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Knight Digital Media Center, New J-School Webmaster

Posted a while ago that I was going through some transitions at work, and that we were looking for a web developer. Here’s what’s going on, in a nutshell:

The J-School runs an aggressive program of multimedia training for journalists — both for students and for working journalists. We do semester-long classes in multimedia storytelling using Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Final Cut Pro, Sound Track Pro, and a range of cameras and audio equipment. Students working in teams produce multimedia feature stories by the end of the semester — most of them excellent. We also do a compressed, one-week version of that class for working journalists who come from all over the country for training, as part of a program funded by the Knight Foundation. The program has been so successful that we’ve had trouble keeping up with its expansion.

On Monday, the Knight Foundation awarded a large grant to the J-School to build the program out into new directions and begin a new channel in internet technology training for editors and managers. And while they were at it, we also became responsible for training 600 NPR journalists in multimedia skills over the next couple of years.

On September 17, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation unveiled a $6.7 million initiative to assist news organizations facing the daunting transition to the digital world (press release). Two Knight grants – $2.8 million to the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and $2.4 million to USC’s Annenberg School for Communications – were awarded to fund the expansion of the Knight Digital Media Center‘s training program for mid-career journalists. National Public Radio was awarded a two-year grant for $1.5 million to work with the Knight Digital Media Center to fund the training of roughly 600 staff members, including executives, reporters, producers and editors.

The program is accompanied by a web site containing dozens of tutorials on multimedia production software and techniques (this is the Django-based site I mentioned a few months ago). That site is slated for a huge build-out, with tons more tutorials, social networking additions, and other goodies to come, as well as a redesign that’s just getting underway now.

The short version is that I was asked to transition from my current job as webmaster for the J-School and all of its satellite sites to working nearly full-time for the Knight multimedia site. Over the summer, my office was expanded and revamped, and I’m now sharing the space with a growing group of staffers and directors of the Knight program overall.

So that’s the summary version – all very exciting :) The rub now is in finding the right person to take my previous/current job as webmaster/manager of the J-School sites. It’s an interesting mix: PHP/HTML/CSS development of custom applications and utilities, building and maintaining content management systems for student publications (mostly with WordPress, but we use other systems as well), working closely with faculty, staff and students on special projects, training, helping out in classrooms, administering an OS X Server (which I hope to move to a cPanel system before long, but that’s another story), etc. etc. It’s a jack-of-all-things-web sort of position, and we’re still looking for the just-right person. UC benefits are great, the physical environment is great, there’s access to lots of intellectual stimulation (if you can find the time, which I never can), lots of good food nearby, and a ton of variety (but look out – all that variety may kill you).

The position is still open and we’d love to hear from qualified devs who also have strong communication skills and don’t mind spreading themselves thin. If you’re burned out on the private sector and feel ready to burn yourself out on the very different – but still amazing in its own way – academic life, give it some serious thought. If not you, please pass this on to anyone you think might be a good fit!

I can’t start my new job in earnest until the role is filled — help me out here :)

P.S.: We’re an all-Mac shop — servers too — so Mac/*nix geeks are especially encouraged.

Music: Devendra Banhart :: Owl Eyes
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John Coltrane, Transcribed to Limericks

Catching up on the past month at stuckbetweenstations (working backwards):

M.I.A., with the Radio On: Roger on how British/ Sri Lankan aural graffiti artist M.I.A. cribs lovingly from Jonathan Richman.

Das Kapital: Scot, short blurb on an incredible music video by Russian socio-economic soldier / popstar Lyapis Trubetskoy.

John Coltrane, Transcribed to Limericks: Roger’s sui-generis limerick transcription of John Coltrane’s Live at Birdland, including the bonus track available only on CD:

Afro-Blue

A fleet-fingered drummer named Mongo
Wrote a rhythm best suited for bongo
But Trane tore it asunder
Elvin thrashed through the thunder
You could hear it from Jersey to Congo.

Listening to the Water: Roger, with a New Orleans odyssey on the second anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

Doldrums: Rock Film Redux: Scot, on the tradition of film being played behind live rock performances, emphasis on the films of Scott Hamrah and Chris Fujiwara behind the “post-rock” (sorry) jams of Boston’s Cul de Sac.

Music: Paul Desmond :: Take Ten
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Apple Locks Down the iPod

It’s never been possible to stick OS X on any old hardware – you’ve been required to buy Apple hardware for the privilege. But the iPod has not had the same locked-down connection — because the iPod’s internal database format has been transparent and readable, 3rd-party devs have been able to make iPods happy on Linux systems, and it’s been possible for tools like Senuti to grab songs off any iPod, even though Apple makes it initially appear impossible.

But the latest crop of iPods are different – their internal database structure has become opaque, resulting in a lot of pissed off Linux users – users who paid Apple good money for their iPods but are still being cut off from the ability to use their player of choice with their OS of choice. Looks like this one is going to take some serious reverse-engineering to solve, too.

I’m wondering what the real motivation for this change is — Is it Apple’s attempt to cut tools like Senuti off at the knees, and Linux users are just collateral damage? Or the other way around? I suspect the former, since I can’t really think of a reason why Apple would care if users hook iPods up to Linux.

Music: Damo Suzuki’s Network :: Bellevue Cocktail / Floating Bridge Mix
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Minuscule

Got kids? As summer fades, it’s getting dark earlier, which means evenings indoors. And for us, that means only one thing: YouTube! Kidding of course, but we did just stumble upon a large and completely amazing collection of short videos, rendered from a bug’s-eye perspective – excerpts from Thomas Szabo’s 2006 movie Minuscule:

IMDB: “You might call it a cross between Tex Avery and Microcosmos, or grassroots slapstick.” A few of the clips are available in higher resolution at the official web site, which is a gorgeous work of art on its own (though somewhat mysterious to navigate). Would like to get my hands on the original DVD, though it’s mysteriously not available through NetFlix (no surprise – seems like NetFlix doesn’t have half the stuff I search for.)

Anyway, next time you want to cuddle up with your kid(s) in front of the computer, check these out – Miles ate ’em up like peanuts.

Music: Sun Ra and the Year 2000 Myth Science Arkestra :: Prelude to a Kiss

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Baraka

Baraka0225 I am feeling at peace, and sort of speechless after having just watched Ron Fricke’s 1992 film Baraka, a follow-on to his 1983 journey Koyaanisqatsi. No words (but not silent), no script, no actors or plot. Just existential film imagery from seemingly half the countries in the world, depicting humans in all their meditative, strange, indescribably gorgeous religious splendor, juxtaposed with footage of humans in all their violent, herd-like, strange, indescribably gorgeous cultural porridge.

Baraka is, ultimately, an environmental film, but not in the way we’ve come to think of the term – it’s about the environment of our existence, our ways of being in (and with, and without) the world. There is an environmental subtext in a more traditional sense as well, but that’s not Fricke’s primary thought – it’s more about human life and the myriad ways our quest for meaning manifests.

The wisdom of making such a film without words cannot be underestimated. While there are many sequences that leave you dying to know more about what you’re seeing, any speech or text would have diluted the experience by intellectualizing something intensely experiential.

Watching Baraka had me revisiting thoughts on religion I’ve expressed over the past year. Religion is strange and arbitrary, but only because existence is strange and arbitrary. Our world is ineffable, and so therefore are our expressions of it. Religion is no more irrational than being in the world is.

I feel peaceful tonight, in a way I have not for a long time. I’ve been living in stress for months on end, feeling my nerves begin to fray, my mind atrophy as external inputs have all but ceased. Watching Baraka made me want to travel the world, open my eyes, close them, then open them again. It made me want to taste dirt, stare into the sun, kiss every human, sing Ketjak, wander through the desert, taste every food, scale the pyramids, swing from vines, paint my body, read every scripture.

I feel washed.

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Balance Bike

Balancebike Seeing more and more of these Skuut balance bikes around – kids learn to balance with their feet from the get-go, and never have to go through the training wheel stage at all. Here’s a higher-end option. Seems like such an organic, natural process to me – wish I had known about these a few years ago. Just watching kids on them makes me jealous — wonder if they make them in grown-up sizes? Should hook up with the gang at woodenbikes, maybe they have a kit? I can just see myself hurtling down Hearst Ave., trying to stop with my feet.

Music: John Fahey & Cul De Sac :: Gamelan Collage
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Kindergarten

Miles Kindergarten How does this happen? One minute they’re born, and the next they’re starting kindergarten. At the risk of sounding like a cliche’, the passage of time is blowing us away. Hard to believe Miles has already done two years of pre-school, plus the summers in-between. The K-5 we chose for him is a parent co-op, structured similarly to the preschool he was in, which means we’ll be putting in one day per week as parent participants (or, rather, Amy will be, since I’ll be at work), plus monthly meetings and plenty of weekend maintenance “parties.” In exchange, we get a level of involvement with his education second only to home schooling, get to help shape the curriculum and philosophy of the school (an arrangement that’s worked out marvelously at the pre-school), and get to go along on the tons of cool field trips the school does. Many adventures to come.

Aside: An apparent unspoken requirement of the school is to own a pair of Keen sandals – my straw count the other day turned up about 80% of the children’s feet clad in Keens, another 10% Crocs, leaving only 10% for some antiquated invention called “shoes.” Fortunately Miles was properly pre-equipped with his – the most perfect work-horse footwear for kids ever invented.

Music: Teh Zakary Thaks :: Bad Girl