I had been meaning to write this for a while, so goes life I suppose.

About two months ago we took Natascha, our 6 year old daughter to the East Bay (in Berkeley) Vivarium. I have been to the vivarium countless times in the past and cool as it has been, this particular day was special in that there 3 feedings we manage to witness. Two Monitor lizards feeding on a chick and a small mouse respectively, and then a Burmese Python feeding on a rabbit. What was truly amazing was that Natascha watched all three feedings with rapt attention.

The python feeding was fairly sterile except for the fact that the one of the rabbit’s eye popped out as it was being constricted. Then there was the smaller of the two monitors who effectively bit the chick in half as my daughter was watching, and finally the mouse who was pretty much chewed and swallowed as well.

This all caught me by surprise as I was sure Nat would be a bit squeamish. Go figure.

Ok, finally, done…. so now I can rest a little easier.
Raising a daughter is truly amazing

Earlier this week, Monday to be precise, I went to a panel discussion on the state of the SF Chronicle during the “transition” it finds itself in. “Transition” is such a nice word. The panelists included:

Historian Gray Brechin
Investigative Reporter Lowell Bergman
Multimedia journalist Kevin Weston
Public radio producer Holly Kernan
San Francisco civic leader Clint Reilly

Introduced by Dean Neil Henry,
Moderated by Senior Lecturer Susan Rasky

I am not going to pretend that I am a subject matter expert, at least from the producer end of things. I do consume news, lots of it so I am pretty knowledgeable in terms of what I want to read and how I want to read it. And yes, I am willing to pay for it.

As far as the panel was concerned, they were a pretty sympathetic bunch, and some even grok’ed the fact that what needs to be saved is journalism, and not necessarily the delivery mechanism. I personally believe that the demise of newsprint was a long time in the making if for no other reason than that most print media relies on advertising to subsidize their operations and subscriptions help to close the remaining revenue gap.

If that is the case, then it was only a matter of time before some other medium came along (seems this medium was the internet, or at least that is the spin, though the actual dollars taken from print media by the internet needs to actually be tallied, and I am sure someone has that information) and put a hurt on the advertising revenue news print took in.

I am sure I am naive with this observation but wouldn’t it have made sense to have a purely subscription driven business model (though that might not have allowed some pubs to even push a first edition)

The panel itself was pretty sympathetic to the Chronicle’s plight although I had to agree with Kevin Weston when he indicated that maybe the Chronicle was not serving the needs of the right communities.

Clint Reilly has put a lot of effort into saving the news print version of the Chronicle bless his soul but I suspect that in the long run this effort may be in vain

What concerns me is that no one had any idea of a model (profit or non-profit) which would seem to work. I guess I am wondering as to whether or not people are willing to pay for news. I know I am, but maybe something is wrong with me. How big is the online news market ?

Who, if anyone is paying for news ?

Where does one go if one wants to pay ?

During the panel discussion, there was a fair amount of talk on seeing to it that journalism covering local news was important. My first response was to disagree as I tend to be focused on international stuff but in thinking more about what actually potentially affects my pocket book, it would be local issues. So then the question is how does that get financed, and then for me, how does international reporting get financed. It was suggested that maybe the future lies insmaller news/journalist coops/consortiums but that did get a lot of discussion. The NPR reporter suggested the best, albeit impossible model, A magically funded 700 person news room. We all chuckled at how nice that would be, but hey, I believe in Santa Claus too.

Newsprint kept coming up over and over again, I just didn’t get it, seems to me that newsprint is an anachronism at this point, though I can’t suggest a more robust replacement for it….

I am worried, we don’t know what we will lose if local, national, and international are weakened further beyond their current levels. Can you imagine what the coverage of the financial crisis would have been like if the fourth estate had degenerated further than it already has….

Pay for content, its the only way to go…, but pay the actual producers and not their middlemen

I have to wonder if people outside the US aren’t laughing at us and our media as we clamor to see the SS USA righted before even the first 60 days of Obama’s administration has been completed. I mean, are we (the royal we) stoopid or what. Exactly how much do we expect to be fixed in < 50 days and owe by the way, its not like the entire country is pulling on the same oar. We’ve got yahoos like Rush yapping away, a congress who is already drunk with power and money, and a non-existent fourth estate.

I’ll tell you what though, I want to be under the financial sector dinner table when they drop some of their crumbs. What a deal they got….

That’s ok though, I got a ton of stuff to read so I am sated

BTW, I just found out the universe is on occasion, self-righting

So, as I had mentioned in a previous post, I quit my gig at Caustic (ironic, the name of the company given its also a characteristic of my disposition) back in September. Since then I have had the honour (or is that privilege) of watching the economy tank. It’s very strange though, it’s like the entire country is in denial. Over the last couple of months we have had this amazing demonstration of what happens when people don’t have money to spend, and how that phenomenon reaches out and spreads throughout the entire economy (ours and the world’s) yet still, the remedy most governments and/or other institutions recommend is to get things back to a point where the consumer class can begin spending again. But that makes no sense, it seems so obvious to me that maybe we should really be taking a hard look at not consuming so much. Maybe the world (or at least the US) needs to re-think our affinity for consumerism. Maybe businesses which produce things are not supposed to grow in revenue etc.. year-to-year. What’s wrong with businesses or companies holding a static size.

I am so confused

So, about 2 weeks ago, dutiful parent (along with my wife) that I am, took our 5 year old daughter and a girlfriend to the Lawrence Hall of Science in the Berkeley hills. Now it is important to me, being the father of a girl, that she get exposed to as much science and math as possible. Not so that she’ll necessarily become some manner of techie, but so that she is facile with understanding how things work from politics, to johnson counters….

Well as I am walking through the hall with her, it occurs to me that there are a fair number of other parents there with the same idea.What worries me however is that if all of these youngsters become techies, developing all kinds of neat protocols, and devices to push media around. Who will be left to generate the actually generate the content that these devices will push/carry across the “ether”

In most parts of the “industrialized world” it seems, at least from a metric that most societies understand, that the arts are not really valued. At least not nearly as valued as say, the Nth generation iPhone (full disclosure, I have one and we are exclusively a mac family). 

So here’s my plan (though my daughter I am sure will have other ideas). I want her to be able to bust out the solution for a non-linear fourth order differential equation….. when she needs to because…. it helps her figure out how to internalize the fact that Dave Holland’s Big band swings with a groove like nobodies bidness…. She does all this and then pays good money she earns as some creative type to see Dave Holland’s big band live…..

Now that’s a fathers dream

Peace y’all

Well it looks like I need to get serious about pursuing something outside of technology. Try as I might, I am no longer an engineer at heart. I’ll be a free agent in a few weeks, free of steady income that is.

So, what next for me ? I don’t know. There are some back burner (or at least former back burner) projects including finishing up my film; a history of black surfers, extending my Dreamweaver skills, and maybe getting a little more consistent in making entries in this blog. That and going surfing more now that I have some free time.

Cheers, and I hope to update this more frequently

I don’t intend on writing much about this beyond that it is a shame. Instead, here are a couple of links to some podcasts, the first, from WHYY’s Fresh Air with Terry gross, the interview is with Michael Greenberger, from Univ of Maryland I believe. Here is a link to it, Fresh Air, April 3 Show, the second is from the NPR show “The Journal” with Bill Moyers, this show in addition to documenting some current state on the mortgage crisis, also includes a pretty good conversation with William Grieder of the The Nation.

That’s all for now, btw, we are all back in Oakland, our true home. Its nice to be back

Peace

Paul Richardson

I haven’t posted in ages, new gig at caustic.com, yes we do fast ray tracing. My daughter turned 5 and we spent the day (yesterday) at Disneyland. It wasn’t all that painful given the locale…. 

And I love it, how many people 6′2″ tall, male, straight and black do you know who would do so….