Ploafmaster General

Some fresh (well, freshly-developed, at least) shots up on my photostream.

Incredible! The BBC reports on IBM's research that has led to the imaging of a single molecule and its bonds! Just as fascinating (to nerds like me) is the imaging methodology:

Their version of the device acts like a tiny tuning fork, with one of the prongs of the fork passing incredibly close to the sample and the other farther away.

When the fork is set vibrating, the prong nearest the sample will experience a minuscule shift in the frequency of its vibration, simply because it is getting close to the molecule.

Comparing the frequencies of the two prongs gives a measure of just how close the nearer prong is, effectively mapping out the molecule's structure.

I seriously want to get each of these man-friendly reusable shopping bags.
(via drhastings)

Tomorrow, sadly, marks the end of a childhood institution, Reading Rainbow.

This is exactly the type of story I like to see: After years of decay, Union Hill has been rezoned to allow some commercial property under special circumstances. Let's hope this stems the tide of dilapidation and attracts more interest in what I think is an interesting and overlooked corner of the city.

Just a little bit o' fresh photography - Kodak Tri-X 400 push-processed to a little above ISO 3200;

So it seems as if Akida's West End location as been replaced by Hayashi Sushi.

I'm a big fan of Akida on Robinson St. in The Fan, but despite its superior ambiance, I always thought the West End location (conveniently close to my office) edged them out on the preparation/flavor front. So what I'm left to wonder is whether a) the West End Akida couldn't stay open, b) the operators of that location bought out the location, or c) something else I'm not considering happened.

Richmond Biz Sense reported the business license for Hayashi on 6/11, and the earliest review online that I can see is from July 17th. Oh yeah, and so far no website to be found.

Anybody know what happened? Anybody been to Hayashi? I may have to go there next week to give it a shot.

It's probably pretty clear that I never went to art school.

I've explained before how, in my formative years, I was on the fence deciding between my creative and analytical sides. Having chosen the analytical school and (so far) job path there's one are of my artistic life that seems to be missing - criticism. I've not, that is, participated in, dealt, received, nor studied formal art criticism (okay, so a really easy voice jury when I took singing lessons as a non-major...I don't think that counts). My photography class in the summer of 2008 was supposed to include two critiques but did not.

The thing is, I believe there's at least some value to deeper investigation of creative output. I just don't really know where to start and how far to go. On the one hand there's the high-minded bloviating found, tragically, all-too-often in the mainstream art world. On the other, there are comments like this post's title and scads like it that I see on Flickr every day that say little more than the obvious.

NOW...

I'm not suggesting that all verbose criticism is overwrought nonsense. Certainly complex and personal reactions to great art can elicit complex responses. I do not, additionally, dismiss all simple gut-reactions as empty commentary. It's still complimentary for somebody to suggest that your photo's composition is nice, or that the architecture of a concert hall has pretty windows. I guess I just want a middle ground.

I've been trying, as much as possible, to really slow down and examine photographs I see on Flickr before (if at all) commenting. On such occasion that I post something, I've tried to add something of value - some detail about how I react to the picture. There are plenty of "Wow, sweet" comments left in my wake, but when I feel like a picture is worth prolonged staring, I like to say why in a bit more detail than "Great angle and colors."

I'm not terribly worried about the grad-school-style diatribes because, frankly, I don't think I'm that intricate a writer.

Whoa...check out the new Terry Gilliam joint:

http://www.traileraddict.com/emd/13094

Vicky Christina Barcelona is Woody Allen's 2008 romantic comedy and, man, it was kind of a snooze.

Valerie's latest arrival from Netflix gave me mixed feelings; on the one hand I was looking forward to wading in a bit more to Allen's catalog, but I wasn't particularly excited about this flick going in. I don't think that later sentiment interfered with my viewing experience. I think, rather, that a number of elements of the film got in the way...

It was no help that the film started off giving me more than a few bad first impressions. Intrusive and awkwardly-voiced narration. Characters who are more concept than real. An image of Barcelona that I might see in a tourist guide. Add to all that a script that felt like it was written by an advertising copywriter and acting like a community theater audition, and you have a recipe for a mostly wasted movie.

Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz both acted quite well and saved it a bit, but I was repeatedly dragged back to negativity by cheesy scene transitions (an awkwardly jarring dissolve...oi) and Scarlett Johanssen's bland rendering of the screenplay.

Maybe I just need to bump Annie Hall to the top of my list to see what the real fuss over Woody Allen is about.

2/5

To have, to realize that two Coca Cola bottles are not identical and what makes them not identical is that they're not at the same point. They can't be at the same point in space. Since they're not at the same point in space they automatically receive - each one receives light differently than the other, so that it can be as fascinating as going to a museum to look carefully, attentively at two Coca Cola bottles, hmm? And something of that is implicit in a great deal of 20th century art.

John Cage in an interview with Terry Gross on WHYY's Fresh Air.

It's bad enough that there's paranoid ambiguity around whether you can photograph a Federal Reserve building, but now the Secretary of Homeland Security has suggested that continually photographing a vaguely-described "critical piece of infrastructure" is grounds for calling the cops.

Complete idiocy.

Okay, so here are my shots of Kodachrome that I'm willing to share with the world. It's not much, but 11 good pics from three rolls makes me happy.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649

Ch-ch-ch-changes! AGAIN!

So I put the WordPress blog back in place, but I've commented out all the CSS.

I didn't feel like tackling two things at once right now (learning EE and CSS) while I'm preparing to be a grad student. Also, I was tired of things like embedded objects showing up all screwy.

So, my RSS feed should work again, people searching for stuff should be able to find the pages they're looking for, and I have my nice, comfy admin panel back :-)

Maybe now I'll start hacking up the CSS a touch to gradually shape the page into the form that I want. We'll see. At this pace, I'll have columns in five years!

The camera nerd and the part of me that drools over beautiful engineering can’t resist staring at this page for far too long: A pictorial (appropriate, yes) history of Hasselblad cameras used in space.

Holy smokes…some news for which I’ve been waiting a few years: Sufjan Stevens is releasing a recording of The BQE, a symphonic piece he composed and presented only in a series of live performances in NYC back in 2007. I’ve heard only small portions via NPR and the Asthmatic Kitty website, but I’m glad to see he’s publishing the piece soon so I can hear it in its entirety. I’ll be pre-ordering as soon as I get the chance.

Oh yeah, and bonus! It will include a freaking VIEWMASTER DISC.

Sure, there's a lot of humor in Rands' translation of contemporary business jargon, but when I'm neck-deep in it every day it's more than a little depressing.
(via Daring Fireball)

It felt hot as a furnace this weekend, but that doesn't mean I couldn't go outside to take some pictures.

I've often heard people describe the sound of an approaching tornado as closely resembling an oncoming freight train. What do you suppose it sounds like if you're already ON the freight train?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azV5bC2br-Q&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&w=580&h=470]

This is terrifying and breathtaking at the same time.
(via wiseacre)

On my iPhone I routinely type "*** wiki" in Safari's search field, where "***" is the subject for which I'm searching. So "beer wiki" returns the Wikipedia entry on Beer as the top search result. Last night, however, I noticed I was redirected to a page optimized for mobile web browsers. Since the mobile page renders differently in standard browsers (or at least on FF 3.5 on my work computer), I took some screen shots. This is what you see after the mobile version of the article loads:



There's pretty much what I've come to expect for a mobile-optimized website but have only, until recently, hoped for on Wikipedia. Even on this initial screen you can see there's a single column, larger text, and better word and line spacing. Instantly more readable. There's also the clearly indicated feedback link since this version of the site is recently launched.

If you clicked on the first link to the standard Beer article you would have noticed that it's a reasonably long entry even on a desktop browser. I can't imagine many iPhone users would enjoy the finger cramps required to scroll all the way down to the Serving section, and it seems Wikipedia's designers/developers felt the same way. After the introduction, the article sections have been collapsed to their headings with handy buttons to expand the content:



After expanding a section the "Show" button changes to a "Hide" button so you can keep the page from growing too long on your small screen:



Overall I'm pretty happy about this considering my heavy use of Wikipedia. My only gripe at the moment, however, is the redirect process. If you visit an article from Google search results, quite a bit of the standard page (including some images) seems to load before the redirect. I could see this getting a bit tiresome if I don't have a 3G signal, and it makes me wish the intercept occurred earlier. I'm not a web developer, so I can't speak to the simplicity/complexity of such a change, but I'll certainly submit it as feedback.

There's an intriguing short read on Slate about the use of plastics in art, and the troubling difficulty of their preservation. We tend to think of plastics as everlasting, but museums around the world have been dealing with the reality that plastics can decay simply sitting around.

Part of why I'm writing anything right now is because I feel like every passing day that I don't exercise my creative muscles I risk their atrophy. I sit at my desk at work and can practically feel my brain calcify, or some other ridiculous biological metaphor that comes with having poor writing skills (even when I DO feel creative).

But mostly I'm writing this because I'm really pumped about my upcoming weekend.

Tomorrow is the last work day of this week for Valerie and me since we get Friday off in advance of Independence Day. We're heading straight up to her mom's house in the evening to have dinner and hang out with her mom and sister for the evening. Then we drag ourselves out of bed before first light and drive up Eisenhower's Interstate to Red Bank, New Jersey. This will be my first visit to my home state since the passing of my father in March last year, and it's been far too long. There is much to be done.

You see, Red Bank celebrates Independence Day with fireworks a day earlier than most places. There's a veritable cannonade of colorful explosions in the sky over the Navesink River, a display to rival New York City (and, indeed, formerly executed by the same people). My step-mom carries on the tradition of hosting a serious party at her house marking the occasion, and there I hope to see several members of my dad's family.

Red Bank is, itself, a treat for me. It's like all the charm of Richmond's Carytown on steroids (with some of the same inherent problems, unfortunately, like greedy landlords). Whether it's Zebu, or The Bagel Oven, or even the played-out and kitschy Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash (comic book shop), I don't much tire of walking along Broad or Front Streets taking in the scenery of my youth. I have to dwell on The Bagel Oven for a moment, too, because it's seriously my favorite bagel shop on the planet. I love me some Cupertino's while I'm here in Ole' Virginny, but even their fine bread pales in comparison to the goods on Monmouth St. The only concern I have is whether I can make up my mind between an egg or salt bagel...

On the 4th itself (Saturday), Valerie and I will travel a little southeast to Sea Girt where Jammie (my mom's mom) lives. She's trying to sell her home and move down south to retire near my mom, but while she's still on The Shore I'm happy for the chance to visit her in the home where I spent half my childhood. We're definitely hitting up The Ice Hut, some of the most glorious Italian Ice around, and who knows? Maybe we'll have pizza at The Squan Tavern if I'm lucky. If the weather is as nice as expected, I'll probably take Valerie down to the boardwalk at night so we can see the other small towns up and down the coast set off their 4th of July fireworks displays.

I also have to make sure, at some point, to procure a proper pork roll, egg, and cheese sandwich on a poppy seed hard roll. If half of that sounded foreign to you, you'll just have to make a trip to the shore yourself sometime. Words fail.

On Sunday we'll start the long drive home, but we'll stop in Delaware to see my brother, Mugs, his wife, Valorie, and our nephew, Donovan. There's even a chance that our newest nephew will be there to greet us...

Those are the roughly-laid-out plans, and here's some needless alliteration for you: family, food, and fun. It'll be a welcome break from the daily soul-suck of work this past month. And of course I'm taking a load of pictures :-)

I have three recent shots of my fair city on my Flickr stream. I'm pretty pleased with how they developed, but mostly I'm excited about trying out Kodachrome for the first time tomorrow. I hope it works out...

Do you ever have a musical act that you totally love but seem to have dropped off the planet? You can't help but move in your chair every one of their tunes plays in your headphones, but you've stopped checking the official website and/or other channels for news long ago because it's been ages.

A number of musicians fit such a bill for me and, the act in mind today is dZihan & Kamien, the Vienna-based down-tempo duo that created one of the finest albums in my arsenal: Gran Riserva. After years gone by with a dearth of news (and no official website) I don't feel that bad for missing the announcement of their first studio album since 2002. It seems that the fellas released Music Matters in late April, and you can stream the whole thing for free on their new website! Sure, it's Flash-tastic, so I can't link directly to the listening page, but hit up the music link at the top of the page, and mouse over the left side of the album listing until the cover for the new album slides into view. And listen. Over and over.

I'm scooting over to Plan 9 forthwith tomorrow after work to see if have this album, and if not, I'm gonna have to see if the official D&K store delivers to The States (the prices are in Euros only). This album is my new jam.