Notice anything funny outside the office window?
A deer decided to bed down today outside the office of Professor Williams and Vogl. We’re not quite sure how long it was there for. It must have felt the row of small hedges gave it some protection from the elements (and the students). As for us professors, clearly aren’t perceived as a threat by anything — my students could have told you that.
As I was leaving the house this morning, and stepping outside into the sunny 2 degree weather, I grabbed a couple quick pictures of the aftermath of yesterday’s snows. This is the most snow we’ve had on the ground in quite a while. Again, nothing like to 10 feet + of snow currently burying northern New York. Still, it’s not an insignificant amount at all for Rochester. On the left side of the picture you can see the area where Dre made a snow angel last night.
Here’s a panoramic view of our little piece of Hampton Lane in Penfield. It doesn’t do the piles of snow at the end of our driveway any justice.
That’s it for now. Some more research blogs are coming. And still no word on Grad programs.
Valentine’s day has come, and almost gone, here in Rochester and was marked with the first true “blizzard” we’ve had in quite a while. While we’ve gotten off light compared to places like Oswego, over the last 20+ hours almost a foot of snow has fallen on the immediate area (more in some places). RIT canceled night classes, effectively closing the campus at 6.00pm. Here’s a shot of my walk out to the car at 4.00pm today:
As far as my car itself, I found it partially buried by the snow that had fallen since I arrived on campus around 8.50am:
For Dre and myself our outside day ended in much the same way as it began: shovelling the driveway. And it was literally the same amount of snow at 5.40 (yes, it took me more than an hour to make a normally half-an-hour commute) as there was a 7 this morning. One big difference however was Dre’s decision to make a celebratory snow angel at the end of shoveling this evening. I opted not to join her.
Before I got home, I did make a stop off for supplies at the local Wegmans (it still took me about an hour to get from RIT to Penfield). Thankfully, that gave me one last chance to take a few pictures of the Valentine’s display there. Wegmans, well, went a little over the top this year. More than a little. A lot. While from the outside things look normal:
Once you got inside, things got crazy. The following panorama of the Valentines display doesn’t quite do it enough justice. The entire center island was all flowers with two florists pulling together last minute bouquets. To one side was candies, to the other side chocolate cakes. Yesterday, they actually had one of the chefs (yes, our supermarket has floor chefs), in a tux, passing out chocolate covered fruit.
But in my opinion the cat’s pajama’s was this ice sculpture:
Yup, Wegman’s Ultimate Chocolate Cake (which while quite good is no where near “ultimate”) was complimented by an ice sculpture “vase.” If there was any question before, it’s been laid to rest, Wegman’s is no longer a store, it’s a shopping experience. Take that Whole Foods!
But Dre and I were not swayed by this crass consumerism. We opted for a quiet dinner (we went out for our night on the town dinner last weekend). And, provided we’re dug out by the weekend, we’re planning a date for Saturday night.
Things here have been pretty dedicated to research postings for a while. There’s not a lot that I can say that’s really shareable right now. I haven’t heard back from Cornell, NYU, or Columbia. I learned today that Cornell’s deadline for accepting an offer is April 15th. Usually you’re given at least a month. So, assuming roughly the same timetable for all of my schools, I should know something by the beginning of March.
At RIT, we’re going into week 9 of our 11 week cycle. So things are rapidly approaching a close. There’s a lot of faculty business going on in the background. However, None of it is stuff that I can blog about.
At home things are, well, about the same. The cats continue their benevolant dictatorship over us (provided we keep the feedings coming). Dre and I continue to adjust to married life (meaning I have yet to get a frying pan in the back of the head). And in terms of martial arts, there’s not too much to say. Teaching at RIT has really overshadowed my martial arts practice for quite a bit. I don’t even want to think about what will happen next year.
Man, what a week. A ton of interesting developments in media and the online communities that I’m interested. Here’s a quick recounting (if for no other reason, so I can get it down).
Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us
Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, becomes an “overnight” YouTube star with his brilliant little ethnographic film Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&eurl=[/youtube]
He then takes it a step further and posts it to the Mojiti site where visitors can tag it with their own comments. While the Wesch’s video can be taken to task for what it doesn’t contain, it’s a great little peice and it will be interesting to see how this affects the production and distribution of ethnographic films.
Bloggers at the Libby Trial
As I mentioned in an earlier post, bloggers and citizen journalists got direct media access to the Lewis Scooter Libby trial. Their content is being syndicated by the AP. This has brought more attention to the field of Citizen Journalism.
New York Time Editor Talks About its Online Future
Arthur Sulzberger, owner, chairman and publisher of the New York Times dropped what seems to be a bombshell in an online interview:
Sulzberger went on to break down how the online model would actually be more cost effective for the times. It’s the first time that I’ve seen anyone acknowledge this.
Edwards campaign hires and sticks with bloggers
The gist is this: John Edwards campaign hired Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, two well known blogging pundits to help manage his online presence. A number of groups, most notably the Catholic League, protested the move noting that Marcotte and McEwan have made a range of inappropriate remarks about Christians and other groups on their personal blogs. Edwards ends up stuck between a rock and a hard place:
Edwards, via his official blog, announces that while the content of the posts in questions “offended” him, he keeping Marcotte and McEwab on his staff. Both Marcotte and McEwab post their own responses as well. This one has it all, clashing of speech communities, pundits, journalists, and politicians. I can’t claim to have my head wrapped around it yet. I expect were going to see a lot more cases like this in the weeks and months to come.
Yahoo launches Pipes
I’m not quite sure how to describe it. Pipes is a new visual programming tool from yahoo for combining data feeds. Like I said, I can’t quite explain why yet, but I think it’s important. If for no other reason its going to allow non-programmers to begin to create web applications mash-ups. I’m still not quite sure what I need to mash up. But if I can figure that out, I’ll let you know.
——-
I’m sure there’s more. There always is. I’ve fallen out of touch with things at YouTube. To my knowledge there still hasn’t been an official announcement about revenue sharing to the community. Still lots going on across the board.