Friday, November 13, 2009
Pigeon: Impossible
[Thanks to Tommy]
Pigeon: Impossible, good fun Pixar-style video.Written, directed, and produced by Lucas Martell, with help from his friends. Good work, dude, high quality and very funny story.
Readability online (updated)
OK, this deserves a post of its own: Pogue recommends the browser ad-on Readability.
"Readability is far more than an ad blocker. It addresses multiple unpleasant trends in Web layout these days: type getting too small, layouts getting cluttered and complex, text overlapping with graphics, ads interrupting the flow of the prose, and so on. (You can print or e-mail the cleaned-up page, too.)"
At first try, it seems awesome, look at those two screenshots below!
(And I can add that the first screenshot is how my browser looks even with a pretty good ad-blocker installed.)
Before clicking on the "Readability" button:
After clicking on the "Readability" button:
(I just wish it had a bit finer settings of text size etc. I'd like something just in the middle between the "medium" and "large" text settings myself.)
Update: anon tips us to a more flexible variety: Readable the app. I recommend keeping both, some sites work better with one, some with the other.
... And actually this seems like a very good solution to what I blogged about a few months back: how to isolate text on the screen for reading. (At least for the web.)
It's also great for two of my pet peeves: white text on black backgrounds, and too-small text (on way too many sites, I think it's a majority actually). (I know it can be adjusted, but it's a pain doing that all the time, and it often throws the layout out of whack, something which happens too often if I set the base text size too large in the browser settings. Sigh.)
"Readability is far more than an ad blocker. It addresses multiple unpleasant trends in Web layout these days: type getting too small, layouts getting cluttered and complex, text overlapping with graphics, ads interrupting the flow of the prose, and so on. (You can print or e-mail the cleaned-up page, too.)"
At first try, it seems awesome, look at those two screenshots below!
(And I can add that the first screenshot is how my browser looks even with a pretty good ad-blocker installed.)
Before clicking on the "Readability" button:
After clicking on the "Readability" button:
(I just wish it had a bit finer settings of text size etc. I'd like something just in the middle between the "medium" and "large" text settings myself.)
Update: anon tips us to a more flexible variety: Readable the app. I recommend keeping both, some sites work better with one, some with the other.
... And actually this seems like a very good solution to what I blogged about a few months back: how to isolate text on the screen for reading. (At least for the web.)
It's also great for two of my pet peeves: white text on black backgrounds, and too-small text (on way too many sites, I think it's a majority actually). (I know it can be adjusted, but it's a pain doing that all the time, and it often throws the layout out of whack, something which happens too often if I set the base text size too large in the browser settings. Sigh.)
Big snake meal
[Thanks to Kirk]
This fellah never heard the saying "don't bite off more than you can chew"."These pics were taken by one of the road crew at Cloud Break (Australia), last week. It took a total of 5 hours for the King Snake to finish off the Goanna. (Sand Monitor)"
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A good company? and other Pogue notes
David Pogue reveals some of Verizon's dirty business tactics, and asks the question I've asked sometimes: wouldn't it perhaps be more profitable, and certainly more pleasant, to be a company who the customers really like, instead the underhanded one which squeeze extra dollars out of everybody by sneaky means at every opportunity?
Also, David reviews both my newest favorite cameras!
David strikes third time by recommending "Readability" software for your browser. I'll def try that.
Also, David reviews both my newest favorite cameras!
David strikes third time by recommending "Readability" software for your browser. I'll def try that.
Lori Cotler, solkattu
[Thanks to Neeraj]
"Konnakol (also spelled konokol) (Tamil: கொன்னக்கோல்) is the Carnatic music - South Indian classical - performance art of vocal percussion. It is also a comprehensive language of rhythm which allows the composition, performance or communication of rhythms in any style or tradition of music from anywhere in the world."Market hall
These are a couple pictures I took today in Market hall in central Bolton. It used to have many "islands" of little shops, but over big protests and petitions it was changed last year to a modern shopping centre. It took a while.
I don't think they have used the space very well, there are much fewer shops than before, even though it's now in two levels.
At least they've been smart enough to let some of the charming old building stay visible, even if it's pretty much drowned out, not the least this time of year, the Christmas decorations do it no favors.
I was questioned by a female guard by the way, you need permission to photograph. She was pretty relaxed about though, maybe because I was using the diminitive "tourist" camera, Canon S90, and maybe because I was only photographing the old round windows at the time.
At 400 ISO and with stabilization, the camera handled the indoors situation quite well.
And every exposure is perfect, despite the great contrasts in lighting.
I don't always feel I need wideangle, but with the great wall there, the wide 28mm-e setting on the S90 came in handy I must admit.
I don't think they have used the space very well, there are much fewer shops than before, even though it's now in two levels.
At least they've been smart enough to let some of the charming old building stay visible, even if it's pretty much drowned out, not the least this time of year, the Christmas decorations do it no favors.
I was questioned by a female guard by the way, you need permission to photograph. She was pretty relaxed about though, maybe because I was using the diminitive "tourist" camera, Canon S90, and maybe because I was only photographing the old round windows at the time.
At 400 ISO and with stabilization, the camera handled the indoors situation quite well.
And every exposure is perfect, despite the great contrasts in lighting.
I don't always feel I need wideangle, but with the great wall there, the wide 28mm-e setting on the S90 came in handy I must admit.
Alex, old Lancashire "lad", said:
I vaguely remember the old market hall. I seem to remember a tea rooms or shoppers cafe upstairs.
Manchester's market was in the scrag end of the Arnie, and Stretford had their Arndale as well. I remember Liverpool's market was modern as well. Longsight and Stocky have outdoor markets. Chester's was indoors in the Forum, a 60's brick slab. There are so few Victorian Markets around. Sure Covent Gardens is an excellent example, but it's all flowery tourist stuff, and not an honest to goodness market (mercado for our American friends) any more.
I remember markets from my younger days, dressing rooms made out of tarps, that old stoner selling second hand records and those orange labelled cassettes of concerts. There was the sweet stall with trays of toffee to buy by the pound. The second hand book store where you could by two books for three old ones. There were bolts of fabric, habidashers, butchers with game hung in the window, grinding their own sausage. Green grocers which smelt of gardens and produce, piles of boxes and lived in look.
Add to the noise and excitement of the bazaar the ornate intricacies of Victorian iron work and fussy patterns in the brick. Taint the brick soot black, and paint all the iron in corporation green, and there you are in nameless Britain of anywhere between 1945 and 1975.
At least now they have a tendency to slap a grade two or three listing on these buildings, and the survivors are guaranteed.
There are places where it has worked well, the 1980's modernization of the warehouses at Albert Dock for example, or is that St Catherines Dock, just opposite HMS Belfast in London.
How's the market hall in Wigan holding up? Oh, please, get a bus pass and do a tour of Wigan with your camera. It's like Bolton, but it embraces it's history.
Great now I really want to eat some good toffee. Nearest Thonrntons is about 3,000 miles away. Hmmph!
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Thursday, November 12, 2009
Banks and monsters
We love to hate banks and such institutions (like Paypal), and it's not hard to find reason to. How come when you're a bank you can lend out money you don't have, and charge interest on them? I'd like to do that also, please.
And we don't like to pay a healthy fee to get money transferred between countries, when it clearly happens in a split second.
But I don't think there is an alternative, and will never be so long as money is so important to humans and so long as humans tend to be selfish and dishonest (and we all have a bit of that).
Imagine you had to get ten grand and you needed somebody to courier it across the Atlantic. Who would you trust with it? A close friend. If none of your close friends are going, you need to find somebody that are trusted by everybody, somebody who does this all the time.
And if somebody is in this position, then everybody also knows he carries money, so he will be mugged, unless he gets bodyguards and security. They need to get paid, and to be trustworthy, or at least monitored. And there's no way he would take all this risk and bother without getting a nice fee for it.
Well, there you go. The only reason it seems easier to banks is because they have built up a business and trust network over decades, and that sort of thing also costs a lot of money to keep running.
And we don't like to pay a healthy fee to get money transferred between countries, when it clearly happens in a split second.
But I don't think there is an alternative, and will never be so long as money is so important to humans and so long as humans tend to be selfish and dishonest (and we all have a bit of that).
Imagine you had to get ten grand and you needed somebody to courier it across the Atlantic. Who would you trust with it? A close friend. If none of your close friends are going, you need to find somebody that are trusted by everybody, somebody who does this all the time.
And if somebody is in this position, then everybody also knows he carries money, so he will be mugged, unless he gets bodyguards and security. They need to get paid, and to be trustworthy, or at least monitored. And there's no way he would take all this risk and bother without getting a nice fee for it.
Well, there you go. The only reason it seems easier to banks is because they have built up a business and trust network over decades, and that sort of thing also costs a lot of money to keep running.
Shutter-happy
Quick note: today when I snapped the test photos for the (much-updated) mini-review below, I noticed on the way home that just this mundane little task had already made me "trigger-happy", or I guess shutter-happy. I wanted to snap more pictures.
I find this strange, and cute, and interesting... how much I love to photograph.
I have no idea why, really. In recent years I have even dreamed about it at night, long complex dreams full of cameras and subjects and light. Funny ole thing.
I find this strange, and cute, and interesting... how much I love to photograph.
I have no idea why, really. In recent years I have even dreamed about it at night, long complex dreams full of cameras and subjects and light. Funny ole thing.
Caminito del Rey
[Thanks to Jim, Seattle]
Now there's a scary walk. See video. Quite the treat for adrenalin junkies. :-)"El Caminito del Rey (English: The King's little pathway) is a walkway or via ferrata, now fallen into disrepair, pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, near Álora in Málaga, Spain."
- wikipedia article.
It has killed quite a few people. What a f***ing drop if you do fall, ouch!
... Now that site, wimp.com, there's a site which makes my web design seem over-embellished! Friggin' 'eck, not a single graphic.
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