adventures / memories / site / Thursday / video — Comments Off on A stroll down memory lane, and some basic site stuff
28
Apr 22

A stroll down memory lane, and some basic site stuff

I changed a visual element of my website today. This is the first time it has been changed in 15 years, which is an unreasonable amount of time. It’s a front-end thing, and you’ll never notice it. No one will even be aware that this particular thing has changed. But, if you look at the top of the page, or the tab you’re reading here, you might figure it out.

Tomorrow I have to start looking at viewership data at the office, so this evening I examined some of my own YouTube metrics. There’s a wealth of information in the analytics dashboard these days. You could go blind and silly trying to put all of it into some sort of coherent explanation. None of it makes sense.

All of it makes sense. How it is reflective of user habits makes very little sense. Let us, for example, consider a few videos and a key metric, the average percent viewed. The scope covers the month of April.

(And, before we dive in, I must say: If you press play on any of these videos, watch them to the end, or you might throw off the whole analysis, or at least the space-time continuum.

This video is from 2017. It is Dunnet Head, the most northerly point of the mainland of Great Britain. (The most northern Scottish isle is still some 170 miles farther on.)

Scapa Flow – a prime naval base region for the British and the final resting place of much of Germany’s WW1 high seas fleet – is out there in the distance. Today petroleum, tourism and diving are big. Here, you are asked to imagine standing watch, like the British boys of the 1930s and 1940s did.

The people that have watched that this month have watched an average of 92.1 percent of the video.

This is a video last fall from The Yankee recovering from her first popliteal artery entrapment surgery.

It’s a seemingly rare problem, involving compression of one of the arteries in the leg because of muscle development. A week before that video she limped back into the house after the procedure at the Cleveland Clinic. Every day was a bit more walking. She started rehab on that leg a week later. (Last month she had surgery on the other leg. Today she went out for her second post-op run. We had our first bike ride last weekend.)

The people that have watched that this month have watched an average of 94.9 percent of the video.

This video is from May of 2018. I’d gone on a walk and saw these geese flying toward me from some ways off. I had just enough time to fumble for my phone.

This one has an average percentage viewed rate of 96.8.

Ahh, our old friend, the Short Film of No Consequence series makes an appearance. This is from a candy store in Savannah. I shot, and edited this, in the store, in January 2016, and I hope all of those delicious treats found happy homes.

Viewers here have watched an average of 97.5 percent of the video this month.

In the summer of 2017 we visited Scotland. Ceannabeinne Beach, in Durness, is known as the beach of the burn of bereavement and death. The story goes that an elderly women fell and drowned in the burn here and her body was later washed down to the shore. There are ruins of a small fire here, but like all of the other locals, the tenants were forced out in 1842 for sheep farming. Just off the coast there’s a small island, Eilean Hoan, or the burial island. It once was prime grazing land and home to four families, until the Clearances. Now the island is a national nature reserve.

That beautiful scenery has earned a 99.1 percent video view.

Let’s goo to another beautiful part of Scotland. These are a few extra bits from an afternoon walking around Torridon.

I can brag about this one having a 99.7 percent viewed rate this month.

(You can see why on these. All of Scotland is stunning.)

This one feels like a cheat. It’s an eight-second clip. But it got a perfect 100 percent on the ol’ view-o-meter.

We’d just returned from a red-eye flight across two-thirds of the country. And I thought that would mean a nap. For most people it would mean a nap. For me, it meant going on a really hard bike ride. It was great.

Which brings us to this video, which I shot late last summer in Alabama.

It is presently enjoying 179.1 percent, meaning people are watching it almost twice.

Which means you have to watch it almost twice, to keep the numbers consistent.

The most viewed video this month? This 2017 flooding footage.

One other analytical note which, also doesn’t matter, but my site, for reasons that escape me, this month hit 4.6 million views.

Thanks for clicking the refresh button so often, everyone!

IU / podcast / television / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Doesn’t get better than donuts
27
Apr 22

Doesn’t get better than donuts

There were donuts in the building this morning, and I was nominally involved in the event. My fee was paid in donuts. I had an old fashioned, my standard donut choice. (If you’re at home reading this, go outside for a moment.)

I am not writing home about that donut. It was dry and flavorless, and this is sometimes a misnomer about the old fashioned. It shouldn’t be either of those things. It should be subtle, and nuanced. This was not.

I also grabbed a powdered sugar donut. (You may go back inside, because I will write home about this donut.)

That donut was the best decision of the morning.

I had two studio productions canceled today, and one shoot that went off without a hitch. I think there are just two more productions left this week. Time creeps by, no matter how much fun you’re having, or not having, as the case may be.

I was in a meeting yesterday where this semi-famous quote came up. William Bernbach was an American advertising creative director. He co-founded an influential, global ad agency, and had a huge role in the advertising landscape of the second half of the 20th century. Volkswagen, Life, Juan Valdez, if you watched any TV or read any magazines in the last 80 years or so, you’ve seen some of his agency’s work, and if you’re of a certain age, quite his very own campaigns.

This makes him a celebrity in the right circles. In fact, if you watched Mad Men, you heard his name get dropped a few times, for good reason.

All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level.

Anyway, impressive cultural contributor. Important concept in the quote, which has earned its own fame over the years. You know it has pulled the weight the author intended because it has appeared in several textbooks. It’s funny how those mid-century sorts seemed to be reaching beyond their own event horizon.

The quote, of course, also finds its way into a lot of navel-gazing webpages. There’s one that asks Should We Evaluate the Media Input in Our Lives? And if every there was a question that needed asking because it didn’t need to be asked, it might be that one. The brief piece seems to start from the position that we’ve already and incontrovertibly vulgarized and brutalized it. But this isn’t a universal truth, of course.

I’ve been wondering today about the lifting to a higher level. We’d all like to think we have. And, as it came up in that meeting, it isn’t necessarily a big lift that you’re always after. Just a bit is enough. Mass media? Society? The former is merely the tool. Society, being of considerable size, requires a fulcrum.

Hopefully, I’ve done a decent enough job in helping show others how to lift it. Surely I’ve worked with others who have actually shaped some bit of society. Me?

I’m just doing podcasts that I find interesting, after all. This is compelling research.

It turns out we need more people, different sorts of people, in our in-person, face-to-face interactions. That challenges us, mentally, and that stimulus could help ward off cognitive decline as we age. That’s the research from IU’s Dr. Adam Roth. I talked to him about his recent work.

Listen to that, share the show, and then let’s all go out and make new friends.

If watching videos sounds better than listening to me — and who could blame you? — these are the news shows the IUSTV gang produced last night. These are the last two shows of the news division this semester. Here’s the news show. And there’s been big news in town. Two shootings within minutes of one another over the weekend sent four people to the hospital. As of this writing, still no arrests announced.

And here’s What’s Up Weekly, the pop culture magazine style show. There’s a haircut and a taco hat and some clever jokes in here.

The entertainment group will shoot three more shows this week, and that’ll be a wrap on the term. More bragging to come, then, on Friday.

Bloomington / IU / television / Tuesday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Pro movement
26
Apr 22

Pro movement

This blocked traffic this morning. I’ve sped this up, because it is a three-minute effort and let’s be honest about our web habits but this beam and assorted other things started on that truck and it’s an interesting move.

The car in the foreground is close to the move. The small tree and the truck are very much involved. Those power lines aren’t exactly far away. This is a fair effort. And these guys handled it ease.

I do believe they’ve done this before.

We never think that much about the hard parts of putting up a building we are in. We don’t even know what the hard parts are. This might have been the easiest thing they did all day — and, if so, I hope everyone got a good night’s sleep. When the owner walks in the door when that build is complete, they’ll never know.

I did that thing today where you struggle with technology and you can’t find the solution to the problem and someone has to come by and show you the obvious thing you’ve overlooked. That happens to everyone. Except, when it happens to me it’s always the same guy who wanders by just in time to solve the problem. And I’ve never seen him do that brain-lock oversight thing. He must think I never get a good night’s sleep.

But, later in the day, things went pretty smoothly in the studio. It was the last news production of the semester. Everything is winding down this week, but it’s winding down with enthusiasm!

That’s the pop culture show. Also, Ashton just got a haircut and somehow that becomes a feature. And there was a taco hat and that was purely a serendipitous thing. I’ll need to get the full story on that.

We got a proper springtime forecast.

And a quick summary of the biggest stories going on abroad.

And, of course, all of the local headlines.

These shows will be online tomorrow, and I can share them then. But, until then, I can share the latest from the Behind the Curtain crew. They’re highlighting a student spec commercial. (The commercial is good, if long.)

And maybe this has gone on for too long, as well. So I will thank you, and step aside until tomorrow.

If you have some more time to kill right now, however, there’s always more on Twitter and check me out on Instagram, too.

adventures / Bloomington / IU / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off on If you’re keeping count, this is week 17 of the year
25
Apr 22

If you’re keeping count, this is week 17 of the year

Let’s get this week started off the best way possible, by recounting our weekends! It’s as good a way as any to work through the reality of a Monday, I suppose. So, most importantly, how was your weekend? Great and warm and as precisely relaxing or fruitful as you planned, I hoped.

Mine started at the track. I left the office to catch the end of the Women’s Little 500. I briefly talked with the race director on Wednesday and it didn’t occur to me until later that I should have asked him why they start the thing at 4 p.m., when most of us are working. We ran into a guy we know who is a professor at a nearby school. We’ve had dinner with him before, worked on a paper together, used to hang out a bit socially, when that was a thing. This was the first time I’ve seen him since before Covid. Since then he’s bought a house, gotten married and had a child. The kid is already solving mid-level mathematical equations apparently. Time flies.

On Saturday was the men’s race. They take 200 laps around the track that surrounds the soccer field. Here’s the start and finish.

There were just three crashes. One was small and early in the race and the three or four guys that got tangled up in it popped right back on their bikes. One other I missed, and the guy seemed to be OK-ish when they hustled him off the track. And the last was in turn four of the white flag lap. They never threw up the caution flag — perhaps they have rules about that, or they just messed up — but this one was in the lead group. One of the guys was still crawling off the track when the remains of those hard-charging riders came back around 30-some seconds later. Most importantly, the group of eight contenders was whittled down to three or four guys, and that was the race.

Also, if you are wearing your best overalls, but somehow forget a shirt, a copy of the newspaper is highly adaptable.

Let’s check in on the cats. Here’s Phoebe at play in the cat tree.

And here’s Phoebe catching up on her time in the sun.

You can’t see it from the angle here, but Poseidon is sitting with his back legs on the sofa, and his front legs on me and his torso is hammocked in mid-air.

He seems to think that’s comfortable.

He also seems to think he’s a model.

I saw this car on Friday. I’m still surprised this was the first time I’ve seen this car around here. You think you’d notice that. It does stand out.

And, finally, a bloomington tree in blooming bloom.

Spring is upon us, thankfully.

Friday / IU / video — Comments Off on Watch until the weekend occurs
22
Apr 22

Watch until the weekend occurs

Let’s wrap up this week with all of the videos I have neglected to share the last few days.

This week’s Hoosier News Source featured a nice interview with one of the leaders of the graduate students now on strike. Oh, (some of) the grad students are on strike here. They’re about to start week three on the picket line. It’s an interesting thing to see from my perspective, which has no stake in the game.

What’s Up Weekly had on the newly crown national champion table tennis players. One of these guys was an alternate for the last Olympic Games.

Sports! The sports people shot sports shows on Wednesday evening, as is their habit. Here’s the highlight show.

And on the talk show they broke down the Little 500 races. The women raced earlier today, and the men race tomorrow. The predictions about the women’s race turned out to be entirely incorrect. That’s why they race the races.

You can watch those here.

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