Body control

None of this is easy...

An epic relationship

Shoestring publishing

Neat intro-article about self-publishing, from the maker of My Writing Nook.

After death there's no dancing

We simply rob ourselves when we make presents to the dead.
-- Publilius Syrus, Moral Sayings, First Century B.C.


Yep.
Although surely we miss our passed loved ones, to use $20,000 or whatever on a funeral/grave instead of using it for example on a child's education, is wasteful, it seems to me.

Pad wallpaper (updated twice)

I found this wonderful drawing for wallpaper for my pad. It's faintly naughty, which I tend to like (oh, you noticed?), it's a good drawing, it fits well in both orientations, and the muted colors and contrast makes it perfect for background.
It is from the Honorable Mentions in the first Domai art contest.
Art by Ben Tan.




Ben Tan writes to me:
You can find my more recent work at deviantart and my older work (including this piece) at gallery.bellefree.com My "offical" web site is bentanart.com.

Update:
I love how iTunes on my Mac show a full picture of my pad, including apps and even the wallpaper!

Apple's iPad Pages mini-review (updated)

I said earlier that Apple's Pages word-processor for the iPad is not for professionals. I have now tested it some more, and I feel like saying that it's not even for amateurs. It must be for dilettantes, or summin'.

Although it has advanced features like text flowing around objects in photos, and styles, and useful templates, it's missing basics. Lots of basics, not just a word count function. Hear this:

1. I can't zoom in on the text. Or rather, there is no "writing" mode, so you can have the text appear as large as you like while you are writing. And the body text is very small.
   
2. Apparently, I can select styles like "header 2", but I can't select the font!
3. Apparently, I can't select the font size either!

I just can't believe these things. WTF? I'm afraid I have to give Apple a failing grade for this.

It seems like, basic as it may be, My Writing Nook is yet the best word processor on the iPad that I know of.

Update: I'm very pleased to announce that in the latest update, the author of My Writing Nook listened to my suggestion and included an un-do feature, and with more than one levels! This is great. Try to catch Apple doing service like that.
And while I'm not used to writing with an app which auto-saves instead of having a Save command (well, apart from Blogger...), MWN feels nice and I think I could get used to it for realsies. I'll give it the ol' college try for sure.

Peter, the author, has an informative blog post here about the app, the iPad, and how he writes himself. I like his thinking. (And after reading around a bit on the Nook site, you realize he's funny too.)

Early morning photos today

--------
Pentax K-x, 1600 ISO, 50mm F:1.4, mostly at 1.4.
Slight deepening of tones in Photoshop.

Guided Tours for iPad

Apple has some cool guided tours (intro videos) for iPad. (They are slow to load for me now, though. For you too? This is very unusual for Apple, perhaps that page has been "slashdotted" or something.)
For instance, I learned that in Safari, if one adds a bookmark, one can choose to add it as an icon on the Home Screen (the main screen on the iPad, where all the app icons are), if it's one you need often. Neato.

By the way, have you noticed that the virtual keyboard on the pad has the little notches under the F and J keys that are traditional, so you can feel them with your forefingers? That's funny.

Self-published books on Lulu to be available on iPad

Self-published books on Lulu to be available on iPad, article.
And more importantly, on Apple iBook store! If it's that easy, this is great news. It's not tough to publish on Lulu, I have done it. (Alternative link.)

I found it via a highly interesting site for writers, I found this article first, looking for pad writing tools.

Update on deleting comments

Re who can delete their comments, Pascal informs us that it does not have to be a Gmail account, he says:

Any BLOGGER account will do. I can delete, and I don't have gmail.

Reverence

Neeraj translated a German joke for us:

Four catholic mothers were doing a hen party - drinking coffee, eating cakes and bragging about their sons.

One of them said: "My son is a priest. When he enters a room, the people say to him 'Reverend'."

The second one said: "Well, my son is a bishop. When he enters a room, the people say to him 'His Excellency'."

The third one said: "I don't want to humiliate you, but my son is a cardinal. When he enters a room, the people say to him 'His Eminence'."

The fourth one was silently nipping coffee. All three looked at her full of expectation. Finally she said: "My son is a wonderful 2m tall muscular stripper in a night club with amazing equipment. Whenever he enters a room, all people exclaim 'My god!'"

monitors

Just thought I'd give you a quick look at what's on my twin monitors today. (Of course they are side by side, but I put them in one file under each other for ease.) As you know, I always put beauty forward. Or even backward, if necessary.

Examples of Abstract Photography

TCGirl found these Examples of Abstract Photography.
Perhaps I inspired some people to look at "lines and such" with the recent contest.
(And by the way, praise to you guys: I think the presented photos from that contest are better and certainly more varied than the otherwise really good page above, where these three were the ones I could find I really liked.)

A couple pics from Carter

(Carter is just an old Net friend, but I've known him since Tim Berners-Lee wore short pants.)

A good bar

'Y'know' said the Scotsman, 'I still prefer the pubs back home. In Glasgow there's a little bar called McTavish's. Now the landlord there goes out of his way for the locals so much that when you buy four drinks he will buy the fifth drink for you.'

'Well,' said the Englishman, 'at my local, The Red Lion, the barman there will buy you your third drink after you buy the first two.'

'Ahhhhh, that's nothing,' said the Irishman. 'Back home in Dublin there's Ryan's Bar. Now the moment you set foot in the place they'll buy you a drink, then another, and another again - all the drinks you like.
Then when you've had enough drinks they'll take you upstairs and see that you get laid. All on the house.'

The Englishman and Scotsman immediately scorn the Irishman's claims. But he swears every word is true.
'Well,' asked the Englishman, 'did this actually happen to you?'

'Not me meself, personally, no,' said the Irishman . . .' But it did happen to me sister....

just iPad apps (updated)

It seems to me that a month ago when I browsed the Apple app store in iTunes, I could select to just view iPad apps (and not iPhone apps). And now I feel like I'm going crazy, because I can't find a/the way to do it, it's all one big mix, and it's not even indicated in the list what kind of app it is! This cannot probably be true, am I missing something?

I love Apple's products, but gawd, I wish they had a support line, with a human being actually answering an email! I know it would be expensive, but it would surely help sales and the mood of their customers, and heck, Apple has $20 billion in the bank! (or is it 40 now? Whatever.).

Ah... Bron nicely sent me this screenshot. What's missing on my screen now is the iPhone/iPad choice at the top. Weird.


Ooohhh! I know! It's because I'm now in the UK store, and iPad is not released here yet! The choice is only in the US store.

99-year-old can read again

Thanks to Surecona for pointing to this excellent iPad-related story (with video) which fits in nicely with the recent questions if the pad might help those with poor eyesight.

Campbell actually wrote a tribute in appreciation of her newfound freedom from the frailties of old age.

To this technology-ninny it’s clear
In my compromised 100th year,
That to read and to write
Are again within sight
Of this Apple iPad pioneer.

“She’s so into it,” Adelsheim said. “She shows it to everybody. People come to her apartment and she entertains the masses by showing them how to use the iPad.”
-

Self-centered

See, this is how you get a reputation for being self-centered. When you focus on your work instead of on the wants of others. :-)

An Overview of GoodReader for iPad

An Overview of GoodReader for iPad, article.
Ultimately, Good Reader is an application that can pull most every kind of file from the Internet and store it into its database. You can read, but you can’t create.

Bruce said:

The overview missed two of the most useful features of Goodreader:

1. You can read, and you CAN create. But only text files. The ability to edit text files is a very important part of this app.

2. The WiFi button on the bottom is not just a web server. You can mount the Goodreader file space as a disk on your Mac. Yes, over WiFi. Once you do that, you can use the Finder to do anything you want to the files and folders inside. Much more powerful than the web interface.

Kewl PC cases

Kewl PC cases. Source here and here.

Quick obsolescence

See? I'm not the only one struck by the speed of technological change. And this chick is only thirty! :-)



... Although I'm most often struck by it in a positive way. Anna Grossman, like many others, seems to have the idea that it's alienating in some way. I never understood that. How can more and more powerful communication media be isolating? I suspect that the alienation is just an emotion that people feel, due to the unfamiliarity of it all, and they transfer it.

Boom table

Cool table made and designed by Bron Janulis.
(The top is actually flat, only a painted cloud design makes it seem not so.)

The Invisible Woman, Nicole Johnson

Perhaps a touch maudlin at times, but quite inspiring.
And I do think it's true, that "God" or "Source" or "The Universe" notices absolutely everything. Every action and every thought has effects.



(I must say, for an invisible woman she is remarkably beautiful.)

Next to godliness

John and Jake went into a diner that looked as though it had seen better days.

As they slid in to a booth, John wiped some crumbs from the seat. Then he took a napkin and wiped some mustard from the table. Presently, the waitress, in a dirty uniform, came over. "Do you want some menus?" she asked.

"No thanks," said John, "I'll just have a cup of black coffee."

"I'll have black coffee, too," Jake said. "And please make sure the cup is clean."

The waitress shot him a nasty look and snapped, "Are you implying the cleanliness of my diner is not what it should be?"

"Well, I..." Jake stammered.

The waitress huffed and marched off into the kitchen.

Two minutes later, she was back. "Two cups of black coffee," she announced. "Which one of you wanted the clean cup?"

DIY ringflash

DIY ringflash. Kewl, 'cuz a good ringflash is very expensive and bulky.

Queen Margrethe is 70

TCGirl found this impressive high-res panorama of the celebration of the Danish queen's 70th birthday recently.
I like the Danish royal family. They act like normal people, except with class.

TCG also gave a nugget of info which I didn't know: apparently you have to be logged into a gmail account in order to delete your comments.

Update:

Pascal informs:

Any BLOGGER account will do. I can delete, and I don't have gmail.

Katie on acting

Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.
-- Katharine Hepburn

Much as I love Katie for her skills, presence, and beauty (and for the mental images she has gifted me by being bi), I don't think that's a solid argument. Just look at what Mozart was also accomplishing at four.

Comics aggregation

I'd like to have all my favorite comics updated daily on a single page. I found a couple Mac apps for it, but both way outdated. I also found this, but it's for installation on a server. Does anybody feel like it would be a fun thing to do? There's a Domai (or GN) membership in it for you. (If you do it, don't make it public, that would be considered pirating.)

Best bid so far is pointed to by AN: DarkGate. If it really keeps the same comics you've selected on the page, and updates them on a reload, that's awesome. Cuz the selection is incredible.

Duran Duran - The Chauffer

Alex points to another sexy video. It even has a topless girl in it, which is very rare in mainstream music videos, methinks. She's hot*, and not a gram of silicone, thanks gawd. And she can really move, very interesting dance moves. Seriously, it's durn good stuff, I wonder who she is.

*Very small breasts, very lovely. I looked up antonyms to "buxom", and isn't it interesting, but sad, that there are no positive words meaning "having small breasts"? I used to think "petite" meant it, but it basically means short and thin. There are only words like "thin" and "flat", which are hardly flattering, and not really descriptive either.

By the way, for saving videos, I'm having success with Downloadhelper for Firefox, which Pat recommended recently. Helpful plugin. It can even convert videos to other formats on the fly.

Bad skin

I bought iPad protection plastic from BestSkinsEver, followed their instructions, but I'm not happy. The second time (with a new skin) I even used filtered water to wet it. (You wet it so it's movable until you smooth it down.) This looks terrible, I can't use it.

The pad naked, never saw so clean glass:


First skin:


Second skin:


Update:
I've since used ZAGG's invisibleSHIELD, and it worked beautifully. Although it's even more sticky, so I'd get a helper next time. 

S&tS, the movie

I'm trying to watch Sex And The City, The Movie. And I was trying to find out why, even though it's very true to the TV show's story and characters, I didn't find it very interesting. Then it struck me: it's not funny. The show was a comedy, the movie is not.

Additionally, it's not sexy. The show was raunchy beyond belief. The movie, not.
Amazing that they would remove two of the three most important characteristics of the show when making the movie. (The one they kept was romance.)

Minuscule

Thanks for Jouni for recommending Minuscule. I haven't seen the movie, but many of the trailer bits are very funny.

Unusual phenomenon

Here's something rare: I was looking for movies and pictures of Amanda Crew, because she was really funny and pretty in Sex Drive. So I found the picture below. But before ordering the DVD from the US, I wanted to see a couple of reviews. And here it is: not only is this 2009 movie not released on blu-ray, it also apparently has not inspired a single review anywhere, so far as I can google. No reviews on Amazon, no reviews on RottenTomatoes. That must be the most low-key movie I ever heard of. ... OK, there are actually a few reviews on IMDb.com, I wonder why they did not turn up high on Google, it's not like that site is unknown.


The reviews on IMDb are extremely mixed, from the overflowingly positive to the completely dismissive. Very hard to get a clear picture. Ah well. I think I'll get it, just because I'm curious about how a film can get provoke such a diversity in opinions.

Wallpaper art

This is what I have on my twin monitors right now. Both from the Domai art contest.
Aren't they wonderful?
Sometimes I love color, sometimes I love monochrome.

Kate Bush: Nocturn

FreeDocumentaries.org

Thanks to Paul for pointing to FreeDocumentaries.org.

It seems on the level. Donation-based. There's even famous docus.

Damn, it seems this is the time I am bumping up against one of the limits of the iPad: the "play movie" button does not show on it. It would have been the most pleasant way of watching the films. Can anybody figure out if the movies are run on Flash, maybe?

Writing on the pad

Laptop Killer or Space Filler: Can an Author Write a Book on the iPad?, article.

And another article on pad writing.

The consensus, counting my own researches, is that the iPad is perfectly capable of being a fine writing tool, only that if you are used to touch-typing, the compact and attractive Apple bluetooth keyboard is a great idea.
And that the next OS with multitasking will help.

And the big one: we simple need a few good apps for writing, made for the iPad. Including some simple ones for just raw writing.
Apple's Pages app is not bad, but it's more for page layout and it is for amateurs, for instance it does not have a word count.
My Writing Nook is also not bad, but so far it does not have any undo function. (I talked to the author, and he has taken my suggestion to heart of making one.)

We already have thousands of friggin games for the pad, let's get some useful software, please guys. :-)

Update:
Philocalist said...
If (when!) I've made a typo when posting, I've never been aware of an edit function to allow me to correct it, so how come an author can apparently entirely remove a post?
Am I missing something?

TC [Girl] said...
Philocalist: you have to be logged into a gmail account in order to delete your posts.

"The Last 3 Minutes"

"The Last 3 Minutes", outstanding short-short film. Watch it full screen.

"Cover Girl"

Cover Girl drawn by AlohaLilo.

Christina Aguilera Not Myself Tonight

Peter found this hot little number, Christina Aguilera Not Myself Tonight.
Seems like S/M may become the next kink to become mainstream, after homosexuality. Now we're just waiting for the S/M sitcoms corresponding to Will And Grace, The L Word and Queer As Folk (have you seen the latter? Pure gay porn. Admittedly the nudity didn't bother me when it was on the L Word!).

youtube boots me out

Dangit, youtube has disabled my account.
Like I complained about recently, this is too steep a step of justice, as is common on Earth. I've been given no warning, heard of no complaints, given no chance to remove any offending video...

HTC phone

My friend Amin has switched from iPhone to the HTC Incredible phone, running the Android system. He's happy.

DVD commentaries

Isn't it amazing how few DVD commentaries are at all interesting? You'd think that somebody who works in the entertainment field would have an intuitive grasp of extemporizing in front of a mixed audience and talk about things which are interesting to more than twelve people on the planet. Instead we always hear about "this we shot at 2am. Man, it was really cold", and "this was actually the very first scene we shot. Or was it the second? No, wait, the very first was deleted, so it's actually the first in that sense".

Don't they have anything to say in and about their work? While making the movie, haven't they thought about what the film means, and how it achieves that meaning, and the causes and consequences of the choices they made while struggling to achieve it?

Ratings

Killshot recommends the docu This Film Is Not Yet Rated.
Based on the trailer, it seems odd to me... Hollywood is a multi-billion-dollar business, and yet nobody knows who the actual people are who decides what can be released and what can't? Sounds odd. It would seem that quite often one of the massively rich people with colossal egos who own and run the studios would blow their stack at such over oppression, and try to do something about it, or at least find out who they are.

"Haunted"

My pal Laurie shot this video, Haunted, for Ben Montaque. Very nice song, and growing in popularity.

Here's a little unofficial version. Laurie missed his daughter's birthday due to volcanos, and Ben did him a "solid" as the kids say.

Gaga soldiers

TCGirl found this funny video of soldiers doing the Gaga Telephone video (original here). Those are some guys who are sure in their masculinity!

Alice Greczyn (updated about five times)

Just watched Sex Drive, recommended by Philocalist. It was a good, funny movie in the traditions of American Pie and Road Trip. You know, coming-of-age stories really, but with trillion sex jokes and a guy who wants to loose his virginity, and with lots of showing of legs and a little of boobs and balls.

A bonus came in the they-don't-get-any-prettier-than-that category with Alice Greczyn in a minor role. I hope to the lord she never submits to boobie implants.


Talking about boobies (still!), I guess in the R-rated version there was maybe four seconds of boobies, all of them on extras, not the main actresses. It's typical, and I wonder if the ratings authorities measure this out exactly. If they had had ten seconds of boobies, maybe they'd have gotten an X-rating, do you think?
(And if they get that, most theatres won't show the film, so they're at the mercy of the ratings authorities, is my understanding. It's weird.) Even so, why don't they cut loose in the DVD version?* It's a big draw, I mean, men will sit in smoky bars and drink ten-dollar drinks just to look at boobs. I mean, not me, I tried it once, an afternoon show in Copenhagen, but it was just... boring and embarrassing. But I will gladly watch them movies, if the movie is not too bad.

Actually that's interesting: it does take more than that. This is the reason I don't have video on Domai: I never found any nude-girl videos which I didn't think were boring. Girls lounging about, or walking leisurely in the surf, rubbing their flanks sensuously, it's... just boring after a minute or two. And fake. It's fake because nobody ever moves like that when there's not a video camera pointing at them. It's a bit odd.


* Update: maybe they do. I thought the R-rated version was the more adult version, but it seems that "creamy", describing the other version, does not stand for softer, but for, whatever, and that one is unrated, a bit more boobs.
(I was a bit cynical after paying many years ago for an all-git-out uncensored version of American Pie, supposedly, and I couldn't tell the difference.)

They actually over-done it a little (to stay in the Southern vernacular), for the "irony" I suppose. They have inserted a long close-up shot of what we're supposed to think are Katrina Bowden's tits but which are never seen in the same room as Clark Kent, I mean, her face, and are too large anyway. And perhaps most silly, in several shots, a naked young woman just walks in front of the camera, over the dialogue and everything, pauses, and walks on! The actors never notice her. It seems to have been done later by green-screen. I hope the irony thing works out for them, because otherwise it's looking like lack of respect for the audience.
... Aha, turns out they did put in a big, silly disclaimer in the beginning of the Unrated Version, stating that it has a lot more gratuitous stuff, and sucks. And a more serious disclaimer that the real film is better than this silly for-fans-only version. Which is true, when it's done like this.

Oh, by the way, another gripe: when films *do* put in a nude girl or two, it's usually those horrible porn industry girls with their pneumatic breasts. I don't get how anybody looks at that and think "breast". An exception in this film is two amish girls who flash their tits at a rock concert, those are very cute and natural girls, and way more interesting than the inserted porn stars wandering about. (A friend of mine tells me that the girls start to look like that, all of them, after a year or two in the strip/porn business. All the falsity gets stacked on top of them, one layer at a time. What a frigging shame.)

But anyway, it at least proves that you can have nudity with an unrated DVD, which means you could make good ones too. Not as easy as one might think, though, I suspect.

Machine guns

In Apple's app store you can buy an app which fires realistic machine guns, with the actual sound of each model. You can fire it off at max volume at your friends, and imagine it were real and your friends were short brown people in some hot country which doesn't have democracy to protect them against people like yourself.

But lord forbid you see a single nipple in the Apple store, that might give people ideas! (Heck, I think even bikini girls are barred.)