lindes of blog

One dollar bills...

2011-12-05T17:51:00.001-08:00

It's weird being back in the states... For a number of reasons, but the one I just noticed: a $3 slice of pizza, paid for with a $5 bill, got me back two $1 bills. In Europe, a €3 item, paid for with a €5 note, would have gotten me back a €2 coin.

We have $1 coins here, of course... But hardly anybody uses them. There, €1 and €2 coins are totally normal, though... Well, and basically necessary, as there is no €1 or €2 note. Not that any of this is news to any of you that have travelled there or otherwise paid attention to the currency... But that's not really the point. The point is that I'm back in the states... And it feels kind of strange, somehow. Granted, I'm still on the East Coast. Maybe West Coast will feel more familiar?? We shall see.

Thanks Giving...

2011-11-23T23:06:00.001-08:00

It's Thursday, the 24th of November, 2011, here in Berlin. Back in the United States, where I come from, that means it's Thanksgiving Day. And so, I thought I would write a little post, expressing some thanks.

Of the first priority, I think, is to thank all the CouchSurfers (and a few others) who have opened their homes to me over the past 3 months or so. I've stayed in Seattle, 4 of the 5 Burroughs of New York City, a couple places in Massachusetts, and at least a half dozen neighborhoods (and more places) in Berlin. And I look forward to many more locales, hopefully all over the world, in the future. Not a cent (in USD or EUR) have I spent on housing costs with any of these generous individuals (and in some cases families, or other multi-individual households) -- I can only hope that I've given them each something intangible which has rewarded their generosity... Because without it, I might already be out of money and... Well, I don't know what I'd be doing then.

Next, I'll turn my attention to someone for whom this particular day is a meaningful one. I've been thinking for days, maybe weeks, of writing her an email this day: it was our anniversary. But it *was* our anniversary. Or rather, it is the anniversary of the beginning of the relationship that has since ended. And we're nearing the anniversary of the ending, even... So it's kind of a past tense thing. Yet still, I feel compelled to express my thanks to that wonderful individual. For many things... From the fact that it is she who has given me the bag that I carry with me every day, with all my daily essentials. Or that it is she who gave me so much support for so long. It is she who I think so often of, when seeing certain things upon my travels. She that... She that someday I'll be able to let go of, but who has been patient with my lack of ability to do so, so far. There are many other things I could thank her for. That I do thank her for, silently, when I'm reminded of them. So Laura, if you still read this blog (or somehow ever do read this entry): Thank you. For everything. And for, I hope, appreciating and understanding my choice to say this here, rather than writing to you directly.

Following that, I think I must turn next to Miriam, who has also housed me in the past couple months - for a while in New York, and also even a few days in Berlin, when she came to visit me here. I thank her for those things, but also I must thank her for tolerating things like the above... Tolerating my continued feelings for another, my expressions thereof, etc. And of course that's not all. I also thank her for another daily item that I also wear: a lovely crocheted scarf. It's been pretty cold in Berlin lately, and it has been most appreciated. And... Well, I thank her, too, for many things, which I shan't trouble this blog post with. I still talk to her daily, so I'll let her know directly.

Moving on, I'd next like to thank those of you who still follow me on Plurk,and especially those who still reply now and again to my posts. I somehow seem to have driven a number of folks away in that forum, and so I'm especially thankful to those who have stayed with me there.

Less a part of my current daily experience, but perhaps even more important, I thank those of you have stood by me in the physical world... Visiting me during my stay in the hospital, visiting me at my home (back when I had one), joining me for Lunch or whatever, calling me to get together, or answering my calls when I initiated them. I have more friends out there than it's sometimes easy for me to remember... But at times I surely do, so if you're one of them, I hope you'll forgive my leaving your name out of the thanks, and just know that there's a very good chance that I've actually thought of you in particular when writing this paragraph.

There are many others, as well. Some of them nameless, even to me. Others whose names are known well to me, and to whom I have specific reasons to thank, but not the words right now to do so. And still others, in between.

Finally, though, I thank everyone who takes the time to read this post. For no matter how many others I do or don't take the time to thank, if it weren't for *you*, right now, reading this post... Well... There just wouldn't be any use in having written this, would there? Because while part of me might be writing it for myself... A very real part of me is writing it to be heard. And you, dear reader, have just heard me. And for that, I thank you.

Foxes in Berlin?

2011-11-23T22:59:00.001-08:00

I just saw a fox, crossing the street... On the U7 replacement bus (construction...) between Möckenbrücke und Mehringdamm. Wow.

2012: a year without money?

2011-11-10T05:11:00.001-08:00

I predict that in our not too distant future, it *may* transpire that *all* current monetary systems will collapse. Or at least the "Western" ones that I know anything about. This is not to say that idea of money itself will collapse; I don't foresee that as being very likely, though I do imagine some backlash that might make it seem that way for a while.

My point, though, is not to predict what will or will not happen. And for now, I'm going to dodge the obvious question of why I've come to believe what surely sounds to many like a very bold claim (even if I do couch it in the parlance of possibility, rather than certainty). Perhaps I'll get back to that question some day. For now, though, my point in stating the prediction above is merely to give context to (edit: though perhaps it's worth noting that that's not my only reason for considering) what I'm thinking of doing about it:

I think it might be interesting to try to live all of 2012 (and beyond?) without directly using any money. At all. I would instead survive on a combination of gifts, exchanges of time, effort and energy, etc. I don't know if I could really pull this off. I don't even know yet if I'm going to even try. It's just an idea I have, that's percolating.

If people have thoughts about it, I'd love to hear them. Leave a comment, or contact me by whatever other means you have at your disposal.

Two small glimpses of minor celebrity...

2011-11-09T18:07:00.001-08:00

Tonight (technically last, I suppose, but I'm still out), I had two small glimpses of fame. Or not really fame; that's probably too strong a word, but minor celebrity, in some form or other.

The first form was someone getting onto the U-Bahn in Berlin that I recognized... from his role in one of my favorite movies, a movie that actually played some role in inspiring me to choose Berlin as a destination: Lola Rennt (or Run Lola Run, as it's called back in the states). Well, at least I'm pretty sure it was him.

The second brush was of a quite different sort. It seems that I'm still occasionally recognized by Berliners as the guy "from New York" (hardly, but that is how I got introduced), who brought the Human Mic to Berlin on the 15th of October, for the Occupy Together protest that day.

I suppose it could perhaps be argued that I had a 3rd brush... I technically could say that I had a short film of mine shown at an international film festival. Here's hoping I'll remember to go back and add links to this post later... Or just more details. But I'm typing this from my phone, and I'm now off the bus so this'll have to do, for now.

Another tidbit of sanity.

2011-11-08T06:28:00.001-08:00

Ein Kugel Eis: 1€

One scoop of ice cream: 1 euro (at least at some places). But that's not the best part. The best part is that, provided you get it in a cone, the cone has no paper wrap, and they don't automatically hand you a paper napkin... So it's potentially zero waste... At least as far as what I might call "pure waste"... I'm sure there's energy "waste" for freezing, etc., but no just purposeless waste. Or waste only for advertising purposes. Or waste "just in case you might need it (the napkin).

Just a little tiny step away from the "Disposability Consciousness" that I recently heard being talked about by someone named "Julia Butterfly Hill", who I intend to learn more about in the near future.

What does it mean to be "thriving"?

2011-10-24T10:51:00.001-07:00

I was reminded of a certain word today... And a certain goal: thriving. What does it mean to thrive? How can one tell if one is thriving? How can one help oneself thrive? Am I thriving?

I don't feel like I know the answers to any of these questions, entirely... With the possible exception of the last one... Which... Well, let's just say that today didn't feel very "thrive-ish", if you'll allow me the coinage.

Sanity - mit Kein Getränk

2011-10-19T12:09:00.001-07:00

I'm out for some fast-food (though Halal! My friend Ali would be happy about that) fried chicken (I'd been talking about it earlier, teaching someone the word "drumstick", and I guess I got a craving... So when I happened to see it...), and I asked for "Menü zwei"... They rung me up, and then I remembered to add "Kein Getränk"... And they changed the total for me, reducing it by the normal price of a drink. Sanity! Sanity, I say!

Back in the states, I would have had to fight to get them to not give me the cup, and they wouldn't have changed the price. At least at many places... A certain fast-food fried-chicken chain comes to mind. :)

And then they offered "brot"(sp?), which was the type of bread that I might call a pita.

Cool.

Hallo aus Berlin (und mehr)!

2011-10-19T02:37:00.000-07:00

Hallo!

Well, here I am in Berlin. It's now been just over a week. I figure I'm long overdue for a blog post... but internet access comes and goes when you're hopping around from place to place a lot, as I am, thanks (many thanks, really) to CouchSurfing (CS), and my various hosts from there.

I'm having fun. It's good. It's not completely a new experience for me to be somewhere where I don't know the language, but it's something I've done very little of, and I'm rather appreciating it -- though of course, most folks here speak at least a little bit of English (more so than the amount of German I can speak, mostly). But I'm learning more and more. In fact, I just had a "tahn-dem" (tandem) language exchange meeting with someone that I met last night at a CS event for language exchange. She brought an English-language novel that she was reading (John Grisham's The Confession), and read a few paragraphs of it, asking questions as she had them, and with me giving her any significant corrections that seemed necessary.

And then she also did me the huge favor of bringing a kid's book (a book about Der kleine Eisbär -- the little polar bear), which I then tried to read. I think I did half-way OK with pronunciation (though I was definitely getting some corrections), but my understanding was pretty limited, starting out. But I wrote down some words with their translations, and perhaps I can study them between now and my next meeting with her, and I'll do a little better the next time. :)

Meanwhile, I've also participated in the 15october march here in Berlin, and helped bring the Human Mic. More on that to come, when I have more chance to edit some video... Hmm, I think I'll end this post now, actually, and go work on that. So... more to come. :) Sorry, I meant to write more in this post, but it got interrupted... and now I'm interrupting back to work on video. :)

Side effect of learning a new language?

2011-10-18T15:01:00.001-07:00

Is it because I'm learning German, or am I just having a flash of dysnomia? I can't thing of the normal names for the Phớ (hmm, do I have the right o?) I normally order? The menu (for a Vietnamese place I happened upon) was mostly in German, with a bit of English thrown in... And very little Vietnamese. I'm used to a Vietnamese menu... So... I kind of wanted to order that way. But I couldn't think of it. I suppose I could have ordered phớ gai, but I kind of wanted beef... And maybe tendon. :)

Few choices on the menu, here, though... I guess there's not the same acceptance/popularity of phớ in Germany? Anyway, I totally failed to order in Vietnamese. Perhaps because I couldn't really order in German. ;)

A longer post about more things is also in the works. Hopefully it'll make its way here at some point. Well, and hopefully this post will make it. I'm without WLAN (err, wifi) here at the moment. Not sure how the iPhone blogger app behaves in that case yet.

Tschüß!

P.S. And a metal spoon. Weird. :)

Sigh... Silly subway.

2011-10-02T03:37:00.001-07:00

Well, I made it up to Boston, by way of western Mass... But I hadn't found a place to stay yet... Yet I did have one back in NYC... so somehow, I let myself be lured back. (By a Siren song? Hopefully nothing so dramatic... But there is a beautiful voice involved in there somewhere... But I digress.)

So, I walk down into the Times Square/42nd Street subway station for the N, Q, and R trains. I need an N or a Q to Astoria. As I'm walking down the stairs to the platform, an N is pulling away. Sigh. And the signs say something about late nights and weekends taking a Q to 57th & 7th. So after a while, when a Q bound for there does show up... I somewhat hesitantly get aboard. I know it won't get me to where I want to go (because it ends at 57th&7th, which is actually the very next stop), but I figure maybe it's telling me that at that station, there'll be more trains to Astoria?

Well, that does not appear to be the case. And when I get there, I'm on the wrong platform. And the N train, that I'd watched for to see if it might be about to arrive at 42nd -- perhaps especially during the minute or two before they closed the doors of the Q (because of "traffic ahead", a frequent occurrence)... But which had shown no signs? Well, there it was, arriving on the other platform. Alas. No time to get over there.

Fortunately, I'm now on the next N... Less of a gap, it seems, than the previous one. But still... Mildly frustrating. Especially after 4 hours of interrupted sleep on a bus from Boston. But there's a cozy bed 4 stops away, now... So that's nice.

Well, and I'll be just about in it before I have the wifi available to hit publish. ;)

Just a random excuse for an update, really. Typed on my phone.

Couch Surfing in NYC...

2011-09-21T22:27:00.001-07:00

OK, I just installed the Blogger app on my phone... Maybe I can start actually getting some travel updates out on my blog; I know folks have been asking for them.

One big question: how well does this app work if I'm offline? That might be important if frequent updates are to happen.

Anyway, I'm going to keep this post short, and write more later. Tonight, I'm CouchSurfing in the Bronx, which puts me at having slept in 4 out of the 5 Burroughs of New York City.

I kinda like it here, in ways. Not sure if I could live here long-term, but I can definitely see appeal, and imagine I may well visit again.

Anyway, so much more to say... In another post, let's hope.

Information bubbles...

2011-05-06T11:08:00.000-07:00

I want to share this with the world, and have a discussion about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s

I have lots of thoughts, with probably more questions than answers... Like, how do we actually have a discussion about it? Comments on this post? Get together in person some way?

Will anyone even see this post?

If you do, will you also watch the video?

I don't know... But I hope so.

Looking for a fresh start...

2011-04-09T23:27:00.000-07:00

Laura is gone. Today, she collected some more items, which she had left here for my use, but which, upon me letting her know that I wanted to move towards purging and moving on, she figured she wanted to have, rather than have them just go out into the world.

So now, I'm more ready to have folks come over and pick over my belongings for things they might want. It is my intention to sell nearly everything, and hopefully soon. I'd like to reduce my rent burden significantly, not to mention just freeing myself up to be more mobile - to travel if I want, to live in a house with others around (which I think would be much healthier for me), etc.

It's time to move on. I'll keep the clothes that fit me, some A's-yet-undetermined quantity of memories, probably some photography gear (though certainly not all of it, and probably none of the darkroom gear), a computer or two, and hard disks... And hopefully very little else.

If anyone would like to help me with this process, I'd very much appreciate it. I could use help in several areas:

(1) take things offmy hands. Come pick through my books and dvds and cds, old legos, tools (from a pipe threader to Ethernet tools, plus a bunch of more mundane stuff), old computer gear, camping gear, eventually furniture... Everything, pretty much. Some items I'll want a decent price for; others, il ask you to take with you, whether you want them or not, if only to help me get it to Goodwill/Value Village.

(2) helping me sort and organize. There's a lot of stuff here, and much of it requires me to go through it one last time - to record memories, look for items that belong to others, etc. Even just having people around to talk to A's I go through this process would be helpful... Having folks willing to take ona few tasks upon demand wouldbe even better.

So come, help me move on. And perhaps say goodbye, lest I opt to travel when all is done. I think it's time I visit foreign shores, and I don't yet know where I'll go, or whether or when I might return.

[unix geeky] ignoring files at svn add time

2010-05-18T23:30:00.000-07:00

Executive summary for the impatient: add everything, then svn revert [-R] what you don't want, then set up svn:ignore properties as per usual.

Random thing that I figured out, after having some unsuccessful google searches. Here's hoping this little tidbit will save someone some time some day.

For those using Subversion and Xcode, this may be particularly relevant. And that'll be my example, though I'm sure there are plenty of other times that this could come up, as well.

When creating a new project (let's call it "Foo") in Xcode, a bunch of stuff is created. for example, when I create a new iPhone application project called Foo, I get the following hierarchy of files:


Foo/Classes/
Foo/Classes/FooAppDelegate.h
Foo/Classes/FooAppDelegate.m
Foo/Foo-Info.plist
Foo/Foo-Info.plist.orig
Foo/Foo.xcodeproj/
Foo/Foo.xcodeproj/TemplateInfo.plist.orig
Foo/Foo.xcodeproj/lindes.mode1v3
Foo/Foo.xcodeproj/lindes.pbxuser
Foo/Foo.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj
Foo/Foo_Prefix.pch
Foo/MainWindow.xib
Foo/build/
Foo/build/Foo.build/
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/categories.pbxbtree
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/cdecls.pbxbtree
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/decls.pbxbtree
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/files.pbxbtree
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/imports.pbxbtree
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/pbxindex.header
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/protocols.pbxbtree
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/refs.pbxbtree
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/strings.pbxstrings/
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/strings.pbxstrings/control
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/strings.pbxstrings/strings
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/subclasses.pbxbtree
Foo/build/Foo.build/Foo.pbxindex/symbols0.pbxsymbols
Foo/main.m

Of these, there are a few things I don't want:

The entire Foo/build/ hierarchy.
the lindes.pbxuser and lindes.mode1v3 files under Foo/Foo.xcodeproj. (I'm actually not 100% sure there's no useful information in these files, but they sure do change a lot, and I think most of the important stuff is in project.pbxproj, so... here's hoping these are safe to ignore. If anyone knows more about that, please feel free to point me at an authoritative reference or give me the skinny in the comments.)

If I do just svn add Foo, though, I get those things. I want to ignore them.

Well, I can do svn propset svn:ignore build Foo after my add, but build has already been added, so it's still going to go into the repository if I don't do something about it. (And then I'd do the same thing (but most likely using svn propedit) for *.pbxuser and *.mode1v3 under the xcodeproj directory.)

So what I was looking for was an option for telling svn add to ignore certain things during the add process. As far as I was able to determine, there is no option to svn add that will do this. But there is a way to get basically what I want! It's called "svn revert". With appropriate options, it will make svn forget you ever added something, without otherwise modifying anything.

Here's an example set of commands that would do the trick:


: $; svn add Foo
: $; cd Foo
: $; svn revert -R build
: $; svn propset svn:ignore build .
: $; cd Foo.xcodeproj
: $; svn revert *.pbxuser *.mode1v3
: $; svn propset svn:ignore "*.pbxuser
*.mode1v3" .
: $; cd ..
: $; svn status

(Couple quick notes: (1) my shell prompt is ': $; ' (and the text actually typed is in bold), (2) in that second svn propset, I actually hit return inside the quotes. In my shell (zsh), I get a second-level prompt of 'dquote> ' when I do this, but I didn't want to confuse the text above with that.)

And that does the trick. If I now do an svn status, I get:


A       .
A       Foo.xcodeproj
A       Foo.xcodeproj/TemplateInfo.plist.orig
A       Foo.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj
A       main.m
A       Foo-Info.plist.orig
A       Foo-Info.plist
A       Foo_Prefix.pch
A       Classes
A       Classes/FooAppDelegate.h
A       Classes/FooAppDelegate.m
A       MainWindow.xib

No "?" lines, no build or its contents, and no pbxuser or mode1v3 files. Perfect!

(Well, OK, it might be useful to do something with TemplateInfo.plist.orig, but... that's something to figure out another day. :-)

Brief update...

2010-05-03T02:58:00.001-07:00

Wow, had I really not posted since June 2009 on this blog? Ouch. :-)

Well, a lot has happened since then... which I'll summarize with just a few key points:

(1) I have given up the studio, for various reasons;
(2) I'm currently working primarily on ramping up on iPhone and Mac development -- I'm hoping to have an app or two in the App store in the coming weeks or months, and maybe some Mac stuff, too.
(3) on the Mac side, one of the things I've been doing has been Fractals -- e.g.:

That's it for now. More... sometime. :-)

Studio!!!

2009-06-06T09:14:00.001-07:00

I now have a studio, in Pioneer Square. I intend to do several things there:

Shoot portraits (I'll likely set up some backdrops, get some nice props, etc.)
Shoot commercial/product work (jewelry, art work, and who knows what else)
Build things (e.g. light sculptures and tools, for my long exposure work)
Set up a darkroom, so I can do my own printing
Do some creative darkroom stuff, once that's set up... including lensless photos, and who knows what all
Open up on the 1st Thursday of each month for the Pioneer Square Art Walk (I'm at the OK Hotel, 212 Alaskan Way S, Suite 105... come find me!)

If you have any interest in having portraits made of you, or photos taken of your stuff, drop me a line! Otherwise, just drop in some 1st Thursday, and check it out. :-)

Cheers!

A new level of spam insanity....

2008-11-10T13:06:00.000-08:00

I had 29,159 messages in a mailbox today. That's e-mail that all got received within a single 24-hour period. Wait, no. Strike that. It was an 8 1/2 hour period. That's 214 megabytes of spam. Almost a quarter gig. That's insanity.

Of these twenty nine thousand messages, fully 28,401 of them were filtered away by my spam filters as "this is definitely spam". Plus 4 more that it marked that way, but with a glitch that caused them not to actually get auto-deleted. Another 528 had a 0.999 or higher rating on the 0-is-non-spam, 1-is-spam scale, which isn't actually "auto-deleted", because I feed those back to my spam filter so they'll be more likely to get a full-on 1 the next time. Thus, I have 226 messages left that I might want to actually at least glance at. That's too much spam to look at, though, so I send straight to the filters another 84 messages that are scored at 0.99-and-up.

Another 94 are marked as "Spam", but with a lower score than that. Taking a quick glance at these (mostly looking at the recipient address, as that's often a good indicator for me, since I have a wildcard recipient setup), I confirm they're all spam and feed them to my filters.

That leaves 48 left marked as "Unsure" (specific scores of these messages ranged from 0.415 (two of these) to 0.849234 -- it's rare that any of my not-actually-spam messages get scored above about 0.53 (and only 9 of the spam messages were below that range), and the highest I've ever gotten was 0.829141).

Frankly, I was able to dispense of the 48 "Unsure" messages with about the same amount of care as the "Spam but below 0.99" ones... not much. Still, it takes me a minute or two to go through that, and that's not even counting the several (15?) minutes it took for my filtering software to score those 29K messages, and my auto-deleter to auto-delete most of them.

Spam needs to stop. I suspect the only way to stop it is with international laws against it. Who do I write to? My congressional representatives? This is insane.

My photos at One Sky this weekend

2008-07-21T23:04:00.000-07:00

I'll be having a show of my photographs at an event called "One Sky" this weekend, out on the Pacific coast of Washington.

Details are on the website, and tickets are available through brownpapertickets.

Basically, though, my impression is that it will be vaguely burning-man-ish, only smaller, and probably more eco-oriented. (It specifically talks about trying to increase social consciousness of being environmentally friendly.)

It's a camping event, on private property near the beach (or several beaches)... Should be fun. I expect to head up on Friday, and return on Sunday. It'd be great to see some friends there. :-)

And hopefully I'll make some sales. ;-)

[unix-geeky] : My UNIX shell prompt $;

2008-03-13T18:53:00.001-07:00

It occurs to me that this blog could be, among other things, a place to share random unix tips and tricks that I've picked up over the years. Non-geek types are encouraged to go find a photography-related post or something. ;-) For the geek types still reading, here's a little something:

When choosing your prompt for any Bourne Shell derivative (sh, ksh, bash, zsh, and probably others I don't know about -- zsh is my current shell of choice, by the way), I find it handy to have my prompt follow this simple set of rules:

the first character is a colon
the second character is a space
The last non-space character is a semicolon
No other semicolons in the line (unless they're immediately followed by another colon and space)

Using the traditional "$" as a starting point, I might then put something like the following in my .profile (or .bash_profile or .zshrc or what have you -- .profile is the traditional Bourne shell location, so that's what I list):

PS1=": $; "

And thus a bit of my shell session might look like:

: $; 
: $; 
: $; date
Thu Mar 13 19:01:28 PDT 2008
: $; pwd
/home/lindes/tmp/sh-demo
: $; ls -CAF
.profile
: $; cat .profile
# this is a fake .profile file
# it would normally have a lot of content.  For now, just this:
PS1=": $; "
export PS1      # possibly redundant
: $; 
: $; 
: $; : $; date
Thu Mar 13 19:04:13 PDT 2008
: $;

Now, why is this useful? And why does my prompt show up twice before that second call to the date command?

Well, as seasoned readers may already have guessed, there's some magic in this prompt. In Bourne-derived shells (as listed above), ':' is a shell-builtin command which does nothing more than have zero^* as its exit status. Same deal as /bin/true, but in a single character command. And guess what? It takes arguments, and happily ignores them all. And as hopefully most of you (if you've bothered to read this far) already know, a semicolon separates commands. So that second time I ran date above, I did not get a double prompt from my shell, and I did not type my prompt in. No, instead what I did was a copy and pasted that command-line from earlier, by copying the whole line -- including the prompt. And it still worked, and didn't give me anything extraneous.

How cool is that?

Normally, I couldn't copy the whole line and still get desired behavior:

: $; PS1='$ '
$ date
Thu Mar 13 19:16:17 PDT 2008
$ $ date
zsh: command not found: $
$

(And it could be much worse than that, depending on what else is in your prompt.)

Starting with a colon and a space, and ending with a semicolon (and, for clarity only, another space), I can copy and paste the whole line.

My normal prompt is a lot longer than just : $; , and includes a bunch of different information that I find useful. Perhaps someday I'll write a blog entry about that. For now, just know that it always starts with a colon and a space, and ends with a semicolon (and a space). And whenever I write documentation which needs to include a shell prompt, the prompt shown will probably always be : $; (or maybe : #; , though that actually has problems of its own. Extra special feel-good (that's all you get) bonus points for those who can say why.)

Happy geeking!

Footnotes:

*: Check it out:

: $; grep '\<0\>' /usr/include/sysexits.h
#define EX_OK           0       /* successful termination */

Thus, zero means successful exit.

No more Flexcars, and no Zipcars either

2008-02-17T15:40:00.000-08:00

Wow. Uhh. It seems I'm out of luck for the plan I'd had to reserve a Flexcar for today. Well, yeah, sure, they're converting to Zipcar cars. OK, that's fine, I'll reserve it as a Zipcar. And if the car nearest me is unavailable, that's fine, I'll just reserve a different one. But no. No zipcars available either. I called customer support, figuring there was some sort of error, only to be told that no, no Zipcars would be available until the 21st.

What? No cars available until the 21st?

I'd distinctly had the impression that the impact of this transition was supposed to be minimal. I had speculated (OK, I know, it's then "my" error) that they'd do a rolling transition. But I hadn't really cared how they did it, exactly, so long as I'd be able to at least get some sort of car at some point.

I should have known better, when I noticed on the reservation site two days ago that all cars were becoming unavailable at 7pm yesterday.

It seems I'm not alone. Others are out there with the same problem.

No manager was available when I talked with Zipcar's customer service, so I left my name and number and was told one would call me back. Formally, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they may in fact make good on this SNAFU. I hope they do. Reading between the lines, you can probably guess how high my expectations are set at the moment.

More to come, one way or the other.

REQUEST:

If you have had a similar experience, please post a comment on this blog post with any other information you have (even if it's just a link to another blog post about this). I want to get a sense of how wide of a problem this is, and group together with others who are experiencing it. Thanks!

Caucus, Obama, etc.

2008-02-09T20:25:00.000-08:00

Wow. I highly recommend y'all go watch this video about Obama versus Clinton. I was a bit unsure who I wanted on the Dem's side before that video, and I'm much less unsure (more sure I want Obama) afterwards.

Seriously, go watch it. 20 minutes well spent. (Even if the style is a little... different; that's ok, though... change is something we want, right?)

Meanwhile, I went to the Washington state Democratic Party's Caucus today for my voting precinct, and boy am I glad I did. A room full of people (all neighbors, no less -- though I only saw one person who I particularly knew in my precinct, though one of the workers was a familiar face from somewhere or other) actually talking about things with each other. Neighbors. Talking. We need more of that, in all sorts of ways, and for all sorts of reasons. Very cool. I'll definitely be going back again.

And alas that I was not elected as a delegate. My uncertainty at the time on how I would vote surely cost me the ability to get that roll (or at least an alternate position). Fortunately, Laura will be going, and my across-the-hall neighbor (the one person I actually knew there) is an alternate. So, my hope is that I can tag along with Laura when she goes.

And if any of you are in states where there's still an option to go to a Caucus, or just wanting to know if you should go next year: I highly encourage you to attend. No matter who you're supporting.

Don't forget: watch the video.

More Spam than Ever

2008-02-07T07:24:00.000-08:00

on the 5th of February, I got over 10,000 messages which my spam filtering classified as spam. The good news is that they were classified as such. The bad news is that resources had to be spent on doing that classification, including (alas) a not-entirely-insignificant amount of my time.

I'm currently evaluating a possible alternative mail solution. We'll see if it works. I may have to seriously re-work the way I do e-mail, which would be a downer, because there's a lot of existing stuff out there that I'd have to change or get changed. Or try to -- not all of it is even changeable, really.

This sucks.

OK, venting over... back to my evaluation.

geek entry: One reason ZSH can have problems.

2008-01-10T13:58:00.000-08:00

[Warning: non-geeks or geeks in areas other than unix can stop reading now. This isn't going to be relevant to you.]

OK, so, after doing a google search, I failed to find help for the following error message from zsh:

_main_complete: function definition file not found

(it's actually something like "_main_complete:12: _main_complete: function definition file not found", but the 12 can vary, so the main thing is the rest of the error message.)

Anyway, it seems to me that the problem, in at least my case, is this:

As a former ksh user, I have dot-files that set FPATH, and that seems to break this. Or at least it does with my current value.

Commenting out the line from .profile or wherever you have that sets FPATH seems to fix the problem (though you also loose that functionality). Alternately, just making sure the previous value of $FPATH (i.e. the one the shell had before getting to your dot-files) is in your new value also seems to work.

edit: so, instead of FPATH=/what/ever, try FPATH=$FPATH:/what/ever

Hopefully this'll help someone... the only hits I found weren't helpful in my case.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-02T23:28:00.001-08:00

I think I forgot to mention on here:

:-)

Cheers, all!

The beginnings of some informational documents (photography)

2007-12-31T03:56:00.000-08:00

Well, I've finally started something I've been thinking about for a while. There's a lot I still intend to do with this, but it's a start, which will hopefully encourage me to do more.

I now have the beginnings of a guide to the Canon EOS 30D digital SLR.

There's a whole lot more to add to that guide (photos of menus and such, much more detailed analyses of existing concepts, other controls, and general prettification), and many other guides (other cameras, as I get them, and various peripherals and such) to write.

Hopefully, this will become a useful store of knowledge for folks wanting to find information about their equipment.

Eventually, I may even supplement things with short videos. (Gotta get some decent video capability first, though -- and of course more disk space to store it all!)

Aperture versus Lightroom

2007-12-28T16:52:00.000-08:00

I just found a blog post by an acquaintance of mine (Ted), comparing Apple's Aperture with Adobe's Lightroom. It's well written, and I think I agree with everything he says in there (well, some things I hadn't tried doing, but everything I've tried...)

I, like him, am frustrated with the lack of an update for Aperture lately. I really liked it for a while there, and I miss it, now that I'm predominantly using Lightroom. And yet, that's the situation: I'm predominantly using Lightroom, because of issues with performance in general, and also, something Ted doesn't mention (because I presume he hasn't tried it), the way that Aperture utterly fails to behave properly with a project whose RAW files are on an NFS-mounted drive, once you quit Aperture. There's a way to work around it ("reconnect" the masters), but boy is it a pain. Those files are in the same place they were last time, and the drive is online and mounted, so very frustrating for Aperture to claim they're missing. Not to mention slow to reconnect a large number of them.

So, here's hoping Apple is still working on this -- both because I want Aperture to improve again, and I want the pressure of continued competition to make both options better.

Alas, for a variety of reasons, the notion of writing my own competitor is unlikely to ever happen... it's very tempting, though. I think the world could have a lot better than either of those programs, in certain ways.

If anyone wants to start an open source project, though, I'd be glad to contribute some time and ideas, and likely code, to the effort.

Google, here we go!

2007-12-19T19:18:00.000-08:00

While I must admit to a little bit of ambivalence about returning to the work in the tech industry, and certain other little nibbling concerns, the fact remains that mostly I'm excited about the prospect of working at Google. The amount of time I have for my photography will surely decrease, which saddens me a bit, yet on the other hand, I've been feeling frustrated for a while by inability to make a few key equipment purchases, and having a salary again should help out quite a bit with such things, not to mention having health insurance again, etc., etc. So we'll see. Who knows, it may even re-invigorate me in ways that will leave me doing more photography. Or at least more of my art in that realm. That'd be nice. We'll see...

Anyway, yeah. I've accepted a job at Google, and I'm due to start on January 7th. There'll be two weeks of training down in Mountain View, CA, in the buildings I once worked in when they belonged to SGI. That'll take me back. (And my recollection of that place goes back further than that, as well -- I remember going with my mom to the little produce stand on the edge of the field that once occupied that same land. That was when I was in high school, and my mom worked at SGI, in a group a later worked in. Hmmm, there seems to be some circularity to my life, eh? ;-)

So, I'd love to try to get together with old friends from the bay area, so if you have any time free between January 5th or 6th and say the 20th, let me know, and we'll see if we can make something happen.

I shall do my best to keep to the "don't be evil". :-) Wish me luck.

I believe Amazon Kindle... will kindle a fire

2007-11-30T22:24:00.000-08:00

So, I just saw Amazon Kindle the other day, while randomly visiting the Amazon main page. It caught my attention. I watched some of the videos. Pretty interesting, really.

For anyone who hasn't already clicked the link, here's the basic premise: it's a device which will allow you to read e-books, electronic newspapers, magazines, and blogs. It downloads the content wirelessly, and you can carry it with you everywhere. So it's like a book, only it's all the books you might want, all at once. Or at least that's the idea.

My take (not having seen one in person yet, or anything)? It will indeed kindle the fire of people wanting devices like this, but it won't be that fire. I could easily be mistaken, of course, but here's my reasoning:

Basically, my impression is that this device gets a number of things Right, and a number of things... well, let's just say Less Right:

Some of the things they get Right:

It's using "electronic ink" instead of traditional LCD. In theory, at least, this means a crisper image, that's more like paper, and thus much happier to read than a regular LCD.
It uses the cell networks (EVDO), for broad coverage (at least in the U.S. -- does it work internationally, though? Perhaps, but it looks doubtful, since they won't ship it out of the U.S.), but without charging any sort of monthly fee (of course, that just means the price of each title you download is higher, but I would still say that's the better option).
It has expandable memory (just add an SD card).
It doesn't use backlighting, which means you should be able to read it nice and easily in any good lighting situation.
It keeps track of where you left off.
There's a built-in dictionary for looking up words in the text you're reading.

Some of the things they get Less Right:

Clunky interface -- they seem to have done a half-way decent job with the interface, but only half-way. You can't touch the screen and have that mean something, so even though you can annotate certain pages, lines, and even words in the text, the way to do that is going to be moderately annoying. Not horrible, mind you, but annoying enough that I'm sure this won't be the final word in this technology space.
It only does cell networks. It should do wifi, too, so you can use it in places with wifi but no cell coverage (e.g. internationally, or in large metallic buildings or whatever).
As far as I can tell, there's no way to add arbitrary blogs to it. If this thing could be my RSS reader, that'd be killer (as in "killer app").
Of course, if it's going to be my RSS reader, I'd want it to be able to show me color, too -- e.g. for viewing images from my contacts on flickr.
The dictionary looks limited. It'll help when there's a word you just don't know, but the true word geeks (let alone the lexicographers) will not be satisfied.
More interface clunkiness: there are buttons to "turn the page" (in either direction), and thus it would seem it's page-oriented, and yet, at least with certain font sizes, it seems clear that one "page" does not always fit on the screen at once. This is certain to be highly annoying in some cases, even if only mildly annoying in others.

Anyway, that's what's springing to mind for the moment. Perhaps if/when I ever get my hands on one of the things, I'll be able to say more.

My impression, though, definitely boils down to this: I'm really glad someone's doing this kind of thing, and I think in the future there'll be lots more of it. And that's the thing. I don't know what will follow -- new revisions under this name, or competing products, or both, or what, but I fully expect that the current iteration of Kindle will not be the final word.

Still, I would recommend that folks check it out, and maybe even buy one if you've got the cash.

I'm trying out Etsy...

2007-11-14T20:40:00.000-08:00

Well, I figured I'd give Etsy a try, as a way to sell my photos. I've been meaning to do this for a while. Well, I finally did it. Rowing Home is my first listing there. If it sells in a reasonable amount of time, I'll list more.

Enjoy!

Time for a day job?

2007-10-30T07:36:00.000-07:00

I got this little tidbit in an e-mail last night:

"Congratulations!! Hiring committee recommended to move forward with references and offer."

It's from a company you've all heard of. A company that most everybody who uses, or hears about, the Internet has heard of. A company that owns the site this blog is on. You know the one.

So, the next step is that they check my references, and then the recruiter guy and the compensation team work together to figure out what sort of offer I should get, and then that goes through an approval process, etc. And then I'll get an offer. First verbally over the phone, then in e-mail, and then perhaps a FedEx package, as well.

So now the big question is: do I actually want to take it?

There are numerous factors on both sides of the equation. Not all of them are things I'm comfortable talking about on a blog, for some reason, though I am interested in talking with folks about them. I will mention one of the negatives, though, since I'm guessing that a lot of folks would be hard pressed to imagine any, and see lots of positives with the idea. So, I'm a little bit frustrated at the notion that:

If I accept this job, I'll be going back to full-time work. This will significantly reduce the time, and likely the energy as well (though my hope would be that the job would be exciting enough that maybe it'll mostly just be time), that I could spend on photography.

Of course, the flip side is that I've been having trouble getting inspired with photography lately anyway, so maybe that's OK. Certainly I expect the pay to be helpful in buying some sorely wanted equipment upgrades and such... I know they say it's the photographer and not the equipment that makes the photos, and I very largely agree with that... still, there are certain types of photography, some of which happen to interest me greatly, that require specialized equipment. So... maybe it'll be good for my photography in the long run.

I do also see this job as an opportunity on a variety of levels, some of them profoundly meaningful to me, so... Chances are quite high that I'll accept. I just somehow feel like sharing the fact that it's not completely a no-brainer decision. In fact, I've been thinking about it quite a bit and for quite a while.

Wish me luck.

More evidence that it's time for a (bloody?) revolution

2007-10-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

This had fucking better not be happening at the federal level:

If I find out that any legislator that represents me is engaging in this sort of tactic... Well, I don't know what I'll do, but I'll want their head.

Not. Fucking. Acceptable.

Is it wrong?

2007-10-08T15:32:00.001-07:00

Is it wrong that I want one of these? Probably the coolest electric car in existence right now. It's not at all likely that I'll come up with the hundred grand to actually buy one (let alone insurance costs, etc.) any time soon (if even ever), but still, I want one. :-)

And it's electric! No *(&@#$'n gasoline!

Measure What Matters

2007-09-22T15:28:00.001-07:00

A bit of wisdom, which I can back up from my own observations of the world, from Alan Durning*, of The Sightline Institute (when talking at a "Seattle Sustainability" presentation at City Hall, 2007-09-12):

Measure what matters -- or you'll end up valuing what you can measure.

What gets measured gets fixed.

In my own observations, e.g. from working in groups where metrics played a roll in management review of employee performance, people would change their behaviors in ways which would make whatever metrics they were having applied to them look good. Often, this was a good thing: e.g. quicker completion of trouble tickets. Often, though, it was a good thing on the surface, with a corresponding loss of something else that was valuable: e.g. quicker close of tickets may just have meant that tickets were being closed without the underlying issue actually being fixed.

So if we take the time to figure out what actually matters, and measure those things, then those things can get fixed, instead of just "valuing" something which happens to be getting measured.

One metric I'd like to see getting measured and having attention paid to it, which very clearly (in my mind) relates to "sustainability" of all kinds, is the birth:death ratio (i.e. population growth). I think we need to have this ratio be no greater than 1 (i.e. zero growth) in order to be sustainable. How we convince people to stop procreating is something I don't have an answer for. For my part, I intend to perhaps not have kids, and certainly if I do have kids, keep the number of them very low (1, maybe 2), and perhaps tie that to deaths in my immediate family or something. As medical advances let us live longer and longer, we need to be having fewer and fewer kids to keep this ratio at 1. Not that it's been anything close to that in recent memory, mind you... sigh.

* note: possibly paraphrased.

update...

2007-08-26T22:56:00.000-07:00

OK, so... I want to make it so there is an End In Sight. I have theories on this. They are, unfortunately, going to have to take a back burner to certain other things for a little while, but hopefully they'll happen before too long.

And meanwhile, we also went and saw 11th Hour... Here's the trailer:

Anyway, that gave me a whole other list of things I'd like to do to take action. There's a lot that can be done, and a lot that needs doing... Hopefully I can tackle enough of it to make some progress towards sustainability in this planet. I hope to be learning a bit more about the options at the first (newly re-instated) Climate Soup meetup, which is to be held at the oh-so-cool store (which I've been meaning to blog about for ages. argh.), Goods for the Planet.. Many kudos to Laura for taking on this meetup! She's both excited and nervous about it, so I hope a bunch of folks will come out and lend their support.

I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say on these issues over time.

For now, let me add two words to some writing I saw on a post the other day:

Impeach, indict

To which I add (one word after each of the above): convict, convict

so we then have:

Impeach, convict; indict, convict.

And no, I don't just mean one person there.

My project that's on hold for the moment has a lot to do with the above, actually... more on that later.

No End In Sight?

2007-08-24T15:24:00.000-07:00

Check out this review, and/or watch this trailer.

I'm thinking I need to see this movie. So I will. Tonight. 7pm. Uptown Theatre:

AMC Loews Uptown 3
511 Queen Anne Ave N
Seattle, WA 98101
Phone: (206) 285-1022

Anyone and everyone welcome to join me. I hope to lead some discussion afterwards, we'll find a spot for food/coffee/something and chat.

And then I'll surely blog more about it, once I've seen it.

the state of ruby documentation, part 1 (a rant)

2007-08-24T14:12:00.000-07:00

[geek alert: if you're not a computer geek, this may not be of much interest.]

OK, so I just saw this in some documentation:

This article is part of the confusing world of Authentication in Rails. Feel free to get lost in a gazillion of nearly useless and/or outdated Wikipages.

This is NOT ACCEPTABLE, PEOPLE!

I really like a lot of things about the Ruby and Rails communities. Stale documentation, though, is a glaring exception (and this isn't the only example -- rails docs without using migrations (or outdated versions) create a whole category of additional exceptions).

And I want it to change.

For my part, I will make a specific effort to help improve the documentation. I hope others will do the same. And in any case, whether you write anything new or not, PLEASE please please, don't encourage (including by standing by idly and allowing) folks to continue propagating the defeatist attitude above.

There. I've just started on my part, and re-written the above-quoted text to be more hopeful, and also added to the other linked page so it's easier for folks to know how to help. May these be the first of many edits I shall do.

Are there no decent Carnitas in this town?

2007-08-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

OK, so, I've been in Seattle for over 4 years now. I have yet to have anything that I would call "decent" in the carnitas arena. And it's not just that it's not good -- they actually aren't so horrible, at some of the places -- it's just that they're not right! It's not the right thing. It's the right base, but not the right thing.

My definition of carnitas:

slow cook some pork shoulder, with seasonings. (This part, at least some of them have figured out.)
fry it (in its own juices, on a hot flat surface)! make the outsides crispy, darn it!

wikipedia gets it almost right:

Prior to serving, the pork is placed in fairly shallow pans to maximize surface area, then roasted at high (375 to 425 °F) heat for a few minutes to produce the famous alternating texture of succulent softness and caramelized crispness.

Emphasis my own. The only part that's maybe wrong is the roasting thing. Yeah, it's a dry heat. But not from anything like an oven; it comes from one of those big flat hot griddle things. With the big iron weight set down on it, too, unless they're just using the spatulas, to squeeeeze it into the perfection of cooking. After which it's slapped directly onto an otherwise-ready-to-go burrito that's quickly wrapped up (and not like they do it in Seattle, either -- they get that wrong here, too, everywhere I've been -- kinda close, but not quite right), and handed over for some serious yummy goodness.

If anyone knows of a place in Seattle that even so much as attempts this, please let me know. I miss my Taqueria La Bamba!. Anyone want to give me a big pile of money so I can hire those guys to help me start up a store up here? :-) I need my fix, and frankly, I need it more often than I go back down to the bay area.

On the up side, the Blue Water that's near me (and none of the others that I've been to as yet) do at least use that kind of griddle to very good effect for my regular order there: a steak & calamari burrito. I just wish they'd do up the Carnitas, as well. I keep asking the guy at the register when they're going to do it, but... alas, it hasn't happened yet. (Even though they do do (the feeble kind -- from steam-warmer-thing to burrito directly -- of) carnitas at at least one of their other locations, so it's not like they couldn't get the meat.)

Argh! I want carnitas! Help!

Taxing Plastic Bags...

2007-08-01T14:59:00.000-07:00

So, there's a petition out there to encourage San Francisco in their notion of putting a fee or tax on the use of plastic bags from the grocery store. I like this idea a lot (and I put my name on the petition). Right now, I sometimes (when the check-out clerk bothers to care) get 5 cents off my ticket for bringing my own bag. Frankly, I'd rather knock a penny or so off each item in my bag, and pay 5cents for the bag if I forget my own bag, or need an extra.

I'd like to see this become ubiquitous, frankly.

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. I do recycle my plastic bags when I have them, often after re-using them a bit. Wouldn't it be even better, though, to just reduce my intake? I'm working on my part of that... Won't you join me?

Holy Cheap CFLs, Batman!

2007-07-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

I just walked across the street to Bartell's, to pick up some laundry detergent... and as I was walking back towards the detergents, something caught my eye. Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs). Well, OK, no big deal, those are everywhere these days (yay). But the price... that was a bit more surprising. $3.99 for a 3-pack of 13W (60W equivalent) lamps. Or $1.59 for a single 19W (75W equiv.) or 23W (100W equiv.). That's like 70% off. Apparently the City of Seattle is somehow sponsoring this discount, though I couldn't find details on-line just now when I looked.

I don't know if it's all Bartell's locations, or just the Queen Anne store, near me, but it was a deal I couldn't pass up, and had to share, as well.

Get 'em while they last!

"Victimizing... with Reason"

2007-07-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

Thank you, Laura my dear, for pointing out yesterday's Non Sequitur strip to me.

The rest of you: I recommend it; it makes for some good commentary on the insanity of faith, and the adherence (and adherents) to it.

Reusable Bags

2007-07-20T10:58:00.000-07:00

Reusable bags are cool. In particular, I like the ones from ReusableBags.com of the "workhorse" style shopping bag. Laura and I each have a couple, and they're basically with us (in her purse/bag, and in my back pocket) all the time, wherever we go. So, if we somehow randomly happen to need a bag (for shopping or... anything, really), we've got one.

I find them to be strong enough to hold anything I've put in them to date, including some pretty heavy items or sets of items... they fold (or just stuff) down into their attached little pouch quite easily, and once that's done, they're really small. Small enough to fit in... my back pocket, as previously mentioned. Thus, I can always have one with me, rather than the canvas bags I used to use a lot (and still do use for some things), which, while re-usable, you pretty much need to plan to take with you. Which screws you over on the random unexpected shopping trip.

Hence my love for Acme Bags (that's the other name for the same people).

So save the world, and stop using all those plastic bags. (Dog owners, I used to give you an ok on this, but Laura and Sophie have shown me that the cheap small little sandwich bags (which you can get at costco by the... ton?) work just fine, and surely they're lower impact. Hmm, I wonder if you can find those made from corn-plastic. That'd rule.)

Oh yeah, and in my last order, they gave me a little promo thing. You can get a free reusable bag by placing an order on their website that exceeds $25, and putting "FREE ACME BAG" in the comments box. They'll add a bag. (Some limitations apply, but they told me to "pass this offer on", so I feel it's fair game to blog about it.)

I tube with no tube

2007-07-20T00:20:00.000-07:00

A few hours ago, I entered the fray and posted some videos on youtube. Just some old time-lapse stuff I had lying around (I really need to do more of that)... for example, the moon crossing the sky at Seattle Center:

I don't "tube", though... I've got no television. Well, ok, like certain other things (ahem, my car), I still technically own one, I just haven't used it in months, and intend to sell it eventually.

(Anybody want an old Trinitron?)

In other news, I'm no longer working with the folks at Villij. They're off in Colorado, and communication unfortunately broke down, and they weren't willing to work on trying to fix that, so... bye bye, at least for now. Maybe that means I'll be more active here, and/or at flickr, and/or etc. It also means I could use another job or something, so... if anyone has any ruby (preferred) or perl (perfectly acceptable alternate) or other geeky (acceptability depends on the details) work you (or someone you know of) might want me to do, let me know.

See? I still exist (not that anyone had asked).

:-)

Who needs netflix? free DVDs and more at SPL

2007-04-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, Netflix had a pre-paid-rentals mode of accounts. You'd pay for rentals in advance, in, say, a block of 50, they'd mail you the movies, you could return 'em whenever you wanted to get your next movie. It was great. You see, I'm an infrequent renter of movies, so their monthly-subscription-based plan didn't really make sense to me. I'd rent something every couple of months or so, and be paying a fortune for it. Granted, they've added cheaper monthly plans since then, as low as 4.99 a month, which approaches the point of being "worth it" for my infrequent rentals. But not quite, especially when there's something that's (arguably) even better...

Enter the Seattle Public Library (SPL), and in particular, their holds system. If you're an SPL member (which is free, you just have to live in Seattle or other certain parts of King County -- ok, granted, not everyone reading this will have that privilege), you can log in to the SPL web site, and you can then place holds on a fairly wide selection of DVDs. When they become available (which ranges from quickly to a good long while later, admittedly), you get an e-mail letting you know they're there, and you can wander in, pick 'em up, and do a self-checkout.

OK, it's true, this isn't quite as convenient as having them show up in the mail, but if you're as frequently downtown as I am, or near any of their other branches on a regular basis, then it's just a quick diversion from your regular routine. And it's Free! OK, yeah, there's also this funny thing called a due date, which netflix doesn't have... but you can usually (depending on how many other people are waiting) renew (on-line, with just a couple of easy clicks, 24/7), and if you're late a little, it's a much less harsh fee than what, say, blockbuster would charge.

Oh yeah, and you can also use it for books! And here's the best part: You can place a hold on hold (if you'll pardon my doubling up the word -- they actually call it "suspending" a hold), until you're ready to actually get the thing -- while still moving your position in line forward, in case there's a waiting list. So if, for example, you're in a book club, and you want to place a hold for the next book, but not get it until the day after this month's meeting, you can just choose that date as the target of a suspended hold, and they'll put you at the front of the line (or as close to it as you've gotten) on that day, and you get your book!

The Seattle Public Library on-line Try it. It's fun!

[This has been a random rambling by David Lindes. I just felt the urge.]

Ask Lindes - Photography Q&A Blog

2007-04-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

OK, I've been thinking of doing this for a while... and I've finally done it. Well, there's no real content there yet, but it's started up. What is this, you ask? Ah, good, you're asking questions! I like a curious mind. Good thing I have one, then, too... I guess that means I can like my own mind. ;-)

Anyway, what I'm talking about is Ask Lindes, my new photography Q&A blog. You (anyone) can send me questions you might have about my photography, and/or photography in general, and I'll do my best to answer -- and if I feel it's appropriate, I'll answer on the blog.

Answers may be edited over time; the hope is that each posting will be a useful document unto itself, for someone trying to get a particular question answered. I expect some questions to be more general than others, of course. Any question is welcome, from a general how-to to a very specific technical question, or a question about how I made a particular image.

So, there it is... Ask away!

Panda Labs - most excellent customer service

2007-03-16T20:13:00.000-07:00

OK, that's it. Panda Lab just rules. This place is two blocks from my house [edit: no longer true, but still pretty convenient and still my main place to get processing done, as of January 2011], and I've been by there a bunch of times, and never gone in. Why not? I don't know. They're awesome. Yeah, OK, so their systems could maybe stand to be computerized or something, but... wow, what excellent customer service. I took them my two rolls of IR film (my first ever -- for the class I'm taking at PCNW), and dropped them off on Wednesday. I asked (actually they asked me what I wanted) for just basic development (no push or pull, or anything special), and a contact sheet... Everything was ready yesterday, but I didn't have time to go in until today.

So today, I went in, to pick things up. Eager to see how my first rolls of IR would come out. Well, I got more than I bargained for, and in a good way. The gal at the counter got my stuff, and handed it over, then proceeding to do up the bill. Distracted by watching the hand-processing of the invoice, I somehow failed to even bother looking at the results yet. And then as she was processing my debit card, she apparently mentioned that one of the IR pickups was here. So this guy Dana comes out, and in a very friendly way offers to look over things with me.

And so I opened things up, and looked what was inside. My two rolls of film (cut into 6's, as had been the choice I'd made when asked if I wanted 5's or 6's -- very nice) were there, in Print Files, and 8 contact sheets. Yup, that's right. 4 contact sheets per roll, each exposed a different amount, so that I could see the results of all the insane bracketing I'd been doing. Wow, that's flippin' cool.

And it didn't end there. Dana proceeded to pull out a couple of the contact sheets, and the negatives, and lay them down above and on (respectively) a light table, and take a look with me. He pointed out the varying densities of things, and asked me about how I'd been metering, and gave me pointers about things, and told me which negatives he thought had the best densities (yay, they were mostly the ones I'd metered for -- so I guess I was doing OK on the metering already), and just all sorts of little tidbits about things -- telling me about which shop I could go to (Camera Techs, in Ballard) to find out if I could fix the DX coding reader problem that blasts one set of sprockets on my film -- or to get a different body, if I couldn't do that, and just generally being helpful and friendly and cool.

He even said to say hello to Patricia, the instructor for the Infrared course I'm taking.

Just cool. Contact sheet scans:

Roll #1:

Roll #2:

Scans of other images to follow over time.

Am I really ready for this?

2007-03-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

In August (the 11th, in case anyone wants to save the date), it seems I'll be teaching my first workshop at the Photographic Center Northwest (PCNW). The working title for this workshop is Beyond Photoshop: Photo Editing Software. I'll probably be talking about things like Aperture and
Lightroom, on the one end of the spectrum, and Picasa and iPhoto on the other, along with ACDSee, and probably a number of others. The idea is to just give some info on what else can be used... from the free stuff to the professional packages. Oh, and we mustn't forget The GIMP.

I believe, you see, that Photoshop is the wrong tool for many a photography job. It can do some amazing things, and it does a number of things really really well, and it's certainly the right tool for some jobs. Ever tried using it to sort and rate 1600 photos from a full day of shooting an event, though? Forget it. That's not what it's for. And that's just one example of stuff it's not for. And a lot of things that it is designed for, and does really well, it's still overkill for for a lot of situations.

So, I'm going to talk about alternatives.

But yeesh, I've got a lot of work to do to be ready for this thing... not to mention the emotional preparation for being up there at the front of a classroom. I've done some informal teaching before, but not a whole lot, and I've never done anything this formal.

Hopefully I'll do OK.

Eat Local

2007-03-13T08:46:00.000-07:00

I was wandering around Queen Anne the other day with Laura, and stumbled across Eat Local, a brand new store emphasizing the use of local and sustainable ingredients to make prepared meals. Well, and not only sustainable ingredients, but sustainable packaging, as well. They're currently using corn plastic (a biodegradeable, non-petroleum thing, that looks and feels a lot like regular old plastic, to me... how cool is that?), and then they're also using re-usable glass containers for some stuff, which you "buy" with a deposit, but you get it back in full when you return the container as you're purchasing your next thing. Greg (the owner) says they're going to be working towards having the glass containers for all their products, eventually.

Combine the latter with a Re-usable shopping bag, like the acme bag Laura got for each of us recently, and you have a zero-waste frozen meal!

Which brings us to the one arguable downside of the place -- it seems to only offer frozen prepared meals. Now, this is a good thing, too, it just might be nice if they had non-frozen stuff as well. Then again, there are other markets around for such things, and so it's fine with me if Eat Local is filling a niche that doesn't include that. They do have some non-frozen items like jams and such. They also have frozen items for a variety of meal sizes, and some pottery (locally made), books that are on-topic, and some other stuff.

They even have a meeting space upstairs which is free for bookclubs and non-profits. Pretty cool. I wish them only the best of success... I expect I'll be back there soon to make some purchases of some sort or other. With my Acme Bag in pocket.

So, uhm...

2007-03-07T13:24:00.000-08:00

So, uhm... yeah. Hi. I've created a blog, here. I sorta already have one on my myspace page, and then of course there's my flickr stream... and of course there's also my photography site, which I haven't been doing anything with lately, though I do intend to again some day. (It's not helpful that I was having some problems with my hosting provider for a little while, though they seem to have cleared up, finally.)

Anyway, I was kind of enjoying checking out my recent acquaintance Lisa's blog, and wanted to comment, and thought, well, I guess that'd be easier if I just created an account... and then figured out that it was all tied to google, so creating the account was relatively easy, so... well... here I am. Too bad I didn't get here a couple years earlier, or I could have had my URL as I wanted it. Alas.

Anyway, I have no idea how much or little I'll post, but here I am.

Does this thing work?