1916 Fourth Avenue. I spent ten years here as a company member at Annex Theater.

The old Fred Astaire Dance Studio with the sprung floor and light booth permanently improvised on top of the bar is gone.

In its place is a new high-rise.

The tower’s street level facade evokes the building it replaced.

The ghosts of “Captains”, “Annex” and “7-11″ keep the old tree company — the same tree that shaded our front windows and hid our rotating anarchy A sign.

Short link: http://jkat.me/gvh7Qt

Tag(s): company member, company member at Annex Theater, Dance Studio, Fred Astaire, photo

Comments: none

From Huffington Post, Washington Times Runs Obama Girls’ Photo With Story About Murdered Chicago Kids

Editor John Solomon told Greg Sargent technology, not a person, was to blame.

“The theme engine, through automation, grabbed a photo it thought was relevant, and attached it to the story,” Solomon said, acknowledging that the photo had gone up without a person seeing it. “There was no editorial decision to run it. As soon as it was brought to our attention, we pulled it down.”

“There was no editorial decision to run it”??

Who decided to acquire/build a search algorithm to publish file photos without human oversight?

The example is outrageous but using loose tags to associate photos of people to stories of crime and human tragedy? Under what circumstances does this technical solution make journalistic sense?

Technology to blame? Not even the technologists. Doesn’t this newspaper have an editorial board?

How about applying the same standard of care to your online property that you’d use for print?

Mistakes happen but blaming your tools just betrays how unequipped you are to use them.

Short link: http://jkat.me/hf8Su6

Tag(s): editor, ethics, failure, Greg Sargent technology, John Solomon, Murdered Chicago Kids, online property, search algorithm, technology, Washington Times

Comments: none

Safari user, sometime StumbleUpon user. Don’t like having to remember to use Firefox to favorite a site in StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon has a WebToolbar but for some reason does not provide instructions for setting up a Bookmarks Bar button to it ala Delicious.

In Safari make a new bookmark in your Bookmarks Bar called “StumbleUpon” with the following address:

javascript:(function(){location.href='http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/#url=' + encodeURIComponent(window.location.href);})()

It opens the page you are currently on within the StumbleUpon web toolbar so you can thumbs up or thumbs down it.

Short link: http://jkat.me/eZB4Jd

Tag(s): Bookmarks Bar, javascript, safari, stumbleupon, webtoolbar

Comments: 1

FNC Tea Parties an insult to British imperialism.

“Do you even remember what we did to you people!?”

Short link: http://jkat.me/mgzrAO

Tag(s): politics, video

Comments: none

Short link: http://jkat.me/k1DT8E

Tag(s): Fort Greene Park, photo

Comments: none