March 20, 2017

Lunchtime Video

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Somebody asked for more ducks, so here they are. But I have two questions.

First, what are these ducks fighting over? It can’t be a crumb of bread somebody threw to them. Maybe a fish? Do ducks eat fish? Or are they just ganging up on some poor duck who violated duck protocol? There’s definitely a duck at the beginning who’s getting pretty abused, but there seems to be more going on than just that.

Second, is this as good as resolution gets on YouTube? It seems like I’ve seen better. But this is HD video shot in MPEG 4, and I think I have all the settings correct. Is there anything more I can do?

UPDATE: We have answers!

  1. It’s spring, when a young duck’s fancy turns to thoughts of love. Among mallards, this is apparently a bit of mild foreplay. Be glad you’re not a female duck.
  2. I’m an idiot. The video was in high res, but I had it set to display on my computer at normal res. Once I chose the high-res setting, everything was fine.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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