To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, Leica Camera is releasing a special M10-P “Reporter” camera in a limited edition of 450 units worldwide.
The new Leica M10-P “Reporter” camera. (Source: Leica Camera.)
Technically identical to the existing Leica M10-P, the new Leica M10-P “Reporter” features a dark green, particularly scratch-resistant finish and Kevlar camera trim, which can withstand extreme conditions. Through exposure to natural UV rays, the camera’s body armour will gradually turn the same colour as its top and base plate. The armour’s diamond-weave texture makes the Leica M10-P “Reporter” especially grippy and comfortable to hold. All of the camera’s engravings are inlaid in light green, resulting in a more discreet effect than the white
inlays customarily used on black-finish cameras. The Leica M10-P “Reporter” is available at Leica stores and specialist retailers as of now for an RRP of AU$12,700 (body only). A total of 450 units of the Leica M10-P “Reporter” will be available worldwide.
At a special event held at Monash Gallery of Art and streamed online, the $30,000 acquisitive Bowness Photography Prize was presented to artist Christian Thompson.
Over the last 15 years the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize has emerged as an important annual survey of contemporary photographic practice in Australia and one of the most prestigious prizes in the country. Winner of this year’s major prize, Dr Christian Thompson AO (1978– ) is a Bidjara man of the Kunja Nation from south-west Queensland and also has German-Jewish heritage. His multidisciplinary practice uses photography, video, sculpture, performance and sound to examine the inconsistencies and misrepresentations of Aboriginality by the dominant culture. His works have been widely exhibited and collected both nationally and internationally. This winning work ‘Rule of three’ (2020) will join a small selection of works by Thompson in the MGA Collection. This is the fourth year Thompson has been selected as a finalist (2009, 2012, 2017 and 2020) and in 2012 he was awarded an Honourable Mention.
The 2020 Smith & Singer People’s Choice Award was won by Zoe Arnott for her work that reflects on the challenges of keeping in touch with family during Melbourne’s lockdown, which is shown above. The exhibition will be on display at the Monash Gallery of Art, 860 Ferntree Gully Road, Wheelers Hill, Victoria 3150 until 17 February. Click here for more information.
This post was originally published on the Internet Infrastructure Coalition website. Written by cPanel’s General Counsel David Snead and Documentation Manager Jennifer Doubrava, we are pleased to share this on our blog as well:
Since it was founded in 1997, cPanel has embraced the importance of inclusion and diversity in our business. Inclusion and diversity is not an end goal, though: it’s a path. While we continue on this path, we thought it might help provide some insight into the accomplishments and lessons we’ve learned along the way and how we can do better.
Our path includes culture, community, and concern.
Culture
Everyone at cPanel is encouraged to bring their genuine self to work every day. Being your authentic self can start small: dressing the way you want. There are no expectations around how you express yourself through what you wear. While this aspect of our culture may seem trivial, it leads to a broader understanding of ourselves and facilitates dialogue. A conversation about discomfort felt about a person’s manner of dressing may lead to a greater understanding of that individual and their life.
Facilitating a dialogue about individual circumstances is the job of everyone at the company, but it starts with managers. Managers are supported and trained to help teams navigate issues that may arise in a diverse culture. These are not pushed under the rug or simply made the province of the legal or HR departments. This dialogue is facilitated and encouraged. Doing so moves the company along the path of understanding what diversity and inclusion means, making the path clearer and easier to choose.
Community
For years cPanel has supported the Internet infrastructure community by participating, promoting, and providing financial sponsorship to industry events. cPanel was the first company in the Internet infrastructure industry to include diversity networking in its conference programming. The company partnered with the I2Coalition to sponsor and strengthen diversity programming at industry events. Providing support and community reinforces our cultural commitment to diversity and inclusion.
And this embrace of diversity shouldn’t be limited to a diversity or “women in tech” panel. We need to make sure there are diverse voices present in programming whether it’s a technical or a business subject. At our 2019 WebPros Summit, we were commitmented to including speakers who reflect our company’s diversity. Our goal is that at future gatherings and conferences we lead, our programming will continue to reflect this commitment. Drawing attention to the many diverse voices in our industry helps show there are people with different backgrounds doing amazing things.
We also ask for feedback whenever possible. Our goals should always be moving forward and we want to continue to listen to feedback to make the most of each opportunity to foster diversity and inclusion.
Concern
Our commitment to culture and community is reinforced by concern. By concern, we include not only empathy and training, but also appropriate enforcement. The company trains employees each year on its anti-harassment and bullying policies and requires additional training for managers. We’ve reinforced our concern about this issue by withholding financial support for conferences that refuse or are reluctant to create anti-harassment and bullying policies. We have enforced our own conference’s policies. While the company anticipates a future where those actions are not required, we believe policies help ensure that all voices are heard and that an opening and welcome culture becomes the norm.
We can always do better as companies and as an industry
Our team is diverse and we’ve done a lot of work to amplify diverse voices. But we need to provide additional pathways for employee advancement. Discussions about how to create these pathways are taking place from our leadership team and throughout our organization. Our discussions are guided by a commitment to the power of metrics to drive change and accountability in an organization.
Providing pathways to advancement and desired opportunities are only as good as our employee support. We’re currently thinking about how our Employee Experience Department works. This thinking includes providing diversity and inclusion support to employees. We’re committed to supporting employees whose career paths and experiences may not be traditional by hiring based on qualifications and experiences in addition to education.
Just as engineers improve systems through iteration and discover new methodologies, we can always look for new ways to build diversity and inclusion into what we do. And we can use culture, community, and concern to guide us.
The Ballarat International Foto Biennale’s inaugural GradFoto 2020 exhibition is now available to view online, showcasing 20 graduating artists from 13 universities.
The GradFoto 2020 award was created to highlight photographic work by up and coming artists from selected institutions. Participating institutions include Charles Sturt University, Deakin University, Federation University Australia, LCI Melbourne, Monash University, National Art School, Photography Studies College, RMIT University, Swinburne University of Technology, University of New South Wales, University of Tasmania, University of Wollongong and VCA University of Melbourne.
Winner of the 2020 prize of AU$500 was Shuran Yang from RMIT University for her series Hedgehog Family, which relates to the traditional Chinese concept of filial piety, where instead of letting children have their career away from home, parents tend to want more of their children’s company at home in adulthood.
Click here to view the online exhibition and here to vote for the People’s Choice award. GradFoto will be an ongoing award presented each year for graduating artists. For all enquiries, please email info@ballaratfoto.org.
YouTube. Podcasts. Even Netflix, Facebook, and Twitter. But… LiveJournal, anyone? No? Believe it or not, before the modern era of online content being almost exclusively streamed audio or video, there was a time when we all basically had to read the internet as though it was a digital book, more or less. Does anyone even remember the term “blogosphere” anymore? It was totally a thing.
Gather round the VR campfire, I’ll tell the tale of how it all began. You see, before we had actual websites that existed on the Word Wide Web that were viewed via web browsers, we had Bulletin Board Systems (more commonly referred to as a BBS), which were viewed within what was basically just a command line interface.
image credit: Wikipedia
A BBS was literally just a server with a modem in it that you would dial up (assuming you had the actual phone number) and connect to using the modem in your home computer. This was accomplished using your actual landline telephone connection.
Imagine, if you will, a world where mobile phones didn’t really exist and if someone was talking on the telephone then you wouldn’t be able to connect to a BBS. And vice versa. If the BBS server had 2 modems and two telephone numbers, then two people could simultaneously connect and chat with each other.
BBSes were often used as an early platform for online gaming (Legend Of The Red Dragon, anyone?) and of course for old fashioned chatting. Some BBS servers would have dozens of connections available, making chat rooms possible.
But let’s not get too wrapped up in the history here. The point is that all online communication and content at this point was text-based; you could only use numbers and letters. In time, people would create what was called ASCII art (images created by using numbers and letters, sort of like primitive digital hieroglyphics), but generally speaking there was no practical way to communicate between computers using your actual voice… and video was not yet even a blip on the radar of possibilities. All we had was the written word.
You say you want an evolution?
If we were to start comparing the evolution of online communication with the evolution of music media, then the written word really is kind of like vinyl (it’s arguably where it all began, after all) and a BBS was sort of like an 8-track tape. Are we a little too archaic here? An 8-track was a short-lived medium that eventually fell into obsolescence due to the invention of the cassette tape. In the same way, BBSes were replaced by web browsers and the dawn of actual websites.
Just as music mediums would evolve, from the cassette tape to the Compact Disc and MiniDisc, ultimately becoming fully digital as .MP3 and .FLAC files, online content and communication would likewise evolve through different forums and formats.
As more people found their way to the internet, blogs were officially born and would become one of the first widespread purposes of websites. The year was 1998 and people had discovered that they could now share their unfiltered thoughts with the world. This concept has now carried through to the modern day with YouTube vlogs. “Vlog” being an adaptation of “blog” which itself is just a shortening of “weblog,” for anyone curious about the etymology there.
Although the earliest days of blogging are slightly muddled by the sands of time, there were a few platforms that came to popularity, including the aforementioned LiveJournal and even WordPress® itself began life as a modest blogging platform. In many ways, blogging never actually went away, though it did fall out of popularity as other mediums rose to prominence.
However, just as vinyl albums seemed to decline in popularity before resurging several years ago and reaching new heights of popularity with audiences of all ages, blogging has seemed likewise to begin its own ascent recently. In this world of 60-second TikTok videos, people are once again finding value in the long-form written word.
Blogging as an SEO tool
The SEO value of a regularly-maintained blog is no secret. After all, the format of a blog is ripe for strategic keyword use. If your online business doesn’t currently publish a blog, then now is the time to dust off those keyboards and get to writing. There is arguably no better tool available to generate organic search engine traffic to your website than a well-written blog.
Additionally, blogs are used to establish your individual voice in a sea of competition. If the past has taught us anything, it’s that the cream does rise and quality content truly is king.
The classics never go out of style
When it comes to music, there will always be a loyal and dedicated audience for that pure vinyl sound. Likewise when it comes to online content, there will always be an equally dedicated audience for the pure original format of blogging.
Whether for a business, entertainment, passion project, or hobby, why not start a blog today? Give it some thought, then share your thoughts with the world.
As always, if you have any feedback or comments, please let us know. We are here to help in the best ways we can. You’ll find us on Discord, the cPanel forums, and Reddit. Be sure to also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
