Wednesday


10
Oct 12

Our new addition

The washing machine hit the spin cycle and made a weird, muted whirring noise. You grow accustomed to the sounds of your life and then the absence of those things, or their replacement by other noises, is startling.

Turns out the sound was one of failure. Broken, but trying, but accepting. At the end of the cycle I opened the washing machine and found the clothes clean, but still dripping. The missing sound was the one that represents the spin cycle. The new sound was one of “Meh.”

So I took the cover off the washing machine. I removed the drain valves and the motor. I found the coupler, which I replaced on this machine last year, was in working order. I also found some brown fluid under the frame.

We called appliance folks. This, they said, was a transmission issue. That’ll run you $500, parts and labor. And you need a special tool. And how old is your washer? You may as well buy a new one.

Well.

I have another washing machine. When we got married we just kept both sets of washers and dryers. So we plugged up my washer, which I bought second hand in 2000 for $1. I used it until 2010 or so and it has since sat patiently waiting. So we reinstalled it. Washed a load of clothes. There is a foot missing, so the balance is off and the spin cycle is violent. There was water, just a little, not a lot, coming from somewhere. I could not detect the where. But I also noticed that this one, too, was showing off some of the same brown transmission fluid. I’d thought connecting this one might give us a few months to save up some money, but figured we were now down to days.

The streak of broken things in this house — the air conditioning (twice), the refrigerator, the dishwasher (twice), the shower, three toilet repairs, the kitchen sink faucet, a broken and repaired washing machine and now two permanently retired — continues. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so expensive. That doesn’t include the new roof the previous owner put on as she put the house on the market (hail damage) or the many, many times Charter has been out to not fix the cable or a few smaller things. We’ve just started our third year in this house.

There are spirits, we joke. I think back on our first night in the house, standing on the top of a six-foot step ladder painting a high wall and shudder.

It is amazing we haven’t seriously hurt ourselves. Oh I grabbed a hot wire fixing the A/C. And Brian tried to help us figure out the first dishwasher problem and shocked himself. He also created a great electrical arc. We discovered, under there, a wire nut that had burned through itself. We’ve asked electricians about that, who don’t know how that could have happened.

Meanwhile, the local Sears is going out of business, so we bought a new washing machine.

washer

It doesn’t have the center post in the drum. It doesn’t have a transmission. It is actually very quiet. It has a digital timer telling you when the load will be completed. If it breaks it displays error messages. You are supposed to be able to call the tech support, hold the phone near the sensor and they can determine the problem. Yeah, I don’t believe that either. It plays a little song when the load is finished.

Page two of the manual says “For your safety, the information in this manual must be followed to minimize the risk of fire or explosion, electric shock, or to prevent property damage, injury to persons, or death.”

It has a stainless steel drum. It runs on an inverter direct drive motor, suggesting if I can turn it inside out I can indirectly drive the space-time continuum. There is also a child lock, which I presume is not meant to keep kids inside, and also SMARTRINSE, which is designed to save water, but wasted capital letters.

And in 20 or so years we’ll have recovered the money we would spend at a laundromat.

That’s mostly what we’ve been dealing with the last few days. I was on fall break on Monday and Tuesday. I decided to take those few days off from the blog as well. These are the first two days without at least something being published since April of 2005.

I’m fine with this decision.

More tomorrow.


3
Oct 12

And the spiders?

I mentioned Colin Hay on Twitter last night, since you asked. I really fell into Hay’s music again around 2000 or so, and then again off and on since. For a while, I’ve been trying to describe it. If there is an overriding sentiment, what would it be? I’ve settled on midlife, convertible, late-afternoon sun.

The prologue in that particular live performance is his getting dropped by his record label after Men at Work. He released the album carrying that song in his mid-40s, so it makes sense.

The debates? Twitter had a big night. Remember when the media scoffed at Twitter? I love that all the big national folks fall all over themselves to report about it now. I bet we’ll find that this was one of the biggest nights yet for the microblogger.

New York Times? Fact checking in real time.

Who won? Big Bird, clearly. Maybe he should moderate the next one. And if that works out well, maybe we could start a write-in campaign for him.

Thirty-one cases of West Nile Virus in the state. Guess that’ll be the watchword of the season again.

Speaking of arboviral diseases, researchers are tracking down where Eastern equine encephalitis spends the winter. Snakes!

The spiders? They’ve got nothing to do with it. They’re just over here making art.

SpiderArt

Looks even more like a heart today.

More on Tumblr and Twitter.


26
Sep 12

Journalism, Avengers, something for everyone

Did you know that the history of video has recently been re-written?

British photographer Edward Raymond Turner patented color motion picture film in 1899, but the credit for the first fully functional system went to George Albert Smith’s Kinemacolor in 1906. Researchers at the National Media Museum recently discovered that Turner had in fact shot a few rolls of color film that were languishing in the museum’s archives and set out to see if they worked.

Edward Raymond Turner had no idea in 1899 that you would see this:

From the first parrot, the first people shot in color, to the biggest blockbuster of 2012, re-imagined by the people at Honest Trailers:

A friend had this to say about that trailer:

OK, as a Marvel pseudo-expert, allow me to punch some holes in this “honest” trailer. First, Bruce Banner has ALWAYS been able to turn into the Hulk, just not the other way around. He spends most of his life trying NOT to turn into the Hulk. If you want misunderstood character, see Edward Norton’s Hulk. Anger is what sets off the Hulk, not heart rate. However, in the very first Hulk comic, he changed whenever it turned night. Back stories change. But this one got it right.

Second, every true comic fan knows who Thanos is. If you don’t know who Thanos is, then you aren’t a fan, you are someone who went to see a movie. And that’s fine. But don’t hate because you like superheroes with S’s and bats on their chest so you know who to root for.

Third, Loki didn’t die at the end of Thor, he just let go. He’s a god. He’s immortal. He also has inter-dimensional teleportation capability, see character back story.

And that’s what happens when the comic book set chimes in.

Story about news of the day: Alex Green is the editor of the student newspaper at Bryan College in Dayton, Tenn. One of his professors, he learned, was leaving school. Green started looking into into the public records and learned the professor was facing of “having attempted to meet with a minor child” at a gas station. He wrote a story. School president Dr. Stephen Livesay ordered it killed.

So he publised it himself, out of his own money. He also emailed a PDF version. As you might expect, all of this earned a big reaction.

All of that to get you to the latest, from Jim Romenesko:

This morning I talked to Bryan College Triangle adviser John Carpenter and asked: Are you aware that Alex Green called and asked me to remove the post?

The adviser said he was.

Did you or someone else at the college tell him to make that call? I asked.

“I can’t comment on that,” Carpenter said.

OK, that answers that question, I thought. (Someone else I talked to this morning believes the editor “has been guilted” by the college president to believe he did something wrong by publishing a story about a professor charged with trying to hook up with a minor. Green hasn’t returned a message that I left this morning.)

And that, friends, is a president big timing a student. (For even more, here are notes from a meeting the president had in the aftermath. He would not allow that meeting to be recorded because he can flex that particular puny muscle.)

Update: Now President Livesay says “In hindsight, this may have been a mistake.”

Yes sir. For all sorts of reasons. First, while The Triangle is a class project, and thus under the purview of the administration, Green published this of his own accord after you shut him down. Second, you overreached in your reaction with regard to the intrepid young report. Third, from the university’s PR perspective you’ve now made this much bigger for you than it had to be.

Sure, this is a private school, and we can talk all about the case law. But there should be more to the ethical and moral leadership of students than the case law. The good folks at Bryan, as Dr. Livesay said tried “doing the right thing to protect the privacy of a man charged, but not convicted, of a crime” briefly forgot about their other obligation. Seems that everything is being righted now.

By the way, the Student Press Law Center has a great guide for private school media.

Quick links: When the Tuscaloosa News won their Pulitzer last year for tornado coverage, an important part of that was how they used Twitter. But don’t tell the Associated Press, which is vowing to not break news on social media.

Moving away from their paywall, The Times and the Sunday Times will allow their stories to be indexed by Google, or at least the headlines and the lead. They’ll come around.

Facebook discovers re-targeting, which ad-sellers have been using for years.

From Neiman, something we’ve been saying for a while, too, students really need to know digital research. In some respects, this is a “Can you find it?” era.

On my Samford blog I wrote about perception and elisions as they pertain to quote accuracy.

A picture! On my Tumblr! And more things, of course, on Twitter.

And, now, for no reason whatsoever, a shot of the fountain in Ben Brown Plaza on the Samford University campus this afternoon:

fountain

I work in a beautiful place.


19
Sep 12

A birthday

us

Pretty as ever, and we got to celebrate with ice cream cake.

(This picture is from another great day, this one in the woods in Washington state, as we worked our way up to Mount St. Helens last year.)


12
Sep 12

Volume 98 begins

It was a late night. About 2:30 or 3 this morning, I think, when they finished their newspaper. Much faster than the first night last year. Not as fast as they’ll be later in the year, of course. And of course time doesn’t matter so much. Work on it until the sun rises if it means the quality is good.

And the first paper is pretty good. This is a young staff, with only one returning section editor from last year. They’re learning as they go, and we’ll make sure they learn a lot. But for a first edition, this is promising. You can see it online here.

We had our first critique meeting just after lunch today. Four members of the editorial staff were there, and we laughed and told jokes and asked questions about this or that in the paper. There are errors to correct, but there are many things to brag on. Later in the day they received compliments from two big titles in the university’s administration. That’s a nice pat on the back, too.

Spent part of the afternoon unpacking a few new cameras for the department.

Panasonic HD

We have added a large handful of new high definition equipment this year. When they handed me this part of my job a few years ago it was a mess. As of today we are an all-HD shop.

A great plan from the faculty, great support from the university’s administration and attention to detail have made it happen. The digital video center is a part of the program we are proud of.

Hard working students, smart planning among the faculty and an administration that is taking part. No wonder Samford is a great place to work.

Pretty, too. This is one of our lovely buildings, as the afternoon is winding down:

Brooks

And this is west campus, from Talbird Circle, looking back toward Seibert Hall:

Talbird

This came up on Twitter. Someone we know from Alabama, and from Auburn, is back at Alabama for law school. But before she returned to Tuscaloosa she came to visit the Cumberland School of Law at Samford. She’s jealous, but, you know, they are all beautiful campuses.

Chick-fil-A now wants your name, for when your order is ready. The guy at the cash register asked. Threw me for a loop. Why does everyone need my name? This is probably a good idea at lunchtime. For now I hope I can hear them over the din of the … three people in here at dinner.

Also that manager is working. That guy. You know the one; he moonlights as security at concerts so he can get his authority on. One night I saw him almost work his way into a fistfight over what time he closed his store. He’s a bit aggressive with his employees, too. Just a bit intense for a chicken place.

Remember, during the week of Chick-fil-A Week of Free Publicity, that after the I Eat Mor Chickun campaign, there was to be a kiss-in after that. Some wondered if that would devolve into a nasty scene. If there were going to be fisticuffs it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn it involved him.

Here’s why you love Chick-fil-A, though: the guy who took my order gave me a coupon for a free sandwich for the delay. I’d waited an eternity, three minutes.

More rehab tonight. I’m sore, but that’s more muscle sore than injury sore. Seems I can easily overdo it, that’s progress. So, yes, let’s do that again.

And then I did an hour of intervals on a bike, clocking 19.5 miles and showing watts and METs I don’t understand. I’m just waiting for the muscle spasms to go away. A few days after that — I have to make sure they aren’t trying to trick me — then I’ll try to really ride again. It has been a while, but my shoulder says no rush. So far I’ve been inclined to agree, which seems odd. I try not to think about it.

Arms are too sore, you see.