Introducing...Street Art Pittsburgh!!

Our final project, Street Art Pittsburgh, is now up and running. Thank you to my amazing team!

Profile

They say that appearance is only skin deep, that you can't really learn a lot about someone based on how they look or dress. I'm calling shenanigans on that. On most days, her fashion sense reflects her outlook on life: usually casual jeans and a sweatshirt, laid-back, not taking life too seriously, or at least not any more seriously than it needs to be taken. You probably wouldn't label her loud or outspoken, but her wit can catch you by surprise. If there are many people who could compete with her sports knowledge and passion, I certainly haven't met them. 

How to feel like a Jedi

Sure, you can don your Jedi robes and wield your plastic lightsaber. Or you can buy the Star Wars Force Trainer or perhaps the slightly more sophisticated Mindflex, games that allow you to move a small ball simply with the power of your mind. Seriously. It's not magic, it's not sleight of hand; it's pure, unadulterated science. Headsets equipped with electrodes sense your brain's activity as you concentrate on moving the ball, and this signal is used to power a small fan that pushes the ball into the air. Concentrate harder and the fan will increase its intensity, making the ball rise higher.

This technology is a simplified version of research being conducted by Pitt's own Andy Schwartz. The basic principle is this: thinking about and planning a body movement involves activity in a specific part of the cortex. This planning activity generates an electrical signal that can be picked up by electrodes. Schwartz and his team have implanted electrodes into this region of monkeys' brains, and, through complex algorithms that I can't even begin to understand, the electrical activity is used to move a mechanical arm in three-dimensional space. The researchers restrain the monkey's arms and present him with a marshmallow. And, just by thinking about reaching out and grabbing the marshmallow, the mechanical arm moves, retrieves the marshmallow, and delivers it to the monkey.

Clearly, this kind of Jedi magic technology has the potential for much more than kids' games. It might even hold the key to helping those with quadriplegia and other forms of paralysis live more normal, independent lives.

Turkey Talk

If you want to hear stories about tic-tac-toe-playing chickens, gangster turkeys, and cruelty-free foie gras, Ira Glass is your man.

Every time I listen to This American Life, I wonder how on earth they find these smalls gems of stories.

A little dose of vertigo

Just when I thought I was over my horrible cold/flu, it returns with a vengeance, this time wreaking havoc on my inner ear and making me feel like Lucille Austero.



Okay, it's not that bad. I'm not actually falling over like Lucille 2; I just have a case of the dizzies, as she might say. What a great opportunity to revel in my science nerd-dom with a mini-lecture on the vestibular system!

Much of our sense of balance and our sense of the position of our body in space comes from our inner ear. The inner ear contains the three semicircular canals, each located in its own plane.

NIH Medical Arts

  Each semicircular canal has a bulge of tissue at its base which houses the cupula. Inside the cupula are hair cells that bend and sway based on the movement of fluid through the semicircular canals. Their movement sends a signal to a sensory nerve, and this information goes to the brain.

The canals are responsible for transducing rotational movement like shaking your head from side to side or nodding. But the inner ear also contains the otolith organs (the utricle and saccule), which transduce linear movement, like when you are walking.

Infection or inflammation of any of these structures in the inner ear or of the nerve leading away from the inner ear can cause the nerve cell to send an improper signal to the brain, one that doesn't jive with visual and other sensory information coming in. The result? Dizziness and vertigo. This kind of vertigo is common in the flu and upper respiratory infections, but there are other non-viral causes as well, some of which can cause more severe and longer-lasting vertigo. Poor Lucille.

Advanced Batman Theory

Cracked published an interesting take on why Christopher Nolan might decide to off Batman in the trilogy's next, and final, installment. According to the author, it would really only be Bruce Wayne that dies because Batman, assuming he's kicked enough butts and inspired the citizens of Gotham, will have become an immortal symbol.

At least if he dies, there's a backup Batman.   

 

"I want to do that thing rich people do where they turn money into more money."

An article published yesterday in The New York Times described how Ronald Lauder, heir to the multi-billion dollar Estée Lauder empire, has been able to avoid paying millions in taxes. Now, let's get one thing straight: I'm no fan of the Occupy Wall Street movement or any of the protests it has spawned. But I'm pretty sure this is exactly the kind of thing they're fed up with, and I have to say that I agree. Before we even begin discussing raising or lowering taxes, perhaps a good start would be to close the loopholes that Lauder and others have been able to take advantage of, like getting a tax break for buying art and "donating" it to your own charity. Just sayin'.

Tumblr

Here is the link to Pollanation, my Tumblr about writer Michael Pollan.

Robo street art

Darn robots. They even put street artists out of work.

Storify

Following a Story Wherever it Takes You documents a Twitter conversation with Rebecca Skloot on the writing process.

Byliner

I chose to follow Chuck Klosterman, Michael Paterniti, and Mark Bittman on Byliner. I chose Klosterman because, while Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is one of my favorite books, I haven't read most of his other work for magazines and online publications. The same goes for Paterniti. I chose Mark Bittman because I am really interested in food and health, and I have enjoyed reading his column in The New York Times as well as his cookbook, the Food Matters Cookbook. For all of these writers whom I admire, Byliner lets me stay on top of everything they're writing, rather than falling in love with one of their books or articles and then forgetting that they have other projects simply because they're not right in front of me. This isn't usually the case with Bittman because I try to visit the New York Times site as often as their pay wall permits, but Klosterman and Paterniti aren't usually on my radar. 

Please Water Me?

Guerilla Gardening Pittsburgh combines green thumbs with yarn graffiti, installing crocheted planters around the city with the simple instructions, Please Water Me.

Guerilla Gardening planter at Fifth Avenue and Desoto Street.

Lab, 10/26

Here are three different ways to tell a story about yarn bombing and street art in Pittsburgh.

1.  It would be interesting to tag Pittsburgh street art with actual physical tags that encourage people to tweet or communicate in some way about the art they are viewing. This would be a fantastic way to learn about how people interact with the art they are viewing, and Pittsburgh's Yarnover Society does something like this with their work. They tag their pieces and ask people to tweet @yarnoversociety basically anything they want, just to acknowledge that they've seen the work.

2.  A comic strip could show the construction or installation of a street art piece. The Yarnover Society, as well as other street artists, typically work under the cover of night so that it's discreet as possible. I think a comic strip would be a great way to communicate these kind of top secret, incognito missions that are more playful than really serious.

3.  If possible, it would be really interesting to use the street art media itself, whether its paint or wheat-pasting or yarn, to tell the story. Pieces could be created and installed in a particular order that tells some kind of a story though, right now, I'm not really sure how it would work. But I'm envisioning an installation each day, maybe at a new location each time, and then a picture is taken and put online. It might work well if viewers were responsible for taking and posting the pictures for others to see, and they could discuss where the story was going next, both in terms of narrative and geography.

Lab, 10/12

Theme: "WINTER IS COMING"--What Pittsburgh is thinking as winter approaches

Format: Like Longshot, we’re aiming for a publication that can be printed and/or posted online. We’ll have articles and stories that contrast each other on a two-page spread. Each story and infographic will have its own page, making the magazine roughly 20 pages long.

Story Ideas:

"Where do the LARPers Go?" / "Where do the Homeless Go?"

• The first story will focus on LARPers (Live Action Role Players; people who re-enact fantasy situations) in the area that meet in Schenley Park and Shadyside and see where they go in the winter.
• The second story will contrast the LARPers and see where Pittsburgh’s homeless seek shelter during the winter, covering the local organizations that help the needy.

"Seasonal Depression" / "Sun Lamps"

• “Seasonal Depression” will take a look at those in the Pittsburgh area effect by S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and how they cope with the city’s weather.
• “Sun Lamps” will be a brief report on sun lamps, what they do and the positive effects on users.

"Ode to and Ugg Boot" / "Ugghs"

• A brief poem in favor of Ugg Boots opposite a brief poem or manifesto attacking such a vile fashion trend.

infographic: sunny days in winter: PGH vs. Honolulu or wherever

• Envisioned as a kind of GOOD Magazine-style info graphic - where data is presented in an aesthetically pleasing manner

Jobs Won in Winter / Jobs Lost in Winter

• Profile on the employment opportunities created by winter weather in Pittsburgh: for example, Christmas tree lot salesman, Snowplow driver, etc.
• In contrast, lots of people end up losing their jobs come winter, like Kennywood employees, construction workers, etc. This profiles the hardships they face and how they endure

infographic: alcohol consumption v. winter injuries

• Again, presented like the previous infographic. Data localized with regards to the Pittsburgh region

Winter Crime / Winter Charity

• “Winter Crime” will be an inforgraphic on crime rates in Pittsburgh as weather worsens.
• “Winter Charity” will be an opposing infographic on philanthropy in the Pittsburgh area during the holidays.

Weatherman / Snowplow Driver

• These pieces will be characters sketches of local weathermen and how the public feels about their predictions (and therefore the weathermen themselves) for Pittsburgh weather during the winter. The opposing piece will be about local snowplow drivers and how the public feels about them. It will examine how children like bad weather predictions (snow days) whereas adults are the opposite and how these roles are reversed when it comes to the snowplow drivers.

Art
The art will include several infographics (like the charts for alcohol consumption and injury rates
in the winter). These playful infographics will be in the style of GOOD magazine. In keeping with
the theme of contrast throughout the magazine, art will also be “dark” or “light” in color and tone.
Finally, there will also be photography throughout the magazine.

Facebook pages

I joined the New York Times Healthy Living (Well Blog) and Wired on Facebook.

Slate and Grantland

Slate and Grantland have several social media pages. Here are a handful that I found:

Slate

1. Twitter @Slate
2. Twitter @SlateArticles
3. Twitter @SlateCultFest
4. Twitter @Slatest
5. Facebook Slate.com
6. Facebook Slate Culture
7. Facebook Slate's Culture Gabfest
8. Facebook Slate Political Gabfest
9. Facebook Slate Explainer
10. Facebook Slate Politics 

Grantland

1. Twitter @Grantland33
2. Facebook Grantland

Lab 2, 10/5

The Atlantic has its own Facebook page and Twitter feed, which I follow. Both Facebook and Twitter are great tools to post headlines and direct interested readers to the full story on the website. However, when it comes to interactivity, the Atlantic makes much better use of Twitter than Facebook. On Facebook, as well as on the Atlantic's official website, readers can post comments and reactions to stories. There's interactivity in the sense that readers can discuss ideas with each other, but there is no real dialogue between the Atlantic and its readers. I think this is probably the case for most nonfiction sites' Facebook accounts. On Twitter, however, the Atlantic can, on rare occasions, retweet relevant news and articles that readers might be interested in, though most of these are drawn from other areas of their own website.

New York Times food and health writer Mark Bittman has both a personal Facebook page and a Twitter account. Just like the Atlanitc, Bittman primarily uses these sites as vehicles for promoting his column and for keeping readers up-to-date on his articles. He also uses it to announce television appearances and talks. While his Facebook page feels personalized and directed to his readers, there is still no real back and forth dialogue between him and readers. Readers post questions to which he never responds. It almost makes me feel like the interactivity of these social media are mere guises, when, in reality, it would be almost impossible for a writer like Bittman to respond to all the comments and questions he receives. However, I do like that on his Twitter he shares articles from other sources. His tweets aren't just promotional tools but ways for him to share other information with readers.

Lab 1, 10/5

1. William Faulkner won the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature, and he made his acceptance speech, an excerpt of which can be heard here, on December 10, 1950. In his speech, he described how the writer's job goes beyond simple documentation of facts and is really about lifting the human spirit:

He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

Source: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html

2. January 1, 1644 was a Friday. The weather in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was cloudy and rainy, though warm.

Sources: http://www.searchforancestors.com/utility/dayofweek.html
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20083411

3. The five deadliest hurricanes in the United States were:
    1. Galveston, Texas in 1900
    2. Southeast Florida, 1928
    3. Hurricane Katrina, Southeast Louisiana and Mississippi, 2005
    4. Cheniere Caminanda, Louisiana, 1893
    5. Sea Islands, South Carolina and Georgia, 1893

Source: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/NWS-TPC-5.pdf

4. The original blueprint for Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater can be found here.

Source: http://historical.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=629&lotNo=25650&type=prte-pr082406b#Photo

5. An image of Ernest Hemingway's 1923 passport can be found here.
The photograph shows a young Hemingway dressed in a three-piece suit. Faded and with holes from staples and clips, the photograph is in sepia tone. It is stamped with the number 359666. There is a boxed line on the passport, in which the photograph was crookedly adhered.

Source: http://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/todays-doc/index.html?dod-date=721

New Twitter accounts

Here are the ten new Twitter accounts I've started following:

This American Life @ThisAmerLife
New York Times Health @nytimeshealth
The New Yorker @NewYorker
Chuck Klosterman @CKlosterman
Byliner @TheByliner
Science Writers @ScienceWriters
Society for Neuroscience @SfNtweets
Scientific American @sciam
Mark Bittman @bittman
The Atlantic @TheAtlantic

Storify

Here is my work-in-progress Storify about jellyfish.

This brief experiment made me realize that Storify might be better for stories developing in real-time, stories that are being discussed on Facebook and Twitter. Science, not so much.

From printed page to computer screen

I think The New York Times has done a wonderful job adapting to new interactive media, and a great example of this is Amy Harmon's piece on Justin Canha that we just read. In this digital platform, there is infinite space for images, space that doesn't exist on the printed page. And what's also nice about the platform is that the images don't have to crowd the webpage; rather, there are separate links to them.

Another feature I like about The New York Times website is the boxes for the most e-mailed and most viewed articles. There is some sense of interactivity here because it lets me see what other people are interested in, what they're reading and possibly sharing with other people.

The only thing I don't like, and this goes for just about every news site out there today, is the comments section. I almost never read them, even though the ones on the Times are probably more intelligible than comments on other sites. I think it's supposed to be interactive, but it very rarely seems that way to me. It seems reactionary and self-indulgent. More people are driven by the desire to just say something, not to engage with other readers.

Street Art Sources

Yarn Bombing is a blog that covers the art of knitted graffiti from around the world. The authors of the blog have also published a book on the topic called Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti.

Time Magazine published a beautiful photo essay on yarn bombing around the world, from the U.S. to France and from Mexico to Indonesia. There are some elaborate creations that cover buses and military tanks, as well as simple, colorful pothole covers. (Pittsburgh could probably use a few of those.)

To narrow the focus to street art/yarn bombing in Pittsburgh, I will look into Pittsburgh's Yarn Over Society, a group dedicated to knitted street art. The LEDFlower Project is a Pittsburgh-based but global knitted art movement that also combines the interactivity of social media and Google maps.

Finally, I would also like to talk to employees and shoppers of Knit One, a very popular yarn and knitting supply store in Pittsburgh that offers classes and has an active online community as well. I think this sense of community will be an important part of the discussion of yarn bombing. 

Credibility in Cyber Space

The most obvious example of a nonfiction site that may or may not be credible is Wikipedia. I've always questioned the accuracy of the information on the site since anyone with access to the Internet can write about any topic and modify an article as they see fit. It's especially disconcerting when reference sources are lacking. (I'm glad that Wikipedia notes this by saying that a citation is needed so that I at least know to be a little more skeptical about its reliability.) A similar, and perhaps more reliable, site would be something like Britannica Online. I would say I trust this site more because it's an actual encyclopedia, written by professional writers and thoroughly edited. Or maybe I just trust it more because it's also available in book form, a format that seems a lot more "official."

Another website whose credibility I don't always trust is Yahoo! Answers. Like Wikipedia, anyone can post on the website, but Yahoo! Answers users often don't include citations in the their posts. The only method of review is a user rating of responses. I'll admit that I've turned to this site when I had questions about material from my science classes, and I was usually disappointed with what I found. A lot of the answers were just plain wrong! There doesn't seem to be as much monitoring as there is on Wikipedia. When I want more trustworthy information, I turn to a site affiliated with a school or university, and I trust these sites more because of the authority of the writers.

Help Wanted

Ken and I are seeking two additional group members.  If you don't belong to a group yet, let me know if you'd like to join. :)

Why I'm here

I'm taking this class because I'm pretty much social media illiterate. I have a Facebook, but I only use it for keeping in touch with old friends and stalking new ones.  I've never understood Twitter as a means of communication between friends because the tweets never seem to be anything worth communicating; there's just too much chatter, too much noise.  But as journalism and business begin using these kinds of media, it might be prudent for me to become familiar with them, especially if I want to write for a living (which I still haven't decided).

I hope to sharpen my reporting skills and become versed in the language of Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger. I think this will be a great opportunity for me to push myself to use concise and precise language, something that I sometimes have trouble with.  I would also like to push myself to write about things that I don't know.  In the past, I feel like I've taken shortcuts in writing about myself or my family, and, while there may be some good stories there, I need to get away from that. I would like to try some creative science writing if possible, because, for someone who loves science, I rarely write about it.

It's hard for me to say who my favorite nonfiction writers are because, as a writer, I know that I don't read nearly enough.  But I really like Michael Paterniti, especially his essay and book Driving Mr. Albert.  I love how easily he can find a narrative in scientific research, how effortlessly he can pull together information about Albert Einstein and turn it into a story.  This is something I would love to be able to do. To me, science is a story, but I haven't figured out how to tell it the way that Paterniti does.  While I'm not familiar with a lot of his work, David Grann's "Trial By Fire" is one of the best articles I've ever read, so I'll include him as one of my favorite writers.  One of the most remarkable things he does is that he tells the reader how the story will end (Cameron Todd Willingham will be executed), and yet he is somehow able to build tension and a part of me still wondered how it would end; I felt sure that the truth would come out and Willingham's life would be spared.  I hung on to Grann's every word, and this is something I really admire.