Tech solutions

Jobs keynote right now

Apple World Wide Developer Conference is on, and Steve is giving his keynote. You can follow live blogging several places, for example on MacObserver.
Me, I'll probably wait for a day or two until the release the actual video. But what little I heard about it, iPhone 4 sounds interesting. Maybe it's finally time for me to get one, especially if there's a (UK) data plan for occasional users.

Yvette's Bridal Formal (updated)

How would you expect a site named Yvette's Bridal Formal to look? Not like this, I bet.
Call Jakob Nielsen. No, call Doctor Kevorkian.

Here is her map of how to find her:

I'd like to meet this person and see how she works.

Cross-accounts

I'm a bit irritated about all this cross-accounting. For example, YouTube cancelled my account for some reason they won't tell, so I had to log in with something else. But when I do, this means I also now logged out of all other Google related sites, like Gmails and Blogger, and I can't post here, and if I make comments, people won't know who I am. So I have to log out and in again with my other account.

I can "solve" it by using different browsers, but it shouldn't be necessary. Why the heck should I be logged out of blogger just because I log out of YouTube?

Update: Jan said:
I absolutely love Google's search engine, but decided to limit my dependency on them for other products.
http://millionairemommynextdoor.com lost her blog and e-mail when Google suddenly locked her account. It made her lose all means of contact with her users! She has since wised up, bought a domain that she controls herself and started a new site, but many people are probably still wondering why her old blog isn't being updated.

Useful link:http://www.dataliberation.org/ 
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Safe For Work Porn

Safe For Work Porn, edited video. Funny. Thanks to P-04-Referent. (I've know this guy for years, and I still can't recall what the heck that name means.)

Pondering Friendship Online

Pondering Friendship Online: Focus on Intimacy, an excellent article from Glenn Fleishman about what friendship means, and the problems some social network sites presents by throwing the word around lightly and enforcing a choice.

For some people (I suspect not the least, introverts), "friend" is a very loaded term, and friendship has many degrees and aspects, and to say "yes" or "no" to a direct request for "friendship" is either stressful or just meaningless. And to have 3,000 "friends" on FaceBook or such sites is equally meaningless. 
Because of my Internet presence, I am asked to be a "friend" on FaceBook by readers and admirers, but much of the time I hardly have a clue who the person is. What's the point?

I'm Danish. Scandinavia has a much higher number per capita of Introvert type people than say Italy or USA, and we don't tend to connect as readily, but then perhaps we take it more seriously when we do. (Note, I'm not claiming that Italians or Americans are generally more superficial people.)

For me, Facebook is just meaningless. Admittedly it has connected me with a couple of old friends... and then after a couple of days of busy mailing, it somehow just faded out. There wasn't anymore any impulse to socialize once we no more shared a class or a club.

Glenn links to this seminal article.  In it, David Weinberger says amongst other things:
"... the Friendster sign-up sheet assumes that there's only one me I want to put forward. I should probably have a profile sheet for at least several different me's: the blogger who wants to find other bloggers, the consultant trolling for clients, etc.

The real issue is, I believe, that any profile asks me to make myself explicit. And that can't be done without doing damage to the truth about myself.

But making explicit doesn't just do damage to selves. In general, making explicit does violence to what is being made explicit. (In the modern age, Heidegger gets credit for this idea.) Making things explicit isn't like unearthing an archaeological find that's just been sitting there, waiting to be dug up. Making explicit often — usually — means disambiguating and reducing complexity.

The reason is simple. The things of the world exist as they are only within deep, messy, inarticulate, shifting, continuous, fuzzy contexts. This is certainly true of human relationships, although I believe it's also true of all that we find on the earth, waiting in it, or promised above it. The analog world — the real world — is ambiguous. That's a source of its richness. In making a piece of it explicit, we make it less ambiguous and thus lose some of its value and truth."

That's an important thought. I've always been against direct statements of "love" and "friendship". For one thing, these things surely can be perceived on their own. For another, to state them directly and simply is to oversimplify them and tends to lock them down, doing harm to the natural development of things.

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The accompanying article by Adam Engst I have yet to read, but from experience I expect it to be well worth reading also. (Update: it was indeed.)

XKCD (updated)

Another good one from xkcd. Food for thought.

I'm sorry to say this, though, I do wish that the guy could/would draw. Almost any drawing would be more interesting to look at than stick men. OK, I am sure many feel that the super-simplicity is a strength of the comic, or at least irrelevant. But I just like good visuals.
It does make it stand out, though.

Update: it's impressive that he makes a living off this. Good for him.

Fashion models and "Daria"

Why is it that fashion/cat walk models are always so flat, and trained to look so haughty and hostile? Seriously, any theories? It's clearly on purpose from the industry's side since it's universal, but what purpose does it serve? Would it harm fashion sales if the models were attractive?

I'm just watching a brilliant satire on this subject, an episode in the series Daria, which I recommend, it's intelligent, sharp, and  very funny. (By the way, the collection may seem a little expensive, but it is not only good, but huge too, over 26 hours of runtime, it's five seasons/65 episodes, and two movies. A good deal!)
Update: watched a couple more episodes. This is really good sh... stuff!

Facebook Privacy: A Bewildering Tangle of Options

Facebook Privacy: A Bewildering Tangle of Options, NYT article and diagram. Pretty shocking.

Here is a small bit of it:

Thanks to TidBITS for the link, and also for the link to this highly interesting radio interview (note: that site, NPR, is popup-ad infested. I recommend using the "download" option to listen to the show).
One of the experts on the show mentions that FaceBook is pretty much built up on the basis of spreading information about its users.

Me, I guess I'm naive and trusting, when I heard that FaceBook has a policy that people must use their real names, and that they enforce it, I thought it was for idealistic purposes, to promote honesty and so on. Silly me, I now realize that it is simply so FaceBook's marketing partners can more easily collect information about you and your likings!

A quote from the show: "two thirds of all lawyers use FaceBook as their primary source" [of information about people].

Amazing Spam, part eleven

Overall I quite like Apple's Mail app, but so far I'm not impressed by its spam filter. So far, it seems like at least 80% of its positives are false. And it let this one pass...

Surprise surprise Mr
You know what, I'm in a excellent mood so may I tell you a thing? I am a sales rep. manager target in your city.
As a leader, I'm allowed to send out 5 giifts phone each month as "returns" to loyal consumers.

We just got the brand new Apple iPhone 4G!
Actually, noone has claimed theirs yet for the period (I don't think they actually believe we do this :))
so if you get one before the night shift ends, I'll be happy to ship it to you.
Please confirm yours free request at this url http://tinyurl.com/38f6a2o
Conrad Carlozzi,
Consumer consultant director
5238 brookmill court,Pinehurst

Fantastic, n'est pas? How lame. And to have the nerve to say that not only are they first in the world to have Apple's next phone, but they're giving them away!

I don't know what kind of malware it was pushing, because TinyURL was on the ball and have already cancelled the spam address. 

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By the way, here's an oddity: after I changed to Apple Mail from Eudora, all the Viagra spam I was usually getting (filtered by SpamSieve and ending up in Eudora's Junk folder) has disappeared! And it's not Mail stopping it, because that app merely labels it, it does not put it in any junk mail folder. I'm happy to be rid of it, but I am just puzzled as to where it went.

Stevie interviewed.

Steve Jobs at D8 on June 1, 2010, several videos.
(This list has more variety.)

Mister Jobs says that a healthy press and editorial oversight is very important, and he does "not want to see us descent into a nation of bloggers". (But it's OK for non-US countries to do so, I wonder?*)
On the one hand I can see his point. On the other hand, it seems to me most of the press has always been dishonest, unethical, and biased, so why is it so important that they survive as a business? Thoughts?

He says a smart thing though, he wants papers/mags to be more aggressive (cheaper) in their pricing for digital content than they have been for print, due to them no longer having the huge expenses of printing and distribution. I've been saying the same thing for a long time, but it seems very hard to convince the old guys. You know, NYT trying to charge two dollars for a *single article* and so on, it just won't cut it.
I will certainly pay $5 per month for a digital NYT, but I won't pay $20.

I think these guys need to realize that the traditional profitability of print papers/mags was based scarcity of news and entertainment, a scarcity which, putting it mildly, is gone now!  If you're the only guy selling water in a town, you're golden. If five other guys move in, the  party is over.

*Just a mild joke there. It's funny how we still often think in nations, for no reason whatsoever.

Three months without solid food

[Thanks to TTL]

 

Angela Stokes of RawReform Breaks her 92-Day Juice Feast, YouTube.

Angela is amazingly pretty for somebody who just lost 160 pounds!

"Juice feast" is different from "juice fast".

By the way, clearly this is not a fast, but a diet. What I would have done, is to simply stick to veggies and fruit. I think it would be as effective as just juice, less shocking to the body, and I think you'd get more nutrients compared to carbs (there's a lot of sugar in fruit juice). It would still be a very dramatic diet though, don't mistake it. 

Update: TTL says:
Just to clarify: She did not lose all 160 lbs during her juice feast. During the 92-day juice feast she shed about 18 lbs (8 kg).

Ah yes, I did think it sounded rather unlikely.

TTL said:
[Eolake: "What I would have done, is to simply stick to veggies and fruit."]


Actually, this is different. If you eat vegetables and fruit as is, your body will need to expend energy to digest them and to get rid of the fiber.


On the other hand, when you eat just the juices your body gets to use the energy for other things, such as for “cleansing” your system.


(The average person holds 2-5 kg of toxic old matter in their intestines, and juice feasting is a way to release that.)


Also, the lighter load on your body will contribute to a very different overall feeling, more vivid dreams, better intuitive abilities etc.


In general, the human body is designed to digest solids and consume fiber etc, but it makes sense to give it a break from this for a short period of time to allow it to do some “house keeping” etc.

Going Postal review

I'm watching the new Terry Pratchett movie Going Postal, on British TV this week. It's not bad at all. The golems, like all attempts I've seen so far at catching clay/stone characters (The Thing from Fantastic Four included) is a little failed in my taste. They still look more like rubber than burnt clay. But the story is enganging, and the casting is good, and overall the visuals are very nice. I like it better than the last one, the wizard film.

They have added a lot moralism about the main character, which I think is OK, he really did not have much of a character arch in that book otherwise, or much of a reason for being in the difficult position he's in as postmaster of the totally failed and collapsed Anck-Morpork post office.

If you like stern women in black, you will like Adora Belle Dearheart. See short video (>4MB). Yummy.

A little Mac upgrade adventure (Migration Assistant)

When I moved my OS (X Snow Leopard) and my files to a bigger disk this week, I used Apple's wonderful Migration Assistant (which offers itself automatically when you upgrade to a new Mac or disk). This is a brilliant app which has taken upgrading from being a long and complex business to being pretty much a one-click affair. When you start up on the new system/disk/computer, everything is like before, except for more space/speed/features. Outstanding.

There's just one thing: if you have a lot of files (like around 800 GB in my case), it takes many hours to do this, during which you can't use the computer at all. This I don't care for, so I got tricky: I took the two heaviest folders, both containing graphics, and moved them outside my user folder on the original disk. And then I deselected the "other files" option when using Migrating Assistant.

Well, so far so good. I was up and running after a couple hours instead of sixteen or whatever it would have been. Now I could copy those big/many files at leisure while I continued working and playing.

There was just one but: the macro programs and utilities (like QuickKeys and FinderPop), if they referred to an object on disk, they smartly now refer to the same object on the new disk, as is right. (I think it's the OS arranging it, not the apps.) But in those cases where I had not yet moved those objects, it couldn't find them, and referred to the object on the old disk instead! 

I'm not sure if this is really clever, or... hmmm.  I think I would have preferred to know about it. I remember last year, Photoshop has used a preference file on an old disk, which I did not find out until I removed the disk and lost my preferences.

Anyway, when I found out about this (I moved a file via FinderPop and then couldn't find it), what I did was that I ejected the old disk (in software). This way I get an error message when some utility wants to refer to an object on it, and I can fix it.

Running Windoze

A reader asked: 

I'm trying to decide between Parallels and VM Fusion, having finally found "Jack", a bridge-playing program, that is worth polluting my Macbook with a Windows environment.
Knowing how cutting-edge you are, I looked in your blog Profile for your machine configurations, and came up blank.
Consider adding "Computer" to your profile -- many of us would be interested.

Good idea, I did.

Maybe two years ago, I tried a Windows emulator on my Mac Pro. I forget what it's called, there were two major ones at the times, and it was the one which is not called Parallels*. I also bought Windows Vista, and Dragonsoft Naturally Speaking dictation software, which was my reason for the whole thing.
It seemed I would have been better off with Win XP, because David Pogue told me that this was running really well in simulation for him, and running Naturally Speaking well. And the latter I just could not get to run in this setup.

Anyway, later I've decided that for the occasional use I'd need Windows for, I might as well just buy a used notebook on eBay, which I did. Got a used HP for less than £200, and it runs well. (I bought it from one of those professional guys who buy them used from universities and big companies, and set them up nicely with software etc. Recommended.)

*... I took a look. It was Virtual PC 5.
I would say though, that if one needs a PC emulator on a Mac, now is better than ever, because the new Macs have Intel chips, so there's barely any emulation necessary, it runs almost directly on the chip, which means it's very good and fast,  just as fast as a native Windows machine, which could not be said before the big processor change in 2006. Before that the emulation was very slow.

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PS: Before my honorable critics chime in, let me say that I wouldn't consider myself "cutting edge".
"Slightly leaned forward" is a good thing in business and in life, but "cutting edge", while perhaps exciting, is often a liability. It's usually expensive and under-developed. For example, a photographer who started shooting digital already back in the nineties is unlikely to have gotten much advantage from it. The digital cameras back then, if they were usable professionally, cost as much as a good car, and even then they were not yet as good as film.

Eva Solo carafe

A friend gave me this beautiful carafe, the Eva Solo. It keeps juice or water cold in the fridge, and it has an optional cloth cover to keep it from warming too fast when out of the fridge.

The design is also practical. The mouth is wide enough that it's easy to clean, and the rubber/metal contraption on top means you can pour, and it closes itself automatically by gravity when you turn it upright again. It also holds any ice cubes back. Very ingenious.

Working on the iPad, an interview with Joe Kissell

Working on the iPad, an interview with Joe Kissell.

Joe Kissell and Take Control Books have just put out the ebook Take Control of Working with Your iPad. I asked Joe for an interview about this device, which the regular reader will be aware I'm very fond of. Joe's answers clarified several key issuses for myself, I hope they may for you too.
- Eolake

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Photo by Stobblehouse

Joe Kissell, what do you think is the position of the iPad in the market? This has been much discussed, some see it as superflous, some see it as an important new platform, and everything in between.

I think of the iPad as a new category of device, not as a tablet computer. It doesn't do a lot of the things a laptop with a conventional OS can do, which of course Apple thinks of as a strength and critics think of as a weakness. There's this real tension between people trying to get it to do everything a laptop can do on the one hand, and developers looking for novel uses that are uniquely suited to this form factor on the other. I think, and hope, that the latter ultimately win out. It's not a substitute for a laptop or a smartphone. It's simply an object that does a variety of useful things, and does them in situations in which a laptop would be too big or heavy or cumbersome and a smartphone (or, say, iPod touch) would be too small and constraining.

Asking whether it's superfluous is like asking whether minivans are superfluous, given that there were already cars and full-size vans. Zillions of people decided that even though there were other ways of moving people and things from point A to point B, this in-between form factor made sense, and that the advantages outweighed the tradeoffs. Obviously, size isn't the only distinguishing characteristic of the iPad, but I imagine it coming into its own as a device that's great for doing various tasks that are just not ideal on a laptop or a smaller device.

What do you think are it's most important weaknesses and strengths?

Off the top of my head, some of the current weaknesses are the weight (too heavy to hold in one hand for any period of time, as when reading a book); extremely limited video out; and the fact that the display is relatively low-density and is useless in direct sunlight. There are software issues, too, most of which will be addressed in iPhone OS 4.0 in a few months, or by updates to third-party apps. However, I have to say the lack of Wi-Fi syncing for Apple apps and Apple's failure to leverage the iDisk for pervasive cloud-based storage are real sore spots, with no remedy in sight.

Support for external keyboards is, for me, a gigantic strength. [See videos] Long battery life is another big plus, as is Document Support, which finally lets one app send a document to another.

... I am a bit unclear on this. Could you give a couple of example of how this are done or what it could do potentially?

Sure. So the way this works is that an app says, "Hey, I can handle files of types x, y, and z." And then another app has a button or icon or whatever that lets you send a document to any other app on your iPad that has registered itself as able to handle that file type. Some apps can send and receive, some can only send, some can only receive, and some don't (yet) offer Document Support at all. But it's becoming much more pervasive.

As a practical example, let's say I have a PDF of one of my books in GoodReader, and then later I download ReaddleDocs. I can send the PDF from GoodReader directly to ReaddleDocs with a couple of taps, rather than having to copy the file from my Mac or PC to my iPad a second time. At the moment, I have at least a dozen apps on my iPad that offer Document Support to some extent, so I don't have to particularly worry which app I've transferred a given file to; in most cases I can move stuff around on the iPad itself pretty easily.

Continuing, I also think the accelerometer and compass are even better, and potentially more useful, on the iPad than on the iPhone. But it's the third-party apps that are, I think, the very best thing about the iPad. Some of them are just amazing, and unlike anything I've seen for other platforms.

... A couple of examples?

Well, as the father of a newborn, I'm pretty jazzed about the various Dr. Seuss apps (The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss's ABC, and The Lorax so far). The Alice for iPad app is also amazing - a wonderfully interactive way of experiencing this familiar text that just wouldn't make sense on a laptop or an iPhone (admittedly, it's a bit past my son's comprehension level, but lots of fun for me). And I'm really digging Zinio (for reading magazines, such as Macworld), the Wired app, and the Marvel Comics app. (I think you can see a theme emerging there...) I'm really happy to have Pro Keys for quick musical doodling - not quite as nice as a real piano keyboard, but a lot more portable! There are some extremely cool and unique games too, but I don't really have time for much more than a quick hand or two of solitaire!

Which of the weaknesses are you most optimistic will be improved soon?

In terms of hardware, I can imagine a bit of weight being shaved off the next-generation model, but I don't expect the screen resolution to increase any time soon. I can only hope Apple opens up video output, and I truly don't understand why they haven't done so already. I'll be very happy to see the promised updates to Mail, the multitasking features, and numerous other iPhone OS 4.0 changes, too.

What do you think is its potential for doing actual work? Now? And potentially in the future?

Well, given that I wrote a book on this topic, I have kind of mixed feelings. The bottom line is that it depends on what one's work is. If you're a writer, and you traffic mainly in plain text - blogging, for example - then the iPad can be a fantastic work tool. It's absolutely fantastic for taking notes (typed or handwritten, or even recorded audio). If you work with spreadsheets a lot but don't need a massive amount of screen real estate, it's also a pretty good fit. And there are great apps for doing charts, mind maps, task management, drawing, painting, music, Web research, and so on.

However, if your work involves (as mine does) a highly structured, layout-oriented sort of writing, then right now the iPad just won't cut it at all. Tools that would enable me to write and edit, for example, a Take Control book on the iPad don't currently exist. The current version of Pages doesn't come close, and neither do any of the third-party word-processing apps. And I'm sad to say that the best presentation tool on the iPad, Keynote, is just not great, especially when it comes time to actually give the presentation on an external display.

All these things can certainly change in the future, and I hope they do. But for me, if the iPad never evolves to the point where it can substitute for my laptop, that's OK. It doesn't need to do all the things a computer can do. It's still a wonderful, useful device in many other ways.

 Thanks, Joe!

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Joe Kissell is an author, dad, computer geek, traveler, and dreamer living in Paris.

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Eolake's PS:
By the way, I feel that what the iPad is brilliant for, is sort of  interstitial work. Work or other activities you do in between other things. Like when you are standing in line, or on a bus/train/plane, waiting for a meeting, etc etc. A laptop is often too slow and clumsy to pull out, or you didn't bring it because of the weight, and so on. The iPad fits in the smallest bag, it starts up and shuts down instantly, and it's not imposing.

Update:
Ganesha Games said:
For a wargamer, writer and ilustrator like me (I write and sell rulebooks for tabletop wargaming, mostly in ebook form) the ipad is a killer device. It holds all of my publication, all available at the flick of a finger, rolls dice for me (the Dicenomicon app is superb), lets me sell ebooks by email (I can email a customer the book he just bought straight from Goodreader)plus carries all my media, my artwork, my books and my comics. I used a netbook before but I was always wondering whether to leave it home because of the short battery duration, and it was more cumbersome to use on the wargaming table when demoing my rules. The iPad has solved all these problems, putting my smartphone, my kindle and my asus eeepc to rest. I'm even reselling paper comics to finance my own switch over to digital (example, I sold my Atomic Robo trade paperbacks to buy the digital version on iVerse).

Caligula IRL?

My friend Norm Nason made this virtual Caligula.

"Roman statues are for the most part thought to be quite accurate depictions. Here I used a photo of a bust of a young Caligula, and brought it up to date (a quick-and-dirty affair, but it gets the idea across). I think it gives us a pretty good idea of what this crazy emperor actually looked like."

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"Quick and dirty?" What can he do when he takes time?

And so to bed

I'm off to a good night's sleep, I'm exhausted, I've spent days with big upgrades of both software and hardware on my computer, it's so stressing, because it's so darn complex, and you can make such a mess with just one mistake.
(Just one example, many have tried to replace a newer file with an older one, and so erase lots of work.) (Fortunately Time Machine have saved my butt a couple of times when software had corrupted a file.)

My new external hard disk is named Lady Dada.

Apropos... these:

... are the cables from one external hard disk. The cables I didn't need.
After ten years of gadget addiction, do you think I have a few cables around the house?

By the way, does anybody know what the heck this plug is?

Update: thanks to Pop et all: it's a SATA, the interface used for disks inside computers these days. (Called eSATA when used externally.)

A SATA cable, eh? How about that. I didn't know they could go outside the box.

So far as I know, though, my Intel Mac Pro doesn't have such a plug (specs here). I wonder what kind of machines do, then.

Paper or pad

[Thanks to Ganesha]

iPad Basics ebook

Free ebook about iPad basics from the Take Control folks.

"Take Control of iPad Basics," by Tonya Engst: The iPad is easy to use, but it's also completely unfamiliar for many people, and we made this ebook free in order to help new users become comfortable more quickly. Also, by covering the basics in this ebook, our other Take Control books about the iPad can focus more deeply on their topics. The ebook covers how to decide which iPad and accessories to buy, and it helps you understand the iPad's buttons and ports, learn multi-touch gestures, download apps, sync data and media, find your stuff, and avoid newbie mistakes. The ebook wraps up with a discussion of how to impress your friends with a great iPad demo! 109 pages, free.

Iko Iko revisited

Some songs never die.

My fave is still Cindy Laupers:



But you can't deny the charm of Captain Jack and company:



Belle Stars' version for Rain Man was not bad;



And one of the early ones, the Dixie Cups:



I get the impression that like with The Lion Sleeps Tonight, the origin of the song is sort of lost in the mists of time.

Gil Elvgren art

[Thanks to Jim]

Gil Elvgren Art and Photography of Janet Rae, photos/pinups.

Amazing, he did not have to improve her body, she must have been stone cold fox. 

I've been a fan of Elvgren's ever since as a young 'un I found a deck of cards with his girls on 'em.
And to be honests, I don't think I've seen a single pinup artist who could do what he did, Vargas included.

It's only a pity there was not really a market for nudes. He did a few of them, and they were stunning.

Duct tape

Wild story, but I guess it could be true.
And I am a fan of duct tape, ever since I used it a lot in my work sandblasting in the early eighties. It would protect the parts which should not get blasted, like lamps and electronics on a truck.  That stuff is just insanely strong (both the glue and the backing).

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[Thanks to Cap Kirk]

During a private "fly-in" fishing excursion in the Alaskan wilderness, the chartered pilot and fishermen left a cooler and bait in the plane.  And a bear smelled it.  This is what he did to the plane.

  The pilot used his radio and had another pilot bring him 2 new tires, 3 cases of duct tape, and a supply of sheet plastic. He patched the plane together, and flew it home...

Update:

CalgaryMark said:
When I lived Up North duct tape (Duck Tape) was known as 100 mile an hour tape because that's how fast you could fly a plane repaired with before it started to peel off .

How 'It Began With the Tablet'

Bits of a new Steve Jobs interview.

So the iPhone [...]  was actually an afterthought that came into being while Apple was drawing up plans for the iPad. 

"My God, I said, this would make a great phone," Jobs recalled. "So we shelved the tablet and built the iPhone."

This  makes a lot of sense. I never could see how anybody could make the mental jump from a normal cell phone to whatever-the-heck the iPhone is. But it makes sense when you know they started with the tablet, because all that technology is clearly meant to be on a much bigger screen than an iPhone.

Mr. Wong

One of the earliest (and therefore unprofitable) professional animated series was on the web around 2000. I quite liked Mr. Wong. (It's even in HD.)

It's not at all PC. In fact, it's weally, weally wong. 

Turn it on

I e-mailed it to my  Chinese doctor friend.
He e-mailed back: "If light stay on for more than 4 hours, call your erectrician."

[Thanks to Carter]

Miley Cyrus - Can't Be Tamed

"Little" Miley, anno 2010 (youtube).
Gutsy change. Good for her.
I like it.
I'm sure that, like is usual, some of her fans will hate it, and some will love it, and life goes on.
Her old stuff was more "tween" directed. But Miley don't stay 14, and her fans don't stay 12.

Ihnatko's test

Here's Ihnatko's test if you can use a camera.

Andy Ihnatko (he pronounces it ee-naht-ko) is a neato tech writer. Like with Pogue, I usually enjoy his writings, whatever they are about.

Who you callin a moron?!

An artist/writer I'd commission to work for me, gave up today in stark frustration over inabilities to come up with good and workable ideas for the project.

But then two mails later, he wrote and said that he'd gone for a walk, and now he has a great idea.
He apologized for getting so emotional and said that being an "eccentric artist" did not go well with being a Professional.

I said: "It is familiar. I think it is like this for all artists. The term "professional artist" is almost an oxymoron."

Except for hacks and the occasional (very rare) super-artist who never has any emotional struggles with his/her creativity, it is really, really tough to combine a business with real "art". An artist who works from the heart feels like a fraud if he is forced by a deadline to come up with something which he feels is inferior or unimportant work because he did not sense it came from the heart.

Other people may sometimes see work produced in this way as being excellent, and eventually the artist may even see it himself, but that does not make the struggle any easier.

Philogyny

I've just discovered that I, without realizing it, am and all my life have been, a philogynist (phi·log·y·ny, noun: love of or liking for women).

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Confession time: I have to admit it makes my heart swell with pride to know that I have helped to support the production of, and distribution of, such wonderfully beautiful pictures as this. I'm sorry, that's just how it is. While you might find such things by luck very occasionally on the odd girly site, Domai is the only one I know of which specializes in it, and much more of it has been made and distributed because of Domai.

Update: and just now, another set of this quality was submitted for my review by one of my most keen photographers (like several of them, a young woman herself). Gawd, I love my work!

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Philogynists of the world, untie!

Blurb publishing

My Russian friend Mikail had made a photo book, so I asked him to write up the experience for us. - Eolake

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One day I have got an idea to print a book with own photo works (I think many photographers think about it), I started search of proper print house in the internet, contacted with several of them, got some offers, but all the terms were dictated by them (the whole book concept, exact photos, etc).. We may understand that as soon as there are risks of unsold print, it must be sellable, especially today with a full access to the internet content.

But I wanted to print my own book, with my idea and photos I want, so I kept searching.

So I found blurb.com – I was nicely surprised of opportunity to print what I want, in any of amounts of prints, right from my house.

The whole project went perfectly; the precise instruction is in their web page.

Register, download a layout setting program, then set it (font, amount of photos, order of photos, colors, etc), after you just download the ready sample to blurb.com, choose book´s paper quality (I used Premium Paper, Matte), pay and wait.

I live in Russia, post delivery lasted around 3 weeks, and there are more quick ways as well.

After it all I am very happy of the result! It is so nice to keep your own book in your hands; I could even recommend it to other photographers!

PS It is also possible to use blurb.com as an internet shop for sale of the book. You may check my book here (contains nudity). (Hardcover version.)

Thank you. - Mikhail P

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Thanks, Mikhail.

I have ordered the book myself, partly to see how it turned out for my own future reference, partly because I'm a fan of Mikhail's work, he is one of my best contributors on Domai.com.

Update: TC points to a comparative review he's made about photo book printing services.