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I do not know what is happening. / links / running / Samford / things to read / Thursday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on There are two videos, and people move fast
4
Sep 14

There are two videos, and people move fast

Let us go ahead and get this out of the way right at the beginning. This is the best video of the day. It is almost two years old and, until you watch it you won’t have any idea why a father refusing to walk his daughter down the aisle is the theme behind the best video of the day:

“What else after that?” Indeed. I could watch that over and over. I’ve watched it about four times. Isn’t she a beautiful little thing? Now all we need is a followup video in about 20 years or so.

I ran today, but it was an abbreviated run. Just a couple of miles and then I had the general feeling of nausea and sickness. So I called it a morning. I was right; it was a morning.

Things to read … because that’s useful, no matter what time of day it is.

There is both a static and an interactive version to this map. I wonder why. Map: The counties that have received the most undocumented immigrant children

Naturally. H&R Block CEO says Obamacare to add ‘significant complexity’ to tax season

I remain unsurprised. Inspector general: Homeland Security spent millions on underused vehicles

Sure, this is about the largest animal ever discovered, but they buried the lead: we can play with the bones! Newly discovered dinosaur, Dreadnoughtus, takes title of largest terrestrial animal

I wonder if it is an algorithm that Twitter uses to send me the dated emails I get every so often. Algorithms Are Invading Your Twitter Stream, And Resistance Is Futile … Don’t get me wrong, algorithms are good things on the whole, but I’ve carefully curated my Twitter stream to serve my needs and interests. It is very human and practical and effective. I don’t want your continual move toward Twitter in Facebook. Just allow me to keep the regular version, and thank you. I am afraid, however, that if this gets out of hand this becomes a goodbye for a lot of users.

This, this is awesome. Researchers send brain-to-brain message from India to France:

“We wanted to find out if one could communicate directly between two people by reading out the brain activity from one person and injecting brain activity into the second person, and do so across great physical distances by leveraging existing communication pathways.”

The information sent were the words “hola” and “ciao” in binary. Four people participated in the study: one person in India sent the information, and the other three people in France received it.

Age is just one more number for U.Va. stat trackers:

At 104, Risher does not take a backseat to many in matters of seniority. He saw his first Virginia game in 1920 and played for the Cavaliers during the 1931 season, making him the school’s oldest football alumnus.

With “only” 51 seasons under his belt, however, he’s not the senior man on the crew.

“Paul’s the workhorse,” Risher said. “He puts all the data together.”

Wisman began keeping stats at VMI games in 1950 while teaching economics at the school. He came to Virginia for graduate school and hooked on with the stats crew in ’56.

He’s missed one home game since: the 2011 season opener.

And, finally, I produced this Hyperlapse video today of the organization fair Samford had. No one has seen it — thanks to absolutely no retweets or other social media shares, thanks all! — so you can be the first:

Should be a fun tool.

cycling / family / food / history / iPhone / journalism / links / photo / things to read / Twitter / Wednesday — 1 Comment
13
Aug 14

A 60 year-old ad, a new sign, a race and food

Last night’s adventures in insomnia included this guy.

Jim

That’s my great-great grandfather, Jim. He was born in the winter of 1871, a year when the crops didn’t come in and the cotton caterpillars ravaged what was there. Jim married Sarah in 1904 and and they lived on a farm that her grandfather bought in 1854. They had 11 children. He died in 1953, his wife in 1970. So while I don’t know them, I did meet one of their kid’s, my great-grandfather. But I don’t remember him. My grandmother remembers her grandparents well, but I don’t know much more than what you find in this paragraph beyond where he’s buried. I do like that bicycle, though. So I found some old newspapers online and I’m looking for mentions, but turn up nothing.

I did find this, though:

In 1953 the church ads told you what the evening’s sermon was going to be about. This one wasn’t about Old Hickory Bourbon, or temperance. The topic was “A Methodist sermon by a Baptist preacher.” A different church had an ad in the next day’s paper, the preacher had promised to answer the question of a generation, “Should a woman wear a hat to church?”

The pressing stuff of their time.

I guess that branch of my family didn’t believe in obituaries, or care for the local paper. I don’t find a mention of him there. Otherwise, he must have been the quiet type. You don’t get in the paper until you do something wrong or something bad happens. Maybe that’s a good sign for the couple.

On my bike ride today, something of a casual ride around the greater neighborhood just to get in a few miles, I passed one of the better church signs I know. They’ve got personality here, as noted by most any previous message, one of the best in recent memory suggesting that you bring your sin and “drop it like it’s hot.”

This week’s note:

sign

It is a quiet little church, a lovely little place:

church

I also learned during this ride that I was on one of the local segments that the cycling apps chart as races. Without knowing it, I currently have the eighth fastest time on it for the year. I’ll have to try it again tomorrow to see if I can go any faster.

For dinner, we grilled pork chops and had beans which we discovered a few weeks ago:

dinner

I said to the lady that made them, a family friend, “You must give me your recipe or — ” which was the moment a look of embarrassment crossed her face. ” — or tell me what brand they are, because they are just about the best beans I’ve ever had.”

And they were. And they are. Also, they are from a can — Margaret Holmes. We discovered we didn’t necessarily need the lard — which is fine. The lady that made them, she’s a retired school teacher. She told me that her father, a man I knew a bit, was so old-fashioned the type that would not allow anything in his home that involved shortcuts. In this case that meant no canned foods. He made an exception for Margaret Holmes.

That’s an endorsement.

Things to read … because there’s probably something worth endorsing in here somewhere.

First, the journalism stuff:

How digital retailing could roil local media

Solving the Journalism Riddle — Somehow

Radio Disney Moving Off Air to Digital

If Disney is making that move …

Closer to home, 108 immigrant children relocated to Alabama in last 3 weeks:

Included among the children are those from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who have crossed into the U.S. as part of a massive wave of immigration that has set off a humanitarian crisis and political firestorm.

The data does not include information on where the children were placed or whether they are residing with family members or foster care. The children will remain with the sponsors until a judge orders they be deported; until they turn 18 and are transferred back to DHS; or they are given permission to stay by immigrantion courts.

Finally, Ferguson:

iPhone / journalism / links / Monday / things to read / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Nanu nanu
11
Aug 14

Nanu nanu

“Robin Williams can be yours for a mere $1.99.”

One of his first credits was Laugh-In, 1977. This was how America met him:

That’s a collection of clips from the re-launched Laugh-In. No one really knew who he was, but he quickly became the standout performer.

Mork & Mindy, though, was where he began to show his real spirit:

Then you consider his filmography. They aren’t all classics, but they make an impressive, impressive body of work. (At one point tonight, eight of the nine trending items on Twitter were related to his filmography.) And, to think, there was a time when people thought he couldn’t do dramatic works.

Things to read … that can be dramatic or sublime.

I could just begin and end with #AskJameis.

Someone in Tallahassee thought this was a good idea. No one in Tallahassee was able to change their mind.

And now for some links on journalism topics:

Times-Picayune returns to five print days (for now)

Another day at Local 10, another act of stupidity

Publishers try crazy idea: fewer ads, higher pricing

BuzzFeed Raises $50 Million for Expansion, Motion Picture Division

50 Million New Reasons BuzzFeed Wants to Take Its Content Far Beyond Lists

White House provides non-response, response to letter opposing excessive PIO controls (Where has SPJ been?)

Despite generous-sounding records law, public documents often hard to get in Alabama

How Dan Snyder Bought Off The D.C. Media

Let’s talk about that one. No one in D.C. seems to like Dan Snyder. Maybe it is mutual. If he couldn’t shut them down he’s taken plenty of steps to slowly things over. He’s been so successful that the owner of the NFL franchise has become the gatekeeper about the NFL franchise.

This is opportunistic and brilliant, from his point of view. In any other context, it would be reckless. (But this is football! What could go wrong?) It is the logical extension of brand journalism, native advertising, marketing and going around the media to talk to your audiences. Those of us in the particular audience will have to trust that the content is being created and distributed in good faith. (Some will be better than others.) And we’ll get to point out when we think it isn’t. (Some will be better than others.) It all makes for some interesting credibility issues.

What Happened to the Cord Cutters?:

Netflix, YouTube, Apple TV and the Internet at large are supposed to kill off pay TV … someday. But right now, pay TV seems like it is doing okay: Cord-cutting, which was supposed to accelerate with help from tech disrupters, looks like it may be slowing down.

New data from analysts MoffettNathanson shows that the pay-TV business lost about 300,000 subscribers in Q2. But that’s basically flat compared to a year ago, and that’s a change from the year-on-year declines of the previous few quarters.

I heard this same stance from several newspaper executives in the last 15 years. “We’re slowing down less!”

As for the answer to the question offered in the title: the early adopters have all done it. Others will come, in slower waves. Finally, the rest of us will go when there are answers for the programming that is important to them, like sports.

Quick reads:

The creator of Godwin’s Law on the inevitability of online Nazi analogies and the ‘right to be forgotten’

Remember The Titans Is A Lie, And This Man Still Wants You To Know It

American startup rates are declining: Brookings Institution study

Grand National to host PGA Tour event in July

Finally, my favorite video of the day:

cycling / family / Friday / history / I do not know what is happening. / iPhone / journalism / links / memories / photo / running / things to read / Tumblr / Twitter — Comments Off on Scene chewing
11
Jul 14

Scene chewing

Today I changed a doorknob. Four screws out, the new hardware in place and four more screws to install it.

road

I was listening to Pandora at the time. It took less than two songs, and that was because one of the screws was stripped.

But that wasn’t even the height of my industriousness today. I also built one of those shoe racks that you hang over a closet door and immediately regret having purchased! There’s just no end to my usefulness, it seems.

The door knob was on one of the houses that my great-grandfather built, let’s say, 60 years ago.

Here he is, the older gentleman:

WK

He built three on some of his property for rental income. They’ve all stayed in the family over the years. A few years ago I sanded down door frames in one of the houses and went through all those decades of paint. It was a smooth glimpse of archeology.

WK

At the time I wrote:

And suddenly I’ve found myself kneeling in the dust of the place, sanding smooth at least six layers of paint, peeling away the canvas of perhaps a dozen lives or more, letting that old lumber breathe again for the first time since the Eisenhower administration.

Sometimes I overwrite.

I walked around the side of that little rental and saw this, and wondered much the same thing as I did about the paint: Did he hang this?

hinge

That’s a small question that’ll never be answered. Who would remember? Who is left to know? Who would pay attention to the details of when a screen door went in? And is that the original, or something put up during the Reagan years?

I noodled up and down the road for five miles and then jogged one, the last effort before the Sunday race. We’ll see how much I come to regret that.

Usually, by this time, I am very much aware of how unprepared I am for the thing. This time I am choosing to not consciously acknowledge how unprepared I am.

Because, you know, I am.

Played with my grandparents’ dog:

road

She’s a smart one.

Things to read … so you can be smart, too.

There’s a super moon tomorrow night. Pretty large tonight, too.

US GIVEN HEADS UP ABOUT NEWSPAPER DATA DESTRUCTION:

In a statement to the AP, the Guardian said it was disappointed to learn that “cross-Atlantic conversations were taking place at the very highest levels of government ahead of the bizarre destruction of journalistic material that took place in the Guardian’s basement last July.”

“What’s perhaps most concerning is that the disclosure of these emails appears to contradict the White House’s comments about these events last year, when they questioned the appropriateness of the U.K. government’s intervention,” the newspaper said.

The White House said Thursday that the British government had acted on its own in destroying the Guardian drives.

Digital advertising will pass 25% of total ad spending this year:

Global spending on advertising will hit $545.4 billion this year, according to a report from eMarketer, and digital ads will make up more than a quarter of that spending.
Digital ad spending is likely to hit $140.15 billion this year, with $32.71 billion spent on ads for smartphones and tablets.
Growth in total media ad spending should be 5.7 percent this year, eMarketer said, more than twice the growth rate a year ago, which was 2.6 percent.

A properly sanitized report, from ESPN. Pete Carroll headed to Trojans HOF

And when ESPN disappoints you like that, they redeem themselves like this. Marcus Lattimore doesn’t walk alone

The Widespread Effects of Facebook’s Latest Outage:

The lesson, therefore, is a poignant one: When utilizing any third-party tags, particularly ones that have such a big effect on your end users interaction with your site, it’s imperative that you make sure the code is asynchronous with your own to prevent it from affecting your entire site’s performance.

Whoops. Anthrax investigation turns up ‘distressing’ issues at CDC

Stuff on my Tumblr: The mysteries of modern shipping, an examination of modern currency, an old Scout and an older swing.

On Twitter:

Leonard Nimoy had just stolen all of William Shatner’s scene chewing.

I made fun of the Horta episode, with plenty of photos. Check it out.

cycling / friends / history / links / Monday / things to read / Twitter — Comments Off on Monday titles always suffer
30
Jun 14

Monday titles always suffer

In the middle or late part of the evening yesterday we decided we’d run a brick, which is a workout where you combine two of the three elements of a triathlon. We decided to ride for an hour and then run for an hour.

So we we rode out of town as far as we could for a half hour. I went 32 minutes, which is nothing, but that got me to an intersection, a gas station and a turnaround. I thought I would race myself back, beat my time and all of that. Which is about the time my knee ligaments started hurting, so I slowed it down and still almost beat myself back home.

After which we started to run. Sometimes when you run, or when I run, at least, you just don’t feel it. You have to figure out when your body is telling you something and when your body is lying to you. Today I decided that it was not a day to run. Didn’t feel it, didn’t want it, didn’t press it.

And so that was that.

We had barbecue for dinner with a friend last night, that made it all a bit better. Tonight we dined with other friends who made jerk chicken, which was even better.

Things to read … because reading makes everything better.

If you don’t pay for it, you are the product. Or the research subject. Everything We Know About Facebook’s Secret Mood Manipulation Experiment:

And on Sunday afternoon, Adam D.I. Kramer, one of the study’s authors and a Facebook employee, commented on the experiment in a public Facebook post. “And at the end of the day, the actual impact on people in the experiment was the minimal amount to statistically detect it,” he writes. “Having written and designed this experiment myself, I can tell you that our goal was never to upset anyone. […] In hindsight, the research benefits of the paper may not have justified all of this anxiety.”

Kramer adds that Facebook’s internal review practices have “come a long way” since 2012, when the experiment was run.

There is a possibility that the sorry state of scientific research funding contributes to all of this. There’s also the possibility that, at some future date, some future lawsuits over this situation are landmark things we teach in research.

There’s more on IRB, the APA ethics and the notion of informed consent at the link.

Since we are at the 100-year anniversary of the beginning of World War I, here’s a good historical read with an Alabama hook. ‘There was never a braver lad:’ Alabama’s Osmond Kelly Ingram was first US sailor killed in WWI:

Ingram, 30, was aboard the Cassin off the Irish coast on Oct. 15, 1917 when the ship was attacked by a German submarine U-61. Ingram was cleaning the muzzle of a gun after morning target practice when he spotted a torpedo on a direct course for the ship. The Cassin began evasive maneuvers which seemed to have worked until the torpedo “porpoised,” or jumped out of the water, and turned towards the Cassin, Navy historians report.

Ingram, realizing the torpedo would hit near the depth charges at the ship’s stern, ran to release them in an effort to minimize the explosion and save the vessel.

Sadly, one of the first Americans killed at sea in World War II was from Alabama. The first American killed in Afghanistan was from Alabama too. One of the first Americans killed in Iraq was from here, too.

What will change Twitter? Twitter Rolls Out App Install And Engagement Ads, And New Click Pricing, Globally:

Twitter says that in the last quarter it made about 72 percent of all its revenues (equivalent to $181 million out of total revenues of $250 million) from mobile advertising.

On top of the app install ads, Twitter will also be expanding the kinds of reporting and analytics that app publishers will get around them.

The company says that keyword targeting in the ads will follow that of its other mobile units, with publishers able to set placement based on interest, keyword, gender, geographic location, language and mobile device, among other things.

This is all very logical. This will be very useful for those advertising in Twitter, and will refine things somewhat for consumers.

There is another plan that could come to fruition, which would be less useful. I remind you of, or introduce you to, what my friend @IkePigott said earlier this year:

In their last quarter Twitter reported $250 million in revenue — and $181 million in mobile advertising. This is all very big business.

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