January Darkness

(Click to see texture.)
Kindle Fire HDX camera, dull light. Photoshop tweak. 

Was a bit under the weather today, very low-energy, so I spend most of the day in bed, reading, trying to rest, etc. I tried this camera app I got for free on my Kindle Fire. And it quickly turned up (I had never intended to use the camera in the KF, so I never thought about it) that it only has a forwards camera... And the room was very dark.

And since the sensor in the KF HDX is about a quarter of the size of a müsli flake (it's only meant for chat), the picture got very dark and grainy. I thought that was fitting, so I turned it up in Photoshop, and got this cool, almost electric grain effect (most visible in the full sized image). And a dark picture. Hey, we should embrace that sometimes.

How Our World Would Look If You Were A Bird

Photo page.
Mexico City, really? Woa.

3-D Printed Car Is as Strong as Steel, Half the Weight

3-D Printed Car Is as Strong as Steel, Half the Weight, and Nearing Production, article.

This is so excellent. I keep hearing about new things that 3D printing can do better. One example is that areas which has to be made in many parts with traditional methods, can be printed in one part with 3D printing, making it cheaper, lighter, and stronger.
Another is that you can print in strengthening structures (ribs and such) directly in the material.

Sign in, and again and again and again

In recent days, every time I come back to one of my Blogger blogs, I have to sign in. Even if it's just ten minutes since I was there.
It didn't used to be like this, does anybody have any idea why this changed, or how to handle it?

Lay Lady Lay

Repost: three awesome versions of Lay Lady Lay.


I am "rediscovering" much of my old music, thanks to my new AudioEngine D3.
Unbelievable that such a tiny thing can make such a difference. I didn't think my desktop Harman Kardon SoundSticks could sound any better. (Unlike the D3, those are unbelievably cheap, best buy I ever made.)

Meg Lee Chin: Swallowing You

While we're at the punk'y end...



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Promoted before, but it's still my fave of Meg's: Heavy Scene. (And I still can't find a satisfactory version of it on blueboobs, what's up whiddat?)

Beware of covert advertising

Penny auctions explained: Is it really possible to save up to 95% on RRP?, article, no, advertisement.

It took me a while to realize that I was not reading an actual article, but a disguised advertisement.
And probably an ad for a false service. Not even a desperate junkie is dumb enough to sell brand new consumer goods for more than 90% off. Well, OK, a really desperate junkie might, but not somebody who is running a business.

Nina Hagen - I'm a Believer

I love when avant-garde rockers covers pop songs!
This one is different from what I would have expected from the diva of punk.



More poppy yet!?


Is that Nina? So pretty under the Munster make-up*? What a waste she hid that.

And Nina with a symphony orchestra backup!



*Seems to be, here's a pic of her with less extreme make-up. Clearly the same features.

Again: what a shame. I wonder if she was afraid of not being taken seriously if she looked like just another pretty pop doll?
Or if she, like many, felt she had to take on a mask, to become somebody else, in order to let the extreme creations flow freely?

Update:

thanks to A: Nina at 19, now for something entirely different!  Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen! 
Aw, so cute. 

How the NSA Almost Killed the Internet, by Steven Levy

Now that is one bitchin' poster.

How the NSA Almost Killed the Internet, article by Steven Levy
During the conversation, the officials could barely contain the frustration they feel about how the world—and their fellow Americans—views them post-Snowden. They have read Brandon Downey’s heartbroken lament about his own government breaking into his beloved data center. They understand that journalism conferences routinely host sessions on protecting information from government snoops, as if we were living in some Soviet society. And they are aware that multiple security specialists in the nation’s top tech corporations now consider the US government their prime adversary.

But they do not see any of those points as a reason to stop gathering data. They chalk all of that negativity up to monumental misunderstandings triggered by a lone leaker and a hostile press. NSA employees see themselves as dealing with genuine deadly threats to the nation, and it makes them crazy when people assume that spooks at Fort Meade are intent on stealing their privacy.

“It’s almost delusional,” Ledgett says. “I wish I could get to the high mountaintop to scream, ‘You’re not a target!’”
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Another quote:
President Obama weighed in. While implicitly confirming the program (and condemning the leak), he said, “With respect to the Internet and emails, this does not apply to US citizens and does not apply to people living in the United States.”

Ah, it is all right then. It is perfectly ethical and legal to spy on everybody, so long as they are not citizens of one's own country! Who cares about the rights of "forriners"?

And now for a bit of satire: 

In October of 2017, a breakthrough on the war on terrorism was finally made, the so-called total-openness-era. 
133 of the biggest nations on Earth made a deal with the USA: recognizing that the people who were the hardest to spy upon were those smart enough to not use the Internet at all, these nations promised to help the USA implement an extensive spy network: Every piece of mail would be x-rayed and the image sent to NSA. Every room of every single building in a country would be set up with microphones and spy cameras, and the sound and images sent to NSA. 
Negotiations are still going on as to what the NSA/US gov. would do in return. When talked to, they are slightly confused. "Why would we have to give you guys anything in return?" they say, "we are the good guys. Don't we always come and protect you guys?"
Then they wink and whisper: "Anyhow, don't worry, we have things well set up here. After all, everybody in USA basically is a foreigner or descendant of one...

A comment from the side lines

Under the Resolutions post, "Anonymous" commented:

Are you still pretending to be interested in photography? Face it, you're a poseur. You like buying cameras, but you don't care about photography or photographers.
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Grave error?

Thanks to Mikko Hypponen ‏@mikko
When you buy an iPad from Apple's web store, you get a free engraving. You get two lines with any text you want. 

Talking about LED light...

I've bought a small flashlight, a LED Lenser P5. But just like with so many other things, these days "small" is not synonymous with "weak".

I love quality tools of all kinds. Quality just gives its own pleasure, no matter the purpose. The P5 is not "Walmart priced", but to me it's easily worth it.

This flashlight, believe it or not, only takes a single AA battery. That lasts for about 3 hours. It seemingly only has one LED, but man, can that put out the light. I remember a big flashlight I had many years ago. It used three batteries, of the big, fat ones. When the lights were on, that one could just give a rather weak lighter spot on the wall. But this one makes a big, very even, bright area of light.

Lookkit this tiny thing. It comes with a strong nylon holster, which can sit on a belt for example, and it has one of those closed metal hooks mountaineers use. 

These are taken with the light zoomed out, and zoomed in. The light from this small flashlight is so good that in the pictures it looks like the room lights were off, but they were not! I was 5-6 feet from the wall.

They say this puts out "105 Lumens". LED Lenser has many models, the biggest, X21R is huge, costs over $400, and puts out... 1600 Lumens!! Wow, I'd like to try that one. That must be for searching for lost people in the woods and such.