Hoo boy. Every day I am, like it or not, reminded that I really don’t know sh*t about a lot of things. Most things, if we’re being honest. For example, I just want to be able to take a decent photo, interesting to me, and make a nice digital print out of it. To this end, I follow a number of mailing lists and news groups, such as the DigitalBlackAndWhite Yahoo group. Today, there was this…

“Previously, in the RIP world, while we had a linear L print space there was still no sensible mechanism for mapping (in a Same as Source workflow) from a workspace of A with a gamma of x to a print space of B with a gamma of y. We linearised the print space but it wasn’t profiled and so we could not draw on the wealth of knowledge and technique available to the colour world for the transition.”

Sheesh. Is every road this long?

I’ve been considering wearing a watch again, but all the watches I want are too expensive. For example, I want this one. Can I borrow $137,000?

Image by alan taylor

Neato photo found on flickr showing what it looks like to be near the spot someone Googlemaps.

Blogs seem to need titles and taglines. This feels perfectly natural to me. What weblogs don’t need are bad titles and taglines. (Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that mine isn’t one of them.) Please, if you must blog(v.), refrain from any combination of the following…

• Musings - Musing implies thought, and let’s be honest, most of us skip that part and get right to it.

• Random - or any of its derivatives

• Stuff

• Ramblings

• Reflections

• No l33t haX0r nonsense. That’s as bad as saying fo-shizzle - and even less cool.

• Radio Free…whatever.

• No French or French-like words of any kind (e.g. L’dumbshit)

• No e x t r a s p a c e s or d.o.t.t.e.d w.o.r.d.s. That was original once - in 1998.

• Rants and/or Raves - We’ll know if that’s what you’re doing. Then we’ll stop reading you…. oh wait….

Thank you for your consideration.

I now buy all of my music on CD. For a while iTunes was cool and buying music with one click was fun, but then Apple started doing that change the rule thing. Besides, used CDs are cheaper than buying one from Apple and I can rip them into any format I choose and do whatever I like with them. This is good.

Mark Cuban explains why I don’t have much more time to do things this way. A quote…

“Once that first label, or the first organized group of indies goes purely digital at retail, then the countdown for the extinction of the CD begins. T-minus 5 years from that first day, and your CDs will be sitting right next to the LPs your dad and mom collected when they were kids.”

Although I don’t feel quite so bad since I’m still listening to vinyl too.

I think Paul Giamatti may well be the best actor working today - or at least my favorite. And unless I’m mistaken he wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar. Well that’s crap. He should’ve won for American Splendor and he should’ve won for Sideways. You may have guessed that I just finished watching Sideways. It’s well after midnight and I’m going to go back right now and watch it again. Maybe twice. Yep, it’s that good - especially if you happen to be, as I am, forty(ish) and heading full-tilt toward a best-of-show midlife crisis.

I have a little Olympus Stylus Epic which I take nearly everywhere. It seems to have developed a crack or chip somewhere which is showing itself as a dark hairline at the edge of every frame. I like the camera so much that I started looking for another one. Of course in the process I discovered the Olympus XA. Now this is a pocketable point and shoot. 6 element fixed 2.8 Zuiko lens, coupled rangefinder, aperture priority and tabbed focusing.

I bought one.

I don’t think $50 is too much for this, according to Modern Photography, 1979…

“Achieving this unprecedented degree of sophistication in so light, pocketable and superbly integrated a package is certainly a noteworthy achievement which carries forth the Olympus tradition of compactness combined with technical virtuosity. ”

Update: It seems that the XA has somewhat of a cult following. I love cults!

From the always brilliant 43Folders, Merlin brings us April Power Hacks

For example:

1. When people ask you how youa€™re doing, ita€™s okay to say a€oeGreat! How about you?a€? Theya€™ll probably have some kind of response, though, so be ready.

and

1. If you dona€™t like the song thata€™s playing on your stereo, you can put a different one on. This goes for television too, but with pictures.

From Jason Fried of 37 Signals…

“Next, you need to tell your client to pick two. Wea€™ve all heard a€oePick two: good, fast, or cheap.a€? Dealing with client projects is no different. Your client needs to pick two: fixed scope, fixed timeframe, or fixed budget. Having all three is a myth. Pick three and youa€™ll end up with a lot of unsatisified people and subpar results.”

Read the entire post

Flickr photo by Stewart

It’s accelerating - the decline of film, that is. Crap.