GmailFS turns your Gmail space into a mountable filesystem. Quite cool.

Jeremy, you readin’ this?

I keep choosing “old” technology: Film cameras, 900mhz phones, things like that. The latest is my mail client. I’d been using Mozilla’s Thunderbird since before it was really in any shape to be used daily. It’s a great piece of software, and free, but a couple annoying little bugs have recently caused me to give up and go back to using Mutt.

Mutt is a terminal based mail client for unix. Yep, I have to read my mail in a terminal window and use my keyboard to navigate and VI to compose messages. I can crank through mailing lists more quickly and compose messages faster this way. Plus it’s almost completely configurable. Okay not almost, it is completely configurable. God I’m a geek.

Just added another one to the reading list. The Philosophy Gym. 25 Short Adventures in Thinking

Discusses things like…

• Is Time Travel Possible?

• What is Knowledge?

• The Consciousness Conundrum

Seems like an easy intro to philosophy, which I know nothing about.

Very few ads are as perfect as this one…

There’s been some disappointing behaviour lately around these parts. There have been things written and things hinted at which don’t line up exactly with reality. These things seem to be directed at my partners, Steve and Bryan Lewis. I wouldn’t normally bring it up, but these are not just my partners, they are also my friends.

I’d like to tell you a little bit about my friends.

I met Steve and Bryan about 10 years ago, just before they founded Fusionary Media. Shortly thereafter they asked me to join them as a third partner. This was not a trivial decision for me, but it was an easy one because I had always wanted to work with people who were driven by the same desire to do great work - to do things better than everyone else.

We started out small and worked hard. I’d never seen anyone work that hard. We didn’t talk about profits or salaries or wealth. What we talked about was creating an environment where smart, talented people would be allowed and encouraged to do great work. This hasn’t changed much in ten years.

We’ve always had very high standards and expectations for the work that Fusionary produces. The painful part of working here is having to meet or exceed the high expectations - all the time. It’s a good pain, but not everyone can do it. It’s sometimes exasperating, but it’s ultimately worth it. You’ve seen our work.

Without this extra drive, without those two guys constantly editing, correcting, guiding and pushing to improve friggin’ everything, Fusionary would be a good-but-not-great web shop. We would be wasting the talented team we’ve assembled (and it’s a very talented team) because even the best teams need coaching.

Our work is the result of Steve and Bryan helping a brilliant team of people produce to the best of their ability.

They do all of this while maintaining a level of honesty and integrity that always amazes me. It’s built in - hardwired. To suggest otherwise is to have completely missed the point. It means you’re just not paying attention.

That does it, I’m getting a Mac.

According the the Christian Science Monitor, Painting is back.

“The taste of the art world is changing,” Ms. Kotik says. “Suddenly painting is allowed to exist again.”

That seems like a good thing.

Y’all keep a list of things to do, right? Groceries, fix that screen door, have the oil changed, and on and on. I have one too and it has some important stuff on it: some personal, some professional, some in between.

I’m finding that I need a second list. All the things on my current list fall under the same category: If they don’t get done I will not die unfulfilled. For example, right now it’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I could be working on finishing up a web site, I could be doing laundry or mowing my lawn. But I’m not. Instead I’m trying to find out what’s involved in taking piano lessons and also reading web site forums on the philosophy of photography.

The normal list is full of those things that keep life and career moving, without which all other lists are made irrelevant. Probably a good idea to keep that one, then.

The new, second list will contain those things that I absolutely must get done before I die. So then, in no particular order…

• Learn to play the piano. How hard can it be to learn to plink out a couple tunes here and there.

• Learn to speak Spanish. I’ve tried this before with almost no sucess.

• Scuba off the Great Barrier Reef. I’ve done it in the Muskegon river, but that’s not really the same thing is it.

• Reread the entire Bible. This time I’m gonna cheat and skip all the “begat” sections near the beginning. Or maybe I’ll just skip to Revelations, which is the cool chapter anyway.

• Surf in Mexico This might be cheating because I’ve already got this one booked, thanks to brillian planning by Steve and Bryan for celebrating my 40th birthday.

• Actually understand the difficult books I’ve read. Godel Escher Bach, Infinite Jest, The Elegant Universe, Gravity’s Rainbow, etc.

• Create better photographs - at least by my standards.

• Survive parenting a teenage girl. It’s the most difficult, challenging, frustrating and absolutely wonderful thing I’ve ever done

• Write more poetry. They’re like emotional bookmarks along the way.

Gotta run. Stuff to do, ya know.

Alice Cooper is blasting other rock stars who are planning to perform “benefits” in order to oust GW. Folks like Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp and R.E.M are committing “…treason against Rock and Roll because Rock and Roll is the antithesis of politics.”

I love this quote…

“If you’re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you’re a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we’re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.”

Alice is still cool, and suprisingly, relevant even today. On the other hand, the bands mentioned earlier, well, aren’t.

I’ve been watching an odd assortment of documentary or near-documentary films lately. For those interested, here’s a summary.

Touching the Void *****

Story of two mountain climbers’ nightmare while climbing the Siula Grande mountain in the Peruvian Andes. One of them breaks his leg and from then on it’s pinned-to-your-seat dramatization coupled with interviews with the climbers.

Step into Liquid ****

Breathtaking photography of surfers and surfing around the world.

Capturing the Friedmans *****

Arnold Friedman, normal guy with a normal family, is accused of being a child pornographer. The movie documents he and his family’s decline and disintegration in the following months and years.

The Weather Underground **

Story of the Weatherman, a radical group of anti-war protesters formed during the 60s.

My Voyage to Italy ****

Martin Scorcese spends a few hours talking about his favorite films of Italian cinema. Listening to him causes a contagious affect that makes me want to watch everything he’s talking about.

War Photographer ****

Portrait of world-renowned photojournalist James Nachtwey.