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August 31, 2005
Guest Blogging on Blog for America
Earlier this evening I was invited to post a blog entry about my Katrina blog on Blog for America. It's currently on their homepage; the permalink is here. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 11:35 PM | TrackBack
Move Over Pat, Here's Katrina
It's amazing how the buzz around a particular story can change so quickly. Just last week we were all talking about Pat Robertson's rhetorical kerfuffle; now, the focus is clearly on Katrina.
It doesn't take a statistician to know this, of course. In case you have any doubts, though, here's a Blogpulse.com graph plotting how the decline in discussions around Pat Robertson and the skyrocketing of discussions around Hurricane Katrina. It also shows that the Robertson story, even at its peak, doesn't hold a candle to the amount of blog chatter regarding the storm and its aftermath.
As much as I'd love for the Robertson story to drag out, it's time to focus on helping out, saving lives, getting people the information they need to help their families. Pat can wait. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 11:01 PM | TrackBack
Update on Katrina Aftermath
It's been about 30 hours since I launched the Katrina Aftermath blog, and the response has been phenomenal. We've had almost 50 blog posts so far, including telephone podcasts, email and video. Meanwhile, Yahoo! and several major newspapers are linking to the site, so I'm getting as high as 2000 page views an hour. Not a bad start.
I've also added several new resources to the site. In the right nav bar, you can find a link to a photo feed of missing persons, as well as Craigslist's feed of lost and found people. Below that are Flickr photos generated from a Katrina photo pool, as well as several relevent tags.
Anyway, I'll probably be posting more on that site than here for the next couple of days. And I encourage you to join me - anyone can post text, audio or photos to the site. All the instructions are in the right column on the homepage. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 5:55 PM | TrackBack
August 30, 2005
Hurricane Katrina Mobcast: Share Your Thoughts Now!
I've just launched an open blog and mobcast for people interested in following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:
http://katrina05.blogspot.com/
The blog is set up so that anyone can post a blog entry, podcast or photo to the site. I'm particularly hoping that residents of the Gulf Coast will be willing to call in and let people know how things are going for them. Similarly, anyone who would like to share ways to help out, or wishes to share their thoughts on the hurricane, may post as well.
Here's how to participate.
Post a blog entry:
Send an email to katrina2005.comments @ blogger.com. The title of your email will be the title of the blog entry, and the email body will be the blog entry body. If you don't want your contact information, you should remove your signature file. Attachments will not be posted.
Record a podcast:
- Dial 1-415-856-0205
- Enter login 515-515-5555
- Enter PIN code 2005, then the # key
- Record your message
- Press the # key to save, then the 1 key to post
Post a photo:
The website is collecting photos from Flickr.com that are tagged with the word . Simply log on to Flickr (or create an account), upload photos, and use this tag. Photos appear in the right column of the blog's homepage.
I've also set up a "tag-o-rama" inside the right column of the blog. It displays links to relevant key words like hurricane, katrina and new orleans, linking to tagged content from Technorati (blogs), Flickr (photos) and del.icio.us (websites).
Please feel free to share this information with anyone who might be interested in participating. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 1:13 PM | TrackBack
August 29, 2005
Fight Animal Cruelty: Join Bloggers for Animals
On September 10, I'll be joining thousands of other animal lovers for the MSPCA's annual Walk for Animals on Boston Common. MSPCA, the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, is one of the oldest humane societies in the US. This will be the the 25th annual Walk for Animals, and they hope to raise $250,000.
To do my part for the event, I've created a new walking team called Bloggers for Animals. I'm hoping that some of my fellow bloggers in the Boston area will join me for the walk on September 10. Participating costs only $15. You'll get a free t-shirt, and if you've got a pet, you're more than welcome to bring them on the walk. I'm also hoping you'll help me raise $1000 for the walk. (And if we can raise more than that, even better!) Even if it's just a few dollars, every dollar will help animals live, safe and happy lives.
If you'd like to join the Bloggers for Animals team, please visit our team homepage and join our walk team. Or you can make a donation. Like I said, every dollar will help. So whether you're able to join us as a team member, donate to the cause, or both, your participation will be most welcome. Join today! -andy
Posted by acarvin at 12:50 PM | TrackBack
FTP Comes to the Rescue for CNN's Hurricane Katrina Coverage
Just a few moments ago on CNN, reporter John Zarella filed a story from New Orleans, which is currently being hammered by Hurricane Katrina. The footage was somewhat grainy, as if it had been shot live via videophone, but it featured cutaway footage from various parts of the city, so it was clear it was an edited package.
When the story ended, CNN's Daryn Kagan explained that network executives had given the order for TV crews not to use satellite trucks - they could get blown over on top of the crew - so reporters in New Orleans could no longer use live satellite feeds to connect to the network. Instead, she said, "CNN is now using a technology called FTP" to get footage from New Orleans. John Zarella and his team uploaded the video package over the Internet so they wouldn't have to file it outside with a satellite truck.
The way Kagan explained it, she almost seemed to be suggesting that CNN was embracing some bleeding-edge tool that's making connectivity possible for reporters in the middle of the storm. Rather, they're using one of the oldest tools available to Internet users. FTP, or file transfer protocol, has been around for decades. It's simply a tool that allows a person to upload or download a file between their computer and a server located somewhere else on the Internet.
Not unlike the way ham radio became a major tool for people caught in the middle of last December's tsunami, journalists are now reverting to some of the most basic Internet tools to ensure they can file their stories in a timely - and safe - manner. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 11:12 AM | TrackBack
Che Guevara's Family Threatens Lawsuits over Photo Use
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Che-emblazened berets for sale in Havana |
Since then, the photo has become one of the world's most famous t-shirts. It's been lampooned in a New Yorker cartoon, depicting Che sporting a Bart Simpson t-shirt. Reporters Without Borders used it in campaigns protesting the treatment of journalists in Cuba. Supermodel Gisele Bundchen modeled underweared stamped with the famous pic.
The families of both Che and Korda are not amused. Over the last five years they've filed successful lawsuits to block the use of the photo in ways they feel run counter to the spirit of Che, and now they're planning to file more suits around the world.
I wonder, though, if they will attempt to curtail the sail of Che-ware in Cuba. When Susanne and I visited four years ago, Che souvenirs were everywhere. The crafts market in Old Havana was dominated by Che chic - berets, china plates, posters, postcards, medallions. I can understand Che's family been upset about liquor and lingerie companies using his image as part of their capitalist marketing campaigns. But do they feel the same way about the Cuban government using the image to collect US dollars from Che-crazy tourists?
Posted by acarvin at 8:38 AM | TrackBack
August 27, 2005
Chaucer the Orange Tabby Needs a Loving Home
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Chaucer needs a place to call home. |
We have actually seen Chaucer twice at the Petco in the last 10 days, but today was the first day we got to know him. He is so sweet and loving, we would do anything to take him home ourselves. But because we already have two cats and our lease won't let us take in a third, our hands our tied. But we were so touched by Chaucer that we decided to post this message today.
We have no affiliation whatsoever with St. Meow's. We're just doing this because we met a beautiful cat in need of a caring family and want to help out in whatever way we can.
To learn more about Chaucer, please visit this web page. You can also contact St. Meow's directly at 617-767-6294 or saintmeows [at] comcast.net.
If you're looking to bring a pet into your life and you live in the Boston area, please pay Chaucer a visit.
Posted by acarvin at 6:03 PM | TrackBack
August 26, 2005
Get Me a New Wire Service, ASAP!
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Does he look like a news editor to you? Believe it. |
Yesterday, E&P ran a story about the Associated Press and its plan to launch a wire service targeting the 18-to-34-year old demographic. The new service, called asap, will take advantage of the AP's massive infrastructure to put out stories in various media formats, including text, photos, audio and video.
"Nobody else is already everywhere," asap head Ted Anthony told E&P. "We have all these people doing interesting things all over the world."
Along with the obvious fact that this is a newsworthy development, it gives me the opportunity to play proud big brother, as asap's news editor will be none other than Eric Carvin, who until recently was the overnight news supervisor at AP headquarters. (I've known about this for a little while, but being a good brother I resisted giving into my inner blogger and spilling the beans before they were ready to talk about it.)
Way to go, Eric. Knock 'em dead and take no prisoners. Unless they ask nice - otherwise it might upset Mom. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 5:17 PM | TrackBack
The Robertson Effect
Ever since Pat Robertson made his assassination remarks about Hugo Chavez, it's been a real hoot reading the reaction from blogs around the world. The day the story broke, CNN's The Situation Room was able to find only one blogger who supported Robertson's comments. Meanwhile, as anyone who reads Global Voices knows, bloggers from Bolivia to Bahrain have had their say on the controversy.
This seemed like a great excuse to go over to BlogPulse.com and plot some charts to see how the Robertson Effect was playing out throughout the blogosphere. Plotting a graph to see how the phrases "Pat Robertson," "Hugo Chavez" and "assassinate" have been used in blogs over the last two months, you get these dramatic results:
As you can see here, the phrase "Pat Robertson" takes a massive leap over the last few days. Interestingly, there only 2/3rds as many references to "Hugo Chavez," and even less so for "assassinate," even though both terms make impressive spikes of their own. This seems to suggest that a number of recent blog postings dealt specifically with Robertson's anti-Chavez remarks, while a great number of posts were just anti-Robertson posts without direct mention of the event. Perhaps a number of bloggers posted the initial controversy, then continued to post more general comments about Robertson after that.
While playing around with the BlogPulse graphs, I also plotted the same three terms on a six-month scale. Here are the results:
The results, as expected, are similar, but notice the unusual bump in the number of posts related to Robertson back in early May. I wondered what could have happened that week, so I poked around a bit on some news archives. Within a minute or two, I discovered that Robertson made some remarks suggesting that liberal judges were a greater threat to the US than terrorists:
If you look over the course of a hundred years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings. I think we're going to control al Qaeda. I think we're going to get Osama bin Laden. We won in Afghanistan. We won in Iraq, and we can contain that. But if there's an erosion at home, you know, Thomas Jefferson warned about a tyranny of an oligarchy and if we surrender our democracy to the tyranny of an oligarchy, we've made a terrible mistake.
Way to go, Pat. No wonder there was a spike in the blogosphere.
There are few guarantees in life. But Pat Robertson putting his foot so deep in his mouth that he tickles his own tonsils is certainly one of them. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 3:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Alleyway Marine Rescue
Yesterday, Susanne and I were running errands at lunchtime when we walked by a dumpster just off Beacon Street in Boston. The dumpster was full of items recently abandoned by someone who'd probably just moved, including an old mattress, a broken desk and some shattered poster frames. Atop this heap, though, we found an enormous plush toy -- a stuffed shark.
It had to have been six feet long - simply huge. I made some kind of land shark joke, but Susanne's face was overcome with sadness. Always an animist at heart, Susanne hates seeing any kind of object that's been abandoned by its owners. But toys and stuffed animals are the worst.
We continued to run our errands a few blocks down the street, then made our way back to the apartment. The lonely shark was still sitting atop the dumpster. Susanne insisted that we rescue it.
"You can carry it into the grocery store," I said, laughing.
"Go back to the apartment and get the car keys," she replied.
As it happened, the shark was abandoned just a few dozen yards from our parking space, five minute's from our apartment. Susanne suggested we put it in the car, so the next time we took the car to Cambridge, we could give the shark to Goodwill so they could give it a good home. While Susanne guarded the shark, I walked home, said hello to our groggy cats, grabbed the car keys, and backtracked to the car, where I found Susanne waiting, shark in hand.
We had some things in the back seat of the car, so we tried the trunk. At first we worried the shark was too big for the trunk. Indeed, it was a little cramped, but the cute carcharodon seemed perfectly cozy.
Sometime this weekend, we'll probably bring the shark to Goodwill. Unless there are any other takers, of course. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 1:27 PM | TrackBack
Pat Robertson and the War Criminal
In the days since Pat Robertson said he'd like to see Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez whacked by the US, I've heard a few commentators mention connnections between Robertson and former Liberian president and notorious war criminal Charles Taylor. I was curious to learn more, so I started poking around and quickly found a CBS News story from 2003 in which Robertson slams Bush for asking Charles Taylor to resign. (Taylor is now a fugitive in Nigeria, hiding from the UN Tribunal he deserves.) Here are some snippets from that story:
Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson accused President Bush of "undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels" by asking Liberian President Charles Taylor, recently indicted for war crimes, to step down."How dare the president of the United States say to the duly elected president of another country, 'You've got to step down,'" Robertson said Monday on "The 700 Club," broadcast from his Christian Broadcasting Network.
"It's one thing to say, we will give you money if you step down and we will give you troops if you step down, but just to order him to step down? He doesn't work for us."
(snip)
Robertson told The Washington Post in an interview published Thursday that he has "written off in my own mind" an $8 million investment in a Liberian gold mining venture he made four years ago, under an agreement with Taylor's government.
"Once the dust has cleared on this thing, chances are there will be some investors from someplace who want to invest. If I could find some people to sell it to, I'd be more than delighted," he said in the article.
(snip)
A U.N.-backed tribunal indicted Taylor on June 4 for war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone.
Robertson told the Post that the war crimes indictment "is nonsense and should be quashed."
Want more? Read this Washington Post piece about the Pat Robertson/Charles Taylor connection.
Lesson learned: if you subscribe to the Pat Robertson School of Thought, it's okay to support a world leader who's an indicted war criminal when you've invested in gold and diamond mines in his country. But if another world leader sticks in your craw and you haven't invested millions of televangelism dollars in his country, you can send a hit squad after him.
Pat Robertson's ethical compass points only in one direction - at himself. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 12:44 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 25, 2005
Katrina and Her Waves
Nearly 13 years to the day since Hurricane Andrew smashed into Miami, a new storm named Katrina is about to pay Florida a surprise visit. Right now it looks like it'll hit well south of where my parents live in Indian Harbour Beach, about 45 minutes south of Cape Canaveral. Last year, they had to evacuate three times in a row because of the rash of hurricanes that season. Let's just hope Katrina isn't the opening credits of a long-feared sequel... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 3:12 PM | TrackBack
Africa's a Mobile Phone Oasis, But You Can't Live on Water Alone
There's a lengthy article in today's New York Times about the rapid pace of mobile phone adoption in Africa. Here's a sample:
From 1999 through 2004, the number of mobile subscribers in Africa jumped to 76.8 million, from 7.5 million, an average annual increase of 58 percent. South Africa, the continent's richest nation, accounted for one-fifth of that growth. Asia, the next fastest-expanding market, grew by an annual average of just 34 percent in that period.
Africa's cellphone boom has taken the industry by surprise. Africans have never been rabid telephone users; even Mongolians have twice as many land lines per person. And with most Africans living on $2 a day or less, they were supposed to be too poor to justify corporate investments in cellular networks far outside the more prosperous cities and towns.
But when African nations began to privatize their telephone monopolies in the mid-1990's, and fiercely competitive operators began to sell air time in smaller, cheaper units, cellphone use exploded. Used handsets are available for $50 or less in South Africa, an amount even Ms. Skhakhane's husband was able to finance with the little he saves from his factory job.
It turned out that Africans had never been big phone users because nobody had given them the chance. (emphasis added by yours truly)
The Africa-as-mobile-phone-oasis story is hardly new, but it's important nonetheless. African countries generally have some of the lowest Internet penetration rates in the world, so mobile phone growth raises the likelihood that more and more mobile providers will begin providing data access. It's the classic leapfrog story: why try to dig up the entire continent to deploy Internet cables when you can get access through the airwaves?
However, it's also worth noting that we shouldn't see mobile phones as a silver bullet for wiping out Africa's digital divide. Internet access via mobile phones is wonderful - I go crazy when my phone gets out of data service range - but it's not a replacement for affordable computers with cheap Internet access, as was argued by The Economist and the World Bank earlier this year. It would be very tempting for us to say, "No need to worry about Africa's digital divide - they've got cell phones, don't they?" but the fact of the matter is that none of us who take Internet access for granted would want to be relegated to using mobile phones as our sole source of access. Try going about your day-to-day business for a week with your computer shut off, using only your phone, and you'll quickly see what I mean.
So on the one hand, I'm very excited about the rapid adoption of mobile phones in Africa. It makes me even more eager to figure out open source strategies that would allow a person to access and post podcasts and blogs using only a run-of-the-mill mobile phone. If we're going to get mobcasting to work, Africa will be the obvious proving ground.
But on the other hand, I think we need to remember that mobile phones in themselves can't entirely solve any community's development needs. Different development challenges require different tools. No doubt, mobile phones will be near the top of the list -- but that list also includes $100 laptops, wind-up electricity generators, low-cost community radio transmitters, and the timeless ham radio. So let's not make policy decisions under the assumption that mobile phones are the only tool necessary for bridging the digital divide. Some day we may have the Swiss army knife-like tool that miraculously handles every development challenge in the book, but until then, we'll need to embrace a spectrum of technologies based on what's actually needed on the ground on a case-by-case basis. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:11 PM | TrackBack
Please Join the Digital Divide Flickr Group
I've just set up a new Flickr group for people interested in sharing photos about the digital divide. For those of you who don't know Flickr, it's an uber-cool tool for sharing photos with large numbers of people. It has a variety of RSS feeds that make it very easy for users to subscribe to photo streams based on the photographer or the topic.
Anyway, if you like to take pictures that might be of interest to the group, please join us.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 2:02 PM | TrackBack
The War on Splogging: Fighting an Online Cancer
Doc Searls has an excellent post this morning about the dire need for search engine companies to engage in a war on splogging. Splogging is a term coined by Mark Cuban to describe blogs with no added value, existing solely to trick people into visiting and exposing them to advertising. Splogs are often encountered in two ways: by searching for a key word on a search engine, or receiving it as a fradulent hit through your RSS aggregator. More often than not, they're automated, linking to countless blogs and other websites, using keywords selected solely to attract more eyeballs and click-throughs for their advertising. And automation means that splogs are being created at a dizzying pace, to the point that when you do a search for almost any term, you're bound to get a bunch of hits that are nothing but money-hungry splogs.
With each passing day, I'm seeing more of both, and frankly, it's become maddening. Fortunately, Doc was able to put some real thought into just how bad this has gotten, and how it's an existential threat to the Web. His post offers a simple, but powerful way of combatting splogging: an industry-wide open source taskforce in which search engine companies pool their resources to fight the splogging scourge.
I suggest that everybody in the search engine business, including all the Static Web and Live Web companies I listed above, pool their knowledge and expertise, and beat a cancer that (in my humble but considered opinion) threatens the whole Live Web, including blogging in particular and frequently updated free content in general. Across the search engine marketplace, there is an enormous amount of duplicated effort fighting splogs and other forms of blog spam. There is also an open source solution to this: share the know-how. Even the data (perhaps through a public list of offenders)....Open-sourcing expertise is the right thing to do for the free marketplace we call the Net, as well as for all the responsible leaders there. Especially when we're fighting a cancer as malignant as this one.
I'm really glad Doc, Cuban and other big-time bloggers are addressing splogging. It's more than a nuisance. It's the kudzu of our time. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 9:15 AM | TrackBack
August 24, 2005
Cat vs. Feather Toy, Part 2
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Video clip of Winnie taking his turn with the feather toy, stalking it from behind my backpack. |
Posted by acarvin at 9:03 PM | TrackBack
Cat vs. Feather Toy, Part 1
Susanne and I picked up a new feather toy for our cats this weekend. Tonight they got to have one of their first workouts with it. Each cat has their own tactic for attacking the toy. In this first video, you'll see Dizzy standing and spinning as he goes after his favorite part of the toy - the handle, rather than the feathers.... -andy
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Video clip of Dizzy and his feather toy. Incidental background music courtesy of Coheed & Cambria (he just loves playing to emo-core). |
Posted by acarvin at 8:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 23, 2005
Pat Robertson Issues Fatwa Against Hugo Chavez
Waking up this morning, I saw a headline on the Yahoo homepage saying that an American religious leader was calling for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Before I could click the link, images of Pat Robertson flashed through my mind. Soon enough, the link opened, and there he was - a still photo of the televangelist, with a wire report outlining the gory details of Robertson's rant.
"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said.
"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," he continued. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."
Robertson's comments are obscene on so many levels. I find it extraordinary that any religious leader whose beliefs supposedly advocate turning the other cheek would actual come out and suggest that we should send a hit squad against a world leader. Granted, Hugo Chavez is hardly a saint, and there's much to be said about having a more favorable government in Venezuela. But a television preacher suggesting we should rub him out? It's just disgusting. No matter what religion you represent, any leader of the faithful who comes out and says someone should be killed is doing a disservice to humanity. Pat Robertson is sounding more and more like Mullah Omar of the Taliban rather than a good Christian. (Just imagine it: what would the world be saying if an Islamic leader suggested the same thing about a world leader? We probably would have called in Delta Force before lunch.)
Meanwhile, I'm both shocked and fascinated by the fact that Robertson added the aside "and I don't think any oil shipments will stop." What exactly is he trying to tell the world? That it's good for the US government to use force against any oil-possessing government it has a grievance with? Next thing you know, Robertson will be calling for air strikes against Nigeria because President Obasanjo just criticized extrajudicial killings and the use of torture by police. It's just insane.
A few hours ago, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld issued rather tepid criticism of Robertson's rhetorical shenanigans. "Certainly it's against the law. Our department doesn't do that type of thing," he told the press. "Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time." A State Department spokesman said basically the same thing.
This is unacceptable. The Bush administration as well as religious leaders of all persuasions need to stand up and repudiate Robertson's foolish statements. His behavior is reckless and should not be tolerated. Simply saying "private citizens say all kind of things all the time" is not a condemnation. Pat Robertson's remarks should be condemned by everyone who believes in diplomacy and the rule of law. Ignoring Robertson's ugly behavior is tantamount to condoning it. - andy
tags: pat robertson
Posted by acarvin at 4:13 PM | TrackBack
Verizon, Yahoo Launch Low-Cost Broadband Service
This morning, Verizon and Yahoo announced the launch of a new low-cost broadband service. The move follows Yahoo's partnership to offer similarly priced broadband with SBC in various parts of the country. Quoting from an AP story on the subject:
For $14.95 [per month], subscribers will be able to download Web pages via a digital subscriber line at speeds of up to 768 kilobits and upload data at 128 kilobits. The cheaper service, which requires a one-year contract and has a price hike after 12 months, offers Yahoo premium services, such as antivirus protection, on-demand music videos and unlimited photo storage, according to an advertisement on Yahoo's site.
All in all, this seems like a very positive step. US broadband has been too expensive for too many people for too long. SBC's and Verizon's decision to lower the price point on basic broadband services will hopefully force their competitors to do the same, lowering the costs of high-speed Internet access for disadvantaged families. It will be interesting to see how technology activists in low-income communities react to the announcement. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 11:09 AM | TrackBack
August 21, 2005
Using iTunes to Get My Podcasts and Videos
Along with the ultra-cool Wall of Video I was able to create this weekend, the team at MeFeedia have made it easy for anyone to subscribe to my podcasts and videos on iTunes. In case you haven't heard, the latest version of iTunes has a podcast manager that handles both podcasts and video blogs. So now you can have all of my latest stuff sent to you directly in iTunes, without ever having to visit my site -- not that you shouldn't visit, just to say hi...
I've added a couple of links in the right sidebar on my homepage that do all the work for you - once you've installed the latest iTunes, of course. After you've installed it, you can simply click one of two links, depending on whether you're a Mac or PC person. Here they are, in case you can't see them on the right side:
Subscribing for Mac users | Subcribing for PC users
If you publish your own video blog or podcast, you can add a link like this to your site as well. Here's how to do it.
Step 1: Go to Mefeedia.com and add your RSS feed.
Step 2: Mefeedia will then bring you to a page with several links on it. One of them will invite you to get an iTunes 1-click subscribe button on your blog. Click the link.
Step 3: Mefeedia will show you some HTML code. Add it to your website, tweaking it if you like.
And that's that. So for those of you use iTunes, please subscribe to my podcasts and videos! -andy
Posted by acarvin at 8:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Chhayam Drummers
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Video clip of drummers and dancers performing a chhayam, a lively Cambodian procession, at yesterday's Lowell Water Festival. Later, the chayyam would weave its way through the festival along the Merrimack River. |
Posted by acarvin at 5:40 PM | TrackBack
August 20, 2005
Introducing My Wall of Video
I've just added a new feature to my blog for those of you interesting in video blogging. I call it my "Wall of Video," and it's basically a collection of thumbnails representing the video blogs I've posted to the site. I'm using a script created by the video blogging portal MeFeedia.
The Wall of video will be featured on two pages in my blog. On the homepage, you'll be able to see it in the right column, just under my collection of photos from my photo blog. It'll look something like this, but longer and thinner:
Meanwhile, there's a link below it that will take you to a larger version. That way you can get a better look at each of the pictures to get a sense of what each video is all about.
So far, there are around 30 videos represented in the wall. That's about half of the videos I've posted to the site since 2003. Some of the videos are missing because they were posted in file formats not supported by MeFeedia; the others are missing, I think, because I included more than one link to a video in the same blog entry, which might be tricking out the script. So I'll have to change habits and include only one URL for each video blog entry, rather than having separate URLs for high-bandwidth and low-bandwidth versions. If I create two versions, I'll just blog it twice.
Enjoy... -andy
Posted by acarvin at 6:37 PM | TrackBack
Khmer Dancecast
For those of you who prefer to listen to the Khmer blessing ceremony at the Lowell Water Festival rather than view it, here's a podcast of the entire performance. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 4:59 PM | TrackBack
Khmer Dance at the Lowell Water Festival
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Video of a Cambodian dance troupe performing a blessing dance at the opening of the Lowell Water Festival, one of the largest Southeast Asian festivals in the US. |
Posted by acarvin at 4:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Khmer Fiddler
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Video of a Cambodian man playing a traditional fiddle at the Lowell Water Festival |
Posted by acarvin at 4:25 PM | TrackBack
Dragon Boats on the Merrimack
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Video of dragon boats practicing for today's races along the Merrimack River for the Lowell Water Festival |
Posted by acarvin at 4:12 PM | TrackBack
Checking Out the Lowell Water Festival
Podcasting from the Lowell Water Festival on my mobile phone this morning. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 3:01 PM | TrackBack
August 19, 2005
Podcasting with the Rolling Stones
Walking home from our parking space off Boston's Beacon Street tonight, we couldn't help but notice the guy down the street blasting "Miss You" by the Rolling Stones from his apartment. That is, until we realized a few moments later that we were hearing the Rolling Stones performing a dress rehearsal concert at Fenway Park.
Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, et al will be kicking off their world tour this Sunday night in Boston. They arrived in town a day or so ago, performing their first dress rehearsal last night. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to us then to open our apartment windows to enjoy a free concert. You see, even though we're a mile away from Fenway, the neighborhood acoustics make it possible for us to sit in our sun room with our windows open and hear any live performance taking place at Fenway. Usually that translates into baseball chatter, but tonight, it's an evening of Mick Jagger belting out Rolling Stones classics. (Right now, they're working their way through "Brown Sugar.") They're performing in front of an actual audience this Sunday and Tuesday, so we potentially have a total of three opportunities to take in a free Rolling Stones concert rather than shell out the $450 face-value price for an actual ticket, let alone the eBay scalper's markup.
(Sidebar moment: As I write, they're now playing "Sympathy for the Devil." Oooh oooh. Oooh Oohh. Hope you guess my name. Cool.)
In case you don't believe me, I'd like to present this podcast. I recorded this sitting in our sun room as our cat Dizzy and I enjoyed a free performance of "I Can't Get No Satisfaction," with the relaxing sounds of crickets in the background. (Listen to the podcast with headphones to get the full stereophonic Mick Jagger vs. the Giant Crickets effect.) Technically, you might be able to argue that this is the very first bootleg of the Stones' 2005 World Tour, but they way I look at it, I see it like this: if I can sit in my apartment and have the Rolling Stones intrude on my personal space, I should be able to record a podcast of it. Anyway, that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 9:51 PM | TrackBack
August 18, 2005
An Evening with a New Yorker Cartoonist
Susanne and I had quite the social evening tonight. First, I swung by a gathering of Boston-area video bloggers hosted by Steve Garfield, where a group of us enjoyed some beers while chatting about video blogging, community media and other topics interesting to us media geeks. I then grabbed a cab and headed to Cambridge, where I met Susanne for an evening with New Yorker cartoonist Drew Dernavich. The event, hosted by the magazine and Grand Marnier, was an opportunity to sample a range of Grand Marnier cocktails on someone else's dime (their margaritas were wicked strong) and snack on as many crab cakes and asparagus fritters you could shove down your gizzard.
After 30 minutes of lounging, Drew Dernavich took the stage, which in this case was just the front of the bar. Unfortunately, the bar was configured as a long, thin space, so unless you were within 15 feet of the cartoonist or the PA system adjacent to him, it was almost impossible to hear a word he was saying. I made out a few random facts, though, such as it took him 12 years before he got published in the New Yorker, and that he studied sculpture in Italy.
After his presentation, he invited guests to chat with him and make requests for drawings. I had my digital camera with me, so I figured we could sneak back to the front, observe him in action, and maybe ask a question or two. One aspiring cartoonist asked him some questions about the biz, but after that, Dernavich started taking requests. After drawing a picture of a man covered in grass cuttings from his neighbor's lawn mower, Chewbacca-style, he made eye contact with me and paused to see if I had a drawing request. I drew a blank for a moment, but then asked him how he would portray Boston's notorious problem with bad street signage. (If you want to get lost in Boston, follow the signs and it's inevitable.) Dernavich smiled, paused another moment, and got to work, drawing a "Welcome to Massachusetts" sign almost completely obscured by a giant tree:
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Video of Drew Dernavich drawing a cartoon of Boston's infamously poor street signs. |
Before leaving, I asked Dernavich about the New Yorker's habit of running cartoons in which generic individuals are portrayed, rather than caracatures of famous people, as often seen in newspapers. Was this practice a challenge to him as a cartoonist, or did he find it liberating?
"I like it, because from a standpoint of being timeless, in a newspaper, what you find are cartoons being published about a specific politician or a specific event," he replied. "The New Yorker publishes ones that are... Well, even if you know it's in the news, still a lot of people will see it and say, 'I don't get it.' But if it's not about a specific event or a specific person, that way it can still be funny on its own, five or 10 years down the line, once that person's gone from the news. So I consider this more of an opportunity."
With that, Dernavich ripped the cartoon of the street sign off his drawing pad, rolled it up, and handed it to me. eBay, anyone? -andy
Posted by acarvin at 8:10 PM | TrackBack
Operation Bamba, and Other Reflections on the Disengagement
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Operation Bamba |
They got it completely wrong. It was the soldiers that were displaying their own form of passive resistance, while the settlers acted more like provocateurs.
Whether you were watching CNN, Fox or even al-Jazeera, you saw the same split screen TV images with a crawl of text below them. On the left, the scene outside the synagogue; on the right, the inside. Unarmed soldiers worked their way along the perimeter of the protestors, most of whom were squatting on the floor, locked arm in arm. Soldiers would pull at a settler, trying to bring them outside, while other settlers would hold onto them, yelling, kicking, sometimes throwing water bottles at the soldiers. Meanwhile, the soldiers would respond by handing out more water bottles.
Til now, at least, the soldiers have shown an extraordinary amount of restraint in what could easy turn into an ugly, ugly confrontation. I can only imagine how hard it is for them to do this job. I truly worry that some of these settlers are crazy enough to get really violent; if their form of "passive" resistance is to shove soldiers and throw water bottles at them, I hate to see them adopt a more active form of resistance.
In between the soldiers and the settlers are the referees - the rabbis. If you're watching TV, they're the ones wearing the red vests that look somewhat like safety-orange construction worker smocks. I don't know exactly who they are, but my guess is that they're army chaplains or other rabbis who've offered to mediate. They're getting in the middle of all the action, trying to talk some sense to both sides when things get too heated. And when a holy object such as a tallit or tefillin gets ripped off a settler and touches the ground, they soberly pick them up, kiss them, and hand them to someone out of the way before getting back to work.
It's all so surreal. I just hope it's over as soon as possible. The longer these settlers resist, the longer we have to wait before we can really get back on the road to peace.
It's just a shame that it can't be as simple as Operation Bamba, which played out in one corner of Gaza yesterday. A group of soldiers came to evict a family from their home. Their son, a toddler named Itamar, greeted the soldiers as guests and insisted that each soldier get a piece of Bamba, a crunchy peanut butter snack that's enormously popular in Israel. The soldiers were so moved by his generosity that they got in a parallel formation so Itamar could inspect the troops and hand out a piece of Bamba to each of them. Once the operation ended, his mother said, "That's all, Itamari. We have to go now."
If all of the disengagement were this easy. But that's the price we pay for peace. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 10:38 AM | TrackBack
August 16, 2005
Beth Kanter on the Cambodian Blogosphere
This evening Susanne and I attended a cocktail party at Rebecca MacKinnon's apartment in Cambridge in honor of the relaunch of the Global Voices website. It was a great chance to hang out with friends and colleagues, old and new, including Ethan Zuckerman, Deborah Elizabeth Finn, Brendan Greeley and Paul Frankenstein. Just as our parking meter fare was running out, I managed to record this brief podcast with Beth Kanter, during which we talked about the evolving role of blogging, podcasting and video blogging in Cambodia. -andy
Posted by acarvin at 9:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Stampede, Panic at Low-Cost Laptop Sale
Just saw this story about a near riot that took place during a school laptop sale in Virginia.
A rush to purchase $50 used laptops turned into a violent stampede Tuesday, with people getting thrown to the pavement, beaten with a folding chair and nearly driven over. One woman went so far as to wet herself rather than surrender her place in line. "This is total, total chaos," said Latoya Jones, 19, who lost one of her flip-flops in the ordeal and later limped around on the sizzling blacktop with one foot bare.An estimated 5,500 people turned out at the Richmond International Raceway in hopes of getting their hands on one of the 4-year-old Apple iBooks. The Henrico County school system was selling 1,000 of the computers to county residents. New iBooks cost between $999 and $1,299. Officials opened the gates at 7 a.m., but some already had been waiting since 1:30 a.m. When the gates opened, it became a terrifying mob scene. People threw themselves forward, screaming and pushing each other. A little girl's stroller was crushed in the stampede. Witnesses said an elderly man was thrown to the pavement, and someone in a car tried to drive his way through the crowd.
I really wonder what caused this to escalate into such a dangerous situation. A combination of back-to-school shopping impatience and the pressure for parents to give their children a laptop seem the likely culprits. So much for the idea that a $100 laptop would be a boon for the developing world -- tell that to low-income US families with kids heading back to school.... -andy