Should e-Books Be Copy Protected?

Should e-Books Be Copy Protected? article by David Pogue.
"the illegal copies are just advertising for you; people will download them, try them out, then go by the physical book. [...]
The results? It was true. The thing was pirated to the skies. It's all over the Web now, ridiculously easy to download without paying.
The crazy thing was, sales of the book did not fall. In fact, sales rose slightly during that year.
[...]
But none of that addresses my reader's initial complaint: what if, someday, you want to jump ship from Amazon's reader family to Barnes & Noble's? This is precisely the nightmare scenario that faced iPod owners who wanted to switch to a Zune. (O.K., there's no such person, but you get the point.)
-

Gnags - Live Vilde kaniner

Gnags - Live Vilde Kaniner Youtube video.
"Wild Rabbits" was never my favorite Gnags song, but dang, their new "yoo-hoo girl" (as Danes call background singers) is lovely.
Gnags, forty years on the stage, go guys.

Photos from today (updated)

The sign below made me laugh. The good word to new cancer victims is "not a good day?" Holy frig. (I actually like the picture too, even though it was a snapshot caused by the sign. And the camera Canon S90 handled the contrast well, there's detail in both the white sign in the sun and in the dark street in the shade.)

I like the "take-everywhere" camera. Put it in the thigh pocket in my combats and forget about it, and when I see a subject, whip it out (the camera, please). And in decent light the image quality is the same as a large camera.

Update:
... BTW, silly me: I have set the S90's control ring to control the zoom, and it runs in steps of the old major focal lengths-equivalents: 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 105mm. It seems a quicker way, correct or not, to get to the approximate focal lenth you want.
... And so today when photographing the church, the 85mm-equivalent (18mm) seemed just slightly too narrow, so I also photographed it in 50mm. I'd plumb forgotten (standing on a tiny pedestrians island in the middle of a busy street) that I could fine-tune it with the regular zoom lever! (Not with easy precision, like all compacts, but still.) Weirdly, though, the zooms in the opposite direction from the lever, an unfortunate choice from Canon. (At least if you see the top of the ring to be the "direction" it is moving, which feels logical to me.)

My new NIKAI camera

The Nikai FMD is here seen next to the complicated Lumix GF1 for size comparison. The bigger camera of course is seen as being more professional.

... I know it's a little extravagant, but I will consider it my Christmas present to myself: on a walk in town today I came past the pawn shop, and found this fantastic camera. It was £4.99, but I think it was well worth it, since it cheers me up.

... Despite looking to casual observers like a big, professional camera, thus boosting your macho value, the NIKAI FMD System camera is made of plastic, so it is not too heavy.

It looks like an SLR camera, but the pentaprism house is empty, thus saving weight. You actually look through the inconspicuous optical finder next to the prism house.

It looks like the lens is exchangeable, but it's not, which means you'll never get dust inside the camera.

The lens is the highly respected "OPTICAL LENS", which is plastic for weight savings, and is a 50mm "normal" lens. It is designed at a conservative F:6.3 maximum aperture, which means that unlike "fast" lenses, focusing is not critical, and therefore the lens is made "focus free", you can't change the focus at all. It has four aperture settings: "bright sun", "dull sun", "blue mountain", and "black mountain". I think.

Notice the fake lens element out front which makes it look like a professional "fast" lens. If you shoot in dull weather, use a tripod.

It has a built-in motor drive for the film. It is not fast, which means less battery drain, and it keeps your hands free to press the shutter.

It has no shutter speed settings, again making it super-easy for the photographer who likes to look like a pro, but does not want to know too much about cameras.

The camera uses "film", a little known non-digital technology, which means you can take and get your pictures developed without knowing anything about computers, and also the camera is immune to electronic interference and laser systems designed to seek out and blind digital cameras.

My "ten-set"

Mike Johnston made a provocative request from photographers: that they should make a "ten-set" of ten favorite photographs, to quickly give a visitor an idea of the work you do. So I made my ten-set.


It's not easy, how do you select ten favorites from thirty years of very diverse work?

Chrome for Mac

I'm just trying the new Beta version of Goggle Chrome for Mac.

It's very much a beta. For example there's no way of setting default fonts and text size. But one thing I must say: it's very fucking fast! Impressive. Including one of my standard sites, which on Safari for some odd reason takes like half a minute to load (the first page), in Chrome it is near-instant.

And from what I have seen so far with a trek through my most used sites, the rendering is really nice, pages look good and neat.

Little Richard - Send me some Lovin

Picture here is present-day Little Richard (2007). Does this look like a man in his mid-seventies, almost sixty years into his career!? Holy shit.

It seems to me as an endorsement for doing what you love.


Here he is in the fifties:


Here's a soft studio version:


... I have another studio version (from a Greatest Hits collection) which is more rocky, and real nice.

Send Me Some Lovin' (lyrics) is by Buddy Holly.

Funny, BTW, as a teenager, I did not like LR, or very much rock. I thought it was noisy. How we change.

BW Portrait Contest, results

So, here are the results of the BW Portrait Contest.
The quality level was very high, making it hard to judge, so I have decided to give two $100 prizes instead of one. And by astounding coincidence, these two wonderful photos have the model in virtually the same pose!

Walter S. won with this portrait of 'a girl and her dog':

And Michael H. won with this visually daring portrait of a goth girl:



And here are the Honorable Mentions:

(Note: I've decided to award all the honorable-mentions (those who are interested) a three-month membership in either Domai or GoddessNudes. Please email me.)

By Tiago:

By Steven F:

By Steven G:

By Uncle Ron:

By Paul B:

By Neil G:

By Anna Matavovsky:

By Chris A:

By Jeff R:

By Izzy:

By Don C:

By Daniel S:

By Bruce A:

By Bob R:

By Andrew E:

Mambo Italiano

[Thanks to Pascal]

Some women are just magic when they move.

Tinto Brass (US link - UK/Eu link) is a European director who has made some erotic films which are unusual that, well, they don't suck molten death through an iron straw. They have a story, and humor, and good characters, and are often sexy. (I think it's this one actually, Frivoulous Lola, which I have on DVD somewhere.)






I wonder when this Muppet Show was made? It looks like it's made more recently and with a bigger budget than the classic shows.

And below, though sadly no video, Mambo Italiano with Sophia Loren.
Actually, recently I realized I don't remember seeing any of her early films. Any recoms? (Comedy preferred.)

Leaves at midnight

[I just noticed the title is a pun... "the train leaves at midnight".]

These were a challenge, even with stabilized lens. I took them at about 1/8 second [update: under a street lamp], hand-held, with a 90mm-equivalent zoom setting. I took 33 exposures, and only two were sharp!
I think I prefer the simpler one, what do you think?




I made a version (for print) which I like better yet (not so much the matte as the crop and the tones optimization):


I like the print.
I also like that without any extensive training period, just on general understanding of the principles, with my new cameras/lenses, printer and paper, I'm now making better prints than I ever have, either in darkroom or inkjet.
Today I showed the pillar print to my friend Judy, and she said "wow, that's the clearest photo I've ever seen". And it actually is too for me, in colors, in Light, and in contrast and sharpness. Of course these are merely technical qualities, but I happen to feel very good about the photo too.

Shaloot's extremeties photos

On Miserere's Canon S90 review, Shaloot plugged his Flickr page. These are lovely designs and lovely pics. (Shows off the advantage of cameras with bigger sensors: blurred backgrounds when needed.)
I love the designs, I'm trying to figure out who did them.
... But then, probably they are drawing on a long tradition which I'm not aware of. Designs which have developed over hundreds or thousands of years.


(In case you haven't noticed: on Flickr, you can often find pictures in much larger sizes by clicking on the barely-noticable "all sizes" button over the picture.)

NetPics 3.14

[Thanks to Kirk]