Tom Benjamin’s NHL Weblog: The Unforeseen

Tom Benjamin’s NHL Weblog: The Unforeseen:

Today, in the third season after the lockout that changed so many facets of the game, the NHL finds its popularity waning in three of its gold star American markets: Detroit, Dallas and Colorado…

…a disturbing trend has emerged from the myriad rule, schedule and economic changes foisted upon fans after a year without hockey. That is an erosion of three of the dominant American markets of the last decade, the collateral damage of a new economy that nobody saw coming in Dallas, Colorado and Detroit.

But it was foreseen and people did recognized the possibility of collateral damage in the three successful American markets. It was one of the dozens of possible scenarios discussed on this site during the labour dispute. Snafu – a regular contributor and Red Wing fan – considered this to be a likely result of the lockout and new CBA.

And if you ask me, it’s not even remotely proven that the CBA is the primary cause of it.

It needs to be remembered that attendance is cyclic anyway. All three of these teams are at the end of a cycle where they’ve been a dominant, successful team with marquee Hall of Fame caliber players. In Detroit, Yzerman’s gone, Hasek might as well be, Shanahan is in Detroit. In Colorado, no more Roy, no more Forsberg. In Dallas, many of the names the fans were used to are gone, and the big name, Modano, is fading rapidly to black (and was jerked around gracelessly by the team when they stripped him of the “C”).

Both Dallas and Colorado were handed shiny brand new teams already finished and competitive and winning — it was fairly easy for the fan base to buy into that, unlike a traditional expansion franchise like San Jose or Tampa or Atlanta. Those teams have never HAD down cycles where they’ve had to rebuild through youth and have a couple of down years as a result. We don’t know what the fans will do when the team is mediocre, but we’re going to find out. If you look at the history of almost every team in any sports league — that always means reduced fan interest and fewer tickets sold. That’s natural (except in Toronto, where there are simply too many fans clawing for too expensive tickets)

Also, let’s not forget that Detroit has been seriously jacking up prices over the years — and the local economy has hit a serious air pocket. They’ve finally found, the hard way, the point at which people say “love hockey, gotta pay the rent”. Dallas is in a similar situation, and let’s not forget a few years ago they moved into a new building and jacked up ticket prices in a major way when they did. When you’re challenging for a Cup every year, you can raise prices — but will the fans stay when you become merely decent?

All of this hand-wringing about these franchises ignores a lot of factors, some out of the team control (local economy), some within (arrogance towards the fans in Detroit, for instance), and the natural cycle. To blame this on the CBA is silly.

It also ignores the fact that in other cities, you’re seeing teams that were in serious down cycles show a resurgence. Look at Chicago (finally!), look at St. Louis.

Back before the current Red Wing owners bought the team, we should remember that Detroit struggled to win and struggled to sell tickets — while Chicago was a strong team with a full building. Then the Wings got a new owner who rebuilt the team and funded a better team and marketed it well, while Chicago stagnated, moved into a new building fans hated, had lousy teams and an owner that was arrogant towards its fans, and the fans ran away in droves. Now, the Wings are showing the signs of arrogance, and the new Wirtz in town seems to be a real breath of fresh air in Chicago, long needed.

It seems that Spector and Tom are arguing that a team that is good should ALWAYS be good, and the CBA should somehow be structured to support that. That would imply that the other teams in the league should always be weak; this is a variation of the “New York should always be in the playoffs to keep the networks happy” argument.

And that’s false. the CBA should be set up to allow good management to succeed in whatever market, and no CBA can prevent economic collapse in a team’s city, or save bad management from itself — unless you want to go back to a model where the rich teams could spend whatever they want to buy themselves out of mistakes, but that leads to leagues where half the league is really a minor league system for the “real” teams (ask the Kansas City Royals fans; both of them).

Spector and Tom are taking part of what is the natural life cycle of teams and blaming the CBA for what is three teams coming to the end of a nice, long run — and in the case of Detroit, shooting itself in the foot along the way with pricing in the face of a weak local economy. If the CBA is to blame for anything, it’s that it no longer allows a team like Detroit to simply buy a team, it has to now go out and build one again. At the same time, that CBA is allowing teams like Chicago and Philly and the Islanders and St. Louis and even places like Columbus and Atlanta to improve their teams and become competitive quickly.

To me, the CBA is a GOOD THING here; instead of certain teams being able to guarantee their dominance, all teams now have a chance — and that’s good, unless you want to believe in a league where six or eight teams are the “real” teams and the rest are cannon fodder. One could in fact make an argument that part of the reason this league hasn’t broken out of “regional sports” mode is because the old CBA made it hard for teams that weren’t already able to spend lots of money on teams to build teams to compete with the “powerhouses” — and now, they can, and teams like the Rangers and Red Wings aren’g going to be guaranteed playoff spots or high performing teams just because they can out-spend their peers.

Good teams in Atlanta and Columbus and St. Louis and Tampa will do wonders for growing this league, if the people who deep down inside want this league to contract and crawl back into it’s “traditional” markets of Canada and the Northeast don’t get in the way (again).

Funny thing is, Spector could have written this article five years ago about the death of the Blues, and ten years ago, his “powerhouse” Stars was actually a failing team in Minnesota and many were skeptical of the move to Dallas. And fifteen years ago, it would have been Chicago. But, of course, the real point here is to rip the CBA and Bettman, because that’s what we do. Well, they do.

As always.

Reality is — these up and downs are part of a natural cycle. Good teams stop being good, fan interest wanes. Bad owners struggle, good owners improve, and fan interest comes back. The only real difference in this CBA here is that there’s no longer a guarantee that a deep set of pockets can spend themselves out of bad management decisions, and that is something I find hard to see as a bad thing. Yes, you’re seeing weakness in some markets. But you’re also seeing growth and resurging attendance and interest in others. But mentioning that might weaken the argument, no?

And a happy thanksgiving to you…

Just want to wish everyone out there a happy (U.S.) Thanksgiving. I hope you’re having a wonderful turkey day, and that you’re with those you care about and who are part of your lives.

How time flies when you’re having fun…. A year ago at Thanksgiving, we were preparing to go out for dinner, because Laurie was just out of the hospital and neither of us was really up to or motivated to do much cooking. Tradition is nice, but sometimes, you just want to let someone else screw with the turkey and dressing….

Last Thanksgiving was sort of our first chance to exhale and realize that hopefully the worst was over (and for the most part, it was); in the two months prior, I’d left Apple and then started at StrongMail, Laurie was still interviewing, and then some “bad indian food” turned into a midnight visit from the paramedics and 5AM emergency surgery, followed by more semi-emergency surgery a few days later when things went sour (phone calls you never want to have: “your wife is going into surgery — now. You probably want to be here. Oh, and don’t worry, she’ll be fine…”)

So this year really turned into one about getting back to normal, whatever normal is when I’m involved. Laurie went to Yahoo, where she’s off fighting the good fight and making sure that whenever you want to visit a site like this, you can. She had her final surgery in March, which wasn’t the end of things, but at least it was the beginning of the end of it, but we really spent much of this year working together to get her past all of this and getting our lives back to some semblance of how we want things to be (successfully, I think).

I ended up deciding StrongMail wasn’t right for me — through no fault of theirs, I add. I went back to the plan I had started when I left Apple and took my sabbatical, and a month ago started up with Laszlo Systems; in retrospect, if I’d listened to myself, I could have gotten it right the first time, but I talked myself into making what I thought were good decisions for the wrong reasons — but fortunately, I also was smart enough later to realize it and do the right thing. (but that’s for a different posting, some other time…)

And for me, it definitely was the right thing; a few weeks ago, I woke up and realized I was happy, that I was really satisfied with my life again.

That may sound trivial or silly, but it’s not, and it goes back over four years, to foo camp 1, when I first realized something wasn’t right in my life. While I’ve hinted at it tangentially before, it’s not something you can really talk about until you’re sure you’re through it — and I know I’m finally there. (but again, different posting, some other time).

So the last couple of years was all about putting myself back together and figuring out who I wanted to be, and the last year was also really about supporting Laurie through her challenges and helping her get back to the life she wants. This next year, I hope, is about living the life I’ve come to realize I want and helping Laurie live her life as well, and making the changes we want in our lives to allow us to head into the next ten or twenty years we want to have together.

We just celebrated our 20th anniversary, and Laurie having celebrated one of those important but un-nameable birthdays that have zeroes attached — and realizing just how close we came to having neither — it’s really changed how I view things and how I focus on life. you can get so tied up with work, and so focussed on planning for tomorrow that you don’t realize that today may be it. sometimes tomorrow DOESN’T come. So life has to be a balance between thinking about later but not forgetting to live in now; and that’s a hard lesson to learn, but one you should feel lucky if you avoid learning it the hard way.

And my Thanksgiving thought to all of you is this: think about what the priorities in your life are, who the important people in your life are. Are you putting your time and energy into your life in a way that fits those priorities? Especially here in Silicon Valley, it’s hard to get your priorities screwed up and become emotionally tied in things, especially letting work take over beyond where it should. If you say “your wife” or “your kids” are your real priority, then why in the hell are you missing another soccer practice for that stupid meeting? it’s about understanding your priorities and balancing the challenges of your life to match up with them. It’s easier said than done — it’s very easy to get caught up in the flow and the moment, and think you can get to soccer practice tomorrow.

But what if tomorrow never comes? Don’t think in terms of “what if I lose her tomorrow?”, because down that road lies nothing but unhappiness and worry, but instead consider “if I were to lose here, what do I wish I’d done before it happened?”; and once you figure that out — well, don’t be an idiot, go do it.

Happy thanksgiving to all of you; and may your thanksgiving bring you joy and comfort and the company of those you care about, and may you have that for many years to come.

It’s All Coming Together in Nashville

On the Forecheck: It’s All Coming Together in Nashville – NHL Statistics, Analysis, and Opinion:

So I took my lunch hour today down at the Sommet Center, to witness a press conference/rally to celebrate the new lease agreement struck between the local investors and the mayor of Nashville, Karl Dean. It was a feel-good, backslapping affair that was, frankly, well deserved.

And congrats to everyone involved for making this happen in Nashville. Well done.

This doesn’t mean the problem is solved. It’s not. What it means is that they’ve found a way to give them the ability to solve it, and time to make it happen. There are major issues still there — but this is the foundation for making Nashville work moving into the future. Congrats to them, and I hope it does.

Is Sean Avery good for hockey?

KuklasKorner : Hockey:

A friend of mine (not a Rangers fan) argues that—love him or hate him—Sean Avery is good for hockey in many ways. I’m not always sure, myself… but he certainly does does know how to draw a spotlight.

To a point — they’re right. “Bad boys” are a part of the league, and part of what makes the league interesting. Think about some of them in the NHL’s past:

How about Essa Tikkanen? who do you remember first? Tikkanen? Or Dino Ciccarelli? Chances are, Tikkanen comes to mind first, and he and Ciccarelli were very similar players, but very different personalities…

Claude Lemieux? Theo Fleury? How about Chris Pronger? For as good a defenseman as he is today, isn’t his prime attraction for most fans the ability to boo him? The wondering if he’s going to lose his temper (again) and if he oes, how long he’ll be suspended? Part of his attraction is that he DOES lose it, and always has.

Isn’t that “bad boy” image part of the attraction of the fighters in the league? Bob Probert, for instance.

If you think about it, some of the most famous people in the WWE are the bad boys.

The trick is to play near that line, but not step over. Sharks fans loved to hate Fleury when he came to town. Dallas fans don’t think quite so fondly of Bryan Marchment. Detroit fans (and Chris Draper) don’t send Claude Lemieux christmas cards, I bet.

But the funny thing is, I’m having trouble thinking of a guy who crossed that line on a “league wide” way in the NHL. It’s fairly easy in other sports (Michael Vick, anyone?) but in hockey, it’s tough to think of someone who simply went that sideways — and stayed in the league.

Avery’s definitely had control problems; I think Dean Lombardi did a wonderful job of reigning him in without screwing him up — and then selling him off after he was rehabilitated but before he went sideways again. If you realize that at one point, Avery was kicked off the team and banished, and most of us felt he was through and was going to be given away, that’s a stunning rehabilitation and credit goes to both Lombardi and Avery. But if you watch Avery since he’s gone to the Rangers, you also see that self-control wavering again, and I wonder if he’ll one of these days blow it big-time.

that, frankly, is one of the reasons we pay attention to him; since I’ve been talking about Gaetz the last couple of days, I think it’s the same kind of attraction. Avery is, in his way, a lot like Gaetz: we watch him not just because he’s a decent hockey player and a physical punisher, but because — if we’re honest — we’re wondering if this is the day he loses it, and what’ll happen if he does. And that edge is part of what makes his game effective, but it’s also that edge that makes him an interesting player in the game for fans, and not just another third liner with an edge.

Top 5 shutdown defensemen

KuklasKorner : Hockey:

David Goricki of the Detroit News lists five of the NHL’s top shutdown defensemen…

Nick Lidstrom- Yes

Chris Philips- Yes

Anton Volchenkov- Yes

Brian Rafalski- Huh

Doug Murray- Ah, NO!

Ah, YES! you haven’t been watching him much this season. Murray’s an amazingly better player this season, and he’s been fun to watch. It won’t be long before he’s one of the players OTHER players talk about being nasty to play against, the way they talk about Scott Hannan or Mike Rathje when he was with the Sharks and healthy.

And like Rathje, I doubt Murray will get the respect he deserves from the fans, because his game has turned into one very like Rathje’s — not flashy, not ESPN-clip worthy, but very solid and dependable. The big difference is that Murray is more physical than Rat was, and willing to use his size and strength the way Kyle McClaren does. Rathje was just a kicker of a shutdown defenseman, Murray has turned into that shutdown guy with a physical edge. He looks like he’s very much playing within his game, I don’t expect much of a drop-off as the season goes along.

Will the Kindle succeed?

Backup Brain:

Dori says that she thinks the Amazon Kindle is a bomb, and she thinks that it will flop. Her argument is based mainly on its DRM. I think that it will succeed, become a big business segment for them, and will be the first of a new line. Neither of us has seen or touched one yet.

I straddle the middle line.

First, DRM only matters to the general consumer when it gets in the way of what they want to do. You’ll notice that the DRM on DVD discs or the iPod/iTunes simply doesn’t register with consumers as a problem, because the restrictions aren’t things that affect them in a day to day, practical way; the people bitching about DRM on those platforms tend to be the uber-geeks and the anti-DRM extremists who are off on the edge of the bell curve. 39 trillions songs downloaded from iTunes tells you what “real people” think about iTunes DRM, once you get outside the uber-geek echo chambers.

On the other hand, look at all of those places where DRM has been used to try to force consumers into behaviors they don’t like — like, oh, the old DIVX platform, or music subscription services that don’t let you put your music on MP3 players and carry it around, or when MLB changed its DRM vendor and tried to tell everyone with video under the old DRM “well, sorry. buy it again”. oops.

DRM on the Kindle? We’ll see. If it stays in the background and lets typical users do what they want? It won’t be an issue. My initial thought is that Amazon isn’t stupid, and they understand the consumer, and their DRM restrictions seem to be pretty well thought out for the most part. We’ll see what consumers think.

But does that mean the Kindle will succeed? I’m still unconvinced that people are all that interested in spending that kind of money to carry books around; it’s at best a niche market — me, personally, I have Google Reader on my phone, and while it’s nice owning a hundred books I can carry in my backpack, in practice, I’m only reading one at a time, and a paperback is even more convenient, and I can buy a lot of paperbacks for the cost of the Kindle.

So I don’t think this product is “it”. the streaming content and EVDO make it an interesting device, but I think it’ll fall into a few niches: early adopter geeks who love new gadgets, and people who need to carry a reference library around with them (think O’Reilly safari in a neat little package). that presumes those libraries and books become available for the Kindle, not a guarantee.

But I still think it’s going to miss the mark; it’s not going to convince people like me to replace carrying a paperback, I’m not convinced the online stuff is “enough better” — but I am convinced this kind of product will succeed at some point, and I think Kindle is the first ebook device in years to move this product design forwards towards the product that will ultimately succeed.

Kindle is, for me, the product that for the first time shows how this kind of product WILL succeed. Kindle isn’t, I think, the breakthrough product, though, just the first one that shows some potential on how to build something like this that will break through. They’ve done many things right, including aggressive pricing of books (but not quite down to paperback price) — but I just don’t think we’re ready for this, yet.

But we finally have a serious contender for a “good, commercial, practical” ebook reader. Congrats to Amazon for figuring it out — and frankly, I’m not suprised it was them, but notice it’s not coming from a “high tech” company? Because this is a product driven by consumers, not technology, for however much it depends on technology to be viable. Something high tech companies ought to be thinking about, because they need to get out of their echo chambers — if Apple didn’t prove that, this should.

But I expect Kindle to be at best a moderate success. But I also think that Kindle will be remembered as the product that led to the succcess of this market, where frankly, no previous ebook reader attempt came close. So at that level, it’s already succeeded.

Caps Fire Hanlon, Name Boudreau (with serious digression into Spiders and Sharks history)

Japers’ Rink: Caps Fire Hanlon, Name Boudreau Interim Head Coach:

The Washington Capitals have relieved Glen Hanlon of his coaching duties and named Bruce Boudreau the team’s interim head coach, vice president and general manager George McPhee announced today.

Congrats to Boudreau! In the word of hockey trivia you didn’t know you didn’t know, Boudreau is another of the San Francisco Spiders alumni to actually have a career after working with the team. He was originally hired as an assistant coach under Jean “that’s now how we do it in the NHL” Perron. There was some kind of falling out early, and he was “re-assigned” into a role as a roving scout. What that entailed I was never sure of, other than it seemed to require that he never actually be in the same city as the team for the entire season.

Lucky him, he missed most of the fun watching the team implode…

Yes, the coach of the Spiders for its one year of existence was Jean Perron, former coach of the Montreal Canadiens, and as far as I can tell, the only coach of an NHL hockey team to win a Stanley Cup and get fired before the next season started. His favorite phrase around the Spiders offices seemed to be “that’s now how we do it in the NHL”; to which the general response was “Jean, you’re not in the freaking NHL, or hadn’t you noticed?”

Actually, it was mostly said behind his back. He was a bit…. touchy… to work around based on our discussions with everyone who were in the offices all of the time.

Seeing Boudreau pop up into the NHL again got me thinking about the Spiders and some of the people involved with the team. I found the roster here on hockeydb.com.

The roster is this fascinating mixture of ex-sharks (trying to capitalize on the fans name recognition), career IHLers looking for one last shot, a few youngsters seeing this as a way to push their careers and some projects from the Montreal Canadiens organization that Perron convinced them to let him have.

Link Gaetz (mentioned the other day) was well on his way past his ability to play hockey at a high level, he only suited up for three games. His fight with alcohol in his life is well-known, unfortunately, alcohol kept winning. When he was with the Sharks, he as almost a prototype of the kind of player you now see in the league with Brashear or Laraque — big, bruising, tough and could actually play some pretty decent hockey. When the knuckles weren’t swollen and bleeding, he had pretty decent hands, and could have had a pretty good career. Unfortunately, off-ice he was pretty much a basket case, and when he had the car accident, that pretty much defined his life and ended any serious NHL career change; it happened around 10AM when the car he was in exited the freeway at way too high a speed and lost control. Gaetz was ejected (no seatbelt) and tried to pulp his brain on the asphalt — and almost succeeded. The accident was alcohol-related (yes, that early in the morning), but the alcohol may also have helped Gaetz survive by keeping him limp during the ejection and landing. He was passenger, not driver, by the way. There were questions at the time, given the severity of the brain damage, whether he’d walk again. He did, but his skating was never the same; by the time he was with the Spiders, he simply didn’t have the mobility any more, he was basically a “stand up and swing” type of guy like Dave Brown.

I normally don’t link to fight videos but this one *is* the Linkster; a classic bout between him and Probert at the Cow Palace. Look very closely as Link exits the arena at the end of the clip, and you’ll see Laurie and myself — our seats were right next to the team tunnel.

The stories about Link in San Jose are legion — no other player was such a fan favorite in the early days, or so legendary, and while much of what you hear through the fan grapevine on most players is bullshit, with the Linkster, you could see it happening. It’s not unusual for some players to get a rep for howling at the moon a bit, but Link had the reputation for climbing trees to try to beat the moon up because it was staring at him… The only other player with the Sharks that had that kind of “did you hear what he did this time?” rep among the fan rumor mill was Brent Myhres…

Linkster only played 3 games for the Spiders — and had 38 PIM. That pretty much sums it up.

Sandis Ozolinsh also played for the Spiders; it was the year after the lockout that the Spiders came into existence, and Sandis was holding out for a new contract. He played two games for the team, and scored the first goal in franchise history — then signed a contract with the Sharks, drove south 90 minutes, and suited up in teal again, and scored the Sharks first goal of that season. That’s probably a record that won’t be matched soon…

Other ex-sharks? Dale Craigwell, who was a really promising center for the team early on, until he broke his ankle badly; his major asset was speed, it never fully recovered, and he ended up with the Spiders and played admirably, but he’s another player that injuries hurt a promising career.

Also on the team — Robin Bawa, who also played for the Ducks, and was one of my favorite early Sharks. Not the most talented guy, but was willing to do whatever it took, including fight, although he wasn’t particularly good at it. The kind of lunchbox/character guy teams need. David Maley, who played for the team primarily because he was trying to start up a hockey business in San Jose and wanted the publicity. He’s now a Shark part-time broadcaster when Jamie Baker isn’t in town, and his Rollin’ Ice is doing just fine.

Ed Courtenay was most notable for his lack of speed. One of the most infamous calls in hockey was by Dennis Hull (who did color for the Sharks early on…) when a puck kicked free and Randy Hahn called out “It’s a breakaway!” and Hull responded “No, it’s Courtenay!” — and he was right. He got caught. But Courtenay had a good minor league career, and was closing it out with the Spiders.

Mike Lalor was another guy who wandered through San Jose for a bit, then came back with the Spiders until the Dallas Stars took him on. And Jeff Madill was a Sharks cup of coffee and minor leaguer who came and played for the Spiders. He was one of the team’s clothes-hounds (along with Ian Boyce), and would have given Drew a run for “best dressed” most of the time. He was also the one player who not only was very aware of the photographers around the rink, but would smooth the wrinkles out of his jersey before a faceoff if he thought someone was going to take photos. Seriously. Martha Jenkins (SF Chronicle, SF Giants) was the official team photographer (and hockey seriously scared the crap out of her, I’m not sure she ever got comfortable being inside the glass shooting — don’t blame her, either), but Laurie and I had full press passes, and she did a lot of photography as well — so she got very familiar with Madill’s ability to get in a picture and get out the wrinkles…

Madill finally retired, and last we heard, was selling cars somewhere in the midwest. Good, solid minor league hockey player, and I’ll bet his suits still have no wrinkles….

And that’s probably enough for now, but since I mentioned Laurie’s photography, it means I probably need to write about how she ended up scouting goalies for Ian Boyce, and the night Dan Shank tried to pick her up — while the game was going on.

Ah, the joys of minor league hockey…

The Sharks drinking game..

With a few days off and a holiday looming, what else can we talk about tonight?

Only one thing:

The Sharks Drinking Game.

(passed along to me by a friend who thought I’d get a giggle…)

On the Ethics of Citizen Photo Journalism

Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection: On the Ethics of Citizen Photo Journalism:

I took a photo of the guy crushed under the train but it was pretty gruesome. I’m not sure why I took a photo of the incident other than it was just sort of a gut reaction to shoot anything that possibly could be citizen journalism with my camera.

I was pretty freaked out seeing the guy under the train. Afterwards I thought about publishing the photograph but questioned the journalistic integrity of that. Surely this guy must have family right? And why add to the ugliness in the world by publishing something so terrible. I contacted my friend John Curley who was an editor at the Chronicle for many years and now teaches at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism to ask his opinion. John got back with me and said that the Chronicle would not print such a photograph and so that confirmed what I was feeling and I chose not to publish the photo.

And here’s one of those times when the right thing happened…

John Curley is right here. Way back in the ancient days, when my dad owned the newspaper, he wasn’t just owner, editor and publisher, but one of the photographers. He’d get the late night calls at times and go out to places where things had happened. Sometimes I’d tag along. A few times, when they were out, I’d get out there myself (an interesting situation, showing up at a fatal car crash at 10PM with a camera and press pass — at age 8, with a driver).

In these situations, sensitivity is paramount. You can (and need to) get the story over, but you need to be sensitive to the victim and family, but you ALSO need to be sensitive to your audience. In the case I noted above, it was a car hitting a pedestrian fatality. Not exactly a place for an 8 year old, normally. The photo that ran — was of the damage to the windshield of the car.

You don’t need to get graphic to tell the story. And you can tell the story and still be sensitive to those that the story affects, if you keep in mind the people involved, and not just think about getting the photo.

Sometimes, there are bigger issues than getting the shot.

The Best Thing to Do as a Photographer is to Stick Up for Your Rights

Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection: The Best Thing to Do as a Photographer is to Stick Up for Your Rights:

It takes guts to take a photo of someone when they are pushing themselves on you and stepping all over your rights, but I’m glad Jeremy took the photo above. It helps to get the message out and make the guy above look like an ass. I’m not sure where this is but if I see the same store in my travels out walking I’ll be sure and stop by to shoot a bit there myself.

People like the guy above need to learn that they can’t hassle photographers for doing what is their right to do. And they don’t learn this lesson because 95% of the time people just acquiesce and give into authority that they assume but don’t actually hold.

Here’s a place where I disagree with Thomas Hawk, and I feel he’s doing photography a disservice.

it’s not that he doesn’t have a right to take a photograph; it’s that the subject he’s photographing also has rights here, too, and this is one of those classic cases where rights are in conflict and some judgement needs to be taken to balance those rights.

When Thomas goes up against some corporate dweeb telling him not to take a picture of a building? I’m fully behind him. I think that kind of corporate control is stupid and out of line. But taking a picture of someone who doesn’t want their picture taken? What about his rights to not be hassled, to some privacy, to having some choice here?

Where does this stop? The person in question isn’t part of a news story, so there’s no journalistic “inform the public”. There’s no way any legitimate publishing concern would accept the photo without a model release — and there won’t be one, obviously. It’s not a public figure, so you can’t even make the claims of the paparrazi that the person is in the public interest. This is just, well, because someone wanted to. Even though that person said no.

So, if you can take a picture of someone against their will, where do we draw the line? if Thomas leaves his blinds up, is it okay to take a picture of him through his window while he’s in the shower? Can I start taking pictures of children in the park, even if their parents don’t want me to? How about hidden cameras in store dressing rooms? If the person’s right to privacy doesn’t matter, and if their permission (or revocation of permission) is meaningless, just how far are you willing to go before you start thinking that maybe the subject SHOULD be able to say no?

Frankly, Thomas’ position here is why there are arguments for more restriction, because he’s so focussed on what he CAN do that he’s forgotten the rest of it: whether he should. And they’re very different things. He’s merely thinking of the legalities and what he wants — given there are multiple people involved, waht the OTHER person wants needs to come into play, too.

And since there’s no reason to take this picture (other than “because I can and you can’t stop me”) — no public figure aspect, no journalistic aspect to the picture — there’s no reason to take this picture without the subject’s permission other than ego. And that’s a lousy reason to take it.

Can he take this shot? Sure (and his subject can try to make him eat his camera, too). but should he?

If you ask me, no. A person has a right to NOT be turned into a public event, to not have his picture taken. And I have trouble when people get into a mode of “you can’t keep me from my rights, but I’m going to ignore yours”. Winning in life is doing what is right, not legal, and about finding the appropriate compromises between conflicting sets of rights, not simply demanding your own and denying others.

So in these cases, by demanding their rights, thomas and those like him are doing wrong, for the wrong reasons.

Burke Likes Bears

Tom Benjamin’s NHL Weblog: Burke Likes Bears:

“In those situations a defenseman has two choices right now: He hits the guy or he looks like a fool,” Burke said. “We need to put the third option back into the game.”

I think Burke’s third option is a pretty good idea. Let the defenseman use his arms to ride the player safely into the boards. Obviously, he would have to quickly release the player to avoid a holding penalty, but at least it gives him a play.

It’s worth a try.

This is one of those things I’ve been meaning to comment on — I agree with both Burke and Tom here; it’s a situation where allowing a player the ability to contain a player gives them an option they currently don’t have, which might reduce the need to check them, which seems to be leading to some of these dangerous hits along the board.

The key here is contain — not pin. Just as defenders behind the goal can do, you can hit someone, you can slow them down, but you can’t grab them and stop them. And you shouldn’t NEED to go back to clutch and grab here to be effective, so we need to be careful it doesn’t end up there.

But it’s definitely worth a try.

May we steal your photo please?

dispatches: May we steal your photo please?:

Well, at least they asked.

I got an email today that is edging me closer to pulling all my work off of Flickr. In it, a company, Schmap.com, said that they “selected” one of my photos for the “short-list” for inclusion in their Vancouver Guide. They got the photo off of Flickr. Here’s an excerpt.

“While we offer no payment for publication, many photographers are pleased to submit their photos, as Schmap Guides give their work recognition and wide exposure, and are free of charge to readers. Photos are published at a maximum width of 150 pixels, are clearly attributed, and link to high-resolution originals at Flickr.”

This is a commercial, ad-supported site, that is harvesting free content from Flickr. I declined their generous offer (they included a link and an easy check-box to remove the photos). I think maybe they’re trying to behave ethically in a morally dubious morass.

I just don’t see the problem here.

I’ve had some photos used by Schmap a couple of times (portland and vancouver). They seem completely up-front and above board. Tehy asked, said yes. Doug said no. In my case, they did use them. In Doug’s? they didn’t.

Doug doesn’t want to give away his photos? Great. that’s why they asked, and gave him the option of saying no. he did. Nothing got used until the permission process was finished, it’s not like they published stuff and he asked them to take it down.

So I aren’t a paying market? Lots of non-paying markets would use that as an excuse to not ask — so I don’t see why this is a problem…

Hey, they DID ask. And they listend to the answer. We should be worrying about the places that DON’T do that, not bitching at the ones that do.

Unlike Doug, my stuff on flickr is Creative Commons — which means that practically speaking, in many cases they don’t even have to ask. Yet Schmap did, and so have a number of other organizations recently (including a couple of Audubon chapters, and in the last week, the National Wildlife Federation). for Doug, being a pro, it’s different. For me? it’s a jazz, and beyond that, it’s somewhat of a validation that my photography is moving forward and improving as I work on it.

It’s not like Doug was ripped off. He was merely asked permission. How bad is that?

I just don’t see it…

Messaging, not email

A VC: Messaging, not email:

Coming out of our ‘smtp is dead, long live smtp’ brainstorming session I am thinking that we need to be talking about messaging, not email.

Email is a subset of a much larger messaging market. What we’ve seen over the past 10 years is that internet messaging (primarily text but let’s not make that distinction) has evolved from predominantly email to a host of other systems

We seem to be having yet another round of “email is dead” going on.

Nope. But Fred Wilson has the gist of it here. Email is a protocol, a specific way to communicate. Good communication transcends a protocol (or should), because there are many different needs and priorities to communication.

The reason email is so endemic is because — for about 20 years — it was basically all we had. And so it was made to fit all of those needs, even when it wasn’t really good at doing it. That’s why email on most mobile devices up until the last year or so really sucks — emails a bad model for most of that, and so comes the rise of SMS. On the other side, using email for group discussions REALLY sucks, because the typical email-based mailing list gets way too chatty and email is inherently an interruptive protocol (it comes when IT wants, and you get interrupted and you have to go and decide whether the incoming message warranted being interrupted for; by the time you figure out it’s not, it’s too late). The technologies invented for limiting those interruptions, from digest-formatted mailing lists to mail filters, are all band-aids on the larger problem. That’s why web forums have really supplanted lists, and RSS and other pull technologies are increasingly key in distributing these messages.

And that’s one reason why blogging has succeeded. Can you really imagine being subscribed to, say, 300-400 mailing lists where every time a blogger posts it ends up in your email? Of course not, you’d go crazy. you might want 5 or so KEY blogs in your email, and the rest out of the way until you decide to go visit them.

Which is the key. Email is still a core communications technology. Will be forever, I think. It just won’t be the ONLY one, and “death of email” is a misinterpretation of the fact that communications that aren’t well suited to email are finally moving to other services better designed to distribute them appropriately.

(I’ve talked about this stuff more than once; here are some previous rants: 2003 when RSS was replacing email (hah!) (also here), and 2006 on revamping Yahoogroups)

Update: Mathew Ingram chimed in:

Is email dead? No, but it’s not well – - mathewingram.com/work:

Email may not be dead, but it certainly isn’t looking too healthy, and hasn’t for years. As Zoli points out, the best approach is not to replace email with other things like IM or Facebook messages — which have their own flaws — but to make use of as many different methods as possible, depending on the situation. In some cases a wiki makes more sense, or a Google document, or a live chat, or (God forbid) even a phone call.

That may seem so, but in reality, email isn’t any more challenged than any other tool on the internet, except for the ones so small or so niche that the spammers and crackers don’t bother. The problems with email aren’t email’s problems, but simply the way email makes visible the problem that the internet has in general.

Sports + Money = Less Viewer Choice – Silicon Alley Insider

Sports + Money = Less Viewer Choice – Silicon Alley Insider:

On the road to ubiquitous sports coverage and super-serving the sports fan, there certainly seems to be a few fumbles, interceptions and technical fouls… the NFL has limited its “out of market” package exclusively to one channel (DirectTV) and it’s damn near impossible to watch a Thursday night game on the NFL Network. After years of having no problem watching my alma mater, Michigan, play football on television in NYC, I now have to scramble to find bars that carry the Big Ten Network. What happened to that “any place, any time, anyway…power to the consumer” chant that media executives used to throw around like it was the next verse of “Take Me Out To the Ballgame”?

Simple: saturation.

We need to remember: we aren’t really the customer here. Our eyeballs are what the networks are selling to their advertisers, and the programming is what they use to attach those eyeballs to the advertising. That in some cases they can convince us to PAY a fee to have our eyeballs sold to the advertisers is a bonus.

What the sports networks have found out, not surprisingly, is that it is posssible to saturate the market and we now have so much choice, so many options, that this is putting the squeeze on things. There’s only so much advertising inventory willing to be bought, and so many eyeballs willing to be attached to that programming to sell to the advertisers. Sports fans are only willing (or able) to watch so many games over a period of time, and there are now more options for those eyeballs than eyeballs. Ratings slip, and advertising rates go down (partly because ratings are down, partly because there are more advertising slots being sold than advertisers want to buy, so it’s a buyer’s market, unless it’s a special event of some sort)

So if you’re producing sports and selling advertising, how do you keep your income up? By doing what you can to make sure eyeballs are attached to your program instead of someone else’s program. And one way of doing that is by creating restrictions preventing people from seeing other programming.

Not good for the fans, who want maximum options and maximum flexibility, but then, these people aren’t interested in what you want, really. they are interested in what makes their advertisers happier and gets them more advertising revenue. And so restricting access to other programming to encourage you to watch their programming instead makes sense — to them.

A Potential Simple Method for “Bird-Proofing” Windows

Sibley Guides Notebook: A Potential Simple Method for “Bird-Proofing” Windows:

I live in a house with lots of windows, and I like to keep lots of bird feeders. This is good for me as a birder, but often bad for the birds. Over the years I have tried various methods of making the windows either more visible or less harmful, but sometimes it just doesn’t help. Birds fly very fast and at times (for example, when startled by a predator) will try to fly through things they would normally avoid. Occasionally, Cooper’s and Red-tailed hawks seem to learn that they can pop around the corner of the house, cause a panic at the bird feeder, and then have easy pickings from under the window.

some wonderful ideas for how to avoid birds injuring themselves on your windows. We’re fairly lucky here, we rarely have one hit, but he has some useful techniques minimizing this threat.

We need bigger nets (oh, no we don’t!)

KuklasKorner : Hockey:

“Goalies have to get smaller or the nets have to get larger,” Regier said. “That goalie has to get significantly smaller for the likelihood of an outside shot to go in. If we can’t make the goalies smaller, then I don’t know what other options we have but to consider making the nets larger.”

He added that if the nets get bigger, it must be a significant increase. He argued that just a small bump would put teams into a bigger defensive shell. That’s the leading cause of the scoring dip. Coaches have begun crowding their five skaters near the net, which rids the shooters of their open lanes.

You know, I’d be a lot more sympathetic to this comment if it wasn’t coming from the GM of a team that was really good last year, lost a couple of key players in the off-season, and suddenly finds itself in the lower third of the standings this year. Is the problem really because the league is screwed up and needs bigger nets? Or because the Sabres botched building their team in the offseason? Hmm.

Now, having said that? I think the league is still too defensive, and goaltenders have too much of an advantage — the balance is lost here. Heck, you’re hearing complaints among some San jose fans about Nabokov — and he has three shutouts and a GAA right around 2 (hint to the sharks whiners: it’s NOT THE FREAKING GOALIE that’s the problem)

I’d love to see the league find a way to raise average scoring by about a goal a game; I just don’t want to see it turn into indoor soccer or the old RHI.

I don’t think bigger nets are needed — yet. I’d rather see the league focus on goaltending equipment. I was listening to XM a couple of weeks back and they were talking to Brian Hayward, and he made an interesting comment; talking to one of the young goalies about goalie gear, the goalie said he didn’t want to see equipment reduced because he might get bruised. That made Hayward laugh — in his day as goalie, bruises were the norm.

And THAT is part of the problem I think we can solve. I’m not suggesting we go back to goalies with no helmet and half an inch of foam under the jersey; but goalie equipment has been grown to huge size and with the specific intent of stopping pucks. You want to bring some offense back to the game? Let’s look at what size and protection we need to protect a goalie — and then have the goalie stop the puck. That means figuring out how to shrink leg pads, blockers, shoulder pads and the glove to whatever the smallest size we can make them while still keeping the goalie safe. Well, the occassional bruise is okay, but we don’t want a goalie injured. But if the gear has gotten so big and good that goalies no longer feel the puck, then you might as well stuff a blow up doll in goal with the gear on it, because the gear is doing much of the puck stopping.

you’re not going back to the days of goalies being 5’8″ and out of shape, but you CAN reshape goalie gear so that it’s job is to keep the goalie safe, not to keep the puck out. And I think we should seriously consider that option before growing the net.

ERIC DUHATSCHEK: Speed kills

globeandmail.com: Speed kills:

A nice thought too, on the surface – technologies making hockey better and better, or until you thought it through a little longer. At the highest level, the NHL, do they really need more speed in the game?

Think of it this way: Every week, it seems, there is talk about a new issue causing trouble for the NHL — hits to the head, hits from behind, a fall-off in post-lockout scoring. Everybody tut-tuts about the problem for a time, without coming to a definitive solution – and then the discussion eventually grinds to a halt, when a new cause celebre slips into the headlines.

But what if all these issues were merely symptoms of a larger problem and the root cause was simply too much speed in the game.

Or to put it another way: Maybe it’s time to frame the discussion about what’s going on by asking the question: Is the game of hockey, played at the NHL level, too fast for its own good?

Interesting question, but my answer is “hell, no”. I think the day you start “downgrading” the players through equipment limitations or in other ways is the day you start REALLY killing this sport. This needs to be dealt with in other ways. Larger ice surfaces would be a nice option, but not practical for most teams now.

I do so wish the NHL had been forward-looking when they started the last expansion and the round of building replacements. If they’d allowed teams to build larger ice surfaces while building those new buildings; one of the big things we’ve lost in the last 15 years are these unique buildings and the ability to tailor a team to it — whether it was the old Boston Garden, the old Chicago Stadium, or even, god help us, the Cow Palace of the Sharks first two years (our motto: it’s a pit, but it’s OUR pit!).

Now? everyone’s playing the same game the same way. Major league baseball figured it out, just look at Camden Park or whatever it is we’re calling it in San Francisco, or even the new park down in Houston, where they decided if a little uniqueness was good, lots of uniqueness was better, so doing every possible unique thing had to be best, right? well, no..). Imagine teams being able to build a rink at some size at least the current size, and up to an international surface. Allow them to customize the corners a bit, flat and shallow, or deep and sharp. Not HUGE differences, but things that teams can use to their advantage, while still having to build a team competitive in other arenas, too. That was part of what made the old Boston and Blackhawks teams so tough — but now, it’s a bit late to bring that back, but if the league would plan for it now, over time, we could bring it back. and should.

For now? to me, the answer isn’t slowing players down. It’s better safety gear for better protection, which means the NHLPA needs to get on board big time. And less tolerance for stupid and dirty play (the whole “respect” thing, but that’s a different rant I’ll do later).

And honestly? I think Duhatschek is headed in the right direction, but choosing the wrong solution. Maybe it’s time to start thinking about moving hockey to four on four — there’s precedent for reducing the number of skaters in the past as speed and skill increased (hockey once had six skaters and a goalie). as someone who remembers Roller Hockey International, I think 4on4 is ALSO a mixed blessing, but where we see it in the NHL game today, it does open up the ice and speed things up and give players room to play, so while I’m not saying we should do it, I AM saying the league and players and fans need to talk about it and think it through.

But I doubt it’s going to happen any time soon. but I sure prefer it to slowing the players down, or mandating that goalies have to be fat and slow, or that skaters need to wear suits that look like those damn sumo suits teams use to embarass fans during intermission….

Ilya Bryzgalov is a Coyote

The Battle of California: Ilya Bryzgalov is a Coyote:

‘ve read a lot of people that talk about how much money the Ducks are saving against the salary cap, freeing up space for the possible returns of Scott Niedermayer and/or Teemu Selanne. The problem I have with this story is that it’s got to be recognized that Bryzgalov is playing for dirt-cheap this year. His salary (per NHLSCAP) is $1.36 M, with a cap hit of $1.18 M. With the season about 20% done, let’s just say his cap hit for the remainder of the year is something like $900k. Meanwhile, his replacement Jonas Hiller will be paid $850k this year, but for a whopping cap hit of $3.20 M. I’d assume that whatever bonuses are in that latter number are unattainable for the Swiss goalie, but let’s call the rest of the year $640k. That’s a whopping savings against the cap of $260k, which doesn’t buy much at all against Scott’s $6.75 M contract or Teemu’s TBD contract (last year he made $6 M with bonuses).

Congrats to Brian Burke for doing this.

But people thinking this is about the cap aren’t getting it. it’s not.

Burke made a deal with Bryzgalov; you be a good soldier and help the team, I’ll make sure you get moved to a place you can play. He kept his side of the bargain, even though I think many GMs would have gone back and said “hey, there’s just no market”. That will pay dividends for Burke later, because it’s this kind of thing that potential free agents pay attention to while trying to decide where to play. Treat your team and players well, and free agents will want to join your team. In the salary cap era, you can’t just keep throwing money at players to bring them in, so you have to be able to attract them in other ways. Knowing you’ll be well treated and on a good team means players willing to choose one team over another — or perhaps take less money for what they feel is a better environment. Whatever Burke “loses” here by not “getting value” back for Bryzgalov, he’ll get back over the next few years in keeping or attracting free agents, and getting/keeping those players for less money because they want to be in Anaheim. It’s a relative bargain, but not one that’ll show up in the contracts or among the talking heads of the media.

And secondarily, Burke has been really pushing to change the rules to allow a team to keep part of the salary in a trade. He’s right, it’s become difficult for teams to move players; we don’t want the NHL to mimic the NBA in this, and it’s headed that way. This deal (or non-deal) is great evidence proving Burke’s point. I can see Burke choosing to go waiver just for the publicity over taking, say, a 5th or 6th round pick just to help this cause (and honestly? I’ll bet Bryzgalov would prefer to go waivers than be traded for a 6th, no?)

I agree with Burke; as long as the salary is on SOMEONE’s cap, I don’t care about the details. If a team wants to trade a player but hold back $500K a year to amke the deal work? Let them, as long as that $500K stays on their cap. Give them the flexibility to make those deicsions, and if a team gets stupid and screws themselves over by making stupid deals? well, the cap isn’t there to protect a team from its own stupidity…

bloggers vs. journalists… a reasoned view

Red Wings Corner: Blogs are fine by me:

My peers look at bloggers as non-journalists … and believe it or not, that’s a slam. They point out that very few bloggers have primary information, instead being so removed from the dressing room that they act as collection houses of information first posted by beat reporters. Commentary thus becomes the only unique part of the blog. My beat-writer peers fear that their blogs will have fewer hits (yes, we speak the language) because that information can be found on other sites.

[....]

There’s lots of good stuff there and lots of garbage, kind of like movies or TV shows or newspapers.

[....]

And blogs do offer commentary and that’s a good thing too. I’ve read dozens of newspaper columns this year about the Red Wings from columnists who haven’t been to many — if any — of the games. I’m not sure what the difference is.

A very nice, reasoned view of the whole “hockey blogger vs. journalist” thing.

Which is really overblown. I have some sympathy for the newspaper folks, it’s not a fun time in that industry, and I can understand why they might see bloggers as “the problem” and lash out, but in reality, that problem has been affecting the industry for 40+ years as readership slumps and newspapers fold or merge (or merge AND fold; for more on that, see some of my previous writing on this, like San Francisco Chronicle layoffs).

Bruce makes a point I’ve tried to make before: very little of what bloggers do is “journalism”. It’s commentary. It’s not “citizens journalism”, it’s an online op-ed page — it’s not creating the story or doing the research, it’s commenting on it.

Which isn’t bad. as Bruce also points out (and which many on the newspaper side tend to ignore), there’s a lot of that commentary going on in newspapers, too. There are beat guys in the sports page who basically live with the team during the season, and then there are the columnists and editors, who are no closer to actually being with the team than the bloggers are — hey, there are some here in San jose I’d love to see show up in the arena as often as they talk sharks, for instance…

Now, hopefully at some point some bloggers will be able to create an income stream from taking a team beat, and the teams will support that with access and information. Until then, that’s the domain of the printed publications, and some papers are trying to find a way to merge the old and the new and make this viable for THEM — see, for instance, the work Dave Pollack is doing with the mercury news as beat guy this year. He’s been charged not just with being the beat guy, but reinventing what that means in this new, online&print world, and doing some nice things).

Frankly? we need to make sure that the on-the-ground journalism survives this transition and gets funded properly, because that original work is something most bloggers can’t (and won’t) do — whether that’s the beat guy at the morning skate every morning or the reporter going to school board meetings and digging into city council expense reports.

But commentary? There are any number of bloggers doing better work on the Sharks than the so-called “professional” columnists here in the area. No wonder some folks “in the industry” feel threatened, that’s true in most markets, and if there’s a part of the newspaper industry at risk in the NEXT wave of migration to the net, it’s the people who comment on the news as opposed to the ones actually reporting it… (and of course the ones most likely bitching about bloggers are the columnists, because beat guys don’t editorialize like that — because that’s not journalism…. it’s commentary, and that’s not their role on the team…)

Many of those bitching about the bloggers DESERVE to be worried, you know? Maybe they should go back to covering a beat somewhere, and really get back to the roots of their journalism….

(hat tip, kukla)

replacing a macbook pro internal disk

Chuqui 3.0: Another sad chapter in the storage woe chronicles:

What model drive did you go with to replace your internal MacBook Pro drive? I’m considering replacing mine, too.

Pulling this forward from a comment into a posting.

I ended up going with the Hitachi Travelstar 5400 250Gb, from OtherWorld Computing. I’ve had pretty good luck with hitachi mechanisms, and the choice came down to either that the Hitachi 200Gb 7200 RPM, and the Toshiba 250Gb 5400. I ended up going with “more disk” over “faster disk” mostly because my history with disks is they tend to fill up faster than I expect — with my digital photography, that’s even more true, and frankly, I hate trying to maintain multiple libraries, it’s one more hassle that I’d like to avoid if I can, so fewer, larger disks pays back in fewer hassles for me.

As a helper to replacing it, since on the MacBook Pro it’s not “user replaceable” part, I printed out and kept handy this guide from ExtremTech. Very well done piece, actually. the replacement is far less hairy than some systems Apple has produced in the past, it’s pretty straightforward if you’re careful and are a little comfortable with doing this kind of thing (hint: if you are at all not sure, find someone else to help…).

The only gripes I have is that there were at least five different screw form factors involved, and about 25 screws total. And that wouldn’t have been so bad except for some odd reason, TWO of the screws are torx heads (t-6) instead of standard head. That seems non-sensical to me, to be blunt; no real reason why they couldn’t have been normal screws.

Also, when you open it up, be careful with the keyboard cable. It’s no biggie, just take it easy. It’s taped down to the motherboard but you can remove it easily and replace it easily, but if you move too fast or pull hard, you could cause yourself some pain.

And for some reason, while the keyboard is taped down, the cables for the disk drive are actually glued to the disk (well, maybe double-sided tape, hard to tell). I had to pry them off carefully with an X-acto. Again, nothing too serious if you’re careful, but DON’T PULL. get something flat underneath them and lift. Why that wasn’t taped, I dunno.

Total time for me to do the migration — about three days in my off hours. Why? Backups. I had three images of the disk (original, new cloned via Superduper, spare cloned via superduper) AND a DMG image (via superduper), plus the time machine backup. Paranoid? damn right — and I’ll continue to be, given the alternatives.

Actually time from shutting down the mac to powering it back up? about an hour. Taking it carefully.