ll leave you with a few things I’m reading today. From the oil spill there comes research opportunities. Anyone up for helping me brainstorm ideas? I don’t think there’s a lot of research there for me, but I’m sure there will come some great work from it.

Reasons the Sentinel and Philly.com have added mobile jobs:

“If there’s breaking news, you need to make sure it’s on mobile first and then online,” (Tribune Interactive’s Mobile Product Manager Jeff) Dalo said. “By having a mobile manager, you have someone who’s responsible for making sure that happens.”

Increasingly, mobile is where users tend to get their news. A recent Morgan Stanley study found that mobile users will surpass desktop Internet users by 2014 and that the mobile Web is growing much faster than desktop Internet usage ever did.

Maybe newsrooms will come around faster this time, too. The final quote in the piece: “If you don’t have someone responsible for your mobile content and parts of the revenue side of it, then who’s going to take responsibility for that?” (Philly.com President Ryan Davis) said by phone. “We hear so much about mobile and it’s because it’s so useful and because it enables us to reach people and places that we never could before. It has tremendous potential.”

Jeff Jarvis redefines, and defines down, hot news:

The most dangerous defensive tactic parried by legacy news organizations today is their attempt to claim ownership of “hot news” and prevent others from repeating what they gather at their expense for as long as they determine that news is still hot. It is a threat to free speech and the First Amendment and our doctrines of copyright and fair use. It is a threat to news.

[…]

Hot news is ridiculously obsolete. What’s hot today? As Tom Glocer, head of Thomson Reuters, said, his news is most valuable for “miliseconds.”

News, it’s gathering, the architecture of dissemination, it’s perception, audience, everything has changed in the 90 years since hot news was defined. In that view Jarvis is right, and change is past due. We’ve already seen it in practice and now it is left to the courts. Jarvis distills this down to rights. As he notes in his own comments “Considering that PEOPLE now send more links than aggregators — via Twitter and Facebook and blogs and such — do you think they, too, should be stopped? I doubt that.”

Want something webby? Fifty Powerful Time-Savers for Web Designers. There’s some good stuff in there for you.

And, finally, a delicious flank steak recipe.

Alabama / honeymoon / memories / Monday / site / World Cup — Comments Off
21
Jun 10

Your average summer Monday

I had to call someone this morning for business purposes. Perhaps calling first thing was my mistake. The man on the other end was bemused as I stumbled through the most convoluted explanation of the situation. I re-started the story two or three times before I got it right.

That man would have never guessed I once talked for a living. Today I scarcely believe it myself.

Three soccer games today. Portugal vs. Korea DPR, where the Portugese routed their opponents, 7-1. Two different styles clashed when Chile faced Switzerland. It got chippy, a Swiss player was sent off early and the South Americans were able to capitalize on yet another poor officiating decision.

One of the changes I’d like to see in the game — long famous for its few alterations — is an ad hoc ruling on players taking dives. I’d create a three-panel commission that watched each game after it was resolved. If they vote that you faked your stumble you don’t play in the next game. That would fix the simulation. That would help solve a great many of the officials’ problems.

Maybe the issues are the same in other sports. The athletes are now bigger, faster and cunning, and thus more easily able to fool a lone official. The television angles are better, replay exposes all. Even if those aren’t the problems we’re seeing at this World Cup, they are the things we are seeing in this World Cup. It certainly would have changed things in the Chile game.

The third game was Spain vs. Honduras, which David Villa made academic early in the second half. You’re beginning to see why Spain are the World Cup favorites.

Went to buy cat food today. The young lady at the cash register was holding a snake, as if on display. I have nothing against snakes, but this can’t help their sales with many of their customers. Someone didn’t think this through.

And then I realized I hadn’t eaten much today, so I sought out Cajun. I sat on the porch of the local Cajun place, sweating, listening to Zydeco and eating beans and rice and various other things offered in a spicy denomination.

When feeling famished, stuffing one’s face is a bad idea. I’d ordered something the waitress said she’d never tried. She later asked me if it was good — it was — but I felt and looked so miserable when I answered that I wasn’t very convincing.

Spent the rest of the evening preparing a long social media presentation. I’m putting three previous programs together to make one long talk. This will be for a summer class at Alabama in which I’m guest lecturing. If the students are even still talking to me by the end of the session I’ll be pleased with the outcome.

The last honeymoon photo barrage: I have finished, finally, editing pictures from our epic adventure. There are 409 photographs in the gallery. That doesn’t count the two slideshows from Borghese and the Spanish Steps elsewhere on the site or the panoramas. It also doesn’t count the videos, which I have still to produce. There’s about an hour’s worth of footage there.

But a lot of pictures. I decided such an epic project needed its own splash page. So, check out the new honeymoon page. All the pictures are ordered chronologically in relation to the location and where that visit landed in our trip. So you’ll see four different sections of Rome pictures. We spent three days in Rome and then took our cruise. After the trip we had another day in Rome, hence the four sections.

During the trip there are pages for each of our excursions and a section for photographs from the ship itself. Off to the side you’ll see the panoramas. Hopefully this will all be self-explanatory when you see the page. Do visit.