Author: Joe Wilcox

Gear by Joe WilcoxJan 13, 201510:53 am

Amazon Echo Isn’t

You just gotta love Amazon. This morning, at long last, I received my invitation for Echo, the sizzlingly voice-controled streaming speaker that I raved about just two months ago. As a Prime member, I pay half-price, just $99. What a deal! Since then, I jealously waited while reading what others blogged about how much they enjoyed their Echoes. The device fits squarely where I contend is the next iteration in user interfaces: voice. Touch is just so passé.

In retail, customer impressions are everything. My first reaction was excitement, but the second turned it to dust. This thing won’t ship until sometime between May and July? Seriously? It’s like a bad Consumer Electronics Show joke, where the hottest tech device in this solar system debuts in January, but sales don’t start until November. Don’t sell me something I can’t get for at least five fraking months!

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 13, 20157:15 am

Flickr a Day 13: Lucky Shot

The unluckiest number is good designation for a photographer caught in the rain—making his own luck. My feature photo on the thirteenth day comes from Flickr newcomer Iliyan Yankov, who joined just 12 months ago. He also posts to Facebook.

He describes himself as a “student in Italy studying arts. One of my passion is the photography. I love to travel around the world and capture it. If I have some free time I love to go out on the street with my camera and spend hours there capturing the atmosphere”. Ha! When i previewed Iliyan’s self-titled “Raining London at Night”, my wife remarked: “It has a lot of atmosphere!” He describes his photographic style well.

News Media by Joe WilcoxJan 12, 201510:03 pm

Good God, Gawker, You Had Me at ‘Hi, There’

Nick Denton’s little publishing empire often doesn’t get the credit deserved. Among the new media ops, click-whores like Business Insider, BuzzFeed, and Huffington Post grab the spotlight. But their granddaddy, Gawker Media, knows better 13 years since its founding—literally three lifetimes as measured in online publishing. Forget dog years. Denton’s shop is ancient, and it thrives by reincarnating in place. The Gawker in 2015 bears little resemblance to the circa 2002—Hell, even 2013. That’s a good thing.

What I always liked about the new media property: Application of newspaper-like editorial ethics for getting scopes, sourcing stories, and producing original content to online news gathering. All the while writing is current and cantankerous, and editors experiment with different design, content production, and stylistic strategies. Stated differently: Gawker is the best of print tabloid journalism applied to online publishing. Bottom-feeding aggregators that imitate the tabloid headline style, and dong so grope pageviews, are piss-poor imitations.

Storytelling by Joe WilcoxJan 12, 201511:18 am

The Old Man

With the exception of song lyrics (see “Empire State” and “Surrealistic Pillow“), my storytelling has mostly been non-fiction. My forthcoming serialized ebook My Blood will be the first fictional foray. But for years, I also considered writing short stories. “The Old Man” is draft version of one of them, for an anthology with tentative title Unhappy Endings. I can’t say that I will ever complete the concept.

The opening sentences are real life. Once, while standing in a pharmacy line, I heard an elderly gentlemen spat those snarky sentiments at the clerk. None of the rest of the story is based on any living person in my life or experience with anyone whom I know. Some of the cat description comes from our lost Maine Coon Kuma. Any resemblance to reality stops with the opening and the feline.

Something else: I am not an angry or resentful person, so writing about someone who exhibits such emotions is unfamiliar territory to me, which is one reason for undertaking the storytelling exercise. They say you should write about what’s familiar; my attempt is the opposite. I wrote the draft story a few days after San Diego Comic-Con ended in July 2013.

People by Joe WilcoxJan 12, 20156:52 am

Flickr a Day 12: Tribos Bar

Tight describes the playing of great rock bands. It also applies to the photos Alvaro Sasaki takes of them—in Brazilian clubs, cafés, and bars, where getting the shot means close quarters, big crowds, and hostile lighting. His best photos pull you into the performance. You can taste the sweat in the room, breathe perfume and liquor, and tremble to the vibration of music and stomping of the crowd.

The image above isn’t my first choice but the second, and I started with an unusually large initial selection—about a dozen, which is the most for any photographer in the Flickr-a-Day series. Alvaro’s musician performance pics are that good. I chose the audience shot because of the entire album set—Mestre Ouriço @ Tribos bar; 26 photos.

Living by Joe WilcoxJan 11, 20156:07 pm

This is Me Then and Now Too

Following my embarrassing confessional comparing photos of me in 2004 and 2014 comes another: 2005 vs 2015. Midday, my wife and I sat inside the local Panda Express, where she commented how I look like a different person from what I used to.

I’m lighter. In the photo on the left, from a decade ago in March, I weighed 95 kilos (210 pounds). Anne snapped the right pic while she ate lunch when today I weigh 63.4 kilos (139.8 pounds). That’s down from 70 kilos (152 pounds) in August 2014.

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 11, 20157:01 am

Flickr a Day 11: Trope

You can discover the most interesting people on Flickr, unexpectedly and with little effort. I found this photo by searching “trope”, and for no particular reason. What I like: Contrasting focus, and how it’s composed, with the game player bokehed (gasp, probably not a word, but frak it) and Nintendo 3DS XL focused. The device’s rich red pops. This would be a perfect product shot for marketing purposes. But it’s not.

The credited photographer, Anita Sarkeesian, is a controversial feminist game critic. Three years ago, her Tropes vs Women in Video Game series Kicktartered (I swear that’s gonna be a word) asking for $6,000 and raising $158,922. Her Feminist Frequency website is down as I write, but its YouTube has vids for the series, which stirred up trouble—like threats against her.

Living by Joe WilcoxJan 10, 201510:48 am

Comic-Con Heroes: The Dark Knight

For San Diego Comic-Con 2015, I am required to reverify my press status—the second time since starting to attend as news media in 2009. I submitted the required documents and story links in early December 2014 and now anxiously await my SDCC fate. If denied, I will unlikely attend this year’s Con, having missed other opportunities to register. If that happens, the world won’t end. Life will go forward. But my birthday, which occurs during the July 9-12 dates, will be somewhat sorrowful this year.

I love Comic-Con for what it represents: Storytelling and attendees being or associating with the people they wish they could be. I laid out my thoughts on the latter concept in July 2010 post “The Roles We Play“, which I adapted as the introduction to my 2013 event project: Comic-Con Heroes: The Fans Who Make the Greatest Show on Earth. I had much hope for the ebook, when published about 18 months ago. But sales were never good—and as distance grows greater from the events told, time diminishes the content’s value.

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 10, 20157:11 am

Flickr a Day 10: ‘Cold Wet Saturday’

Because I authenticate Flickr photo ownership before posting pics, each new find is an adventure. With Vancouver, British columbia-based fashion photographer Kris Krüg the journey is an archaeological dig into the social web’s iterations over a decade.

I started simply, by searching Flickr for “Saturday”—appropriate given that’s today. The photo above caught my attention, for its rich, vibrant color, contrast, and composition. The EXIF data revealed the camera to be the Fujifilm SP-2000. Huh, that one is new to me. Some Googling here and raw EXIF there, and I discovered the camera was a scanner. Oh la la! Kris shot film!

Gear by Joe WilcoxJan 9, 201511:55 am

Nexus 9 Out-of-the-Box Impressions

Yesterday afternoon, I received Google’s newest Android tablet, which HTC manufactures, for review. The companies unveiled Nexus 9 in mid-October 2014, and sales started as Americans prepared to vote in November’s mid-term elections. So I am late in the reviews cycle. My eventual write-up will post to BetaNews, and also here—keeping with my sentiment that writers should own/control their content.

What follows is my thinking out loud, as I begin to process Nexus 9’s benefits and detriments. Some of my opinions will likely change during the reviews process. For anyone who cares about photos: I shot the tablet with the Fujifilm X100T. The pic is from the JPEG, with slight adjustment to the temperature. Okay, let’s get to first-impressions.

Photo by Joe WilcoxJan 9, 20156:56 am

Flickr a Day 9: ‘Third Age of Man’

Choosing one Neil Moralee photo to profile is an exhausting act of indecision. His candid photos are masterpieces in portrait—the majority black and white, cropped close, and set against dark background and emphasizing shadows. His subjects tend to be older, which is refreshing departure from so much photographic art focused on the young and beautiful.

I wouldn’t call self-titled “Third Age of Man” Neil’s best street portrait, but it’s captivating nevertheless. I look at the geezer and wonder: He looks so out of breath, but he’s riding not walking! I picked this pic not for what it is, but what Neil says about it, and he quotes an organization’s spiel verbatim:

News Media by Joe WilcoxJan 8, 20152:39 pm

Should I Kickstarter?

Warning: One word repeatedly used in this post will offend some people. I’m not one of them, and presumably neither is the main audience for what I propose.

Since August 2014, after acquiring domain journalism.wtf, I have pondered but not acted on launching a site that spotlights the worst—and occasionally the best—online news gathering. The question: Is there really a market for such a thing, and one that would assure financial sustainability? You can help me decide whether to proceed, and I anticipate most responses will come via social networks rather than comments on my personal site.