Terrific 'Capture Kern' book powered by the people

Jonathan Walker photo showing off some of Kern's diverse landscape ended up on the cover of "Capture Kern County." "Capture Kern County" the book was officially released Thursday night and it's as good a portrait our region that's ever been published.

Why?

Because it was shaped through 21,993 submissions from 1,084 amateur and professional photographers sharing their images on CaptureKernCounty.com. The best of those images made the final cut for the book, filling 128 pages with often breath-taking photos on a wide variety of subjects. It's a document as diverse as the county in which we live.

The project, sponsored by The Bakersfield Californian and Tejon Ranch, launched in May and gave amateur and professional photographers a chance to share their visions of Kern in more

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'The Tablet Revolution' offers mixed prospects for news organizations

The Pew Research Center tonight released a wonderful study that uncovers all kinds of surprises related to 1,159 tablet users, and more specifically, 894 who read news on their tablets at least weekly. 

The study, officially titled "The Tablet Revolution and What It Means for the Future of News," was conducted in conjunction with Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism and The Economist Group, the British publishers who have been at the vanguard of paid-digital content initiatives. I think they got their money's worth. 

Tablet owners represent an affluent, educated demographic (Graphic: Pew Research Center).Some takeaways from tablet users:

• 11 percent of U.S. adults own "a tablet computer of some kind," this just 18 months after Apple launched the iPad. The study isn't specific on what brands make up tablets but indicates iPads are owned by the large majority of Brand is a factor in generating app downloads, but no necessarily for paying for news (Graphic: Pew Research Center).respondents, and questions how next month's launch of the Amazon Kindle will change usage and behavior by bringing a lower-cost alternative to the masses. 
• 77 percent use their tablets daily, and for an average of 90 minutes. Wow. 

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Racing deaths teach us cruel lessons

It's been a tough week for race fans, with deaths of two major stars shaking our belief in sports that give us so much joy. 

Marco Simoncelli was known for his wild hair and wild abandon on the racetrack.Today brought the death of rising motorcycle-racing star Marco Simoncelli, just a week after Dan Wheldon lost his life in an IndyCar race. 

Simoncelli was killed in a horrific MotoGP crash at Sepang. He was in fourth place when he lost control of his bike and was run over by another racer who had nowhere to go. The race was red flagged (SpeedTV's Dave Despain has a nice tribute to Simoncelli).

Wheldon died early into a very fast IndyCar race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. I was at the track last Sunday, sitting high in the Turn 4 end of the front straightaway. The 15-car crash that took Wheldon's life was halfway across the track so it was hard to grasp the extent of Wheldon's injuries from so far away. 

Today's IndyCars are relatively safe despite racing at 200-230 mph. And seeing car bodies explode on impact is actually a good thing; by design a chassis that breaks apart dissipates energy from the cockpit. So, drivers walk away from most crashes, even those at 220 mph. 

But it didn't take too long to realize something was amiss last Sunday as track workers moved from a fast-paced cleanup to one more methodical, almost as if race officials had told them, "stretch it out."  I've seen more than a hundred races of all types and had never seen death in person. But in my gut  as I watched from the stands, I knew things were likely not going to end well. And so did the thousands of others around us, who were sharing rumors and checking their phones for any updates. 

I've always shared the traditional race mantra that when death strikes, "the race must go on." But as I caught the first news of Wheldon's death on my smartphone -- long before the news was officially announced at the track -- I told my wife, "Let's go. Even if they restart, we're not going to enjoy it."

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