clowning around
helloheather doesn't always care for my additional limb that is a camera, but here she was just being silly.
I, for one, welcome our impending doom.
I propose that the moment computer software and computer hardware stops sucking is the very moment the human race will have sealed its fate. We will, at that moment, be committed to a path of utter and total destruction by these very machines.
When computers no longer suck, they will be able to take over.
So remember: every time your machine shuts down by itself, taking hours of work and a few hardware components with it, this behavior is the result of very difficult work being done to keep you and your future generations safe.
"This American Life" – soon, coming from NYC
"This American Life" the award-winning NPR show from WBEZ is moving to New York City so that they can work on the radio show and a new tv-version of the show for Showtime.
An interview with the show's creator and host is available through Gapers Block.
http://www.gapersblock.com/detour/talking_civic_pride_with_ira_glass/
He talks about the move and about peoples reactions to it. It's a very interesting interview.
And in a less-than-thinly-veiled-attempt-to-be-subtle, I've had a second photo selected for the Rearview section of Gapers Block:
http://www.gapersblock.com/rearview/archives/2006/02/23/
On the subject of molasses
Whenever I dream, or rather, what dreams I remember, always involve me not being able to get something done quickly enough, get to some place or event in time. However, there are rarely, if ever, any consequences from not meeting this goal.
In almost every case, I am being restricted by an unknown force.
Last night I had a brief dream where I needed to transcribe text from an image into a spreadsheet. I needed to do this fairly quickly but I couldn't complete the task. Because of the image size and monitor size, I had to flip back and forth between the image and the spreadsheet. The process was slow, and, for some reason, I couldn't enter in more than one word at a time before needing to flip back and get the next word in the sentence. As I mentioned, in my dream, I was never able to finish the task. (I either woke up or the dream ended/changed.)
A month or so ago the dream involved me needing to get to the end of a street (on foot) to warn people of something. But I couldn't run or walk, the only thing I could do was crawl, and very slowly, along a wide concrete sidewalk next to the road. I watched as cars and people on foot sped by (including one new Mustang that went by at about 200 mph that, when it hit the barrier/wall at the end of the road, it burst into flames). While I was very frustrated by not being able to move fast enough, and embarrassed by being seen by faster-moving people (I mean, here I was crawling on a very public sidewalk), I wasn't really upset at seeing the car burst into flames. I also never reached wherever it was that I was supposed to be going. I just crawled and crawled and then the dream either ended or changed.
I don't know what this all means. Do I have other dreams with less stressful situations that I just don't remember? Maybe these are the only dreams I have? What a horrible thought.
I'm pretty convinced that my subconscious doesn't particularly like me. And who am I to argue with my subconscious?
update deserved
I've seen the "how many states have you visited" meme flying around again, so I thought I would update my own map:
Blue: visited
Green: not yet visited
Exceptions: I've driven through Delaware, but didn't stay there. A couple hours on a highway doesn't really count as "visited." Similarly, I've flown into Buffalo, NY and immediately driven out and into Canada. Again, doesn't really count as a "visit."
edit/update: fixed the map.
Waiting no more
Canon has, at last, released the replacement for the 20D. It's the Canon 30D. A rather odd name choice, given that 6 years ago they released a D30.
The 30D is geared almost directly to new customers and not to existing 20D owners. It will be $1400 with the kit lens when released. The strangest part of this new camera is that it does not include a sensor upgrade. It was expected that, because the 10D was 6MP, the 20D 8MP, the 30D would be 10MP. Instead it's still 8MP using the exact same sensor as the 20D. In that respect, the 30D is really just a 20D Mark II.
But the 30D offers some intriguing updates: 1) Faster auto focus (using the same AF system found in the $3000 Canon 5D), 2) larger buffer: 5 frames per second for a total of 30JPG files or 11 RAW files, 3) 3.5% spot meter, 4) ISO value /in/ the viewfinder, (a big gripe from Canon owners now fixed!) 5) ISO value options in 1/3 EV step increments and 6) taller on-board flash.
Current 20D price is $1,190 with kit lens. So, are the changes worth $210? That's a very tough call, one that my bank account is anxious to resolve 
Some links:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0602/06022114canoneos30d.asp
http://www.photo.net/equipment/canon/30D/
Also to note, Canon released 2 new lenses, the EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS and the EF 85 f/1.2L Mark II. Both are priced for the professional market and are only pipe-dreams for me.
Lastly, a number of new digital point and shoots were released, including Canon's first small point and shoot with Image Stabilization, the SD700 (aka IXUS 800 for the European market).
As a further sign that the MP race may be slowing, the point and shoot cameras released by Canon are either 6MP or 4MP. New features are taking priority over simple sensor packing. Excellent news.
always, always check your settings…
Yesterday, with the weather in the mid-40's and the sun shining I walked (during my lunch hour) from downtown to the fabled Goose Island (well the south-east edge of it) for a total of 3.5 miles! It was great, I paralleled (as much as possible) the Union Pacific NW tracks (the ones I ride every day). The tracks are a story and a half above street level, and so it was interesting to see the buildings and sites from "down below." I managed to put 24 images on my 16MB card. (This self-limitation was started in order to focus on quality over quantity.)
Today it was a bit cooler (only 39 downtown), but I was able to get in a 3 mile walk. I walked with a coworker down Randolph to Ogden and then back on Washington. Shortly after starting the walk back on Washington, I realized I had left my camera on the 0.3MP setting. 15 photos were shot at 640x480. Damn, damn. When you have only 2MP to work with, cropping is already pretty limited. With 0.3MP, the images pretty much are what they are.
More features, less megapixel-envy
This years PMA looks to be more about features and less about megapixels, a very welcome change to the rather absurd direction digital cameras have been taking.
For example, take a look at Panasonics new 10x optical zoom, optical image-stabilized camera:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0602/06021405panasonictz1.asp
Or, take Fuji's new F30, (the replacement for the F10). They're now offering ISO 3200 on a digital point and shoot at full (native) image size. This is a first anywhere, and quite amazing. http://www.dpreview.com/news/0602/06021403fujif30.asp
Following
Another image I'm particularly happy with from the Georgia Aquarium.
The yellow fish follow behind the larger fish for protection. If they get in front of him, he'll likely eat one, so they make sure they stay behind his gills.
time keeps ticking or, “how rob reestablishes his status as a phule”
So, in trying to fix the RSS feed problems from this WordPress install, I discovered that there are hard-coded time offsets in both RSS2.php and RSS.php files. The default value is +0000
So, my first test was to change it to -6000. Well that was stupid because -6000 is -60 hours 00 minutes.
So, now I've changed it to -0600. Changing it to -6000 didn't seem to actually affect how soon the feed shows up on LiveJournal, so -0600 might be another red herring...
we miss out on all the fun.
Well the east coast got a ton 'o snow/fun this past weekend. If you live there: lucky you. The photos on Flickr with the tag "blizzard2006" are a lot of fun.
wherein a baby is resolved
As helloheather pointed out in her LJ, we had another ultrasound last night.
So the baby, in this image, is on its back, facing up. Its legs are up in front of its body as if he/she is trying to touch nose to shin. I had no idea babies in the womb could be so flexible. I figured with all that space they might want to spread out a bit...give the legs and arms a good stretch. But apparently we have a taco baby.
With the ultrasound they're able to measure the circumference of the head, chest, length of leg, and heart rate. Everything checked out normal. Hooray for a healthy baby!
Atlanta weather made me soft
People in Atlanta said it was cold this weekend.
To me, it was nice. Cool enough that jackets were required, but not cold enough that they had to be zipped up all the way. But now that I'm back in Illinois, the cold is killing me...
The Georgia Aquarium is really neat and the big tank (all 6.3 million gallons of it) is so big you can't see the other side. I'm still sorting through the boatload of photos I snapped. How I wished for a DSLR and a wide-angle lens.
It seems like every time I visit Andy, the flight home is crazy. This time, thanks to a more than 12 hours of continual rain and storms, flights were delayed. Very delayed. By the time we got to the airport in the evening our flight was more than 2 hours delayed. With a little investigative work by Joe, we managed to grab the last two stand-by seats on an earlier flight that had also been delayed. The upshot of which was that we only left about 20 minutes later than our originally scheduled flight. Go us!
Flying into Chicago at night is always a treat. We flew just south of Valparaiso, IN and I was able to see the lights from the VU campus as well as the helicopter light at Porter Memorial Hospital. The lights of the megalopolis that is Milwaukee/Chicago/Gary along with the stark contrast of the darkness of Lake Michigan is an amazing feast for the eyes.
a bevy of photos
I finally got around to posting photos from various events so far this season and year:
The week of Christmas 2005:
http://www.bernhard.us/photos/christmas2005 (6 small sub-albums)
New Years weekend with our friends Aaron and Serena (and their baby Charlotte) and Hilary and Chris:
http://www.bernhard.us/photos/newyears0506
Heather's birthday weekend:
http://www.bernhard.us/photos/heather-birthday-2006
Enjoy!