I’ve been busy the last two days at the State of the Planet convention at Columbia. I’ll blog about it more when I get a chance. But in the meantime, enjoy this little Google map flood mashup. The map takes information from NASA and shows us just what coastal areas will look like when the polar ice caps melt. Sorry for such a depressing link, but this convention has me thinking about global warming a lot.
Monthly archives for March, 2006
Mardi Gras: Made In China
Although I’ve been busy, in the past two weeks I’ve been able to see as many movies. I saw V for Vendetta on opening night. Since this blockbuster has gotten enough coverage I won’t really discuss it. I’ll just say: While it could have been better, I was definitely entertained and enjoyed the film.
In New York I was able to see a documentary Mardi Gras: Made in China on its opening day. This small documentary was shown (incomplete) at Sundance and has gotten some buzz. The director and producer were at the small opening which was packed (the theater held about 40-50 people) to answer questions after the film.
While editing of the film was done well and the people involved obviously spent a lot of time researching and traveling (probably more traveling) I have to say that I was not impressed by the movie in the end.
I have two words to describe my ill content with the documentary: Emotional blackmail.
I realize that an emotional response is an important one in a movie that’s discussing issues of globalization, but that was the only attribute of the movie that stuck, emotion.
Open Letter to Adbusters
Kalle Lasn
Hello, this is David Cohn. I have had the opportunity
to speak with you in the past. I interviewed you about Buy Nothing Day
for a Q and A published on Wired News only a few months ago. During that
conversation I expressed to you that I am a big fan of Adbusters and
have been for some time. In fact, I’ve bought every issue for the last
two years. So it saddens me to write this letter.
The #64 issue of Adbusters was not at all up
to par. There were several issues I had with the magazine, but I’ll
address the two overarching themes, which failed to meet my
expectations, in this letter. I bring them up not to complain or go
on a diatribe (which I notice many letters to the editor take) but
because I want Adbusters (and projects like Adbusters) to succeed –
and I don’t think it will if these problems persist.
Beer stories: Work and Play Can Mix
Today, St Patty’s Day, I have three stories on the web. Two of these are breaking fluff pieces on Beer.
Breaking fluff are stories that follow the calender. For St Patty’s day that means a story on beer. For Valentines it could be a story on love or chocolate. I think you get the idea.
Rather than write about each story individually, I’ll just link back to the two stories I did on seed; one on the health benefits of beer and the other a feature on ethanol fuel.
What I will go into more detail about is the Beer story I wrote for Wired News, because there is an interesting little tid-bit which I left out of the story (This Green Beer’s The Real Deal) but is very relevant to this blog.
While working on my Greenpoint beat for Columbia J-school I was informed that the Brooklyn Brewery is %100 wind powered. I saved that information and when St Patty’s day came around I thought it would make for an interesting piece on environmentally friendly brewed beer.
While interviewing the president of the Brooklyn Brewery, Steve Hindy, I noticed his answers were all very reporter friendly. It was almost as if he anticipated the details to questions that I was going to follow up with next.
Perhaps Hindy did anticipate them, since it turned out that he was a reporter himself. Our conversation turned to how he started the Brooklyn Brewery and sure enough, Hindy discovered his love for brewing while he was on his beat as a reporter. He started out with small newspapers and, if memory serves me, he was working for Newsday when he became a foreign correspondent.
He was working in Muslim countries, where buying beer is outlawed, and that’s why he began brewing his own beer. When he returned to the states he kept on brewing himself and eventually decided to leave the journalism business for the beer industry.
Being a nice guy and a former journalist Steve was a pleasure to interview. He even helped me with some research by photocopying stories from Beer industry magazines on environmentally friendly beer.
(Side note: Isn’t it interesting that every business has an industry mag — once I saw a pizza delivery industry mag).
If any journalists are reading this, I think Steve’s story is somewhat inspirational. Although he isn’t a practicing journalist anymore, it was while on the job that he discovered his love for brewing beer. Who knows, maybe I’ll find out that I want to be in the crayon business one day. At least with journalism every story is an opportunity to learn something new and uncover a new interest.
A Popular Story: My First Digg
A recent story I wrote for seed has, for some reason, blown up.
It’s a story on Sudoku: A scientists working on a algorithm for microscopy accidentally found a universal solution to sudoku puzzles.
I submitted the story to Digg.com, not thinking too much of it. Especially because others had already put the same story up a few days earlier. As fate would have it, the story took and was on the front page of digg (the new slashdot) for a little bit.
At first I felt slightly awkward since I was the person who submitted it. But that’s the beauty of digg. The story won’t take off if other people don’t find it relevant. With almost 2,000 diggs right now I guess the story stands on its own (and also had the good fortune of timing).
Anyways, I’m glad I was able to send a lot of hits towards seed’s website and write a good story at the same time.
As for now: Get ready for spring break (woooo!)
