Aye, and here it be Talk Like a Pirate Day, me hearties!
Iff’n ye be of th’ landlubber sort, feast yer eyes on this filter, or if ye be a scurvy dog of another sort, here be a Gangsta to Pirate translator.
Graham, not Isabel
There’s a picture making the e-mail rounds right now that purports to be a shot of Hurricane Isabel over the ocean before it hit land. Apparently it’s been mislabeled — it’s actually Tropical Storm Graham — but it’s still one hell of a gorgeous picture.
(via Gothamist)
Canon EOS Digital Rebel
Now that my new computer is on the way (two weeks to go, at most…), I’ve started fixating on a new item for my techno-lust: the Canon EOS Digital Rebel.
I’ve had an interest in photography for many years now. I remember playing with my dad’s old SLR camera when I was younger — unfortunately, it didn’t work anymore, but I had fun fiddling around with it. I took one quarter of photography in high school. Not so much that I really remember much of anything, but enough to cement it as a definite interest. However, it’s been a fairly low-level interest for many years.
Just before I left Anchorage I picked up a nice little Kodak digital camera (the DX3500) which has served me well over the past few years. I’ve even managed to come up with a few shots that I really like from time to time (my favorite so far being one of Post Alley here in Seattle). The more I play with it, though, the more I wish I had a more full-featured camera, and the Canon EOS looks to be a really good value.
It’s essentially a full-featured SLR digital camera. 6.1 Megapixel resolution (roughly three times the resolution of my current camera), through-the-lens viewfinder, the ability to accept all of Canon’s EF series lenses and Speedlite flashes, and all sorts of other goodies. It even got rated ‘Highly Recommended’ by DPReview.
The downside, of course, is that I won’t be able to afford it anytime soon. While the \$999 price is extremely good for everything you get with the camera, it’s definitely out of my price range anytime in the near future (especially if I ever want to get myself out of debt). Ah, well — such is the way of life, right? At the very least, it’s a goal for the future.
Of course, if anyone out there is feeling generous at all, you’re welcome to help me out here! ;)
PayPal donations are accepted, if you go shopping at Amazon through this link I’ll get a miniscule percentage of whatever you spend, and, of course, Christmas is only a few short months away. Okay, sure, I’m shameless. But as I’m not expecting anyone to actually chip in, I can’t exactly be disappointed, now can I?
Driving sounds better all the time
In the midst of MeFi’s JetBlue discussion comes some more fun privacy information. This time, it’s about .
: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,59652,00.html “Videocams Record Airline Flights”
Southeast Airlines said it plans to install digital video cameras throughout the cabins of its planes to record the faces and activities of its passengers at all times, as a precaution against terrorism and other safety threats. In addition, the charter airline, based in Largo, Florida, will store the digitized video for up to 10 years. And it may use face recognition software to match faces to names and personal records, the airline said.
(via thomcatspike)
'tis a silly place…
Monty Python’s “Quest for the Holy Grail” is going to be a Broadway musical.
Ni!
Ogni homo me guarda come fosse una testa de cazi
(I don’t normally re-post entire articles, but this one was too good to pass up, and it only seemed to be on Yahoo! News, which deletes its pages after a week or two. Enjoy.)
Bawdy Phallic Plate Heads for Oxford
LONDON (Reuters) – A leading British museum has paid \$387,000 for a Renaissance plate which shows a male head made up entirely of phalluses.
The Italian plate is thought to have been made by ceramicist Francesco Urbini in the 16th century.
It shows a head made up of around 50 fleshy penises, wrapped round each other to form a dense, knotted whole.
The head is framed by a garland carrying the inscription: “Ogni homo me guarda come fosse una testa de cazi” (Every man looks at me as if I were a dickhead).
The phrase is still a common term of abuse in Italy and elsewhere.
Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, which has bought the plate, describes it as “one of the most extraordinary and fascinating pieces of Italian maiolica (a style of ceramic painting) in existence.”
It is a rare example of bawdy Renaissance art which survived the suppression of later, more prudish, generations, it said.
The Ashmolean said the inspiration for the plate remains obscure but it was painted “presumably with an individual in mind.”
(via Dad)
More info on JetBlue
Wired has released more info on JetBlue’s release of 5 million passenger records:
JetBlue Airways confirmed on Thursday that in September 2002, it provided 5 million passenger itineraries to a defense contractor for proof-of-concept testing of a Pentagon project unrelated to airline security — with help from the Transportation Security Administration.
The contractor, Torch Concepts, then augmented that data with Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal information, including income level, to develop what looks to be a study of whether passenger-profiling systems such as CAPPS II are feasible.
It just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?
Moonshine Run
The winter before I left Anchorage, my brother was playing bass for a bluegrass band called “Moonshine Run”. One evening they were performing at a coffeehouse in town, so I headed down to see them. I brought along a MiniDisc recorder, and they were kind enough to let me plug into the soundboard and record them. The next morning they were playing and being interviewed on a local radio station, and I added that to the end of the disc.
A couple months ago, Rick ran his MiniDisc player into the ground. Since I wasn’t using mine, I handed it to him along with a stack of MiniDiscs with one condition — that he get me a copy of that recording.
This weekend Rick stopped by for a bit, bringing with him a CD of .mp3s that he’d made from the MiniDisc. I just got them copied over to my Mac, and now I’m sitting here listening to Kevin and his friends play some good old down-home bluegrass. It’s great — every so often between songs I can hear Kevin laughing in the background.
Comment spam for Dean?
Well, this is a shame. It appears that ‘Laura in DC’ has recently started a new pro-Dean weblog (at http://deangrassroots.blogspot.com/ ), and is so excited about it that she feels that spamming weblog comments is the best way to get the word out.
Earlier today, I saw her comment to this BackupBrain post and gave her the benefit of the doubt — maybe she was just being a little pushy. Then, not long ago, I found an identical comment on this Esoterically.net post.
‘Laura in DC’, if you happen to find this — we’re glad you support Dean. We’re glad that you’re excited about him, your weblog, and whatever else in life you might be excited about. But spamming comment threads is just going to piss people off and cause problems for you in the long run. If you’ve got a good site, people will find it. Trust in links and Google, but please — ditch the spam.
Update:
Laura stopped by John P. Hoke’s Asylum too. Damn, now I’m starting to feel left out. ;)
Update:
I just checked back to Laura’s site, and realized that she issued an apology on the 19th — just a case of a “newbie” getting a little over-excited. In the long run, not that big of a deal.
Beware: You might be next!
Nice editorial cartoon from the New York Times looking at the recent lawsuits by the RIAA against people sharing music files over the internet via file-trading networks.
I particularly liked the disclaimer at the bottom of the cartoon:
WARNING: Do not forward this column through e-mail, make photocopies to send to a child in college, tape it to your dorm-room door or put it on a bulletin board in your office — or you may be receiving an unexpected knock on your door.
(via Anil)