The Changed Media Landscape

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A I write this there’s a bit of weirdness going on over in the metropole (Portsmouth) – it’s unclear exactly what is happening, but it involves a bus, a 911 call reporting a suspicious package/device, local and state police, AFT agents and robots. I found out about it via Twitter  about 15 minutes after police showed up and it became obvious to local folk that something was up (around noon today). Some of the things I’ve noticed since then:

  • It didn’t take long for a hashtag – #03801bomb – to be declared. Click on the tag to go to the Twitter search page for the latest tweets.
  • There was a steady stream of information, photography, video and comedy all afternoon. I knew when folks started leaving the bus within minutes thanks to @WireNH (I picked the tweet that combined news and the funny).
  • A video taken by @Bill_Lord of one of the bombbots unloading got picked up by a Boston newscast.
  • Sometime during the afternoon, a foursquare (location sharing social media app) venue got set up.

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  • Dan did a bit of livestreaming from his mother-in-law’s living room – which happened to be across the street from the bus.
  • I saw at least one tweet that referenced UStream – another livestreaming app. Keep in mind, all you need in order to go live from virtually anywhere is a decent cell phone and tiny tech chops.

I caught some of the teevee coverage as well. The informal coverage was better – much better. Nobody (I suspect, including many of the cops on scene) knew what was going on – last I looked, we still don’t. That didn’t stop NECN – or the crowd watching – from covering it, nor should it have. Instead of the 2 or three stills and speculation/repetition of a very few facts that the teevee was offering, the crowd supplied more pictures, bad jokes and updates when something actually happened. I got much more of a sense of the situation from the ‘new’ media feed. The landscape may change further, but believe me, the ‘changing media landscape’ has already changed.

Now, THAT was a good day

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Wow – that was fun. Up early to run dogs and then off to the southwestern corner of NH, where the cacti and mesas frolic (or not). First stop was at Callahan & Co. Booksellers to sell some dupe/no longer needed sporting books. Hard to imagine, but I came out of Mr. Callahan’s barn upside down (I spent more than he paid me).

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From there to the Toadstool in Peterborough to see the Noted Nature Writer do a talk and book signing event. I got there early, so first I had some pie for breakfast:

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And did a little looking around:

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The talk was wonderful – from there the posse went to Deering where I helped put new bracelets on a gos, much hawking was talked and I met more interesting people. Back home, another dog run – they’re all fast asleep now – and that’s it for me!

Overland sidehack

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Continuing our very infrequent series of overlanding sidecar posts, I give you the Ruko X-Plorer:

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Unlike the Ural referenced previously, I’ll bet I could rig this for dogs, hawks and a ger.

[machine translation follows]

In our workshop we have laid a new X-Plorer to the weld plate. Client is a world of travel Lithuanians, who plans a trip from Norway to Siberia and from Mongolia to Kazakhstan. Everything on gravel roads, of course! And of course with a RUKO X-Plorer

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Via Ride the Machine.

Nick Cave (no, not that one)

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Amazing Soundsuits by Chicago-based sculptor/fiber artist/genius Nick Cave. Found by following an inbound link (to Tibetan Pop Surrealism) back and then googling like mad.

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Youtube of suits under construction/dancing etc.:

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Molly Would blogs Mr. Cave’s visit to SCAD.

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A slide show from the Fowler Museum, UCLA (hopefully, the link works well – the Fowler/phototour is a bit tricksy – if it doesn’t work, click on the Fowler link, then on Nick Cave Photo Tour).

Vertical Blue 2010

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The Shark Girl sent me a heads-up a couple days ago – she and D are in the Bahamas (Dean’s Blue Hole, Long Island to be exact) videoing the Vertical Blue 2010 freediving event. The footage is amazing – you can find all of it here and write-ups of the days events here. Below, William Trubridge does a world record unassisted (no fins, no nothin’) dive to 92 meters. My back of the envelope calc puts that at approximately 30 stories – yowza.

Internet serendipity

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This [Boing Boing]:

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Rick Prelinger sez, “My spouse Megan Prelinger is about to take to the road with her show of paleofuturistic ads from the early, go-go years of the space race. While the images are fascinating in print, they’re even more provocative when projected, revealing the gap (and sometimes uncanny resemblance) between the fanciful and actual futures of space exploration. I can’t wait to see them on the big screen at DC’s National Air & Space Museum, LA’s Griffith Observatory and a host of other venues in Portland, Seattle and NYC. Her tour kicks off at San Francisco’s Booksmith this coming Tuesday, May 4 with a slide show, reading and release party for her new book Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957-1962.“

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Leads to this [Amazon]:

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Leads to this [Amazon again]:

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Which causes me to google “apollo guidance computer simulator”:

I figured I’d get a good hit, but this is beyond good- the Virtual AGC Home Page.

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Big fun! And as a side benny, this [Amazon again again]:

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The old man worked on Convair B-58 Hustlers (radar system for Raytheon) – he tells the story of coming home for lunch one day and returning to work to find that the aircraft he’d been working on had caught fire and killed some of his coworkers. Time and place suggest the B-58 involved was unit 58-1012.

Pininfarina X

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Via the Most Viewed Classifieds window on the Hemming’s blog, a concept car that I’d never run across before – the Pininfarina X. One front wheel steering, two side wheels, and one wheel in back supplying power. That power comes from an 1,100 cc Fiat engine, churning out 43 monster horses. * Here’s the punch line – the asking price is $1,350,000 – you read that right – over a million bucks.

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Another web site asserts “the X also possessed twitchy and unpredictable handling”* – a claim I have no trouble believing. A single steering wheel up front equals big entertainment, as the Robin Reliant racing rollover clip below demonstrates. I have no idea whether popping the power wheel off the pavement during hard cornering would help or not, and given the coolness of the body work, I have no interest in finding out.

Dem dry bones

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Lotte and I went in search of cottontails yesterday, after work. We didn’t find any but she got more experience working heavy cover and a bunch of exercise (didn’t stop her from carrying on with the shorthairs when we got home, though).

I did find a huge patch of trout lilies.

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And a couple leg bones. I’m assuming they’re from a whitetail – I need to do a little more nosing around to figure out which bones. Regardless, they’re a matched set; one shows evidence of healed trauma. Infection? Bullet wound? Break (I don’t think so, but what do I know)?

Mirror images.

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The uninjured bone.

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Ouch.

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I’m thinking about making a flute from the uninjured bone. I’ll stick with a pennywhistle when I attempt to form up the Innsmouth Drum and Whistle Corps for the Halloween parade, but the bone flute would be fun to fool with.