Archive for December, 2009

Take that, winter!

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

‘Tis winter now; the fallen snow
has left the heavens all coldly clear;
through leafless boughs the sharp winds blow,
and all the earth lies dead and drear.

–Samuel Longfellow*

So let’s say you are not dismayed that Longfellow’s sharp winds are blowing (“the skies are chill, and frosts are keen”).  In fact, you’re nicely bundled up, wearing insulated mittens, among other accoutrements of the season.

And your iPhone alerts you that someone has just texted you.

So now those nice, thick mittens are causing you a problem: to respond to that text after you fumble for the phone, you’re going to have to expose your electrically charged fingers to the keen frost.

pogosketch2
Admittedly, it hasn’t been all that cold around here since about 1986 – well before the era of capacitave touch interfaces. But for those of you in Fargo, Flin Flon, and Fairbanks, I would like to alert you to a solution that appeared among my Christmas gifts: the Pogo Sketch from Ten One Design in Montclair, N.J. (average low in January, 19 degrees; record low, minus 14 degrees, 1985).

This battery-operated aluminum stylus, the size of a small pen, transmits an electrical charge through its cushioned tips, so you can keep those pinkies toasty when using your iPhone, Droid, Storm, or similar labor-saving/time-wasting device.

So grab your phone, your Pogo Sketch and your mittens, and head for Frostbite Falls.  Minnesota is lovely this time of year, don’t you think?

(* younger brother of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

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It’s an e-reader! No, it’s a tablet! No, it’s . . . a means to an end

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

a30_businessIt seems that one of the questions I got asked most frequently in 2009 – at weddings, in email, in the church narthex, at Northwestern – was some version of “Should I get a Kindle?”  Even people who aren’t sure assume that I have one (and indeed, thanks to the generosity of friends, I have a couple).

The most recent version of the query came from Tribune literary editor Liz Taylor, who wondered if I could write a piece for the Printers Row pages of the Saturday Tribune on “why you use it, and maybe some tips . . . but as a WORD person, who loves books no matter what the form.” Well, sure. You can see the result, from the Dec. 26 edition, here.

Meanwhile, it seems that there were nearly as many articles on e-readers published this Christmas season as there were books to consume on them.  Christmas morning, for instance, the Trib business section reported on shortages and / or delayed launches of several Kindle competitors; on Christmas Eve morning the NYT’s “Bits” blog used an interview with Jeff Bezos and some data mining of customer comments to lay out a reason why all those competitors were rushing to get into the market.  It’s getting to the point that covering e-readers is like covering presidential politics: lots of focus on the horse race, very little on either the technology or the use case.

Which is why I probably enjoyed the Economist’s Dec. 12th piece, “Read all about it,” more than most.  It’s mostly about the display technology behind the readers; as the piece’s pullout summary puts it, “Readers of electronic books must choose between long battery life or vibrant, living colour. Could they have both?”  This is the place to go if you want to read about choleristic LCD’s and electophoretic displays, among other contenders to provide an answer to that question . . . while responsibly pointing out that “in the history of ingenious display technologies, only a handful have ever made it into mass production.”

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Was that a year? Well, it was 50 weeks of one.

Saturday, December 26th, 2009

There were still two weeks left to go until 2010, but on Dec. 17 I bravely joined Michael Miner of the Reader and Mark Fitzgerald of Editor & Publisher on Milt Rosenberg’s “Extension 720″ on WGN Radio to discuss the year in Chicago media.

If you are looking for two hours of background chatter as you organize gift receipts and packages for an afternoon of exchanging and refunding at the mall, you have come to the right place.

Extension 720 Uncut Podcast 12-17-09 Part 1 – WGN Radio.

Extension 720 Uncut Podcast 12-17-09 Part 2 – WGN Radio.

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Not dead yet (epilogue)

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

At the end of their well-received final presentation, the fall Interactive Innovation Project students shared this video with those in attendance. It successfully illustrates their progression through a quarter of studying death notices and obituaries. Indeed, it demonstrates the degree to which they embraced the topic…

Fall 2009 Interactive Innovation Project, Medill

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It was 40 years ago today

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
stub

My first pay stub came with a motto: "Support those who support the Star-Beacon." Still true today.

There used to be lots of jobs, good jobs, in the newspaper business.

I had one. It paid me $1.60 an hour, which meant if I stayed really busy on the weekends and in the evenings, I might make $60 before taxes. Pretty good for a high school kid.

How good? In 2009 dollars, the government’s CPI calculator tells me, that would be about $353.  More than gas money.  More than a paper route.

newsboyIt was the Ashtabula Star-Beacon, a 6-day-a-week P.M. paper.  And, in fact, earlier in the fall, I had indeed been delivering it. I even wound up on the cover of its annual “salute to carriers” special section (right). I actually hadn’t been a paperboy all that long, as it took me far too long to learn to ride a bicycle.  But my route, fairly close to my house and the high school, was a decent way to get me out of the library and into the out-of-doors, and like I said, the Star-Beacon was a P.M., so even at the age of 16, I was still doing it. (The kids who delivered the Cleveland Plain Dealer had to get up waaaay too early in the morning.)

In November, though, the sports editor of the Star-Beacon called Tony Chiacchiero, football coach and head guidance counselor at Ashtabula High School, looking for someone to work part-time covering games and taking photos.  I had spent the previous two football seasons as statistician for the Panther football team, traipsing up and down the sidelines with a clipboard – a job that Coach Chiacchiero had given me because, in his completely accurate guidance-counselor estimation, I could use a little socialization.

“I have just the kid,” the coach said.  Or words to that effect.

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