Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

A recent web-based training project in After Effects produced by Splitvision Digital required adding visuals to narrated coursework scripts for NACCHO (National Association of County & City Health Officials).

The project included many detailed modules and important text information for training and co-ordinating public health emergency teams to respond with organized readiness.  The idea is to enhance and compliment the text and narration with interesting photos, graphics and animation without distracting or biasing the intended course material to be communicated and learned by those using the online training.

Coincidentally, or not, the contract I took on following this, was an even larger instructional design project for PG&E Academy, produced by The Mosaic Company.  Flash is the common denominator in both projects.  Splitvision compressed the AE movies to load into a Flash interface, and PG&E uses PowerPoint plug-ins to extend its features and export to a Flash end product.

See a sampling of the training videos here.

Google Maps Mania, an unofficial Google Maps blog, was recently covered in an NPR news story. The site has many cool links to individual interests based on locations.

A related site, Google Sightseeing, is themed around collecting eye catching satellite photographs.

Yahoo’s new Flash-based maps also have an API that can be accessed and customized, as seen at the Programmable Web blog. Yahoo is also developing a Local Events browser based on their maps, as described by a Yahoo! developer’s blog. Other Yahoo map users linked their videos to locations.

The silent truth of a tree is an antidote to the many voices babbling in the news space, the workplace, and any number of stresses in your face.

Imagine a few of the combating world leaders sitting in a circle beneath this tree, surrounded by the peace and tranquility of a fine day which the good earth so often provides. In the granduer of nature, they may humble themselves. We can only hope so.

An opinion piece in today’s S.F. Chronicle written by John Arquilla a professor of defense analysis at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, Why we should take Osama’s olive branch, is a hopeful reminder that peace is within reach. The professional military strategist and historian points out that all wars, hot or cold, eventually reach a point of sitting down and negotiating with the enemy, such as Bush has already done with Libya’s Khadafy, a long time terrorist supporter.

Found an interesting step-by-step instruction for drawing and painting an elephant in Photoshop. It’s a relatively new blog, Olduvai George, by Carl Buell a professional illustrator who specializes in paleontology subjects.  First rate stuff.

Came across this inspirational passage by D. H. Lawrence in a recent New Yorker book review:

Dying of tuberculosis in the winter of 1929-30, unable to walk, and rendered sexually impotent by his disease, he wrote these words on the last page of his last book:

“Man wants his physical fulfilment first and foremost, since now, once and once only, he is in the flesh and potent. For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. . . . The dead may look after the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone, and ours only for a time. We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos.”

He died on March 2, 1930, aged forty-four and weighing all of eighty-five pounds, in Vence, where Frieda, Aldous and Maria Huxley, and some others buried him, Frieda wrote, “very simply, like a bird.”

Let’s dance!

Going into 2006 not all things will go well. There will be problems to solve and unforeseen obstacles to face. Your path is full of danger, risks and rewards. Therefore, practice going to your happy place, find your song, and keep smiling.

Here is what Google’s home page artwork looks like as an animated GIF sequence.

Recently I met Joel Eisenberg and immediately recognized a kindred spirit. As we got acquainted, Joel mentioned his cool collection of rock concert photos that he shot back in the day when there was a bit more access, less restrictions. Joel and I agreed to go through his 35mm color prints and negatives and pick out some great moments to share on this here web site, in the Vintage Rock Photography section.

We’re kicking this off with the best from Joel’s Vault of Grateful Dead concert photographs, and there are many more San Francisco Bay area favorites to come, including a thread of photos that connect with recently departed SF concert legend Chet Helms. We look forward to sharing all this with you. Keep that love light on, and leave it on!