01 May 08 The tale of the Cougar Ace, the perfect storm

The Cougar Ace was a car transport ship that was en route from Japan to Vancouver, British Columbia, Tacoma, Washington, and Port Hueneme, California, with a cargo of 4,812 Mazda vehicles. On the way a malfunction caused ballast water to dump out and the ship listed 60 degrees putting both crew and cargo in danger.

Since the story was first reported it has been followed by journalists of all stripes. The entire tale, from the initial accident to the salvaging of the ship to the final fate of the close to 5,000 vehicles, is a multi-layered and fascinating story.

Wired contributor Joshua Davis wrote a brilliant story that focused on the salvaging effort of the Cougar Ace. His vibrant descriptions and literary format make the salvage team, a rogues gallery of hardened characters that makes the hardened seaman of ‘The Deadliest Catch’ look like a bunch of Long Johns Silver employees, come to life. Take the time to read it, it’s worth it.

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Tags: article, online journalism, wired

17 Apr 08 Good online journalism-related reads for today

• The Content-centric reader (Newspaper Death Watch)
• Anonymously Yours, Should the Tribune have let online readers trash Rachel Barton Pine? (Chicago Reader)
• ‘Orlando Sentinel’ Editor Elected President of ASNE (Editor & Publisher) - Cheap plug
• Who are you calling a journalist? (Mindy McAdams) - Mindy McAdams commenting on…
  • Jeff Jarvis commenting on…
    • Michael Tomasky commenting on…
      • Jay Rosen commenting on the whole Barack Obama comments and the journalist vs. citizen thing.
• Digging Deeper: Your Guide to Net Neutrality (MediaShift) - Get comfortable, this is a long but excellent primer on what exactly Net Neutrality is.
• Information Ethics (Howard Owens)
• Drive-by surfers peril news sites (Alan D. Mutter)

Read anything good today?

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Tags: articles, journalism

13 Apr 08 NPAA Best of Photojournalism 2008 Web winners

The National Press Photographers Association has announced its winners for the Best of Photojournalism contest. The winners in the online categories were quite impressive this year. Steve Myers over at Poynter weighs in on some of the notables and trends.

Here are some that I liked a lot:

• Soul of Athens - First Place, Best Use of Web and Best Multimedia Package, The Athens News
• One School’s Struggle: Fixing D.C.’s Schools - First Place, Best Audio Slideshow, The Washington Post
• Hotel Poverty - First Place, Best Feature Slideshow (INDE), Shane Bauer
• Firsts and Goals - First Place, Best Sports Slideshow (UNDE), Palm Beach Post
• Our Hidden Poor - Second Place, Feature Audio Slideshow, The Chicago Tribune
• Getting the Boot - First Place, Best Feature Video, Lexington-Herald Leader

I really liked the video on this last one so I included it. It’s short and simple, but it easily gets the point across. Along with a story, talking about the video system, cost, etc., this makes a nice complete little feature package. As an aside, that system would not go over well at the University of Central Florida. Cars would be getting towed left and right.

Check out all of the winners at the NPAA site.

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Tags: journalism, media, online journalism

09 Apr 08 What the heck is a Petawatt!?*

Well, according to Wired, it’s the power output of the world’s most powerful laser. Built at the University of Texas at Austin is pretty much the kind of laser an evil genius would put on the moon in order to hold the world hostage.

How much is a petawatt? Well, in zeros it is 1,000,000,000,000,000 watts of power. I wonder if in a couple decades we’ll have petabyte hard drives and petabyte CPUs?

Click on the link some stunning photos.

*Let it be known it was a struggle to decide whether to make a Back to the Future, Austin Powers or a Real Genius reference.

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Tags: articles, gadgets, science

09 Apr 08 Evening reads

• Facebook Reportedly Near Accord Over Origin - Apparently Aaron Grennspan claims he created ‘The Facebook,’ soon to be associated with ‘The Huge Settlement.’ With the company worth an estimated $15 billion and rumor that it well sell public shares soon, I think they can afford to pay this thing under the rug.
• Cindy McCain is shopping a book - I’ve got to tell you, those McCains are some writing fools. McCain has put out (what seems) like two books during his presidential run. Hell, I think he even put one out while in that Vietnam POW camp. Now his wife is jumping on the wagon as well. McCain’s book are always big sellers too, not that Cindy needs the money.
• Yahoo/Google deal is anti-competitive: Microsoft - The ‘Search Wars’ continue, or do they? This bit in Wired claims that the Search Wars are over, and declared Google Inc. the victor. From my experience (which is limited) it seems that eliminating almost all competition in a market is just bad. We are taught in Econ 101 that competition is necessary to promote innovation. Now I don’t think Google would just stop being innovative if they were the only game in town, but it would certainly be easier for them to rest on their laurels a bit. However, I do have to admit I am a bit of a Google fanboy, I just love all of their apps and services.
• ‘USA Today’ Launches Instant Message News Alerts and Search Function - While no doubt useful, there is something weird about talking to robot services in AIM. A news service would no doubt be any less creepy. Gannett has really been stepping up its online game (even stealing the Sentinel’s Flash prodigy last month), so I’ve got to commend them for that.
• Study: Newspaper Web Sites Dominate Local Traditional Media, But Are Losing Share - Yay, job security! Well, sort of. To say that news Web sites are losing market share to Google and Yahoo! is to assume they ever really had a ton of it. Seems to me that is a winless battle, better to fight on your own turf and compete against other news Web sites. The key is to do things Google and Yahoo! can’t do or can’t make use of on their news sites.
• San Francisco torch route switch angers spectators - So the torch bearers, on their way to cast the fire into the mouth of Mount Doom, are forced to pump fake and pull the old switcheroo in order to stave off attacks from protesters and rabble rousers. I just woke up from a nap and apparently I am in the Twilight Zone.

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Tags: articles, links, news

09 Oct 06 Stop the Insanity!

The Insanity of ‘Staying the Course’ in Iraq
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted October 9, 2006.

The idea that Iraq will spiral out of control if U.S. forces withdraw has been hammered home since the beginning of the occupation by the wars supporters, but while it’s a danger, it is also anything but the certainty that’s become part of the conventional wisdom. Seventy percent of Iraqis have confidence that their police force can maintain order.

The hawks who brought us this war have gone through an exquisite set of intellectual gymnastics to produce new justifications for why we have to stay the course. The latest is that pulling out of Iraq will “embolden” the terrorists. Vice President Cheney said recently that a withdrawal at this point would only “validate the al Qaeda strategy and invite even more terrorist attacks.” The obvious flaw in that argument is that whatever “emboldening” might or might not occur has already happened; before the invasion, the secretary of defense of the most powerful country the world has ever known predicted that the war “could last six days, six weeks” but doubted it would last six months. Yet three and a half years later, a few thousand Iraqi insurgents with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades have kept the leviathan pinned down, and there’s no sign that they’re anywhere close to their “last legs.” They’ve isolated the United States from its allies, stymied U.S. foreign policy from Singapore to the Sudan and halted Bush’s ambitions to “reform” the Middle East. The lesson has already been learned, as evidenced by the Taliban’s adoption of many of the Iraqi insurgents’ tactics in Afghanistan

Click title for full article @ AlterNet

The rest of this article is peppered with links that support most of the points Holland raises. A really good read that further hammers home how ridiculous this ‘Stay the Course’ rhetoric is.

I think more than anything the linear thinking coming from the administration demonstrates their incredible hubris in this situation. Can it really be argued that they are putting what is best for America, democracy in Iraq and ‘The War on Terror (TWAT) above what is best in assuring the Republican legacy? If they were honestly concerned more about the people than their reputation then I would think they could concede a little bit of defeat or admission of error and aim to correct it rather than this ‘We are never wrong and we must stay-the-course regardless of all of the facts pointing toward the course not working.’

This bit from Jon Stewart the other night, while very funny, did actually strike home a good point. Bush obviously thinks that we the people should but out of the administration’s business and just let them “do their job,” whatever that job may be. Honestly, George “Dubya” Bush of all people thinks you are too stupid to fully understand his job and you should just go about your business.

I don’t think anyone in the administration are truly bad people, I just don’t think they know what they are doing. Their failure to admit this failure will prevent them from working toward a viable solution in both Iraq and America as a whole.

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Tags: bush