New Amazon mag: Day One

New Amazon mag: Day One
(It seems that so far, it's only available in the US. Typically, that is not made clear up front, making thousands of readers waste time trying to find it on their own non-US Amazon site. That is typical not just for Amazon, but for the majority of such instances, it's sad.)

The magazine is currently closed to unsolicited submissions (and I think it'll probably stay so). This is undoubtedly disappointing to millions of writers. But I can understand why. Even before Internet submissions, publishers were already drowning in unsolicited submissions. The so-called 'slush pile' was a never-ending backlog. And with the Net, Kindle, and Amazon, imagine the pile! They would probably get over a thousand stories per day, it would be insane.

And trying to judge the merit of one story can be hard enough, imagine trying to read slush 10 hours a day, it must fry your brain. I can't see how you could even enjoy reading anything for years after having had such a job for any real length of time.

Reall far-out animals

Weeeird animals.

It's amazing that the life on Earth is so richly varied that there are still many creatures that most of us have never heard of.


12. The Peacock Mantis Shrimp: The mantis shrimp is also known as “sea locusts“, “prawn killers” and “thumb splitters”. Their front claws can deliver a punch that is as powerful as a gunshot. The mantis shrimp can’t be kept in normal aquariums, as they punch through other sea life and even the glass. (!)

13. The Venezuelan Poodle Moth: The Venezuelan Poodle Moth was only discovered in 2009. They are found in Venezuela and not much is known about these fuzzy, dog-like moths just yet.

19. The Thorny Dragon: The Thorny Dragon is an Australian lizard that resides mostly in the desert and, as the name suggests, looks like a tiny dragon. They are also known as the mountain devil, the thorny lizard, or the moloch. This lizard is covered in sharp spikes, and it uses these to frighten away predators. They can live up to 20 years, more than most lizards.

Autumn image

My penpal Mark Weise sent me this. I think it's nice and unusual, at first glimpse out of the corner of my eye, I thought it was a painting.

Mark made the dark version, based on how it looked.
I then adjusted to the lighter version, partly on habit, partly thinking of making it look good on the maximum number of monitors. (For example I have my monitor adjusted a bit darker these days, to save wear on the eyes.) But I admit it looses a little of the artistic specialness that way.

To illustrate, I also include one where I adjusted all the way. But while it is has more spark, I think this makes the picture too normal, lose the specialness.
It's hard to say, but I guess if looked upon as art, it all comes down to taste.

Is perfection valuable?

Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.

 - Lord Chesterfield

No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art. 

 - John Ruskin

I really like the second one. That's quite important, because a lot of artists, as they learn their craft, get hung up on Perfection, and it's a very sticky trap. 

Amazon: a player in the market, or a heartless juggernaut?

The book The Everything Store by Brad Stone is creating a bit of controversy, because it gives a strong impression of Amazon and founder Jeff Bezos as being bullies and rather ruthless.

Even if you only read the chapter about the Kindle, there are numerous examples of the bullying character of Amazon. Just one, if true, suffices for me: that they will only take sales people who are of the character who believes that in a negotiation there must only be one winner, and that winner must be Amazon.
If taken far enough, I think that character trait in a person or a company ultimately is destructive. Look at it squarely: if you are a very strong person, and you *cannot* accept loosing under any circumstances, what respect do you have for other people’s lives and feelings? What respect do you have for rules and the law?

Some people in Bezos’ shoes would be having a fun game of having a very successful company amongst other successful companies. But a lot we hear about him indicates that he will never relax before reaching his real goal, which by logical extension is: Amazon being the all-dominating, untouchable, one-winner-takes-all merchant on the Earth.

Even the basic concept of Amazon (notice Bezos' joy when deciding on the name "Amazon" that the river Amazon is not just the biggest, but by *far* the biggest!) from the beginning: one store carrying everything, selling to everybody… what does that imply? It is not a “game” one would play for love of, for example, books and literature. Because he wants to sell *everything* to *everybody*, there is no love for anything in this game. The only attraction there can possibly be in it is the love of dominating and winning over everybody. It’s not even love of money, he could easily have had that, staying on Wall Street.

Jeff seems like a nice person, and I wish I could believe he were at the core. Because one company dominating all sales on the planet is a scary and dangerous idea. But we often see in very strong people that they have two very different faces which live apparently side by side with no trouble, probably oblivious of each other.

And all the different evidence we see, including Jeff’s continued willingness to sacrifice profits for growing market share, all points to this, I see nothing else which fits.
If Amazon is not big enough now to satisfy him, when will it be?
Only when it’s the last one standing. (Then he will begin to look for other planets to move onto, if he still has breath left. Heck, he already has a rocket company.)

The world is complex. I might be wrong. I hope I am.

Me and E-M1

Me with the new Olympus E-M1. A really pleasant and effective camera.
Sorry the camera aint sharp, but it's from a portrait lens, shallow depth of field, and of course it was indoors light, so that's the name of the game. But if you want, you can just google Olympus E-M1, and you will find enough material to choke a digital hippo. It's a very sought-after camera, and I was lucky I got mine so soon, I think many will have to wait a month or two.

That, er, Macarena, you know. And more body pop

I finally had to know what were the roots of this "Macarena" people talk about.




And while we go Body Culture, we may as well go all the way...



The blonde is not your typical popstar pretty, but she has a special attraction somehow.
And for the ladies, there's your dark, sculpted man flesh.

Oh! And I haven't heard this in yeeeears. She is actually a Danish girl.
Sannie Carlson (best known as Whigfield) is the name of a lady with Danish origins who decided to make a mark in the history of pop-dance music by selling millions worldwide. 
In 1994 she gained a place in the Guinness Book of Records with the song "Saturday Night" as the first artist to go straight to number one in the UK singles chart with a debut single. 

Lovely.

I remember Sannie complaining about the music snobbery in Denmark: if it can't be played live with real instruments, it's not "real music".

And going Danish, here is one of the biggest, and the most ridiculed, Danish hits of the nineties. It was only later than I found out the song was actually written by a friend of mine! (Note, not full song, and not official video!!)



There was a joke then: a man has to have half his brain removed. So he talks real slow. But they find out they have to remove the rest too. When he wakes up, he goes... "duppi duppi..."

New book by Pratchett

Hurrah, the new diskworld book by Terry Pratchett is out.

That is "Rising Steam". But his non-Discworld book Dodger is actually also terrific.

"Do You Really Need FF?"

Do You Really Need Full Frame?, tOP article.
...However, I wonder if perhaps we've now reached a real watershed for "good enough quality." The current 16-megapixel 4/3 sensor in the various current top-line Micro 4/3 cameras is so good that it seems like it might suffice for all but specialty and professional photography. And it's not too bad for those either.

I have been arguing this for a while now (basically since the Olympus E-M5 came out, along with the great lenses for it), and I'm tickled pink (for non-US readers, this means "delighted") that the author of one of the most popular and respected photo blogs now writes it too.

Don't miss this one either. I read it in Mike's book of collected articles, and I loved it, because to a degree, it freed me from the nagging feeling that one day I really "had to" use large format cameras if I wanted "the best" quality.

Wrap Wallet

Wrap Wallet is a kickstarter project for a very compact wallet. I think it's a really good design.
It's not super-cheap of course, $30 for a sew-yourself kit, and $59 for a finished wallet. But it seems that the materials are carefully chosen, and it's a special item. Cheaper prices usually only appear in mass-produced products, which usually then don't have the same personality.



For us Europeans, it's a mystery where we are supposed to keep the coins. But in the US, coins are small and pretty worthless, they still use 1-dollar bills. They must get pretty durn used. European coins go up to denominations which you normally don't want to lose.
From the maker, D Jackson:
I keep them in the small pocket in my jeans! I know coins are a problem for non-Americans because they're actually worth something outside the US. We still have filthy dollar bills instead. I've heard this from a few people and will be working on another version of the wallet which holds coins ...

I haven't worn jeans since they stopped making them in other colors than blue. For some reason I think blue jeans are, I dunno, so bland. So I have no fitting coin pocket.
In the mean time, I use Waterfield's fine compact wallet at SFbags.com.  They also have many, many fine products in bags and cases. The best I have found.

Jana Pope Kratochvílová

One of my favorite albums of the eighties.
My perhaps favorite track, "Spy", was not embeddable, but it's here.
Old interview. And a second one.

Amira Willighagen (9) sings opera