so i’d like to send some major props out to an acquaintance of mine who has been keepin’ it real multi at ohio university in athens, ohio. zach wise and his class have been busy producing a thorough and interesting project that launched yesterday. it’s a nice bit of work and double props since it’s a student venture (though the ’student’ ventures seem to often pants those who get paid to do this sort of stuff).

the project is called soul of athens and basically it was named adeptly so i don’t have to really summarize.

instead i’ll highlight some of the more technical things that i think are pretty slick:

1) the use of swfaddress to enable deep-linking and browser-based navigation. also swfobject for embedding. i dont do pcs, but i know this takes care of the ‘click to activate’ shiz too. so double props.

2) the player size. i measured about 960×540 which is a good size to fit in a standard window and big. i don’t care if it takes longer to download the story as long as i don’t have to fuckin squint. thankfully…

3) i don’t have to wait very long b/c it looks like they’re using a very simple FLV player with progressive download enabled. this is great. this means that i can watch hi-band movies without much delay. this means i don’t have to deal with a shitty custom player where everything works different.

4) the share button. this button provides the ability to email, directly link and provides links to both HD and standard videos. it also promises to provide code to embed, so i’m looking forward to seeing that.

5) their blog and everything that went along with it

so anyhow. check it out. let me know what you think. technical, non-technical, storytelling, content, deliver, user interface, color scheme. whatev it is ur interested in chatting about. i happen to know that zach trolls this blog now and again so maybe he’ll have something to add. (just playin’ zach, u no troll)

this past weekend i was lucky enough to duck out a couple days from work and head west. yes, that’s right… head west i said. on tap was an accelerated visit to dutch john, UT and the fucking fabulous green river. my roomie and i are both avid fly fisher’s (as are several of my friends) and we were really stoked to get out of the tall city and into the wide open.

so the canyon wasn’t exactly wide open, but you get what i’m saying.

anyhow, it was a great float trip filled with lots of big browns and hot-looking rainbows. seriously – i looked away and i think my roommate made out with a 17″ rainbow. i’m not sure , so don’t call him on it or anything, but … nuff said.

yo so i know a few friends of mine live in the northwest and sometimes i wish i did too, and if i did, i would make sure to check out the NPPA Multimedia Summit in Portland, OR. on June 1st and 2nd. That’s right folks, portland f’n oregon. part of god’s country. it looks like it’s going to be an excellent event and i know from checking out the lineup that there will be lots of very interesting and energetic discussion. seriously though. i don’t really like listening to other people all that much :), but i would def stop to listen to any of the speakers at this conference including:

> my editor Andrew DeVigal (multimedia editor, nytimes.com)

> my co-worker Judith Levitt (photo producer and fellow tarheel, nytimes.com)

> my former professor Rich Beckman (professor at University of North Caroliina)

> my former thesis committee member Tom Kennedy (multimedia editor, washingtonpost.com)

> my thesis interviewee Joe Weiss (formerly of newsandobserver.com and more recently soundslides.com)

> my good buddy Seth Gitner (roanoke.com)

> multimedia madman richard KOCI hernandez (mercurynewsphoto.com)

> the man with a company named after him brian storm (mediastorm.com)

and those are only the people i know… so i have no doubt that the other speakers are also on top of the game. according to gitner the the immersion workshop is filled, but both friday and saturday are open to anyone, which means you. and seth’s open for questions at sethgitner@sethgitner.com.

and we all know how fucked that place is right now, so that makes me even prouder of erik holmes, staff writer for the air force times, who has been in iraq and now afghanistan for the past month or so. he is travelling with photographer Rob Curtis and they’ve been keeping a blog about their travels called tales from the sandbox. erik’s a talented writer, so i’ll let him speak for himself:

As we drove on a dirt road next to the Tigris River, lined with tall reeds swaying in the breeze, it was easy at times to forget there is a war going on. It was quiet and peaceful, with a few small fishing boats drifting near the far bank. But Riffle pointed out to us the support trusses of the July 14 Bridge, and told us how the bodies of victims of sectarian violence get caught up there with other refuse after they are dumped in the river. He described pulling the bound, blind-folded and bullet-riddled bodies out of the water. The occasional, distant pop of small-arms fire in other parts of the city drove home the point: There is nothing peaceful or normal about Baghdad, even if it may seem so for a second.

that’s kinda hard to imagine as i prepare for an upcoming trip to another river. the green river in utah for a little fly fishing. i’m can’t tell you how relieved i am that i don’t have to worry about getting shot. i’m serious.

An old man at the second bombing site walked up to me and told me, in excellent English, that he saw a dead woman and child in the rubble. Another man had lost both of his children, one only 6 months old, in the blast. The old man asked me what I thought about what had happened. I said one word – “terrible” – and felt ashamed because it was so inadequate.

it’s excellent first-hand accounts from somebody i know to be a level-headed analyst, which brings the war closer to me than it has been at any point since i finished work on Faces of the Dead. i know. grim.

so – if you’re up for it – head over to tales from the sandbox and catch up on some ground-level iraq and afghanistan observations. it is important to expose yourself to the results of this war, whether you are in support or opposition. it’s going to be an important event in our lives.