Sooner or Later, You'll Need A Source

So there's been a bit of a micro-sensation as Apple first announced a music streaming service and then, more to the point here, started putting together a news service, called "News." CNN Money worries - or rather, passes on the worries of others, because as a "legit" news operation, it can't have opinions of its own - that Apple "job listings provoked some of the anxiety that is palpable in the news industry at a moment of intense tech-fueled disruption. Journalists on Twitter cracked dark jokes about being put out of work by Apple when the job listings circulated widely on Monday."

But here's the thing about all of this - and a thing that has frustrated me as technology has disrupted journalism - sooner or later, the stories have to come from somewhere. In other words: Apple's News, and Yahoo, and even the now ancient Drudge Report, though they do some original reporting, all still are pretty much news aggregators. This is a cheap way to move information around without having to pay for the content creation; you just take other people's work and point at it.

And that's where I get frustrated: the internet isn't the only technology that's revolutionized how we get news. Cameras are cheaper, smaller and more efficient, video editing is a totally different, easier, and cheaper process than when I started some 30 years ago, still photographs are virtually cost free thanks to digital (which eliminated the costs of film and processing), sending stories is now a breeze via worldwide internet connections accessed by commonly available, free wifi connections. So now, rather than having to build an expensive bureau somewhere, staffed by a number of workers in specialized fields using expensive equipment to create content that then has to be sent to a central distribution point via expensive, unique transmission lines, a news organization can send out a kid with a camera and a laptop ... virtually anywhere.

But news organizations are cutting down on bureaus, counting on free consumer-provided content (don't get me started again on the "everyone's a photographer with the iPhone" thing) or locally produced (usually by state-owned and -run operations) material revoiced by some network reporter at a hub half a continent away (or not changed at all, when linked via an aggregator). In my earlier blog on iPhones, etc., I quoted Boston photographer John Tlumacki: "I’m so sick of citizen journalism, which kind of dilutes the real professionals’ work. I am promoting real journalism, because I think that what we do is kind of unappreciated and slips into the background."

So what happens when every outlet becomes an aggregator? It's much, much cheaper - you need only employ a limited number of "editors" to move material around, and they don't really need to be journalists, just web mavens. Maybe you collate a few pictures or factoids and put them under a clickbait headline ("7 Ways You May Be Killed By Your Puppy!"), but nor real reporting or news gathering.

But then, where do the stories come from? Sooner or later, you have to have a source.

Lessons I Have Learned from Having a Cooking Segment on TV

The best thing about having chefs on our morning show most every day is, of course, the food.

The next best thing is the tricks and techniques you learn, things that you not only didn't know but probably never gave any thought to when trying to cook yourself.

1. Use Nonstick Spray. No, all the time, not just when you're worried your cake will stick to the pan. Always. I know you've got Teflon pans, and they're nonstick miracles of science. Spray on the stuff anyhow, what'll it hurt?

2. Just Let the Food Cook. So you lay your bacon in the pan and it starts to sizzle. You're tempted to reach in there with the spatula and move it around, maybe flip it a few times to make sure it doesn't stick. (See above.) Stop. Don't. Just let it sit there and cook. How is it supposed to cook properly if you keep messing with it and taking it away from the heat? Flip it when that side is done, not because you're nervous.

3. Cook Real Food, with Real Ingredients. Honestly, it's not that much harder or more time consuming to make stuff from "scratch." (And when I say "scratch," I don't mean you have to make your own tomato sauce or salad dressing; let's be reasonable.) Cutting up real vegetables, chopping fresh herbs, stirring it into just basic things like tomato sauce - not completely pre-made jars of spaghetti sauce - really does make things taste better. And they taste just the way you want them to.

4. Prep. This is the secret to not making yourself crazy doing Instruction 3. Spend a few minutes before you start pulling together your ingredients, chopping, dicing, shredding or whatever you need to do to them, and having them all set out in little bowls and ramekins. You know, like they do in the cooking shows? Then you're not rushing around the kitchen trying to find this thing or that, all in a panic, while your food is burning.

Actually, I have begun to find this step in the process not dull or frustrating, but rather very soothing ... almost a zen-like, calming moment. It lets me know that I have all my ingredients and that I have everything under control. And the regular, controlled chopping and prepping process itself is almost like a meditation before going to work.

5. Use Salt and Pepper. In the 80s, there was this thing against salt, and everyone stopped cooking with it. But it's a flavor enhancer and - when not done to extreme - it really helps, as does pepper. Go ahead: throw some around as you cook, then taste it and see if you need more. You'll be surprised how much this helps as you go along.

6. Having a Go-To Technique Is Not Lazy. It's a go-to technique. It ensures that, when confronted with something you're unsure about, you still have a pretty good chance you'll make a decent meal out of it. For me, it's garlic and butter (and maybe sauteed onions, depending on what's being faced). I figure you could hand me a bowl of crickets and, with a hot pan and enough garlic, onions, and butter (and salt and pepper; see above), I could make something I would be willing to eat.

7. Don't Be Afraid. You know, often if something isn't what you wanted, it can still be good. Frequently, you can save yourself by falling back on a trusted technique (See 6. above). Or you can just chuck it, if it's hopeless, and move on. This happens to the best of us, like in the Julia Child video. (At 2:50, she completely jacks up flipping her potato pancake. "But you can always pick it up, if you're alone in the kitchen," she infamously says. "Who is going to see?") I can't tell you how many of our segments turned out to be about, not just slightly, but completely different dishes than planned.

8. And Finally - And Most Importantly - You Are Not a Chef! Even after all this, and even though all your friends and family tell you what a fabulous cook you are, even though you have a bunch of very expensive knives and really nice pots and pans, you are not a Chef. Or rather (with, not irony, but spoken-seriously-with-intent quotes) a "Chef."

Chefs are professionals. They have careers, they went to school just for this. The work really, really hard. Actually, the word in French means "chief." He isn't a cook, he runs the entire kitchen. Don't cook a few good meals and think you are a "Chef." Show these people some respect.

...

These aren't all the rules of cooking, nor are they the only ones or even the best ones, but they are what I have learned from watching while the experts work.

One More Time ...

A dialog between a colleague and her young son, posted on Facebook:

"Mama, I wonder how time works. Like, we walked in here, but - I don't know how to explain it."

"Like, how come everything doesn't happen at the exact same moment?"

"Yeah! Except I think everything *does* happen in the exact same moment, just in different dimensions. It's, like, the complete opposite of infinity."

How is it he can theorize on time and space like this, but he can't remember to turn off a light when he leaves a room?

Newton's First Law ...

"Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it."

-Newton's First Law

I'm not in motion ... and I don't really see any forces that impress me.
But I'm trying, I'm trying ...

In the Gap

Again, it's been a while, and again it's been because I have been busy. So I thought I would share with you the series on Appomattox and the surrender that effectively ended the Civil War, the project for the Fox 21/27 Morning News that has been taking up all of my time.

More to come ...

How Far the Mighty Fall ...

So Leica has done a remarkable job of surviving several near deaths and predictions of doom, often by making fancy limited editions -- some classy (35th anniversary of Leica Historical Society of America, for example) and some not so much.  But this ... well, this is a bit much.

This here's the "Leica M Kumamon," and according to Techtoys.com, it "is based on the famous Leica M Digital Range Finder (Type 240). On the front, it has a smaller logo and KumaMon symbol. On the lid on, we have a very large Kumamon logo and the words with “Leica Kumamon x” indicates that this version is specifically made ​​for Kumamon mascot."

Kumamon, Wikipedia explains, is the mascot for the Kumamoto Prefecture in Japan, created as part of a tourism campaign.  Contrary to what I originally thought (or rather feared), it is not a cartoon face of an African, but rather a little black bear.

from Wikipedia

I have this vision of David Douglas Duncan suddenly looking into the clear blue sky of Southern France and softly saying he felt a disturbance in the Force ...

Deep Thoughts

It's one of those profundities of adolescence that you suddenly come to realize that time -- or at least the way we mark time -- is an artifice, something we just mutually agree on for our general convenience.  There is no universal requirement, no rule of physics that says this is one o'clock, or that is Tuesday.  We simply name it so because otherwise we have a hard time keeping track of stuff.

But it's actually much more mind blowing that that.  Lately, a couple of articles addressed the actually physics of it -- the rule that would say why this is Tuesday -- and it turns out that there is a problem with time, or at least with the way we perceive it.

Einstein in 1921 by F Schmutzer

Public Domain via Wikipedia

As one article points out, according to the science of it, there really is no time.  According to Brainy Quote, Albert Einstein said, "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."  He famously had to stop using time as a constant to make the math of his Theory of Relativity work.  Now, physicists say (because of that math Einstein did) everything actually does happen all at once.  Or, rather, everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen already exists as a dimension, like height or distance.  It's just there. 

But here's the thing: We only move along the dimension in one direction.  It's as if you could only go up, but never down again, or if you drove to Cleveland along the interstate, there was only one lane and no return.  Why can't we move up and down time like we go from here to there and back?

Ludwig Boltzmann

via Wikipedia

A piece on the BBC website says it apparently has something to do with entropy and a guy named Ludwig Boltzmann.  Boltzmann was a classic example of the man before his time.  He argued for the existence of atoms before the consensus of scientists agreed as well as a number of other basic principles that we now consider obvious truisms (and he was ostracized for his beliefs).  He died in 1906, 10 years before Einstein published and won the Nobel for Relativity and physics generally came around to agree with pretty much everything Boltzmann said.

As the article explains it: "According to thermodynamics, every object in the world has a certain amount of entropy associated with it, and whenever anything happens to it, the amount of entropy increases. For instance, if you put ice cubes into a glass of water and let them melt, the entropy inside the glass goes up."  But like time, entropy only works in one direction, and the two, Boltzmann thought, might be related.  Time moves in that way because it's forced to by entropy.  Or rather we move through time that way because of entropy, because time doesn't move, just our place in it. Or ... well, one can end up in the thick weeds fairly quickly, especially (as the BBC piece explains) if you start getting into the math of it all, which often still insists that time is a dimension like all the others and we ought to be able to move in either direction on it.

This is a lot more complicated that getting a Delorean to 88 miles an hour ... but I think it's a lot more interesting.