August 5, 2009
Hot Story to Has-Been: Tracking News via Cyberspace By PATRICIA COHEN
Like a lot of new ideas, Media Cloud started with a long-running argument among friends. Ethan Zuckerman and a handful of his colleagues at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School found themselves in endless disputes about the mainstream media and newer digital variations. Who sets the agenda? How is public debate shaped? What topics are covered or ignored?
Anecdotes favoring one side or another were as plentiful as pop-ups, but a comprehensive and reliable database that could track the daily rhythm of the news cycle over time and was available for public use didn’t exist. So Mr. Zuckerman and others at Berkman decided to create one.
The result is Media Cloud, a system that tracks hundreds of newspapers and thousands of Web sites and blogs, and archives the information in a searchable form. The database, at mediacloud.org, will eventually enable researchers to search for key people, places and events — from Michael Jackson to the Iranian elections — and find out precisely when, where and how frequently they are covered, said Mr. Zuckerman, whose official title is senior researcher, though he acknowledges that a more accurate label would be computer geek and international development specialist. (At the moment only a small sample of Media Cloud’s tools are on the public Web site.)
The findings, which can be graphed or mapped, can demonstrate the evolution of a report and variations in coverage. Users get to “do the fun part, which is analyzing the data,” Mr. Zuckerman said, “while we do the hard part of this, which is collecting it.” Eventually users will be able to compare the top 10 news events covered by Fox News, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the BBC, for example, or chart the terms that appear most frequently in The New York Times, compared with leading blogs, or create a world map showing which countries receive the most media attention, or follow the path of a particular report to see if it dominates the news or dies out.
For the past decade or so, many researchers have used link analysis to figure out how information spreads, said Yochai Benkler, a Harvard Law School professor at Berkman who has been involved in creating Media Cloud. You could identify which Web sites were linked to most frequently and infer whose sites were most influential. But researchers have pretty much squeezed all that they can from that approach, Mr. Benkler said. Although Media Cloud is still in its early stages, it is among “the next generation of tools that actually look at what people are saying,” he said, adding, it is “a better microscope.”
There are other kinds of media trackers. Cornell University researchers, for example, have developed MemeTracker, which maps the daily news cycle by grabbing repeated quotations from one million online sources. (A meme is anything — an idea, a phrase — that spreads by imitation from one person to another.)
Its graphs, which can be viewed at memetracker.org, display the reports that are competing against one another for attention on a given day, as well as those that have staying power or quickly disappear. A recent paper on MemeTracker’s experience during the presidential campaign was hailed by experts as a landmark piece of work.
Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism offers a news-coverage index, which is laboriously compiled by having 14 people sample leading reports produced by 55 outlets. Media Cloud is much less exact, Mr. Zuckerman said, but it can automatically scan hundreds, and eventually thousands, of sources.
Amy S. Mitchell, deputy director of Pew’s journalism project, said Media Cloud “offers the public a great opportunity to play around with looking at a wide swath of media at more of a surface level.” But, she added, it cannot really capture the nuances of the news agenda of the news media. “There are certain things that computer algorithms cannot do that individuals can,” she said.
Since every method has virtues and drawbacks, she added, “I think there is tremendous value in having both approaches.”
What Media Cloud offers that no one else does is a tool anyone can use to answer all sorts of questions about the media landscape. One topic that Mr. Benkler and Mr. Zuckerman have long been debating is whether the Internet has helped open up the public sphere to more voices, or whether it just serves as an echo chamber, simply repeating information and views that the mainstream media already circulate.
Mr. Benkler is using Media Cloud to test his theory that digital media is widening the circle of voices somewhat. Sites that he characterizes as “one link out” from the most visible (like The Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo and Instapundit) are entering into the conversation, he argues.
Who has the power to place an idea on the national agenda is another question that Mr. Benkler said Media Cloud could help answer. For instance, how is the conversation about the recession and the financial crash shaped? Using some of the database’s more specialized tools, Mr. Benkler investigated who first floated the idea for a temporary takeover of the financial system by the government, as was done in Sweden in the 1990s.
Paul Krugman, a columnist for The New York Times, first raised the idea in September 2008, but it was a cluster of influential economic and political bloggers like Brad DeLong and Matthew Yglesias who kept the idea alive. After the subject disappeared for a couple of months, the bloggers then resurrected it early this year as Washington began discussing the details of a bank rescue plan. To Mr. Benkler, this preliminary evidence suggests that the network of public media has given a voice to some people who in the past may have had useful ideas but were, as a practical matter, unable to inject them into the national conversation.
“If you’re actually trying to map where an idea starts and how it moves through the public sphere, you need a database like we’re developing, with time-stamped data,” Mr. Benkler said, explaining that services like Google and Lexis/Nexis are not as comprehensive or do not provide that level of detailed information. Media Cloud also enables more fine-grained analyses by examining language and context. “How does rhetoric change over time, and what’s the role of the Internet and the mainstream media in that?” Mr. Zuckerman asked.
Some of his colleagues, for example, have been tracking the frequency of the words bailout and stimulus to pinpoint when one term overtook the other. Media Cloud mapped the results to show how the term bailout, used constantly in the news in the fall, eventually gave way to the word stimulus after President Obama took office. The results were graphed, illustrating precisely when the two lines crossed — where, as Mr. Zuckerman would say, “one meme took over from the other.”
Media Cloud’s founders have put out an open call on their Web site for research ideas. The system provides a platform, Mr. Zuckerman said, on which others can build using their own kinds of tracking software. The point is to start with facts rather than impressions.
As Mr. Zuckerman noted, a lot of anecdotes don’t necessarily add up to the truth.
Showing posts with label URL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label URL. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Friendly Skies? Not for Pet Owners By MICHELLE HIGGINS and Pets Onboard: Growls and Purrs By MICHELLE HIGGINS
July 19, 2009
Practical Traveler
Friendly Skies? Not for Pet Owners By MICHELLE HIGGINS
IT'S getting more expensive to take Fifi on vacation. Airlines may be raising the price of in-flight food and checked luggage, but pet owners say the fees for flying with their furry friends are getting out of control.
A number of airlines — including Alaska, American, JetBlue, US Airways and Virgin America — raised their pet fees by about $20 or more in the last year or so, and now charge $100 each way to take a pet on a flight. Continental, Midwest and United now charge $125 to bring a pet onboard, up from $100 previously.
Expect to pay even more to check in larger pets as luggage. Those fees now range from $300 round trip on American to $500 on United. It goes even higher for international flights.
These days, with airfares so low, a pet's fee can be more than a human's ticket.
James Garahan, an international tax lawyer from San Francisco, paid $299 for a round-trip flight from San Francisco to New York in December on United. But to take his 13-pound pug, Sophie, with him, United wanted an extra $350. (United has since lowered the cost to $125 each way, from $175, but that is still higher than the $100 it charged last spring.)
Mr. Garahan views the fee as "discriminatory against pet owners." Sophie, he points out, rides under the seat in front of him — "space I have already paid for."
But for airlines, it's another way to eke out more revenue. American, for example, raised its pet charges in May 2008 — the same time it began charging for things like a second checked bag. "The bottom line is that our fares and our fees together must cover our operating costs if we are to remain viable for the long term," said Andrea Huguely, an American spokeswoman.
Pet owners say they simply have no choice but to pay whatever the airlines charge.
"People that want to travel with pets are pretty much at their mercy," said Jerry Hatfield, a spokesman for Pet Travel Inc., which offers an online guide at www.pettravel.com. "If it's $100, that's what it is. There are no other options. Amtrak isn't accepting any pets."
Actually, there is a new option: Pet Airways (www.petairways.com), a pet-only airline based in Delray Beach, Fla., is beginning service this month. It plans to fly to smaller regional airports near New York City (Republic on Long Island), Washington (Baltimore/Washington International), Chicago (Midway), Denver (Rocky Mountain Metro) and Los Angeles (Hawthorne Municipal).
Aimed at pet owners frustrated with the high cost and poor service associated with most airlines, Pet Airways promises to fly animals in a climate-controlled cabin outfitted with individual crates instead of seats, and staffed with a flight attendant who will check on animals every 15 minutes. The company uses Beech 1900C turbo-props, some versions of which are 19-seat commuter planes.
Tickets for the flights, operated once a week by Suburban Air Freight based in Omaha, Neb., start at $149 each way. There is already a waiting list for the first month, according to Alysa Binder, a founder of the company.
"Size doesn't matter, snout noses don't matter," Ms. Binder said. "It's all about the pets."
Commercial airlines typically will not accept snub-nosed dogs like pugs or cats like Persians as cargo as they tend to be sensitive to heat. Also, many airlines will not accept pets as checked baggage or cargo when the ground temperature exceeds 85 degrees or is below 20 degrees.
Frontier Airlines has barred pets from cabins. "It's a customer service issue," said Steve Snyder, an airline spokesman, noting that customers can still transport pets on Frontier as luggage for $100 or $200 each way depending on size. "There are a lot of folks that may have allergies to pets, or may have a fear of dogs or cats or may not want to be bothered by somebody else's pets."
But some airlines are trying to be more pet friendly. Delta, which had some of the highest fees, lowered its rates this month to $100 each way, from $150, for carry-on pets on domestic flights, and to $175 from $275 for pets checked as luggage.
JetBlue, which transports more than 80,000 pets a year, created a frequent flier program for pets, JetPaws, which allows customers to earn double miles when bringing along their furry friends. Continental and Midwest have similar programs.
Perhaps sensing a competitive niche, Southwest last month began charging $75 to take small dogs and cats onboard, undercutting most other airlines. And on July 1, Air Canada began charging 50 Canadian dollars (about $42 at 1.19 Canadian dollars to the U.S. dollar) each way for pets.
Other tips to keep to mind:
• Airlines limit the number of pets on each flight, so book early if you plan to bring your pet.
• To avoid delays and reduce the stress on your pet, book a nonstop flight whenever possible.
• If checking your pet as luggage, avoid booking a mid-day flight in summer, when the cargo hold can be dangerously warm.
• "I recommend feeding them about four hours before the flight, if possible," said Melissa Halliburton, founder of BringFido.com, a travel site for dog owners. "They can and should continue to drink water right up to the time of travel, though."
• After purchasing an appropriate pet carrier, write your pet's name on it, including identification tags with your home address and phone number as well as the address and phone number of your destination, Ms. Halliburton suggests. If two or more pets are traveling together in cargo, put a sign on their crates indicating that they be placed near one another during the flight.
But if your pet is an anxious flier, consider leaving it home. Sitters can be found online at Petsit.com and Petsitters.org.
Mr. Garahan, the tax lawyer, ended up hiring a pet sitter for $25 a day for his pug. But next time, Mr. Garahan may have to spring for Sophie's flight since his wife, Pam Dickson, often travels to New York City for business.
"When I show up in New York, she's happy to see me," Mr. Garahan said of his wife. "But if I'm bringing Sophie, she's really happy to see me."
Practical Traveler - Flying With Pets Can Be Costly - NYTimes.com (2 August 2009)
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/travel/19pracpets.html?fta=y&pagewanted=print
http://snipurl.com/oj9wg
FEEDBACK / COMMENTS FROM READERS
August 2, 2009
Practical Traveler
Pets Onboard: Growls and Purrs By MICHELLE HIGGINS
MEOW! Do people feel strongly about pets on planes.
In response to the July 19 Practical Traveler column, “Friendly Skies? Not For Pet Owners,” more than 100 readers weighed in on the subject. Many of the comments expressed outrage at the high fees airlines charge to transport pets, especially on international flights. A number of readers also described nightmarish travel experiences involving pets that arrived severely dehydrated or even near death after flying as checked luggage.
But a surprising majority of comments debated whether pets should be allowed on planes in the first place — a discussion worth summarizing here.
Allergy sufferers cited pet dander as a major health issue. “I have no desire to drug myself up with antihistamines and/or sneeze/wheeze endlessly because of another passenger’s selfish decision to bring their pet on the flight,” said a reader who identified herself as Eve from Portland. “It seems inconsistent for airlines to phase out peanuts as snacks but nonetheless allow animals in the cabin, when their mere presence causes severe discomfort for others.”
Allergy sufferers have little recourse if they find themselves seated near a pet. It’s possible to switch seats with another passenger to avoid sneezing through the entire flight, but that isn’t an ideal solution. “When I complained about a cat under my aisle seat in the front of the plane — I was moved to a rear, middle seat,” wrote Catherine from California. “Meds kept me alive but I was sick for a week from the resulting sinus infection.”
Pet owners, on the other hand, pointed out that they have few alternatives when it comes to transporting their animals, whether for a long vacation or a cross-country move. And banning pets because of allergy sufferers, they argue, is a slippery slope. “If airlines are going to start insisting on pet-free flights because of a few hothouse flowers complaining about the possibility of being annoyed by allergies,” a reader identified as HK from New York City asked, “can they also start banning people with colds?” HK continued, “Oh — and I guess they should ban people who wear too much perfume so that I don’t have to suffer a headache throughout the flight, people with sketchy hygiene and people who want to bring pungent foods onboard.”
But passengers had other reasons for wanting to ban pets from planes. Millie Smith, from Boulder, Colo., described how a small dog on a red-eye flight “barked incessantly for about 45 minutes on takeoff and a half hour on landing.”
So what’s wrong with putting pets in cargo? Even a former airline employee said he would not trust an airline with safely transporting his pets as checked luggage. “Knowing what I do about conditions on the ramp and in the baggage compartment, I would never transport my dog by air, no matter what the season,” said Scott from Morgantown, W.Va., “He would be terrified by the noise, the confusion, the isolation and the physical sensations of flight. It would be pure selfishness on my part to subject him to that just so I could take him along on a trip.” And Kay from Eugene, Ore., described how her daughter had to rush her kitten to the veterinarian when it arrived “at the point of death” from dehydration after a flight from Georgia to Arizona.
Some readers offered suggestions on how to get airlines to pay closer attention to pets. Jim Hutchins of Ogden, Utah, who keeps an online diary about his dog, Roxy, including her travels, recommended writing a friendly note on the carrier when checking a pet as luggage. This may help remind baggage handlers that your pet has a name and isn’t just another piece of cargo. Freezing a bowl of water can help reduce spills and keep the pet hydrated during a flight, he also noted. And booking a window seat may allow you to see your pet as it’s loaded into the aircraft.
Still, some owners go to extraordinary lengths to avoid the stress flying can cause to pets. Shirley Lin, from Arizona, wrote about driving to New York from the Southwest for four days and staying in pet-friendly hotels instead of checking her pets as luggage for a move in 2006. “As much as I would love to vaca (sometimes) with my dogs, it’s more stressful on them, and they’re perfectly happy at home with their favorite sitter,” she wrote.
But sometimes driving is just not an option, as when moving overseas. In those cases, airlines have been known to charge very high fees. One reader, who went by the screen name Krauset, griped about paying $1,700 to move the family dog, Jack, one way from Phoenix, Ariz., to England, on British Airways. “This was not much less than the total cost of our family’s four round-trip tickets,” Krauset wrote. “Shame on you British Airways. The least you could have done was put Champagne in Jack’s water bowl. Stop the price gouging!”
To avoid such charges, one reader, Ami from Washington, suggested smuggling a pet onboard: “I fly with my 20 lb. mutt often on US Airways, Jet Blue, Delta, Continental, etc. He is transported in a rolling bag that I carry on like a suitcase. I sneak him around as much as possible to avoid paying the pet charge. About 80% of the time he does not get spotted by ticketing agents or flight attendants. I only pay the fee when they catch me and make me pay it.”
Still others had more of an issue with pet owners than the pets themselves. “In our family we all have severe cat and dog allergies,” wrote a reader identified as rnzucker from Portland, Ore. “We were quite surprised one time when my daughter was sitting next to a woman who had a dog, who had no sympathy for my daughter and refused to move seats.
“My daughter ended up sitting totally separate from the family as a result,” rnzucker continued. “Pets in the cabin on planes (or on trains) can be a major health issue for many of us, even in carriers, and should not be ignored. Not everyone wants to be next to your pet.”
Will pet lovers and pet haters ever get along? One reader identified as markjay1 from New York City suggested fining dog owners if their pets misbehave onboard: “Every bark, yelp, growl or whine costs the owner $25, no limit. That’s for each one. A growl that ends with a bark is considered two infractions. Every ‘accident’ costs the owner $200. Every passenger whose allergies are set off by the dog is immediately paid $100 by the dog owner. If the dog gets out of its carrier the fine is $250. If the owner lets the dog out of its carrier the fine is $1,000. I think these rules are fair. If your dog is well controlled I have no problem with it, and you, on the plane.”
Practical Traveler
Friendly Skies? Not for Pet Owners By MICHELLE HIGGINS
IT'S getting more expensive to take Fifi on vacation. Airlines may be raising the price of in-flight food and checked luggage, but pet owners say the fees for flying with their furry friends are getting out of control.
A number of airlines — including Alaska, American, JetBlue, US Airways and Virgin America — raised their pet fees by about $20 or more in the last year or so, and now charge $100 each way to take a pet on a flight. Continental, Midwest and United now charge $125 to bring a pet onboard, up from $100 previously.
Expect to pay even more to check in larger pets as luggage. Those fees now range from $300 round trip on American to $500 on United. It goes even higher for international flights.
These days, with airfares so low, a pet's fee can be more than a human's ticket.
James Garahan, an international tax lawyer from San Francisco, paid $299 for a round-trip flight from San Francisco to New York in December on United. But to take his 13-pound pug, Sophie, with him, United wanted an extra $350. (United has since lowered the cost to $125 each way, from $175, but that is still higher than the $100 it charged last spring.)
Mr. Garahan views the fee as "discriminatory against pet owners." Sophie, he points out, rides under the seat in front of him — "space I have already paid for."
But for airlines, it's another way to eke out more revenue. American, for example, raised its pet charges in May 2008 — the same time it began charging for things like a second checked bag. "The bottom line is that our fares and our fees together must cover our operating costs if we are to remain viable for the long term," said Andrea Huguely, an American spokeswoman.
Pet owners say they simply have no choice but to pay whatever the airlines charge.
"People that want to travel with pets are pretty much at their mercy," said Jerry Hatfield, a spokesman for Pet Travel Inc., which offers an online guide at www.pettravel.com. "If it's $100, that's what it is. There are no other options. Amtrak isn't accepting any pets."
Actually, there is a new option: Pet Airways (www.petairways.com), a pet-only airline based in Delray Beach, Fla., is beginning service this month. It plans to fly to smaller regional airports near New York City (Republic on Long Island), Washington (Baltimore/Washington International), Chicago (Midway), Denver (Rocky Mountain Metro) and Los Angeles (Hawthorne Municipal).
Aimed at pet owners frustrated with the high cost and poor service associated with most airlines, Pet Airways promises to fly animals in a climate-controlled cabin outfitted with individual crates instead of seats, and staffed with a flight attendant who will check on animals every 15 minutes. The company uses Beech 1900C turbo-props, some versions of which are 19-seat commuter planes.
Tickets for the flights, operated once a week by Suburban Air Freight based in Omaha, Neb., start at $149 each way. There is already a waiting list for the first month, according to Alysa Binder, a founder of the company.
"Size doesn't matter, snout noses don't matter," Ms. Binder said. "It's all about the pets."
Commercial airlines typically will not accept snub-nosed dogs like pugs or cats like Persians as cargo as they tend to be sensitive to heat. Also, many airlines will not accept pets as checked baggage or cargo when the ground temperature exceeds 85 degrees or is below 20 degrees.
Frontier Airlines has barred pets from cabins. "It's a customer service issue," said Steve Snyder, an airline spokesman, noting that customers can still transport pets on Frontier as luggage for $100 or $200 each way depending on size. "There are a lot of folks that may have allergies to pets, or may have a fear of dogs or cats or may not want to be bothered by somebody else's pets."
But some airlines are trying to be more pet friendly. Delta, which had some of the highest fees, lowered its rates this month to $100 each way, from $150, for carry-on pets on domestic flights, and to $175 from $275 for pets checked as luggage.
JetBlue, which transports more than 80,000 pets a year, created a frequent flier program for pets, JetPaws, which allows customers to earn double miles when bringing along their furry friends. Continental and Midwest have similar programs.
Perhaps sensing a competitive niche, Southwest last month began charging $75 to take small dogs and cats onboard, undercutting most other airlines. And on July 1, Air Canada began charging 50 Canadian dollars (about $42 at 1.19 Canadian dollars to the U.S. dollar) each way for pets.
Other tips to keep to mind:
• Airlines limit the number of pets on each flight, so book early if you plan to bring your pet.
• To avoid delays and reduce the stress on your pet, book a nonstop flight whenever possible.
• If checking your pet as luggage, avoid booking a mid-day flight in summer, when the cargo hold can be dangerously warm.
• "I recommend feeding them about four hours before the flight, if possible," said Melissa Halliburton, founder of BringFido.com, a travel site for dog owners. "They can and should continue to drink water right up to the time of travel, though."
• After purchasing an appropriate pet carrier, write your pet's name on it, including identification tags with your home address and phone number as well as the address and phone number of your destination, Ms. Halliburton suggests. If two or more pets are traveling together in cargo, put a sign on their crates indicating that they be placed near one another during the flight.
But if your pet is an anxious flier, consider leaving it home. Sitters can be found online at Petsit.com and Petsitters.org.
Mr. Garahan, the tax lawyer, ended up hiring a pet sitter for $25 a day for his pug. But next time, Mr. Garahan may have to spring for Sophie's flight since his wife, Pam Dickson, often travels to New York City for business.
"When I show up in New York, she's happy to see me," Mr. Garahan said of his wife. "But if I'm bringing Sophie, she's really happy to see me."
Practical Traveler - Flying With Pets Can Be Costly - NYTimes.com (2 August 2009)
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/travel/19pracpets.html?fta=y&pagewanted=print
http://snipurl.com/oj9wg
FEEDBACK / COMMENTS FROM READERS
August 2, 2009
Practical Traveler
Pets Onboard: Growls and Purrs By MICHELLE HIGGINS
MEOW! Do people feel strongly about pets on planes.
In response to the July 19 Practical Traveler column, “Friendly Skies? Not For Pet Owners,” more than 100 readers weighed in on the subject. Many of the comments expressed outrage at the high fees airlines charge to transport pets, especially on international flights. A number of readers also described nightmarish travel experiences involving pets that arrived severely dehydrated or even near death after flying as checked luggage.
But a surprising majority of comments debated whether pets should be allowed on planes in the first place — a discussion worth summarizing here.
Allergy sufferers cited pet dander as a major health issue. “I have no desire to drug myself up with antihistamines and/or sneeze/wheeze endlessly because of another passenger’s selfish decision to bring their pet on the flight,” said a reader who identified herself as Eve from Portland. “It seems inconsistent for airlines to phase out peanuts as snacks but nonetheless allow animals in the cabin, when their mere presence causes severe discomfort for others.”
Allergy sufferers have little recourse if they find themselves seated near a pet. It’s possible to switch seats with another passenger to avoid sneezing through the entire flight, but that isn’t an ideal solution. “When I complained about a cat under my aisle seat in the front of the plane — I was moved to a rear, middle seat,” wrote Catherine from California. “Meds kept me alive but I was sick for a week from the resulting sinus infection.”
Pet owners, on the other hand, pointed out that they have few alternatives when it comes to transporting their animals, whether for a long vacation or a cross-country move. And banning pets because of allergy sufferers, they argue, is a slippery slope. “If airlines are going to start insisting on pet-free flights because of a few hothouse flowers complaining about the possibility of being annoyed by allergies,” a reader identified as HK from New York City asked, “can they also start banning people with colds?” HK continued, “Oh — and I guess they should ban people who wear too much perfume so that I don’t have to suffer a headache throughout the flight, people with sketchy hygiene and people who want to bring pungent foods onboard.”
But passengers had other reasons for wanting to ban pets from planes. Millie Smith, from Boulder, Colo., described how a small dog on a red-eye flight “barked incessantly for about 45 minutes on takeoff and a half hour on landing.”
So what’s wrong with putting pets in cargo? Even a former airline employee said he would not trust an airline with safely transporting his pets as checked luggage. “Knowing what I do about conditions on the ramp and in the baggage compartment, I would never transport my dog by air, no matter what the season,” said Scott from Morgantown, W.Va., “He would be terrified by the noise, the confusion, the isolation and the physical sensations of flight. It would be pure selfishness on my part to subject him to that just so I could take him along on a trip.” And Kay from Eugene, Ore., described how her daughter had to rush her kitten to the veterinarian when it arrived “at the point of death” from dehydration after a flight from Georgia to Arizona.
Some readers offered suggestions on how to get airlines to pay closer attention to pets. Jim Hutchins of Ogden, Utah, who keeps an online diary about his dog, Roxy, including her travels, recommended writing a friendly note on the carrier when checking a pet as luggage. This may help remind baggage handlers that your pet has a name and isn’t just another piece of cargo. Freezing a bowl of water can help reduce spills and keep the pet hydrated during a flight, he also noted. And booking a window seat may allow you to see your pet as it’s loaded into the aircraft.
Still, some owners go to extraordinary lengths to avoid the stress flying can cause to pets. Shirley Lin, from Arizona, wrote about driving to New York from the Southwest for four days and staying in pet-friendly hotels instead of checking her pets as luggage for a move in 2006. “As much as I would love to vaca (sometimes) with my dogs, it’s more stressful on them, and they’re perfectly happy at home with their favorite sitter,” she wrote.
But sometimes driving is just not an option, as when moving overseas. In those cases, airlines have been known to charge very high fees. One reader, who went by the screen name Krauset, griped about paying $1,700 to move the family dog, Jack, one way from Phoenix, Ariz., to England, on British Airways. “This was not much less than the total cost of our family’s four round-trip tickets,” Krauset wrote. “Shame on you British Airways. The least you could have done was put Champagne in Jack’s water bowl. Stop the price gouging!”
To avoid such charges, one reader, Ami from Washington, suggested smuggling a pet onboard: “I fly with my 20 lb. mutt often on US Airways, Jet Blue, Delta, Continental, etc. He is transported in a rolling bag that I carry on like a suitcase. I sneak him around as much as possible to avoid paying the pet charge. About 80% of the time he does not get spotted by ticketing agents or flight attendants. I only pay the fee when they catch me and make me pay it.”
Still others had more of an issue with pet owners than the pets themselves. “In our family we all have severe cat and dog allergies,” wrote a reader identified as rnzucker from Portland, Ore. “We were quite surprised one time when my daughter was sitting next to a woman who had a dog, who had no sympathy for my daughter and refused to move seats.
“My daughter ended up sitting totally separate from the family as a result,” rnzucker continued. “Pets in the cabin on planes (or on trains) can be a major health issue for many of us, even in carriers, and should not be ignored. Not everyone wants to be next to your pet.”
Will pet lovers and pet haters ever get along? One reader identified as markjay1 from New York City suggested fining dog owners if their pets misbehave onboard: “Every bark, yelp, growl or whine costs the owner $25, no limit. That’s for each one. A growl that ends with a bark is considered two infractions. Every ‘accident’ costs the owner $200. Every passenger whose allergies are set off by the dog is immediately paid $100 by the dog owner. If the dog gets out of its carrier the fine is $250. If the owner lets the dog out of its carrier the fine is $1,000. I think these rules are fair. If your dog is well controlled I have no problem with it, and you, on the plane.”
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Could Plushmusic supplant record labels? By Laura Battle
Could Plushmusic supplant record labels? By Laura Battle
Published: July 18 2009 01:57 | Last updated: July 18 2009 01:57
It’s a chicken-and-egg question. Is the internet simply filling the void left by a natural fall in classical record sales or is it confirming and hastening the descent? The shrinking CD market has been well documented (and has been made all too apparent by the disappearance of the high street record store) along with growing speculation about the health of the classical record industry – but it’s difficult to determine the internet’s role, and whether it is online pioneers or traditional labels that are now calling the shots.
Since the mid-1990s the classical music industry has been accused of myopically cultivating a handful of profitable stars – many of them so-called “crossover” as opposed to echt-classical – to the detriment of up-and-coming musicians, who find it increasingly difficult to set up recording contracts. With the advent of broadband internet these performers and composers have been able to bite back by posting high-quality music samples and MP3 files on their personal websites or social networking profiles, and thereby undercutting the traditional dependence on labels. But until recently they have lacked support or a sense of community.
This looks set to change with the development of Plushmusic, a new kind of music website that went live last November and has just received its official launch. In the words of its founder and artistic director Adrian Brendel, cellist and son of the great pianist Alfred Brendel, it was “born out of the idea of giving musicians the opportunity to record things in a different way, and to use new technology for new projects”. The Plushmusic name might sound a bit kitschy (it could almost inspire a new subgenre of “easy listening” – heaven forbid) but its origins are reassuringly wholesome: in 1995 Brendel founded a chamber music festival in the Dorset village of Plush and the website has developed as an extension of its values and activities.
As at Plush, there is a strong emphasis on chamber music but there are also designated areas for opera, jazz and world music. Individual artists are given “channels”, where they can they can post free video excerpts or charge users for a complete streaming or download of a live concert recording. Classical guitarist Zoran Dukic, for example, has posted a number of free audio clips, while Julian Steckel has made available a film of himself performing Kaija Saariaho’s short piece for solo cello Spins and Spells, and pianist Aleksandar Madzar is charging £9.99 for a high definition recording of a concert he performed at last year’s Plush festival.
So far this section represents exclusively professional, hand-picked artists but elsewhere, under the “community” tab, anyone can set up a personal channel, and interact with forums and message boards.
There are, of course, already a number of sites that stream classical music, including Classicaltv and the Berlin Philharmonic’s own “digital concert hall”. But Plushmusic is the first to conflate the roles of record label, publicist, impresario and TV channel. As such, it hopes not only to support artists but also the wider network of arts. Music venues and festivals, for example, are likely to benefit from links to upcoming events and a blog, which proved a powerful publicity tool at last year’s Cologne Festival, where saxophonist Hayden Chisholm and his band performed a series of jazz concerts. And they are encouraged to become media partners with Plushmusic.
A number of high-profile companies, including Glyndebourne, the Wigmore Hall and the Cheltenham Festival, have already been convinced. As Brendel explains: “The flexibility of the site means that festivals and venues, as well as artists, can use it, and to a certain degree autonomously.” Glyndebourne is currently offering free clips of recent productions of Giulio Cesare and Hansel and Gretel and, for those of a sterner disposition, the entire performance of Tristan und Isolde to download for £24.99. An upcoming streaming of this season’s new Falstaff production, which will be free for a limited period, highlights the win-win nature of this collaboration: the Glyndebourne name brings new users to Plushmusic and, in return, the opera house gets wide-reaching publicity ahead of their autumn tour.
There will be many hoping the site will also offer some transparency on the smoke- and-mirrors world that is the classical record industry. All too often albums are tailored around a perceived personality or – where that individual has the influence or gumption – negotiated on a bartering basis: “You can have your quirky Schoenberg number if we can toss in ‘Song to the Moon’.” Here, however, artists retain creative and editorial control, and design their own playlists, whether it’s a programme of improvised jazz or back-to-back Bartók. Indeed, independence and flexibility are all part of the ethos: “We’d like to decentralise it a bit so that we can ask artists who we respect and admire to conceive of projects of their own and come back with some ideas rather than us just steering it,”Brendel explains.
Already pop labels and festivals are looking to websites like MySpace for a heads-up on flourishing bands, based on viewing figures and online reception, and it seems likely that the classical industry will follow suit. When asked if Plushmusic could pose a threat to the traditional record label, Brendel admits the project will prove “very subjective”, and explains that while Hyperion has been keen to engage, believing the project can be mutually beneficial, other labels have been less enthusiastic.
“It’s such a volatile space at the moment because no one really knows what’s going to happen in the short term or long term with the recording industry, but we’re seeing more and more general interest and we’re really encouraged by the reaction of musicians.”
It is, of course, early days, but if Plushmusic gathers pace and power the consequences could be quite provocative. Once sites such as this successfully supplant the role of record labels, it can’t be long before people begin to question the necessity of agents: if musicians can manage and market their own recordings, if they can nurture relationships with opera houses, music venues and festivals around the world, and interact directly with a pre-existing and potential audience, what need is there for middlemen?
www.plushmusic.tv
Published: July 18 2009 01:57 | Last updated: July 18 2009 01:57
It’s a chicken-and-egg question. Is the internet simply filling the void left by a natural fall in classical record sales or is it confirming and hastening the descent? The shrinking CD market has been well documented (and has been made all too apparent by the disappearance of the high street record store) along with growing speculation about the health of the classical record industry – but it’s difficult to determine the internet’s role, and whether it is online pioneers or traditional labels that are now calling the shots.
Since the mid-1990s the classical music industry has been accused of myopically cultivating a handful of profitable stars – many of them so-called “crossover” as opposed to echt-classical – to the detriment of up-and-coming musicians, who find it increasingly difficult to set up recording contracts. With the advent of broadband internet these performers and composers have been able to bite back by posting high-quality music samples and MP3 files on their personal websites or social networking profiles, and thereby undercutting the traditional dependence on labels. But until recently they have lacked support or a sense of community.
This looks set to change with the development of Plushmusic, a new kind of music website that went live last November and has just received its official launch. In the words of its founder and artistic director Adrian Brendel, cellist and son of the great pianist Alfred Brendel, it was “born out of the idea of giving musicians the opportunity to record things in a different way, and to use new technology for new projects”. The Plushmusic name might sound a bit kitschy (it could almost inspire a new subgenre of “easy listening” – heaven forbid) but its origins are reassuringly wholesome: in 1995 Brendel founded a chamber music festival in the Dorset village of Plush and the website has developed as an extension of its values and activities.
As at Plush, there is a strong emphasis on chamber music but there are also designated areas for opera, jazz and world music. Individual artists are given “channels”, where they can they can post free video excerpts or charge users for a complete streaming or download of a live concert recording. Classical guitarist Zoran Dukic, for example, has posted a number of free audio clips, while Julian Steckel has made available a film of himself performing Kaija Saariaho’s short piece for solo cello Spins and Spells, and pianist Aleksandar Madzar is charging £9.99 for a high definition recording of a concert he performed at last year’s Plush festival.
So far this section represents exclusively professional, hand-picked artists but elsewhere, under the “community” tab, anyone can set up a personal channel, and interact with forums and message boards.
There are, of course, already a number of sites that stream classical music, including Classicaltv and the Berlin Philharmonic’s own “digital concert hall”. But Plushmusic is the first to conflate the roles of record label, publicist, impresario and TV channel. As such, it hopes not only to support artists but also the wider network of arts. Music venues and festivals, for example, are likely to benefit from links to upcoming events and a blog, which proved a powerful publicity tool at last year’s Cologne Festival, where saxophonist Hayden Chisholm and his band performed a series of jazz concerts. And they are encouraged to become media partners with Plushmusic.
A number of high-profile companies, including Glyndebourne, the Wigmore Hall and the Cheltenham Festival, have already been convinced. As Brendel explains: “The flexibility of the site means that festivals and venues, as well as artists, can use it, and to a certain degree autonomously.” Glyndebourne is currently offering free clips of recent productions of Giulio Cesare and Hansel and Gretel and, for those of a sterner disposition, the entire performance of Tristan und Isolde to download for £24.99. An upcoming streaming of this season’s new Falstaff production, which will be free for a limited period, highlights the win-win nature of this collaboration: the Glyndebourne name brings new users to Plushmusic and, in return, the opera house gets wide-reaching publicity ahead of their autumn tour.
There will be many hoping the site will also offer some transparency on the smoke- and-mirrors world that is the classical record industry. All too often albums are tailored around a perceived personality or – where that individual has the influence or gumption – negotiated on a bartering basis: “You can have your quirky Schoenberg number if we can toss in ‘Song to the Moon’.” Here, however, artists retain creative and editorial control, and design their own playlists, whether it’s a programme of improvised jazz or back-to-back Bartók. Indeed, independence and flexibility are all part of the ethos: “We’d like to decentralise it a bit so that we can ask artists who we respect and admire to conceive of projects of their own and come back with some ideas rather than us just steering it,”Brendel explains.
Already pop labels and festivals are looking to websites like MySpace for a heads-up on flourishing bands, based on viewing figures and online reception, and it seems likely that the classical industry will follow suit. When asked if Plushmusic could pose a threat to the traditional record label, Brendel admits the project will prove “very subjective”, and explains that while Hyperion has been keen to engage, believing the project can be mutually beneficial, other labels have been less enthusiastic.
“It’s such a volatile space at the moment because no one really knows what’s going to happen in the short term or long term with the recording industry, but we’re seeing more and more general interest and we’re really encouraged by the reaction of musicians.”
It is, of course, early days, but if Plushmusic gathers pace and power the consequences could be quite provocative. Once sites such as this successfully supplant the role of record labels, it can’t be long before people begin to question the necessity of agents: if musicians can manage and market their own recordings, if they can nurture relationships with opera houses, music venues and festivals around the world, and interact directly with a pre-existing and potential audience, what need is there for middlemen?
www.plushmusic.tv
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Two New Ways to Explore the Virtual Universe, in Vivid 3-D
May 13, 2008
Two New Ways to Explore the Virtual Universe, in Vivid 3-D
By STEVE LOHR
The skies may be the next frontier in travel, yet not even the wealthiest space tourist can zoom out to, say, the Crab Nebula, the Trapezium Cluster or Eta Carinae, a star 100 times more massive than the Sun and 7,500 light-years away.
But those galactic destinations and thousands of others can now be toured and explored at the controls of a computer mouse, with the constellations, stars and space dust displayed in vivid detail and animated imagery across the screen. The project, the WorldWide Telescope, is the culmination of years of work by researchers at Microsoft, and the Web site and free downloadable software are available starting on Tuesday, at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/.
There are many online astronomy sites, but astronomers say the Microsoft entry sets a new standard in three-dimensional representation of vast amounts data plucked from space telescopes, the ease of navigation, the visual experience and features like guided tours narrated by experts.
“Exploring the virtual universe is incredibly smooth and seamless like a top-of-the-line computer game, but also the science is correct,” said Alexander Szalay, a professor of astronomy and physics at Johns Hopkins. “No sacrifices have been made. It just feels as if you are in it.”
The WorldWide Telescope project spans astronomy, education and computing. Educators hope its rich images, animation and design for self-navigation will help entice computer-gaming young people into astronomy and science in general. The space service, astronomers say, could also become valuable in scientific discovery, especially with a professional version being developed with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Like many fields of science, astronomy has become digitized and data rich in recent years, making it an ideal proving ground for advanced computing techniques in data mining, visualization and searching.
So it is scarcely surprising that the other major company with an ambitious astronomy service online is Google. The Internet search giant first layered astronomical data and images onto Google Earth last August.
The switch to astronomy in Google Sky amounts to looking out into space instead of down on Earth. Two months ago, Google introduced a Web-based version of Google Sky, layering space images on its searchable map service.
Microsoft and Google are spirited competitors and antagonists in the rough-and-tumble commercial markets of Internet search and software. Yet in online astronomy, both sides proclaim mutual respect and say their sole rivalry is in scientific discovery and public education. They say they have no plans to sell advertising on the astronomy sites.
Scientists and educators applaud the interest and investment by the two.
“It’s really encouraging that both Microsoft and Google are there, pushing these powerful tools for science education forward,” said Daniel Atkins, director of the National Science Foundation’s Office of Cyberinfrastructure, which focuses on using new technology in learning and research.
There may be no space war between Microsoft and Google, but their offerings reflect their different cultures. The WorldWide Telescope results from careful planning and lengthy development in a research division. It has the richer graphics and it created special software to present the images of spherical space objects with less polar distortion. WorldWide Telescope requires downloading a hefty piece of software, and it runs only on Microsoft Windows.
Google Sky started as a Google “20 percent” project, in which engineers can spend time on anything they choose. Google Earth, where Google Sky began, requires a software download, but its Web-based version, which came out in March, does not. The Google culture encourages engineers to put new things onto the Internet quickly and keep improving them, a philosophy geared to constant evolution instead of finished products.
Despite differences, the companies share motivations. Lior Ron, Google Sky product manager, said the astronomy focus “says a lot about the interests of the people in both companies.” At Google, Mr. Ron, 31, is one of a group of astronomy enthusiasts. He built his own telescope as a teenager and went to astronomy camps in his native Israel. He said he almost joined private space industry last year instead of Google.
A personal fascination in astronomy has also energized work at Microsoft. Jonathan Fay, 42, the lead software engineer on the project, has built an observatory, with a dome eight feet in diameter, in his backyard in suburban Seattle.
The inspiration for the WorldWide Telescope, and much of the early work, came from Jim Gray, a renowned computer scientist who disappeared last year while sailing alone off northern California. Mr. Gray had long been intrigued by the computing challenges of presenting map and satellite images online. His project to show aerial map images of the world, TerraServer, went up in June 1998, a few months before Google was founded. Mr. Gray then worked for years with astronomers on the concept he presented in Science in September 2001, “The World-wide Telescope.” Mr. Szalay was co-author.
Mr. Gray’s vision was largely about making the flood of astronomical data accessible and usable for scientists. The project began to take on its current look and design in fall 2006, when Curtis Wong started working on it full time. Mr. Wong, another amateur astronomer, heads a new media research group at Microsoft, which he joined in 1998. He is the creator of award-winning multimedia CD-ROMs on subjects like the Barnes art collection, Leonardo da Vinci and the making of the atomic bomb.
When he came to the astronomy project, Mr. Wong recalled telling Mr. Gray, “This is great, but let’s bring all this data and make it available, accessible and engaging to the public.”
A conversation with Mr. Wong, 54, is different from most around the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Wash., which is mainly populated by engineers, marketers and business managers. Mr. Wong speaks of the WorldWide Telescope’s allowing citizen explorers to make and post virtual tours. One tour on the site is by a 6-year-old boy from Toronto. “What we’re starting with is just a foundation,” Mr. Wong said. “When it really gets interesting is when more and more stories populate the WorldWide Telescope.”
Young people today are used to sharing stories, on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and elsewhere. Educators hope that the WorldWide Telescope can entice them to take an interest in astronomy. “Science has a bad rap because it is seen as a dry accumulation of facts,” said Roy R. Gould, a science education expert at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “But this is a visually beautiful environment where you can explore, create and share.”
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