New Panoramic Photograph of Poe Spring Park
By John Potter
Last week I managed to take this nice photo in Poe Springs Park in High Springs Florida. Poe Springs Park consists of 202 acres of scenic woodlands and rolling fields situated along the banks of the Santa Fe River. The spring produces an average of 44 million gallons of water a day and serves as a local swimming hole. The park also provides more urban style park amenities like a play ground, shelters and grills.
This photo was taken along the path to the spring from the entrance. It struck me as between 1/8 and 1/4 mile and obviously very beautiful.
View the panorama here.
Learn more about the Florida Springs at floridasprings.info
What’s so bad about communicating easily?
By John Potter
This is one of my biggest pet peeves. It’s been around for a while, but it seems to be reaching epidemic proportions lately….It’s invented and/or excessive techno babble and management jargon.
In the last few years people have been inventing words and acronyms like crazy. In a technologically advancing world we have to expect some degree of this to describe the new things in our lives, but some people are inventing the terms without the technology or concept behind them in order to insinuate that they are making some sort of progress (which they obviously are not). Case in point of this to me is “Web 2.0”. It is a term that was invented a couple of years ago and still no one has agreed on the definition. There is only one use for a word that has no definition and that is to intentionally baffle people.
If you cannot understand someone it more likely means they’re a poor communicator than they’re smarter than you. Professionals (and students and everyone else) should take pride in communicating clearly and concisely. We should take pride in being understood. We should be capable of being understandable to a layman if necessary. In a progressive world communication should be ever easier and clearer.
We’re trying to create electronic translators that allow us to communicate uninhibited by uncommon languages. At the same time we’re sabotaging our own efforts by making it more difficult to communicate even among those we share a language with. If new terminology is necessary then by all means, proceed to create new terms, but when a concise explanation will do….let’s stick with that.
Really…trust me. You don’t.
By John Potter
What do they mean when they say 30% chance of rain?
See…you don’t understand your weather forecast.
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You should know what these things are
By John Potter
A video news release, or VNR, is a video clip created by a PR firm, advertising agency, marketing firm, corporation, or government agency and provided to television news stations. If you like VNRs then your definition will probably proceed …for the purpose of informing the public. If you don’t like VNRs then your definition will probably proceed …for the purpose of deceiving the public and pressing an agenda under the guise of objective journalism.
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Land mines that don’t require dangerous disposal or harm the innocent
By John Potter
Everyone knows what a problem landmines are since they don’t target anyone specifically and usually long outlast the conflict they were intended for use in. In the end civilians, many of which are children, generally become the predominant victims.
Now I will say something that usually wouldn’t follow that statement.
Landmines are a very effective military tool and I think the US as well as our allies should probably have this weapon in their stockpile, and our potential enemies will even if we don’t. There is, however, a better way for these things to be made. They should be biodegradable, not for the sake of the environment, but for the sake of the people who will inhabit the area once hostilities cease. There’s no reason mines shouldn’t just rot away after a few months, a year or two…or even a few more if necessary.
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The making of a 360 degree mural
By John Potter
In 2006 I was in kind of a home improvement kick.
One idea I had was to do something with this hallway/vestibule/wasted space in my house. There was no way any furniture was ever going into this space, so I figured this meant a blank canvas no one can block. The only thing was that the space was small and had five doorways leading out of it. This pretty much determined that any design would have to be very specific to the space. It meant that there would need to be a lot of insinuation that made your mind fill in the blanks. Basically there was little space to put paint on, but the space was small, so that little bit of paint needed to make your brain think about big spaces. Of course I could have made it claustrophobic on purpose, but I wanted something with mass appeal and not just something very personal or artsy.
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