* Got Poetry?
Memorizing poetry in this day and age may seem eccentric, not to say masochistic. I recommend it anyway.
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Friday, July 30, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Media Mondays - a Tweet feed rehash
Missing in on the fun? Follow me on Twitter.
This Week and Politifact.com join forces (finally!) as suggested by @jayrosen_ny http://bit.ly/92spn0
Also, don't forget to check out WAMC's "The Media Project."
This Week and Politifact.com join forces (finally!) as suggested by @jayrosen_ny http://bit.ly/92spn0
Also, don't forget to check out WAMC's "The Media Project."
2010 Pulizer Prize winners, animated!
Did you noticed that the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartoons went to a self-syndicated ANIMATED series of cartoons by Mark Fiore?
The Pulitzer Board sure is moving ahead.
This means that:
* The editorial cartoon winner for this year can not be published in a print newspaper.
* And the Flash animations won't work with your iPad, either (Apple doesn't like Adobe). Or your smartphone.
* HAHAHAHAHA!
Winners via www.pulitzer.org
2010 Pulitzer Prize winners:
Journalism
Public Service - Bristol (Va.) Herald Courier
Breaking News Reporting - The Seattle Times Staff
Investigative Reporting - Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman of the Philadelphia Daily News and Sheri Fink of ProPublica, in collaboration with The New York Times Magazine
Explanatory Reporting - Michael Moss and members of The New York Times Staff
Local Reporting - Raquel Rutledge of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
National Reporting - Matt Richtel and members of The New York Times Staff
International Reporting - Anthony Shadid of The Washington Post
Feature Writing - Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post
Commentary - Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post
Criticism - Sarah Kaufman of The Washington Post
Editorial Writing - Tod Robberson, Colleen McCain Nelson and William McKenzie of The Dallas Morning News
Editorial Cartooning - Mark Fiore, self syndicated, appearing on SFGate.com
Breaking News Photography - Mary Chind of The Des Moines Register
Feature Photography - Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post
Letters, Drama and Music
Fiction - Tinkers by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press)
Drama - Next to Normal, music by Tom Kitt, book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey
History - Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed (The Penguin Press)
Biography - The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles (Alfred A. Knopf)
Poetry - Versed by Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan University Press)
General Nonfiction - The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy by David E. Hoffman (Doubleday)
Music - Violin Concerto by Jennifer Higdon (Lawdon Press)
Special Citations
Hank Williamspress release on the Special Citation awarded to Hank Williams
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Memory links
The following stories from The New York Times, which I forgot to post yesterday, are related to "New research on memory forgettable."* Brain Researchers Open Door to Editing Memory
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: April 6, 2009
An influx of money and talent into neuroscience has led to an experimental drug that could block certain memories.
* Memory Training Shown to Turn Up Brainpower
A new study has found that it may be possible to train people to be more intelligent, increasing the brainpower they had at birth.
* Got Poetry?
* Got Poetry?
* In One Ear and Out the Other
By NATALIE ANGIER
Published: March 17, 2009
Why the best jokes are the most difficult to remember.
* Another Potential Benefit of Cutting Calories: Better Memory
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: January 27, 2009
A new study appears to be the first to link calorie-restricted diets with improved memory in people.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Google's CADIE
Today, if you noticed on Google's main page, the site released "a singular upgrade to your online life," a Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity, or CADIE, "the first evolving intelligent system."
This follows Google's other improvements like GMail Autopilot, an automatic e-mail response system, which gives answers like this:
Other improvements include Docs on Demand, a program that finishes your sentences and even allows you to incorporate subliminal messages into presentations; and Google Chrome 3D, with printable glasses.
And if you go to CADIE's blog, you can win a free Google search! I won, and found that YouTube is upside down and the The Guardian is leaving print to become the first paper in the world to be published on Twitter:
"A unique collaboration between The Guardian and Twitter will also see the launch of Gutter, an experimental service designed to filter noteworthy liberal opinion from the cacophony of Twitter updates."
Did I mention it's April Fools' Day?
UPDATE:
• Tribune invents quantum computer, says bye to Internet.
• Björk joins Led Zeppeling.
• Wholefooodmarkets.com sells organic air and re-usable poop bags, offers free spiders and opens store in Antartica.
• Expedia sells flight to Mars.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
CNN discovers word clouds
After President's Barack Obama's second live press conference tonight, CNN's Wolf Blitzer announced one of the network's with grand fanfare.
The president words were vomited, I mean, presented in a "Word Cloud," which kind of took the speech out of context and provides no insight whatsoever.
Word clouds are nothing new in cyberspace. They're "clouds" of text that give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the text of a source. Clouds, like the one below, about the entire Twitter universe, abound (even though there is no reason why).
Furthermore, you can make a cloud out of anything, thanks to www.wordle.net.
Case in point, here's a word cloud for this very blog.
Here's a better one, the Ulster economic transition task force report to the county executive.
Cool? Absolutely. But, really, what possible use can you get out of this?
The president words were vomited, I mean, presented in a "Word Cloud," which kind of took the speech out of context and provides no insight whatsoever.
Word clouds are nothing new in cyberspace. They're "clouds" of text that give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the text of a source. Clouds, like the one below, about the entire Twitter universe, abound (even though there is no reason why).
Furthermore, you can make a cloud out of anything, thanks to www.wordle.net.
Case in point, here's a word cloud for this very blog.
Here's a better one, the Ulster economic transition task force report to the county executive.
Cool? Absolutely. But, really, what possible use can you get out of this?
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Do papers matter?
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its last edition today, after more than 146 years in print. I really hate to say this, but Tuesday's front page, at right, is the best I've seen in a very long time. You can't quite duplicate the impact of a 14"x23" photo online, or in an iPhone or in a Kindle.
But does it matter?
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer was recognized by Harvard University's Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers just on Monday for its series “Young Guns,” about gang violence "from the perspective of gang members themselves. This approach required the reporters and editors to verify the accuracy of statements made by minors and gang members and tackle the dangers of glorifying gang violence. Staff reporter Claudia Rowe and photographer Mike Kane produced the series together with designer John Nelson, news editor Jennifer Johnson and copy editors Bill Fink and Christina Okeson. After the series ran, Seattle’s mayor announced a $9 million initiative to curb youth violence."
A much smaller P-I survives online. Its photo archives are impressive.
Similarly, last month, the Rocky Mountain News of Denver closed its doors 55 days shy of its 150 anniversary.
Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.
Both the Rocky and the P-I were big dailies in two-newspaper towns, so comparisons and market studies are bound to follow.
In the meantime, in case you are wondering what happens when a town loses one of its papers, below is a study by Princetown University. Here's the study's abstract:
"The Cincinnati Post published its last edition on NewYear’s Eve 2007, leaving the Cincinnati Enquirer as the only daily newspaper in the market. The next year, fewer candidates ran for municipal office in the suburbs most reliant on the Post, incumbents became more likely to win re-election, and voter turnout fell. We exploit a difference-in-difference strategy–comparing changes in outcomes before and after the Post’s closure in suburbs where the newspaper offered more or less intensive coverage–and the fact that the Post’s closing date was fixed 30 years in advance to rule out some non-causal explanations for these results. Although our findings are statistically imprecise, they demonstrate that newspapers–even underdogs such as the Post, which had a circulation of just 27,000 when it closed– can have a substantial and measurable impact on public life." (Emphasis mine)
Do Newspapers Matter?
And here's Alan D. Mutter's take on it.
Just sayin'
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
CNNMoney
The CNNMoney article by Jessi Hempel mentioned in "Facebook a valuable waste of time" begins with Peter Lichtenstein of New Paltz.
Quotable quote: "The newest members - the ones behind Facebook's accelerating growth rate - are more, ahem, mature types like Lichtenstein, who never thought they'd have the time or inclination to overshare on the web."
Quotable quote: "The newest members - the ones behind Facebook's accelerating growth rate - are more, ahem, mature types like Lichtenstein, who never thought they'd have the time or inclination to overshare on the web."
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
What's a "dummy," dummy?
As poorly described in "A window into a windowless newsroom," here is an image of an old dummy (no offense to senior idiots intended):
And this is what it does:
Only one earth-carrying human was harmed in the making of the April 20, 2008, page.
And this is what it does:
Only one earth-carrying human was harmed in the making of the April 20, 2008, page.
The press
Here's a very short clip of the Freeman's presses doing their thing shortly after midnight, running Tuesday's paper. It's loud, but it's really a sight to behold.
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