Tsunami videos
Here are some great tsunami videos available via BitTorrent. If you do not have BitTorrent, or do not know what it is, then take a look at this FAQ prior to downloading these videos.
I’m going to keep BitTorrent with these files open for a few days, since I know alot of people are doing the same, and the more the merrier when it comes to BitTorrent.
Oh, and for those worry-worts out there that are afraid to use BitTorrent, these types of files are 100% publicly available. This is the best possible way to use BitTorrent.
Addendum: I have to say that these videos are extraordinary in every way. First of all, this isn’t journalism at its worst, it’s amateur video taken during the events. These videos are undoctored, uncut and unedited. What you see on the news via CNN, FoxNews, etc. do not show enough detail as to what was going on during that time. I recommend downloading these videos and watching them for yourselves.
Warning: There is some foul language and intense moments, but from what I saw none of the videos had any blood or gore to speak of. You will see people getting washed away by the massive amount of water rushing through the city streets.
So far, I have served up about 2Gb worth of these 10Mb files. That’s a lot of downloading.
Ethics in journalism
I’ve become addicted to C-SPAN. The other night, while I was dealing with what seems like a life-long case of night time insomnia (I say this because I sleep fine during the day), I watched a seminar which dealt with ethics in photojournalism. The main focus of the seminar was identifying the processes to ensure a photo and/or video is in fact authentic, and is not being used in a deceptive way. They ended up spending a lot of time showing examples of non-ethical photojournalism in the media.
One such case was the video showing Saddam’s statue falling in Baghdad. Certainly a vivid depiction of the fall of power, however they showed how this video was extremely misleading and shown that way on purpose. They showed several camera angles, which were readily available at the time, that were not used by media outlets simply because it didn’t lend to the excitment of the moment. In fact, in my opinion, that moment wouldn’t have been nearly as exciting for those watching if they had used the other angles at all.
This contriversial topic is nothing new. Ethics in photojournalism has been an issue since the invention of the photo-lens. The speakers at the seminar referenced a photojournalist during the civil war which dragged the bodies a little to capture a better picture. In and of itself, the photo was not changed because whatever person he was taking a picture of was dead no matter the angle. However, the photo was dramatized slightly due to the repositioning of it.
The conclusion that was ultimately reached was that unethical photojournalism is practically impossible to rule out 100% of the time. However, intentionally using these photos could be worked on greatly. I think this argument stems from the filming of Nature. Many people have said that its impossible to not effect your environment when studying animals. Which is very true, and I feel this also explains why photojournalism in a way has the same effect on news stories.
Whatever the case, it can be said that anyone out there reporting news specifically for the purpose of properly informing the public should always strive to not only check the validity of facts, but also look at the bigger picture to see if the facts could be misleading.
Sage potential
I’ve been playing with Sage for a few weeks, and I really like having my Web browser and RSS feed reader combined. I can only imagine those who use Thunderbird’s RSS features feel the same way about having their E-mail application and RSS feed reader combined.
In asking myself where RSS feed reading belongs more A) Stand alone application B) the Browser or C) E-mail application I’ve found out that it matters what the content being provided is.
Update to FlickIt
A small point release update which will help us solve some problems going forward, as well as improve performance. Flickr, and their API, are maturing all the time - so expect point releases like this to happen each time Ludicorp depreciates a method call or response.
In a grand display of FlickIt’s capabilities, here are a few of my latest photos.
You can view more of my lovely photos on my Flickr userpage.
Apple rules
Apple has changed their homepage to direct traffic towards Tsunami relief efforts.
Oxymoron
Is it just me or is Flash extremely slow on Mac at times? Not every site that uses Flash I have this trouble, but almost every site which uses Flash exclusively makes my Mac crawl. I’ve used Firefox, Safari and OmniWeb all with the same result.
Related sites
Recent features
The Format - Give It Up
Coheed and Cambria - The Velorium Camper II: Backend Of Forever
Leah Andreone - Break Your Fall
Song of the week
Sara Bareilles - Between the Lines
Sara Bareilles' "Between the Lines" is the Song of the Week for April 20 to 26.
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