Coffee and Google hits

I decided to wade into Google’s Webmaster Tools tonight, just to see how Google sees ol’ MT.Net. As typically happens on these adventures, I was amazed at what I learned.

One thing I never appreciated when I first began blogging is the power of images to attract web hits. I take hundreds of photos each week, and my lazy nature dictates that I often don’t bother naming them something descriptive: I simply copy them to the blog and assume the visitor will figure it out. Of course, web spiders, search engines, and the like cannot make sense of images, so services such as Google’s Image Search (GIS) must rely on metadata, filenames, and other information to properly index the images it finds. The long and the short of it is that my search hits have increased dramatically now that I’ve been giving more descriptive names to my images.

Tonight I discovered that my blog is one of the top hits for the “coffee” image search. My site earned 22,000 impressions from that term, leading visitors to my musing about the power of coffee.

Attached to that post was a wonderful image I obtained from Wikimedia Commons taken by Julius Schorzman (and seen above). Julius’s Creative Commons license stated that I did not have to attribute the photograph to him provided it was used on a non-profit site.

MT.Net is still free and worth every penny. Regardless, in light of the image’s popularity in GIS, I want to give credit where it’s due and thank Julius for allowing me to use his image.

Broadband op-ed in News and Observer

The News and Observer ran my opinion piece on municipal broadband today:

Don’t block broadband
BY MARK TURNER
Published in: Other Views

RALEIGH While farm life has never been easy, at one time it was significantly harder. In the mid-1930s, over 97 percent of North Carolina farms had no electricity, many because private electric companies couldn’t make enough money from them to justify running the lines.

Aware of the transformational effect of electrification and recognizing the need to do something, visionary North Carolina leaders created rural electric cooperatives, beating passage of FDR’s Rural Electrification Act by one month. Through the state’s granting local communities the power to provide for their own needs where others would not, over 98 percent of farms had electricity by 1963, and our state has prospered.
Continue reading →

Parks getting more attention

I was happy to see that a tenacious N&O reporter, Matt Garfield, went the distance in our recent 4-hour Parks and Rec Board meeting. The quote he printed came near the end of that way-too-long meeting.

I wrote before of my disappointment with how the news media covers parks issues. The coverage of Thursday’s meeting is a big improvement and hopefully part of a larger trend to better cover the parks that the people of Raleigh love.

Moore Square Master Plan

I was quoted again in the N&O, this time during Thursday’s marathon Parks and Rec Board meeting. We were debating the Moore Square Master Plan and discussed a letter presented by the State Property Office [PDF] objecting to including restrooms and a kiosk on the square. I thought it was ridiculous not to add restrooms to a park anticipated to attract young families:

“I find it a little surprising that the state prefers a line of Porta-Johns,” said Mark Turner. “I don’t know if I could support this [plan] without the structures.”

I’m still mystified at how the state could object to this. The letter signed by Moses Carey, Jr. states that there are public restrooms at the Moore Square Transfer Station and at Marbles Kids Museum. That may be true for the bus station but if Marbles’s restrooms are public it is certainly news to them.

The state cites the historic nature of the square in their objection to structures, yet for over 70 years there were structures on the square: a school and a church. The facilities in the plan are minor by comparison and in the case of the restrooms, tucked underneath the proposed slope. What’s even more ironic is that the state itself obliterated the other two original public squares, building the State Capitol and the Executive Mansion on them.

I think the state should either go along with the proposed plan or put forth one of its own. Better yet, perhaps the city should outright purchase Moore Square from the state. For the last century, the City of Raleigh has been a faithful steward of the square for the state. The city has earned the right to have a greater say in its use!

Moore Square could be such a wonderful gathering place for the folks who visit downtown. It could be a delightful escape from the skyscrapers and asphalt. The Moore Square Master Plan respects the history of the square and adds to it, bringing it into the 21st century. It’s time the state got on board with this centerpiece component of Raleigh’s downtown revitalization.

Air horn

Working from home, I’ve gotten a good idea about the things that go on in the neighborhood. Yesterday there was something quite unusual. In the early afternoon, Kelly and I both heard an extremely loud air horn: loud enough that it literally sounded like a train was in our back yard.

We’re used to hearing horns at our home, with a fire station a quarter-mile away and the Norfolk Southern railroad yard a mile in the other direction. Oddly, this sounded much more like a train than a fire truck. We’re still not sure what it was.

Understanding Japan’s nuclear crisis

This is the best layman’s description I’ve seen of the physics taking place inside the crippled Fukushima Daiichi reactor.

Following the events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors in Japan has been challenging. At best, even those present at the site have a limited view of what’s going on inside the reactors themselves, and the situation has changed rapidly over the last several days. Meanwhile, the terminology involved is somewhat confusing—some fuel rods have almost certainly melted, but we have not seen a meltdown; radioactive material has been released from the reactors, but the radioactive fuel currently remains contained.Over time, the situation has become a bit less confused, as cooler heads have explained more about the reactor and the events that have occurred within it. What we’ll attempt to do here is aggregate the most reliable information we can find, using material provided by multiple credible sources. We’ve attempted to confirm some of this information with groups like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy but, so far, these organizations are not making their staff available to talk to the press.

via Understanding Japan’s nuclear crisis.

Mooneyham: Battle over high-speed Internet

At some point, legislators — Republicans and Democrats — might want to wake up to the fact that an ongoing battle over high-speed Internet has nothing to do with party, political ideology, or being pro- or anti-business.

It has everything to do with the urban-rural divide in North Carolina.

Any legislator from a rural community who favors a bill that would restrict municipal-owned Internet systems is voting against his or her constituents and against the ability of his or her community to recruit and retain business.

via The Daily Reflector.

Workers Strain to Retake Control After Blast and Fire at Japan Plant

Yikes. I’m with the Japanese who think that this situation is far more dire than officials have been letting on.

Tokyo Electric Power said Tuesday that after the explosion at the No. 2 reactor pressure had dropped in the “suppression pool” — a section at the bottom of the reactor that converts steam to water and is part of the critical function of keeping the nuclear fuel protected. After that occurred radiation levels outside No. 2 were reported to have risen sharply.

“We are on the brink,” said Hiroaki Koide, a senior reactor engineering specialist at the Research Reactor Institute of Kyoto University. “We are now facing the worst-case scenario. We can assume that the containment vessel at Reactor No. 2 is already breached. If there is heavy melting inside the reactor, large amounts of radiation will most definitely be released.”

via Workers Strain to Retake Control After Blast and Fire at Japan Plant – NYTimes.com.

Aflac Fires Gilbert Gottfried as Voice of Its Duck – NYTimes.com

I came to realize in my dabblings with the voiceover business that Gilbert Gottfried had one of the top jobs in the business. For a mere few hours spent in the sound booth (total – yes, total), Gottfried never had to work again. It’s a shame for him that Gottfried got canned for insensitive jokes he posted on Twitter about Japan.

Aflac is searching for a new voice. Now, how can I make myself sound like a duck?

Aflac fired the voice of its spokesduck, Gilbert Gottfried, after the comedian made insensitive remarks about the disaster in Japan.The decision by the insurer on Monday came after the actor, long known for making inappropriate comments, posted messages on Twitter that made light of the fallout from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

via Aflac Fires Gilbert Gottfried as Voice of Its Duck – NYTimes.com.

Great explanation of Japanese nuke disaster

Early Friday morning, northern Japan was rocked by its biggest-ever earthquake: the 9.1 Sendai earthquake and tsunami. The earthquake and tsunami have largely done their damage, with many hundreds of dead reported as of now. Still looming is the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima I nuclear power plant, where at least one reactor has experienced a partial meltdown due to lack of backup cooling. Below is a great explanation of the situation from the Los Angeles Times.

I wonder how this terrifying event will change Japan’s already-fragile support of nuclear energy.

Japan Q&A: What caused the blast at nuclear plant, and what are officials doing to avert a meltdown?The cause of the explosion isn’t yet clear, but the nuclear plant has lost the ability to cool its hot uranium fuel. Seawater is being pumped into the reactor containment vessel and radiation levels outside the reactor are decreasing.

via Japan nuclear plant: Q&A on explosion at Japan nuclear plant – latimes.com.