"If it bleeds, it leads."

One missed footstep sends tiny pieces of metal and grits of sand propelling through the air faster than you can think. Men and women hide behind cars, pillars, and anything else that might shield them from the flying debris. The terror overwhelms them and they can only hope that they will escape unharmed. Most of them do escape, but the unlucky few are left bleeding in the wake of the explosion. Got you interested, didn't I? As Peter Diamandis pointed out, "If it bleeds, it leads."

Without a good lead, an article is nothing. Whether they are hard or soft, leads that draw people in best are often those that get straight to the action (like what I wrote above). Hard leads are a little less likely to bring people in with blood and gore because they are rooted in getting straight to the facts; soft leads, on the other hand, have more to do with creative writing. A lot of writers who use soft leads try to put readers into the action, as I did.

The way our culture is today, we react most to violence and gore on the news. This points journalists to report more on violent crimes and it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. If they don't report on what the public wants to read, people stop buying the newspaper (or looking at the newspaper's website), and the journalists lose their jobs. Because newspapers are dying out, it seems that publishers are looking to print only stories that will sell newspapers. They focus more on what people want to read instead of the integrity of the paper. Now I'm not saying that our newspapers don't have the integrity they used to; I just mean to point out that the aim is sales not important stories, which is not how it should be.

Carte de Visite

In 1859, André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri popularized the Carte de Visite, or visiting card, in Paris when he published photos of Emperor Napoleon III. When calling at someone’s house, a visitor would present a small card (about 2.5x4 in.) with a photograph of themselves on it to a servant to announce their presence to the host. The Carte de Visite utilized the first commercially viable negative-positive process, the albumen print.

A photographer would first take the portrait of the subject, which oftentimes took such long exposure times that subjects would have to wear elaborate braces to hold them still from 10 seconds up to around a minute. The image was recorded on a glass plate, unlike the previous Daguerreotype and tintype that used metal plates. From here the photographer could either coat the back of the glass to make an ambrotype or use the plate as a negative to print onto paper for things such as the Carte de Visite. The paper was first coated with a mixture of egg whites and salt to provide a base for the light-sensitive silver nitrate, which was applied next. Then the glass plate negative was laid on top of the paper and exposed in direct sunlight. With this process, countless photographs could be made from the one negative, and this allowed for cheap production of many Cartes de Visite for subjects to leave with friends.



Carte de Visite of William Tecumseh Sherman
taken by Alexander Gardner, date unknown

Reddit

Reddit.com, the so-called “front page of the internet,” is a website on which users post news stories and anything interesting. Users, called “redditors,” up- and downvote posts, and this voting determines what is on the front page so the front page is always changing. There are subreddits that are centered around a certain topic that redditors can post in and set as their front page. Subreddits include pics, politics, gaming, funny, WTF (my favorite), and science, among countless others—there are over 67,000 subreddits. Redditors have the ability to comment on any post, and those comments can be up- or downvoted similar to the posts themselves. A reason many people enjoy Reddit is that the site is so diversified that you can find serious news items just as easily as memes or really amusing photos. It also serves as a way to see what other people find interesting—the front page includes things users put there, not things corporate owners choose. The site was created by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, two University of Virginia graduates, in 2005. After changing hands a few times, Reddit now operates as a subsidiary of Advance Publications. The majority of redditors (74%) are (based on speculation by Google DoubleClick Ad Planner) males aged 25-34. At right is an image I found recently that just amuses me:

Morse Code

Morse Code is an alpha-numeric form of communication based on a series of dots and dashes that can be expressed as sounds, light, or taps. Letters and numbers each have a different series of dots and dashes. International Morse Code is based on the basic Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals; languages that have more or different letters than the Latin alphabet simply add those characters. The basic measure of time in Morse Code is the dot—each dash is equal to three dots, each character is separated by the silent length of three dots (a dash), and words are separated by the silent length of seven dots. In 1836 Samuel F. B. Morse, Joseph Henry, and Alfred Vail developed the electrical telegraph, which sent electrical pulses along wires that controlled an electromagnet at the destination. The code they first used then is vastly different from the International Morse Code used today. To learn Morse Code, go here.

Playdough

Children find many ways to express all the creative, fantastical ideas flying around in their brains. Playdough is a moldable, clay-like substance that children use to sculpt creatures, food, and anything else on their minds. Play Doh, a division of Hasbro, manufactures small jars of the sculpting material in over 36 colors, including metallics and neons. The putty-like dough was first used during World War II as a wall cleaner, but now it is rarely used for that purpose. Unlike modeling clay, playdough cannot be easily dried so the sculptures can be kept. If left out for a couple days, the dough will dry out and may crack or crumble.

It is just as easy to make your own playdough as it is to go buy some at the store—and kids think it’s great fun. To make playdough, boil 2 cups of water, then mix in a glass bowl with 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil, 1/2 cup salt, and liquid food coloring to make desired color. Add 2 cups of flour and 2 Tbsp. cream of tartar and stir until mostly combined; wait a minute or two for the dough to cool and knead until fully incorporated and no lumps of flour remain. Once the dough fully cools, store in a sealed plastic bag or airtight container. For added fun, knead glitter into the dough—you can even make homemade glitter to match the color of the playdough. There are tool kits made by Play Doh like an ice cream shoppe or a dentist, but you can also find items around your home that are just as much fun. Cookie cutters, rolling pins, and anything with fun shapes or textures that can be transferred work really well.