Monthly Archives: July 2005

Gorgeous Western Australia Beach VR Scene – with a Dolphin

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Peter Murphy shares a gorgeous Quicktime VR Scene from a beach Western Australia Beach, with a dolphin!

these dolphins btw are very curious about cameras and people and this one made its way slowly along the line of people half rolled on its side looking at everyone … when it came near to me I put down my camera nearer the water to get a closeup view and it came closer … and then spouted water thru its blowhole onto my (precious) lens! — something they quite regularly do to cameras apparently
(… but with a bit of cleaning it was ok)

Howard Dean to Speak in Madison 7/13

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WisPolitics: “Keeping his promise to help build state Democratic parties, Howard Dean, the Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), will visit the Badger State for a grassroots fundraiser benefiting the Democratic Party of Wisconsin on Wednesday, July 13, 2005 at the Orpheum Theater in Madison. It will be Dean’s first trip to Wisconsin since becoming Chair in February 2005. ”

Future of News from the Media Center

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The Media Center:

It’s mobile, immediate, visual, interactive, participatory and trusted. Make way for a generation of storytellers who totally get it. This briefing summarizes key findings from Media, Technology and Society, a multi-disciplinary research project on the media landscape conducted for professionals engaged in strategies, research, thinking, education, policy and philanthropy related to the future of journalism and media.

3.8MB PDF

New Bankruptcy Law: Chilling Effect on Entrepreneurs?

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Louise Witt:

Mr. Girard’s experience is apparently much more common than the policy makers in Washington might think. A study commissioned by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., which supports entrepreneurial education, found that almost one in five Americans who filed for personal bankruptcy protection in recent years had operated businesses – small companies, home enterprises or start-ups – within two years of filing for bankruptcy.
Many of them had incorrectly filled out their paperwork, so the government mistakenly counted them as individuals, not businesses. In many more instances, the study showed, they had been classified as individuals by a computer software oversight.
The study’s findings raise the possibility that the bankruptcy law President Bush signed in April, and which is to take effect in October, may have damaging ramifications for the nation’s entrepreneurial culture.
Instead of cracking down almost entirely on careless consumers who cannot pay credit card bills, the study indicates, the legislation threatens to hobble untold numbers of entrepreneurs and small-business owners caught in financial setbacks.

Wisconsin Senators Kohl & Feingold supported the bankruptcy reform law. The Kauffman report can be downloaded here.

London Bombing Remembered, In Madison

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Driving north on John Nolen Drive [map] this afternoon, I saw this fine gentleman wearing a black armband and waving the Union Jack. I took this with my cellphone, so it’s not a great picture, but it does capture the spirit (btw, there’s a photographer just below the flag. I imagine this will appear in one of the local newspapers tomorrow).

UPDATE: John Maniaci took this very nice photo.

A Thursday Morning Look at Local Media

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(Click the photo for a larger version)

I walked to the bottom of my driveway early this morning to grab the NY Times (I still get the fishwrap version) and saw that another paper was dropped off (the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal periodically drop promotional copies around the neighborhood).
The 2nd paper was rather interesting: the first two pages were advertising “Brought to you by Middleton Ford”. Perhaps this advertiser bought x number of copies that were dropped around the area? Most interestingly, the advertiser pages completely covered the Wisconsin State Journal. From the advertiser perspective, it is certainly in your face for those who take the paper out of the bag (why not direct mail?). From the State Journal’s perspective, however, it is a big dilution of the brand. Promo copies (try us) are one thing, but a promo copy completely wrapped in an ad is another.
This approach is identical to traditional advertiser only publications. Perhaps that’s where the daily papers will end up: free to all readers, but with a much larger and more invasive ad presence.
Meanwhile, Joseph T. Hallinan covers McClatchy’s circulation woes at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Finally, I took a look at local coverage/links to today’s very unfortunate London events around 7:00a.m. at two popular local news sites, Capital Newspapers’ madison.com site and Morgan Murphy Media’s channel3000.com. At 6:48a.m., channel3000 had a photo of British PM Tony Blair’s press conference along with a story and links. madison.com did not mention this breaking story (they later posted a link to an AP story on the London bombing). (click to view a screen shot of the two sites at 6:48a.m. today). The internet’s news cycle is clearly different than the traditional paper’s 24 hour process.

Having said all that, I think the local sites are much better off 99% focused on local issues. There was and is no shortage of coverage on the London events around the net.

Explore the 50 States in Song

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All Things Considered:

Singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens has a lofty goal: exploring each of the 50 states in song. He’s already released a critically acclaimed full-length CD simply called Michigan. His latest honors the people, places and history of Illinois.
Independent radio producers Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister were curious about how Stevens writes his songs, which, much like their own work, are filled with stories of places and people. So, they introduced Stevens to the Arkansas town of Brinkley.

MP3: The Lord God Bird