Tuesday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Tuesday

I do not know what is happening. / journalism / links / Samford / swimming / things to read / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
17
Sep 13

I’ve never done 36 laps of anything before

I am not a good swimmer. I have been in and around the water my entire life. I started SCUBA diving two decades ago. I’m perfectly capable of staying afloat, getting from A-to-B and all that. It might not be fast or especially efficient, though. And, most tellingly, I am not a lap swimmer.

That’s something to work on. I hit the pool this evening and swam a mile. I’m pretty sure that’s the most I’ve ever swam at one time. And if it isn’t, it is close.

A mile in the campus pool is 72 lengths, 36 laps. While I was there in lane two there was a youth swim team practice going on in most of the pool. Lane one was occupied by two ladies enjoying the opportunity to chat and gossip. On the deck there was a lifeguard. One of those three people had to be. How you could tell which from behind their phones and iPads and laptops, I’m not sure. There was also the sonorously loud swim coach who was emphatic about detail and all of the small things and had no problem singling the kids out for the wrong kick or whatever. When he was talking to them individually he seemed like a thoroughly decent man.

In my lane there was a teenager. And, later, his friend joined him. So, lap swimmers, how many people are you sharing a lane with? Because three people in one space seemed to much to me.

Especially when one of the kids kept moving swapping sides. And then he would swim under and across and it was hard to keep track of him and I found the entire thing annoying. It was my Get Off Of My Lawn moment of the day, something which is beginning to happen a little more frequently. Perhaps I should keep track of them.

But the swimming was nice. I did about 500 yards in a side crawl and the rest in a modified breaststroke, because I can only do so much freestyle right now — about 100, it seems.

The first 18 laps were kind of slow. Somewhere between 24 and 34 things really took off. By then I was almost the last person in the pool. I didn’t time anything, but I swam a mile.

I do not know what is happening.

I had burritos for dinner, vegetables for lunch and I wasn’t nearly as hungry as I expected I would be. I could go stand in the shallow end of a pool for an hour and be starving, ordinarily. Today, not so much.

Things to read which I found interesting: How fast are the entertainment and media industries changing? Pretty darn fast. In a year, Netflix’s competition shifted from Hulu to HBO to everything:

Netflix is simply acknowledging that it doesn’t just compete with other TV networks (although, in another change to the document, Netflix calls itself a “movie and TV series network” for the first time). It also competes for attention with nearly any kind of leisure activity.

That may not seem revelatory, but it’s rare for media companies to think of their competition as extending beyond discrete industries like news or music or television.

I discussed this more than two years ago, but Netflix is a fine platform — we enjoy it — doomed to fail. I said it better this spring: Netflix becomes just another layer in the stratification. The problem is that Netflix, as a pioneer, is inherently reproducible. If you have a smart TV or a streaming Blue Ray or similar opponent, you can see all of the On Demand stations, the branded streaming platforms and even the high end magazines are getting into the act. Everything is a competitor, everything is another vector to take on. Netflix’s purchase, production and streaming of original programming is a strategy to combat that. Will it be enough?

That would be a great story for a writer, right? Here’s a stab at how to, and how not to, pitch that idea over social media:

Social media is a blessing and a curse when it comes to pitching journalists. While Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Instagram — yes, Foursquare and Instagram pitches happen — present many new opportunities to forge connections, it’s very easy to step onto inappropriate turf.

Because the dos and don’ts of reaching out via social media can be messy, we compiled some solid rules for when it’s cool and when it’s creepy to contact a journalist. Here are 10 tips on how to pitch a journalist on social media, largely based on the experiences of Mashable’s editorial team.

Most of those ideas are common sensical, which is precisely why someone needed to write about it.

Speaking of Facebook, people are learning a new way to think of it in a new way:

Here’s the only substantial difference between the information Facebook gave the National Security Agency’s PRISM program and the information Facebook sells to its customers—the NSA didn’t pay for it. In fact, it turns out what Facebook sells could be even more personal than what the NSA requires. And a study that came out yesterday shows Americans are waking up to that possibility.

… the information Facebook and the other eight companies associated with PRISM are sharing with the NSA includes “the content of the communications and not just the metadata.”

Facebook is not our friend.

There are almost 1,000,000 Alabamians on food stamps:

In Alabama, about 914,000 people received SNAP benefits in June, a 61-percent increase from the 567,000 state residents who received them five years ago. That’s similar to increases around the country during the economic downturn.

But the 19 percent of Alabama residents who use SNAP benefits puts the state ahead of the national average of 15.4 percent, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In 2008, before the recession, Alabamians received $663 million in SNAP benefits. By 2012, it was $1.4 billion.

Also, Uh oh: 8 of 12 Alabama metros saw recession in 2012, GDP data show and The typical American family makes less than it did in 1989.

These next two are both great stories, despite basic headlines, which are worth your time. Perhaps the two best things I read today:

DNA double take

Apple’s Fingerprint ID May Mean You Can’t ‘Take the Fifth’

You remember the Costa Concordia. The big cruise ship that had the misfortune of having the wrong guy at the helm and then sank off of Italy. They raised it, a historical feat of engineering that took 19 hours. You can see a time lapse here.

One of our students produced this, in part, with his new aerial drone. It was one of his first projects with the thing and, for a first try it looks pretty great:

I want one.

journalism / links / photo / Samford / Tuesday — Comments Off
3
Sep 13

Long day, short post

A lot of time in the car. But a lot got done. One of those days.

Meetings were held to discuss Digital Video Center policies. Things were taught to students and learned by me. Plans and logistics were heard and arranged. Emails … were emailed. One of those days.

Which is not to say there was anything wrong with it at all, because there was not anything wrong with it.

The Crimson had a meeting this morning, so I stayed out of their newsroom. You don’t want to put your snout in all of their activities. As an adviser of an independent publication you have to pick your spots.

So when I was there later I saw this on their wall-sized chalkboard:

Sounds like they’re off to a good start for the year.

Two new posts on the Multimedia Links blog:

A look at Congress’ view on Syria

The future of data journalism

collarbone / Tuesday — 1 Comment
27
Aug 13

The bone scan

The new orthopedic surgeon sent me in for a bone scan today.

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, if you haven’t been paying close attention. We know a physical therapist who gave me a once over, some year-plus after my collarbone and shoulder surgery. First thing he did was touch the hardware, which meant the second thing that almost happened was me hurting him back.

But, because he was “a professional” and “just doing his job” we accept that he deliberately hurts people.

I kid. But only just.

So he sends me to a nationally-renowned guy. That surgeon tested my rotator cuff and my nerves and pronounced them good. He took an X-ray and we discussed all of the usual complaints. And, believe me, a year into this stuff I’m tired of complaining about it.

So it is either the hardware, muscular or a bone issue, he said. Let’s schedule you a bone scan.

That was last week, and so today was the bone scan.

This is how a bone scan works.

You fill out paperwork in the ground floor lobby. Then they send you up to a second floor radiology lobby. And there you fill out more paperwork.

Someone comes along and takes you through a second door and down another elevator to the radiology department. The people there have a good sense of humor about all this. They’re in the dungeon. They figure no one will ever find them down there. That’s not a bad thing unless the building caves in, and so on.

You’re shuttled into a windowless room that is 16 x 18. I know this because I was on my back long enough to measure the tiles. They give you a little injection into the back of your hand. This is the radioactive material.

Yup. Stay away from me, kids!

They put you on your back on a narrow curved bench. It gets narrower because it has to move under the Siemens machine that is scanning your bones. In order to move, part of the bench on either side disappears. Now, I have sufficiently broad shoulders that I am hanging off both sides of the bench.

So I tuck my left hand under the small of my back because it has to go somewhere, right? That’s not good, they say. Try your pocket. Also not good, we learned.

They then wrap me in some stretchy fabric to keep me in place. I’m cocooned! And now this large, featureless square of metal with Siemens stamped on the side is descending over my head and upper body. This is a giant, hospital industrial green square. The only thing to look at is a tiny plus sign in the center of the surface area.

This is the quick shot, just to see where the radiation goes in my muscles.

They dismissed me for lunch, where I could do anything I liked, but I had to come back right after that for more extensive scans.

Did I mention they’ve set me lose on the world with radiation coursing through my veins?

So I did everything for the rest of the day with the alias Isa Tope.

After lunch it was back to the radiation lobby, where the radiologist met me once again. Her name is Star. Her last name is not van Allen, but it does strike you as the perfect name for a radiologist. She’s been working there for seven years.

I said I took my wife out for lunch …

“Awww.”

But she wanted chicken fingers and I told her that the radiologists told us I could eat anything but chicken fingers.

“You did not!”

Back on the magically disappearing bench. Back inside the swaddling, which for this much longer scan came to take on the feel of a mummification. And that giant, featureless Siemens square. I couldn’t figure out the sensation before, but I had an hour or more to contemplate it this time. It was like being squished like a bug, only in slow motion.

Star said “It is important you don’t move.” I told her it was obvious she’d not discussed this procedure with my mother or anyone else that knows me. She said I took a nap. Somehow I doubt that.

She turned the machine off and unwrapped the great big stretchy linens that had been holding me in place.

She walked me back to the lobby and said the preliminary examination suggested I had all my bones. (The first small victories are always the sweetest.) I asked her if I would sprout a tail, or turn green.

She said she’d never had that happened, but really wanted to see it, just once.

I figure we give it a day, and if I don’t lose my melatonin or sprout a third thumb by tomorrow evening I’ll be in the clear.

And next week I have to go see the orthopedic doctor so he can tell me if my bones are healed.

My bet: yes.

cycling / journalism / links / photo / things to read / Tuesday — Comments Off
20
Aug 13

My back, journalism, the weather, my bike

Ever have one of those days where the floor was the most comfortable thing you had? No? Just me then? OK.

So I spent a little time stretched out today because my back got all cinched up and my shoulder wasn’t helping. For some reason I decided the floor was a good place to be, and it turns out, I was right.

I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, and I’m not especially excited about that.

I have a new idea about the criticism of journalism. It goes like this, it is as shallow or meaningful as you want it to be, and the format doesn’t have anything to do with that.

Here’s the latest example in the all but exhausted “Real Journalists” versus “Just a Blogger” debate. The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer is struggling with the thorny issues: Is rapper Big Boi taking classes at Auburn University?

The answer? No. But his daughter is enrolling as a freshman. That doesn’t keep a lot of rhetorical questions at bay, though. They just fly out into the ether and are never answered, because who needs answers when you can embed a YouTube video?

I’ve had arguments with people that have worked at that paper about the various values of citizen journalism compared to professionals, and this is a perfectly good counter-argument to anything anyone says in that debate. To be fair, the writer of that sad little post is called an “audience engagement coordinator.” And therein, I think, lies the problem. It is as shallow or meaningful as you want it to be, and the format doesn’t have anything to do with that.

Meanwhile, a writer at al.com stepped in it today. He offended women when assuming they didn’t understand football. Here’s the freshly edited version. It even made Romenesko.

In bigger news of things to read: Jeff Jarvis on how media in different countries are covering the recent governmental moves against journalism. Hint: shamefully poor.

Jay Rosen on the conspiracy to commit journalism, one of the better things he’s written in my view:

This battle is global. Just as the surveillance state is an international actor — not one government, but many working together — and just as the surveillance net stretches worldwide because the communications network does too, the struggle to report on the secret system’s overreach is global, as well. It’s the collect-it-all coalition against an expanded Fourth Estate, worldwide.

[…]

This tells us something. The battle I referred to is not a simple matter of the state vs. civilians. It’s not government vs. the press, either. It’s the surveillance-over-everything forces within governments (plus the politicians and journalists who identify with them) vs. everyone who opposes their overreach: investigative journalists and sources, especially, but also couriers (like David Miranda), cryptographers and technologists, free speech lawyers, funders, brave advertisers, online activists, sympathetic actors inside a given government, civil society groups like Amnesty International, bloggers to amplify the signal and, of course, readers. Lots of readers, the noisy kind, who share and help distribute the work.

This type of sunlight coalition — large and small pieces, loosely joined — is a countervailing power to the security forces, the people who are utterly serious when they say: ”You’ve had your debate. There’s no need to write any more,” the same people who, as Bruce Schneier has written, “commandeered the internet” for their use because, viewed from a certain angle, it’s the best machine ever made for spying on the population.

If sunlight coalitions are to succeed, it won’t be by outwitting surveillance. Not better technology, but greater legitimacy is their edge. This attitude was perfectly captured by Ladar Levison, founder of Lavabit, who shut down his email service when the surveillance state demanded his submission. “I think if the American public knew what our government was doing, they wouldn’t be allowed to do it anymore,” he said.

Sadly, the wrong side has already won this argument.

Elmore Leonard died. I love some of his work, though, since I don’t read hardly any fiction, I’ve never read any of his books. But I quote him in one of my syllabi. Here are his invaluable rules to writing:

Never open a book with weather.
Avoid prologues.
Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.

Go check out the rest, too.

And, now just to change the subject, all of this rain has hurt the cotton crop:

The fiber-producing plant is not getting the hot, dry and sunny weather it needs to turn the bolls into blooms. If the bolls don’t bloom before the first fall frost or freeze, the cotton won’t be harvestable, farmers and agricultural specialists said.

By and large the rainy season has helped the corn. I thought about that today while I was getting hammered by rain and pedaling around corn fields:

This was about the only time it wasn’t raining, for 34 miles mind you, and it was clearly coming on. And then came the lightning. I’m starting to add miles back in to my rides and this was my reward. Roads I’ve seldom, if ever, been on and one of the stronger storms I’ve ever enjoyed.

Two hours in the gloomy, escaping light and thunder and rain. How was your day?

adventures / errands / I do not know what is happening. / movies / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
13
Aug 13

The kind of day

Had lunch at the vegetable place, which is easier than typing Crepe Myrtle Cafe, because I often misspell it.

I order the The Markets Roasted Veggie with Bulger Creek Farm Goat Cheese, because goat cheese makes everything better. You can’t even taste the balsamic, and you forget your eating grilled veggies out of a defective pancake.

And then I realized that I inherited my grandmother’s taste buds. This blueberry was bitterly sour. That blueberry was terribly sweet. As soon as I make this story more interesting I’ll have to call and tell her about it.

While we were eating we received a call. There was something we could do right then, if we could arrive at the place right now. Well. We’re just a bit away and can be there in 10 minutes. And so we were. Walked right in and took care of the appointment. It was that kind of day.

Visited the giant box store and picked up cards and box store things. The only problem was the woman who was about 55 and 4-foot-5 with six children with her. They blocked the aisle I really needed, but only for a moment. And then they disappeared in that way that means you won’t see them on the next aisle over — whatever that means. It was that kind of day, too.

Self check out, then, with no one in front of me, which meant I couldn’t make the joke about how people should be certified by the state to use those things. And the machine worked perfectly for a change. The disinterested self checkout herder could stay that way. Beep, beep, beep and we were done. Such a lovely day.

Forgot to buy a brake light for the car, but that was pretty much the extent of the day’s difficulties.

Back home and read and wrote and should have done more. We went out just before dark to run. I got in 5K and finished just at the point of darkness where I could see a silhouette without knowing who I was seeing. My run was not great, but none of them are. This one had its moments, though, where I stopped counting footfalls and exhausted breaths and just kept moving. My splits are still very poor.

Got home, cleaned up, had leftovers — a vegetarian pasta dish which makes six meals in a row with no meat. That can’t last forever.

Watched Men in Black 3, and became convinced that Josh Brolin can become anyone if you give him enough screen time. I was relieved when the kid, at the end, turned out not to be Jaden Smith. You just knew it would be. And IMDb says it almost was. The database says there is a MiB 4 in the works.

Here are all the problems with the third one. They were plentiful:

Kind of makes you not want to see a fourth one made, but then you can say that of most any series, now can’t you?

And, now, cuddling with the cat, who doesn’t even seem to mind so much that she went to the vet today. She doesn’t know she has to go back next week, though. And everyone is impressed by how young she behaves. We’re just fortunate all the way around, then. It was that kind of day.