Many, many forums on the web use the BB (bulletin board) system/software, like the new forum for MicroFourThirds fans.
My friend Amin, who manages that forum, has made a very helpful video to show how to put images in posts in such forums, something I think is otherwise a weak point of that software, since it's far from obvious. (For one thing, the "image" icon looks like an envelope to me, so much that I didn't even test it.) It turns out that there are many ways, whether the image is already on a web server or not.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Thandie Newton and Norbit
Just watching Norbit. Perhaps not a movie for the ages, but it's funny and enjoyable. And Eddie Murphy as three main characters who don't look remotely like each other (a black man, an obese black woman, and an old Chinese man! (the guy on the right is Eddie, can you believe it). Outstanding make-up and acting.
("Whale ho!!" ... "Did somebody just call me a whale?!" ... "Yes, and a ho!")
Even people on set chatting with the "old Chinese dude" didn't know it was make-up or that it was Eddie. And allegedly it too make-up designer Rick Baker nine months to design these characters.
A side note: there's a stunt woman for an old lady being thrown high up and landing in a bed of flowers. The stunt woman was 66 years old!
And talking about age, Eddie too looks good, he's 46 years old in 2007 when this was made, but hardly looks changed at all from ten years ago.
... Aaaaand, I just found out Thandie Newton was 35. She looks 25 fer sure.
I suspect I put it on my rental list because it has Thandie Newton (pronounced "Tandy", it seems) in it. I also suspect that Thandie may actually have my current vote for the most beautiful young actress present.
What do you think? What others give her a run for her money?
Note: I think I've said it before: many beautiful actresses only really show their beauty on screen, in still images they look generically pretty at best. I wonder if it's the fault of the photographers, working towards exactly that, instead of being able to see and draw out eccentric beauty?
I made this poster of Thandie. I found the biggest and best file I could. It was promotional for a movie, so I removed that text and replaced it with her name, and put a matte around it.
I made this poster of Thandie. I found the biggest and best file I could. It was promotional for a movie, so I removed that text and replaced it with her name, and put a matte around it.
Isn't it interesting how many pretty actresses will wear the most awesome, revealing outfits, and then seemingly be totally uncomfortable about them? Like Thandie here desperately trying to get her skirt to cover a bit of her thighs when she sits down. I mean, she's 35, surely she has worn short skirts before and can predict both how they behave and how she'll feel about it?
Joe McNally: The Moment It Clicks
You won't find me friggin' climbing skyscrapers! Good for Joe that he has the energy.
Soft xmas pics
TCGirl has used an external flashgun, bounced off the ceiling, for her Christmas pictures. It's a bit trickier than it may sound, because angles and distances may vary all the time as you move, but as you see, it makes for much nicer and softer light than direct flash.
Norah Jones - Man of the Hour
[Thanks to TCGirl]
Gotta give it to her, despite being pretty, Norah is no pop-bubble-head, she can really play and really sing.
I actually like the studio version better:
TCG picked up that the song is not about a man as such.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Why typewriters beat computers (updated)
Why typewriters beat computers, BBC news article.
"The Japanese multinational Brother sold 12,000 electronic typewriters last year [2007] in the UK"
Twelve thousand? I'll be durned, I thought they were dead. But then I thought the same about vinyl records.
We'll see how it goes with film. I've no doubt a minority will keep using it, but one issue is, I've been told, that running a film factory is difficult and very, very expensive, so it requires a pretty good-sized market to make money.
Update: Jeff R points to this guy who is attempting to make his own photographic film. Ambitious!
Update: the article also said: "Typewriters are much more straightforward to use than computers as they only have one function - typing,"
Yes, fair enough. Personally I prefer a "typewriter" like the Alphasmart Neo. Barely more expensive, it has a better keyboard (to my taste), is much more compact, and it's much easier to edit the text and get it to the Net or to print (it does not have to be scanned or typed in again).
I got the link from this post. I like the first comment by "Hookmt".
It is this historical, emotional pull which draws a particular kind of student or aspiring writer to the typewriter.
I don't know why, but they usually seem to be men, and their heroes are hard, brilliant men from the last century. Posing on their blogs with an antique machine, all that separates them from Hemingway are two dozen cocktails and his ability to write.
LOL. I'm often dithering about simple-tech movements, because they have a point. But also, there is usually an air of romance which feeds the whole thing, it seems to me. Often coupled with a touch of simple technophobia.
And an interesting historical note:
Typing classes mushroomed at the end of the 19th Century, and this helped many women to enter paid work for the first time. By 1901, Britain had 166,000 female clerks, up from 2,000 half a century before.
It was a limited emancipation. The new employees (often called "type-writers" themselves) were accused of stealing jobs from men, depressing wages and sexually tempting the boss, and their chance of career progression was often nil. But for women to have any job outside the home was revolutionary.
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"The Japanese multinational Brother sold 12,000 electronic typewriters last year [2007] in the UK"
Twelve thousand? I'll be durned, I thought they were dead. But then I thought the same about vinyl records.
We'll see how it goes with film. I've no doubt a minority will keep using it, but one issue is, I've been told, that running a film factory is difficult and very, very expensive, so it requires a pretty good-sized market to make money.
Update: Jeff R points to this guy who is attempting to make his own photographic film. Ambitious!
Update: the article also said: "Typewriters are much more straightforward to use than computers as they only have one function - typing,"
Yes, fair enough. Personally I prefer a "typewriter" like the Alphasmart Neo. Barely more expensive, it has a better keyboard (to my taste), is much more compact, and it's much easier to edit the text and get it to the Net or to print (it does not have to be scanned or typed in again).
I got the link from this post. I like the first comment by "Hookmt".
It is this historical, emotional pull which draws a particular kind of student or aspiring writer to the typewriter.
I don't know why, but they usually seem to be men, and their heroes are hard, brilliant men from the last century. Posing on their blogs with an antique machine, all that separates them from Hemingway are two dozen cocktails and his ability to write.
LOL. I'm often dithering about simple-tech movements, because they have a point. But also, there is usually an air of romance which feeds the whole thing, it seems to me. Often coupled with a touch of simple technophobia.
And an interesting historical note:
Typing classes mushroomed at the end of the 19th Century, and this helped many women to enter paid work for the first time. By 1901, Britain had 166,000 female clerks, up from 2,000 half a century before.
It was a limited emancipation. The new employees (often called "type-writers" themselves) were accused of stealing jobs from men, depressing wages and sexually tempting the boss, and their chance of career progression was often nil. But for women to have any job outside the home was revolutionary.
-
Flickr sizing issue
Does anybody know, how do I upload images bigger than 1024 pixels to Flickr? No matter what I set the Flickr uploader (Mac) to, the site keeps resizing them! (Didn't help upgrading the app.) And the same with uploading via the site, also gets downsized to max 1024 px.
Aha, Luke informs:
You need a Pro account to upload photos larger than 1024, info.
Thanks. You'd think they would make that more clear. They'd avoid confusion as well as sell more accounts.
Aha, Luke informs:
You need a Pro account to upload photos larger than 1024, info.
Thanks. You'd think they would make that more clear. They'd avoid confusion as well as sell more accounts.
Sleeping Shahrzad
Sleeping Shahrzad, photo by Mark Probst.
Lovely photo. Though admittedly hard to say how much of the appeal comes from the lovely lady in it.
Panasonic G1 at ISO 1600.
Found via tOP.
Lovely photo. Though admittedly hard to say how much of the appeal comes from the lovely lady in it.
Panasonic G1 at ISO 1600.
Found via tOP.
snowcar
I've optimized this for print. With the matte, enhanced contrast, and the black line where I usually have a white one, the print looks great.
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Panasonic G1, kit zoom. I used NIK Viveza to lighten the red without lightening the grey or white. It's an impressive app, very quick and intuitive automatic masking based on colors. It would be near impossible to make a mask for just the red in Photoshop (because of the raggedness of the edge), although you could approach the effect by simply a feathered rough mask.
Sam suggested a red line:
I think it works pretty well, though it has to be a very thin line to not dominate.
I think I prefer the black-line version though. It could be just my conservatism speaking, I dunno.
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Panasonic G1, kit zoom. I used NIK Viveza to lighten the red without lightening the grey or white. It's an impressive app, very quick and intuitive automatic masking based on colors. It would be near impossible to make a mask for just the red in Photoshop (because of the raggedness of the edge), although you could approach the effect by simply a feathered rough mask.
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