Here, my wife and daughter ride the water at Sea World. We spent most of the day there yesterday.
Category: Media
Quiet Contemplation
My daughter looks out towards the Children’s Pool in San Diego.
Fake Steve Jobs is Revealed!
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs is one acerbic—and hugely popular—Weblog. Also known as Fake Steve Jobs, the author has had quite a following over that last 14 months. There has been a concerted effort to reveal Fake Steve Jobs’ identity. No longer.
In New York Times story, “A Mystery Solved: ‘Fake Steve’ Blogger Comes Clean“, reporter Brad Stone reveals the identity as Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes. Today, Fake Steves acknowledged, “Damn, I am so busted, yo“.
Free Themes with a Hidden Cost
About 11 years ago, I registered aroostook.org, as it derives from the name of my home county, or “The County” as Mainers call it. I later let a good friend have the domain, which I long regretted.
It’s nothing to do with him; he’s a great friend. In retrospect, I could have put the domain to good use. Today, I looked over the WHOIS record, which indicates the domain record was created in 2002. Mmmm, 1996 is more like it. He must have let the domain expire at some point.
We Mourn
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwBIzkp4V6Q] Overnight, one of the teens in our community died after falling while skateboarding. We can’t offer deepest enough condolences to the family, which lost their youngest child (he was 18) and only […]
Best. Marketing Campaign. Ever.
Jealous Computers. They hate being replaced by the Nokia N95.
Fill Her Up
When I was 14, the local radio station—with 50,000 watts of power—broadcast from neighboring Presque Isle, Maine. I found one DJ, whose name is lost to memory, quite exciting. One summer afternoon, the he put […]
The Battle of Jericho
Okay, I’m hooked. Few days back, I downloaded the full season of “Jericho“, the end of America saga, where terrorists nuke 23 cities, which include Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Lawrence, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tucson, and Washington, D.C. I had heard rumors about the apocalyptic drama, but I watch little network TV and no CBS programing. I think of CBS as the old folks network.
“Jericho” is unusually good TV drama, similar caliber and mystery-driven format as “Battlestar Galactica” or “Lost”. The show deserves much more viewership than in its dismal ratings.
What Will Be the Returns?
Today’s New York Times column “An iPhone Changed My Life (Briefly)” hits at the device’s fundamental problem: Hype. There was too much of it—and not really from Apple—that may have over-raised many people’s expectations. The issue Michelle Slatalla raises is one of returns. Will she return her iPhone? She writes, “I have started thinking seriously about returning the $599 phone, despite a 10 percent restocking fee. It hasn’t really changed my life in the ways I’d hoped”.
But she may have started with overly unrealistic expectations, which the runaway hype helped foster. The name includes “phone” for a reason. Apple didn’t promise a device that would cure cancer or feed the starving.
Kiss My DRM
I have been laughing at Universal Music’s refusal to sign another long-term contract with Apple. Universal demonstrates the same thick-as-a-brick mentally that has made music labels perhaps the most loathed organizations on the planet. It’s one hell of a contradiction: The folks selling beloved music are hated by their tune-loving customers.
Bugs!
I started photographing bugs; snapped this baby praying mantis through bushes. Bad angle, bad lighting. I’m shooting with Canon EOS 20D dSLR and Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM lens. My main lens is the EF 135mm f/2L USM. Right now, these are my only lenses, as I transition from zoom to prime lenses. In the meantime, my Nokia N95 cell phone covers any close-to-subject shots.
iTunes Music Madness
On May 29, Apple opened up iTunes Plus as a subset of its broader music store, offering DRM-free songs and albums encoded at 256kbps. Apple also offers to upgrade lower-bit-rate, DRM songs for 30 cents a piece. It’s a good deal. But the licensing is downright confusing. While browsing iTunes Plus, yesterday, I saw “Pat Benatar’s Greatest Hits” available DRM-free. I thought, “Huh? I’ve got other Pat Benatar music, and I don’t remember getting an offer DRM-free replacements”. I upgraded 25 other songs from other artists.
Sure enough, my iTunes library contains three Pat Benatar songs, from three different albums. My version of “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” from album “Pat Benatar: Best Shots” is available DRM-free from iTunes Plus. But Apple offered me no 30-cent replacement option. Is it a glitch? I don’t think so. The song in my library lists publisher as Chrysalis, while the DRM-free version is Capitol Records.