Posts Tagged ‘Springfield’

Massachusetts man goes postal on Netflix

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner  — the Smoking Gun has posted the plea agreement struck between the Commonwealth and a guy who worked at a Springfield Postal Service processing center, who had been making Netflix DVDs disappear from the mail. The former post office worker had reportedly lifted more than 3,000 DVDs, which added up to more than $36,000; the Smoking Gun says he can expect to do about a year in jail.

Last week, Netflix gave a group of coders $1 million for improving their recommendation algorithm by at least 10 percent.

Back in 2007, the Globe toured California-based Netflix’ ultra-secret, unmarked processing center in Northborough, where identically dressed employees sort copy after copy of Crash, the Departed and the Bucket List every day. But all the secrecy and algorithms and matching t-shirts in the world won’t help you once envelope leaves the building.

BBJ: Boston man is 2nd H1N1 death in Mass.

Monday, June 29th, 2009

An 84-year-old man is the second Massachusetts resident to die from H1N1, also known as the swine flu, according to the Boston Business Journal. Staff writer Julie Donnelly reports: 

The patient was hospitalized June 12 and died six days later, on June 18. On Monday, his tests results came back positive for H1N1. The patient had several serious underlying health conditions that placed him at high risk of complications from the flu, according to public health officials.

The BBJ’s Mass Roundup blog also notes the Springfield Republican’s piece on H1N1’s effect on pig farming in the Pioneer Valley:

“Due to the overreaction, the pork market took quite a dive for several days after it hit the press. And, it hasn’t come back yet,” said Matthew J. Parsons, a partner with his cousin Earle in  the [Earle M. Parsons & Sons farm in Hadley], which sells about 2,500 pigs a year. 

After the jump, watch the Republican’s video on the economic effects of H1N1.

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The Future of Journalism: MIT throws you a party, Knight Foundation gives you money

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

I wasn’t aware that was an option. 

Two locals who did, and have been working to reverse the never-ending journalism death spiral, are among nine Knight Foundation grant winners. 

Springfield-based Katrin Verclas, co-founder of  MobileActive,won $200,000 for the won $200,000 for the Mobile Media Toolkit, which will offer mobile-based media production tools, including video and audio recording, distribution to social media.

Roxbury-based artist John Ewing won $40,000 for Virtual Street Corners. Ewing plans to project citizen
journalists’ video newscasts on life-size screens to encourage interaction between residents of Roxbury Brookline, which are nearby geographically, but less so socioeconomically.

The winners were announced at the Future of Journalism conference at MIT — which, obviously, is being twittered to within an inch of its life at #KNC09, and at #FNCM09, and — just in case — at #kncmit.

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