Tuesday

food / I do not know what is happening. / photo / running / Samford / swimming / Tuesday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on This isn’t Ham-let, and I bacon your pardon
24
Mar 15

This isn’t Ham-let, and I bacon your pardon

I swam 2,700 yards today. That may be more than I’ve ever swam before. It didn’t even seem hard. It felt like everything slowed down, my breathing was better. My arms were better, maybe my technique was a tiny bit better. Also, I think I better understand the purpose of a pull buoy. Funny how that works, using something to find out it works. In the last two hundred yards I got weary, but I’d swam almost a mile-and-a-half by then.

So then I went for a three-mile run.

I do not know what is happening.

The company running the dining on campus is undertaking some renovation. This was a significant part of their successful bid to take on the food service, which has met with some criticism and hardware in food. There has been under-cleaned silverware:

A lack of silverware:

Some packaging issues:

Plenty of oil:

Undercooked chicken (I’ve also enjoyed this):

And underplucked chicken:

So they’re fighting an uphill battle. But the renovations — which took a lot of criticism for delays in the fall — now feature a walled off area. The purpose is to create a dirty room for the renovation that won’t contaminate the undercooked food and dirty dishes. Now, though, the students are railing against The Wall.

Behind that wall:

construction

There was a great walls of Jericho reference online already this week and this room was only erected two weeks ago.

I’ve spent some time with the food service people and I can sympathize with their lot. They are, of course, central to campus life. And when there is a difficulty, or a series of them, the impact is widely felt and difficult to overcome. But maybe the new renovations, slated to be done by June, maybe that’ll help. Of course clean dishes and better-prepared food would too.

The weird thing is that a lot of the faces on the front side of the cafeteria are familiar, holdovers to the previous company. So the problem is somewhere else.

They’ll get it there. There are too many good people involved.

But, if you’ve ever wondered what undercooked green beans taste like, they aren’t good.

It was a big workout. I’m thinking a lot about food. It seems I’m back pretty quickly to that place where my body is begging for more calories. It is a two-way street, this sort of exercise.

Dinner was better. I stared at this sign and made puns.

signage

“I never sausage a thing!”

“This cowboy is bacon me crazy!”

What’s for second dinner?

links / photo / things to read / Tuesday — Comments Off on Cat ketchup
17
Mar 15

Cat ketchup

We are catching up on some very important cuddling:

Allie

After a few more days of this it may be that she has gotten her fill and moves to lounge not all over me, but perhaps merely beside me, or nearby.

Until then, however, she’s read as much of these links as I have.

Things to read … because there is no kitty literature here.

Ex-NSA director: China has hacked ‘every major corporation’ in U.S.:

McConnell’s assertion is different. It would mean that no large company can escape the massive theft of American entrepreneurial ideas.

In his speech, McConnell also said that during the final years of the Bush administration, the Chinese government employed a jaw-dropping 100,000 hackers dedicated solely to breaking into computers.

By comparison, he said the United States had that many spies — total.

McConnell listed what the Chinese are stealing: “planning information for advanced concepts, windmills, automobiles, airplanes, space ships, manufacturing design, software.”

“If they can take that, before we can take it to market – for free – and it’s unchecked for 15, 20 years, I would say that has strategic consequences for the United States,” he said.

Makes you wonder what he’s not been cleared to say out loud, doesn’t it?

Don’t worry, if the Chinese aren’t snooping enough for you, the local police may have you covered. A Police Gadget Tracks Phones? Shhh! It’s Secret:

A powerful new surveillance tool being adopted by police departments across the country comes with an unusual requirement: To buy it, law enforcement officials must sign a nondisclosure agreement preventing them from saying almost anything about the technology.

Any disclosure about the technology, which tracks cellphones and is often called StingRay, could allow criminals and terrorists to circumvent it, the F.B.I. has said in an affidavit. But the tool is adopted in such secrecy that communities are not always sure what they are buying or whether the technology could raise serious privacy concerns.

[…]

“So, just to be clear,” Joe Simitian, a county supervisor, said, “we are being asked to spend $500,000 of taxpayers’ money and $42,000 a year thereafter for a product for the name brand which we are not sure of, a product we have not seen, a demonstration we don’t have, and we have a nondisclosure requirement as a precondition. You want us to vote and spend money,” he continued, but “you can’t tell us more about it.”

Please, tell us again the one about how if you aren’t doing anything wrong you don’t have anything to worry about.

Meerkat became very popular as a live streaming platform very quickly. And so we knew this day would come as Twitter readies their new acquisition, Periscope, but did it come fast enough? Twitter Chokes Off Meerkat’s Access To Its Social Network:

Friday evening, BuzzFeed News learned from a source familiar with the matter that Twitter was taking steps to break Meerkat’s ability to access its social graph. When we tried adding other accounts, such as the BuzzFeed SF and BuzzFeed FWD Twitter accounts, we noticed lots of inconsistencies with the follower graph numbers.

A Twitter spokesperson confirmed that Meerkat had been cut off.

“We are limiting their access to Twitter’s social graph, consistent with our internal policy,” the spoeksperson said. “Their users will still be able to distribute videos on Twitter and log in with their Twitter credentials.”

This won’t totally kill Meerkat — people will still be able to use it to announce on Twitter that they are streaming — but it will seriously kneecap it.

Time will tell.

I link to this story because it is a good one. It speaks to the power of the Internet, personal networking and just good old fashioned human kindness. I also link to it for one quote, which parallels something I used to say when speaking at leadership workshops.

First off, this is a story about a reunion of a young patient given a kindness by a young nurse. His tale, discussed in the story above, is a hard one to imagine any kid going through. Her story is not that uncommon. Nurses are generally remarkable people. You can see it in that one comment, too, “I wish I would have known. I wish that I would have known more. I wish I could have done more.”

We seldom do know the impact we have on others, I’d tell young high school and college leaders. And even if we do find out, it is usually well after the fact. But what you do, what you say, how we all act, means something to someone. That’s just one of those stories that reminds us of the truism.

Sometimes the headline in no way captures the story. This is one of those times: Chris Koch to speak in Auburn in April.

Got 15 minutes? Here’s a guide. How I Got 6.2 Million Pageviews and 144,920 Followers

baseball / I do not know what is happening. / memories / music / running / Samford / swimming / Tuesday / video / Vine — Comments Off on You’re here for the music, I don’t blame you
10
Mar 15

You’re here for the music, I don’t blame you

This evening I did a 1,800 yard swim, toweled off and then had a 5K run. Finished at 75 percent target heart rate. The swim was about at my normal slow and sloppy pace and style. The run was probably at the lower end of my pace. But that’s a brick to start the season of exercise, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m feeling pretty good after, too.

You know, there’s a time when you don’t think about doing those sorts of things. And it doesn’t take all that long to look at those numbers and think to yourself, “That’s all you did?”

The mind is a weird place, is what I’m saying. I do not know what is happening.

So I swam in the indoor pool, naturally. I had the far left lane all to myself, hitting neither the wall or the room any at all. I did these in 50 yard increments, because I’m still trying to find some form of breathing that works. And having completed the mile I staggered out of the pool, into my flip flops, up the stairs, into the locker room, into some dry clothes and my running shoes and then out and over to one of the old gyms on campus. The gym was closed for a boy’s lacrosse practice, but the track above it was open, and I jogged and sprinted along on that, listening to the sounds of my footfalls and wondering just how long that track has been in place. This is what it looks like from underneath it.

underneath

And so to the parents that were there, sitting on the bench, watching their sons play lacrosse and listening to me trample 15 feet above you and wondering “Is this going to be the lap? Will this be the time? Are all of my affairs really in order?” I apologize. But you should have seen me in the pool.

I have this mental image that my swim looks really good for about 1,000 yards. Really it probably only looks really good for 15 yards, which is most of the push off the wall and that first stroke. But I can really make a nice streamline shape, boy, and I’m proud of that.

I got through some portion of the run by wondering what I would have for dinner. I can just look at a body of water and my appetite gets out of control, so, to have actually burned some calories, this could be a real meal. But I didn’t want this, and that would never seem filling and … for some reason there were two big burritos wrapped up and sitting on the floor of the track. So I somehow talked myself into Moe’s, because I guess I was getting hungry by then. Moe’s, I said aloud tonight, making it real, seems like a better idea in theory than in execution.

Please remind me of that as necessary. But, at Moe’s, there was this:

So now it is back to the newsroom, where the award-winning staff of The Samford Crimson is working on what will surely be another fine edition of their august publication. They’re celebrating their 100th anniversary this spring, ya know. We should have a party.

Things to read … because reading is always a party.

This one doesn’t surprise anyone, but it is nice to see: Huntsville ranked among top cities for STEM jobs

Turns out there is going to be a lot of stuff going in this summer: Redevelopment of Toomer’s Corner set to start after A-Day.

This is written in a sports talk context, but you get the sense that the anecdote might carry over to other programming: Is Sports Radio Ready For Its Future?:

Two discussions in particular stuck with me and have had my mind racing for the past few days. First, I was in Dallas for the Radio Ink Sports Conference and during my time there I had the chance to moderate a panel which focused on the mind of millennial listeners. I was on stage with three college students. Two were 21-years old and the other was 26.

Over the course of 45 minutes, I hit all three students with a barrage of questions on their perceptions and interest in sports radio and I along with the rest of the room learned that they live in a different world where content is only king if it can be consumed quickly. If it requires sifting through your podcast to find it, waiting through a commercial break or needing to wait for a host to finish rambling off-topic, they’re gone. Even the big name guest means little if it doesn’t include a hook worth sticking around for.

And that whole essay is a pretty nice read.

They got that right. Rickwood Field ranked among best baseball destinations

RIckwood

Really, I just mention that to dust off this Rickwood piece I did some years back. The oldest continually operational baseball park in America, in 20 minutes:

The place is 105 this year. This is a painstakingly recreated manual scoreboard you’ll see in the outfield:

RIckwood

And, over on Facebook, I’ve started The Best Single of the Last 45 Years game. So far there are eight great choices, including mine, which I heard tonight, and whose intro inspired the entire thing:

If you can’t get in a good mood with those horns the very reverend Al Green is right behind them, ready to work everything out.

He’s still doing it, too.

Yep, that’s all you want.

I do not know what is happening. / links / Samford / swimming / things to read / Tuesday — Comments Off on Remembering to breathe
3
Mar 15

Remembering to breathe

Here’s a fine feature I found will skimming through some archives in an office filing cabinet. Unfortunately the web isn’t so helpful in finding Shorty Harrison or his wife.

Crimson88

The reporter works in academia. The photographer is with a modeling agency in Florida. People doing the real work on campus, I always tell young writers, always offer the best, and usually overlooked, stories on campus.

Got a swim in this evening, the first in far too long. So I guess it is back to training then, which is where I’ve been having the problem of late: starting.

I got in 1,350 yards, which is little more than a trifle, but it was my first swim in a while. About 1,200 in my shoulders complained, “Enough.” Also, I figured out that I don’t actually breathe in the breathing part of my freestyle stroke. There’s a swimming coach that works at the pool, but he’s teaching kids to be competitive swimmers, not me. We talk now and then and I’ve complained about my arms filling up with lactic acid. He has told me a few times I’m not breathing right. Either that’s an observation or just the obvious conclusion. He hasn’t told me how to fix it. Maybe because he’s not my coach. Or maybe because it should be obvious. It makes sense though, I tend to hold my breath when I concentrate or in exercise.

If I can get that fixed, I chuckled to myself, I could progress from being a sadly incompetent swimmer to a merely bad one.

Things to read … because reading always makes us better.

This would be huge on the farm, With Google Glass app developed at UCLA, scientists can analyze plants’ health in seconds:

Scientists from UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute have developed a Google Glass app that, when paired with a handheld device, enables the wearer to quickly analyze the health of a plant without damaging it.

The app analyzes the concentration of chlorophyll — the substance in plants responsible for converting sunlight into energy. Reduced chlorophyll production in plants can indicate degradation of water, soil or air quality.

Social media use of student athletes: 2015 survey results:

Over the last few weeks we’ve been compiling data on our third annual survey looking at the social media use of collegiate student-athletes (can see the results from our 2013 survey here and 2014 here). This isn’t a perfect science but it does allow us a good look into how college athletes use social media. This helps us be more effective in our social media education and training sessions, and also provides valuable insight as we help athletics departments craft social media strategies.

This year we had nearly 1000 student-athletes participate.

An unfortunate tale out of Oregon, Raped on Campus? Don’t Trust Your College to Do the Right Thing.

This doesn’t apply to me, yet. Training for Triathlons at an Older Age.

I’m going to say “No,” while waiting for the courts to say “Of course.” You’ll notice in the story this isn’t about you, the client, but rather the proprietor. Should Hotel Owners Be Forced To Hand Over Guest Records To Police?:

At issue was a Los Angeles ordinance that requires hotel and motel owners to record various pieces of information about their guests — drivers license, credit card and automobile tags, for instance. The hotel owners don’t dispute they have to do that; what they do dispute is the part of the law that requires proprietors to make this information available to any member of the Los Angeles Police Department upon demand.

The city contends the law is a necessary and important tool for fighting prostitution, drug trafficking and other crimes. The hotel and motel owners, some of them mom and pop operations, contend they are harassed by police, who sometimes show up for inspections of their records in the middle of the night. They contend that police should at least have a subpoena in hand, allowing the proprietors to challenge the inspection in court if they think they are being harassed.

You could make tea party jokes, but I suppose you’d have to deal with various interest groups and obtain an EPA release. There’s no limit to the jokes, really, but this is serious. Obama “Very Interested” In Raising Taxes Through Executive Action:

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirmed Monday that President Obama is “very interested” in the idea of raising taxes through unilateral executive action.

“The president certainly has not indicated any reticence in using his executive authority to try and advance an agenda that benefits middle class Americans,” Earnest said in response to a question about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling on Obama to raise more than $100 billion in taxes through IRS executive action.

“Now I don’t want to leave you with the impression that there is some imminent announcement, there is not, at least that I know of,” Earnest continued. “But the president has asked his team to examine the array of executive authorities that are available to him to try to make progress on his goals. So I am not in a position to talk in any detail at this point, but the president is very interested in this avenue generally,” Earnest finished.

Here at home, some things never change.

Alabama Supreme Court orders halt to same-sex marriages

Gov. Robert Bentley on state budget problems: ‘We cannot cut our way out of this’

This is a really neat, unsurprising and seldom told type of sports story. Beauty of sport: Texas A&M’s compassionate act in Auburn’s time of need:

On Saturday morning, former NBA forward Anthony Mason, father of Auburn guard Antoine Mason, died in Manhattan following complications from an earlier heart attack. Antoine already was with his loved ones, but Auburn rightfully felt compelled to somehow honor the Mason family in a game nationally televised on the SEC Network (or even if it wasn’t).

Problem was, Auburn already was in College Station, and the Tigers’ jerseys were laid out in the Reed Arena visitors locker room, hours before a 7:30 p.m. tip against the Aggies. That’s when Auburn head equipment manager Dana Marquez reached out from Auburn to his friend and counterpart at A&M, Matt Watson.

Watson has served as A&M’s head equipment manager since 2000, but is only 43 – a testament to how diligent and good he is at his gig. This is one more example. Watson received the call from Marquez at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, only four hours prior to tip.

Marquez asked if the Aggies could do anything at all to help the Tigers honor Mason. The result was an example of the oft-untold good in sports.

“It was the right thing to do,” Watson said. “Life happens, and it doesn’t always happen in a timely manner.”

And time was of the essence.

From the depths of history, and the deep of the Pacific, Microsoft co-founder says he’s discovered long-lost Japanese battleship:

Paul Allen says he has found the wreck of a long-lost World War II Japanese battleship near the Philippines.

The philanthropist posted images on Twitter that appeared to show the Musashi, once one of the two largest warships in the world. The discovery was made aboard his superyacht, the MY Octopus, as part of an expedition that Allen launched.

The search has taken Allen and his team of researchers more than eight years.

The images and video were taken by an unmanned submersible deployed from the vessel.

It is simultaneously amazing that we are capable of making discoveries like this and surprising that it often takes so long to make discoveries like this.

history / journalism / links / photo / Samford / things to read / Tuesday — Comments Off on The first weather day
24
Feb 15

The first weather day

Campus opened late today because of concern about the roads. The forecast called for ice, but I never did hear of anyone having any problems. So, perhaps, opening at 10 a.m. was the right thing. Or perhaps we all benefitted from an over-abundance of caution. Either way, that was a big part of the morning.

In the afternoon, in my never-ending effort to get more things out of my office, I ran across this old clip Crimson from 1988:

Crimson88

McClure coached seven academic All-Americans and won a conference title at Samford. Throughout his career he coached a remarkable 145 All-Americans. He produced three Olympians. His athletes held world records in eight events. He was an assistant coach in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. You can’t find a track and field or regional sports hall of fame that hasn’t inducted him. Previously, I’d discovered this photo of the “reserved gentleman,” Bill McClure among the hundreds of files I’ve inherited over the years:

mcclure

He retired in 1996 after a 46-year sports career, the last 10 years at Samford. Before he picked up a whistle he was a Marine in World War II. He’d worked at Abilene Christian (63 All-American), South Carolina. LSU (34 All-Americans) and was the associate athletic director at Samford. He died in 2008 and was survived by five children.

Maybe they should name something after him.

Paper tonight, classes canceled tomorrow. So they’re reworking the front page and dreaming up contingencies for weather coverage. It has made for a long day, despite the late start.

Things to read … because the clock never stops.

We found the real Ron Swanson, and he’s just like the one on TV:

(T)rue fans know the loss that will hurt the most: Ron Swanson.

Ron Swanson, our freedom-loving, meat-eating, mustache-rocking man’s man. He’s our instructor of how to live on your own terms while remaining fiercely loyal to your people — characteristics we’d want in any man, especially our fathers and bosses. We’ll be lost without his rants, his wisdom, his giggle. Is there anyone who can replace him?

Well, there is a real Ron Swanson who lives in Indiana.

The guy doesn’t even watch the show. Also, remember how Ron Swanson was initially supposed to be a joke? Funny how that works out.

Twitter’s Dilemma:

At times (quite a bit) the way that Twitter has chosen to roll out features and products has felt schizophrenic. And that’s no wonder, really, as the company now serves two masters. Its users and its shareholders. And while those interests may sometimes align, there is no question which is the more important to please for a public company.

This has led to rocky times when it comes to external, and even internal, perceptions of Twitter’s directional confidence.

[…]

Recent product decisions appear to be displaying more thoughtfulness about how to balance Twitter’s Dilemma. It remains to be seen whether the market will bear that, or if there is a way to truly find an equilibrium there. But there are some pleasant signs. We’ll see if the messaging products really do get the attention that Weil says they are, and whether video and onboarding continue to get polished.

There is a great deal of thought and insight in that piece. The big takeaway is that there are a lot of moving parts in play. The second takeaway is that Twitter might try to become all things to all people. And you know what happens when you do that.

From Internet to Obamanet:

Critics of President Obama’s “net neutrality” plan call it ObamaCare for the Internet.

That’s unfair to ObamaCare.

Both ObamaCare and “Obamanet” submit huge industries to complex regulations. Their supporters say the new rules had to be passed before anyone could read them. But at least ObamaCare claimed it would solve long-standing problems. Obamanet promises to fix an Internet that isn’t broken.

The permissionless Internet, which allows anyone to introduce a website, app or device without government review, ends this week.

And we’re going to miss it when it is gone.

Lawmaker with lavish decor billed private planes, concerts:

Illinois Rep. Aaron Schock, a rising Republican star already facing an ethics inquiry, has spent taxpayer and campaign funds on flights aboard private planes owned by some of his key donors, The Associated Press has found. There also have been other expensive travel and entertainment charges, including for a massage company and music concerts.

The expenses highlight the relationships that lawmakers sometimes have with donors who fund their political ambitions, an unwelcome message for a congressman billed as a fresh face of the GOP. The AP identified at least one dozen flights worth more than $40,000 on donors’ planes since mid-2011.

The AP tracked Schock’s reliance on the aircraft partly through the congressman’s penchant for uploading pictures and videos of himself to his Instagram account. The AP extracted location data associated with each image then correlated it with flight records showing airport stopovers and expenses later billed for air travel against Schock’s office and campaign records.

Reporters are watching politicians’ EXIF metadata. That’s brilliant.

Later in the story we learn that Schock is a 30something legislator that refers to people as “haters.”

Thank you, modern society.

Journalism links:

What can you do with a GoPro?
Snapchat stories: Here’s how 6 news orgs are thinking about the chat app
News Outlets Are Using This Site to Find Photos and Video on Social Media

Tomorrow: a snow day! But will we get snow?

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