Ploafmaster General

Well, the Nikon D90 is official. It may not be full-frame, but it's a whole lot of everything else - so much, in fact, that I believe Val and I will pass on the D200 when the time comes.

The ability to use quality photographic camera lenses to shoot HD video (720p at 24fps) pretty much sold me, and the rest of the camera's specs make me comfortable with the choice. Not only would Valerie and I be able to produce quality images in a host of conditions, but I could finally put video on the computer that's better than my crappy point-and-shoot digicam provides :-)

The only question now is how soon I can talk Val into letting us get this thing...We have a destination wedding to attend next summer (possibly in LONDON!), so maybe it'll be an easy sell!

Well it seems, heading into the 2008-9 NFL season, that my Giants are dropping like flies. We lost a number of key starters over the summer, and Osi Umenyiora is out for the season with a serious knee injury.

And now we'll be without Super Bowl show stopper David Tyree for at least six weeks...

Let's hope Tom Coughlin and Steve Spagnuolo can hold it together - it'd be a shame to fall apart after such a brilliant finish last season.

So first thing's first...I'm not a surfer, and I never was. I'm not likely to be, either, now that I live a fair clip inland. But growing up near the Jersey Shore I, like nearly every kid around me, wore surf wear brands like Rusty, Ocean Pacific, Billabong, and my personal favorite, Quiksilver.

Additionally, while I like a nice time piece, I've never been obsessed with fine watches the way many fellas seem to be...but today I saw The Ray:



I'm sure when this drop in November it'll sell out quicker than I can blink at a price I can't afford, but I can still appreciate the chrome and ebony.

This spectacular video highlights American design in the late 1950's:

http://www.archive.org/flow/FlowPlayerLight.swf?config=%7Bembedded%3Atrue%2CshowFullScreenButton%3Atrue%2CshowMuteVolumeButton%3Atrue%2CshowMenu%3Atrue%2CautoBuffering%3Atrue%2CautoPlay%3Afalse%2CinitialScale%3A%27fit%27%2CmenuItems%3A%5Bfalse%2Cfalse%2Cfalse%2Cfalse%2Ctrue%2Ctrue%2Cfalse%5D%2CusePlayOverlay%3Afalse%2CshowPlayListButtons%3Atrue%2CplayList%3A%5B%7Burl%3A%27American1958%2FAmerican1958%2Eflv%27%7D%5D%2CcontrolBarGloss%3A%27high%27%2CshowVolumeSlider%3Atrue%2CbaseURL%3A%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Earchive%2Eorg%2Fdownload%2F%27%2Cloop%3Afalse%2CcontrolBarBackgroundColor%3A%270x000000%27%7D

The funny thing here is that the film was sponsored by Chevrolet. It makes me sad that American car manufacturers can't seem to recapture that emphasis on design outside of a few concept cars.
(via shiphome)

I was viewing some photos as a slide show on Flickr when I noticed a link for "Options" in the top left of the screen. I clicked it, thinking perhaps I could view images in a random order. Alas, that's not the case, but here's what I saw:



This sort of reference exemplifies the nerdy attention to detail that makes me love this site.

Some new medium format shots hot of the press, viewable on my Flickr account. The shot above was completely unaltered after scanning other than the automated dust removal.

After yet another brutal manhandling of the opposition, can we stop using the feeble appellation of "Redeem Team" for our men's Olympic basketball team? Sure, we don't have the gold yet, but with our worst performance so far a 21-point victory over Angola (and our best a thorough trouncing of Germany by 49 points), do we really have much to fear for the semi-final or final rounds?

Flickr user Marion Doss has a whole set of photographs showing strange objects found in cat food cans. Sometimes strange, often gross (I mean, it's cat food, after all), the most disturbing aspect of the whole group is the feeling that there's a seriously low bar for quality control in pet food processing. I don't know what's weirder - the computer chip, the insulation, or the electrical wire.

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.