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27
Oct 13

Catching up

The weekly post of extra pictures. They didn’t show up elsewhere, so they are showing up here.

It got cold last night …

I always want to ask people who have toys like this what they majored in. Sometimes, when I consider the disposable income of others, I wonder if I studied the wrong thing.

Sunset over Auburn:

Cameron Artis-Payne rushed for 96 yards on 13 carries and scored a touchdown against Florida Atlantic:

Nick Marshall is deadly with his feet. You have to bring more than two guys to tackle him. The quarterback had 81 yards and a score on six carries in limited action. He left in the first quarter with a minor shoulder injury.

The offense continued on with no problem. True freshman Jeremy Johnson was 10 of 16 (with one interception) for 162 yards and two touchdowns, including this 67-yard bomb, his first pass of the game.

The problem for everyone chasing Tre Mason is that everyone is so often just chasing Tre Mason. He had 60 yards and a score on 10 carries in limited action:

Corey Grant was hurt. Now he’s better. And he looks even faster, which is a frightening thing to say about a three time state track sprint champion. He had 75 yards and a touchdown on seven carries:

A Holga shot of an oak tree just starting to hint at turning. I wish it could stay just like that for about eight more weeks, and then just suddenly bloom anew.

Another tree, about ready to sigh, sneeze and give up.

Our cardinal is still around. He spent some time with us this afternoon:

I’ve been hanging on to this one for a while. This is the first leaf on the dogwood that has signaled the changing season. The maple gave up in record time, but this one is hanging on:

Here’s the other side of the dogwood today:

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26
Oct 13

Football fans — Florida Atlantic at Auburn

Auburn hosted overmatched Florida Atlantic today. So instead of worrying about football, here’s an opportunity to concentrate on the important people surrounding it. The Yankee approves:

I’m using a Holga lens, a gift from a friend who was cleaning off his shelf and sent the thing to me. The premise behind the Holga lens is to emulate the poor quality of the Holga, a cheap, plastic camera marketed in China. Even the lenses on some of those cameras were plastic, which allowed for a lots of soft focus, fuzzy edges and showed off whatever was happening in the emulsion of your film. (Remember film?) So Holga shots became hip, or hipster depending on how you see it, and now we have a niche lens. These are my first shots with it.

This first set are some of the people with whom we tailgate.

These are the hosts of our tent, Kim and Murphy. You’d have to look hard to find sweeter people:

In the stadium they’re running this feature before the game begins. The winner tonight was a guy who was unaware he was on the screen for 44 seconds. We saw him eat a fair amount of his hot dog. These guys were all on their phones, so the name of the feature was apropos. The young woman on the left was singing along, but she had no idea …

A few people inside the stadium:

Auburn won 45-10, in a game that was truthfully under control after the first two scores within the first five minutes.

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25
Oct 13

Wile E. Coyote, the corporate jobs maker

I saw this in a parking lot this morning, read the logo and thought: This can’t be a real company.

Evapco. Surely it is a cartoon company, a recent acquisition of ACME now in cahoots with the Wile E. Coyote. You never thought of Wile E. as a venture capitalist, a jobs creator or a serial entrepreneur. But he’s a big investor, a silent partner, if you will.

Or maybe this is a corporate front for a secret government operation. The neighbors are into something, their neighbors just knew it. And neighbors like nothing more than telling on one another. And this led to a phone call, which got the feds involved with the local government. Next thing you know the area has new zoning laws, a big commercial enterprise comes in and they need some conditioned air, so there’s a shell company made that makes industrial shell hiders that cramped members of a secret agency sit in, peering out through the slats at what is going on …

Or perhaps a movie set piece, destined to be exploded in the third act. I did not see any directors about, so this one seems unlikely.

I’m sticking with Wile E. Coyote.

Turns out Evapco has an incredible history that you’d have to read to believe:

On June 14, 1976, Evapco, Inc. was founded in Baltimore, MD under the visionary leadership of William E. Kahlert, Wilson E. Bradley and financial advisor John A. Luetkemeyer. Building on Mr. Kahlert and Mr. Bradley’s combined 46 years of industrial experience, Evapco began as a manufacturer of forced draft evaporative condensers for the growing industrial refrigeration industry. Evapco’s durable, innovative designs and ability to provide special attention to the different needs of its customers ensured immediate acceptance of Evapco’s products domestically and overseas. Within three years of founding, Evapco opened a new facility in California and established a licensing agreement with CCT in Italy, later becoming a wholly owned Evapco operation.

Building on the successful formula of commitment to research and development, quality products, competitive prices and customer satisfaction, Evapco continued to grow throughout the 1980’s.

It is a model of corporate speak, really. But they’re changing air in a half dozen countries, so something is working. They have several corporate videos that explain their success.

Evapco, builders of the ATWB, an induced draft, counterflow design closed circuit cooler with a capacity range of 85 to 46,667 MBH (24 to 13,664 kW). It includes the patented, high efficiency Thermal-Pak® Coil and G-235 galvanized steel casing and basin and is independently certified to withstand seismic and wind load forces.

If we get any last minute Halloween party invites I’m breaking out that tidbit.

I can only say that it was cold out in that parking lot, and cozy and warm while we were inside.

Things to read …

Sometime, in the life of people alive today, this is going to re-emerge as a considerable concern. Putting the Age of U.S. Farmers in Perspective:

As of the 2007, or latest, U.S. Census of Agriculture; U.S. farmers averaged 57.1 years (see Figure 1). Average age was first reported for the 1945 Census of Agriculture at 48.7 years. Thus, over this 62 year span, average age of U.S. farmers has increased 8.4 years, or 17%. Of particular note, the share of farmers age 65 and older has increased from 14% in 1945 to 30% in 2007. The only notable decline in average age occurred during the mid-to-late 1970s. It is reasonable to speculate that this decline in average age occurred as a result of the farm prosperity boom of the 1970s.

Two troubling stories. Exclusive: Feds confiscate investigative reporter’s confidential files during raid:

A veteran Washington D.C. investigative journalist says the Department of Homeland Security confiscated a stack of her confidential files during a raid of her home in August — leading her to fear that a number of her sources inside the federal government have now been exposed.

And this one, Alabama blogger jailed after violating prior restraint over articles that alleged high-profile affair:

Alabama blogger Roger Shuler was arrested Wednesday after allegedly violating a judge’s order that he not publish stories about a supposed affair involving the son of a former state governor, according to a news report and his wife Carol Shuler.

Police charged the blogger with contempt of court and resisting arrest, Carol Shuler said in an interview Friday. Roger Shuler has run “Legal Schnauzer,” a blog focused on exposing political corruption, since 2007. He is being held on a $1,000 bond on the resisting arrest charge, but bond was not set for the two contempt charges, his wife said. She also alleged that he was physically roughed up by police during his arrest.

I’d excerpt more of the RCFP story, but the son of a former governor isn’t in the mood to trifle, it would seem.

A few quick links to read:

How Dallas Reporters Used Twitter to Get Un-Banned From Public Meeting

A Deeper Dive Into Yahoo and Facebook’s Transparency Reports

Mozilla’s Lightbeam tool will expose who is looking over your shoulder on the web

State panel hears Medicaid drug distribution proposals, including one from Wal-Mart

Fatally shot Mobile bicyclist was an ‘upbeat’ church volunteer ‘involved in everything,’ pastor says

I had vegetable lasagna for dinner tonight. How was the start of your weekend?

cycling / family / journalism / links / photo / things to read / Thursday / Twitter — Comments Off
24
Oct 13

You’re going where again? Canada?

I managed to sneak out for a late day ride today. I probably won’t get another one for a few days, so it didn’t seem important to go far or ride hard. So I stopped and took two pictures, which I should do more. It isn’t like I’m setting any great records or chasing anyone anyway.

Above is a stretch of road on the local time trial circuit. I tried the race against the clock one time. I am no good at it. So I just ride it as part of most every other route. Today I did it on the bike half of my ride, a measly little 15 mile circuit. But I got all the good curves and some of the better hills in, at least.

This one is a bit closer to home:

You ride on down the road, turn into a subdivision and then out the other side. You go over a little roller and turn again there’s a little hilltop finish that I always imagine is a big race finish. Except I never really beat my best time. Tonight I was pedaling and it was apparent there was nothing in my legs and yet there I was, straining and trying and wheezing and there was a car waiting patiently behind me.

Which is fine, because he passed me, a few more turns were taken and I managed to pass several cars. Sometimes, now, I can do that. It usually involves a downhill tailwind and a distracted driver who is out for a Sunday stroll to admire the scenery. But still. I did it on a Thursday night, and that’s something.

Called my grandmother this evening, to check in after a recent doctor’s visit. She told me all about the football she watched this past weekend.

Also, she’s now planning a trip to Canada in the spring. It seems my mom and step-dad mentioned this scenic place they’d discovered. “I figure I deserved it by now,” she said. Now both my folks’ mothers are going on this trip.

Both ladies are in their 80s.

Things to read …

This is pretty tough to hear. Many middle-class Americans plan to work until they die:

A growing percentage of middle-class Americans say they have saved so little for retirement that they expect to work into their 80s or even until they either get too sick or die, according to a recent survey.

Nearly half of middle-class workers said they are not confident that they will be able to save enough to retire comfortably, according to a Wells Fargo survey of 1,000 workers between the ages of 25 and 75, with household incomes between $25,000 and $100,000.

As a result, 34% said they plan to work until they’re at least 80 — that’s up from 25% in 2011 and 30% last year. An even larger percentage, 37%, said they’ll never retire and plan to either work until they get too sick or die, the survey found

It seems like every survey similar to this finds some slightly different numbers — perhaps someone should do a meta-analysis — but there are some common themes emerging. The role of news on Facebook:

(A)bout half of adult Facebook users, 47%, “ever” get news there. That amounts to 30% of the population.

Most U.S. adults do not go to Facebook seeking news out, the nationally representative online survey of 5,173 adults finds. Instead, the vast majority of Facebook news consumers, 78%, get news when they are on Facebook for other reasons. And just 4% say it is the most important way they get news. As one respondent summed it up, “I believe Facebook is a good way to find out news without actually looking for it.”

However, the survey provides evidence that Facebook exposes some people to news who otherwise might not get it.

Here is some navel gazing about web design. Ignore the headline. WYSIWTFFTWOMG!:

Since we’ve been using computers to make websites we’ve tried to make them like print. Of course, early on, that was fair enough. It was familiar. We knew the rules and tried to make the web like it. Even now, with the realisation that the web has changed – or rather, we’re being honest to the way the web is. It never really changed, we just tried to make it something it wasn’t – we’re still enforcing a print-like mental model on it. Not necessarily us designers and developers, though. This is coming from people who write and manage content. Just like printing out an email before they send it, they will want to preview a website to see how it looks.

The problem is this: The question content people ask when finishing adding content to a CMS is ‘how does this look?’. And this is not a question a CMS can answer any more – even with a preview. How we use the web today has meant that the answer to that questions is, ‘in what?’.

Here is the only thing in America getting smaller. The Incredible Shrinking Plane SeatPeople have an idea in their head, given the cost and security and the herding indignities and now the shrinking seats, of how far they are willing to drive before they’ll resort to flying. You have to think those numbers are going to slide a bit more when people enjoy these … intimate … tiny experiences.

Well, tomorrow is Friday, and I hope yours is as big as possible. Do stop back by when you can. And, of course, there’s always Twitter.

books / friends / history / journalism / links / photo / Samford / things to read / Twitter / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
23
Oct 13

Darth Vader is bad and his assistant is a mouse

I wrote, on Monday, about my lunch book, Rick Atkinson’s The Guns at Last Light, the last installment of his trilogy on the European Theater of World War II. I discussed Atkinson’s descriptions as “filled with detail and insight and passages from three generations ago that feel like they are fresh today.” This passage is in his prologue which, again, is 41 delicious pages long:

One concise paragraph touches on a millennia of history and technological firsts. It offers a description, a quip and a
discarded plan on how to address the English Channel problem. The guy is good.

Who else is good? The staff at the Crimson. We held our weekly critique meeting today. We’re almost a third of the way through their production run and we’re down things like punctuation in quotes and synonyms. They are working hard and showing their talent. I’m quite proud for them.

This video showed up somehow today, in that delightful way that modern life gives you things from so many directions you’re never sure from which they came. It is, as the kids say, completely insane.

Turns out this guy only finished second in this ridiculous display of gravity, speed and a complete disregard for survival instinct.

This is an entirely different kind of ride than I’d ever want to do. The first time I ever heard people talking about mountain bikes they were celebrating the ways they got hurt, like that was the competition. That’s not for me. One of our friends is a big time, travel across the country, day-long race mountain bike types. I sent him this video and he carefully noted “We can’t all do that!”

Not sure that would have been my first response.

But what a great testimonial for the GoPro camera, no? Ours will not be pressed into such a service.

We fired up the grill at home this evening. The Yankee made a London broil. We kissed it with just enough flame and it was delicious enough for seconds. Adam came over to enjoy the flank steak and catch up on a bit of Game of Thrones.

We’ve been watching them all again. They actually get better on the second viewing. There’s a lot you didn’t catch the first time.

For example:

Things to read …
You wonder how Netflix will stay on top of their entertainment niche as others build their own platforms to compete with in-house productions. They have some plans. Five things Netflix is going to disrupt next

The company has big plans for next year, and its executives previewed some of them during Netflix’s Q3 earnings call earlier this week.

This is a topic that’s been going around a few days because of an essay at The Atlantic, which for about 48 hours tried to be something of a continental divide in journalism and education. USC’s Professor Robert Hernandez chimes in. Those required courses in journalism school are there for a reason:

A modern journalist needs to know how the web works, needs to be exposed to and respect all journalistic crafts (including code), and needs to know their role in working with others. And that role is an active role, not a passive one. They need to use these digital tools to produce relevant, quality journalism.

A digital journalist (or web journalist) focuses on producing journalism of the web, not just on the web. That can manifest itself in a diverse set of roles — being the homepage editor, becoming a multimedia storyteller, or developing a news app, alone or with a team. They can use the tools, but they can also build tools when needed.

If you’re a student, I’m not going to debate which path you should take. I’m not even going to debate what level of instruction in digital journalism or code you need to take. (It’s 2013 — are you really arguing against learning technology?)

But what I will say is that, like those other required parts of your education, you are better off for being exposed to it, whether in a journalism career or in life.

How Website Statistics Changed Our Programs

Good news we can all use. Alabama’s economic development prospects improving, officials say:

Birmingham and state economic development experts said plenty of new projects and expansions are looking to invest money and add jobs, but recent history has proven there is a big difference between getting looks and breaking ground.

A panel of economic development experts spoke to members of the Society for Marketing Professional Services Alabama at a luncheon in Vestavia Hills today.

And two items from the multimedia blog:

Twitter, Vine and people the world over make a film

Google media tools

Thanks for stopping by. Much more on Twitter. Hope you have a great day tomorrow.