Warp Factor 3.6e-8, Mr. Sulu

Reactionless engines are a possibility? Cool! The Mad Rocket Scientist has the details, or some of them anyway.

The Disruptiveness of the iPhone

I got an iPhone, and it's now my indispensible portable device. I use it constantly. I can't wait until the 3G ships, so I can throw away my still-perfectly-usable $500 phone to buy a whole new $500 phone that does the Intertube faster. But here's the interesting thing: it's become indispensible in ways that I didn't expect it to before I got it.

Way back in the day, I used to compile all my sources with scripts. That lasted until I started doing Unix development, when I was introduced to "make". My first reaction was "why do I need that? I can write scripts to compile stuff." I was, of course, completely wrong. Completely, amazingly, agonizingly wrong. "make" was a whole different way of dealing with that particular underlying problem, and having once found "make", there was no way in hell I was going back to a non-"make"-having environment.

Same thing when we got always-on broadband connectivity (back in like '98 or '99). Up until then, we would occasionally go and dial-in to check email, but it was always a specific "go and check email" task. Once the broadband connection showed up, though, our network usage went way up. Not because we checked email all that much more often, but now the WWW was no longer unreasonable. And once again, having once found always-on connectivity, there was no way in hell we were ever going back to occasional dial-up access.

This pattern has repeated itself several times in just my personal experience: a technology comes along that beforehand I couldn't imagine why I'd want it, but afterwards became something that I couldn't imagine doing without it. "make", broadband, TiVo, and now an iPhone.

Kathy got the first iPhone in our house because she said I could take the birthday money she'd already gotten and just add the difference to get her one for her birthday. I did, because she deserves cool things in general, and whatever she wants I like to get her. I got one because I too deserve cool things, and she kept taunting me with "my phone's better than your phone."

Now that I have it, I find I use it constantly. Not for making phone calls, mind you. I probably don't use its "phoneness" more than I did my previous handsets. I use it all the freaking time as a portable Internet device. At this point I'm really glad that Steve and the Death Star made me get an unlimited data plan because I am sucking the bits out of the aether all the livelong day.

I can't even watch television anymore without my iPhone in hand (well, I'm watching TiVo, but you know what I mean). Previously I was unlikely to pause the show and wander off to the other room to look actors up on IMDB (one of the most common things we say while watching teevee is "I know that guy/girl/child from somewhere!"). Now that I have an iPhone in-hand, I do just that. All the time. I read my RSS feeds at the gym. I twitter. I facebook. I hardly even notice standing in line for random crap any more because I always have something to do while waiting to check out at the grocery store or whatever.

And I do all these things because they are now significantly more convenient for me to integrate them into the non-digital portion of my life. It isn't that they weren't there before, but they were previously walled off into their own domain. Now that they're everywhere that I am, I can use them to keep informed, to talk more loudly via twitter and blog, to research more deeply, to remember more broadly, and to listen more carefully.

I can't wait until The Steve invents an implantable iBrainPal so I can quit typing with my thumbs.

Wait ... what?

Japanese fertility festival, where you can worship the penis! Seriously ... I wouldn't lie about that! See for yourself if you haven't already over at The Jawa Report or AoSHQ.

No heaven, but plenty of hell

Saw this on io9.com: underground fires that burn for decades, complete with pictures of what hell-on-earth looks like. That's freaky-cool, and if I'm ever in PA I'm going to insist on taking a trip to what's left of Centralia.

Wooooo!

Woooo! Iron man! Wooooooo!

My experience so far

Day #2 of my doctor-suggested weight-loss and fitness program: making myself go to the gym in the morning is not the hardest part so far ... it's the "only one lunch per day" rule, the "no pastries" rule, and the "no pints of Ben&Jerry's after dinner" rules that are the hardest part(s).

Go forth and consume!

I just ordered my copy of "Outside the Wire" on DVD, and I seriously think you should too. Go forth and consume!

RPC == teh suXor

The more time I spend doing RPC, the more I realize that (a) it's the tool of the debbil, and (2) Indigo (a.k.a. Windows Communication Foundation) is an amazingly amazing piece of technology.

The one true lesson of software engineering

The one true lesson of software engineering is "engineers don't know jack sh*t about anything. At all."

Engineers are really bad at figuring out where their programs spend all their time. I don't know anybody ever who could accurately predict where the real bottlenecks in their systems were without using a profiler. I don't know anybody ever who could truly optimize their systems without profilers.

And engineers are super-duper especially bad at scheduling. I had always just assumed that it was due to a lack of interpersonal skills that caused developers to throw away their estimates because their managers said "I need it sooner than that." That's what I saw, anyway. No matter how much time the engineer spent coming up with an estimate, they would cheerfully throw it away in order to agree with their manager's schedule-oriented daydream (or their manager's manager's daydream).

It turns out that there's more to it than just an inability to say "I understand you don't like this schedule, but it is what it is": humans suck at planning.

I have no idea what to do about it, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an RPC traffic generator to finish writing; I said it would be finished on Monday and now I have even more concern than usual that it will be late.

The Moment It Clicks

I was going to say "Go right now and buy 'The Moment It Clicks' by Joe MacNally. Now. Right now right now." but you can't. It's out of stock at Amazon. Let me just add my voice to the chorus that this is an amazing amazing amazing book that you should have.

In any case, you should stick it in your shopping cart until they restock.

After-Action Report: Bogen Cafe with Steven Katzman

This past Saturday, February 9, I went to my first ever photography workshop. It was the Bogen Café with Steven Katzman event for Seattle, presented in partnership with Glazer's Camera. The speaker was Steven Katzman, whom I thought was a really nice guy and an excellent speaker.

The event started at 10:00, with Steven giving a short presentation about some of the lessons he learned over his career about how to be a better, or at least good, photographer. I took my notebook with me so I could write all this down, but the room lights had two settings ("off" and "OMFG that's bright") so I couldn't see well enough to record any thoughts during the presentation. I got the big point, which was to be empathetic and connected with your subjects but don't let that stop you from getting the picture.

The presentation included many shots from his new book, "Face of Forgiveness," as well as other photos from his catalog. He didn't lecture about any particular photo in terms of f-stop or exposure or even lighting setup. He mostly talked about the importance of feeling something, and connecting, and with telling the story. He showed photos from New Town and talked about how he got them, how the people in New Town and he came together, and how they were still affecting his life.

After the lecture portion of the program was over, the folks from Bogen and Glazer's led us back into a large studio space where they had set up three separate workshop areas with some serious high-dollar lighting gear and some models. Steven talked about the lights in general terms and named the equipment, but he wanted to talk about how to shoot a well-exposed shot with the gear, which quite frankly was far more interesting to me. His lesson here got me to use the histogram display on my camera far more than I've ever used it before, and I'm already applying the lesson there to the shots I'm taking at home. So yay! I got my money's worth! While we were ogling the lighting gear, and many of us were trying not to ogle the models, the Glazer's folk set up a fourth workshop area back in the lecture room with two more models.

Then they cut us loose and let us wander around taking turns being the photog at each station. All of the stations were set up with PocketWizards, so when it was your turn you just slapped the PW transmitter into your hot-shoe and off you went. Since I'd already shot a few hundred frames with my Cactus triggers, this was dead simple but a few other students hadn't seen wireless triggers and/or off-camera lighting, so the pace of the students through the process was quite uneven.

So here's station #1. You can see the ginormous softbox at camera right, and the edge of a big piece of white cardboard at camera left. The backdrop is just a cloth slung over a backdrop holder, and the models are members of the local Roller Derby team. The middle girl is holding a 90% white target so you can set the white balance in post-processing.

Here's what they look like when I was the photog and the light comes from that lovely lovely softbox and reflector instead of those nasty fluorescents. I managed to get each of the three girls with apparently completely different direction, so I apparently have a talent for something even if it isn't photography.

Station #2 had a single umbrella above eye-level at camera right and a second strobe about seven feet up at camera left. There was also a silver reflector in a frame handy, but I didn't use it (I'll come back to that shortly).

This was "Dirty 007." She tried so hard to look all tough and edgy. All of the roller derby girls tried very very hard to look tough and edgy. Maybe it's just that I'm old now or something, but they all looked as cute as kittens and about as ferocious. They were great. Anyway, I liked this shot because I got the specular highlight on the rollup door behind her head where I wanted it for a nice light-shadow duality thing.

I also got her to turn around so I could shoot her tattoos. She was all inked up and stuff, but still was just cute as a bug in a rug. My guess is that she's roughly the same age as the jeans I was wearing because I am just that much of an old curmudgeonly bastard.

Station #3 had one lightbox directly overhead, a white reflector angled up from beneath, and two lightstrips firing from behind the model angled in towards the center. In the setup shot, you can see the overhead lightbox and the two light strips (one facing you and one in profile). The reflector is there too, but it's in a frame and you're viewing it edge-on.

So this is what Marcus looks like when the lights fire. He looks great, and it's because the lighting setup was great so that I pretty much just had to be there to press the shutter release.

Station #4 had a beauty dish high at camera right, a white reflector at camera left, and a softbox firing into the backdrop. I forget the lighting ratio between main and backlight mostly because I failed to write it down in my notebook.

Megan and Lewis. These people are clearly aliens because no normal humans can be that gorgeous.

Don't believe me? Look at them. Tell me you're that good-looking. G'wan. That's what I thought you said.

So what did I learn?

1. Be the director
I was the photographer, certainly, but I provided almost no direction to the models. Consequently, the pictures I got were basically whatever they felt like doing. This might have been great, or it might have been slack, but in any case I wasn't controlling the outcome but was being swept along towards whatever happened. This is not the way to get good results, and I'll have to work harder at getting outside of the aim-fire-chimp mode next time.


2. Connect with the models
This is espeically ironic since this was one of the lessons that Steven was trying to get across in the lecture. I was taking photos, but I was treating the models as if they were still life objects instead of people. I didn't even get the names of most of the models. Next time I resolve to make sure I introduce myself, get their names and email addresses, and write them down. I'll also try to actually talk to them as people, but my small talk skills are somewhat limited so I don't know how well that part will work.


3. Do something different
Part of this is just the novelty of having models that aren't my children, but I just stood there right in front of them pushing the button on all of these shots. I didn't stand on anything, even though there were chairs and ladders to be had. I didn't squat down. I didn't sit down. I didn't really do anything except stand there like a spectator.

The other part of this ties back to #1 above: I didn't direct the lighting either. I didn't move a single light from where it was when I walked up to the station. I didn't use any reflectors that the Glazer's folk hadn't already set in place. I didn't make the lights brighter or dimmer. I didn't do any of that.

I did, however, have a really good time. I learned several things, some positive and some negative. I've been able to apply those lessons in my other shooting around the house, and I even think it's helping. In short, this was well worth the measly $25 I paid for the class.

I've got more frames up on my Flickr page, by the way, in case you aren't already bored beyond belief.

Yeah, yeah, yeah ... what?

I'm reading through this short piece on the resurgence of 60's fashion crap and nodding my head and thinking "yep, yep, yep ... look at all of that dreck that the boomers are trying to bring back around." I'm not entirely sure that it's a bunch of twentysomethings trying to borrow this stuff to attract attention, so maybe we differ a bit there on the interpretation.

But then I get to this part: "Scared because on top of that, there’s a war going on that’s costing more than the military budget of the world…. combined." I don't want to pretend you're not afraid. Fear can be a real thing. But this doesn't even pass the laugh test.

First, it's very cheap to have legions of soldiers without equipment, so the lack of budget for the forces of the Sudan, for example, is hardly surprising. Add all of them up and you get a tiny dollar figure, but their troops are incapable of projecting power outside their own borders, and are occasionally incapable of projecting power to all parts within their own borders.

Second, most of the nations in the EU have approximately no armed forces because they don't need them; their expeditionary forces can handle small conflicts, and when large conflicts pop up they can always cry and wave for Uncle Sugar to come bail them out. We continue to have armed forces because (1) we don't really trust other people to guard ourselves and our posterity, and (2) it isn't all that expensive. In 2007, for example, our total military spending was 3.8% of our GDP ( National Defense Budget Estimates from the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense).

Let me repeat that ... 3.8% in 2007. The most astonishing thing about the U.S. military machine isn't how expensive it is, but how cheap it is.

It's BACON!!!!

Mmmmm .... bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon. Bacon. Yummy yummy yummy bacon.

Phone Envy

Yesterday was Kathy's birthday. I had been thinking about all manner of things to get her as a birthday present, when she mentioned that she was thinking about pooling her "money for birthday present" presents towards an iPhone. "A ha!" I said, so I bundled her into the car and off we went to the Apple store. I of course didn't tell her that's where we were going, so it was still a surprise to her right up until we were about 100 feet from the Apple store.

We walked in and I announced in a large voice that "my sweetie wants an iPhone, and I want you to get one for her." The clerk produced an iPhone in a box, there was some jiggery-pokery with the credit card and the handheld laser scanner / card swipe device the Apple store retail clerks use now, and then we were out of there.

Got home, plugged it into her computer, and activated it on our existing AT&T account (replacing her old and busted Moto RAZR), and she was golden. No problems. Not one. The whole process worked just like companies wished it always did.

And the phone! OMG it's gorgeous. And shiny. She just giggles every now and then from the delight of dorking about with it. After a bit she let me touch it so I could type in the access key for our wireless network at home, but then she wanted it back.

Now, of course, I have phone envy.

P.S. I tried to photograph it, but couldn't get anything I liked. Most of the shots looked like this promo from Apple's website, so here's a shot from Apple's website.

Amazon + TiVo = SCORE!

We were so busy over the weekend that we totally forgot the Super Bowl was on. Normally we'd have TiVo'd it and then fast-forwarded through the boring parts to get to the commercials, but we were busy and didn't even do that much. Tivo noticed that there was a "House" on afterwards, so it recoded it. As always, though, the live event ran long and we didn't get the whole thing.

Our first stop was iTunes, but we didn't see any episodes of "House" there. So we checked Amazon and, sure enough, there they were. I had to sign for the "Unbox" service, but that was easily accomplished. Drill down to the missing episode, hit the "1 click" button, and bob's your uncle.

We didn't wait for it to download, but went off and did other things. When we sat down tonight, it was waiting for us. It was only standard definition, but it was a good encoding and still looked nice. It also came without commercials, which was an unexpected bonus. If only we could get a fatter pipe from Qwest, this would be super-dee-duper. As it is, though, it's a strong recommend. I imagine we'll be buying plenty more episodes from unbox now that we're sensitized to it.

All the new WCF features for the web

Not that everybody needs this, but it's useful to have it all gathered in one place: Steve Maine's TOC for the new WCF Web Programming Model stuff.

Which of us are you lying to?

Raymond Chen notices something disturbing on many levels. I wouldn't have been tricked because I whine until Kathy buys real avocados to make guacamole, which she does because she's super.

It's a cheeseburger. In a can.

I can't imagine this is good, but I've been wrong before: cheeseburger in a can. A can. Around a cheeseburger.

Yes, I know I'm repeating myself. I'm having kernel panics because now you can get canned cheeseburgers.

Amazing what you can do with consumer-level gear now

Mission: Restage the Omaha Beach invasion from D-Day.
Cast: Three actors
Time available: Four days.

Doomed?


I think not.

First flash photos

Here's my sweetie on the phone. This was taken with the flash on-camera, but bounced off the ceiling. The flash was in full auto everything mode ("yellow" on the zone dial which I don't fully get yet), so this is what the flash and camera do without me really being involved very much. I added a touch of edge sharpening in post, but otherwise this is what comes out of the box.

Here's Kyra being completely nuked by the flash in manual mode firing into a silver 43" umbrella from about 6' away. Clearly I have lots to learn.

And McKenna, not so completely nuked by the flash firing at half power into the umbrella. A little closer, but I'm going to have to spend some time working through the exercises on Strobist.