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June 27, 2008
DP Work Flow, Redux
My search for a comfortable workflow, which I've mentioned twice before, has continued on and off for the past week or so, and I wish I could say I've got it nailed, but I don't, quite...
I do have more images up on flickr, for those who care to look.
Continue reading "DP Work Flow, Redux"
Posted by dberger at 8:07 PM | Comments (1)
June 20, 2008
Solo Acoustic, Volume 2
Dawnise is out with some girlfriends tonight - having dinner and going to see "Sex And The City" - which means I get to turn up the stereo.
I'm a couple tracks into Solo Acoustic, Vol.2. I've mentioned Jackson Browne before, but in case you weren't listening, he's an amazing singer/song-writer - and like a good wine, he gets smoother and more nuanced as he ages.
And in a nod to a guy who never gets enough credit or recognition, I wanna say that the engineering on these albums is excellent. The sound is dead on - if I close my eyes, Jackson is in the front of the room, sitting at the baby grand, with a guitar or two waiting.
I only hope he comes back to Seattle sometime soon. If and when he does, I'm totally there.
Posted by dberger at 9:35 PM | Comments (0)
BONK
Just finished the last few pages of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach.
Ever since reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Mary's been on my "just read it" list.
She's a terrific science writer, with a wicked sharp sense of humor who never steps over the line while making light of the serious subjects she explores.
Just read it.
Posted by dberger at 8:43 PM | Comments (0)
Canon 450D + RAW == Pain
It seems that buying a new (as in recently released) camera and shooting RAW is asking for pain. I played with Bibble for a few minutes (it works, but I'm not in love with the UI yet) and LightZone (it doesn't support the 450D yet) before deciding to look into geting UFRaw working.
The end result is that I pulled the UFRaw source from CVS, built it, and viola, no more pink photos. For any in the same boat, here's an SRPM (842k) I run 64bit Fedora, so I figured distributing the packaged source would be better than. (If your distro doesn't use RPM, you might try something like alien.)
For the nitty-gritty, read on past the break.
Continue reading "Canon 450D + RAW == Pain"
Posted by dberger at 7:04 PM | Comments (1)
Avenue Q
Dawnise and I caught Avenue Q on it's way through Seattle last night at the Paramount. The show was hilarious - if you have the chance, I highly recommend checking it out.
Posted by dberger at 10:51 AM | Comments (1)
June 19, 2008
In Search of (Linux) Photo Workflow
So I got back from NY with a couple hundred RAW (.cr2) shots on the camera, and took another hundred or so the following weekend between Bainbridge and Port Angeles.
I pulled the SDHC card out of the camera and imported the crop of photos into f-spot, thinking "hey - this is just working."
I knew it couldn't be that easy...
Continue reading "In Search of (Linux) Photo Workflow"
Posted by dberger at 2:47 PM | Comments (0)
June 18, 2008
Robin Hood - Redux
I mentioned before that we started watching Robin Hood. After getting through a half-dozen episodes, I've decided I wanted to like it much more than I actually do, so I'm removing it from my queue (the queue that Netflix is eliminating in a few months) and sending back the two unwatched disks we have down stairs.
It wasn't bad, it just wasn't good either. And life's too short to watch "meh" television.
Posted by dberger at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)
Why Does Netflix Hate their Customers?
Dawnise got a message from Netflix today saying that in September they'll be eliminating the profiles feature (launched in 2005) that's allowed me to independently maintain a queue of disks and rate movies (and get recommendations). There was no explanation offered, and they're not even going to merge the queues, or preserve them for reference - their advice is to "merge them" yourself or print them out.
This follows on the heels of their announcing that they'll charge customers extra to rent Blue Ray, despite the media costs being the same and having not done so for the duration of the HD war.
Despite having just purchased the Roku Netflix player, and being happy with it overall, I'm suddenly in the market for an alternative DVD rental service. I'm confident I can resell the Roku box, and if I can't, it was "only" $100 - which both made the decision to buy one easy, and made me willing to obsolete it over this blatant disregard for their customers.
At the very least, we'll be reducing our disks per month (currenty 4-at-a-time), and I'm going to look at Blockbuster's service.
We're not the only ones upset - the "blogosphere" (I hate that word) seems to have picked up the story and run with it.
I just submitted the following to Netflix:
Good Day;Like many customers, I'm reacting to your announcement- received by my wife, the primary account holder - that you're eliminating the profiles feature in September.
Since your spokesperson has made it clear that the "decision is final", I wanted to make it clear that we will be reducing our monthly service level (and hence payment) in response to this reduced functionality.
We'll also be investigating alternative rental service providers. Should we find one offering a profiles feature, or even comparable service for less money, we'll be switching and canceling our service outright. The decision to eliminate this feature has forced me to pay most of the switching cost simply to preserve my queue - so for the first time since establishing a relationship with Netflix, I feel I've little to lose by closing our account.
Posted by dberger at 9:20 PM | Comments (0)
June 17, 2008
I bought a Watch
For reasons I can't explain, over the last several months I've had the desire to start wearing a wrist watch for the first time since high school.
Continue reading "I bought a Watch"
Posted by dberger at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)
A good weekend, but sooo tired
Dawnise and I spent last weekend in Port Angeles with friends celebrating a birthday. We almost didn't go, owing to having only gotten back from the east coast last weekend and having a small list of things that need doing around the house, but ultimately decided that spending time with friends was more important, and I'm glad we did.
Continue reading "A good weekend, but sooo tired"
Posted by dberger at 9:38 AM | Comments (0)
June 12, 2008
Go SCOTUS
It's only taken several years longer than it should have for SCOTUS to rule that the Bush administration overstepped their authority in suspending Habeas Corpus for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and that the farcical "substitute" set out in the Detainee Treatment Act was inadequate.
Posted by dberger at 7:23 PM | Comments (0)
Ask Slashdot
I posted to ask slashdot this morning - if the moderators find it interesting enough, it may appear on the site some time soon...
dberger writes "I'm looking for a solution to what can't be a unique problem. My wife and I each have our own machines — one running OS X and one running Linux. We take a fair number of digital photos, and store them on a shared network attached drive. She's using iPhoto (mostly by inertia) and I've been using F-Spot. The problem is that neither of these application — nor any application I've found — deals well with the idea that "someone else" may add photos to, or remove photos from, the library. This seems to be true even if both parties are using the same application. So we end up with this horrible work-flow for importing photos that involves me importing the new batch into F-Spot, then telling iPhoto to re-scan the entire library (which takes longer as the size of the library grows). Deletes are a painful process, as are making simple edits available to both of us. I'm curious what slashdotters facing the same problem are doing to solve it — perhaps I'm missing some silver bullet that would take the pain away and let us spend more time enjoying our photos rather than managing them."
Posted by dberger at 7:29 AM | Comments (1)
June 9, 2008
The Black Swan
I mentioned Fooled by Randomness when I read it back in 2007 (gads, was it really that long ago?) and I just finished Taleb's second book - The Black Swan - The Impact of the Highly Improbable.
Like the first, I found it a flawed presentation with some fundamentally sound observations on how we - as humans - search for certainty where there is none, to the point of deluding ourselves into thinking we've found it, and drawing strong convictions through rational thought from faulty premises.
Less directly applied than the first ("Fooled" ostensibly focused on randomness in financial markets, The Black Swan doesn't pretend to narrow it's focus at all) it was a bit long, and slightly repetitious, but an interesting and thought-provoking read none-the-less.
Posted by dberger at 6:44 PM | Comments (0)
June 8, 2008
I need a Vacation...
A week ago last Friday Dawnise and I caught the red-eye from Seattle to Boston, grabbed a rental car, and started a week-long trip in NJ, NY, and MA.
We celebrated my paternal grandparents 65th wedding anniversary, spent two days exploring Manhattan with my family and my new camera (more on that later), managed to catch up with a couple old friends in the city, drove back to Boston and fought rush-hour traffic to get my brother to a bus on time, had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants with more old friends, and got stuck in Denver for nearly 4 hours longer than planned on the way home, collapsing into bed at 4am yesterday, before waking up and spending the afternoon/evening at a housewarming party.
Tomorrow, I go back to work.
I could use some time off.
Continue reading "I need a Vacation..."
Posted by dberger at 9:31 PM | Comments (1)