Real Worcester Blog

Worcestershire Journal - On technologies and turkeys

It was impressive to watch our teen-aged grandsons balance a plateful of a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat while texting with friends who were likely doing the same. It was impressive and, for some of the adults in the room, kinda creepy. The kids weren’t talking on the phones, but they weren’t fully in the room, either. Such is the power of social technologies to make non-participants feel old and out of place.

Between texting, instant messenging, and social sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, kids can disaapear easily, even if they stay in the room. It’s neither all bad nor all good.

A recent article in Slashdot points to a MacArthur Foundation study that concludes, in brief, that online gaming, social networking, and related activities are important not only because they teach valuable skills that young people will need, but that these activities are an essential form of socializing, collaborative problem-solving, and discovery. (Here’s a two-page summary (pdf) of the report; here’s the full report: Digital Youth Research - Final Report.)

The middle-aged and older folks who clawed their way into email are often surprised to find that people who are, say, under 30 rarely use email. Again, they’re preferring to use text messages or SMS-based equivalents such as instant messaging and Twitter.

Not only are American youth embracing these new technologies, but other countries are moving even faster. In Brazil, only about 10% of the people have Internet access, but nearly 40% have mobile phones.  As a result. a Brazilian NGO, Rede Jovem, created Mobile YouthNet, a project that reaches young people through SMS on their mobile phones with local opportunities and information about what is going on in their communities.

Facebook, once the exclusive province of college students, is growing in popularity among the parents of the college-aged. For example, in preparation for our Thanksgiving dinners, I checked our grandsons’ Facebook pages (and the pages of their cousins) to jump-start the f2f conversations we’d have while balancing dinner plates on our knees.

Another /. article reminds us of Edsger Dijkstra’s hand-written essay, On the Cruelty of Really Teaching Computer Science, written 20 years ago. In the essay, Dijkstra introduces the notion of radical novelty, change that’s so profound that it breaks the metaphors that we usually employ to help us understand change. Because we, as adults, are not able to grasp the amount and rate of change, we throttle the educational system to speed that’s comfortable for us and nearly useless for the students.

The concept of radical novelties is of contemporary significance because, while we are ill-prepared to cope with them, science and technology have now shown themselves expert at inflicting them upon us….The universities will continue to lack the courage to teach hard science. They will continue to misguide the students, and each next stage of infantilization of the curriculum will be hailed as educational progress.

The narrowness of our view of technology results in an educational system that trains students poorly for jobs that won’t probably won’t even exist, leaving our kids on the street corner, ready for a world that has passed them by.

Coats for Kids

The Coats for Kids program provides the necessary winter outerwear to enable children in Worcester to come to school each day ready to learn. It all started 20 years ago as the brainchild of Paula Harrity, runs the Volunteer Office at the Worcester Public Schools. Her efforts are now supported by The Junior League of Worcester and the Worcester Educational Development Foundation (see below for more information about these organizations).

Over the past 20 years, Coats for Kids has provided approximately 25,000 new coats to children in need.

The Worcester Junior League initially joined forces with Paula Harrity as the fiscal agent for the project. Later, their involvement expanded to include a more hands-on roll: shopping, bagging and delivering coats.

This year the effort was joined by the Worcester Educational Development Foundation. They have taken on the fiscal responsibility for the project. The Junior League continues to raise funds, shop, bag and deliver coats.

About the organizations:

The Junior League of Worcester is a local non-profit - organization of women, committed to promoting voluntarism, developing the potential of women, and improving communities through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers.

The Worcester Educational Development Foundation (WEDF), was founded in 2005 to help support programs and facilities benefiting the students and teachers of the Worcester Public School System.

Would you like to help?

The Coats for Kids project accepts monetary donations throughout the year. Whether large or small, all contributions are greatly appreciated and tax deductible.

Please make check payable to WEDF/Coats for Kids and mail to:

c/o JLW

42 Whitman Road

Worcester, MA 01609
Junior League of Worcester, Coats for Kids page

Resources include contact information, thank you cards from some of the children who have received coats, lists of sponsors and a place to make an online donation.

Other ways to support the Worcester Public Schools:

Visit the Worcester Public Schools online to see a list of supplies needed or to find out how to volunteer.

Photo Credit: Christina Roberts

Worcestershire Journal - On simplicity and complexity

Whenever we got to talking about computers or the Internet, my father liked to remind me that, when he was a kid, radio didn’t exist. We got him a cell phone that he never used. One of his last purchases before he died a couple of years ago was an LCD TV. He bought it not for the improved picture quality, but because he could get the sound loud enough so that he could hear it without using up his hearing aid batteries.

He was a clever guy, Huck was. He built lots of interesting things from houses to boats to log splitters and stuff in between. The simplicity of the stuff that he build belies the amount of work and thought, what he called pondering, to make it simple.

Sometimes, necessity trumped subtlety. He needed to do some welding inside the camp. The welding machine was in the parking area by the boathouse and there was no easy way to bring it close enough so he could use the regular cables. He didn’t have (and didn’t want to buy) extra-long cables. So, he found some barbed wire from the old fence that marked the back boundary of the camp, hooked it up, and went to work. The barbed wire glowed red-hot, but he got the work done. Some 60 years later, you can still see the scorch marks on the window sill where the barbed wire came into the camp.

As clever as he was, however, he worked with things that he could see. The trend toward miniaturization, which began in the 50s with the advent of the transistor, made it difficult to know what was going on. Even though the magic of invisible radio waves was involved, you could see how an old radio worked by following the circuits and looking at the tubes. No longer. Wires disappeared into smaller and smaller chips and eventually reached the level of incomprehensibility.

In the 1970s, Ken Olsen, then CEO of Digital Equipment Corp., remarked that one of their latest systems was so complex that that no one person could understand the whole system. And, we’ve never turned back.

Before long, stuff became so complex that you reached that situation that Douglas Adams described, “If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have in your hands is a non-working cat.”

Last summer, we needed some repairs on a cast-iron ladder. I brought the ladder to Paul at Queen Lake Auto Repair. Paul does lots of different stuff, mostly car repairs, but also some welding, the mode of the old shade tree mechanic. When I arrived, he was splitting firewood and didn’t mind taking a break. We got to talking about his work. He said that he spent as much time in front of his computer as he did with his head under the hood, tracking down repair manuals for newer cars to learning diagnostic codes for the cars’ computers. Another guy showed up and we spent the next while talking about printers and Google and wireless networks. There was too much for one person to learn and apply; you had to keep going back to the computer to look stuff up.

Our cars and gadgets do have a lot more features, cost proportionally much less than they used, and, in most cases, last longer. We sacrifice some independence when we rely on such complex gear and we get a lot in return. Most of the time.

Worcester online journalism case study #1

Here are the Worcester stories from the November 24, 2008 print edition of the Telegram & Gazette:

• * A1 (feature): Cold weather, economy fill up shelters
• * A1 (photo): An early Thanksgiving
• * B1 (news): Four-year math proposal doesn’t add up
• * B1 (news): Metal thefts decline, house break-ins rise
• * B2 (news): Wind turbine idle at Holy Name
• * B4 (obit): Joan B. (Adams) Ferguson
• * B5 (photo feature): And a good time was had by all
• * C4: local sports scores
• * C5 (sports): Sharks’ streak alive (San Antonio byline, but a Worcester team)
• * C5 (sports): Short blurbs on local sports.
• * D1 (feature): On the job: Seth Derderian
• * D1: “Business People” blurbs
• * E3 (music review): Chamber team touches all bases

The question is: are Worcester’s blogs and other websites providing anywhere close to this amount of news, features, and photography?

I’ll poke around and see what’s appeared in the past 24 hours or so, and update this post when I see how things stack up. Feel free to e-mail me or contribute a comment if you find something of interest.

The T&G count: 2 features, 1 standalone photo, 1 photo feature (group of pix), 3 news stories (one of them very short), 1 obit, local sports scores, 1 sports article, sports blurbs, business blurbs, 1 review of a performance.

Online news either posted on Nov 24, or relating directly to T&G content (2 in list, compared with 3 in T&G):

• * This letter from a frustrated potential Direct Air customer, presumably sent to Bill Randell by mistake, is classic “passive” online journalism, and counts as some kind of news story in my book.
• * GWLT’s weather report/nature report/fire danger alert is honestly more interesting to me than the Holy Name wind turbine blurb in the T&G.
• The police do post the crime stats online (example), on pages I find hard to navigate. The T&G’s service here is in summarizing and interpreting this info.

Online features/reviews either posted on Nov 24, or relating directly to T&G content (3 in list, plus 1 review, compared to 2/1 in T&G):

• * Last Comic Standing review
• * Toys for Tots: 30-minute video interview from this morning
• * 2008 Transgender Day of Remembrance in Worcester

Worcester Magazine blogged quite a bit of news today.

I’ve removed the T&G green churches article and this blog post about taking the train because after poking around for a couple minutes I was reminded that many of the surrounding towns have a lot of blogging activity, and the results of this project will be muddy and anecdotal enough without bringing all the other towns into this.

Your Real Worcester insider was at The Hanover Theatre for two events over the past few days. My position as a volunteer usher gives me a unique insider’s look at the goings on of theatre before the doors open and the curtain goes up.

On Thursday night NBC’s Last Comic Standing tour took to the stage featuring the top five finalists from the most recent season of the show. The runner up of the season Marcus was hanging around prior to our pre-show meeting chatting with many of the volunteers. After our meeting a bunch of the ushers headed into the theater as usual to scope out our assignments, make sure we have all the sections covered and make sure everything inside looks up to par before opening the doors. After a couple minutes Marcus took to the stage and put on a few minute routine totally off the cuff for about 20 of us who were wandering throughout the theater. After that he jumped off the stage and was up on the balcony taking pictures of The Hanover’s massive chandelier with his iphone.

Now on to the actual show….. The opener and MC of the night was fifth place contestant Louis Ramey. Ramey’s 20 minute set was certainly the raunchiest of the night, laced with jokes about female masturbation and trips to the back room of sex stores. But Ramey was as funny as he was raunchy and I think he may have stole the show because his interaction and one liners as he introduced the comics always brought some good laughs from the crowd.

The second comic was British comic Jim Tavare who played Tom the barkeep of The Leaky Cauldron in Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. Tavare came to the stage with a double bass and his act centered on some lame hokey jokes using the bass as a prop and a bit about playing the recorder. His one funny stretch was playing the double bass as if he was Jimmy Hendrix, but other than that I thought he was the weakest link of the night.

Next up was Jeff Dye who played the part of Christian stoner slacker college kid who has started to hit the big time. He had some funny observations about driving in LA in his 15 year old beat up car as well as a very funny bit about Coors beer. “Have you ever noticed that Coors never talks about the beer in their commercials? We have a vented can, we have a widemouth can, we have a label that turns blue when it is cold…. Well guess what you need to make better? THE BEER! I would like to be able to drink 30 and get DRUNK, not just feel FULL”…. He also had some funny observations about the way his mother interacts with her cats that hit a little close to home with me and my cats!

Next to last was the aforementioned Marcus who certainly had the most stage presence and personality of all the comics of the night. Although his bit about his first encounter with a bidet was nothing new he had some good impressions including Christopher Walken as President and a hilarious take on what it would be like if Adam Sandler was cast as Jesus in The Passion of The Christ.

Closing the show was Last Comic Standing winner Iliza Schlesinger. Unfortunately after Marcus’ high energy set Iliza was a letdown. Unfunny jokes about The Discovery Channel and Shark week gave way to mediocre material relating to dating and her lack of a sex life. The final set was not the way you would expect the reigning champ to end the night, which begs the question. Perhaps the right person did not win this season’s contest.

Overall it seemed that those in attendance had a great time, and the audience was roaring throughout the show, but the night went out like a lamb rather than a lion. Stayed tuned for our Movin’ Out review tomorrow!

The Weekly Nod

Last week was a rough one here in Worcester as far as live music goes, so much so that we here at the Weekly Nod took our columns name literally and pretty much slept through the week, missing our column deadline, and woke up just a few hours ago in time to get in something of a preview for this weekend here in the city that oversleeps. Rebounding from a week that was really no great shakes here in Worcester musically the clubs this weekend have all sorts of great ear candy coming your way.

Tammany Hall has a great show on Friday with Uncle Billy’s Smokehouse who return to Worcester fresh off their appearance at Voodoo Fest in New Orleans. They are joined by The Howl who made some noise of their own this week being nominated for a Boston Music Award for best blues act.

On Saturday The Lucky Dog welcomes 2007 WBCN Rock N Roll Rumble winners Township to their stage for what should be a great show of new sounds mixed with old classic rock. Township is one of the true great “rock” bands out there right now and if you are a fan of live rock music you should be at the Dog on Saturday. It’s a treat to have them in Worcester.

Across town at Ralph’s Saturday is another chapter in the ongoing Invictus music festival which has been presenting great shows here in Worcester at venues such as Ralph’s and Tammany Hall as well as up the Pike in Boston at places like Church. Tonight it’s The cd release party for The Wandas who are joined by HO-AG and Necktie Party. Noise experimenters HO-AG in particular are of note due to the major inroads they have been making nationally over the past couple years.

Of course the coming week marks the start of the holiday season where from now until the 1st of January the weekend and weekdays start to blur a little bit. You can kick off the holidays right on Wednesday night at the Lucky Dog with the tried and true bill of Huck and the Curtain Society who will help you show up at Grandma’s the next day for turkey just a little bug eyed and with a stamp still on your hand.

So let’s not sleep on this weekend Worcester. It’s going to be a good one.

How dark is the future of Worcester journalism?

I hope it’s not that dark.

You probably know that the business model behind print journalism doesn’t work anymore, and that around Worcester print journalism does the heavy lifting–nobody covers the day-to-day of government, crime, schools, and local sports like the T&G.

There are various theories of how a mixture of people screwing around on the net (blogging, Digging, etc.), nonprofits, and the occasional independent pro will form into a very different, but similarly useful, ecosystem of news.

Is it happening around here? Is it even close to happening?

A couple days this week, I will attempt a roundup of the day’s news, features, and photos using online sources (that are not telegram.com). My guess is that we’re 0.1% of the way there, but we’ll see.

If you have any suggestions, or are trying something like this on your own, post a comment or e-mail me; I’d be happy to promote your efforts as much as my own.

Worcestershire Journal - Bits for those who ramble

Last week, I wrote about visiting my wife’s cousin in Rochester. A bunch of years ago, my brother and I traveled the same road. We planned to visit a draft-dodger friend of his in Toronto. We decided, geniuses that we were, that we’d hitchhike to Toronto. In January.

It was cold when we started and got colder as the day progressed. We made it to Albany by dark and then rode in a van full of hippies to Rochester. They dropped us off at the ramp to the New York Thruway shortly before 11PM. And there we stood. In Rochester. In January. It was probably 0°F. It warmed up around dawn, warmed up enough to start snowing.

At that, we gave up and started walking into town. A short distance from the Thruway, we found a Ramada Inn. We walked in to the lobby, planning to use the phone to see about a bus that would take us to Toronto. The hotel manager was very kind. He gave us coffee and let us warm up a bit before heading on our way. To this day, I remember that simple act of decency, letting a couple of cold fools hang out in the lobby until we could catch a bus and ramble on.

It was important to hobos of old to leave a record of what they found, noting places where people were kind, helpful, or troublesome. They left marks on fences, sidewalks, or roads, a rich language of glyphs that told the next traveler whether to stop in a place or keep moving.

These days, nerdly hobos wander the streets in search of nourishment even more essential than a ham sandwich or glass of milk. They’re looking for wi-fi, free wi-fi, of course. It’s called wardriving, if you’re in a car, and warwalking if you’re afoot. With various gadgets, such as iPhones, netbooks, or scanners, they roam our streets, looking for unprotected wireless networks. It turns out that, at least in some places, they don’t have to look very hard.

On a walk around one of our towns, you can find that nearly the whole distance was covered by some wireless network. About half the time, the network was unprotected, meaning that there was no password or encryption. The networks retained their default names, such as Linksys or default. It’s as though you left your front door wide open and a sign on the refrigerator that said, “Take what you need.”

You shouldn’t try any passwords on any of the protected networks (the moral equivalent of checking to see if a door is unlocked), but I’m gonna guess that more than a few of them retained the default passwords. Had you been following hobo tradition, you would have left marks on the sidewalk to show what you’d found, a practice known as warchalking. There is such an abundance of open wi-fi that it isn’t necessary to mark the way. Maybe the network owners were being kindly to the wandering geeks or maybe they’re being lazy or naïve. Anyway, it’s getting cold, too cold to stand on street, even if the wi-fi is free. I’ve been cold and on the road before and I’ve had enough.

This Week at The Hanover Theatre

The stage at The Hanover Theatre has been pretty busy as of late, this past Sunday the famed Irish Tenor Ronan Tynan took to the stage and filled the theatre with song. This weekend that duty will be left up to Lowell native Jon Abrams who will be performing as the lead singer and Piano Man in the touring production of Movin’ Out. This Twyla Tharp conceived production of more than 20 Billy Joel classics set to dance, rolls into Worcester for 3 shows, Friday night at 8 p.m. and 2 shows on Saturday, a 2 p.m. matinee as well as an evening show at 8 p.m.

But before the Piano Man sings us a song over the weekend NBC Last Comic Standing tour hits the stage on Thursday evening at 7:30 p.m. The tour will be criss crossing the country for the next few months and features the top 5 finalists of the most recent season of the Last Comic Standing reality show. The top 5 comedians who will be gracing the stage are Louis Ramey, Jim Tavare, Jeff Dye, Marcus and Iliza Shlesinger. Prime time network tv is a far too homogenized for true standup comedy so it will be interesting to see how far (if at all) these comedians push the envelope when the censors aren’t watching.

All in all not a bad slate of events at The Hanover. Real Worcester will be attending each of these shows and will report back with the details.

For tickets click here.

WRT-Hey! That’s My Bus!

By: Katy

If you live in the city chances are that you have seen or ridden one of the newly decorated WRTA buses. Many people are very anxious to ride the city bus for the first time.

Usually, these people should not have anything to worry about. The city bus drivers are helpful and personable and they are always willing to assist someone with their trip. Sometimes, sitting on a bus full of strangers can be frightening. But really, other people’s quirks can be quite interesting. For instance, you may be on the bus with the man who pulls the yellow line at every chance he gets because he thinks that he has missed his stop. Bus driver, Tommy Levesque tells his friends a story about a man who comes on his bus and leaves his coffee cup ¾ of the way full and pokes holes in the bottom before he leaves so it will leak all over the back of the bus.

Missing the bus is also a worry that first time riders have. The key is to arrive five minuets before your bus is scheduled to come. To find bus routes and times, visit the RTA. When taking a new bus route, familiarize yourself with where you need to get off. Picking a specific landmark such as a restaurant or a street sign is always helpful when you are afraid that you may miss your stop. If you have never been around the area where you need to go to, the bus driver is full of knowledge about his or her route. If the bus is ever late, it is not advised to get into an argument with the bus driver, there may have been an accident or traffic back up that the bus was unable to get through.

The Worcester Regional Transit Authority is the second largest Transit system in the state. 75 percent of the cost of service is provided by the state of Massachusetts. The buses are handicapped accessible and economical, only charging in zone one areas, a fare of $ 1.25 for adults and $ 0.60 for children ages 5-13. Any children under the age of 5 can ride for free. There are four zones and they are sectioned by the destination traveled. Zone one is travel within one city or town border, Zone 2 crosses one border, Zone three crosses two borders and Zone four crosses three city or town borders. All of the prices can be found on the WRTA website under the fares tab.

Buses are a convenient way to travel, they save money on gas, and they are good for the environment. Being a first time rider should never hinder someone from taking the bus. The bus is the cheapest and most handy form of public transportation with twenty-three fixed routes.

Katy is part of the Youth Academy at Dynamy, and is a regular WRTA customer. (The opinions and ideas expressed in this article are the sole thoughts of the author(s) and therefore do not represent Dynamy, Real Worcester, or any related person or organization).

Photo Credit: WRTA by TAYLORxoTRAGEDY