I’ve been saying for some time now that I want an aerial drone. You can chip in for a nice one for me and I’ll think of you every time I fly it and edit amazing (to me) videos.
If that’s too expensive, I’d understand. You can always train an eagle and strap a camera on its back. I’d take that:
I never get tired of these crowd-funding stories. This one is about a woman in Texas who is fighting stage four lymphoma. Her family asked for help getting a good place to tailgate before a Texas A&M game. Someone picked up that idea and ran with it. And then Aggies from all over the world, people who didn’t know each other, did something amazing. The video is a bit long, but it is worth it:
Last night the student-journalists at The Samford Crimson wrapped things up at about 3 a.m., a two hour improvement from last week.
At their critique meeting this evening I bragged on them — they’re doing a really good job at such an early point in their newspaper — and told them we were already down to picking on a lot of little things. Soon we’ll be on to the tough love, and challenging each other to go from good to great.
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.
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?
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.
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.”
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.
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.
Monday / photo / Samford / video — Comments Off on Defective isn’t the first word I’d use 16 Sep 13
So I’m just driving to campus today and there’s a loud bang and a big yanking shudder to the left and all of the rocking of the car that comes with that and the fluttering out the back of part of my tire.
Or all of it.
There was a minivan just almost in my blindspot in the next lane and, fortunately, the entire tread of the tire managed to not hit them. Inside the minivan was a guy who does tires for a living. (It is true what they say in the South. Someone will be along directly to help you. Don’t get in their way. They live for this.)
So I pull things out of the truck to pull out the spare. I dig out the jack. Without a word he pulls that piece of junk off the car and puts the extra in place. I have changed more than a few tires in my life, but I was glad he was there to help put the old one in the trunk so I didn’t have to pick up something heavy after just having therapy and ice on my shoulder.
It was, he observed wryly, defective. And Goodrich has warranties. The tire isn’t that old, after all.
Here is a still shot, so you can admire the damage in detail.
That’s at the place where I got a new tire, where one guy said he’d never had a job like this. And another guy said “God was riding witchou.”
The weird thing is, aside from the bang and flop and jerk of the car was that as soon as that was over the ride was perfect. Of course I immediately slowed, changed lanes and stopped on the shoulder of the freeway. You drive with a tire like that and all deities major or minor will find they have other plans.
There is no tread anywhere on the tire, save that one little thumb-sized piece in the bottom left corner.
But, hey! I got a discount on the new tire. It seems this one had failed. And become defective.
In class we discussed the basic news story and I sent the students on their way to get quotes and write some brief copy. Exciting times in the classroom, to be sure. Afterward I spent the evening counting all of the stars, lucky and unlucky.
The day started with physical rehabilitation where my trainer put me on a device borrowed directly from the Spanish Inquisition, which allows us one of the few still-good Python bits.
Mostly, I think, because it doesn’t spend the entire scene deconstructing the British culture. (Which they did.)
My torture device wasn’t designed for torture, but it had the look. (“Oh. The one in the corner?”) It did involve knobs and slats and springs and straps and rack and pinion steering. It was a modular device that, one presumes, does many things. For me it meant being on my stomach, reaching above to grab leather straps, pulling down, arching back and so on. It was yet another set of muscle groups I didn’t know I was supposed to have.
It occurs to me that much of physical therapy, set to music, could be a post-modern expressionist dance.
I’m actually doing some of these things. Maybe we’ve been missing the point all along.
Check your tires, drive safely and have a great day.
Auburn started the day at 2-0 and was set to welcome conference foe Mississippi State in their SEC opener. It was to be a dramatic game. Before we get to that, here are some of the fans, which is what you’re really here for:
Freshman Elijah Daniel almost gets home to shut down Dak Prescott who was pretty much having his way all over the field. He threw for 213 yards and ran for 134, including a long of 47. Also he registered two touchdowns. The guy was pretty good.
Robenson Therezie, 27, had three tackles and three assists.
But after all that, it got tense.
Auburn was down 17-20. Their defensive back turned QB lead Auburn out to start their last drive at their own 12 yard line with 1:50 on the clock. Marshall had already had a day. He turned a dropped snap into a 77-yard touchdown pass and later caught a deflected pass himself and turned that into a 37-yard reception.
Nick Marshall kept the ball on the first snap and then without a care in the world threw three straight passes to Marcus Davis to get out to the 47 yard line. Jaylon Denson caught a pass to move things down to State’s 37 and that got the crowd thinking about the possibility of a field goal.
The next four plays were two rushes by Marshall and two incomplete passes. No one was thinking about field goals when Tre Mason carried from the 14 to the 11. Auburn took a timeout with :15 on the clock.
And then Marshall called for the snap and looked to his right, where C.J. Uzomah worked a double move toward the corner. It all looked like this:
Those last few aren’t perfectly crisp. I was 75 yards away and in the upper deck. But the Tigers win 24-20 to start their season perfect before going on the road next week to LSU.
The nice people at Verge Pipe Media asked me to visit with them today to talk about storytelling and multimedia tools. I had a nice time. I hope they did.
I’d built an entire slideshow presentation, complete with silly and memorable clip art. Didn’t use it. Did talk about finding the real story in the story and the value of knowing which tool to use to tell the story. We talked about writing and, for the interns, the skill set that the job market is looking for today.
I was asked about the need for quality, which was a great topic in the slideshow that we didn’t get to. I used this example:
No video so far of tonight’s 8:30p CT bright fireball/meteor that streaked over the southern sky. Hundreds of reports from 5 states
Those two words “so far” are an important illustration of where we are. We have gone from “Oh wow, there’s video!?” to “Of course there’s video” in just a few years.
I used my wild west metaphor. I used the industry standards example. I was able to quote author Rick Atkinson’s great analytical line about “a great sorting out.” (Only he was discussing World War II in North Africa.) That let me suggest that we are in, or are approaching, the end of the beginning. And to stand out, the quality now matters because the expectation is that it will exist. Most everything is documented in some way these days. “Good enough” is close to becoming outmoded. How we tell stories now makes all the difference.
The owner gave me some very nice compliments.
Great day @VergePipe_Media started with @kennysmith speaking to the team. Made me miss Lewis Grizzard. That's the best compliment I have.
Physical therapy after that. The therapist got almost all of the problems out of the right shoulder, which were really about my neck. We did the suddenly familiar exercises for the left side to deal with the actual and persistent problem.
You know how the Internet has given us the movie re-cut art form? We can close the genre:
