Memorable Firsts: Part I

-
Last night in bed I couldn't stop myself from reading news stories about Hurricane Sandy in NYC: the terrible fire in Queens, the flooding in lower Manhattan, and other terrible events. I flipped over to Twitter and noticed NYU in the top trends, which is how I learned about the power backup failure at NYU medical center and the evacuation of NICU patients. I cried a little for those parents when I read this news, because I know from our family how difficult it is for parents to have their baby in NICU, and then to be evacuated during a hurricane? God bless those nurses, doctors and EMT/firefighters who got all those patients out safely. And all those battling the terrible effects of the storm all over the region.

I realized this is the first time I learned a major news story from Twitter first. I remember clearly the first news story I learned from the internet: when Princess Diana died. I was on Yahoo and read she was in an accident and when I went back to the homepage, they had changed the story to reflect she had died. At that time I still got most of my news from television. Now? Nothing from television. I've been used to getting news from online news sources, but even last night, these were too slow. News was coming faster from Twitter than from CNN. That's quite remarkable, just in technology terms.

Comments

Matt said…
Yep. I would say it was Facebook that started to light up with posts from the firematic folks first who had been listening to the online scanners going "Holy Crap" then the civilian folks started reposting tweets and such.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Really?!?? AKA, Cultural Mishaps in China, They Will Happen

-
After judging a speech competition all morning at a school that is not my own, I was asked to hand out the second place prizes. They also asked some other teachers, but I missed the details because they only gave them in Chinese and I didn’t understand everything. I was only supposed to hand out 4 of 12 prizes. But the prize girl kept handing me certificates, so I kept handing them out, while the audience laughed at me. I didn’t know what was going on, so I just kept going until someone stopped me. Later, I was interviewed for the school news, on video, and the girl interviewing me asked me this question: Random Girl: “When you made the mistake and everyone was laughing at you, what did you feel inside?” Really, random girl? Really? On camera you ask me this? Really? Two years ago, this would have devastated me. Now, I just have to laugh and say, “Oh well! Such is life in China.” Cultural mistakes will be made. It happens. For the record, I told her I felt that it is maybe go...
Read more

This One Time I Thought I Was Really Hot (But It Was Just The HVAC Talking)

-
Back in San Antonio, my friend Stacey had asked me to pick her up from the airport. It was full summer, and for those of you who haven't been in San Antonio in the summertime, you know that expression 'hot as an oven'? Well, I like to say San Antonio summers are 'hot as downwind from an exhaust pipe.' (Which means when you actually are downwind from an exhaust pipe, things get really unpleasant.) It's quite common for there to be a temperature difference of 35-40 degrees between indoor and outdoor air during a San Antonio summer. True story: I had a small heater at my work desk and turned it on in the summer, not winter, because the air conditioning was on so high in our building I froze to death at my desk. So anyway, I go straight from the gym to the airport to pick up Stacey. It's 10 pm but still around 100 degrees outside. Inside, it's a balmy 60 or so. Gotta give those tourists a false sense of comfort! I'm pacing a bit in the baggage area wa...
Read more