I had today off from work, and spent the morning and early afternoon doing constructive things like going to the gym, so I’m a little slow on the uptake and posting about Hunter S. Thompson’s death. He obviously got most of his press for Fear and Loathing, but I liked Hell’s Angels more. In fact, I just re-read that book about a month ago, after over ten years, and it resonated as much as it did the first time I read it. It’s so sad how dark talented people can be.
Readers in urban areas may find I Park Like An Idiot to be a useful resource. I don’t endorse defacing other people’s cars, but some people need tough love.
The Georgia Aquarium, which is currently under construction here in downtown Atlanta is selling Personalized FishScales. They are fish shaped plaques with your message on them. Each is $55, and will appear in an interesting light wall installation. You can see a demo of that here. Definitely a worthwhile cause, and one that bump.net wholeheartedly endorses. I fondly remember going to the Mystic Aquarium as a kid, and we went there perhaps a hundred times over the years we lived in that area. I’d like to see Atlanta’s kids get the same opportunity that I had.
Jason got out of bed and took pictures of the Gates. I wish I was going to be up in New York in the next couple of weeks so I could see the project firsthand. The fact that I am working away on a Saturday probably indicates that I won’t be travelling for fun in the near future. As nice as Jason’s photos are, you owe it to yourself to check out Nachosan’s Gate pictures in his Flickr feed. Truly the best photographs of the Gates I have seen.
#
This painting, by Kate Groham, my brother's girlfriend, and obviously a talented artist, is part of an exhibition named Heart of New Haven. It depicts her and my brother Paul. I love the expression on Paul's face. Nice work.
Macromedia has a ColdFusion Feature Comparison Matrix that compares features for each version of CF from 5 to the newly released 7. It’s not as handy as a tag/function listing across all the versions would be, but it does show how the platform has progressed over the last few years. By the way, I wouldn’t try and print it, it’s flashpaper, and the memory usage of printing from Flashpaper is likely to crash your machine, or at the very least saturate your network interface for a good ten seconds.
SportsML 1.5 was just released into the wild. I believe that this spec is progressing nicely, but will the major scoring vendors come out and play? I know, from my experience, that people are mostly cooking their own formats for sports scoring xml. I, myself, have authored at least two so far, and have worked with about five others.
Bruce Schneier on Authentication and Expiration when purchasing things online. “The e-commerce site wants me to live in their database forever. They want to market to me, and entice me to come back. They want to sell my information.”
There are a few different methods for managing this. One is to pick a couple of sites, and buy everything from them. This, of course, can end up being a costlier route, as it precludes comparison shopping. Personally, this is one of the reasons I prefer using PayPal for online purchases because it abstracts my sensitive data from the vendor. I can buy things from a hundred vendors using Paypal, and there is still only one copy of my credit card number stored.
Luminous Landscape: Looking at RAW From a Different Perspective. If you own a digital camera that supports RAW format, and don’t know much about RAW, this is a really good resource for you. I have been trying to work out a workflow for RAW shooting that works for me, but I still shoot JPEG a lot of the time because it’s just easier.
Like Matt says, Google maps puts the smack down on virtually every other mapping app out there. Mapquest? Served. Yahoo Maps? Served. I hope they plan on delivering this as a service to partners, because I would jump on that opportunity in a second, assuming the economics work.
Google just keeps coming with the hits, and there seems to be no end in sight. Too bad Blogger sucks, I sometimes can't believe that it's from the same company. It's withered on the vine seemingly forever, while others have innovated and innovated and innovated. In fact, some of the features they added in the last year don't even work properly. I'm guessing that it needs a new product manager, someone with a clue. (I have been using Blogger to update this site since 1999.)
Todd’s SlideShowPro will be available 2/14. I’ve gotten to see this project at various stages, and I have to say that it’s a best of breed application on a variety of fronts. Set up a reminder in your calendaring program now. He’s put a lot of work into making this thing a polished finished product.
ChangeThis: “ChangeThis is creating a new kind of media. A form of media that uses existing tools (like PDFs, blogs and the web) to challenge the way ideas are created and spread.
"
It’s official as of this afternoon’s booking of hotel rooms that there will be a bump.net presence at the 2005 Coachella Valley Music Festival. Of course, tickets go on sale tomorrow, so there is that one smallish detail to be covered. Last year, it was a great experience, and, based on this year’s lineup, I have great expectations for this year’s version. I’m especially looking forward to seeing Weezer, Wilco, Boom Bip, and Jamie Cullum because I have never seen them live before. Notable standouts from last year returning include indie darling Bright Eyes, and Sage Francis, who was my second favorite performance to the innovative and inventive set from Dangermouse. Of course, I am also a longtime fan of Nine Inch Nails, and have seen them several times, including the first Lollapalooza.
I'm not in the habit of asking for things on this site, for a variety of reasons, but at this time I do have a request. If anyone works for a publication and wants a qualified photographer onsite at Coachella, I would be a very cheap, available, option. I have my own professional quality equipment, am already attending, and would love the opportunity to work the show with credentials so that I can get my DSLR into the show. If you are such a person, or know someone who could give me the hookup in return for some high quality shots of various acts, I would be forever in your debt. In fact, I will up the ante beyond that. If you make the connection that gets me credentials, I will buy you an iPod Shuffle 512. This offer is limited to one person, and is on a first come first served basis. Thanks. ( I would be pleased to offer some sample photography, if necessary.) If all else fails, I will just bring along my small Canon SD camera like last year.
