Journalism Stuff, From Someone Who Knows Nothing

I was watching all the journalists at the Sam Katz HQ last night, and I was thinking of all the things I learned from being a media sheep.  I am also extremely sleep deprived so I might ramble.
1) Scrums are not cool - they sound cool, but they're really not.  They're like a pack of lions fighting for the last steak.  Eventually some peace is restored..after the biggest lion gets the steak and you're waiting for scraps.  But scraps are food, take it.   It's a free for all.
2) Ask people their opinions RIGHT after something is said or happens so their emotions are high and they want to talk.  Some people will even seek you out, as they did last night.
3) celebrities, even minor celebrities, are all the same.  Or maybe it's the wealthy.  Not sure.  But bringing your girlfriend who I confuse as your daughter can lead to autofails.  That completely threw me up.  off.
4) You see the same people a lot, get used to them
5) Twitter IS one of the most useful inventions for journalism.  The credibility might not there, but I guarantee more people than ever are following the news.  Except for the whole journalists getting paid thing, that's no good, no opinions on that
6) Eventually I am hoping to become a cold hard adrenaline-less journalist who can take notes on the stairs and post an article within a half hour time frame.  Right now I'm kind of a mess.  I'm fairly calm but it's the adrenaline rush that needs to just go away.
7) surrounding computers is kind of frowned upon, I think
8) journalists are very nice in Winnipeg, for the most part, as they're saying "excuse me" politely to get a camera shot that they might miss in point 2 of a second.  They're also nice about letting you in to the crowd.  how long will that last? I assume it's because I am no rival.
9) rely only on yourself.  Don't follow anyone around hoping to get a story or rely on others for quotes, unless you're on a team.  Things happen so fast and there's so much to do in such a small time frame that relying on someone else is just a waste of time.

Do I think The Social Network Deserves my Full-Attention?

Yes!  Not even because I was the only person in the theatre and the ticket was $4.68, the least I have ever spent on a movie ticket.

The Social Network stars Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg; Andrew Garfield as co-founder and friend Eduardo Saverin; and Justin Timberlake as nappy-haired Napster founder Sean Parker.

Mark Zuckerberg is a student at Harvard who is portrayed as a cold-hearted rational.  Mark insults his girlfriend for having a non-elitist education and she responds with, "you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole."   She breaks-up with him, and this spurs Mark to blog about her in a drunken rage (hilariously on livejournal.com, the emo-diary of the early 2000s).  This then inspires Mark to create FaceMash.com, a college version of Who'd You Rather?, where two college girls' pictures are presented side-by-side and everyone on campus can vote on who's more attractive.  After receiving 22,000 hits in the first four-hours that it was online, a course of events take place that ultimately results in Facebook as we know it today.

What impressed me the most about this movie was that it's a movie about social networks themselves, minus the internet.   It deals with love and loss, but also the little details of fate.  If one person didn't say one trivial little thing, Facebook would be nowhere.  For example, when Eduardo asks Mark if one of the girls in his class is single, Mark says that chicks don't just walk around with a sign that advertises their relationship status.  This sparks one of the nuclei of Facebook: the "relationship status" and "interested in" profile feature. The Facebook code itself, in a sense, is entirely constructed of micro-social networks. 

Even though Mark Zuckerberg was not particularly portrayed in a positive light, neither was anyone else.  There was no one who I felt that I could really side with.  Mark Zuckerberg, for example, is portrayed as an asshole throughout the movie,  but he's actually quite sensitive.  I think when his girlfriend left him he was terrifically lonely.  There's always mention throughout the movie about his isolation and the fact that he has very few friends.  I think of a lot of the Facebook foundation (in this movie) was Mark trying to come to mathematical terms with socialization because he felt so isolated.  Basically when his best-friend Eduardo gives him the algorithm for calculating a winner on FaceMash, it's metaphorical of all the formulas that Mark puts into Facebook that are representative of calculating social culture.

As for the other characters, Sean Parker, the Napster founder who was sued bankrupt but changed the face of music, was portrayed as a massive douche. But he gave Facebook some of the fundamentals, such as taking out "the" when Facebook was originally called, "thefacebook.com" and getting Mark money and California-bound.  Eduardo should have read through his documents but he was the most sympathetic character in the movie. TheWinklevoss twins should not have given their grand idea to a coder when they couldn't code themselves.  So the question is, how much ownership over what goes into the social code can anyone really have?  If I inspire someone, can I claim partial ownership?

Mark Zuckerberg says in the "PR Post" blog (http://prpost.wordpress.com/) that the movie was just, "fun."  He also characterizes the movie as fictional.  Which makes sense, because if Erica Albright broke up with Mark and he immediately went home to create FaceMash, wouldn't she be entitled to $1 billion because she broke-up with him and inspired the ideas that created Facebook in the first place?  Doesn't add up to me.  Mark Zuckerberg himself says he knows that his life isn't that entertaining or dramatic, which makes sense, because I dated a computer coder for four years and they really are exactly the way Mark Zuckerberg was portrayed: seemingly emotionless, insanely smart, deeply sensitive, and completely devoid of entertainment value.  But, regardless, I guarantee that Facebook hits went up 700% so that people could update their status to say that they had just seen The Social Network.

So while I think the events in The Social Network were stretched for dramatic purposes, it shows some good business lessons and maybe proves that there are algorithms that can calculate human relationships.  I never thought so, but considering the fact that Facebook is so wildly popular that they made a movie about it, there must be some truth to it.







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Top Ten

Wow.  I just happened to look over at my calendar, which is still turned to July, and after looking out the window I realized it was halfway through October.  That and that it was dark out.  So that leaves...31-14 days until Halloween.  I can do fast math.

Here is a Top Ten list of things that scare me, now that I'm inspired by this almost being Halloween thing:

1. really fast treadmills
2. hoses
3. power-walkers
4. garter snakes
5. old chairs
6. Cheez Whiz
7. personal cheques
8. domestic disputes on public transit
9. gladiator outfits
10. fake nails

Buyer Beware: Rental Scams

There is a disturbing trend of rental scams emerging in Winnipeg.  Classified ad websites such as kijiji.ca and craigslist.com are used to target desperate renters. 

Scammers will post pictures of apartments that are low-priced for the area, pet-friendly, and all-inclusive (such as including all utilities).  Once the consumer makes the initial interaction with the scammer by expressing interest, the scammer will then ask that the consumer wire a damage deposit fee and the first month's rent to a foreign address.  The scammer is usually forced to be "out of town due to work."  Once the consumer wires the money, the keys to their new apartment will be couriered to them so that they can move in immediately.  Unfortunately, these apartments do not exist.

There have been reports in Winnipeg (the Winnipeg Free Press, for example) of consumers getting keys that don't open the door to houses that are already occupied and owned (unbeknownst to the owner of that property that someone has advertised their address as a rental opportunity).  Other reports include the scammer asking for more and more money before the consumer can receive the keys, and of consumers driving by addresses advertised only to find out that the description in the ad and the building on that property do not match. 

To avoid being victimized, avoid responding to ads or replying to e-mails with consistently bad spelling, grammar, capitalization and syntax; consistent religious references; or, references to living outside of the country and not being able to return in the foreseeable future.  If you can't make an appointment to see the apartment or to see the person face-to-face, never rent from them.

Sussex Realty recommends that consumers always make financial transactions through a trusted rental agency.  Never give money directly to another tenant.  They also recommend that you make an appointment for a walkthrough with the landlord of the building before renting.

If you think that you have found a scam ad, warn the web administrators on the website that you found the ad posted on.  On Craigslist, for example, you can flag the ad as "prohibited" on the right-hand side of the ad.  You can also report scams to http://www.phonebusters.com/ or http://www.419scam.org/.

New Gap Logo = Heaven Forbid

Gap unveiled a new logo in the past week:

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/dont_mind_the_gap_or_the_square.php
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/110957/gap-changes-logo-why?mod=family-kids_parents

Thoughts?  Will the new logo succeed in bringing in new customers, or will it simply alienate and disturb the customers who have the original Gap logo emblazzoned in their psyche?

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving because I love food.   One year (and this will sound like I was trying to give my family a heart attack), I put butter all over the turkey and wrapped bacon slices around it.  The concept is to hold the moisture into the turkey.  You cook it at a higher temperature at first, then lower it for the rest (don't quote me, but you do change the temperature).  You take the bacon off after about 20-30 minutes and reserve it for something else.  The butter crisps up the skin.  Anyway, the turkey was very moist.  Last year I brined the turkey, which was a semi-disaster.  I left it outside overnight in a bucket to brine with salt water, and my dog knocked over the pail.  I always bake apple pie, which I love baking because I have it down to taking about 20 minutes to make.  Except my Star-frit apple peeler that came with the slicer/corer broke, because I got the bright idea to peel a potato on it and I snapped the blade right off from the plastic.  The corer/slicer was my favorite thing until it cut my hand open, because it's so old the blades separated from the corer and I pushed down.  My aunty makes the best buns, too, she bakes them in muffin tins so they have these big muffin tops.  I think this year I'm going to buy a pumpkin and make scratch pumpkin pie.  The whole can thing kind of reminds me of cooking with dog food and I'm not sure why.  Probably because the pumpkin comes out of the can and slides out into the crust, or you have to take a spoon and scrape it out.  I don't know.  Another thing that seems traditional in our family is that someone has to go to the hospital (NOT from putting butter and bacon on the turkey).  I don't get why but someone always has some issue that requires a trip to the hospital, which is a 15-20 minute drive to another town.  Hopefully that doesn't happen this year.  Anyway, I'm looking forward to having an extra day off.  Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

The War on Mayor -- Facts are Where It's At

The post that I had been working for for 3 hours spontaneously deleted all of the content when I hit "publish post,"  so I have to summarize everything that I wrote about the mayoral forum.  You have NO idea how much that annoys me.  The content was there and it didn't even save as a draft.  Anywhere.  And I'm very tired.  


Because we have to choose between these two, because two of them didn't even show up (Brad Gross and Rav Gill), I would have to choose Katz for this one.


What I had written was that the mayoral forum this morning at RRC Princess St. Campus with Sam Katz and Judy Wasylycia-Leis was educational, entertaining, and a rapid fire game of double dutch where they skipped around the issues.  I think that Katz had the stronger arguments when they did make arguments because his counter-arguments were more factually based.  W-L's tactic of hurling assumptions back at Katz as insults was ineffective.  I think that Katz is the better political chess player, as he played defense and offense throughout the debate, continually putting W-L in check after her every argument.  He defended his points, but played offense where necessary.  W-L was playing a game of strictly offense, rarely defending her own issues without basing them first on an attack on Katz.   I got out of the forum that W-L is relying on voters to see her as the "every woman," the "anti-businessman" who will personally tear down Katz and "corruption" in order to establish some kind of humility in City Hall.  W-L is the moral protector and Katz is the snake-oil salesman.   But what it comes down to is business and who can run a business most effectively, and I feel like W-L has no real platform, and if she has one, it's been created from a mish-mash of facts that weren't communicated well and anti-Katz propaganda.


The crime portion of the debate was ok, but I have never heard the words "community centre" so many times in my life.  W-L kept throwing "we have to deal with the root cause of crime" around loosely, then backed it up by saying that the $2.7 million she has pledged toward community centres, if she is successful, would somehow solve the root cause, without ever telling us exactly how.   Funding community centres may help prevent crime to some degree, but they won't magically eliminate the root cause.  They're not enough in and of themselves.  While Katz threw around the term "root cause" loosely as well, I felt that he has the more effective strategy by pledging funding toward community centres in conjunction with adding more police.  I think that the enforcement and initiative tactic will be much more effective than just the initiative when it comes to dealing with crime in the city.  I didn't feel that W-L sold herself on the issue of crime as well as Katz did.


When asked about the new police helicopter, W-L gave a very washy answer, basically saying that the decision of the helicopter was made in haste but she wouldn't cancel it if elected, she would do an "annual cost-analysis" to see if it was effective or not.  Katz straight out gave some facts: one helicopter in the air is the equivalent of 12 squad cars on the ground.   It was a succinct, factual answer --  this is why it's here and this is what we're going to do with it.  At least he gave an answer.


Then there was the increase in property tax issue, which annoys me that W-L wants to end the freeze to raise revenue.  I can semi- understand why Katz is slow to respond to the question of whether he is going to increase property taxes himself, because there are many better ways to increase revenue than resorting to increasing property taxes.  There is a lot of money in City Hall that can be diverted, so it's almost irresponsible for W-L to announce that she will, in fact, increase property taxes before being elected and pushing it through the levels for approval.   I would hope that Katz is looking into a more effective strategy than that.  Plus the two per cent raise for the next four years she's proposing is nowhere near enough to fix the infrastructure problem, in all honesty.  


 Both Katz and W-L were extremely vague on waste management issues and transit issues.   They talked about what they wanted to see, but didn't really leave me with the impression that they were going to implement anything.  Actually, I felt that W-L gave vague answers for almost everything while Katz at least tried to explain the issues within his time constraints.   I also think that the "where were you 6 years ago, Sam" argument is tired and illogical, because some of these issues are extremely hard and lengthy to push through.  LRT is not going to just magically pop-up in a city with a crumbling infrastructure and a strange density set-up.  These are all issues that, if elected, W-L won't push through very fast, either.  


While I believe W-L to be a strong woman, I feel that Katz has the business acumen to do what's right for Winnipeg and to make the smarter decisions based on facts and experience.