RTF 316 Early Times Kevin Ludlow Extra Credit Paper III Early Times RTF 316 History of Radio and Television Amanda Lotz December 3 1998 It is not often that I get the chance to talk to my 74 year old grandmother about anything that interests her so she was delighted to be asked about the radio She was born sometime in 1925 and has a recalled listening to radio broadcasts ever since she was a young girl I first asked her simply what it was like listening to the radio and her responses were certainly much more positive then mind towards radio My grandmother explained to me how although they were listening to the radio it was so similar to watching television but at the same time better She told me how the front of the radio had a large fuzzy screen on it that was often stared at like a picture was inside of it The best part of course was that it was all in the imagination She and her brothers would sit in front of the radio and stare at the blank screen imagining that there were really actors there to watch No matter what kind of show they were listening to they were always able to come up with a visual story to follow along with in their heads At times certain stories could stretch the images in their mind much more elaborately then today s greatest special effects can One of the biggest problems that they had was being allowed to listen to the shows that they wanted to She explained to me how the content of many programs restricted them from listening in on the radio Although we would probably view such content now as children s programming back in the 30 s she explained such content was much more regarded by parents Amongst her favorite programs was Tom Mix who was a movie star back then He played the role of a cowboy on the radio and was apparently quite popular The Lone Ranger was also a program that was broadcast in her household during that time period One of both my grandmother and grandfather s favorite programs was Jack Armstrong The American Boy which at that time which was sponsored by Wheaties I asked her if she recalled any comic shows that she may have watched during the time period and she told me about Eddie Couter He was a comic on the radio around the middle 1930 s to early 1940 s He was a household favorite as well On the weekends the radio was used more as what we understand today It simply broadcast musical programs during the peak hours of the day She recalled listening to the Metropolitan Opera every Saturday afternoon from 1 00 in the afternoon to about 4 00 in the afternoon They would broadcast whatever was being played that day at the Metropolitan Opera House On Sunday s she would tune into the Firestone Hour which was a musical broadcast sponsored by Firestone tires In order to gain a common point with my grandmother I asked her if she ever listened to the Orson Welles show She jumped into stories of him very quickly of how her and her brothers used to listen to his show weekly I proceeded to ask her about the infamous War of the Worlds she of course had heard it She explained to me that she remembered that October day very well Growing up in New Jersey the show was focused right around town She explained to me that she understood that it was only a show and that aliens were not really taking over the planet However at the same time she remembers being very frightened because of the incredible realism that Orson Welles used for that time My grandmother also recalled how the radio station got hundreds of calls the next day and how the newspapers made such an incredible ordeal over it because of the panic that it had caused Although the radio had always been a part of my grandmother s life she remembers when those days started to slow down In the early 50 s her father went out and bought a Muntz television set from the popular salesman Mad Man Muntz It was a simple black and white television and best of all it was brand new After that the radio started transforming into what it is today Radio shows slowly began to cease and musical broadcasts became more common

The Wire photo 270593 740 200 right The Wire br Final Season Box photo After years of having this show on my list I finally started and quickly completed The Wire Needless to say the show definitely lives up to the hype that it s been given by the world The characters are fantastic and the story is deep But there s also an element to the show rather atypical to most writing styles of today The Wire does an amazing job at telling a balanced view of society up and down the socioeconomic ladder At first it seems the show is simply about homicide detectives trying to bust up dangerous drug rings for murdering people But this is only at first glance It doesn t take long before the viewer is completely immersed in so many facets of real life that it becomes impossible to take one side or another Everything that happens is well justified it s just a matter of perspective There s no one stereotype applied to any of the characters because just like real life they all have their own unique perspective views and talents to offer the world or at least the story in this case The show is not a typical dichotomy of good versus bad Rather it s a well told story about the human condition and how a handful of misunderstood social problems are essentially destroying the United States and likely other parts of the world In my own opinion this destruction is mostly because the topics em are em so misunderstood I like to think the show brings some clarity to them to the viewer Regardless it s a wonderful show and I would highly recommend it On the scale of my favorite television dramas I d have to rank it behind Breaking Bad Battlestar Galactica and probably Game of Thrones pending the next three seasons But it definitely deserves to be seated in the top 5 best shows I ve seen

The Ginny I photo 298327 294557 300 right Showcasing the completed Ginny I photo The Ginny I is the loving name that I gave to the most recent rocket I built Caroline s family enjoys building homemade rockets filling them with a variety of flammable powders gunpowder phosphorus etc and setting them to launch I didn t build mine to blow up but instead to fly with some level of precision Unfortunately I didn t quite have the right engine for the job but it did manage to fly three different times The third time I knew it wasn t going to end well since we only had an E12 8 engine left The 8 designates the amount of time needed for the ejection stage to occur triggering my parachute It crashed long before that 8 seconds was up Here are the videos iframe width 520 height 390 src http www youtube com embed q5kWeTsAe98 frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe iframe width 521 height 293 src http www youtube com embed Xt6wma8Zn8c frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe If you re interested in building a rocket like this here is a rough approximation of the costs ul li Body 3 diameter postage tube from Office Depot br About 7 00 for a pack of two li li Nosecone paper m ch from Michael s trimmed to size br About 3 50 for one li li Fins 1 4 basswood from Michael s br One sheet for about 3 50 plenty for all fins li li Launch Lugs plastic shell remnants of firecracker 2 were used for stability br Free li li Parachute made from aluminum like wrapping paper with hearty rope tied to corners br About 1 00 li li Spray Paint red and black spray paint for the final look br About 3 50 each can li li Engine Mount shaped from postal tube ends li ul So the rocket only cost about 18 50 to build from scratch about 11 50 if you exclude the paint job Far cheaper than most of the sets you ll find in the store

Seats are Finally Done It s been a couple of months since I ve last made any updates to the bus but this is a pretty big one Now that I ve gotten some work to slow down have published my book have released my book have the podcast running strong and am headed into the holiday season I thought it was high time to get back onto the bus project Over the past couple of days I fully built out the seats They were framed bolted and had plywood attached All that s left to do on them is foam them and stretch over the vinyl photo 299028 258221 0 center One of the frames already built out photo photo 299038 258221 0 center Jigsawing some of the wood for the seat backs photo photo 299052 258221 0 center A nice view of the seat backs in place You might notice that there is some slight variance to the height This is not a problem as I will just jigsaw it off and of course it s all being wrapped with foam and vinyl photo

A New Experiment photo 300755 740 300 right Some random yoga art to make the post more interesting photo This is definitely not the type of post that I am accustomed to writing but after neglecting my blog for many weeks now I wanted to start off with something entirely out of the ordinary After years of fighting it I finally gave yoga an honest go Of course wouldn t you know I really enjoy it I ve had many people over the years ask me to try it with them and I ve never even considered it I even dated a yoga instructor once and still wasn t convinced I thought it was time for a new physical experiment A number of friends actually suggested that I try the hot yoga bikram I believe it s called as a way to clear my head and gain a little peace with the world While it didn t really work for that purpose I did very quickly discover that the endurance balance strength and flexibility training was well worth my time I really do enjoy being in shape I just need to be motivated I showed up for a 90 minute hot yoga class a few weeks ago Ten minutes into it I was positive I was going to throw up briefly pass out and definitely not complete the next 80 minutes Ten minutes after that I caught my breath and figured if the other 30 people could do it I could too I worked it as hard as I could When the instructor later found out after class that it was my first class ever she was visibly impressed that I was able to perform all of the postures and was pretty surprised I d started with their hardest class Since I like to be good at things that was motivation enough I ve only missed class when traveling and it s been working wonders on my body I started 2013 off about 14 pounds lighter than usual thanks to a spectacular Christmas diet I think the first few yoga classes probably sweat off another pound or two but I ve been steadily increasing my weight since then my muscles are already coming back in full force The 90 minute class really does work every muscle group of one s body As someone who suffers from really bad back and neck pains I ll be curious to see if it s able to mend those areas a little bit I can already see my leg muscles toning can feel all of my abs and my lower back and shoulders are developing all sorts of new muscles I m not sure are supposed to be part of the human anatomy at least not mine So overall I d like to give hot yoga a glowing endorsement In hindsight I do wish I had tried it many years earlier and regret not doing so with people who asked me to join them over the years But at least now I know it s something to be taken seriously Admittedly I could do without some of the hippie verbiage and ridiculous breathing noises that come along with it but it s a small price to endure for the payoff Also I would estimate about an 8 to 1 female to male ratio per class And of that one male at least a quarter of them are gay So that s always an additional point of consideration for people

R I P Party Bus photo 300770 258221 260 right The specially rigged up driver s seat photo One of the things I ve desperately needed to take care of this year has been the removal of a giant bus on my driveway I had really great intentions for starting the project last April It wasn t too expensive I thought it would help someone gain consistent income and I also thought it would be a fun project to share working outside drinking beer wood working etc While some of that proved to be true I d have to say that overall it was an abysmal failure Worse is that I ve been left to consider this abysmal failure virtually every time I arrive at my house I figured that I d have to fix the driver s seat before I could sell it but a few people convinced me that probably wasn t the case So after typing up the story of the bus on Craigslist and letting people know I was just trying to get back what I put into it I found a handful of buyers Thankfully one of those buyers purchased it this morning and drove it off The moral of this entire story is that projects are fun But if you re going to start a project with someone make sure that someone really wants to do the project with you All you really have to do is ask Sometimes failing to do so will leave you with a 10 500 lb vehicle that really only serves to explain what house is yours on the block photo 300765 258221 0 center My view of the bus as it drove off my block photo photo 300767 258221 0 center The first time my truck has ever been parked in my driveway photo

My Magical Birthday Present For my recent 34th birthday a friend of mine got me what may very well be the coolest birthday present I ve ever received She asked me if I wanted to join her for a drink on the Sunday after my birthday up at the Iron Cactus a local Austin Mexican restaurant with a sizable bar I said I d love to and showed up at the requested time The place was completely empty save for the bartender and maybe 3 other patrons We had a drink or three and before long I noticed a guy moseying around the bar wearing all black He greeted the few other people in the bar before coming up to the two of us and introducing himself I was a little caught off guard but he soon introduced himself as a magician who frequented the Iron Cactus and asked if he could perform some illusions for us I excitedly told him he absolutely could and that I loved magic He began his little show They were really really good In fact he was just an all around spectacular performer and I was shocked that this guy would be doing rounds at a nearly empty bar After two or three different feats he apologized and asked if he was interrupting anything I told him no and that the lady sitting with me thoroughly enjoyed magic as well He continued After two more illusions both which were even more phenomenal than the previous ones he started chuckling a bit and asked my friend if he could tell me I had absolutely no idea what was going on here Once the wheels started turning I look over to her and exclaimed You got me a magician for my birthday At this point the magician chimed in and pointed out that not only did she get me a personal magic show but for the next hour and a half a href http www codyfisher com Cody the Magician a would be showing me HOW to perform the illusions he had just performed for us I was truly overjoyed with this as I have always wanted to learn how to perform some basic magic It was just awesome and I could not have been more surprised I even got to have an intelligent conversation with him about some of my world favorites most notably Derren Brown Ricky Jay and Jason Latimir Once he left we practiced one of the card tricks for about an hour before heading off to a party Twenty minutes in we performed that card trick to a handful of people and left them completely stunned I have now successfully pulled off ONE impressive card trick

A View from the Top photo 25644 631 0 right The boom crane fully extended on the property photo In an effort to get an idea of just what the view from the top of the building might look like Preston and I rented a cherry picker for the day technically called a Boom Crane and took some panorama pictures from the potential footprint of the building In the winter time it s usually pretty easy to see parts of downtown Austin through the trees namely since the leaves die off In the summer however it s a bit more difficult as the foliage is much thicker The entire boom crane was designed to be a tow able trailer so it wasn t particularly difficult getting it out there Once you have it in the place you want it it has to be disconnected from the trailer hitch and then set this is really the only time consuming piece of getting it going To set it up there is a controller that slowly lowers the hydraulic legs on all four corners As they start to settle on the ground a computer senses to ensure that the machine is properly balanced From there you just climb into the basket and start hoisting it up in the air one part of the crane at a time I d estimate it takes a little over one minute to get all the way up photo 25430 631 0 right Looking down from the basket 34 in the air photo I rented the machine from my usual heavy equipment rental facility Rent Equip up in North Austin They re always incredibly helpful and friendly and were even willing to refund my full day rental when I only wound up using it for 4 hours what they constitute a half day The four hour rental was 100 00 the full day would including overnight would have cost 150 00 Although I am not afraid of heights at all I fly planes it turns out that I am terrified of being in a small metal basket 35 feet above the ground in heavy varying winds This was exacerbated by the fact that the boom was setup on dirt making me think it was that much less stable Preston by stark contrast was happy as all could be spinning around in it fully extended You can see from the pics on the right what the apparatus looks like fully extended It may not look all that high but I can assure you that once you re up in the air it feels pretty high The top of the building itself will only be used for mechanical purposes air conditioning additional solar hookups water collection and etc but it s nice to see such a view nevertheless photo 311711 311912 0 center A panorama from the top of the crane If you click on the image you can get a good feel for what it s like up there looking towards the city photo

ATPE Endorsement Response photo 319825 740 0 right Association of Texas Professional Educators photo On January 9th 2014 I received an email from the Association of Texas Professional Educators a href http www teachthevote org http www teachthevote org a The email read as follows div style clear both font size 12px font style italic padding left 20px border 1px solid cccccc background color eeeeee Dear Kevin Ludlow The Association of Texas Professional Educators ATPE invites you to take part in our 2014 candidate survey With more than 100 000 members ATPE is the largest educator group in Texas and the largest nonunion educator group in the nation Our membership consists primarily of public school classroom teachers but also includes administrators paraprofessionals future educators retired educators and public members ATPE does not endorse candidates but we do encourage our members and the public to enthusiastically support those candidates who place a priority on public education To help Texas voters learn more about candidates stances on education issues ATPE sponsors a nonpartisan advocacy website TeachtheVote org that features profiles of every Texas House of Representatives Senate and State Board of Education SBOE candidate or officeholder The website is accessible to the general public and also houses the Teach the Vote blog which offers education news resources for voters and general information about education related politics If you choose to participate in our candidate survey your responses will be posted on TeachtheVote org and will not be edited We hope you will take advantage of this unique opportunity to communicate your views on public education to a vast audience div ol li strong Is there a need to increase funding to meet the needs of our student population If so how would you recommend securing more revenue for public education strong br No I do not believe there is a need to increase the funding to meet the needs of our student population There is however a great need to streamline costs and to cut wasted spending In my experience both as a student and observer of the public education system much of this waste can be found in administration boards and other bureaucratic educational positions that receive bloated public salaries and provide little to no value towards actual education Secondary to this would be properly utilizing technologies to streamline the costs of books papers and student administration li li strong Regardless of the level of funding do you believe that Texas public education dollars are being spent in an appropriate manner or should the funds be reallocated and spent in different ways strong br No I do not I believe that dollars in public education are largely being used to fund an enormous bureaucracy that benefits high level positions in education while ignoring the basic needs of students and teachers Funds should be allocated towards teacher salaries teaching tools a wide spectrum of academic studies eg arts trades music etc and proper nutrition li li strong Would you vote to spend public tax dollars on a voucher tax credit or scholarship that allows students to attend non public schools in grades K 12 Why or why not strong br While I would ideally like to reduce the amount of tax dollars necessary for education in the first place so long as we re arguing mid stream yes I would vote in favor of this The educational path of any student should be up to the parents of the student and the student him or herself not the state of Texas and certainly not the federal government There is no justifiable reason why parents who send their children to private institutions should not be reimbursed the same level of funding that they are otherwise being forced to spend by taxation to send their children to a public school li li strong Do you believe the Teacher Retirement System TRS should be maintained as a traditional defined benefit pension plan for all future current and retired educators or would you vote to convert TRS to a defined contribution plan that is more like a 401 k in which future benefits are not guaranteed Why strong br Since I am not a teacher I do not have a strong opinion one way or the other in this matter My understanding of the TRS from teachers who are economically informed is that it is run well If teachers are happy with their pension program I don t see any reason to change it li li strong Local decisions on whether to continue a teacher s employment and how much to pay each teacher are often based on evaluations To what extent if any should a teacher s evaluation be based on his students scores on state standardized tests If you believe student test scores should factor into a teacher s evaluation how would you recommend evaluating teachers in grades or subjects for which there are no state standardized tests strong br The current methodologies behind standardized testing are a travesty to the educational process They allow lazy and incompetent teachers to remain in place teaching material they may have no real comprehension of in the first place while at best ignoring and at worst penalizing the efforts of truly wonderful and gifted educators I believe evaluations should be made by highly competent overseers and should be based on criteria far beyond that of standardized testing In my opinion a teacher who is able to connect with a student is worth far more to that student than one who simply forces him or her to memorize a packet full of useless sample testing questions li li strong Would you vote to maintain a hard cap on the number of students per class or should school administrators be given more flexibility to increase class sizes Currently the law imposes a cap of 22 1 in grades K 4 but allows schools to obtain a waiver a step many of them routinely take strong br Specifically as I am in favor of vouchers administrators should be given the flexibility to run a school as they best see fit without nuanced ratios and state based calculations While I am sure such ratios are very well intended they simply can t account for the actual needs of the school li li strong If a public school in your district failed to meet state accountability standards for two or more consecutive years would you support allowing a private entity to take over the management of that school essentially converting it to a charter school strong br No While I am fully in favor of private schools so long as public dollars are being used to manage a school I am not in favor of mixing entities and otherwise paving the road for the government to pick their favorite private entities Private entities ought to be chosen by the marketplace and are ultimately a function of their successes or failures for that matter li li strong Do you believe charter schools in Texas have been largely successful Should their presence be expanded Why or why not strong br I m not familiar with data on this topic but I am sure such data exists to illustrate the successes and failures of charter schools That said and because they re ultimately privatized institutions I can see no reason why they should not be expanded if people are interested in expanding them li li strong You may use the space below to provide additional comments strong br It would be nice if more than the Republicans and Democrats were represented in the party affiliation section li ol

Off loading Terabytes of Videos to YouTube photo 595326 740 0 right The YouTube Logo photo When I first sat out to design and build kevinludlow com I did so under the impression that it wouldn t be long before every single thing that we had was digitally catalogued I did so under the impression that it would become increasingly more difficult to protect oneself from having information digitally catalogued I m not referring to police records and tax documents I m referring to that picture of you where you ve had six too many to drink your eyes are bloodshot and there s still some puke running down your lip from when you last vomited These are moments that we try dearly to make disappear but they re not going to disappear The second an iPhone or Android snaps a picture like that not only is the content saved in an archive forever yes even if you delete it but the META data attached to the photo is frightening There is a full story of exactly where you were what you were doing how long you were there for and everything else in between included in that META data I wouldn t exactly say that my attitude followed the old clich of If you can t beat em join em but it was along those lines The idea of my website was that if this is where we re headed then perhaps it s just best to embrace those moments and own them as your own So what if I had too many to drink one night It happens If anybody is going to own a picture of that moment I m going to I m going to be the one to make it publicly accessible for all to see If someone should ever try to use it against me I m going to politely remind them that they got the image from my own personal archive There s a power to this and I encourage everyone to embrace it That s the back story Along with that has come hundreds of hours of video footage that I ve recorded over my lifetime FINALLY I have finished the segment of my site whereby I can archive all of my video footage not only on my own personal website but on YouTube Google like with most of their tools has created a wonderful API for connecting with your YouTube channel and uploading videos to it I ve taken full advantage of this and in the past month or so have uploaded about 1 500 videos to their service as part of the initial experiment Now that I finally have the tools to do it I probably have 200 300 more hours of video that I will fully digitize and send to YouTube My process is simple I start by placing all of my media content in the regular directory it falls on within my server Think of it like a giant iPhoto gallery It s just an enormous directory tree with about 90 000 unique memories in it as of this writing From there my servers run a series of automated processes that I ve developed over the years Photos are converted into different sizes and resolutions as needed by my software package Videos are converted into OGG format open source video for the web so that I can display them using HTML5 on this site Thumbnails from the videos are automatically extracted and organized Each entity that is created within my system is given a unique ID and catalogued within my database There is a lookup table that will cross reference any of these unique IDs in the entire system with a specific file type photo video etc Focusing solely on the videos at this point in my process there exist videos on my server that have thumbnails that have been converted to a useful and view able web format but that lack any titles or description I quickly scroll over the video provide it with a title and a description and so long as I m okay archiving it within YouTube I check a box and it gets marked for upload A standard CRON job on my server is routinely scanning the database for videos that have been approved but not yet uploaded Once it finds such a video the YouTube API is invoked and the video gets uploaded to YouTube All of the information about the video that has been populated in my database such as the title and description is sent over with the video for YouTube to archive The date time that the video goes over is logged in my database as is the unique video code that YouTube provides From there I can reference any video in my personal catalogue by looking up the YouTube ID myself While I ve not yet configured the videos as a YouTube plugin on the site this is the obvious next step Not only does it take cost off of my server but YouTube s servers are likely significantly faster than mine That s the gist of how it works I ve wanted to do this for about 7 years now I m delighted to have finally finished the coding that makes it work Incidentally if you a href https www youtube com user kevludlow go to my YouTube channel a you find thousands of videos all of which originated on this site