Joe Paterno reports start Internet firestorm

When reports began to circulate on Twitter that Joe Paterno had died, the former Penn State coach quickly became a trending topic on Twitter and Google. Online interest ratcheted up a notch when CBSSports.com, citing the Penn State student Web site Onward State, reported Paterno had passed away.

(Screenshot)

Joe Paterno has died at the age of 85 - bit.ly/JOEPATERNO

— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) January 22, 2012

The reports would be refuted by other news organizations, and Paterno’s family.

Joe Paterno family spokesman tells New York Times that reports of Paterno's death are "absolutely not true."

— The Washington Post (@PostSports) January 22, 2012

CBS report is wrong - Dad is alive but in serious condition.We continue to ask for your prayers and privacy during this time.

— Scott Paterno (@ScottPaterno) January 22, 2012

I appreciate the support & prayers. Joe is continuing to fight.

— Jay Paterno (@JayPaterno) January 22, 2012

Joe Paterno is is failing, but reports that he has died are untrue. I wish there was a character to signal disgust.

— Sally Jenkins (@sallyjenx) January 22, 2012

Before the night was over the managing editor of Onward State stepped down. The organization had reported Paterno’s death early Saturday evening.

“I ask not for your forgiveness, but for your understanding. I am so very, very, sorry, and we at Onward State continue to pray for Coach Paterno,” Devon Edwards said in a statement posted on Facebook.

Jeff Sonderman of the Poynter Institute has a detailed blow-by-blow of repots of Paterno’s death. Sonderman traces the news to Onward State as having first tweeted the news.

A similar situation occurred in January 1999, when NBC reported that baseball great Joe DiMaggio had passed away. DiMaggio was still alive and, in fact, was watching NBC when they announced his death via a crawl across the bottom of the screen during a “Dateline NBC” broadcast. The network said a technician in its New York control room inadvertently sent the report.

DiMaggio lived another 41 days.

Screenshot of Google Trends at 10:27 pm.

Related: Joe Paterno in serious condition

Joe Paterno’s first interview since Sandusky scandal

View the original article here

D.C. street signs start going mixed-case

The old and the new, as seen this morning just east of Lincoln Park. (Mike DeBonis - The Washington Post) You’ll notice a new look for D.C.’s street signs in the coming weeks, months and years: The city has changed its design for the first time in several decades, and it’s slowly showing itself across the city.

Signs previously rendered in all capital letters will now be rendered in mixed case, following a new federal design standard. The pictures above, of two signs on the east side of Lincoln Park, show the difference.

The change was mandated in the latest, 2009 edition of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the bible of traffic engineers (Section 2D.43). Mixed-case legends, studies have confirmed, makes signs legible from a greater distance, giving drivers more time to make decisions on the road.

When the new standards were mandated by federal regulations in 2010, the federal government required localities to replace noncompliant signs by 2018, leading many to push back at the significant cost of replacing otherwise functional signs during a time of significant budget stress. In New York, the backlash was particularly pronounced after cost estimates for the change reached $27.6 million.

Last August, the Obama administration eased some of the sign replacement requirements, and local transportation agencies can now replace noncompliant signs at their otherwise normal pace.

John Lisle, a spokesman for the D.C. Department of Transportation, said the city has been making street signs with the mixed-case design for about four months now. Lisle was unable to pinpoint a date when the all-caps design was introduced but said they date back at least to the early 1980s.

The new signs feature a standard Federal Highway Administration font on a green background. I’ve also noticed that new signs for numbered streets now include ordinals — e.g., 14th Street NW is indicated with “14th” not “14.”

Lisle said the signs will continue to be replaced on an “as-needed basis,” at no cost above and beyond the city’s typical sign replacement cost. It could be a decade or move before all the signs change over; Lisle said the materials used in the city’s signs can last 10 years or more, “but many signs get replaced sooner than that due to wear and tear.”

My personal opinion? The new signs are indeed easier to read, but they’re also less interesting than the old signs. Such is progress.

View the original article here