I miss the mountains. That might seem a little odd considering I’m writing this sitting in the Appalachians as I write this, but I miss the Cascades. Fortunately for me, Jan at CascadeExposures is on th case with posts like this and this. Not quite where I grew up, but it looks like it.
This is very, very clever. The linked photo version is just genius.
Then I came across Richard Rutter’s CSS Image Fades page last week.
Cool, I thought. If I can fade from an image to a background, why stop there?
This is very, very clever. The linked photo version is just genius.
Then I came across Richard Rutter’s CSS Image Fades page last week.
Cool, I thought. If I can fade from an image to a background, why stop there?
Fauxtography: How mad are your skills? Allahpundit got:
Nine out of ten, baby. Nine. Out of. Ten.
Nine out of ten for me too. I’m curious how my photographer readers do… Leave your score in my comments please.
Fauxtography: How mad are your skills? Allahpundit got:
Nine out of ten, baby. Nine. Out of. Ten.
Nine out of ten for me too. I’m curious how my photographer readers do… Leave your score in my comments please.
Fauxtography: How mad are your skills? Allahpundit got:
Nine out of ten, baby. Nine. Out of. Ten.
Nine out of ten for me too. I’m curious how my photographer readers do… Leave your score in my comments please.
Back when I last paid the Apple operating system tariff in the spring of 2005, I asked one of Apple's best system engineers if I could expect some really great software to take advantage of this new operating system. He assured me that we would see those applications.
They have been few and far between. In fact I haven't seen any software to excite me in a long time until I ran into Backpack. The neat thing about Backpack is that being web driven, your platform does not matter.
I divide the world into those who believe their calendar must be integrated into their email, and the rest of us who have not been schooled in the world of Outlook email and appointments.
I like calendars, to-do lists, web pages, and sharing files and photos. Backpack lets me do all of that. It also makes me much more efficient when using multiple computers. I can create a project page and email files to the page. No matter what computer I am using, if I have Internet access I can get to my files. I can also create "write boards" which are ways to create content and have other comment on it. It seems to me that "write boards" are wikis without all the hassle.
I was a big fan of the Kiko calendar before it disappeared. Backpack has a much better calendar, and so far its text message alerts to my cell phone and email alerts have been very reliable, something that was never the case for the free Kiko. I do not mind paying for a calendar that really works.
In fact I could do some pretty serious blogging from Backpack. I created this page, "A grinder for the Bodum Coffee Pot" this morning.
What really excites me is that Backpack isn't from a huge company. It comes from 37signals which seems to have a great portfolio of products. It is nice to see innovation sprouting on the web.
I am also very impressed with the user interface of Backpack. Other than some of the quirks they have for text formatting, I have zero complaints about the software.
I will be testing it with IE7 and Firefox on Windows XP and using Firefox on Ubuntu. With a good IMAP webmail email client, my Flickr account, Typepad, and a text editor, I am good to go most of the time. I have three different websites with a tremendous amount of information on them, certainly Backpack is a better way to organize it, than my trying to create my own web pages to link various things.
Backback lets me do it without having to concentrate on the technology. It removes the need for your own website, a web editor and a FTP client.
Still, some of the things which I do require more sophistication than Backpack, so I will likely continue to use iPhoto, Photoshop, Nisus Writer, Dreamweaver, Shutterbug and Fetch for the heavier lifting, but I do not think it is too crazy to imagine what I discussed in the post, "How much longer will operating systems really matter, even to Apple?"
Just maybe with there will be enough photo and web tools with the next operating system releases, that I can live mostly on the web without knowing the technology behind what I am doing. When software achieves that , it makes my life just that much easier.
We are getting closer and closer. It would be nice to bet on Ubuntu Linux and not have to pay OS upgrades ever again. Of course there's always that Linux driver issue that has yet to be resolved.
Jan Bussey has some photos of her Colorado trip online. Very, very nice. Go and see them. Now. Are you still here? Oh sorry, I forgot the link - CascadeExposures: Colorado Rundown.
Michelle Malkin has been the victim of a poorly done PhotoShop fraud. It’s a shame when political discourse sinks to this level. Oh, I’m not above an image spoof, I’ve even done one of Ms. Malkin, but I try to keep them humorous, and I always identify them in some way (sometimes subtly) as altered files.
Jan Bussey has an incredible photo series on the Garden of the Gods you should go and see.
Garden of the Gods 1
Garden of the Gods 2
Garden of the Gods 3
Garden of the Gods 4
No, don’t read any further. Go and see them all… then come back of course.
Photos taken at a brick factory in Balad Ruiz, Iraq.
Previous posts, Faces of Iraq 1
Faces of Iraq 2
Faces of Iraq 3
Faces of Iraq 4
Faces of Iraq 5
An exhaustive debunking of the Red Cross Ambulance Incident which supposedly happened in July. Zombie has added to it, and has responded to critics. Remember I said “exhaustive.
The Red Cross Ambulance Incident
On the night of July 23, 2006, an Israeli aircraft intentionally fired missiles at and struck two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances performing rescue operations, causing huge explosions that injured everyone inside the vehicles. Or so says the global media, including Time magazine, the BBC, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and thousands of other outlets around the world. If true, the incident would have been an egregious and indefensible violation of the Geneva Convention, and would constitute a war crime committed by the state of Israel.
But there’s one problem: It never happened.
Brian at mediabistro.com: TVNewser has a post about CBS’s apparent touchup of Katie Couric’s official “first-pic”. With all of the money they have to spend, this is the best they could do? It’s not bad, but it’s not great either. They actually improved the overall color of the shot, but they darkened the dress way too much. I sure that her apparent loss of about twenty pounds was purely a coincidence, just an accidental side effect of the color adjustment.
Allahpundit is on the case as well.
Hot Air - Fauxtography: The incredible disappearing Katie
She’s on the Adnan Hajj diet. Try it and watch the pounds melt away from your waist and neck.
The really good part is the e-mail he received after posting:
Be careful shouting “Wolf!†because Katie Couric’s true picture is likely the thin one — the fattening on the other is likely an anamorphic (uniform single direction) expansion ordinary page layout programs do to fill the picture frame on a page. It’s the sign of an amateur, not evil.
BS, BS, and more BS. What this commenter needs need to look at in the photos is what changed and what didn’t. They narrowed her neck and the necklace, but left the cleavage line the same. The points of her shoulders are almost exactly the same, but her elbows much narrower. Her waist has been narrowed, and the space between her arms and body has been expanded. Most significantly to me, her smile, her hands, and the envelope remain unchanged. The photo was definitely manipulated, and not just to improve the color.
Jan Bussey at CascadeExposures has a series of posts on some beautiful cars. The Hottest Rods, ‘42 Studebaker, L’il Red Firetruck, The Roaring Twenties, and my favorite - Hoods.
Modern cars just have no style. These are works or art. Today they just sell transportation.
Update: More great car photos
There’s a great ad posted at Little Green Footballs. A fake movie poster mocking the Green Helmet Guy and the fauxtography scandal. A must see.
From Aaron, of DocDem fame, comes this gallery of photos from the 2006 Jefferson Jackson Dinner.
Is he a great photographer or what? Keep in mind, too, that the lighting conditions were great for atmosphere/mood, but sucked for photography.
He did not include any of the Grassroots Awards presentation, but here (left) is one that I wrestled out of him.
Not to be criticized for waiting too long to announce a potential candidacy, J.C. has already taken care of that step and agreed to be my campaign manager in a run for the Mansion.
Go check out his blog sometime. If I had to limit myself to just reading a few blogs every day, “The Richmond Democrat” would certainly be on that list.
The best part is this cool picture of J.C., me, and an unsuspecting Greg Kallen in the background. (Photo by Corey)