User Experience
My persistent concern is that I’ll become so busy producing media that I won’t consume enough of it.
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David Carr (via aakruse) Tomorrow: David Carr (via nprfreshair) |
Rare, last look inside space shuttle Atlantis
Space shuttle Atlantis, which only five months ago flew the final mission of NASA’s 30-year shuttle program, is now being prepared for its public display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. Its insides being pulled out to ensure it is safe for exhibit, as well as significantly lighten it for its planned steep-angled display, Atlantis is scheduled to be powered down this week for the final time.
I love news releases with headlines that remind me that we live in the future. Like this one:
Space Station Commander Captures Unprecedented View Of Comet
That particular headline topped a Dec. 22 NASA release about a series of photos of Comet Lovejoy shot by astronaut Dan Burbank aboard the International Space Station.
Paperwork Explosion: a 1967 IBM marketing film from a young experimental filmmaker named, um, Jim Henson. Maybe you’ve heard of him?
If you watch one IBM marketing film today (or in your whole long life) make it this one. Check out an in-depth analysis of the film here or watch more of Henson’s experimental shorts here.
(Thanks to Josh Luxenberg for pointing me towards this insane gem.)
I would like to see us say — over and over, until the point has been made — that the newspaper that drops on your doorstep is a partial, hasty, incomplete, inevitably somewhat flawed and inaccurate rendering of some of the things we have heard about in the past 24 hours — distorted, despite our best efforts to eliminate gross bias, by the very process of compression that makes it possible for you to lift it from your doorstep and read it in about an hour. If we labeled the product accurately, then we could immediately add: But it’s the best we could do under the circumstances, and we will be back tomorrow with a corrected and updated version. If we did that, I suspect, not only would we feel less inhibited about correcting and updating our own stories, we might even encourage the readers to contribute their own information and understanding to the process. We might even find ourselves acknowledging something most of us find hard to accept: that they have something to tell us, as well as to hear from us. And if those readers felt that they were part of a communications process in which they were participants and not just passive consumers, then they might more easily understand that their freedoms — and not just ours — are endangered when the search warrants and subpoenas are visited on the press.
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| — | Washington Post reporter and columnist David S. Broder, who would have been 82 yesterday. |
One audacious commuter — dark suit, no helmet, consulting his smart phone as he navigates a D.C. rush hour on a Segway.
A “Fotbot” — or “Found Object Robot” — designed by artist Amy Flynn of Raleigh, N.C. Flynn was among the artists featured at this weekend’s Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival in Reston, Va.
Your Ticket to Space Shuttle’s Retirement Party?
NASA is holding seats for 150 randomly selected Twitter followers to attend the final shuttle launch:
“NASA will host a two-day Tweetup for 150 of its Twitter followers on July 7-8 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Space shuttle Atlantis is targeted to launch at about 11:40 a.m. EDT on July 8, on its STS-135 mission to the International Space Station. It is the final launch of a space shuttle before the program is retired….
“The Tweetup will provide @NASA followers with the opportunity to tour the center, view the shuttle launch and speak with NASA managers, astronauts, shuttle technicians and engineers. The event also will provide participants the opportunity to meet fellow tweeps and NASA’s social media team….
“The goal of NASA Tweetups is to allow people who regularly interact with each other via Twitter to meet in person and discuss one of their favorite subjects: NASA.”
The 24-hour registration window opens at noon on June 1. More details at http://www.nasa.gov/tweetup
(Photo of STS-129 Tweetup participant @astrogerly shared by NASA and taken by @outdoortype.)
