Wednesday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Wednesday

My family is now convinced I am a picker

Which is funny, because when I first saw American Pickers, which introduced me to that entire group of people, I immediately thought “That’s the job I should have.”

It’s like they invented it for me. You get to prowl and learn things? And there’s money to be made doing those two things?

I’m pretty sure I developed my prowling and curiosity at my grandparents’ place. So many things you didn’t see all of the time, so many things that were different than what little you knew about anything. So many things that spanned ages of time — to a child at least. A lot of stuff got kept by my grandparents — and yet my grandmother also had a clean house.

But the storage building out back … well, I spent all afternoon in there today. We spent time in there as children, probably hide-and-seek and trying to figure out the boxes and stacks of things. I’m sure some of this stuff hasn’t been touched in years, or more. And today I glanced around a few rooms, but concentrated on the books.

Here’s something that belonged to my uncle as a boy. You can buy My Name is Pablo for pennies on Amazon or a few bucks on ebay. But that cover art is great:

This is on the inside cover of the Book of Knowledge, an encyclopedia aimed at elementary and middle school students. My mom told me she would sit and read these for hours. It was one of three encyclopedia sets I found, but it obviously has the best illustrations:

This car art just jumps out:

This is the cover to another book you can buy online for pennies, Fifty Famous Americans. The dust jacket is gone, which is a shame, because it apparently featured a great Wright Brothers illustration.

That book was written in the 1940s and so, happily, there isn’t a single reality TV star listed. Here’s the inside cover:

My grandfather was a ham radio operator and owned an electronics store and was apparently a varied reader. This isn’t a book I’d ever read, but you could see he might have a reason to consult it, also, the cover is terrific:

My grandfather was so cool, he had things like this:

And this just scratches the surface. I learned a fair amount about my grandfather today, just digging through dusty stacks of wonderful old pulp. I’m glad to have the opportunity to see and hold and laugh over some of the things he read and wrote. Inside those many pages there will be plenty more to share. Clearly I’m going to have to revitalize his section of my site.

journalism / links / music / photo / Samford / things to read / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
19
Nov 14

Winter breaks, and now to spring, right?

It has been cold. We have enjoyed bitter cold. Or, perhaps, the opposite. These last few days a few places have reported wind chills at 12 degrees. Twice we’ve had weather stations reporting morning lows lower than you can find on the northern shores of the 49th state.

When it is warmer in Barrow, Alaska …

But it has all turned a bit today, when it is only chilly. It isn’t the sort of “Oh we’re used to it, and so now it is just chilly” sort of day, but rather an invigorating sort of “take it outside while there’s still warmth in the sun to enjoy” kind of chilly.

I watched a lot of it pass by from my window, as usual.

So this guy goes on Chatroulette and gets people to sing songs with him. This is very helpful since I somehow found myself in a conversation about Taylor Swift today. I was able to retort with this:

If you didn’t watch, allow me to try one more time: I’m not sure if I preferred the Spiderman-Batman interaction or the grandma making it rain.

In class today we talked about user generated content, which I can sum up in one business card-sized image for anyone interested in curation and aggregation:

The Verification Handbook, an invaluable resource, has more on the subject if you’re interested.

That’s what they don’t see …

Sometimes that song isn’t so good, no?

One of our students, who is awesome:

@kennysmith My friends asked me why they haven't seen me in 9 days. I told them the @SamfordCrimson is a lifestyle, not a hobby.

— Emily Featherston (@feathers_878) November 20, 2014

Things to read … which are also awesome.

Polygraph Critic Charged with Training People to Thwart Polygraphs:

Williams is admitting to the charges. But why is his action a crime? Polygraphs have been notoriously unreliable for decades and their results are inadmissible in court because of that. A campaign to further undermine confidence in the technology is, if anything, laudable.

Nielsen to Measure Netflix Viewing:

Even as Netflix Inc. and other streaming-video providers have expanded to reach 40% of American homes, they have largely remained black boxes. They have refused to share data on how many viewers watch TV shows on their services, and there has been little independent data.

This looks to be about licensing, but I wonder if it will account for the times I inevitably fall asleep watching while I’m streaming something.

journalism / links / things to read / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
12
Nov 14

A comet, y’all

We landed on a comet today. Sure, you and I didn’t have anything to do with it — well, I, at least, didn’t have anything to do it it — but that’s OK. Sure, it was the European Space Agency and not the Americans, but we landed on a comet. Humanity did that. We did that.

We launched something into space 10 years ago, shot it around the earth a few times, Mars and then set it off on a course to catch up to this comet, this leftover from the universe’s creation.

And then our little science experiment, having made and matched the comet’s trajectory, dropped a clothes dryer full of equipment onto it and are talking with an appliance on a comet. I wonder if GE made it.

Oh, and has anyone seen Bruce Willis or Ben Affleck lately? They could be up there, ya know.

There’s a YouTube video titled “Everything Wrong With Armageddon In 14 Minutes Or Less.”

It is more than 16 minutes long.

And, someday, an alien culture will watch Armageddon. Just think on the stuff we’ve been beaming into outer space as our earliest socio-cultural first impressions.

Things to read … because reading always leaves a good impression.

I like the modifier here. As if to suggest that no other manager, nowhere, wants his employees to represent the company in a positive way, Salty Chick-fil-A manager makes list of forbidden words:

A Chick-fil-A manager is so irritated at his staff’s use of slang that he compiled a list of terms the employees are forbidden to use. The missive has gone viral in social media.

[…]

“You will speak properly when you walk through these doors,” he wrote. “You are a professional so speak professionally.”

I’m guessing … heavy print stock and laminate? What Pizza Hut’s Radical New Menu Actually Tastes Like:

On Nov. 19, Pizza Hut will essentially relaunch its entire brand, changing the food it serves, the way its ordered and even the company logo. There are 11 new signature pizzas, six new sauces, 10 new crust flavors and four drizzles — enough options to allow for 2 billion unique pizza combinations. For the company known for trencherman staples like Stuffed Crust, Meat Lover’s and Supreme, the new menu is the fast-food equivalent of a Hail Mary pass.

“It’s a fear of irrelevance,” says Darren Tristano, a food industry analyst at Technomic. “But the potential to negatively influence their current customer base is certainly there.”

It’s a risk Pizza Hut is willing to take, though they’re hedging bets by keeping those old favorites on the menu. Sales at the nation’s largest pizza chain have been dropping for two years, as Domino’s, Little Caesars and Papa John’s—the No. 2, 3 and 4 chains, respectively—have cut into Pizza Hut’s business.

As I tell my students on a regular basis, the “why” is almost always the most interesting part of any story: FSU postpones Jameis Winston hearing until Dec. 1.

This is big. In a tumultous period of advertising and what it means to newsrooms and media outlets, this is big: Half Of Automotive Advertising To Shift To Digital.

New rules for mobile journalism:

Although mobile publishing is quickly changing the rules of journalism, newspapers have been dangerously slow to adapt.

This has got to be fixed, because digital natives like BuzzFeed, Circa, Mic, Upworthy, Vice, Vocative and Vox are competing for – and in many cases winning over – the youthful readers coveted by publishers and advertisers.

As discussed previously here, nearly half of the digital page views at many newspapers are occurring on mobile devices. But editors and publishers have been slow to recognize that mobile publishing is as different from print-to-web publishing as television is from cave drawings.

Constrained screen real estate – like the new 1.5-inch Apple Watch – isn’t the only factor influencing the development of content for mobile devices. An even bigger issue is the limited amount of time that publishers can engage with readers.

And this may be bigger. As I also like to say, the only thing that has demonstrated a growth faster that web proliferation is the mobile penetration.

I bet Philae is up on that comet right now, just waiting on something to download to its iPad.

journalism / links / memories / photo / Samford / things to read / Wednesday — Comments Off
5
Nov 14

Sigh is a 13th century word — and other noises you didn’t expect

This entire day has felt like that moment just before you release the sigh, he said, not fully knowing what that means.

Or … I could try that again.

This entire day has felt like that moment just before you release the sigh, he sighed, knowing exactly what that meant.

Each time I went outside the sky was this light, slate gray. Even the grays couldn’t be bothered to bring a full palette. Like the sky said “Ya know … forget about it.”

So it was that I found myself bending over to study the leaves on the ground, where there was some actual color. I picked up a few to bring inside for a picture, but I’m not sure why.

All of this probably sounds like I am in a mood, but I am not. Well, I am in a mood, but it can safely be categorized as “good.” I’ve just not been especially impressed by the day.

There was a class though, and there was a newspaper meeting and then some time signing things and copying things and marking up papers. Last night I solved a networking problem. One computer wouldn’t reach anything, a student said. The ethernet cable had been removed. Broken clips sink ships. Today I’m dealing with a scanner problem. Bad software helps the enemy everywhere. Technical support is not my job, but I suppose it is really all of our jobs these days, not unlike wartime security and the old propaganda posters.

I love those old posters. At the Churchill Museum in London I was confronted with an entire room of them I could purchase. My wife and her mother, who were also in the museum, knew I was a lost cause and left me there to go do something else. A friend and former boss owns the poster printing company linked above, with tons of great old art. I’ve spent a lot of time pouring through those as well. In both cases I’ve never managed to buy anything. The next one is always better. There’s that moment before the sigh again, I guess.

Anyway, I can’t make the scanner work with the new computer. I’ve downloaded the things and read all of the forums and installed, changed, rebooted and all of that. I know how to have a good time, boy. Ultimately, though, I’ll need the actual tech folks — the real heroes in any business — come and get this situated.

So I may as well go back to looking through ancient posters — here’s one with a guy in an arm cast and sling in the background with text that says “Don’t get hurt.” In the foreground there’s a GI sprawled out, dead. “It may cost his life.” What a crazy poster to have hanging in the factory —

Suddenly, there’s a big squealing sound. Not the speakers, not the phone, but the scanner, which is in between them. Unplug the scanner, the squeal goes away. Try to scan again, it still will not initialize. There will be no beaming of data this day. We’ll have to send the shuttlecraft, keptin.

This can only mean that later, or some time tomorrow, that random squeal will start again.

Things to read … because reading is never random. (You’ll see. One day.)

Now the posturing sound of people trying to tell you what it all means … Recapping the GOP’s Historic Night:

If Democrats were going to hold off a Republican tsunami, they needed their base voters to come out to the polls and pull the lever for the president’s party. That didn’t happen where Democrats needed it to. Especially with young voters. Nationally, Democratic base groups — young voters, single women, African-Americans and Latinos — posted numbers that looked more like the Democrats’ 2010 midterm “shellacking” than Obama’s 2012 re-election victory. Most strikingly, voters 18-29 nationwide were only 13% of the electorate in 2014 (compared with 22% for GOP-leaning seniors.) In the 2010 midterms, young voters made up 12% of the voting public. In contrast, during Obama’s re-election victory in 2012, 19% of the electorate was under 30.

Locally, it was an uninspired turnout. Alabama voter turnout lower than normal:

Nearly complete election results indicate that about 41 percent of Alabama’s nearly 2.9 million active registered voters participated. A gubernatorial election traditionally attracts more than half of Alabama’s voters.

Maybe if the Democrats would put someone on the statewide ballots …

What did you do freshman year? West Virginia Elects America’s Youngest State Lawmaker:

A West Virginia University freshman who did most of her campaigning out of her dorm room became the youngest state lawmaker in the nation Tuesday.

Republican Saira Blair, a fiscally conservative 18-year-old, will represent a small district in West Virginia’s eastern panhandle, about 1½ hours outside Washington, D.C., after defeating her Democratic opponent 63% to 30%, according to the Associated Press. A third candidate got 7% of the vote.

In a statement, Ms. Blair thanked her supporters and family, as well as her opponents for running a positive campaign. “History has been made tonight in West Virginia, and while I am proud of all that we have accomplished together, it is the future of this state that is now my singular focus,” she said.

Ms. Blair campaigned on a pledge to work to reduce certain taxes on businesses, and she also holds antiabortion and pro-gun positions. She defeated Democrat Layne Diehl, a 44-year-old Martinsburg attorney, whose top priorities included improving secondary education and solving the state’s drug epidemic.

Maybe I share that story with students. No pressure, folks.

CBS to Launch Digital News Channel Tomorrow:

CBS plans to launch its new digital news channel tomorrow, an effort to get the broadcast network into 24-hour news. CBS Interactive head Jim Lanzone confirmed the company’s plans for the news video site during an onstage interview with me at the Web Summit in Dublin, Ireland

If they do something different with that, they could find some success. If the plan is simply to be a 24-hour news channel online … CNN or MSNBC awaits.

And, finally, one I shared with my class today, Social media, journalism and wars: ‘Authenticity has replaced authority’:

The panel stressed that not all of the old values have been swept away. “It’s really old-fashioned: can I find it out, is it true, can I stand by it? That level of trust is really important,” said Sutcliffe. “I’ve got a story, but does it stand up, is it true, what are my sources?”

“There will be two types of parallel journalism going on – the facts on the ground from people who are there, foreign correspondents, and people like us who filter,” said Little.

Some of the filters will be the same media organisations who employ on-the-ground correspondents, though. Time, for example, has a division focused on breaking news, which is deliberately kept separate from its foreign correspondents.

“We’ve hired a bunch of very young people in New York and Hong Kong and they’re essentially aggregating as a breaking news service: when anything appears from a reliable news organisation, quickly write two or three paragraphs and get it out there,“ he said.

Every quote in that piece is worth reading. I hope the students will give it a glance. You should too.

And then let go of that sigh. Tomorrow is Thursday, and yours is going to be great.

history / iPhone / journalism / links / Samford / things to read / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
29
Oct 14

What are they doing to the salt?

Crimson folks doing Crimson things:

Those are three members of the editorial staff at their budget meeting tonight. Some others are outside of the shot, but they’re there and they’re a good group. They’ve been getting a lot of compliments, and they deserve them.

They are fun, too. It is easy to get sidetracked with them, but the diversions are worth it. Tonight we discussed the movie Face / Off — and you should see the photos from that conversation. Three or four of us know the movie and we tried to explain it to the others. This is not an easy movie to describe to people. “And then John Travolta, played by Nic Cage, who is now a bad guy … ”

So you start throwing in other actors, who weren’t even in that film, to really make it fun.

“And then Sean Connery says … ”

I saw this tonight while standing at the counter and waiting for my burger. First thought?

Seasoned with what?

The more you think about it, the You know what my salt needs? Some flavoring. But what would go well with salt just now?

And what does Nic Cage think about that? The good Nic Cage, I mean, who is really John Travolta. What if one of those guys wants unseasoned salt? What do you do when the other one says he wants salted salt? Why is my burger taking so long?

Things to read … because that never takes too long.

Great question! As journalism and documentary film converge in digital, what lessons can they share? You might see more mini-docs to address the issue of time, more partnerships from unexpected places and, at last, what I think could be the coolest job in the industry: a historist. The historian journalist, or journalist historian, is a wholly unappreciated idea.

In reality, you’ll probably see a lot more interaction. Virtual Reality will be a part of this, among other things.

Mobile payment has already hit a a security/trust issue, Apple Pay rival CurrentC just got hacked:

On Wednesday, those taking part in the CurrentC pilot program received a warning from the consortium of anti-credit-card retailers called MCX, or Merchant Consumer Exchange: The program was hacked in the last 36 hours, and criminals managed to grab the email addresses of anyone who signed up for the program.

MCX confirmed the hack, adding what’s become a go-to line for any company that loses your data: “We take the security of our users’ information extremely seriously.”

Protecting it is another thing, however.

State agency to investors: Prepare for Ebola-related scams

‘Unusual’ Russian flights concern NATO:

An “unusual” uptick in the size and scale of Russian aircraft flying throughout European airspace in recent days has raised alarm bells for NATO officials that come amid other provocations already rattling the West.

Multiple groups of Russian military bomber and tanker aircraft, flying under the guise of military maneuvers, were detected and monitored over sections of the Baltic Sea, North Sea and Black Sea on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Those flights represented an “unusual level of air activity over European airspace,” according to a press release from NATO.

Adding to the concern — none of the Russian aircraft filed customary flight plans or maintained radio contact with civilian aviation authorities or used any of their onboard transponders.

These surely are interesting times.

It is about time this story is being told on film. MY Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes:

Would you risk your life to save a stranger? And never talk about it? MY ITALIAN SECRET tells the story of Tour de France cycling champion Gino Bartali and other Italians who saved lives during WWII.

Or if you prefer the 30 for 30 method: What if I told you a man saved 800 lives in between three Giro d’Italia wins and two Tour de France titles?

This is not that film, but it does summarize the story a tiny bit:

Bartali apparently rarely even brought it up, which brings us to this quote from the man himself: “Good is something you do, not something you talk about. Some medals are pinned to your soul, not to your jacket.”

Pretty profound for a guy that just moved his feet around in small circles.