Yesterday was the first ever Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. My favorite Everybody Draw Mohammed cartoon is shown below. Da Glory-ass Koran For the troglodytes among us Everybody Draw Mohammed Day was a sarcastic reaction to years of bullying, death threats and fatwas issued against cartoonists for the horrible crime of drawing caricatures of Mohammed. The … Continue reading Everybody Abandon Facebook Day
The Reports of Library Death are Exaggerated
Not so long ago the pundits were predicting the Internet would kill public libraries. Boy were they wrong! Libraries have become the biggest and most successful Internet cafes around. I’ve been to Internet enabled public libraries all over the country and they are extremely busy. The downtown Los Angeles library has an entire room devoted … Continue reading The Reports of Library Death are Exaggerated
Why I Still Use my Ten Year Old Garmin GPS
Last year I joined the swelling ranks of Smartphone users. My device belongs to the BlackBerry or BB clan. There are many things I like about the BB but my favorite feature is simply that my employer picks up the tab. Every month I get a corporate guilt report listing my BB charges and every month … Continue reading Why I Still Use my Ten Year Old Garmin GPS
WordPress to LaTeX Hack
This post is obsolete. Look here for details on converting WordPress to LaTeX. I have stumbled on another coding nuisance. Last weekend I spent a few moments exploring ways to export and print this blog in a nice typeset fashion. I first tried Blurb's book making software. It has a nice feature that automatically downloads blog … Continue reading WordPress to LaTeX Hack
Only Now at the End do you Understand
It’s easy to see why other generations detest boomers. Without a doubt this cohort, my cohort, is the most spoiled, self-indulgent, pompous and delusional generation in western history. We were born in boom times and grew up thinking they would last forever. Well, I am happy to report that nothing lasts forever. The boomers, now … Continue reading Only Now at the End do you Understand
Honing my Powers of Indifference
For years I thought it was rude to ignore people now I glory in it. In our overly social networked age it is vital to hone your powers of indifference. We cannot care about everyone or everything and we shouldn’t even try. Here are some people and issues I am ignoring. Gay Marriage: Gay marriage is not … Continue reading Honing my Powers of Indifference
Assigning SmugMug Print Size Keys
I believe that a picture’s aspect ratio, its width divided by its height, should be tuned to its contents. Consequently, I am not a slave to standard aspect ratios and print sizes like the ones shown in the following table. Aspect Ratio Print Sizes (Short/Long) (Inches) --------------- ------------------------ 0.5 4x8, 5x10, 8x16, 10x20 0.7 3.5x5, … Continue reading Assigning SmugMug Print Size Keys
Setting Good SmugMug Key Words
Finding good key words is not easy. In many ways it is like creating a good book index. Decent book indexes are carefully constructed by human readers that understand what is being indexed and why certain terms should be included. Superior indexes showcase the gems and bury the garbage. There is a lot of mediocre … Continue reading Setting Good SmugMug Key Words
More on SmugMug Duplicates
In my previous post I described a method for eliminating duplicate SmugMug images based on MD5’s. This method does not get all the duplicates. If you uploaded the same image to different galleries, at different times, the SmugMug MD5’s may differ. I don’t know what SmugMug rolls into their MD5 ‘s but I suspect it’s more … Continue reading More on SmugMug Duplicates
SmugMug Duplicate Image Hunting
One of the many things the developers of Thumbsplus got right was a proper normalized database schema. When I first inspected the layout of a Thumbsplus database I knew I was in good hands. In Thumbsplus image files get unique keys and image galleries are simply lists of image keys. Images can appear in any number … Continue reading SmugMug Duplicate Image Hunting
