Ploafmaster General

The American suburb is ideally suited to driving alone and being a little sad about things you haven't bought yet.

-- Merlin Mann from Twitter.

This weekend I was at a Borders bookstore in Northern Virginia when I decided I'd purchase some magazines. I started looking through the periodical racks for a photography magazine because I was interested in seeing what art criticism and journalism looked like for that medium. It turns out I was a bit more casual than I intended, and essentially picked up my first magazine based on sight, vague title recognition, and the fact that it seemed to be the only non-exclusively-digital photography magazine they carried :-)

So I grabbed a copy of Focus: Fine Art Photography Magazine. I kinda wish I'd read through it a little more because it turns out the audience is more the art collector rather than the artist. When I sat down to read some of the photographer profiles I saw more in the way of artist background and exhibition history than motivation, technique, or artistic statement. At least the pictures were gorgeous, including the ads - oh yes! The ads, predominantly for gallery shows, typically featured gorgeous photographs often occupying more than half the page. Short of that, however, I'll probably skip this publication in the future, thank you very much.

I really only planned on buying that first magazine...until I caught a glimpse of Antenna Magazine's Summer 2008 issue (though it seems the Fall issue is out now). Flipping through the pages felt more like looking at a catalog of unrelated miscellany - except I like a lot of it. The page layouts seemed interesting, the photography interesting (if not entirely fresh), and the content, well, I'll get to that. It was so intriguing that I decided to take a chance.

It would seem that Antenna attempts to be a quarterly guidebook for the American male (hipster) consumer. It's organized by an alphabetical index with entry titles that are sometimes straightforward (Flip Flops) and sometimes clever (Legal in Some States). Think of it as a paper copy of Uncrate without (so far) the questionable misfires, and with the addition of some short articles peppered throughout. Of course, that's the ironic part: Antenna is a quarterly, paper publication that's supposed to represent the latest and greatest (it's tag line is, "What Drops Next") in a world where news on the Internet is instant. The strange thing, though, is that it DOES seem to accomplish this goal far better than Uncrate or similar "stuff" sites. This certainly makes me wish all the content was available on the web in a convenient RSS feed...

I don't think I could bring myself to subscribe to this magazine because it would likely tempt my materialistic tendencies too much, but it sure does seem to be an interesting read. It's visually fun, too; I'm no graphic designer, but the format and design was both easy on and interesting to the eye.

Maybe I'll try checking out more magazines in the future, but I have a feeling most of what I'm interested in can still be found here in the Internet, often with more relevance, and more current.

Well, it seems that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is going to be delayed by about 8 months. It was originally scheduled to open really close to my wife's birthday, so she's NOT going to be happy about this.

The studio's main reason is because they want a guaranteed summer blockbuster in 2009. Oh yeah, and they threw a little blame at the writers' strike, too. You know, because the studio heads are classy like that.

Consider this a weekend send-off:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBXal1GAA4A&hl=en&fs=1&w=580&h=470]

Yeah, I know...this is going to start looking like a photoblog for a while, I'm sure. But at least it's original content :-)

I'd rather have an unoriginal format (as if blogging was my idea in the first place) with my own creative output than the other way around. Also, this is a fine way for me to wade into the Photoshop pool, since I've been cleaning up/fixing pictures one at a time as I scan them. I think that slower, more incremental method is going to result in images which better reflect my intentions.

So the mini-site for Francis and the Lights' EP, A Modern Promise, is making the rounds on teh interwebs, and I have to admit that I'm enjoying it quite a bit myself.

What I really dig about the mini-site, though, is the 35mm film for "The Top." Two things impress me about this: First, it sounds like he's singing live (varying sounds depending on his approach to the microphone) while still dancing around like a maniac. Second, and this is my absolute favorite part, once the music starts the whole thing is a single continuous camera shot (unless there's some genius editing that I've missed).

This is an expert little piece of film making for a short music video like this, and it doesn't go unappreciated. Oh yeah, and the music itself? Welcome back, 80's pop (in a good way).

UPDATE: Awww yeah, it's live vocals and a single shot as I thought. SUPER WOOT.

I received my Epson Perfection V500 scanner today, and the above shot is my first scanned picture. I'll probably be up way too late working on more pictures tonight, so keep an eye out on my Flickr stream :-)

The New York Times has an interesting opinion piece from Errol Morris about how photographs can be exploited, but the picture above nearly made me burst out laughing at my cubicle desk.

Almost every year my wife or mother-in-law gets me a calendar at Christmas as one of my gifts. Well this year, if I may be so bold, I want this pop-tastic bubble calendar, on the real.
(via Uncrate)

I think I just found a new desktop wallpaper for my MBP. It's a design by Gary Gao, the same gentleman who created the "Ghosts of Macintosh Past" t-shirt which John Gruber linked up yesterday. I particularly like how the Yashica Mat TLR (in its leather case, no less!) is right there in the center.
(via Bobby Solomon)

Today I decided to check out some blogrolls from various other blogs and came upon Burning Building, the brainchild of Isaac Marion in Seattle. Marion's site appears to combine various talents but is clearly dominated by his writing, which of late, is quite humorous.

Give it a look - at least for yesterday's "Happy Birthday in D Minor."
(via Alexis)

Oh SNAP.

This may be a long way from a larger scale, usable form factor, but it's still cool as shizzle.

Here's another gem for your Friday, courtesy of my home slice Dave:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RlK0Xd4c2c&hl=en&fs=1&w=580&h=470]

Cheesy music aside, this video made me nearly wet myself with Nerd wonder:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfyNzIL5HW0&color1=11645361&color2=13619151&hl=en&fs=1&w=580&h=470]

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that some Boy Scouts took ill because of some E. coli-tainted ground beef from California.

So, really, do Virginians consume so much beef that they're underserved by the state's second largest agricultural industry? And of all places, why on earth did meat from the OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY find its way over here to the Atlantic Coastal Plain? This is yet another example of our broken national food chain.

This is for Jake, since he asked about it in an off-topic question on another post :-) Hopefully my explanation will be (mostly) accurate and (mostly) in plain language.

OpenID is supposed to provide a single internet identity for its users so people don't have to remember 2, 7, or 50 different log in/password combinations. For this to work, you need two parties supporting the system: First, you have an identity provider. This could be anybody - yourself on your own website if you know how to set it up, or a more notable and trusted company, such as Yahoo! or Sun, or what-not. Second, you need to have websites which allow login with OpenID. I have an OpenID through Yahoo!, specifically my Flickr account. This means my login would be "http://flickr.com/photos/ploafmaster" and my password would be whatever I choose.

That sounds simple enough in theory, but in my experience with implementations, it's not so simple, having potential security pitfalls and human-computer-interaction problems. I'll use Yahoo! as an example since they're a pretty big player and I also happen to use them for my OpenID.

Let's say I go to a friend's blog, like Alexis' "Mined Like a Diamond." If I want to leave a comment, I have several options that identify myself, and one is using OpenID. So I select that choice and enter my login as mentioned above. When I click "Publish Your Comment" the problems begin. I'm redirected to a Yahoo website where I'm supposed to enter my password. If that's successful, I'm redirected again, back to the blog where I posted my comment.

Why is this a security hazard? I'll paraphrase Wikipedia... Essentially this creates a vulnerability to phishing attacks. If you visit a site that's (unknown to you) malicious, you could be redirected to a false login page. Likewise, man-in-the-middle phishing attacks, where a third party intercepts your login attempt, could catch a user without his or her knowledge. And while sites like Yahoo! attempt to allay such fears by suggesting (on their redirected-to login page) that users confirm where they are before entering password info, this puts extra onus on all of us to remember graphical badges, URLs, login rules, et cetera.

How much easier is an online identity system if I have to remember extra stuff? And how is this easier and more secure than a person using the same user name and password for multiple web services? Let's not forget, also, that having a single set of login information creates a single point of failure if you forget your password or your account is compromised.

Beyond the potential security risks (which, lets face it, isn't as much an issue for the nerds currently using OpenID), there's a usability problem here as I see it.

Consider a website with a conventional log in system. You visit the log in page, enter your user name and password on that page, click "Log In" or "OK" or something else, and if you're successful you're transferred to the page you were trying to reach. With OpenID, on the other hand, you enter your login, click onward, and you're sent to a different site with a different look-and-feel, different interface, form fields and text in unexpected places, and somewhere on there is your password field. And if it's Yahoo!, you also have your security warnings and such. When you enter your password and confirm who you are, you're taken back to where you were trying to go in the first place - the logged-in version of the website you're visiting.

I think this visual interruption and feeling of extra steps is a problem. It's not easier if I have to enter two related pieces of information in two different places that look and feel unrelated. Besides, what happens if there's a connection problem or other error during one of the steps or in between? Am I guaranteed to be placed back on the site I visited in the first place?

To make a very geeky and long story short, I think the concept and goal of a single set of login credentials is great. OpenID, however, has a long way to go in convincing your average Joe that it's easier, quicker, and more secure. For my part, I'll stick to the old-school for now.

IKEA announced this week that it intends to operate a pay-as-you-go phone service, initially in the United Kingdom. I hope we can expect to see some contemporary handset designs bearing the Scandinavian design aesthetic. I hope they have catchy names, too, like Tala, Telefonsamtal, or Konversation. But mostly, I hope their phones can race.

I was already a huge fan of Isiah Flores' short films, but below you can see him assembling beats in real time. I'm guessing many of them, if recorded, were edited later to smooth out the timing and what-not, but either way, I'd bump to these beats.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/1456446 w=580&h=437]
isiah flores live mpc beat making from Spencer Keeton Cunningham on Vimeo.

Hey hey hey, last week of the class, and only two of us show up other than the teacher. And there was no developer anywhere to be found. So no darkroom time. Instead, we'll get vouchers (if the dude remembers) for one free week of the open darkroom during the fall session. What, then, did we do? The three of us took a stroll around The Fan and I finished up my roll of 6x6 Delta 3200. And that was pretty much that...class over.

EPILOGUE:
Okay, so the dude was a pretty dead-beat teacher. I think anyone reading this already has that impression, but whatever his teaching skills, he's still an artistic photographer and filmmaker, so I want to check out his work at First Fridays Artwalk on September 5th. I can't let his lack of instruction prevent me from seeing his art, and I'd encourage anybody who's reading this in Richmond to do the same.

Certainly my own interest in photography (and film photography specifically) hasn't waned over the last ten weeks. I can still look forward to the spring, when I intend to take an intermediate class - hopefully with Valerie. It's my intention to start processing my own B&W film later this year, and if things work out for Christmas I'll even get a decent film scanner. All of that combined ought to keep me crankin' out negatives for quite some time.

That's pretty much all there is to say about that.

I never expect to find much humor on Flickr discussion threads, but when Mugs contributes, hilarity ensues.

Tonight I braised a pair of beef shanks for dinner. A pair of dry-aged shanks from a humanely raised cow, to be specific. I used garlic, soy sauce, freshly ground ginger (a first for me), basil, salt, pepper, and water for the braise, and the zest and juice of a lemon to brighten things up a bit. I reduced the braising liquid afterwards to about a cup of intensely flavorful suace and finished it off with a few dashes of toasted sesame oil (WOW). The shanks were quite tasty, and the rice on the side (with several of the same flavors) complemented the meat very well.

The real star of the show, however, wasn't the meat, the rice, or the sauce. No, the real star was the bone marrow.

After having been seared on both sides and braised for an hour and a half at 225 F, the marrow was soft and gelatinous. I had only to run the tip of my knife around the inner rim of the bone to release the teaspoonful of protein-laden marrow. I tentatively scooped it up with my fork out of the sauce on the plate, and ingested. HOLY CRAP, IT'S LIKE MEAT JELLY...but in the best possible way. I'd seen Anthony Bourdain spread marrow on toast on an episode of No Reservations, and I understand why. Had I more at my disposal I'd have done the same. The flavor was like the most complex essence of beef, as if somebody had distilled all the best flavors from every cut of a cow and amped it up tenfold.

Next time I head to the butcher I'm going to ask more about marrow...I could totally make a dish out of it, like an appetizer or something.

Oh sweet mercy.

Last night Valerie watched Love in the Time of Cholera while I was in the room, so while I wasn't actively participating in the viewing experience, I couldn't help but observe the ridiculousness.

I really don't mind spoiling anything here since you probably aren't planning to see it. If you were, well, I'm saving you the trouble. Here's the gist: Dude meets girl during late teens or something. Dude falls for girl even though he barely knows her. Girl's dad doesn't like it because dude is of little financial means. Dad takes girl away from dude, marries her off to doctor. Dude irrationally clings to memory of girl, plans to save himself for her no matter how long it takes. Until dude is pulled into a dark cabin on a river boat for some anonymous coupling. Now dude decides that sex dulls the pain of pining for this girl he met back in the day. Dude proceeds to nail any willing lady he meets, until one day when he's in his seventies, girl's husband dies. He meets her, writes to her, convinces her to be with him like he's always wanted. Hooray.

While even that shell of a summary is horribly stupid, the details are what makes it worse. The movie attempts to be romantic, but the dude actually keeps score of all his...um...scores. At several points throughout the film we hear him recounting his various adventures in love-making in between throw-away scenes of social/political upheaval and the girl's domestic life with her doctor husband. It's hard to take our protagonist's stories as anything other than comical, so we we're left with a story that plays at love and romance but fails utterly.

Even Valerie agrees with me in giving this movie a 2 out of 5 stars. It gets two because at least the lead roll was played sorta well by Javier Bardem, but he does little to salvage a ship that seems designed to sink.

For the starting price (indeed, it goes much higher) of $4,600.00, you too can have a bespoke Leica rangefinder camera. I mean, a man can dream, right? Right?!

Holy Crap!!! Alton Brown has a new show starting on September 7th called Feasting on Waves which follows his trip around the Caribbean investigating island foods.

I know what I'll be watching on Sunday nights (10pm!) for four weeks :-)

Michael Ruhlman recounts, in entertaining style, a day of cooking and eating with his former cooking instructor Michael Pardus. The dual sense of serendipity and devotion to a craft make me want to spend a day like theirs...perhaps with some slightly less daring cuts of meat :-)