Descent into Artificial Light

Not quite stairway to heaven, but rather a look down the stairs from the EBC "Penthouse" level, 04/03/2003, 4:12 p.m.

Found while looking for something else:
Five Sites Where Fun and Learning Click

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Backstory

If things look a little strange here, it's because I'm making a transition back to Blogger to generate my html for this blog. I had been using Dreamweaver, which of course wasn't specifically designed to handle blogs, but has many other bells and whistles.

Monday, April 07, 2003

Creek five miles up Millcreek Canyon, 04/06/2003, 6:06 p.m.

Found while looking for something else: Avoiding Armageddon - Utah's Role and Legacy at KUED.org.

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Sunday, April 6, 2003

Shadow Greetings, 03/29/2003, 8:08 a.m.

Craig Nielsen responds to an earlier entry:

The Questions in your blog of April 2 are good ones, perhaps rhetorical, but I think they are also answerable. And the answer in most cases is a resounding YES!

Printing did replace the spoken word in the sense that it dealt the
final blow to strong and dynamic oral tradition (as in Homer).
Photography did contribute to the death of representational painting as serious art (leaving aside such iconoclastic schools as "photo-realism".)

Movies are, of course, just a series of still photographs, so those are still with us. But people do prefer their visual images in motion. I don't think there is much question about that.

I don't see the analogy with newspapers and book, nor with radio and records. But I think its obvious most people get their news today from television and/or radio. And in a very real sense television has killed radio, first turning it into an almost exclusively recorded music medium, and now into inane blather, and rigidly formatted music formulae.

Broadcast television's share of ratings has declined steadily since the profusion of cable. Television and videos have affected motion picture theater attendance, and has lowered the demographic, so that the vast majority of movies that make money at the theatre box office today are marketed for 12 - 14
year old boys.

And I do think that the "Internet", especially in its future
incarnations, will incorporate newspapers, radio, and tv, and thus effectively render them superfluous as separate entities. But that is in the future.

Anyway, you got me thinking!

My reply: Thanks, Craig. I'd started to think that despite my attempts to provoke a discussion here, I wouldn't get much dialogue, so your comments are most welcome. Regarding some of your points:

Many record companies went out of business as commercial radio took hold in the early twenties. "The size of the industry in the U.S. alone declined by about one half in the early 1920's," explains David Morton in his History of Sound Recording Technology.

Record sales started to rebound in the thirties as the industry made the transition from acoustic to electrical recording which brought a dramatic improvement in sound quality. Development of the juke box also helped boost record sales.

I agree that television forced radio into a much different role, but the ubiquity of recorded music and "inane blather" also eventually helped foster a niche for public radio.

Speaking of radio, anyone remember Herb Jepko on KSL radio?

I met Jepko when I started working part-time at KSL in 1973. Herb was great at multi-tasking as he hosted the overnight Nitecap program. He'd sit in a darkened studio, smoking a cigarette, drinking coffee (which he called "Cinnamon Tea" on the air), running the audio board, talking to a caller -- all while carrying on a side conversation with me. When the caller would pause, he'd open the mike saying, "uh huh" or "yes, dear" then turn off the mike and continue our off-air discussion.

Found while looking for something else: Helping Kids Cope with War

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Friday, April 4, 2003

Dry Canyon, 04/01/2003, 5:56 p.m.

"I find it strange that people 'play' golf, 'play' tennis, and 'play' volleyball; but when they swim they 'work out.' I never work out. I 'play' swimming. I play intensely, but it is play. Beats the heck out of working out." --Dr. Keith Bell, sports psychologist and Masters Swimmer (as quoted by Terry Laughlin in Total Immersion)

Found while looking for something else: Habay wants to rename bridge after Rogers

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Thursday, April 3, 2003

The southwest corner of the Eccles Broadcast Center, 04/03/2003, approx. 8:58 a.m.

A reminder: Pola's March shows tonight at 9:00 on KULC-Channel 9.

 

Wednesday, April 2, 2003

A few questions I've considered as I hear various guesses about how rapidly any particular "new" technology X may replace and forever render as obsolete some "legacy" technology Y?

Did printing replace the spoken word?
Did photography obsolete painting?
Did movies cause the death of still photography?
Did newspapers reduce the market for books?
Did radio replace records and newspapers?
Did television kill radio?
Did cable television kill broadcast television?
Did home rental of movies wipe out movie houses?
Will the Internet kill newspapers, radio and TV?

Of course the interplay between these various media siblings, parents, cousins, etc. is as fascinating as any human dynasty.

From Steve Schoenherr's Recording Technology History:

1931 - The EMI studio that opened Nov. 12 at Abbey Road in London, was the largest sound recording studio in the world; Louis Sterling hired Alan Blumlein to install Blumlein's own electrical recording system and Sterling stopped paying royalties to Western Electric. Alan Blumlein patented the "binaural" (stereo) recording method in England.

Found while looking for something else:
Weblogs at Harvard

Monday, March 31, 2003  

Untitled, 03/28/03, 8:36 a.m.

"Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter. "
--Paul Klee

New Cancer Weblog

Welcome to the Utah Blogosphere, Dan's Cancer Welblog. As you may have read in one of my previous entries, Dan -- a long-time friend -- is contending with Myeloma, a form of bone cancer.

He writes in an e-mail, "A number of people have been urging me to write about my experiences with cancer. I've resisted that until now, realizing that cancer is not at all uncommon and that lots of people have had significant things to say. So I'm trying something Rich Finlinson suggested -- a weblog. Seems to be the personal news form of the 21st century. Take a look; let me know what you think. If it's too self-indulgent I'll pull the plug."

My feedback to Dan, "Great blog. Funny. Serious. Oh, a nice mug shot, too. How did you like writing it? Any other response yet?"

As Dan said, take a look and let him know what you think.

Found while looking for something else:
Utah Electronic College

Concurrent Enrollment

The Utah Education Network changes lives. UEN enables Utah high school students to take college courses via closed circuit television and the Internet. In a typical week several thousand students attend more than 200 electronically-delivered classes in most high schools and every college and university in the state. In the last school year students in 27 rural school districts earned 43,212 concurrent enrollment credits. This represents 1,440 annualized FTEs -- the equivalent of a small rural community college.

Those statistics tell only a part of the story. "Because of concurrent enrollment, six of our high school students will have earned associate degrees by the time they graduate, and they've qualified for New Century Scholarship that will pay 75% of Utah college tuition for the next two years," says Gordon Grimstead, principal of Tintic High School in the rural town of Eureka. "In essence, concurrent enrollment and the scholarships have allowed them to complete college at an accelerated and drastically reduced cost. Without UEN a college future is not realistic for our students." (Excerpted from Utah Education Network, a briefing paper on network services, impact and the future)

"He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle to steady his fellow countrymen and hearten those Europeans upon whom the long dark night of tyranny had descended." --Edward R. Murrow (1908 - 1965), On Winston Churchill, 1954

Found while looking for something else: The "No Significant Difference Phenomenon"

Leaving Dry Canyon 03/14/2003 approx 1:15 p.m.

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Brake Light Check

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Pola's March

I spoke with documentary producer Jonathan Gruber who has filmed a remarkable portrait of his grandmother Pola Susswein, a Holocaust survivor. KULC will air the program April 4 at 9:00 p.m. Learn more about Gruber and Susswien at polasmarch.org.

Holocaust surviver Pola Susswein is the subject of her grandson's documentary film about her return to Poland.

Related resources at UEN include Themepark - The Holocaust and Anne Frank in the World, a project of the Friends of Anne Frank in Utah and the Intermountain West Region.

"How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway...And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!"--Anne Frank

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Millcreek Canyon

My almost 16-year-old and I did a little driving practice today. He's got to log 30 hours of supervised driving time before mid-June. I don't think that's going to be any problem. Today we hit Millcreek Canyon for the second time. In addition to its beauty for mountain biking, hiking and cross country skiing, it's a great little 20 minute drive for a learner (or anyone who wants to get out of the city for a few minutes).

Looking west from the snow gate in Millcreek Canyon. 3/16/2003, 1:21 p.m.

Related resources at UEN include Olympic Venues, Exercise Choices and ThemePark - Patterns in Nature.

Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. --Henry David Thoreau

Found while looking for something else: Calling All Blogs and The Center for High Performance Computing at the University of Utah.

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