Lincolnite

Neal thanks a couple City Council members:

I don't really care whether they rename a couple Lincoln streets after Rosa Parks or Bertram Goodhue. Parks and Goodhue are both fine people to commemorate. The case for Goodhue is particularly strong. But I wonder: Are these two proposals the start of a larger trend of renaming streets in Lincoln? I sure hope not. There's the confusion factor, of course, as well as the problem of the resources required to change a street's name. But my larger fear is that if the trend continues, everybody is going to want their token street. Once that starts, the quality of debate always goes downhill quickly. There's really only one way to find out if a trend has begun, and that's to wait around and see what happens over the next few months. On the other hand, as long as we're throwing out proposals, here's mine. (I'm such a troublemaker.) I think we should rename Highway 2 (a.k.a. Nebraska Highway) Bison bison Street, in honor of one of the species our ancestors (im)politely asked to move out of the way so that we could occupy this state. It's only fair.

Neal Obermeyer has been so kind as to periodically allow me to post some of his work here on Lincolnite. Believe it or not, not every one of Neal's ideas goes over well with the folks at the Journal Star for one reason or another. It's a crime, I know. Nevertheless, the Journal Star's loss is our gain, so I am starting a new series lovingly called Neal's Rejects. In today's sketch, Neal welcomes Verizon to Lincoln: (Click the image to enlarge)

"The major decisions are all finalized right now." That's Kris Humphrey, the project manager for the city's Harris Overpass project at last night's public meeting. The $16.5 million bridge over O Street is all but ready to begin construction. Work should begin next fall, with completion set for the following fall. I just have one question: why in the world does the project need its own website? Call me silly, but it seems like we could have saved ourselves a few hundred bucks by, I don't know, sticking it on the Public Works projects website.

Could it be true? Could The Option, a Downtown housing project two years in the making, finally be on its way? Originally proposed to include 40 condos, the project now features 13 row houses on a vacant lot at 7th and R just south of the Downtown Post Office. The rate at which the units sell -- four are sold already -- will be interesting to observe.

Would you like to see JournalStar.com provide RSS feeds? I have written a letter I plan to send in:

Dear Editors, We want to thank the Lincoln Journal Star for giving JournalStar.com a long-overdue overhaul. The site is more attractive, easier to use, and filled with more content than before. We especially want to thank you for not following in the footsteps of a certain Omaha newspaper’s website, which requires a ridiculous online registration process (and a circumvention of that process by those of us who are turned off by it) in order to read articles. We wish to congratulate Online Editor Steve Smith and his crew for a job well done. The Journal Star has done a good job trying to maintain, or even increase, its relevance through blogs, podcasts, and the like, so it is odd that JournalStar.com still, even after its facelift, lacks RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. RSS is a simple technology that would allow the Journal Star to push its content to new audiences at virtually zero cost. The fear, common among the "old media", is loss of site visits and ad revenue. That fear is unfounded and, in our opinion, completely backwards. Indeed, RSS feeds will increase the size and diversity of your readership. Even simple feeds with headlines and short summaries would expose your content to a wider audience. The majority of publishers agree with us: 76 of the nation’s top 100 newspapers offer RSS feeds (Link). Providing RSS feeds is a win-win situation. Your readers win yet another way to access your content, you win a wider audience with almost zero extra resources. It really is that simple.

If you would like to help edit the letter, or if you want to co-sign it, please hop on over to the forums to join in the discussion.

Mr. T took at look at JournalStar.com just a few minutes ago and ran across this odd headline in the sports section. Just a little cynical, don't you think?

Have you heard the obnoxious, over-the-top, everybody-freak-out radio ad from Jon Bruning's office on the topic of child predators? It's awful. The ad breathlessly declares that your children are threatened by child-raping sickos thousands (sic) of times every day. It's so over the top that until Bruning himself started speaking, I was convinced it was some sort of morning show prank. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing amusing about sexual predators, and parents and kids do need to be aware of the dangers. But whipping out your best Chicken Little impression definitely isn't the best way to spread the word. Besides, the threat from random strangers on the web is dramatically overstated. Most sex crimes are committed by family members or acquaintances of the victim. The biggest threat to children isn't some faceless freak living in his mom's basement. But then, it's easier to think that way than to consider the possibility that an uncle, a babysitter, or *gulp* a parent could be the culprit. I couldn't find the radio ad on the AG's website -- dear Lord that is an awful website! -- but I did find these two videos. The videos aren't as panic-laden as the radio ad, but they both fall into the "stereotypical freaky dude in his mom's basement" trap.

I opened the paper this morning, and I thought, "Hey, I know that guy!" Don't let it be said that my games aren't educational!

I can live with the new digital billboard rules, which allow slightly brighter signs than previously proposed, but no animation. The rules are more restrictive than I would have allowed, but not so restrictive as to completely defeat the billboards' purpose. On a related note, the City Council legitimized Anderson Ford's six year-old illegal sign. That's a fair outcome, since the city screwed up by giving Anderson a permit for the sign in the first place.

If you haven't already noticed, JournalStar.com is sportin' a new look today. The new design is much more like what one expects a news portal to be. It doesn't break any new ground from a website design perspective, but that's a good thing. A site like JournalStar.com needs to cater to its audience's expectations about how a news site should work. I had the pleasure of getting a sneak peak at JournalStar.com over the weekend, thanks to Online Editor Steve Smith. I gave Steve a variety of feedback on the new site. Here are some of the things I said. General items -- The interface is clean and simple. The columnar/modular approach makes the site feel more like a news site than the old design. The simple color scheme is consistently applied, with plenty of white space. Overall, it's a nice, conservative look. Unfortunately, parts of the site "break" when viewed without advertisements. (I browse primarily with Firefox and the AdBlock extension.) RSS -- Many of you want to know the story on this, so I may as well break it to you now: JournalStar.com is staying away from RSS for now. I won't quote Steve Smith on the matter (because I didn't ask his permission to quote his e-mail), but I can say that RSS is on the radar. It didn't make the site (for now) because of the fear that it will take away from page views. In other words: ad revenue is affected. I know, I know, you don't care. You just want your RSS. So do I. Let's do something about it: go on over to this thread in the forum and help me write a letter to the editor. When it is finished, I will send it to the Journal Star. Navigation -- The main menu at the top of each page is mostly well organized, but many of the items in the submenu under "Home" don't make sense. (Who would look under "Home" for Celebrate Nebraska?) There is an annoying lag between the time you mouseover a menu item and when its respective submenu displays, although it's probably there to prevent the menu from changing unexpectedly on accidental mouseovers. Homepage -- Having the weather and search at the top is nice. The homepage is a little busy, but there a lot of content needs to be squeezed into a small amount of space. It took me a while to figure out what the B* images are supposed to represent. (They represent connections to various LJS blogs.) Section pages -- Section pages are the main section (Sports, News) collector pages. They are laid out similarly to the homepage, which is nice for consistency's sake. I'm not a fan of the blue header image at the top of the section pages, nor am I crazy about the "central" in "News Central". Subsection pages -- These are pages like Local under News. They are mostly just lists of articles, with links to related information. They are simple and bland, which is probably the best way to do them. Article pages -- The article pages are structured so that the line length doesn't get too long. That's good for readability. The text size widget is kind of cool, but it would be more useful if it remembered your setting from page to page. Comments on the old site were ordered newest to oldest; I hope they change that for this version. Subsites -- JournalStar.com is filled with subsites, like Ground Zero Online and The 402. Unfortunately, most (all?) of those subsites currently have their own drastically different looks. I would really like to see those subsites brought under the site's new design. Their look should be customized, of course, but within the confines of the new design. Broken -- Portions of the site are broken or missing right now. Watch your step as you navigate the site. The Ugly -- I hate it when websites open pop-ups or new windows, especially when I'm not told that that's what is going to happen. JournalStar.com is guilty of the crime in several places throughout the site. It's especially irksome because the annoying behavior doesn't serve any useful purpose. Also, several parts of the site don't work at all if the user doesn't have JavaScript turned on. That doesn't apply to most users, but it does apply to one very important group: individuals using assistive technologies like screen readers for the visually impaired. That is not acceptable. I'm not saying that because I'm on some sort of political correctness crusade; I'm saying it because the courts have said it isn't acceptable. The courts are gradually expanding the group of websites that must accommodate persons with disabilities, and in my opinion JournalStar.com is either within or very nearly within that group. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.) Cover your butts, LJS. Overall -- Overall I think the new site works. It has a nicer look, it is better organized, and best of all, the Journal Star didn't go with the Omaha Weird Herald's stupid subscription format. It has a couple hiccups, but hopefully those will be fixed with time. Congratulations Steve Smith and company, you did well.

Today's Friday Five features five other things John Camp could have won had he decided to go for it:

1. John Camp could have won the Tour de France, but he decided to allow his good friend Lance Armstrong give it a shot, since Lance's post-cancer comeback made a nice story for the media.
2. Camp could have won the National Spelling Bee, but he decided it was "a kids' activity".
3. Camp was up for the Heisman, but he bowed out after some kid whined that he would "go back to Omaha and tell on you to my mom!"
4. Camp could have had Tom Cruise as a mate, but the Scientology weirded him out. Camp suggested Tom go with his second best option, Katie Holmes, instead.
5. John Camp could kick Chuck Norris's ass any day of the week, but Camp allows Norris to stay around because "it's funny watching people fawn over such a nancy boy".

Look for countdown crosswalk signals to be installed at every crosswalk downtown this week. In my experience the countdown signals help pedestrians make better choices about which flashing Don't Walk signals to heed and which to ignore. The new signals cost $200,000.

Yeah, yeah, the headline is tired. But what better way to (probably) welcome Verizon to town than with the company's catchy-but-worn-out advertising phrase. According to the Journal Star's "sources familiar with the project", Verizon plans to build a call center in the tech park in northwest Lincoln. The call center would host some 800 jobs with starting salaries in the mid- to upper-20 thousand range. It's not Intel, but it's a good load of decent jobs. Welcome to town, folks!