another example of bad reporting…
So a couple of years ago, a musician from a band that I loved was killed in a motorcycle accident by a drunk driver. It turns out that the driver was a Hyundai executive who had just left a corporate dinner and after hearing about the accident, other Hyundai executives helped the man flee the country. That was a really quick synopsis.
The court issued a sentence today for the driver, Youn Bum Lee. A few hours after the court ruling occurred, I tried to find out what the decision was. There were only two news articles available on Google News. The first one that I read was this…
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/Ex-Hyundai-Executive-Headed-to-Prison-78728182.html
This article was all about the emotion and without the actual story. Lee plead guilty quite awhile ago and the point of today was to see how long he would be in prison. HELLO? No mention of the sentence length.
The only other article did offer some more clarity…
http://www.ocregister.com/news/lee-222906-hyundai-cook.html
9 years and all of the rest of the facts about the entire ordeal. It even appealed to some of the emotions involved in the case.
This story even made the NYTimes. At first I was surprised, but I guess it does have some national interest with such a large corporation being involved in a conspiracy.
Anyway…back to at least a brief mention of the visual. Both of the photos used in the two articles are of the suspect, one a mugshot and the other an image of the suspect behind a fence…to give the appearance of being ‘behind bars.’ I am surprised that they did not use a picture of Dallas or offer more info about the band. The band is frequently a house band at Disneyland–covering famous Disney tunes with choreographed dance moves…look it up on YouTube. It’s amazing, I swear. This could definitely pull at some heartstrings more than the uninformative article with a simple quote from a band member.
Just my late night ramblings for today…
the worst news reporting ever.
So again with the music theme…
Tonight was a weird “media event” in Philly at the Electric Factory. I don’t know much about this group or band, to be honest, but I knew more than this news report:
http://cbs3.com/video/?id=92558@kyw.dayport.com
The Westboro Baptist Church set up a protest in Philly against the band, All Time Low. Here’s part of an article from Alternative Press that actually explains what’s going on…
Radical anti-gay group targets All Time Low
Alternative Press – Tim Karan on 11/22/09 @ 3:16 PM – altpress.com
Westboro Baptist Church, an independent organization known for its radical anti-homosexual views, has apparently set its sites on All Time Low. In their extensive protest schedule, members of the WBC are planning to picket outside of ATL’s Dec. 6 show at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia.
The explanation for the protest on “Godhatesfags.com” references an Altpress.com news brief and reads in part:
“‘All Time Low frontman suffers concussion’ so says the bloggers and Alternative Press reporter. You may be wondering what in the world WBC cares about these losers – so let me break it down for you. How do you know how far gone a society is? You look at their social icons. When you look at these gender-confused, haphazard freakazoids then you can plainly see that america is DOOMED, for real! This is the final generation, and a little concussion is the least of their worries. Here is what they have to look forward to when this once great nation finally falls – for her fall is already started.”
A WBC member tweeted to ATL frontman Alex Gaskarth that “God Hates Fag Enablers! WBC will picket All Time Low’s concert in Philly.” Gaskarth replied, “Stay home. Intolerance isn’t welcome at our show.”
(The full article can be found here: http://altpress.com/news/arealalltimelow.htm)
How ridiculous is this religious group? Here’s a video of the crazy lady from the church:
http://vidly.com/bHsi
Now that you are caught up a little with the background of this story, do you agree with me that the CBS news story was a waste of time. This was actually a good story to report on, in my opinion, but they did not offer any facts or details. The quotes from the protesters didn’t make any sense and didn’t even speak to the issues being protested. I don’t think that All Time Low is teaching kids to be homosexual. Couldn’t the WBC group’s money, resources, and energy be put towards something more important? Since when has a protest sign that says “God Hates You” changed anyone’s mind of anything?
Not sure what the news actually reported there…sounds to me like “a bunch of people who like to protest were protesting at the Electric Factory. The end.”
image event…
Early this morning, one of Weezer’s tour buses was in a serious accident with some injuries, a destroyed bus, a canceled tour, but everyone made it out alive fortunately. I had first heard about this accident on Twitter from several major music news outlets. It wasn’t until one of them posted a link to Weezer’s myspace blog update with the full story and photos that made this real to me…speaking of image acts!
I was slightly worried about the Weezer frontman, Rivers Cuomo and his family, but I went on with my day as normal. I probably would not have read anything further about the accident if the horrific photos had not been included with the blog.
Take a look for yourself:
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=4888648&blogId=521324526
I can’t believe that whoever wrote this blog included a photo of Rivers inside the bus on a stretcher! That seems like something that would come from paparazzi, not the band itself. I’m sure this story will be the buzz of this upcoming week, especially since the rest of their tour had to be canceled, but then everyone will move on to the next story.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the friends, family, and musicians involved in the accident, but without the images, I don’t know if I would have cared as much. Just an honest thought.
visit Italy without paying $1000 for the flight!
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2009/12/04/now-you-can-visit-pompeii-without-flying-to-italy/
I just saw this on the front of the WordPress home page and wanted to reblog it. I love Italy, and this is NOT like visiting the beautiful country. No matter how realistic the photos are, it cannot compare to the incredible sights, sounds, and smells of actually being there.
That is all.
…augmented reality in the publishing world
To continue my discussin of augmented reality–which by the way was stemming from our class discussion about the photo collection that allows you to see a 3D representation of the photographed object…the example in the video we saw was of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris–I’d now like to show you another article I found.
Penguin Publishing has introduced a new feature with one of their latest vampire novels that allows the reader to put their own face on the cover of the book. The catch? You have to buy a special edition of the book in order for it to work. Then you can send the altered photo of the book cover to all of your friends–and Penguin hopes they will want to purchase the book and test out the technology as well.
This is great marketing. With all of the excitement with Twilight, it might be difficult to compete against the Stephanie Meyer books, but with this social networking aspect that is ahead of the rest of the technological world, the books might be able to win over the interest of teens.
Here’s the article about it:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6709682.html
John Mayer’s Augmented Reality Music Video
Have you heard about this? It’s pretty cool, but I don’t have a webcam to try it out myself. I need to have one of my friends with a fancy Mac help me out.
http://www.johnmayer.com/ar/#/Home
So with this technology, you hold up a symbol to the webcam, the software recognizes the symbol and inserts the image received from the webcam into the already produced music video featuring John Mayer himself. Talk about creepy! You can turn the scene and look at John Mayer in all angles! You are, in a way, interacting with John Mayer–each of you in your own living rooms.
I think this is really cool for music and books, but if this technology were to be further developed and brought into the real world, it could crossing the line into insanely creepy. Think about how this could take online dating to the next level. People could never actually meet in real life. They could set up a webcam and interact with each other’s virtual-physical being.
Here’s a video demonstration of the augmented reality:
Here’s John talking about the technology, but it seems like the finished product did not turn out exactly as he had thought:
more…
WordPress supplied some helpful similar posts about life and death masks and this History Channel show in particular. Probably better than my entry, but who is keeping score?
http://the44diaries.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/the-history-channel-death-masks/
http://awesometalks.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/the-lincoln-life-masks/
President Lincoln
So you might be wondering what hot spot Abbey is at on this Saturday night…maybe out in Philadelphia at a concert or at an art opening in NoLibs?
Nope.
I’m sitting on my couch with bronchitis watching the history channel. BUT there is a really cool show on right now about the life masks of Abraham Lincoln. There are only two life masks of Lincoln that were created in 1860 and 1865. The one form 1865 is an incredible sight because it looks more like a death mask, but was, in fact, cast two months before Lincoln’s assassination. The scientists who have studied the masks believe that Lincoln had a serious illness that was speeding up the aging process and that would have ultimately killed him early if he had not been assassinated. The stress of the presidency, his son’s death, and the war were also evident in the 5 year difference of the two life masks. The show mentioned that Lincoln was aware of how important his image was in the day even as photography was in its beginning. The show claimed that he was one of the first celebrities. Lincoln was not trying to record his appearance for vanity reasons, but he knew the importance of a person’s face and wanted future generations to have these records.
Watch a clip about the life mask (not from the show, but still from the History Channel): http://link.history.com/services/player/bcpid27931106001?bctid=27984585001
I never knew these life masks existed before now, but apparently George Washington had one as well. The show mentioned that Washington reportedly did not like his portrait that was used on the $1 bill. He wanted his jaw to appear more square as it was illustrated in his most famous portrait. Washington had only three teeth in his mouth when he took office and only ONE later in his presidency. The one and only life mask of Washington was cast when he was 53 and before he had become president. They have determined that he was wearing dentures that helped to make his jaw appear more powerful. There is much skepticism about whether or not the person who cast the mask altered the finished product to make Washington’s skin appear more smooth (removing the scars from small pox). It’s very weird to think that the image that we know of George Washington is how the president wanted to be remembered and not very accurate.
The idea that we can see what all of these historical figures actually looked like by examining life and death masks. I mean…THE HISTORY CHANNEL JUST SHOWED US THE ACTUAL FACE OF CAESAR! So this show is two hours long so I’m going to keep watching, but I thought this would be pretty cool to talk about in light of our visual communication course. Check your local listings for reruns 
jaw is more square
rounder jaw
red cups
I believe that Christmas season is upon us as soon as I have seen one of the red Starbucks cups. I heard that they are in stores now, so I’ll have to go take a look. I wonder how they knew it was Christmas before there was Starbucks?
