1. Kenneth C. Carter
1128 Oak Creek Trail
Birmingham, Ala. 35215
205-410-0099
carter.kc@gmail.com
Design/Writing
Examples
Relevant parts highlighted in yellow
3. [ SECTION C ]Monday, April 25, 2011
COMICS 2C TELEVISION 4C MOVIES 4C
WEB SURFING
Internet sites to help out,
educate or have fun with.
Direct links to these sites
are available at al.com,
the online home of The
Birmingham News. Go to:
blog.al.com/
techcetera
ON COMPUTING
with Bob Schwabach
Share your
PowerPoint
on the Web
We’ve been subjected to
b o r i n g P o w e r P o i n t
slideshows for years, and
they still won’t go away. So
rather than fight the situa-
tion, we have surrendered.
Here’s how to share your
PowerPoint presentation
on the Web, for free.
Go to authorstream.com
and upload the presenta-
tion, up to a gigabyte in
size. (That’s huge, by the
way. If you have more to
say than that you probably
should be executed for be-
ing excessively boring.)
AuthorStream turns the
presentations into videos
that can be placed on You-
Tube, or shared as a link.
You can also post them to
Facebook or Twitter, or
download a free utility that
lets you put YouTube vi-
deos into your slideshows.
If you wish, they can be
password protected. If you
want a regular channel on
YouTube that lets others
subscribe to your pres-
entations as a series, go to
A u t h o r s t r e a m . c o m /
channels.
Bob Schwabach and his
wife, Joy, are syndicated
columnists. Readers can
search several years’ worth
of their On Computers col-
umns at oncomp.com. Bob
and Joy can be contacted
by email at bobschwab@g-
mail.com and joydee@on-
comp.com.
TOP MOVIE QUOTES
y www.lifescript.com
Odds are you have heard all
of these movie quotes be-
fore. But movie quotes are
famous for a reason — ev-
eryone knows them. Head
to this site to see a list of
the top movie quotes ever.
Or not. Because, frankly my
dear I don’t give a click.
MONEY LESSONS
y financiallyfit.yahoo.com
Next time you open up that
credit card bill and see how
much more interest you
owe on top of that balance,
remember what it says at
this site. It all starts with
“know what you can afford.”
Yeah, maybe, but if I save up
to buy that sweet ride with
real money, I’ll be too old to
remember where I parked it.
FAMILY FILMS?
y www.twop.com
There’s a lot of new movies
on the horizon for your
summer viewing pleasure.
And a lot of them are being
advertised as fun for the
whole family. And if part of
your family fun is seeing
how many times your mom
can cringe when the “F”
bomb is dropped, then en-
joy. But, if not, then check
out this site to see just how
family friendly those new
movies really are. You might
want to bookmark this one.
Your mom will thank you
for it. It is a little tongue-in-
cheek, but it still makes
some interesting observ-
ations.
BUNNIES AND EASTER
y www.history.com
I know it’s technically the
day after Easter, but I’m sure
many of you have kids who
have yet to come down off
their basket-induced sugar
high, so this may still be rele-
vant. We all know the origi-
nal Easter story, but how
and when did bunnies, bas-
kets, eggs and candy come
into play? I’m fairly certain
that Cadbury Cream Eggs
were not a part of the Eu-
charist, so what gives? This
site tries to explain why and
how and when the secular
part of Easter raised its
twitching nose.
Written and compiled
by Technology Editor
Kenneth Carter. Have
a favorite website?
Send the address to
kcarter@bhamnews.com.
SPECIAL
Robert Blankenheim said that once he had the plot, then scenes kept popping up in his head. “With E.T. all
these ideas came. Like, the initial ideas were: You gotta have a motorcycle shot over the moon. You gotta
have, ooh, the Speak N Spell shot comes back to life. You have flames coming out of his finger.”
‘E.T.’ PHONY HOMAGE:
TRAILER AN ONLINE HIT
Mock sequel trailer splices
film scenes, looks convincing
By KENNETH CARTER
News staff writer
I
f you happen to come across an Internet trailer for a
sequel to “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” don’t believe
what you see. It’s about as real as E.T. himself.
The mock trailer that runs a little more than six
minutes is actually the brainchild and 21
⁄2-year labor
of love of Robert Blankenheim.
Full time, Blankenheim has a job with a post house in
Los Angeles working on titles and graphics, but in his
spare time, he scoured hundreds of movie clips to create
a video that is so convincing, you’d swear that he was
pals with some of the actors.
But, just like the trailer, that’s not true either.
“I could really only work on it on the weekends and
sometimes at night. It’s hard because you come up with
a story, but then you have to do all this research. I rented
like every movie that the actors made in like the last five
years,” Blankenheim said.
The 30-year-old videophile said he put the trailer on
the Web on Feb. 23, and in 10 days, he had more than a
million hits. He said he averages about 3,000 a day now.
In his mock trailer, called “ET: X — Extinction,” E.T.’s
people have returned, but this time they’ve come back
to take over. The E.T. from the 1982 blockbuster tracks
down an adult Elliott, and they team up to save the
world from the invading horde of potato-headed aliens.
“Videos like these I do just as a hobby,” Blankenheim
said. “It’d be great if I could figure out a way to do them
full time. I’m hoping this will help in showing off my tal-
ents with editing and just how creative I can be.”
Using programs such as Final Cut, Photo Shop, Light-
Wave and After Effects, Blankenheim was able to morph,
animate and manipulate an incredibly convincing video,
but in reality, only a handful of the shots in it was origi-
nal material that he created.
Turning clips into original stuff
“Most of it’s clips; I did have to shoot 11 shots my-
self,” he said. “Like the general when he says, ‘Your
brother, Michael, has been abducted.’ That’s actually a
friend of mine who’s saying that line. I got a general’s
outfit for my friend, and we shot him in front of a blue
screen and had him say that line, and then I put him in
the scene with Elliott. It sells it more. If he’s in the shot
with the original actor, then hopefully you won’t notice
that I had to shoot it.”
Again, when you watch, don’t be fooled into thinking
that Blankenheim is buddies with actor Henry Thomas,
who played Elliott. Even though you might come away
swearing that the now-adult actor is at the top of Blan-
kenheim’s cellphone contacts.
“A lot of people say that, and I did luck out,” he said.
“I think it’s mainly because of what he says. It’s the two
lines that he says, one saying, ‘Guys, no, don’t shoot.
He’s good. Can’t you understand that?’ That scene is
from a movie called ‘Suicide Kings.’ The one line that he
actually says from that movie is “Can’t you understand
that? He didn’t do anything.” And he’s pointing down,
which is perfect because E.T. is down there.”
And with a little help from some friends, Blankenheim
was able to literally put words in the actor’s mouth to
make his creation even more convincing.
“As far as the other lines before he says that? He’s not
really saying, ‘Guys, no. Just understand,’ ” he said.
“He’s saying like, ‘T.K., don’t. It’s just what Charlie said.’
But I watched that footage with the volume down, and I
kind of wrote lines that I needed that would match his
mouth moving, and then had a friend dub over his
voice, so that’s really Henry Thomas, but it’s not his
voice.”
And sometimes, Blankenheim just got incredibly
lucky.
“One thing I did luck out on is when (Thomas) says,
‘You have to learn how to capture them.’ He’s really say-
ing that line: ‘It takes more than an understanding of the
basic anatomy. You have to learn how to capture them.’
He says that line, verbatim,” he said, laughing. “That
was from a movie called ‘Fever,’ but here’s the kicker:
He says that line, but he’s teaching an art class on how
to capture the human form. So I just removed the art
class behind him, changed it to a graphic with E.T. and,
boom, it just changes the context completely. It just
pulls it right out.”
So, since it took Blankenheim more than two years to
put his trailer together, you’d assume that he was a big
“E.T.” fan, right? Well, not so much.
“I didn’t even see it in the theater; I was maybe 1 or 2,”
he said. “I was never a huge ‘E.T.’ fan. I just thought of
doing one like I did ‘Titanic’ about four years ago, and I
said let me see if I can do another one. Usually for these
things to work it needs to be a famous movie to some-
thing that everyone knows, and it has to be to something
that would never — or should never — be made. And so
(‘E.T.’) was just a good contender.”
Spielberg’s revenge?
Even though his Web creation is an obvious compli-
ment to director Steven Spielberg’s flick, Blankenheim
said he was a little worried about legal repercussions.
“I’m always paranoid. That’s why I didn’t put the
‘Universal Pictures Presents’ (on it),” he said. “I didn’t
use any formal names. I didn’t use any of that. I’m not
making a dime off of this intentionally. I would never do
that. In fact, it’s available to download for free on my
website. I hope Spielberg sees it and knows that his
movie will live on longer than my trailer ever will. Hope-
fully he’ll appreciate the time involved, how creative it
is, and technically, how hard it was. And it was, to date,
the hardest thing I had ever done.”
The most ironic thing that seems to be going around
is that many people who have watched are a little disap-
pointed that it’s not authentic, even when they know
from the start that it isn’t.
“I don’t know if I wish it was real,” Blankenheim said.
“Because, after all, it’s a joke. But I guess I’m flattered. I
guess it was done to the point where people do want to
see it. I think I milked it for what it was worth.”
To see Blankenheim’s “E.T.” sequel trailer, go to
www.et2trailer.com. You can also check out how he put
some of it together by going to www.youtube.com/user/
blankenheimrobert
EMAIL: kcarter@bhamnews.com
GAMEBITS
Alabama player
on game cover
Crimson Tide running
back Mark Ingram is the
cover star of NCAA Foot-
ball 12, the yearly college
football simulation game.
It comes out in July. He is
not the first player from
Alabama to make the
cover; that was Shaun Al-
exander back in 2001. In-
gram, however, is the first
player chosen by fan
votes, over Auburn de-
fensive lineman Nick Fair-
ley and guys from Okla-
homa and Washington.
Finally, a vote in Alabama
that leads to something
good!
‘Wipeout’ to get
video game
If you do not enjoy the
TV show “Wipeout,” you
should see a doctor, be-
cause there may be some-
thing wrong with you. It’s
a game show on ABC.
Contestants must jump,
swing and climb through
obstacle courses while try-
ing not to get splatted like
they’re in a “Road Runner”
cartoon. Watch clips of the
show on the Web for 30
seconds, and I guarantee
you will be hooked. It’s
funny to watch someone
get bashed by a giant box-
ing glove, because it’s not
happening to you. The vi-
deo game will be for Xbox
and Kinect; it’s an action
game where you try to
save your on-screen guy
from embarrassment. It
cannot be as fun as play-
ing “Wipeout” in real life.
But think of the fun your
family will have watching
you flop backwards into a
mudhole.
Superheroes in
video games
About a zillion superhe-
roes are getting video
games in the next few
months. Spider-Man will
be in Edge of Time. Thor,
Green Lantern and Cap-
tain America are all getting
games because of their up-
coming movies. I think
this answers the question
that society poses: Are vi-
deo games important?
Duh. They let us play su-
perheroes.
Joe Crowe
This screen grab from one of Robert Blankenheim’s
“making of” videos shows him creating one of the
few original shots for his trailer.
WEIRDWARE
Virtual flowers —
how, um, sweet
Mother’s Day is coming up
soon and you probably have
no gift yet. And, no, e-cards
sent to her unchecked Yahoo
account don’t count. If you
don’t know what to get, flow-
ers are always good, and you
can order right from your
smartphone. Or, better yet, if
your mom is as geeky as you,
get her this 8-bit bouquet
from ThinkGeek. And if you
really love her, help Mom set
up a shiny new Gmail account.
She’ll thank you. Probably with
an e-card.
y What: 8-bit Flower
Bouquet
y MSRP: $15
y Where: tinyurl.com/
weirdware-8bit
An adult Elliott and E.T. travel to Washington while E.T.’s people attack. “It wasn’t hard to come up with
the story, because it’s just the basic alien invasion theme. The story’s been done a million times; I just put
E.T. in its place,” Blankenheim said.
Concept
Writing
Design
5. MONDAY, APRIL 23, 2012 j SECTION C
WEB SURFING
Internet sites to help out,
educate or have fun with.
Direct links to these sites
are available at al.com, the
online home of The
Birmingham News. Go to:
blog.al.com/
techcetera
SCHMIDT’S
WORKOUTVIDEO
y www.vulture.com
Sometimes some of these
links are just for me and a
few select geeks who share
my weird sense of humor.
(You know who you are.) I’m
a huge fan of Fox’s “New
Girl” and the awesomeness
that is the character of
Schmidt. If you aspire to be
like Schmidt, then check
out this video of actor Max
Greenfield in character as
he teaches a spin class
while giving out inspira-
tional Schmidt-isms. It’s
not a word, but it should be.
So grab a jar and enjoy. And
if you watch “New Girl,”
then you know what kind of
jar I mean.
WORST
MOVIEFOODS
y eatthis.womens
healthmag.com
It’s coming up on summer
movie season again, and
with blockbusters hitting
the big screen almost every
weekend until August, you
may find yourself in a big
dark room quite often dur-
ing the vacation months
ahead. And if you like to
munch while watching, then
check out this site for the
worst foods you can eat
while at the movies. You
think movie popcorn is
healthy? Guess again.
Check this site out before
you have to lift up that arm-
rest in order to take up two
theater seats.
LOSINGA
DREAMJOB
y mashable.com
If you’re in the process of
interviewing for a job, then
make sure you check out
this site on five ways to
blow a dream job during the
interview process. Some of
them may sound like com-
mon sense, but when you
read some of the real-life
examples of behavior that
didn’t get people jobs, you
may at least file them away
in the ol’ gray-matter box
for future reference.
Written and compiled
by Technology Editor
Kenneth Carter. Have
a favorite website?
Send the address to
kcarter@bhamnews.com.
Illustration/Kenneth Carter
By Kenneth Carter
kcarter@bhamnews.com
F
rom forecasting to storm spotting to sur-
veying the aftermath, technology has
changed the way everyone deals with the
inevitable reality of a tornado.
And the odd thing is that technology
has so permeated our everyday lives, that much
of the way the public gets severe weather infor-
mation is taken for granted.
For example, Doppler radar is a household
phrase now, but it hasn’t always been the case.
Jim Stefkovich, who is the meteorologist in
charge for the National Weather Service in Bir-
mingham, said when he first started his career
30 years ago, the radar used to track storms was
based on 1957 technology, and a lot of time was
wasted just issuing a severe weather warning.
“When we decided to put out a warning, you
had to manually type it on another computer,
print that out, and then hand it to somebody
who actually recorded it on the old eight-track
decks, and that process could take several min-
utes from the time you decide to put out a
warning to issue one,” he said.
But as computer models have grown more ac-
curate, and with the advent of Doppler radar in
the 1990s, getting a warning out to the public
has become much quicker, Stefkovich said.
“Now, growing as scientists, we understand
storms a lot better — what makes severe
weather, and what conditions lead to severe
weather — to the point where on one computer
we look at the radar data; we issue a highly de-
tailed warning without needing to type in any-
thing if we choose not to, which gets dissemi-
nated automatically to the media and NOAA
weather radio in literally 1 to 2 seconds,” he
said. “From the time I decide to put out a warn-
ing to the time it reaches the general public can,
at times, be less than a minute.”
Computer models
Computer models, which are mathematical
formulas that try to predict weather conditions,
have advanced so much that they can actually
simulate storm conditions in specific counties
and even predict how severe they will be, Stef-
kovich said.
Increasing the forecasting accuracy even
more is the recent addition of Dual-Pol radar to
meteorologists’ weather predicting arsenal.
“Here in February, in Birmingham, we in-
stalled what we call the Dual-Pol radar which
now sends out signals to interrogate storms not
only in a horizontal but also in the vertical, and
now we’re seeing a much clearer definition of
the entire storm structure,” he said. “It’s being
installed all over the country. It started last year,
and it will continue across the United States
into next year, but it is already installed here in
Birmingham and Huntsville and there are other
locations that will be installed later this year.”
No radar can show an actual tornado on the
ground, but with the data it gathers, meteorolo-
gists can predict where a tornado might be, and
with Dual-Pol, the data is even denser.
“Radar does not detect actual tornadoes. Be-
cause the beam goes out straight, but the
Earth’s surface curves away from it rather
quickly once the beam goes out. So even within
a few miles you’re not seeing what’s going on
right at the ground. And that’s why we’ve
trained storm spotters,” Stefkovich said. “But,
because of the Dual-Pol, some of the things,
that if you have a circulation that’s strong
enough, if it’s picking up debris, we’ve had
some examples of it being straw and leaves and
other things. If it’s being picked up by a circula-
tion and there is a tornado in it and it’s lifting
that debris high enough that it reaches the radar
beam, we see that information within the hook
or near the hook and that gives us much more
of a confirmation that something in fact is going
on on the ground. Because not every hook echo
is going to produce a tornado.”
The Dual-Pol will also be a big help with
weather prediction throughout the year, he
said.
“It’s going to help with improved forecasting
for rainfall amounts, it helps us better under-
stand when we’re looking within a storm
whether it is hail, rain, hail that’s coated with
rain around it, snow,” Stefkovich said. “It’s
going to give us a much better estimate of where
the freezing level is. And so it’s going to be use-
ful during winter events all over the country.”
Storm spotters
Since meteorologists can’t depend solely on
radar data, that’s where storm spotters come in.
Storm spotters are trained to help identify and
report tornadoes during severe weather. But
now, thanks to everyday technology, storm
spotters can actually be trained online without
ever setting foot in a classroom.
“Storm spotters are very important. They can
give us that detail that we’re unsure of. The fact
of the matter is that we’re more interested in
getting people’s reports. We want storm spot-
ters, and we continue to train, we train a lot of
folks online, which is another technological ad-
vancement. You don’t even have to leave your
house to be trained as a storm spotter,” he said.
“Because of the technology of cellphones and
social media — Twitter, Facebook — we’re get-
ting pictures sent in real time and that’s phe-
nomenal. So you’re getting real time verification
or pictures of something that you never had be-
fore.”
Storm survey
But even if no one actually verifies a tornado
visually, when meteorologists survey the dam-
age once the storm has passed, technology
comes into play to record a tornado’s impact
that wasn’t witnessed.
“If we don’t get any reports, and we believe
there was a tornado, we load what are called the
mesocyclones or the radar imagery within lap-
tops. We then have the ability to hook up GPS,
and we can freeze a frame or run a loop, and we
can drive to the exact area of where the radar
imagery went through, and we have found a
number of tornadoes doing it that way,” Stefko-
vich said. “And then from there we just basically
type in all the information and can send it elec-
tronically to our office and then we get it pub-
lished out as quickly as possible. That’s a huge
advance.”
Without the Internet and electronics, he said
it would take days or weeks to get tornado
image information out. But now, that informa-
tion can be reported in minutes, sometimes
from the very location where the survey was
done.
Multiple confirmations
Stefkovich said he is a fan of smartphone
weather warning apps, although he said the Na-
tional Weather Service neither creates nor en-
dorses any particular one. He said that social
scientists have discovered that the public wants
multiple ways to confirm severe weather before
they act. And apps are just one more convenient
tool to help with that.
“I think it’s really important that people have
more than one way to receive severe weather
warnings and, like you’ve probably heard, . . . is
that you cannot just depend on outdoor warn-
ing sirens,” he said. “That is literally Cold-War-
era technology.”
What people need to understand is that not
every warning will contain an actual tornado,
Stefkovich said. Scientists still don’t understand
why one supercell storm will produce torna-
does, while another identical supercell storm
won’t.
“When we issue a warning, it means that we
have very high confidence that it could produce
a tornado and at times it’s almost like a forecast
where we’re expecting this to occur,” he said.
“And we’re not always correct in that area be-
cause again, scientific wise, we’re still trying to
understand that.”
Living with it
Tornado season is just something everyone
has to live with in the Southeast and the Mid-
west. And although April 27, 2011, and many
other severe weather events that have occurred
since then have seemed extreme, Stefkovich
said that meteorologists simply refer to it as
spring.
“This is the season, and what we had happen
last April was hopefully a once-in-a-lifetime
event,” he said. “But there will be more tornado
days, and the thing about it is we can’t compare
every season to what occurred on April 27. But
one small tornado that hits one family, to that
family that is their April 27.”
Technology has helped advance the accuracy
of warnings as well as keep the public informed
during and after severe weather, but it is only a
tool. And it’s useless if people don’t take advan-
tage of it, Stefkovich said.
“We take our jobs very seriously. Our families
live here, too,” he said. “But the bottom line is
all of our work is for nothing if people don’t take
the proper actions. You have a personal respon-
sibility to take action when the warnings are is-
sued.”
MORE ONLINE
y For links on more information about
Dual-Pol radar and how to be a
storm spotter, check out this article
online at: blog.al.com/techcetera
WEIRDWARE
Old school
Google maps
The image above is not an
elaborate maze meant to
drive you insane. Well, OK,
actually it kinda is. That, ren-
dered in exotic wood veneers,
is a Google map of the inter-
section of Interstates 59 and
65 in downtown Birmingham.
Isn’t it amazing how laser-
cut wood can turn such a
nasty, confounding, danger-
ous meeting of roads into
art? Check out Woodcut
Maps’ website to transform
your Google map of choice.
y What: Woodcut Maps
y MSRP: $400 (for 16”x20”
map shown)
y Where: www.woodcut-
maps.com
GAMEBITS
New this week:
Prototype 2
The sequel to Prototype
is out this week. You play a
new guy, but he got powers
from the hero of the first
Prototype. And in this one,
the first Prototype is your
opponent. This time your
main mutation is tendrils
that sprout from your arm
and smash stuff. When
you’re a mutated killer try-
ing to stop a transforming
virus, it’s good to have gross
things that pop out of you.
Coming soon:
More zombies
Zombies are fun to kill in
games. They give us so
much enjoyment. It’s about
time we paid them back.
The new game Plight of the
Zombie supports the cause
of ending zombie hunger. It
comes out later this year,
and it’s from the zombies’
point of view. The game in-
cludes more than 30 puzzles
and “tasteful accessories.”
I’m not sure the word “tas-
teful” has ever been applied
to zombies before.
Download this:
SpellTower
With the name Spell-
Tower, you may expect wiz-
ards and magic missiles. In-
stead you get spelling
words. You create words on
the game board by drawing
lines across the letters with
your finger. Everyone will be
playing it soon, even if
they’re just taking a break
from Draw Something.
Joe Crowe
SparkPlug Games
Plight of the Zombie gets personal with the walking
dead.
Concept
Writing
Design
6. S
ept. 15, 1963.
Remember where you were
that Sunday morning? (Were
you even born?)
The last thing four little girls in
Birmingham may have remem-
bered was the sound of each other’s
voices — talking, laughing, whis-
pering or sighing — in the inter-
lude between
Sunday school
and church.
Mercifully,
they never
knew what hit them — never knew
the bomb packed by the Ku Klux
Klan with more hate and less tol-
erance than any community could
stand — until it took away their
future. Four individual futures,
each filled with so much promise.
In that tragic moment Addie
Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Car-
ole Robertson and Cynthia Morris
Wesley became instant martyrs in
the cause of civil rights as they took
their last breath on earth and their
first in heaven.
And the world took note,
because it simply had to.
Even the segregated world in
which the girls had — almost —
grown up.
The deaths of these four precious
girls struck like lightning to the
heart — even the hearts of some
white supremacists — that the time
had come to end “segregation for-
ever” and the dastardly denial of
basic human rights.
“Father, forgive them,” the Rev.
John Cross prayed as he ran out of
the just-bombed Sixteenth Street
Baptist Church and into the street.
“Forgive them,” the pastor
implored his shattered congrega-
tion.
“Forgive them, for they don’t
know what they’ve done,” he
prayed for the criminals whose
cowardly bomb had extinguished
four young lives and blown away
the face of Christ in the church’s
east window.
A fitting memorial
Fifty-one years later, forgiveness
and reconciliation is still a work in
progress in our community. We can
close our eyes and remember the
hate, or we can open our hearts and
forge a new future, together.
For the past 31 years, the 4 Little
Girls Memorial Fund has looked to
the future — awarding scholarships
each year to deserving students, to
help fulfill their dreams of getting
a college education — an oppor-
tunity tragically swept away from
Addie Mae, Denise, Carole and
Cynthia in 1963.
We will never know what these
four little girls might have become.
But we know their legacy is alive
because we see it being lived out,
year by year, in the lives of our
scholarship recipients.
Since 1983, the Memorial Fund
has awarded $269,000 in scholar-
ships to 71 students, sowing seeds
of hope and reaping great results.
Some have become teachers or
professors, some doctors or law-
yers, others business executives or
entrepreneurs.
Last year, on the eve of Sept. 15,
a number of our scholarship recip-
ients joined the Memorial Fund
trustees at the Birmingham Civil
Rights Institute to remember four
little girls they never knew. In a fit-
ting and moving celebration, with
the help of the girls’ surviving fam-
ily members and a host of caring
citizens, we lit four memorial can-
dles.
“By their light, we now can see,”
we proclaimed, as we honored
their names. And we presented our
scholarship winners as tangible
evidence that the light of these four
lives still shines here.
The 4 Little Girls Memorial Fund
is one of the most positive results of
a terrible tragedy, and a most fitting
memorial. Not made of stone or
bronze or even stained glass, this is
a living legacy — being carried for-
ward in the lives and hearts of our
scholars.
In them we can see a better path
to the future — a path of hope,
opportunity and dignity for all
God’s children. Thanks to our many
supporters, others now can see that
path, too.
And follow that light.
As we honor the memory of
Addie Mae, Denise, Carole and
Cynthia on Sept. 15, please remem-
ber the 4 Little Girls Memorial
Fund, and help us lift their light
even higher.
Gregory R. Hodges is president of
Hodges & Associates in Birming-
ham and a member of the board of
the 4 Little Girls Memorial Fund, a
501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
(www.4littlegirlsfund.org).
W
hen a celebrity commits suicide, it
makes headlines across the globe.
People tweet about it. People make
inappropriate jokes about it. What we tend
to forget is that celebrity had family and
friends who loved him.
A close friend of mine took his life last
week. I found out about it, of all places, on
Facebook. When I first read the words, my
immediate reaction
was that it was a sick
joke. I read it over and
over until I finally did a
Google search to see if
there was an obituary. There was.
My heart raced. My vision blurred. I
clasped my hands to my face in abject dis-
belief. My friend of more than
25 years was one of the funniest guys I have
ever known. We have spent many hours try-
ing to see who could out-joke the other.
We met at the college newspaper and
clicked on an almost psychic level. We com-
pleted each other’s sentences. We would
constantly say things at the same time. I
often called him my twin brother separated
by two years.
For this reason, I feel like I should have
seen this coming. That I should have sensed
something that no one else could have.
Inside, he was obviously hurting beyond
what anyone could fathom — including me.
My friend killed himself at the beginning
of September, Suicide Awareness Month.
Almost 400,000 people attempt suicide
every year. More than 30,000 succeed. And
now my friend, with all his nuances and suc-
cesses and failings, will be another statistic,
but he will never be just that to the ones he
left behind — a wife, a mother, a brother, a
sister and many caring friends.
At some point in everyone’s life, darkness
can seem overwhelming. A lot of us mask
that dark with humor. I am often guilty of
this myself. But I know that there are loved
ones I can turn to for comfort and advice
when I truly need it. What is it in the mind
of the severely depressed that turns off the
beacon of hope that can light up that con-
suming darkness?
If you’re depressed, there is hope. There
is help. I used to think hotlines were cliché,
but my friend’s death has forced me to re-
evaluate a lot of my cynical notions. Suicide
hotlines can be a real deterrent. And here’s
something I didn’t know about the hotline:
You can call even if you’re not the one who
needs the immediate help. You can call for
advice if you’re worried about someone
else.
There can be warning signs for suicide.
Educate yourself. It could mean the differ-
ence between life and death for someone
you think you know very well.
Were there any signs for my friend?
Maybe, maybe not. One of his Facebook
posts shortly after Robin Williams commit-
ted suicide read:
“Robin Williams’ last words: Errrrrhhh!
“Before anyone gets bent out of shape …
that was a Robin Williams’ joke. You won’t
find more of a fan than me. So, it’s a tribute.
It was from his stand-up routine in the ’80s.
“Should you ever find yourself alive after
my death and this Internet thing still exists,
please begin joking immediately. The more
offensive you can be, the more you will dem-
onstrate you were a real friend.”
I was a real friend, but I cannot joke about
what you have done. You were an amaz-
ing person, and you have left a void in the
lives of many who must venture forward in
a world without you in it. And that, my sad
friend, is the worst joke of all.
If you need help or advice, call the National
Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. To get the
facts on suicide, go to www.suicidepreven-
tionlifeline.org. Kenneth Carter is a curator
for AL.com. Contact him at kcarter@al.com.
SUICIDE AWARENESS
Darkness
of depression
can often
be hidden
KENNETH
CARTER
GREGORY R.
HODGES
EDITORIAL BOARD
AnthonyCook
Community News Director | acook@al.com
MattSharp
Alabama Media Group President | msharp@al.com
MichelleHolmes
Vice President of Content | mholmes@al.com
K.A.Turner
Director of Commentary and Opinion | katurner@al.com
Lettersshouldbeabout200wordsandmustinclude
the writer’s name,address and daytime telephone
number,which will not be published. Letters may be
edited for grammar,spelling and brevity.
Email: epage@al.com.
Mail: Reader Letters,The Birmingham News,P.O.
Box 2553,Birmingham,AL 35202
HOW TO CONTACT US
‘BY THEIR
LIGHT…’4LITTLEGIRLS:MEMORIALFUNDISA
LIVING,POSITIVERESULTOFATERRIBLE
TRAGEDY.
OPINION
NATION&WORLD 26
s
25
(John Archibald/jarchibald@al.com)
Nothing says“Welcome to Birmingham!”
like 100 broken windows and 50 shades
of squalor.
This is the first view of the city that
Amtrak passengers get as they arrive in
Birmingham and walk out the station
door.Not so much a welcome as a
warning.“Stay on the train! Stay on the
train!”
The station itself is being revamped as
part of the new $30 million,three-block
intermodal station.Unfortunately,the
view remains.
Seen something that makes you shake
your head,or makes you mad? Or
something that makes you wonder
who’s responsible? Or something that
just needs to be fixed? Snap a picture or
shoot a short video and send it our way.
Use #wrongAL on Twitter,Instagram or
Vine,or email jarchibald@al.com.
WHAT’SWRONGWITHTHISPICTURE?
A plaque at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church honors, from left, Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins
and Carol Robertson.(File)
AL.COM z THE BIRMINGHAM NEWS z FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014
Writing
7. SET PHASERS TO PUN
TELEVISION
DETAILS
y What: NTSF:
SD:SUV::
y Where: Adult
Swim on
Cartoon
Network
y When:
Thursdays;
11:15 p.m.
Kate Mulgrew having a ball in Adult Swim spoof
By KENNETH CARTER
H
aving broken through the sci-fi glass ceiling by
portraying the first woman captain in a “Star
Trek” series, Kate Mulgrew is crashing through
another one as a female dramatic performer who
wears a straight face for laughs in Adult Swim’s
“NTSF:SD:SUV::”
With a name that looks like someone knocked
over a bowl of Alpha-Bits cereal, Adult Swim’s new-
est absurd series is a spoof of crime procedurals
such as “CSI.” In it, Mulgrew plays Kove, the head of
— get ready for this — the National Terrorism Strike
Force: San Diego: Sport Utility Vehicle.
Kove is the type of comedic role that was once re-
served for male actors such as Peter Graves, Robert
Stack and, of course, Leslie Nielsen.
“Absolutely! I’m going to think of myself now as
Leslie Nielsen — the female Leslie Nielsen,” Mul-
grew said. “That’s her exactly.”
And although there’s not much comedy on Mul-
grew’s resume, she said she has loved every minute
playing this eye-patch wearing character who pro-
tects San Diego from terrorist attacks.
“(Creator and executive producer) Paul Scheer, is
such a genius. And the character of Kove is such a
departure from what I’ve been playing for 37 years,”
she said. “I mean, I think I’m regarded as a dramatic
actress. And he had the prescience, the foresight —
and this is why comedians of his type are so fab-
ulous — he had the foresight to understand that —
to bring that kind of dry austerity to this crazy char-
acter wearing an eye patch.”
Mulgrew said she shot 12 15-minute episodes in
what she jokingly said was a long shooting schedule.
“We had a very grueling season. It took about five
and a half weeks,” she said. “All I can say is that I
laughed for six weeks. And this is a big stretch for
me. Because I’m nearly weeping at the end of my
day on a sound stage.“
Even though she’s finished with “NTSF” for now,
Mulgrew has been traveling and will soon be seen in
Syfy’s “Warehouse 13” in a four-episode arc that be-
gins Aug. 29.
“I had a remarkably great time up there (in Van-
couver). I go into these things never knowing what
to expect really because of my own experience with
episodic television,” Mulgrew said. “And Jack
Kenny, who is the show runner on ‘Warehouse 13,’
is probably one of the best, if not the best show run-
ners I’ve worked with. He runs a tight ship and is full
of grace and humor. Everybody’s relaxed. And it’s
very much a feeling of family. Very much a feeling of
togetherness. Very much a feeling of creative collab-
oration. So that in the middle of a scene I felt abso-
lutely free to fill in my own nuances.”
Being able to add her opinions to her roles is
something Mulgrew seems passionate about, and it
trickled down into what she calls an important mo-
ment in her life: portraying Katherine Hepburn in
the stage production of “Tea at Five” in 2003.
“It was written for me. Which is always a wonder-
ful thing,” she said. “It’s not only collaborative, you
have a great deal of power and influence, and it’s
what every actor yearns for.”
Of course, perhaps Mulgrew’s most famous role is
the one that changed the landscape of the Star Trek
universe: playing Capt. Kathryn Janeway, the first fe-
male starship captain in “Star Trek: Voyager” from
1995 to 2001.
“Well, she certainly changed (the landscape) for
women, not to put too fine a point on it because
that’s obviously apparent,” she said. “I think I el-
evated science fiction for women and also intro-
duced to the viewing public the idea — the broader
idea, the more advanced idea — of a woman in com-
mand . . . And I say this often and I’ll say it till I die: I
was very privileged to play Capt. Janeway, and I love
that chapter of my life.”
But now, Mulgrew is ready to put all seriousness
aside as she protects San Diego from moronic ter-
rorists. And is she concerned that “NTSF:SD:SUV::”
will be too much of a mouthful for television viewers
to remember?
“No. I think it will become like a Rubik’s Cube,”
Mulgrew said “It will become like a little puzzle. And
everyone will want to master it.“
j
Kenneth Carter is page one editor and technology editor for The
News. Write to him at kcarter@bhamnews.com
Of her
character,
Kove, Kate
Mulgrew says:
“We don’t
know why she
lost the eye.
But I think it
was probably
sexual in
nature.”
ADULT SWIM
MOREONLINE
y Want more Kate Mulgrew?
Read the entire transcript of
the interview on al.com, the
online home of The
Birmingham News: al.com/tv
5G
Sunday,August14,2011THEBIRMINGHAMNEWSPLAY
Writing
Design
8. SPOILERETIQUETTE
y www.collegehumor.com
In this age of DVRs, Internet
watching and On Demand,
it’s never been easier to
catch up on your favorite
shows. It’s also never been
easier to get caught near a
conversation at work that
ruins a TV show that you
have yet to see. This site
lets you in on some spoiler
etiquette given to you by
the stars of spoiler-heavy
shows such as “True Blood,”
“Dexter” and “The Walking
Dead.” If you’re asking your-
self what the heck a spoiler
is, then you won’t mind me
telling you that everyone on
“Walking Dead” are zombies
waiting to happen. (I
haven’t seen the finale yet,
so if that’s true, I’m sorry.)
PENNYPHYSICS
y www.scientific
american.com
So, I’m sure you’ve heard
the story that a penny
dropped off the Empire
State Building would kill a
person walking by on the
street below. Sounds scary,
but is it true? Turns out
that, no, it couldn’t kill any-
one. Although it might hurt
a little. This site explains
why a penny isn’t the pro-
jectile weapon people might
think it is. A ball-point pen
on the other hand . . .
SCREENSAVERSOFYORE
y www.mentalfloss.com
Remember when we had to
have screensavers on our
computers so that desktop
wouldn’t be burned into the
screen forever? Yep, those
were the days. We still like
screensavers, but we no
longer need them. This site
looks at some of the fun
screensavers that used to
pop up every 10 minutes,
and we didn’t even mind it. I
still love the flying toasters.
Written and compiled
by Technology Editor
Kenneth Carter. Have
a favorite website?
Send the address to
kcarter@bhamnews.com.
WARNINGS
During a warning, MyWARN will show
your location (the blue dot) in
relation to the polygon area issued
by the National Weather Service.
i
ONTHE
STORM
SAFETY INFORMATION
During warnings, MyWARN can offer
tips on how to keep safe during a
weather emergency.
By Kenneth Carter
kcarter@bhamnews.com
T
ornadoes are a sobering fact of life when
living in the Southeast. Recent tragedies
on April 27, 2011, and Jan. 23 have only
served to emphasize that point.
And although the National Weather
Service works diligently in discovering and
tracking the threat of deadly storms, getting that
information into the hands of a sleeping family
in the path of those storms hasn’t been easy.
Enter MyWARN, a new iPhone app developed
by Bill Murray and Jeff Cross of Weather Apps, a
local company in Birmingham.
The goal of MyWARN is to get more accurate
and precise weather information to the public
as quickly and easily as possible.
“The way the weather service issued warnings
all my life was by counties,” Murray said. The
problem with that is that a storm supercell may
only threaten a small portion of that area, even
though the warning released is for the entire
county.
Enter the polygon
“So in October 2007, (the Weather Service)
went to something called storm-based warn-
ings,” he said. “On their computers, they draw a
little polygon in the area that they think is going
to be affected by the severe weather. Well, that
area is 20 percent of what they used to warn.”
But the task of alerting people in harm’s way
continued to be a problem. “Weather radio? Still
county based. Outdoor sirens? Still county
based,” Murray said.
“The stuff that comes out is actually very pre-
cise.” Cross said. “I was blown away, not know-
ing anything about the weather, at how good
they are with the predictions. Now where things
fail is with the dissemination of that informa-
tion.”
But Murray said a light bulb went off when he
saw the potential of location-based services in
smartphones.
“I said this is just a prime opportunity to take
it straight from the National Weather Service’s
keyboard and put it in the end user’s hand,” he
said.
SAF-T-Net, a recent free weather warning app
from Huntsville-based Baron Services, is re-
stricted in that it only alerts of severe weather in
preset locations. MyWARN takes advantage of a
smartphone’s GPS to alert of bad weather no
matter where someone is.
Keeping it simple
Murray has an infectious enthusiasm about
all things weather. He also has a company called
The Weather Company, which has ABC 33/40
meteorologist James Spann as a partner. And he
is a weekend forecaster for Alabamawx.com.
He contacted programmer Cross about two
years ago and pitched him his app idea.
“I’ve learned a lot about weather since,” Cross
said.
“He’s very fastidious about the programming,
and I was very fastidious about what I wanted it
to do,” Murray said. “Because, we’re not making
it for weather nerds. We’re making it for the av-
erage person. The idea is for it to be super sim-
ple, not a bunch of settings. It just needs to
work — sit in the background and just go off
when there’s a warning. Or go off when you
drive into a warning, which is even more impor-
tant to me.”
Since MyWARN is designed to constantly run
in the background, it’s always searching for
weather advisories. When severe weather is
forecast, the app will send out a head’s up hours
ahead of time. If an alert puts you inside a poly-
gon, the notification will show your location in-
side the warning area. It will also show where
you are inside a watch as well.
“It shows your location always. If you want to
read the details from the weather service, the
text of the actual advisory is right there, too,”
Murray said. “But we didn’t want it to get more
complicated than this. That’s pretty much the
functionality of it.”
Part of that simplicity is keeping the weather
warnings to a minimum. MyWARN only issues
advisories for floods, thunderstorms and torna-
does.
When an alert goes off, the high-pitched sus-
tained tone gradually gets louder for five sec-
onds. The alert goes on for 10 seconds in the
event of a tornado warning. “They’re the king-
pins,” Murray said.
The app will keep notifying you about the
warning until the danger has passed. It will even
go so far as to send a message letting you know
that the warning is over. Or if you are driving, it
will let you know that you have left an area un-
der alert.
But simple to operate doesn’t mean there’s
not much there after it warns you of danger. The
app can give you severe weather tips and,
thanks to media partnering, it will let you watch
live streaming of a television weather report,
which is a bonus if your safe place doesn’t have
access to a TV or if the power is out.
Battery life
A major issue both Murray and Cross said
they had to address was battery life since the
app is designed to be running constantly.
“When the weather is good, the thing is de-
signed to not use very much battery,” Murray
said. “It steps up the precision and the accuracy
(during potential threats). But we had to ad-
dress that. Because we’re using battery about
the rate of 12 percent per hour when there were
alerts.”
But Cross said that an upgrade has already
been issued.
“We just put in an upgrade just to address
battery life. And so now we’ve given the user the
option to turn on precision or not,” he said.
“Turning it off doesn’t mean that it’s not still
fairly precise. It’s just not tracking as hard as it
could and where you are in relation to the
storm.”
Cross said that MyWARN is accurate to within
10 meters in its most precise setting.
“If the polygon is across the room, and you
walk over to that, you’re going to get alerted,” he
said.
MyWARN, which went live March 2, is only
available for iPhone right now, but Murray and
Cross said an Android version is in the works.
The iPhone version is available for download
now on iTunes for $9.99 through June 1. Then
the plan is to take it to a subscription-based
service in order to make it more maintainable,
Murray said. Right now, he is considering a $12
annual fee.
“You don’t want a free app that’s going to de-
liver your tornado warnings to you,” Murray
said. “You want one that’s going to be backed
up. We’re scared to death to offer an app that
might not go off when there’s bad weather. And
so we want to make sure that it’s sustainable.”
MONDAY, MARCH 19, 2012 j SECTION C
WEB SURFING
Internet sites to help out,
educate or have fun with.
Direct links to these sites
are available at al.com, the
online home of The
Birmingham News. Go to:
blog.al.com/
techcetera
WATCHES
During a watch, MyWARN will show
your location (the blue dot) inside
the watch area.
THE DASHBOARD
MyWARN has an easy interface that shows you threat
levels for floods, thunderstorms and tornadoes. It’s set
to receive all seven kinds of advisories: the three
warnings, the three watches and the risks.
ALERTS
Not only will MyWARN alert you if a
storm is approaching you in your
home, but if you happen to drive into
a warning area as well.
Appwarnsofsevereweatherwhereveryouare
WEIRDWARE
Drunk and
orderly
The biggest problem we
know of with iPhones is that
we’re always using ours to
text friends, post on Face-
book, tweet and check in to
Foursquare. Which leaves
only one hand free to pop the
top on our favorite bever-
ages. Difficult is one way to
describe opening beer bottles
one handed. Messy is an-
other.
The Intoxicase with its
built-in bottle opener is the
iPhone case you’ve been
dreaming of. Not only will it
let you open your beer with
both hands, it comes with an
app that will post the open-
ing of the bottle on Facebook,
tweet it, check you in to
Foursquare and keep a run-
ning tab of your boozing. It’ll
also help you stumble back to
your car and call a cab to get
your drunk self home. It’s in-
toxilicious!
y What: Intoxicase Plus
y MSRP: $45
y Where: intoxicase.com
GAMEBITSBash is one
of the new
Angry Birds
in space. New Angry Birds
this week
The new Angry Birds
game is available Thursday.
It’s Angry Birds in Space.
More details about it are in a
fun video at http://
space.angrybirds.com/
announcement/.
The video features Don
Pettit, a real NASA astro-
naut, who spent six months
on the International Space
Station. It is a tremendous
honor that people in the
space industry work toward
their entire careers. Not ev-
eryone can host an Angry
Birds video.
Syfy monsters
on Facebook
Syfy Monster Island is a
Facebook game where you
fight monsters from the Syfy
channel’s cheesy Saturday
monster movies. I use the
word cheesy with respect,
because making good mov-
ies on purpose is hard. Mak-
ing bad movies on purpose
is awesome.
Your guy gets rewards
through the game for killing
monsters such as giant ga-
tors. I assume Sharktopus is
in there somewhere. Other-
wise, why bother even going
on Facebook?
Joe Crowe
Rovio
Concept
Writing
Design
9. Links to Web articles
http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/06/man_of_steels_sucker_punch_how.html
http://blog.al.com/techcetera/2012/05/birmingham_aids_outreach_launc.html
http://blog.al.com/techcetera/2012/03/gadget_review_third_generation.html
http://blog.al.com/techcetera/2012/02/facebook_timeline_is_coming_bu.html
http://blog.al.com/techcetera/2012/01/youtubes_trends_dashboard_coun.html
http://blog.al.com/techcetera/2011/10/your_man_reminder_app_gives_wo.html
http://blog.al.com/techcetera/2011/09/web_surfing_all_good_things.html
