Prcog1

IDC’s latest report on Personal Computer sales (and yes, that includes Macs)  is out and it’s a grim read. Sales of traditional desktop computers dropped a steep -9.8%. The good news is, IDC was expecting sales to drop -10.1%. So um, yay? iCharts IDC expects the downward trend to continue, due to a multitude of […]

Ignorance has reared it’s ugly head in many ways the last few weeks. Everything from sexual orientation to social media has been the victim. Sochi hosted perhaps the most politically controversial games since Mexico City with Russia’s anti-gay policies inspiring President Obama to send a noticeably out-of-the-closet delegation to accompany the U.S. team.

Closer to home, professional locker rooms have become hot stoves for the LGBT discourse as Jason Collins broke the openly gay, active player barrier last night for the Brooklyn Nets and Michael Sam went through the NFL combine prepping to become the first openly gay professional football player. Thankfully, we’ve reached a point in this debate that most of the conversation has been supportive and inclusive, though the topic still stirs up reactions that are less than ideal to even downright mean.

And while certainly on a much lesser level of import, Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino told ESPN Radio’s Mike and Mike In The Morning program on Thursday that social media for his players was like, “taking poison.” He pointed to social media as causing young people to not be able to communicate effectively and said if it were up to him, he would prevent his players from using any form of social media.

If he had his way, by the way, the Cardinals would have received considerably less coverage of their last-second win over Cincinnati on Saturday. A video showing hero Russ Smith and the Cards celebrating in the locker room made SportsCenter. It was shared from Smith’s account on Instagram and was immediately picked up by several national media outlets.

You’re welcome, Coach.

Pitino’s ignorance of social media is easily found in his myopic perspective. He seems to see it as only a folly-like distraction from real communications. He doesn’t see it as a potential channel for his players to communicate in meaningful, positive ways — like promoting themselves or their abilities, reaching larger audiences with their messages or even simply conducting effective communications in today’s technology-driven age.

It’s also sad that Pitino doesn’t realize that his student-athletes will likely need to know and understand how to properly use social media in their future careers. Rival coach John Calipari of the Kentucky Wildcats, told the same radio show in response, “I’m not going to hold my team back from Twitter or Facebook, but I’m going to teach them. I’m going to use it as a positive.”

Advantage UK.

Oh … and basketball is just a game. Why would anyone participate in something that has no impact on their maturity, responsibility, career, etc. Heh.

Ignorance comes from lack of understanding. And prejudice comes from the refusal to understand. I’m confident if Pitino tried to move beyond his prejudice and understand social media and how it can help his student-athletes, he’d change his opinion of it.

On a more important scale, people understanding the perspective of someone different is the key to moving past that prejudice into enlightenment, understanding and perhaps acceptance. Maybe Coach Pitino can use his own less impactful prejudice as a life lesson to demonstrate to his players these fears and misunderstandings can be overcome. They’ll need that maturity if they’re to play at the next level.

Editor’s Note: Jason Falls has advised the University of Louisville athletic program on social media marketing in the past. He has not worked directly with Coach Pitino or the men’s basketball program.

Like many things, the world of spirits and liquor is a spectrum. On one end, there's the only-there-for-ABV stuff that college kids drink, on the other, the collections and high-end bottles of fine connoisseurs, with plenty of options in between. And while there are the days when something special is the only way to go, there are also plenty of time when you want a budget bottle that works: something for mixing, something to bring to a party, or a good-enough bottle to share with guests.    

… read more

As excited as I am that scientists may have found the first direct evidence of gravitational waves and cosmic inflation, I’m not as up on my astrophysics as I should be. If you’re also afraid of being embarrassed in front of some smarty-pants scientists, this video explains it in terms everyone will understand.

(via New Scientist)

Meanwhile in related links

• Watch the father of inflation learn about Stanford’s discovery
• See Stanford’s press release here
• Just in case that doesn’t do the trick

A tension exists in my business life.

It’s the tension of new business development versus client work versus blogging. Then there is the creative tension of wanting to finish writing The War to Persevere (3/4 of the way there), shoot more photos, and develop better, more visual blog stories.

Oh yeah, I have a finite amount of time to invest because I insist on being a present father first.

So I’m going to blog less.

Crazy? Maybe.

But what would you say if I told you that my photo blog on Flickr gets as much traffic in a week as my regular blog does in a whole month?

Perhaps you and others who follow me online are telling me something.

After talking with a few peers who have been around for several years and who enjoy good reputations, I made the decision to ease up on the blogging throttle. I am giving myself permission to blog less.

What does that mean?

Usually, you will still find a couple of posts here a week. But you won’t get three posts at 7 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Only one of them will be guaranteed at a certain time, which is the Monday post. There may be a week here and there where that Monday post is the only one on this site.

I understand the consequence of this decision. I know that frequency drives readership and search indexing.

If the blog was driving new business like it was five years ago, I would not make the move. But, I find leads are coming through my networks these days. Credibility within my circles has been established.

Moving forward, online credibility will come from major initiatives like xPotomac, novels, books, photos, events and certain social networks. The written blog is a part of the recipe, it’s just not the primary ingredient anymore.

Having built a couple of other more successful blogs in the past few years, I know that even with three or four posts a week, I can’t compete with marketing blogs that post two to three times a day on a pure traffic basis. The content shock era demands frequency to win.

There is one exception, and that would be if I were to start blogging about social media marketing again three or four times a week. However, that’s just something I cannot make myself do. I’ve tried before, and the topic drives me crazy after a few months. Frankly, I struggle writing one or two social media posts a week on the Vocus blog and here. Nor do I think that would be a smart business decision for Tenacity5 Media, and how I envision media evolving.

I could make this a content publication filled with guest posts and different voices. However, that would require ending discussions on many topics, including science fiction and personal thoughts. I don’t want to do that. It may be done in the future somewhere else, but not on geofflivingston.com.

There is still a need to talk, share great ideas, and remain present. When I’ve got something to say, I am going to say it. But I don’t want to blog because I have to or at the expense of other works, a new business opportunity, or client work quality. At a minimum, it should be enjoyable.

So there it is. Expect less frequency here.

America

Robin Edds of BuzzFeed has compiled a collection of images featuring the flags of countries around the world accompanied by sentences summing up their history and culture.

Funny and at times stereotypical, the descriptions are light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek jibes and are meant to be taken with a grain of salt.

Check out some of the descriptions below and view the entire set here.


Switzerland


Italy


Greece


Canada


North Korea


Portugal


The United Kingdom


[via BuzzFeed]

If you are a regular rider of a subway system, there’s no better feeling than getting on the train at exactly the right place so that you can exit directly in front of the stairwell, beat everyone else to the transfer platform, and catch your next train just before it pulls out of the station. You are the master. You are the best.

The Efficient Passenger Project wants to spread that feeling to everyone using the NYC subway system. Gothamist explains:

The Efficient Passenger Project is on a mission to put up signs throughout the subway system guiding commuters to the best spot to board a train in order to make the quickest exit or transfer. The anonymous participants have been placing “Efficient Passenger Project” stickers on and around the turnstiles in select subway stations, signaling the presence of a plaque on the platform that tells you exactly where to stand to make your commute most efficient.

The MTA is less than thrilled about this — if everyone knows which are the best cars to get on, they’re going to get on those cars and crowd them. The system works partly because some people are better at it than others; travelers are rewarded for being frequent users of the system. So the MTA is going to take the signs down. Essentially, they’re the hipster enforcers — they want to limit transfer insight to people who knew about it before it was cool.

Which is too bad, because really, there’s enough variation in the system that most cars are good cars — people transfer to different lines, or they want the car that’s closest to their subway exit. And in New York, it’s pretty good odds that tons of people would miss the signs and just bumble confusedly into whatever car they see first anyway.

Filed under: Cities, Living

Just when you thought you’d seen it all… Excuse me for a moment while I climb atop my soap box. *Taps Mic* Check? Is this thing on? Okay.

This was sent to me by a friend this morning and, after I opened it, I just sat staring at it. I could see it was a Craigslist ad, that much was evident, but I had to keep reading it over and over because the words just would not register. I knew they were English, and complete sentences were formed, but what it was asking went beyond my means of comprehension.

At first, I thought it was a joke. Then I realized, it wasn’t. Then I said a very very bad word.

What in the world is going on here!?

Has our beloved photography industry fallen into some sort of alternate reality akin to “The Twilight Zone?” I quite often feel like little David, whose ride home from the dentist went viral on YouTube as he asks, “Is this real life?” We have reached a point in our industry where reality has merged with something off SNL.

And we have ourselves to blame for this. We saw the pendulum swinging and we should have seen where it was headed. We sat back in workshops and listened to photographers turned motivational speakers tell us that it’s easy; that with their help we could follow our dreams. We saw the shortcuts to success fly off the shelves. We watched hordes of photographers make money off the masses by selling the dream, and we did nothing.

Sure, some of us raised our hand and questioned the insanity that was being peddled to naive individuals, but many lowered their hands just as quickly when they were assigned unflattering labels such as: negative, Old School or cranky.

And we lowered our hands and our voices to the peril of an industry. We stopped demanding accountability, because of those that told us just to “mind our own businesses.” We were reprimanded and told to “focus on yourself and not others.” We were labeled “haters” when we spoke up and insisted that those peddling the label of “professional photographer” actually create businesses worthy of the title.

And when we did that, when we allowed ourselves to be silenced, you know what happened…THIS! (Here’s a blown up version in case you couldn’t read the text at the top)

Folks, this is OUR industry. Yes, I said “our.” It does not belong to this Craigslist advertiser; it does not belong to the industry leader who plagiarizes and/or steals; it does not belong to the inexperienced guy or gal who tries to pass off stock photos as their own in the hopes of gaining fame. This industry does not belong to them.

Why? Because they are not worthy of it.

This incredible industry many of us have been privileged to work in all our lives has been sullied by the likes of folks who could care less about it. In much the same way Homer Simpson views popcorn as simply the delivery system for the butter, they view photography as the delivery system to fast money and appearance of fame and celebrity.

In order to be worthy of something precious, you have to take care of it, love it, go out of your way before you allow harm to befall it. You have to honor it. And you have to speak up for it.

So, the question becomes, are we too far gone to come back from this? Have we reached a point of no return where “I’m a photographer” is now a punchline for a very poor joke?

I don’t believe that, not for a minute, because a pendulum is capable of swinging both ways. And once it’s gone as far left as it can, there’s only one place for it to go … and that’s back toward the middle. But the pendulum needs a push. It needs thousands of hands that are willing to guide it back where it belongs.

If we aren’t willing to raise our hands and play a hand in taking OUR industry back to a place of honor and integrity, then we better be prepared for more Craigslist advertisements like this one. If we aren’t willing to call out those that make a mockery of our industry, then we become part of the problem.

I, for one, am proud to push the pendulum. I hope you join me.

(Note: If you read this column and rolled your eyes at how preachy it is, I’m totally good with that.)

Using precision lasers, a Nanoscribe 3D printer can print models of the Empire State building in a space the width of a human hair. Watching the machine build through the “lens” of an electron microscope is otherworldly—but the printer’s potential runs beyond microscale model making.

Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, led by Jens Bauer, believe such 3D printers may help craft a new generation of materials lighter than water and strong as steel.

Today, the sturdiest materials tend to be the densest (like metals), and the least dense materials tend to be the weakest (like foams). Ideally, materials are both lightweight and strong. A rocket’s skin, for example, needs to contain a column of super-pressurized fuel and at the same time weigh as little as possible.

As it turns out, some of the strongest, least dense materials aren’t manmade at all—they’re naturally occurring. Wood and bone, for instance, are both strong and light. The reason? On molecular scales, they’re riddled with holes.

Like arches in the Roman Coliseum, the shape of all those tiny spaces maximizes strength and minimizes material. The resulting structures are, of course, immensely useful. Bird bones, for example, are strong enough to support muscles and ligaments and, at the same time, lightweight enough to permit flight.

Although bone and wood are already strong and light, nature’s design can be refined. Inspired by organic materials, Bauer and his team set out to build the strongest, lightest materials they could.

But how to build the equivalent of Roman arches into a material on near-molecular scales? Previously, there was no answer. Now, there’s the Nanoscribe 3D printer.

The printer’s mirror-focused laser shines on and hardens a droplet of liquid plastic on a slide. A computer moves the plate under the laser, selectively hardening it, layer by layer, to match a digital 3D model. Once complete, the excess liquid is washed away, leaving a pristine structure—with features a few millionths of a meter across.

The team experimented with a number of structural patterns, and to further strengthen the polymer, they coated it with a thin film of alumina (aluminum oxide). The best configuration, a honeycomb lattice with a 50 nanometer coat of alumina, is less dense than water—that is, it would float—and as strong as some steel alloys. (See video of their experimentation at the bottom.)

Such materials would not have been possible even a few years ago. Microscale 3D printing is still new, but it’s quickly progressing. In 2012, researchers at the Vienna University of Technology 3D printed a race car and cathedral smaller than a dust mite. A year later, Nanoscribe printed models of about the same size, only four times faster.

Though there isn’t yet a good way to cheaply scale the process up to an industrial level, it’s a fascinating peek into a future where information technologies may direct the fabrication of amazing new “microarchitectural” materials. And indeed, it may not be the only new computer-enabled approach to materials research.

In a recent article, Scientific American predicted supercomputers “will yield a Golden Age of materials science.” The article went on to note that the powerful modeling capabilities of supercomputers and the principles of quantum mechanics are together allowing scientists to build virtual materials atom by atom.

Whereas, in the past, researchers had to go through a laborious, sometimes decades-long process of trial and error, such “high-throughput materials design” would sort through hundreds or thousands of theoretical materials, cherry picking the ones with the most promising properties before ever conducting an experiment.

Our world relies heavily on useful materials, from the filament in a light bulb to the silicon in a computer chip. Whether we 3D print them or assemble and sort the vast possible molecular permutations by supercomputer—or both—the discovery and implementation of new super materials may soon kick into high gear.

Image Credit: Jens Bauer of the Institute for Applied Materials, Karlsruher Institute of Technology

A picture says a thousand words. But Sheryl Sandberg and Getty Images didn't like what those pictures were saying about women

Getty and Lean In will announce a partnership on Monday intended to change the perception of women in stock images used around the world. The two organizations have teamed up to create a new stock photo gallery called the "Lean In Collection," which has 2,500 images that offer more positive and powerful perceptions of women.

The gallery, which launches ahead of Women's History Month and LeanIn.org's first anniversary, both in March, includes positive images of women, families and even men. Read more...

More about Stock Photography, Getty Images, Sheryl Sandberg, Business, and Advertising

Everyone has an excuse to buy one more round of drinks, but here’s a new one: It’s for charity. 

Read The Blog Post Here »

Were pogs merely a trend that died out with the 90s? Au contraire: the US military now uses them as currency.

Read the Full Blog Post Here »

"Typeset in the Future" is a new blog by Dave Addey that's "dedicated to fonts in sci-fi." For his inaugural post, he sets about dissecting the type in (what Chris thinks is) the greatest science fiction film ever made, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Released in 1968, the film represents breakthroughs in both set design and typography, of which it takes full advantage. … read more

Delno, a maker from the Twin Cities, MN, built this guy above...which looks like a simply plywood box with a lightbulb inside. But, the project is actually a great experiment in hiding secret compartments inside plywood....and this rather small shape is clandestinely housing a surprising amount of stuff. 

Look at all that hidden … read more

Twitter is upping its offerings to b-to-b marketers, but making them work will take a soft touch.

Look, on another day, I'd try to come up with some clever intro, talking about classic flavor combinations and different textures, or some other such goodness. But today, I'm just gonna dive in: this is a recipe for whiskey sriracha caramel popcorn. It's got smoky scotch whiskey, and a balance of heat and sweet, and I can't wait to make some at home this weekend.   

… read more

 

I just stumbled across a link to the British Library's Flickr page, which has over a million (seemingly) copyright free images and illustrations available for browsing and … read more

A man with drug-induced psychosis attempted to swallow his smartphone and the case was reported in the medical journal Internal and Emergency Medicine.

A 35 year-old man with no significant past medical history presented to the emergency department (ED) after abusing phencyclidine (PCP). Responding to command auditory hallucinations, he attempted to swallow his 4 cm × 8 cm smartphone. On arrival, he was agitated but alert, handling his secretions poorly and in moderate respiratory distress. An electronic device was clearly protruding from his oropharynx [throat]…

Emergency physicians immediately attempted to remove the device with Magill forceps, but were unsuccessful. A “trauma code” was announced bringing a surgical intensivist, an anesthesiologist, and appropriate nursing staff to the bedside, while simultaneously indicating that an operating room (OR) should be prepared… The device was successfully removed under procedural sedation without the need for surgical intervention.

Moral of the story: friends don’t let friends mix selfies and PCP.
 

Link to locked case study.

This weekend, whip up a little rustic storage project with a few simple materials and just an hour or two of work. … read more

With fall in full swing, the world is full of harvest produce. And the best way to preserve that abundance? Canning time! Learn how to do it at home with easy step-by-step … read more