Monday


14
Sep 15

Chasing the Trek

This weekend I chased The Yankee for 42 miles. She started before me and I had to catch her. I knew the route and I knew she had a big head start. That was the game we played. A game we used to play when I could catch her more often. It took me about 31 miles to find her.

cycling

I’m not sure which I liked more, the mile where I averaged 22.6 or the earlier mile where I paced 23 miles per hour. I can do that on the right terrain, just long enough, for about two-and-a-half-minutes, to wonder what it would be like to do that over an entire ride, no matter the terrain. Terrain and topography being relative terms for where we ride. My app says I climbed only 1,700 feet during that ride.

I know people at Delta State. That campus had already had a weird and tough enough year before a senseless tragedy such as this. Later in the day we learned those particular people were safe.

A review, something I wrote:

Unless you are a Ricardo Louis or Chris Davis completist, you probably can skip the new “Miracles on the Plains,” which does not fit into the group of excellent documentaries. There are several reasons.

It goes on like that for about 635 more words.


7
Sep 15

An un-laborious Labor Day ride

I managed to take more wrong turns on my bicycle than you’d think. You’re going slower than cars, usually, but you can still get it wrong. It seems, though, like less of a problem on a bike. More pedaling!

Turning around is different. In the car I find that every place I try to turn around is a bad option, in a blind curve or has a squadron of vehicles following me while there are forever cars coming from the other direction. It can be exasperating, but I think that’s because in the car you’re always going somewhere.

On the bike, I’m trying to find somewhere, or I’m trying to remember where I put myself. Or I’m simply more comfortable with the idea that there, up there, is going to be in the same spot when I finally do make it.

I didn’t mind so much when I missed a turn 22 miles into today’s ride. I got to pass a pickup right after that. First moving vehicle I’ve overtaken in a while. And after a mile-and-a-half of slow climbing, I found myself with this view:

I’d been to this place before. You start to recognize crossroads and signs and ditches, if not the treeline in the distant pasture:

So the one road drops me off into another road with more traffic and less light and I found myself at a gas station, which I’ve visited before. It was the only thing around for miles, except for the sunset:

And there I called it a ride. My missed turn gave me views I hadn’t expected, but would have put about 15 more miles onto my trip and I just ran out of time. It is hard to see it, but even the twilight was giving up fast. I called for a ride and did doughnuts in the parking lot of the gas station, where they have appliances on a side porch:

And I learned what goes on inside old gas pumps:

And, not for the first time, I’ve wanted to tour this old co-op. They still do some work out of there. I’d like to see inside the place.

So my ride ended early, but it went early, and exactly right, at 33.51 miles.


31
Aug 15

Things to read

We are back in full stride with the Monday post of fun links to check out. A little something for a lot of people here. So just scroll until you find something that sings out to you.

This highly anticipated museum is set to open. I can’t wait to see it. This is a photo gallery, but don’t expect much in the way of captions, but the photos look promising. A look inside Birmingham’s new Negro Southern League Museum.

Google’s self-driving cars can’t handle bicycle track stands:

Ever performed a track stand, where you keep your bike upright at a stop without taking your feet off the pedals? If you have, you’ll want to avoid trying that around Google’s self-driving cars, at least for a while. One Austin-based cyclist reports an encounter where one of the autonomous cars was comically unsure of what to do when it spotted him doing a track stand at an intersection. Every time his bike moved even slightly, the car would lurch forward and promptly hit the brakes. Nothing happened beyond some good laughs, but it was clear that Google’s self-driving code didn’t know how to handle a not-quite-stationary bike.

Humans can’t handle that either, in my experience.

Poor headline aside — why read the story after this? — they’ve buried the real story. Netflix will not renew its Epix deal at the end of September, Hulu signs up for Epix content starting October 1:

The company explains that “while many of these movies are popular, they are also widely available on cable and other subscription platforms at the same time as they are on Netflix and subject to the same drawn out licensing periods.” Netflix instead wants to focus on original films and “some innovative licensing arrangements with the movie studios” that will result in “a better movie experience” for its members.

Also, “Starting next year, we will be the exclusive U.S. pay TV home of the latest theatrical movies from the The Walt Disney Company, including Pixar, Lucasfilm and Marvel movies.”

Huge signings.

You know, when you read these pieces all together … it is pretty obvious why no one wants to talk about it. China and Russia are using hacked data to target U.S. spies, officials say:

Foreign spy services, especially in China and Russia, are aggressively aggregating and cross-indexing hacked U.S. computer databases — including security clearance applications, airline records and medical insurance forms — to identify U.S. intelligence officers and agents, U.S. officials said.

At least one clandestine network of American engineers and scientists who provide technical assistance to U.S. undercover operatives and agents overseas has been compromised as a result, according to two U.S. officials.

The Obama administration has scrambled to boost cyberdefenses for federal agencies and crucial infrastructure as foreign-based attacks have penetrated government websites and email systems, social media accounts and, most important, vast data troves containing Social Security numbers, financial information, medical records and other personal data on millions of Americans.

Counterintelligence officials say their adversaries combine those immense data files and then employ sophisticated software to try to isolate disparate clues that can be used to identify and track — or worse, blackmail and recruit — U.S. intelligence operatives.

TV Remains King in Political Ad Spending:

There is an adage in American politics: Campaigns don’t start until the first commercial appears on television. Despite the enormous growth of online campaigning, that half-century of tradition is proving a difficult habit to break.

Candidates and outside groups are expected to spend $1.1 billion on digital advertising in 2016, up almost 700% from $162 million in the 2012 elections.

That this would happen is no surprise. That it is happening so quickly caught me off guard. Live Sports No Longer TV’s Holy Grail in U.S. as Ratings Peak:

“Everyone thought sports rights were the Holy Grail,” said Brandon Ross, an analyst at BTIG Research. “But if your revenues are not as high as you expected and you’ve signed long-term, high-priced agreements, that makes things tough.”

Live sporting events are a top reason people still pay for cable, so media companies battle each other for rights to broadcast athletic events. Sports traditionally have boosted ratings coveted by advertisers and driven up the fees paid by pay-TV operators such as Comcast Corp. to carry channels.

Yet sports haven’t shielded TV networks from subscriber casualties. ESPN has lost 3 million subscribers in the past year and Disney cut its profit forecast earlier this month, sparking a massive selloff in U.S. media stocks. TNT and TBS, which carry basketball, baseball and golf, each shed more than 2 million, and Fox Sports 1 lost 440,000, according to Nielsen data.

12 basics of interviewing, listening and note-taking:

Not long ago, I taught a workshop on these topics to the young men of Poynter’s Write Field program, about 40 minority students attending middle school and high school. They found my lessons useful, so I thought I would pass them on to a larger audience.

I realize these dozen strategies constitute the basics. But when I am struggling with a craft – golf, music, writing – I find it helpful to remind myself of those basics, to climb down from the penthouse and visit the ground floor.

There are terrific extras in the comments covering most of the additions I’d suggest. So I’ll just add two more. First, pay attention to the subject’s nonverbals. More often than not, they won’t give you much. But when they do, they’ll make the interview. Second, if you’re in that person’s “home field” pay attention to the surroundings. Those details are often gold.


24
Aug 15

What’s on your whiteboard?

A couple of our faculty members have these by their doors:

They didn’t give me one. Probably for the best. Who knows what I would write on it. Probably koans:

Shuzan held out his short staff and said, “If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wish to call this?

I do have access to a giant chalkboard. Maybe I should write about the philosophical mysteries of faith, reality and the universe there.

Today I had a few students come up to the office studio to record a few intro and outro tracks for a podcast project we’re launching tomorrow. They sound impressive, which means we must now make the rest of the project sound equally good.

No pressure or anything.

Things to read: Because we haven’t used this gimmick here in a long while.

Agricultural drones may change the way we farm:

For centuries much of farming has been legwork: walking down rows, through patches, going plant-by-plant to check for weeds, bugs, parched soil, any sign of distress. Modern machinery, soil-testing, computers, and ground-based sensors have made crop monitoring and tending more efficient, but still lots goes unnoticed.

Even with a trained eye, there also are inevitably data that can’t be detected at scale, such as nitrogen deficiency or diminished photosynthesis, the chlorophyll-powered process that is crucial for a healthy plant. And if one ailing plant is found, what is the impact on the sometimes hundreds of thousands of plants that surround it? Farmers were long left to guess.

Not for much longer: Agriculture drones may soon be flying across America’s farmland.

I ask an ag journalist and an ag tech person I know about this story. “What unconventional things related to the use of drones are you seeing?”

They aren’t seeing anything unconventional, because the idea of convention is a bit thin at the moment as it relates to drones in agriculture.

You knew this already, if you’ve been reading me anywhere … Digital Media Consumption Is Booming as Investment Floods In:

Here’s some good news for online publishers: People in the U.S. are consuming more digital media than ever before, and their appetite for it is only growing.

According to data from online measurement firm comScore, the total amount of time spent with digital media in the U.S. increased by a whopping 49% over the past two years, driven largely by the use of non-desktop devices.

Time spent with digital media on smartphones grew 90% between June 2013 and June 2015, comScore said, compared with a 64% increase on tablets.

In case you were wondering: Scientists are crediting the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge for breakthroughs in research.


17
Aug 15

Back to school

Back to campus for the first day of another fall term. It rained a lot and there was no parking. There is a video circulating among the campus set of the president ferrying people to their buildings in a golf cart. Did that happen at your university? The president of the institution was out this morning in a slicker and a baseball cap, driving people to and fro.

It took me 34 minutes to park this morning, and it seemed like most everyone had a similar tale, but at least the good folks in the administration building know what is going on on their campus.

First class today, I’m teaching a social media practices class this fall. I’m excited to see what becomes of it.

After class the rain had moved off and the sun appeared. I saw this on one of the bike racks:

I moved my car closer, because, according to the collection of emails, that’s going to be the game of the first week back in classes. This is the largest student body Samford has ever had, some construction is wrapping up here and there and heavy equipment is using some parking. They’re going to invent a new parking lot from thin air soon.

I think that’s because the folks with the truly impressive titles were out shuttling students and faculty this morning. They know. They know, they understand and they’re eager to make this work.

Great place to be.

Went to the big blue box store tonight. I got excited when I saw this:

And then you tilt it over, pick it up, read the label and look inside. There’s no Play-Doh inside. A terrific con. Buy this bucket and the few bits of plastic inside. Play-Doh not included.