Coachella 2016 Presales Success

My daughter can attend Coachella for the third time, but Weekend Two. I snagged Weekend One tickets for this year and last but not next. Pass presales for the 2016 music festival commenced at 11 AM PDT today. The advantage of buying now is making monthly payments rather than one sum up front.

Timing and luck make the difference securing any pass, particularly the earlier (April 15-17). Last round, I got in three minutes before official start time. Ironically, or not, at 10:57 the Coachella app on my Nexus 6 popped up a notification that sales had started. But every time I clicked the purchase button for Weekend One, Coachella redirected to the sales start at 11 page.

Photo by Joe WilcoxJun 4, 20156:58 am

Flickr a Day 155: ‘Still Life–Shoes’

Some of the best photography, and post-processing around it, illuminates the everyday—that which we see but don’t necessarily regard with perspective. The P word also is essential to getting the shot that matters. At events, […]

Apple by Joe WilcoxJun 4, 201512:15 am

Apple’s Moral Marketing Charade

Nine years ago, a NPR interviewer asked me about Google and other U.S. companies censoring search results in China. The question was one of morality—to which I gave an answer she didn’t expect. That response, or my recollection of it, is appropriate for rather ridiculous and self-serving statements that Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly made three days ago.

“We believe that people have a fundamental right to privacy”, Tim Cook said, Matthew Panzarino reports for TechCrunch. “The American people demand it, the constitution demands it, morality demands it”. Oh? What is moral? The answer I gave NPR in 2006 applies: There is no moral high ground in business. The high ground is quagmire, because all public companies—Apple surely among them—share a single, moral objective: Make profits for stockholders. Plain, pure, and simple.

Photo by Joe WilcoxJun 3, 20157:06 am

Flickr a Day 154: ‘Star of the Show’

Perspective and technique decide today’s selection, shot by a photographer who gives no other name than Wendell. Is that to emphasize his importance or to protect privacy? 🙂 Self-titled “Star of the Show” matches, as he […]

Web by Joe WilcoxJun 2, 201511:16 pm

Tidal gets My Reprieve

My third month as a Tidal subscriber started yesterday, but nearly not at all. Last week I prepared to cancel the pricey, streaming service after encountering a disastrous functional flaw listening on either Nexus 6 or 9. Songs skip to the next track part way through playing, which is unacceptable behavior—made more so because of expectations that higher pricing and loftier monthly subscription fee set.

I would have stopped subscribing on May 31st, at the billing cycle’s end, if not for Tidal offering a free month of service. Whether or not our paying relationship continues depends much on the music streamer resolving an app problem. “There is a bug with Nexus and Sony phones with Android 5 unfortunately”, according to a tech support specialist, “We are working on fixing this. Mostly after 26 megabytes have been streamed, it skips. So for now we do not have a solution yet”,

Photo by Joe WilcoxJun 2, 20156:54 am

Flickr a Day 153: ‘Birkenhead Lake View’

Travel photographer James Wheeler takes the Day with an evocative, wish-you-were-there view captured on May 17, 2015, using Nikon D600 and 17-35mm f/4 lens. Vitals: f/11, ISO 100, .5 sec, 17mm. I picked the pic mainly for composition and color; the red canoe to the left set against the lake looker to the right makes the shot—without even considering the majestic mountains framing the foreground.

James describes self-titled “Birkenhead Lake View”, visited over the “Victoria Day long weekend” (ended May 18 in 2015 and on the 23rd in 2016). “It is a bit far from Vancouver but is an amazing place to go camping for a long weekend. We had relatively good weather for May and will definitely go back next year”.

Photo by Joe WilcoxJun 1, 20157:03 am

Flickr a Day 152: ‘Unexpected Wedding’

Self-titled “Tightrope Walker Cat” demands to be chosen, but I reluctantly pass, having featured felines on Days 38, 51, and 143. Instead, José Manuel Ríos Valiente wins with “Unexpected Wedding”, for candid capture and contextual caption that […]

News Media by Joe WilcoxMay 31, 201510:20 pm

Responsible Reporting Section 2 ‘The New Journalisms’: Chapter II

The second of the five journalisms was a topic on this site long before becoming part of my ebook Responsible Reporting: Field Guide for Bloggers, Journalists, and Other Online News Gatherers. First reference: “Process Journalism and Original Reporting” (July 2009). The concept closely aligns with contextual journalism, which is the topic of the previous chapter published here a week ago.

I wrote the book understanding that the intersection of old and new media presents an opportunity to develop more realistic reporting guidelines. The cultural and ethical differences too often set one against the other, which process journalism demonstrates. However, online reporting demands a different way of thinking about news gathering and what the so-called quest for truth really means.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMay 31, 20156:56 am

Flickr a Day 151: ‘Sometimes Life Hurts’

There is an art to shooting with models. The style of Jonathan Emmanuel Flores Tarello reminds of Day 89 photographer Gabriela Camerotti: Dreamy and ethereal, with a touch of fantasy. I chose today’s selection, which is among […]

Pulp Media by Joe WilcoxMay 30, 20156:10 pm

Survivor

Frak the critics. I really enjoyed Survivor, which released to theatres yesterday. Or not. The official reviews are dated May 28 or 29, 2015, but I can’t find the movie playing on the big screen anywhere locally. I streamed from Google Play, which has the film for rental or purchase, last evning.

I didn’t read reviews until after watching the flick and seeing something shocking: Rotten Tomatoes 0 percent. Yes, Yes, the action thriller is overly predictable. But sometimes you sit down to eat fine steak and wine, while other times glutton down s`mores and ice cream. Burp. Pass the Bud, Bud. Survivor is a junk food feast along the lines of Taken—which got two sequels!

Photo by Joe WilcoxMay 30, 20157:35 am

Flickr a Day 150: ‘Fischer am Nebeligen Erlaufsee’

Self-titled “21er Haus“, at Museum moderner Kunst, Wien (Museum of Modern Art) in Vienna, Austria—taken just 5 days ago—seemed sure to take the Day. Jakob Hürner used iPhone 5s, which produced a photo that is remarkably balanced […]

Photo by Joe WilcoxMay 30, 201512:22 am

Google Photos is Disruptive Innovation

Google Photos is more than an exciting—and hugely transforming—new product. The app/cloud service is a metaphor for an escalating mobile business model that, with perhaps the exception of Facebook, no competitor has the capacity to match.

Users gain tremendous time-saving utility, such as the ability to meaningfully search using innocuous terms like “dog” or “Washington”, all without the need to manually add metadata tags by way of applications like Photoshop. Meanwhile, Google gets access to quantifiable information, in the image and accompanying metadata, around which to sell advertising and related contextual content or services.