WASHINGTON – Tim Russert, NBC News’ Washington bureau chief and the moderator of “Meet the Press,” died Friday after a sudden heart attack at the bureau, NBC News said Friday. He was 58.
Russert was recording voiceovers for Sunday’s “Meet the Press” program when he collapsed, the network said. He and his family had recently returned from Italy, where they celebrated the graduation of Russert’s son, Luke, from Boston College.
No further details were immediately available.
Rest in peace, Tim Russert. A pity you won’t be here to witness the results of the presidential election you have covered so well through the primaries.
Update: More commentary and reaction from fellow bloggers:
A few notable items from the world of higher ed blogging:
A rankings watchdog. U.S. News blogger and rankings guru Bob Morsepoints to a newly formed watchdog of college rankings . Called the International Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence, or IREG, the group “will conduct reviews of various ‘academic rankings’ and measures of ‘academic excellence’ to assess how well they serve higher education stakeholders and the general public,” Morse writes. He’s also a member of the executive committee. Morse plans to use his blog to “keep readers informed on the evolution and activities of the IREG-International Observatory and what impact it has on rankings around the world.”
Blogrolling and its discontents.Karlyn Morissette has a couple of interesting posts lately about her anti-blogroll stance and a why I blog manifesto, in which she also reveals she and Kyle James had a six-hour conversation about blogging. (I assume this was a face-to-face or phone conversation — what I like to term a real conversation [and yes I know my Baby Boomer age is showing] — rather than one of those virtual conversations we like to talk about on our blogs.) Seriously, though. Six hours? About blogging? I don’t think I’ve ever had a six-hour conversation with anyone about anything, not even punk rock or baseball. (Update: Kyle informs me via Twitter that the conversation was via Gtalk.)
A provocative article in the forthcoming issue of Atlantic Monthly argues that Web surfing is rewiring our brains, making us unable to stay focused long enough to make it to the end of a book or long article.
I would have posted more from that blog post, but I lost interest before I could finish the second paragraph. Seriously, though, that article — Is Google making us stupid? — is worth a read. The references to 2001: A Space Odyssey may be lost on some readers, but there’s a lot to ponder there.
Now that Karine Joly has told all her readers about my secret YouTube guerrilla marketing tactic, it’s time I shared the real story of this amazingly popular video. (Popular in terms of hits, that is. The ratings? Not so much.)
That’s not some surrealist short-short art film you’re viewing. It’s actual science. And it’s gotten 82,000 hits over the past year.
Karine included this video in her recent list of five things to do before you post your video on YouTube. It was No. 5 on the list — a surprise that Karine posted as a joke. But hey, I’m from the any-publicity-is-good-publicity school of PR, so I’m okay with it. Linkage is linkage.
“If you’re looking to generate some big numbers in terms of page views,” Karine wrote, “make your video very short and difficult (impossible) to understand at first sight.”
If I had only known back then that this video of a piece of aerogel being struck by a bullet would get so many visits, I would have included some dramatic background music (a la dramatic chipmunk) and promoted it more heavily. But the real reason I posted that video (and the less popular but slightly more comprehensible sequel, Shattered! conventional armor-grade PMMA hit by projectile) was to add some multimedia to a post on our research blog, Visions, about the researcher who won a nanotechnology award for his work with aerogels. The video was provided by the professor. There’s nothing professional about it. It’s just a record of an experiment.
Who knew it would become an accidental YouTube sensation, discovered by none other than Karine Joly? The vid has been played more than 82,000 times this past year. Granted, it isn’t exactly this:
“Dramatic chipmunk” has gotten 8.8 million views and countless 5-star ratings during its time. It’s the pinnacle of short viral videos to which all web 2.0 filmmakers aspire.
But, my aerogel video is not just entertainment. It’s serious science. It’s been discussed and shared on serious science blogs. Still, if it makes people scratch their heads and leave lots of wtf comments, that’s okay by me. As long as they’re watching.
Life beyond the blog went crazy last week, so I didn’t make a Friday Five. Today, I make up for it with a Sunday Seven. Think of it as a Friday Five with two bonus tracks.
13. Throw a punch. Close enough, but not too close. Swing with your shoulders, not your arm. Long punches rarely land squarely. So forget the roundhouse. You don’t have a haymaker. Follow through; don’t pop and pull back. The length you give the punch should come in the form of extension after the point of contact. Just remember, the bones in your hand are small and easy to break. You’re better off striking hard with the heel of your palm. Or you could buy the guy a beer and talk it out.
The 25 most rockin’ guitar riffs. All the greats are there, plus some not-so-greats. (Yeah, “Born to Run” is a great song, but the guitar riff is only so-so. And it shouldn’t rank higher [No. 8] than “Johnny B. Goode” [No. 19]).
For Gmail users: 13 experimental new features — a review from Lifehacker, originally posted June 5 as a sneak preview. Google unveiled the features on the 6th. I still haven’t tinkered with them.
