I haven't really posted much lately, I think because I've had too many things to say, rather than not enough. I don't like to post unless I can do a topic justice. Oh well. So instead, here are my current musings across a wide range of topics, sure to do no justice to anything. You're just jealous.
Browsers
I tried Firefox for a week or two. Really, I tried. I really like Greasemonkey, at least in concept. I really like Adblock. I really like good "web 2.0" behavior. I just don't really like using Firefox. It's cumbersome and slow, compared to Safari. It feels rough and unfinished. The download dialog is atrocious. It's still using Carbon UI elements, which look... well, atrocious. The "what do I do with this thing I downloaded for you?" dialog is the worst. It's just clunky and poorly integrated. Sigh. None of the other Firefox-based browsers are worth mentioning, they are either buggy or featureless. Safari it is (and Safari does color profiles... it drives me nuts that Firefox doesn't).
Coffee
We saw Black Gold, the movie. Go see this movie right now if you possibly can. If you drink coffee. It's really good and really important. Basically, coffee farmers get screwed massively. We can help this by buying at least fair trade coffees (Fair Trade Certified), but even better, buy from roasters who give a crap and buy direct from farmers, building relationships and so on. Intelligentsia is a good one, but there are a bunch. Counter Culture Coffee is another. You get much better beans that way, too.
Photography
I'm really burned out on "nature photography" these days. I'm tired of the cacophony of glowing comments about someone's latest flower pics on Flickr. Let me be blunt: almost anyone can walk up to a flower and not screw up the photo, ok? Cameras these days are pretty smart and flower pics from a point and shoot kicked up a little in iPhoto or Photoshop look amazing. So get over it! What challenge was there in taking a snapshot of a beautiful flower? Showing up at the right time of day (maybe)? That constitutes art?
Not for me. I'm so bored with snapshots, even good ones made with expensive equipment. Even my photo of North Window is boring me... I worked hard to get to the spot where I could take that shot, but beyond that, all I had to do was not screw it up. How hard is that?
I really like creating a photograph. Creating the light, scultping it, etc. For example, my recent portrait stuff... (see my photo blog) none of that light was there until I put it there. That to me is creativity.
That's not to say that all nature photographs are uncreative, far from it. But what most people pass off as "nature photography" is more like "I don't know how to take pictures of anything else photography", myself included. But that's changing, for me.
Odyssey
We got a new Honda Odyssey and the Honda Musiclink kit for iPod integration... woohoo! I vowed never to buy another car without iPod integration, so I kept my word (whew). This one isn't ideal, but it's leaps better than before. The iPod plugs into a dock cable (say, in your glove box) and you get steering wheel control over the current playlist. No playlist switching or song text displayed, though. It sounds fantastic, too. What irks me is they could have done the text thing and just didn't. And they could've used disc switching buttons for playlist navigation, or something. Maybe the tune knob. Anyway... it's good. Goodbye hated FM adapter.
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