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Photos: El Matador Beach
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Category Archives: Twitter
You Own This: Pieces of American History
Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother
“Migrant Mother,” by Dorothea Lange, is the most famous photo in the Library of Congress. This 1936 portrait of Florence Thompson and her children symbolizes both economic hardship and the strength to survive. The Library is honored to preserve Lange’s original camera negative and makes the digitized photo freely available.
The Migrant Mother is one of the most iconic photographs in American history. It was shot during the great depression of the 1930′s. The project, sponsored by the Gvmnt’ under the U.S. Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information and was meant to document the plight of Americans across the country during that time period. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks were all contributors to the project. Because the project was Government sponsored it means they were working for you. Think of it as your grand parents tax dollars hard at work. Most of the pictures under the FSA are rights free and are allowed to be used and duplicated. You can even order prints on line at the Library of Congress.
“Publication and other forms of distribution: Permitted. Most photographs in this collection were taken by photographers working for the U.S. Government. Work by the U.S. Government is not eligible for copyright protection (see page 5 of the Copyright Office’s Circular 1, “Copyright Basics”). However, the FSA occasionally and the OWI frequently bought or otherwise obtained some photographs from other sources. All known information about the source of the images is found in the labels on the photographs. Patrons are advised to check for copyright before publishing or otherwise distributing photographs credited to other sources. Privacy and publicity rights may also apply.”
The library collection was digitized during the mid-90′s (which is the reason for the lack high quality scans) and have been online and available to the public. Over the last couple years the LOC has done a great job at expanding access to their library. The LOC has a Flickr account of which you can subscribe too. They are also on twitter talking about events at the physical Library (in Washington D.C.) as well as the unveiling of newly published photo sets. The latest set called “FSA/OWI Favorites” is one of the best in my opinion.
What the Library of Congress is doing as an organization is smart. Rather than invest a ton of time and money to rebuild it’s own infrastructure it is using the platforms available (like Flickr and Twitter) to reach it’s audience. By adding content on these networks also allows for users to share and spread the content with ease, as these features are built into the platforms.
SpaceShuttle Commander Tweeting from Space
This morning the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched for what is the final mission to the Hubble Telescope (STS-125). With that as the backdrop I wanted to talk about another frontier that NASA is treading in. In June astronaut and Space Shuttle Commander Mark Polansky will be heading to the International Space Station for mission STS-127. The mission will be to deliver and install the final two components of the Japanese Experiment Module. As part of that Mark will be updating the mission live over twitter. He is also putting out an open call for questions to be answered from space. You can view the video below.
You can follow Mark on Twitter at @Astro_127. Yea I know, yet another article hyping twitter, blah, blah blah. That’s not what it’s about though! This is about hyping NASA! When was the last time you were able to speak to an astronaut in space and have him answer your questions? Um, never I think is the right answer. NASA is doing a great job of giving exposure to itself just by broadcasting what it is doing. Now is a great time to be a nerdy science kid, (or a nerdy adult for that matter). Over and out!
Updated – 5/23
This week @Astro_Mike was getting a lot of press from being the first person to tweet from space. Stealing the thunder of Mark Polansky (@Astro_127). @Astro_Mike (or Mike Massimino) was credited for being the 1st person to tweet from space this week when he apparently tweeted, “From orbit: Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard, & enjoying the magnificent views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun!”
But apparently he was not actually tweeting. He was emailing messages back to the Space Center which were then updated on his account by someone else. You can read more about it here at the “Orlando Sentinel”. On the NASA twitter feed they confirm the story.
I have to say I am not all that dissapointed. I think the fact that agencies are trying to communicate and get people involved and engaged is great. And it doesn’t have to be thru the latest social media fad to be exciting. Plus that still gives @Astro_127 a chance to be the 1st!
What Are Your 5 Favorite Sites?
Being out in the field looking for a job is certainly a change of pace. Over the last 3 years I can’t count the number of interviews I have been a part of. In the last 6 years I probably been on the other side of the table a handful of times.
I went in for an interview last week and everything was going pretty good. In my opinion any interview should just come across as a good conversation for both parties. Not one side asking questions and the other one answering them. I felt we were having a good conversation that was flowing and painless. The hour we spent talking seemed to fly by. Towards the end of the conversation the interviewer asked me a simple question and I dropped it! It was something so basic, something I have asked candidates hundreds of times. A question that you ask just to get a sense of a candidates web savvy, “What are your 5 favorite sites?”. And I dropped it! I remember stammering out, “ESPN of course…”. The one site any employer would rather not hear, “The World Wide Leader” in killing productivity. I think I also threw out Mashable.com but for the life of me I can’t remember anything else I might have said.
Even as words were coming out of my mouth I knew this was a question I should have a very easy answer for. After the interview later into the evening I was still thinking about the botch and actually trying to answer it for myself. The patterns in which I consume information have shifted. In the past I would have 9-14 bookmarks and maybe 10-15 rss feeds to go thru on a regular basis. But when work starts piling up the last thing I had time to do was go and peruse sites. I would bookmark, star, tag, digg and add to delicious. But then the list of tagged items would be long and over the course of time the list of must visit sites and rss feeds grew unmanageable.
It took me awhile, but then I realized, I don’t have 5 favorite sites! I still get information, links and opinions, but it is not necessarily from an aggregate site like Digg. Instead of being directed to content that is surfaced by general popularity, I have chosen to be influenced by individuals that I respect and trust. Twitter, and the people I follow has somewhat replaced my need to subscribe to any particular site. And the content that the individuals do surface tends to have a more direct connection with my interests versus most popular. A lot of the times I am connecting with the individuals who are writing the content for the sites we visit. For example I follow:
NPR NEWS
Writer for Ad Age
Sr Analyist, Forrester
NASA
Founder of Digg
Founder of Mashable.com
Founder of BigSpaceship
This is a good cross section of news, science, advertising, social media, and technology trends. And for the most part these people are pretty consistent with engaging thier audience. Not that it is necessary, but you will watch or hear about stories on twitter before I see the article come out from AdAge (who I also follow) or NPR. Twitter has cut down the amount of scanning I need to do (but don’t have time for) by 60%. I obviously still do explore on my own, and if I had to pick 5 sites (after much deliberation) they would be:
Adobe Labs
QBN (News Today)
Slate Magazine
The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Mashable
Live Tweeting (no, not the Oscars)
This weekend there was a lot of discussion about who would be tweeting at the oscars, what peopling where saying online. Last weekend it was the same thing with the NBA All-Star game (particularly Dwight Howard for Adidas). Well Monday night I followed a live event although not as sexy.
Sitting on my couch at 1:44 am, thinking I shouldn’t have taken that 3 hour nap at 7pm; my mindless ESPN watching was interrupted by a tweet from @NASA: “OCO launch update: Liftoff is now set for 4:55 EST. Catch it on www.nasa.gov/ntv“. This was a lot more interesting than watching the rerun segment of sportscenter for the 4th time straight.
OCO stands for “Orbiting Carbon Observatory”. The mission as described on its site is to: “After launch, the OCO mission will collect precise global measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists will analyze OCO data to improve our understanding of the natural processes and human activities that regulate the abundance and distribution of this important greenhouse gas…….” So I shot off the TV and started intently watching the 320 x 240 feed. The video was not that great, but the audio was perfect. The system checks and pre launch activities added to the excitement. I tweeted a couple comments about the activity. Then I twitpic’d a shot of the lift off. To my suprise someone re-broadcast my tweet. Then it dawned on me to see if other people where following the launch. I went to Twitter Search and was suprised at the amount of people who where following it. There were people who were watching it online as well as people who were able to see it overhead. It just made the entire event that much more exciting. Check out the NASA search results here.
Unfortunately, what you will hear about the project is how it failed…About 3 quarters of the way thru the launch, launch command called for the contingency plan to be implemented, “Nobody leave the room, nobody call out.”. A little while later they say that, “The faring did not separate from the spacecraft”. A press conference will convene in 2 hours…The excitement of the event was immediately replaced with a feeling of disappointment. I think my emotions were heightened (good and bad) because of sharing it with these other individuals. Unfortunately the mission failed. Unfortunately not enough people pay attention to what NASA does (we pay for this!!!). One positive, we have access to watch events like this.
One other interesting aspect of this whole event. Some people will read up on the events and news of Monday’s launch. It is a unique experience to follow it live as it happens. I will be watching more NASA launches in the future. Hopefully more people watch these events. Hopefully more of them will be successful. #FAIL!
Update: Launch Archive and Press Conference
I have attached the video of the launch for your viewing pleasure. I have also included the follow up press conference to why the mission failed.