The article did a great job of discussing the innovations and possible impacts of this invention, but really overlooked one part of the equation.  It briefly mentions at the bottom of the first page about the concerns that people have, like a lack of bike lanes on city streets.  When I read these, I wondered how they would be addressed.  The next page does not go on to talk about the shortcomings, but instead goes into describing how the wheel works again.  The wheel is an excellent way to get people to ride bikes, but it needs to be convenient for them to do so.  In Copenhagen, there are a myriad of bike lanes and lights timed to bicyclists.  American cities do not have streets equipped for a large number of cyclists.  The wheel is fitted with sensors to help city planners, and hopefully they would be able to find out how to add more bike lanes to streets after the product is introduced.

The story also has a video to accompany it along with some graphics.  The video doesn’t really present any new information, but it is nice to see the wheel at work, even hypothetically.  The graphic only broke down the wheel into its key components, but it was interesting to see what went in to making it.  I thought that the piece was very good and informative, but it could have struck a more powerful chord had it decided to take a more detailed look at the concerns people have.

If I were to write, I think I would want to write about a specific sport.  I like to think that I know a lot about more than one sport, but I don’t.  I would want to focus on one sport and that would probably be baseball.  I love to watch baseball, and I love to read everything that’s written about it.  Some of my favorite baseball writers have their stuff on SI.com, guys like Jon Heyman, Ted Keith, and Tom Verducci.  Those are the kinds of writers that I would love to base my writing on.

The one writer that I try to emulate is Bill Simmons, who I previously wrote about.  His writing is so humorous and at the same time insightful.  I would love to be able to write from the fan’s perspective.  That’s why I started my own sports blog, Lost In Boston.  It has given me an opportunity to practice my writing and try out different styles to see what works best for me.  I tried the Bill Simmons thing, it didn’t really work to well.  I would be better set trying to emulate the the other writers, or maybe just try to blend them all together into my own creation.

When you read the piece, you get an idea of just how incompetent the person was who took the call.  If she really cared about her job, she would have done everything in her power to find the street where the injured person was located.  Instead, she let a person die.

Reading the comments about the article, you can tell that it sparked a lot of interest among the readers.  More than 400 people had posted comments in response to the article, some of which strayed a bit from the topic.  People just want one thing: for others to do their jobs.  It’s nice for  an article to have a comments section like this so that the community can get involved and have their voices heard.  The things people say have to stay on topic though.  One cool addition to the comments is the ability to sort them by how many times a comment has been “recommended.”  This is a growing trend in new media, being able to signify articles or pictures or even comments that you like.  This feature weeds out the weaker comments, which is very nice.  Once I hit that, insightful and intelligent comments were the ones that came up.  This is an option that all articles should add so people don’t have to waste time with new retorts to offensive posts that have nothing to do with the issue at hand.

Accompanying the graphic is a small piece telling readers how they were able to put the graphic together.  Several different resources were used to compile all the information and to project the growth in future quarters.  There is also a link within this short story that accompanied the graphic when it was put up in late November.  The story is an in-depth piece analyzing the results and getting some specific stories from accross the country.  It is a very interesting read. One point brought up in the story is that under normal circumstances, a person could move to another state where there is a positive job outlook.  This bleak job outlook is coupled with a housing crisis, making it incredibly difficult to find affordable housing and a job that will offeset costs.

This graphic does show that there is hope for the future, just not the immediate future.  The statistics note that there will be a 0.5% decrease in the number of jobs at the end of the fiscal quarter this year, and the percentage will continue to drop.  Only education and leisure and hospitality saw growth.  However, job creation will increase towards the end of 2010 and into 2011.  If the projections are accurate, we won’t be in this bleak economy for much longer.  That is a big “if” though.

At first I didn’t know what was going on.  It seemed like his ideas were jumbled and that he really didn’t have a clear purpose with his writing. As it moved forward, he was able to focus the topic and I finally knew what was going on.  The way he structured it was very logical to me.  He opened up with his travel issues and transitioned into the current issues in Copenhagen surrounding the meetings.  I wasn’t aware of the magnitude of protesting that was taking place.  The issue is of such great importance you would think there would be some unity on it.  Everything is a polarizing debate in this current world.  When he talked about how long he had to wait to just enter the conference, it shows how much interest is being taken on a global basis.  Something has got to give.

The section he had on the Bering Sea captains was very interesting.  He clearly knows a lot about the subject, and all of that information was very relevant.  Not a lot of people think about the human aspect of global warming/climate change and what kind of impacts are already occurring.  Learning about these villagers and the struggles they are facing because of shortened hunting seasons and dangerous conditions was very enlightening to me.  These are the things that people need to know about so that real change can be made.

His commentary on the actual meetings was good.  It revealed how much disagreement the global community has as far as responsibility.  Developing countries want developed countries to reduce more emissions, and vice versa.  These nations need to come together on this issue.

I thought his closing lines were great:

“Much of what unfolds over the closing days of COP15 will hinge on how this negotiating gap is closed and if the architecture for a binding treaty can be agree upon. UNFCCC Executive Yvo de Boer described the process as ‘bringing 193 horses to water.’

We will know at the end of the week if they drank.”

I thought that was a great way to sum it up.

The biggest reason this story is news is because this is the same doctor that treated Tiger Woods after his surgery to repair a torn ACL in 2008.  Woods wasn’t recovering very quickly from the surgery, so Galea went to his home in Florida and gave him a new treatment called Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapy.  This innovative treatment diffuses the red blood cells and the platelets to help stimulate muscle and bone regeneration.  Other athletes swear by him, saying that his methods have helped cut their healing time almost in half.  There is speculation that HGH and other drugs have had a hand in this.  The thing that raises the most questions for me is this quote: “When asked for comment about Mr. Woods’s involvement with Dr. Galea, Mark Steinberg, of I.M.G., responded in an e-mail message: ‘I would really ask that you guys don’t write this? If Tiger is NOT implicated, and won’t be, let’s please give the kid a break.’”  This quote makes me think that there are other things going on with Tiger and this doctor than people know about.

I really like how the story was structured.  It told of the most pressing things first, like the allegations and some of the more recent accusations against Dr. Galea.  It follows with some of Dr. Galea’s history with HGH and his other therapies, followed by testimonies from athletes and other doctors.  At the end it touches on Tiger Woods and his experiences with Galea.  I think that the story provided plenty of information and did it in a very organized and logical way.

The columns that I enjoy the most are his mailbags, where he answers questions from his readers.  His most recent one was about the Tiger Woods saga, which he entitled “The Tiger Zoo.” He is able to infuse pop culture and sports so seemlessly, and his mailbags are a great example of this.  He also writes about issues that seem pressing to him, such as Bill Belichik’s controversial 4th-down call against the Colts a few weeks ago.  He does power rankings, of NFL teams.  He does running diaries of trips, NBA Drafts, particular events.  He writes about his favorite Boston sports teams, the NBA, the NFL, and big sporting events.  He even writes about miscellaneous things like movies and awards shows.  The content may seem jumbled or unorganized at times, but anything that he writes will usually have something, no matter how insignificant, to do with the topic.  He will find a way to relate back to his main point.  He also loves theories, and has created a very large number of them.  So many, that he had to create a glossary on his page that lets the readers know exactly what he is talking about when he writes the “Ewing Theory.”

One of the things that Bill Simmons does that I enjoy the most are his podcasts.  They can range from fairly short (a half hour) to marathon-like (the longest that I have listened to was over an hour and twenty minutes).  These podcasts can cover actual sports, sports gambling, celebrities and actors, or even reality television (one of his favorite topics and one of the most comical).  He is really invested in everything that he talks about, and you get the feeling you are listening to a man that loves what he does.  That is why I strive to resemble his career at some point in my life.

I thought the structuring of the story was good.  She introduced several of the main parties in her lead, created a back-and-forth of opinion, and left just enough to the imagination to get me interested.  She could have used a juicier lead instead of leading with the direct language of the bill.  I am not so sure that legal language is the most intriguing lead.  After the lead, she pieced together the different parties and did a great job of ordering them.  She went from NHESP and its job to Pepin, the man who was the impmetus for the bill, to an expert source, to the legislation.  The order of everything was well done, but the length is the only concern.  There is only so much information that people can withstand, especially on a topic that is as dry as this. 

Along with the length issues, there are some substance issues in the piece that could have increased its draw.  A couple of segments seem to beg further questions.  A NHESP representative commented that people complain about their projects, which they have worked on for years, get thwarted and delayed by NHESP for so long.  He says sometimes it is their own fault for not submitting correct requests or waiting until the last minute.  It would have been interesting to know if any of the subjects that Turner spoke to fell into any of these categories.  There were also numbers given about the number of projects that were approved or rejected.  Not that much was told about what those numbers really meant.  A little extra reporting could have gone a long way.

While I was following the story, I used Sports Illustrated, which uses Golf.com for all of its golf coverage.  They updated their coverage constantly, and here is an archive of the articles they wrote about it.  The earliest blurbs provided very little and aren’t listed there.  The first articles are very informative and give the information that is most important and relevant appropriately.  The articles don’t add much new information as they go on, but other news sites had more to say. 

TMZ.com reported that the Florida Higway Patrol wanted to obtain a warrant in the Tiger Woods case.  The Florida Highway Patrol denied seeking a warrant, and Fox News wrote a piece in contrast to TMZ’s story.  Much of their reporting is speculative, and if you know TMZ, all they want to do is find juice in the story.  There are wild details in this story about Tiger’s wife, Elin, domestically abusing him because Woods was having an affair.  They also claim that she caused the accident when she struck his car with a golf club.

Because Tiger is being so secretive about the details of the accident, it is leading many to become speculative in their approach to the story.  It is a big news story involving the number one golfer in the world, a car accident, and a hospitalization.  It needed to be covered, and since there are still so many questions being left unanswered, people are trying to do that.  I thought the initial coverage was very good, but now it is starting to sink into a tabloid-style confusion of rumors and hear-say.

Each victim is listed below the map, showing the address of the homicide and the age.  You can click on the “map it” of a specific person and it will single their bubble out on the map.

This is a very morbid and slightly depressing interactive map, but it is very useful.  You can assess what the more dangerous parts of Boston are depending on how many murders happened where.  You can learn about the tendencies of specific parts of Boston.  It is macabre, but interesting nonetheless.