Jason Lee's photos of his kids

[Thanks to Anna]

Jason Lee's photos of his kids, photo post. (Very slow right now, perhaps it has been linked from a big site.)
They wanted to make something unusual. Most of the ideas came from the kids themselves.
Bigger collection (thanks to Pat).

Easter cactus

A friend gave me this nice Easter Cactus at Easter. It's perennial, can last for many years. And it just started flowering.

spam address fail

I got an email that my "tax payment had failed", and I had to check into a site to correct the details.
What tipped me off that the message was not official? Well, the return address was like "LuzBoothee@hotmail.com". LOL. Too funny.

"Downfall"

"Downfall". Astounding movie, I really didn't think such a thing could be done. To put a human face on the greatest monsters in living memory, all without loosing sight of the underlying brutality and inhumanism.
The story is excellent and compelling, and so is the acting, especially Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hiltler.

From reviews via Wiki:

With respect to German uneasiness about "humanizing" Hitler, Denby said:[3]
A few journalists in [Germany] wondered aloud whether the "human" treatment of Hitler might not inadvertently aid the neo-Nazi movement. But in his many rants in [the film] Hitler says that the German people do not deserve to survive, that they have failed him by losing the war and must perish – not exactly the sentiments […] that would spark a recruitment drive. This Hitler may be human, but he's as utterly degraded a human being as has ever been shown on the screen, a man whose every impulse leads to annihilation.


After previewing the film, Hitler biographer Sir Ian Kershaw wrote in The Guardian:[4]
Knowing what I did of the bunker story, I found it hard to imagine that anyone (other than the usual neo-Nazi fringe) could possibly find Hitler a sympathetic figure during his bizarre last days. And to presume that it might be somehow dangerous to see him as a human being – well, what does that thought imply about the self-confidence of a stable, liberal democracy? Hitler was, after all, a human being, even if an especially obnoxious, detestable specimen. We well know that he could be kind and considerate to his secretaries, and with the next breath show cold ruthlessness, dispassionate brutality, in determining the deaths of millions. Of all the screen depictions of the Führer, even by famous actors, such as Alec Guinness or Anthony Hopkins, this is the only one which to me is compelling. Part of this is the voice. Ganz has Hitler's voice to near perfection. It is chillingly authentic.

Ismism

Lovecraftian art by Umbra

My ol' pal Italian artist Umbra has been trying out the iPad app Harmonious, and he made a set of "Lovecraftian monsters" which I just love. Here's a couple.

(Click for larger pics)

Frosty weather

Wife texts husband on a cold winters morning:"Windows frozen."

Husband texts back:"pour some lukewarm water over it."

Wife texts back: "computer completely fucked now."

Lightning striking iconic bridge

[Thanks to Alex]

Lightning striking iconic bridge, post.

Canon EOS-1D C Shoots 4K Video

[Thanks to Laurie J]

Canon EOS-1D C Shoots 4K Video, post.
"4K" is ridiculously high resolution, about 4k by 2k pixels, or over four times HD. Everybody is hot to trot using that resolution, even though nobody can view it yet...

Don't that look great? Especially the cinema lens.
I'm slightly confused about that, though, cuz they say it's a "super 35" lens, and unlike normal "super", this means "less than", in that the format is around 14mm x 24mm. So such a lens would surely not cover the full frame of the Canon 1D? So why use it, when Canon has a host of excellent full frame lenses?

Cheap Olympus E-PL1

Thanks to Bert to pointing out the new special offer on the Olympus E-PL1.
No, it's not the newest model, but 150 dollars is astoundingly cheap for a Micro Four Thirds camera. Heck, it's astoundingly cheap for any interchangeable-lens camera.

Here's the DPreview review of it.

Wollstonecraft

Wollstonecraft, a very promising steampunk book project.

Mary Wollstonecraft was the mother of Mary Shelley. "Wollstonecraft", coolest name ever.

The concept reminds me of The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson, another book with a visually powerful steampunk spirit and strong feminist undertones of the healthy kind*. And in fact a fantastic book on so many levels. (Maybe Stephenson's best. I also thought Cryptonomicon was great, but after that it got very heavy going to slug through the tomes.)

(*The healthy kind simply refuses to be cowed and wants to live life to the fullest. The unhealthy kind just hates men.)

Sexist vintage ads

(Thanks again to tOP.) These ads are just brutal. How times change.