Lights, camera, action February 28, 2010

I went on a little Underground adventure with a classmate of mine on Tuesday with this mission in mind: To make a video on Tube etiquette for The First Pint. He and I started by doing vox-pops, but the people we talked to didn’t really have anything illuminating to say—so we grabbed the camera and descended into the depths of London’s transport system. We picked a random direction and got on a random Tube carriage. And somehow, something completely bizarre happened that basically made our video for us. You’ll just have to watch and see:

Fending off the Facebook pests February 18, 2010

We all have them—pests who don’t seem to understand that when they randomly Facebook chat you at 4 a.m., their conversation is simply not wanted. Perhaps they’re friends of friends, or random acquaintances from high school; regardless of origin, their common characteristic is their determination to annoy you. I have five such people in my Facebook pantheon (of my 1149 friends, five might seem like a bizarre number. I’m sure there are many other people I’m Facebook friends with who I don’t want to talk to, but those people seem to feel the same way about me).

Fortunately, despite Facebook’s many faux pas, in redesign #78385021 it managed to do something right: give you the ability to create lists. As with all of its features, the list function is both helpful and disturbing. Facebook automatically created a number of lists for me with surprising accuracy. For example, it managed to corral people I worked with at a camp regardless of if those people were in the camp’s Facebook group. This means Facebook is using some other set of algorithms to determine how you know who you know. Part of it is most likely a function that determines who your friends are friends with, and then assigning lists to overlapping people. But this is beside the point. You want to create a list, not marvel at Facebook’s devilishly good software that creates lists for you.

So. Step 1: Go to your “home” screen and click “Friends.” in the top-center of the page is the button “create a list.” Surprise! That’s the button you should click.

Step 2: Add all your uninvitedly chatty friends to said list and give it a punchy name. I named mine “AVOID.” Self-explanatory.

Step 3: Now this is the tricky part because your timing has to be right. Facebook chat automatically sorts your friends by list when it shows you who’s online. However, you’ll only see your “avoid” list if any of those people are online. If they’re not, sign on later and keep looking. If they are, your list of online friends should look like this: (see right)

If you see your magical list, just slide the white thingy (in the green status bar) to the right so the status bar goes black. Voila. You will now always appear “offline” to the people on that list.

Caveat: After being botheration free for a while, you might experience the urge to check up on your unwelcome friends by seeing if they’re online. You must resist. Because if they’re not online, you’ll just have to play the waiting game all over again to finally set the list back to offline mode, and in the meantime those people can message you and you’ll be reminded of why you blocked them in the first place. (If you’re really curious about them, just read their status updates. My AVOID list features such eloquent updates as “ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY” and “let’s hike the price of corn syrup.”)

Okay. That’s it. FIN

Paper to Pen, Pen to Post January 31, 2010

The digital world is a funny thing. We can do any number of things online, but people still need to write down your name or get your business card to find you. I really like that. There will always be things where analog trumps digital. To-do lists, for example. Taking down a phone number. A last-minute reminder. No iPhone alarm works quite as well as ink scrawled on the palm of your hand (the original palm pilot).

I guess I fell into this train of thought yesterday afternoon. I was rummaging through some things and found an old business card from the couple who sponsored part of my tuition fee grant at Wash. U. during my senior year. I had written them a note at the beginning of 2008 thanking them for their support—standard practice, really, and something the Financial Aid office encouraged us to do—and when I met them a few months later at a big scholarship dinner, they couldn’t stop raving about my note. They said it was the nicest letter they had received in a long time. I can’t for the life of me remember what I said.

I read somewhere recently that Henry James was one of the last great letter writers. I definitely miss getting letters. And I never got many to begin with. I suppose I really miss the notes, whether they were passed in class or shoved in a locker. There’s more privacy and closeness in the hand-written. Once it becomes standardized in a typeface and worse still, paraded around the Internet, it might as well not be a letter anymore. It’s just an exhalation of thought not even worth the ink from a pen.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh. A hopeful person would say there’s as much valuable content out there as is rubbish. Most of the time, I’m a positive person. But I have to say, I miss writing with pens. Whenever I write with my fountain pen, I feel like more of a dinosaur than ever before. And when I do write letters, they are well received, but never responded to (except occasionally, ironically, by e-mail). So really, what’s the point?

Henry James would say that’s beside the point. When you write a letter, you’re sending it out into the ether, and you can neither view nor modify the contents. The letter becomes an uncontrollable entity. But it still means something to someone—the someone who finds it in their mailbox and excitedly opens it. And the post (or mail, to us Americans) is the one-way conduit.

Funny, then, that articles on blogs should be called posts. I suppose ‘posting’ to a blog is a bit like posting a letter to, well, everyone. Only you have no specific recipients, and infinite take-backs. I can post about the post and change it as much as I want. How can that be a bad thing?

Still, I think that couple at the scholarship dinner would agree that sometimes, a great letter is worth more than you might think.

Squirrel attack – A year on, and still traumatized January 27, 2010

do not like squirrels. It’s been over a year since a squirrel broke into my apartment and wreaked squirrel havoc on my belongings. Specifically, it streaked dirt all over my kitchen floor, peed in my flatmate’s oatmeal, and chewed on several cardboard boxes.

Some of you may know the story of last year’s unexpected winter visitor, but for those of you who don’t, I composed a little piece about it for The First Pint. Read it here.

Three Weeks at Periscope: Best Of January 21, 2010

My three-week internship with the Periscope Post came to an end today. The fruits of my efforts: 33 articles in 11 days. Not bad! A quick explanation of my work: the point of Periscope is to give the reader a view of what’s happening in the world as well as how the media is covering it. Our stories, therefore, are summaries of major coverage with a range of perspectives. Think of it as The Week, but online and for free. Over the three weeks, I tried my hand at writing for every section of the site (major news, technology and science, business and economy, and entertainment). I really enjoyed it, so I figured I’d round up some of my favorites for you:

New fusion energy story actually (way) old news
This story was so great (and amusing) to write because it was a non-story—that is, during my morning trolling of the science sections of major newspapers and magazines, I stumbled across an article in the Independent that raved about a magical new technology that would make fusion possible in as little as ten years. When I finished reading the piece, I saw at the bottom, “from the New Zealand Herald.” So I went to the NZ Herald, and lo and behold, it was the exact same article, word for word! After doing a bit of frowning at the Independent, I poked around a little for the original press release. Periscope likes to provide these for readers and I was curious myself, but for some reason, there was no press release to be found. And what’s more, there was no mention anywhere else in the media sphere of this miraculous breakthrough. Something was up.

After a bit more digging, I stumbled upon an enlightening fact: the lab in the story announced their research more than 10 years ago—in 1997. The Herald—and the Independent as well—just went crazy over 13-year-old news. And what’s more, there’s been no news from this lab since—even though their “10 year deadline” for finalizing their fusion technology would put us at right about…now.

My other picks don’t have such insane back stories, but they were fun to write nonetheless.

Wall Street barons face their sins
This one made the “front page” of the site, which was especially exciting because usually only our Editor in Chief writes the front page news. What’s more, I wrote it the night/morning before News:Rewired at around 5 a.m.

I was particularly proud of this headline: Siegfried and Roy’s final vanishing act

Typically we wrote three stories a day, but I suggested this one and got the go-ahead to write it as my fourth piece that day: Last of Anne Frank’s protectors dies at 100

This was great because I got to add a few of my own Facebook gripes into the story (as cited in a variety of other sources, of course): Privacy obsolete, says Facebook founder

This one was pretty difficult to write—I knew absolutely nothing about the UDA, the UVF, the difference, or why they still had a weapons stockpile. It was a quintessentially British Isles story, but local coverage made it inaccessible to non-UK residents, so my personal understanding of the information was important in translating the story for a broader audience. Sixteen years after cease fire, UDA decommissions weapons

My Mom really liked the science behind this one, as did I: Haitian earthquake first of many, scientists fear

And finally, this was a great inspirational story that just wasn’t getting the big media attention it deserved, so I was glad to get the word out. Haitian radio station gives lifeline to survivors, families abroad

“The Seagull”: Improvising art through life

This week's "Seagull" was performed in a decaying church temporarily opened for the show.

I had the good fortune of seeing The Factory perform again this past Sunday (this is the sixth time I’ve seen/interacted with them…call me obsessed). Raj and I saw “The Seagull,” an improvised performance of Anton Chekhov’s play. Below is a review I wrote for The First Pint:

The play started not with the dramatic sweep of a curtain, but with the director calling out to scoot some chairs aside and see if anyone could climb up to the balcony. These last-minute stage directions were for both actors and audience, who before the show began were indistinguishable. Then a door slammed and several men and women sprang from their seats, loudly picking up mid-conversation and winding through the audience as if they weren’t even there. Continued…

News:Rewired and Navigating the Information Overload January 15, 2010

“The brain is not intelligent because of the sheer volume of data it can ingest, but for the way it can quickly discern patterns—and then guess the rest.” — Jeff Stibel

Yesterday I had the benefit of attending Journalism.co.uk’s inaugural conference, News:Rewired. I joined more than a hundred journalists from across the UK (and beyond) for the day, attending talks and break-out sessions on multimedia, online troubleshooting, social media, data mashups, and so on. Our speakers and panelists came from the likes of the BBC and the Telegraph to independently-run non-profits, community sites, and blogs, such as MySociety.org and SoGlos.com. (To my luck, I scored an internship of sorts after talking to a speaker from the conference. I’ll be working with a MySociety project called The Straight Choice, which collects campaign leaflets so citizens can see how their candidates present themselves in different areas, how much they’re spending on campaign literature, if they’re violating any campaign finance laws, the whole nine.)

But I digress. The purpose of the conference was to explore new ways of practicing journalism online, and that purpose found its way into both the speakers’ PowerPoints and the attendees themselves, many of whom live-blogged and tweeted throughout the day (although the activity dropped off near closing time—presumably because our computer batteries were all dead by then). The News:Rewired hashtag (#newsrw) was actually a trending topic in the morning (before the US woke up). And the buzz has been steady even after the conference’s end.

In terms of discussion, what quickly gained urgency was the issue of managing it all. How do you put out a quality product at the necessary speed on a significantly reduced budget? And for journalists working without the cushion of a news agency, how do you find the time to both write and sell your work? And then there’s the social media aspect—how do you effectively use the hundreds of mediums out there to stay in the conversation and promote your craft? Where is the time?

Well for starters, for as many time-sucking social networks that exist out there, there are just as many tools that can automate and interlink a lot of your online work. Take number-crunching, for example. The data-mashup session focused mainly on the back-end of presenting information—the raw data. This stuff is not pretty, and it’s not fun to work with. But thanks to Yahoo Pipes and Google Fusion Tables, you won’t have to spend hours sifting through mountains of data to find your story; instead, you can spend hours designing a beautiful interactive flash presentation that will display your data in an interesting way.

But again, simultaneity seems to be the key. Long gone are the days of working on just one project at a time (that goes for everyone, not just journalists—just look at how much multitasking my Mom does), and they’re never coming back. When achieving global connectivity is as simple as reaching into your pocket, even the nay-sayers have to admit there’s something beautiful in that. Instant sharing, instant audience—it’s the kind of thing us childhood users of AOL instant messenger would have flipped for back then. So now that it’s here, there’s no question that we should take advantage.

But are we really training in the right way to do it? Here’s what I think: Journalism is quickly becoming its own version of improv theatre.

Of course, you could probably say that it’s always been a bit improv-theatre-esque—determining the right angle for a story, weaseling your way into an event, and getting a quote out of a tough source all require ingenuity and quick thinking, qualities the best journalists absolutely have. But now, instead of the more “deceptive” or quick re-thinking that characterized improv journalism before, people have to improvise the performance—taking in all that’s out there and creating the right response, to the right people, without missing a beat. With improv theatre, the process of digesting the moment’s information and spitting out something equally witty gets repeated ad nauseum; now in real-time journalism, the same process is beginning to take hold.

That doesn’t necessarily we should be on our phones tweeting everything as it happens, because sometimes you just have to watch stuff unfold instead of reading about watching stuff unfold. But the ones who emerge on top are the ones who can actually pay attention while tweeting, typing, and generating a smart analysis simultaneously. Let the journo-acting training begin.

Lost in Translation January 5, 2010

This dictionary may be Japanese, but the point still comes across. (Photo from Flickr)

The idiosyncrasies of language between this country and the one across the pond have had me laughing for a few years, and I’ve always meant to write something substantive about them that didn’t involve getting tangled up in spelling rules and the difference between a slash and a stroke (both are meant to describe “/”). So I turned to The First Pint and spun a little tale about…clothing. As it turns out, many American terms for outerwear are British terms for underwear. No wonder Americans have such a lousy reputation in this country.

Check out the article!

Have a Folding Chair? Open it Next to Me December 5, 2009

Regina Spektor playing "Samson."

It’s been a busy few weeks. Final assignments, end-of-term farewells, securing an internship (I start in January with the Periscope Post), working on The First Pint—needless to say, things have sped up since I last wrote. But amid the chaos of completing group projects and assessments, I had the luck to do something just plain delightful—see Regina Spektor in concert. Anca and I booked tickets over a month ago and last night, the concert finally arrived.

For those of you unfamiliar with her music, she is a stellar pianist and pairs funky melodies with even funkier lyrics. Most of her songs, when examining the lyrics as a whole, make little to no sense. But then you listen to them a few more times, and you wonder how you ever could have missed the meaning.

So of course, Regina in concert was fabulous, and she surprised us with a few impromptu ditties and a five-song encore which included pretty much all my favorites. The highlights were definitely “Folding Chair” and “Us.” And “Samson” was pretty unforgettable too—they cut the stage lights and lit an enormous disco ball with about 30 spotlights, and the result was an auditorium filled with thousands of tiny lights, not unlike the stars that came falling on our hats.

Term 1 is now finished, and despite whatever complaints I might have had, it went quite well. I helped start a new website, I’ve become friends with over 100 hilarious and wonderful people, I found an internship I’m really excited about, and I’ve gotten much closer to this city. That’s pretty good for 10 weeks, I think.

Your Guide to London – The First Pint November 18, 2009

Some classmates and I have been working on a project for the last several weeks, and this week it finally came to life. The idea was to use our pooled journalistic skills and create our own Web site. We decided to create a guide for young people new to London, international students in particular, that included advice and stories about entertainment, cheap eating, travel, the city, and all the idiosyncrasies of British and London life. And so The First Pint was born—”the first stop and last call for students abroad in London.” At the moment my role has been developing and setting up the site, but articles by yours truly will appear very soon. (Spoiler alert: I will be writing about squirrels. For those of you who know my track record with squirrels, I promise you’ll get something new out of it.) If you have suggestions for articles, comments, corrections, the whole nine, send them my way!