Clippings

Am I a geek or a Luddite?

Minute Maid Park

Professional sports teams are attempting at a furious rate to lure fans away from the comfort of their couches to live games. And sweet technological upgrades to their home venues become a bigger selling point every year.

Roughly a dozen Major League Baseball clubs followed that strategy by making tech-centric improvements to their ballparks in advance of the 2011 season, which kicks off Thursday. Notable upgrades include ballpark-wide Wi-Fi access (Chicago White Sox) and LED high-definition ribbon boards (Arizona Diamondbacks). Here's a deeper look at nine other teams that have made similar significant upgrades.

via wired.com

Wi-Fi access at the Chicago stadium? Cell coverage in Cincinnati? I'd probably use it if I went to the ballpark, but it sure seems like we're missing the boat here. All you really need to have a good time at the ball park are a cap, a mitt, a hot dog, a beer, and a good friend or a date. It helps if the home team wins. Reading this put me in mind of passage from one of Updike's Rabbit novels, and I think I'll spend some time tomorrow looking for it.

What Did Your Dissertation Look Like?

An anatomical heart made up entirely of the words from a dissertation. He put tons of effort into studying a particular cardiac arrhythmia, noted below the heart, and instead of hanging fancy diplomas on the wall, he chose to immortalize his time and efforts into a piece of anatomical art. (via Street Anatomy)

An anatomical heart made up entirely of the words from a dissertation. He put tons of effort into studying a particular cardiac arrhythmia, noted below the heart, and instead of hanging fancy diplomas on the wall, he chose to immortalize his time and efforts into a piece of anatomical art. (via Street Anatomy)

via blog.jayparkinsonmd.com

Jay Parkinson posted this composition. Besides being beautiful, it's kind of a stark reminder how much room for creativity and imagination there is in our lives. I bet I'd enjoy meeting this cardiologist and being his patient.

Contemplating the news

The news gave me lots to think about this week. This report on Morning Edition got my attention with a simple statement about the protests in Yemen, "You're seeing quite a number of tribesmen who have come from all around the country and they actually appear to be outnumbering the youth protestors now." I don't have any awareness of who the people coming to town are and what life in Yemen is really like, but the word "tribesmen" made me think of people who are not very sophisticated and may not have at their disposal the news-gathering and communication tools we're used to. (My baggage.) But they've still learned about the political situation in the country and they're still coming to join the protests. Reminded me that I may hold out for the power of social media and email, but this really shows that what's important is to use the tools that are available to you and to use them well. So in my world, I think there's a need to use the social tools that are there and to recognize that that in ten years or however long it takes we may well need to move to new methods. But there is a need to recognize that we can't insist on using or rely totally on older techniques.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/25/134862113/In-Yemen-Pressure-From-Protesters-Builds

 

The NewsHour had two reports that turned my thoughts to the power that's becoming available to private citizens. Here's a story about citizen groups watching for military buildups with satellites.

 

 

And here's a report that talks about enabling the rebels in Libya and other places to report their casualties easily and accurately.

 

 

The application to take from this (and maybe even Wikileaks) easily is that the governments who have traditionally had the means to conduct the kinds of surveillance discussed here have a new responsibility to be accurate and open as they tell us what they're doing. We can tell if they're hiding the truth. And that means that citizens have a new responsibility to pay attention to what's going on around them and what actions are being undertaken in their names. It's going to be harder to claim that we didn't know what was happening.

Much later I discovered this site for graphic information about the radiation leaks in Japan. There is an unprecedented amount of information available to us today, and much of it may be clearer and more reliable than official channels.

Accotink Bay

Passed a couple of hours very pleasantly yesterday morning t the edge of Accotink Bay on Fort Belvoir. A friend drove me down there to watch the birds, just getting active for the season. We saw a couple of blue heron, a crane, lots of osprey hunting and building nests, and at least four bald eagles. It still thrills me to see eagles in the wild. I must have tried for a good couple of years until I was sure I spotted them. I wish these birds would get more active a few miles north on the Potomac where it's easier for me to watch for them, but I suppose they stay away from the river, the arks and the road where the area is much busier.

Photos by Dick Lynch