photo « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

photo

You can park here

The parking wars.

We’re having a lot of fun with emails around campus about the current parking crisis. None of this is new, of course. You go back to the first cars on a college campus and the first campus that installed parking lots and you find these same problems. (Seriously, I’ve seen it in archives.) This year we have a record enrollment — so more students and cars — and some ongoing construction eating into preexisting parking.

To the credit of the Samford administration, they are doing great work in solving the problem. We have shuttles and golf carts driving people back and forth. The university president and various vice presidents have been driving the carts around. And they’ve wasted no time in building a new parking lot which is already starting to accept cars. Meanwhile the construction equipment is starting to move out and go on to some other project, destined to ruin someone else’s parking.

So things are finally starting to return to normal a bit. And then the emails today. A campus-wide note told us of new cones for reserving spots. And then the reply-all emails, noting those times when cones are put in place to reserve a spot for some guest, only to never be used.

Like the ones above, which sat there, untouched, all day. And apparently that happens in a lot of the parking lots, according to the other emails. It made for an entertaining read. But, again, nothing of this is new. I have been pleased to share with colleagues that my president is out in the driving rain driving commuters and the vice president of student of affairs is doing this and that and the vice president of business and financial affairs is outside driving a shuttle. Truly, it is a unique place with an extraordinary response to a predictable problem. We’re pretty fortunate.

Today’s podcast features Jeremy Henderson following up on a story he wrote about a guy who wrote somethings on Facebook that have landed him in more than a little trouble:

This evening I had a 2,000 yard swim and a sloppy five-mile run. That follows yesterday’s 10K run. Now if all of my run could be on a flat track.

journalism / photo / podcast / Wednesday — Comments Off
26
Aug 15

Can I get $1.86?

There’s not really a lot to say about the events of the day that hasn’t already been said. Terrible as this was, the people in Virginia have covered their own tragedy with great aplomb. Media criticism will probably continue on with the New York tabloids tomorrow. But outside of that, it has been one of those days where the media somehow manages to rally around itself. Mostly because they think it could have been any of them.

To a degree, that is true. At least, I suppose, this horrible thing wasn’t entirely random, but that is surely coming. And it is a terrible thing to contemplate.

Watching media reaction is informative. How many times have we all stood somewhere doing a story, harmless or dangerous, and thought nothing of what might be lurking around the corner? How does a story like today’s change how we view remotes, covering violent crime or the privacy of others?

Don't watch the shooting video. Watch Bruce Springsteen instead: https://t.co/KiKzTSpqVf Sometimes we need the Land of Hope and Dreams

— Dennis Pillion (@dennispillion) August 26, 2015

Something happier, then. The 10-year anniversary of Katrina’s landfall was the subject of today’s podcast. Specifically, this cool story from the New York Times.

Andre is such a fun storyteller, particularly about the role that “place” has in telling the story of “us.” I was pleased he took the time to join us for what became a pretty far-ranging topic. And that Times piece he chose is pretty impressive, too.

Having just celebrated the big Netscape browser anniversary and then the 10th anniversary of YouTube it is fitting that we lunge headlong into the next phase of the internet. First there was text, then the images, now video is yielding to streaming video … Why live streaming is important for Facebook. Don’t forget, meanwhile, the booms from Meerkat and Periscope. The market is clearly ready for live streaming.

And sometime soon thereafter, virtual reality for everyone. All of this that has come before is the foundation upon which that will be built. Exciting times.

Exciting for different reasons, even though it is just a picture of a sign:

Wallets everywhere, rejoice.

photo / podcast / Tuesday — Comments Off
25
Aug 15

Cracked a mic for the first time in seven years

The new podcasting project I’m developing at work. The premise is fairly straightforward, we want to present to you a story in each episode that you might have overlooked, explain why it might be important in the hopes that you’ll seek it out.

My department is taking part in the production. Students are doing the intros and the outros. Soon, I hope, I’ll have students doing some of the guest appearances. It’ll be grand. Here’s the first one:

Maybe tomorrow I’ll remember how to breathe.

We’re aiming for wide, varied topics in easily digestible chunks. Each show will be around nine or 10 minutes, I hope. I’m pretty excited about what we can do with something like this. It should be fun, so follow along on SoundCloud and share with your friends.

Saw this at the big box store tonight:

It takes more than a little entrepreneurial moxie to make a duct tape koozie out of cheap, flimsy rubber. There were only two on the shelf, so they must be selling. That is even more difficult to understand.

links / Monday / photo / Samford / things to read — Comments Off
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.

cycling / photo / weekend — Comments Off
23
Aug 15