Jeff flirts with HDR technology

With normal pics you can never have all the details you want. Either you loose what is outside the window, or you loose the texture of the wooden chest. With HDR you can have it all..






Here is how you do it very easily:

1. Put camera on a tripod so it doesn't move a mm between shots, or during shots
   
2. Take 3 or 4 pics at a range of exposures, and a low ISO to avoid noise
   
3. In Photoshop CS do a file -> automate -> merge to HDR
4. Select images for the photo
   
5. Unselect align (unless you didn't take my advice to use a tripod)
6. In the next window just click ok, don't worry if the pic looks overexposed
7. Go to image-> Mode-> 16 Bit
   
8. Under Method select Adaptive
9. Expand toning curve and histogram
10. Play with that line that slices through the histogram until you get satisfying results
    

Adam Smith really understood happiness

The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice.

Adam Smith
The Theory of the Moral Sentiments
1759


Cliff Baxter's (Enron Executive), suicide letter.

Stress Interview

This Week's Protests in the Middle East

After disputed elections in the Iran there are widespread allegations of voter fraud. The government is going through its normal checklist of resistance crushing:

Declare victory
Block mobile text messaging
Block twitter
Use physical force against protesters
Blame the CIA

The activists are responding with cyber attacks against government web sites, using tricks to get around blocks on Twitter, and organizing mass protests.


Here is a video from protests in Bil'in with subtitles. More information about the protests here. The three week attack in Gaza that left so many civilians dead marked a clear turning point for US public opinion about Israel's moral standing. The expansion of settlements in the occupied territories continues to be an obvious illegal land grab that even Obama is publicly calling for a halt. After initial rejection by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu, a compromise was finally reached.

Almost forgotten memory #24040

In 3rd or 4th grade I had to memorize a poem and recite it for the class. Looking back at it now I appreciate the poet more than ever. His use of meter and rhyme is nothing short of genius. I picked the poem Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein:

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Wonder what Latin actually sounded like?

Latin is a dead language, there are no recordings of what it sounded like, and no one alive knows. Or so we thought. A creative thought experiment was devised: What if people were talking while they used a stylus to shape pottery? Wouldn't that cause microvibrations to be etched into the clay that could be played back like a record?

Perhaps these french archeologists are onto something, [french language content]. This pot was made five centuries ago in South America.

Almost forgotten memory #24039

I used to arrive at CDG, and take the RER B to Gare du Nord, walk up Rue de Maubeuge, take a soft right at Rue Hippolyte Lebas or as Jon called it Hippo Lesbos, up the hill at Rue des Martyrs, enter the code to open my apartment complex door, up the old wood spiral staircase, and enter my apartment. From there I'd turn on the gas and electricity that was behind a wooden cover by the door. I'd walk past the kitchen and bathroom into the room with the big French windows that faced the street. I'd connect my answering machine, and record into it,

"Veulliez enregister votre message apres le bip sonore"

I'd put a Dream Theater CD and set it to the track where they'd say "Bonjour Paris," unpack then take a shower. My routine would be complete.

Remember Stephen T. Johns

He was a security guard who was defending the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, who unintentionally ended up being the latest slain in the name of White Supremacy. His death came on the heals of the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller.

The killer was living deep in a world of conspiracy theories so powerful they landed him in prison, which clearly failed to reform his criminal behavior. He wasn't an anomaly, one loose cannon, but one of a whole social movement that took center stage in the media during McCain/Palin final campaign rallies.

From the George W playbook

Israel's foreign ministry is now saying don't trust the IAEA, same as Bush administration did before the start of the Iraq war. Will the Israelis trust their government as much as we trusted ours?

So much awesomeness

Thanks to Tali for the link


And if you want to see a prank about it.