Too many pictures?

I have been divided on this for some time: can one take too many pictures?

I grew up in the days when one had to make quite an investment to purchase and develop film. (Developing pictures took a week, postage, patience...). In those days, I think people took pictures more mindful of the result, more attentive to the content. I have never been a photographer, but I was always frugal in my photography, snapping what I considered meaningful photos. (There was, I must admit, a period in my youth when I shot everything! I developed rolls of film from my little Kodak Instamatic yielding nothing much, just lots of cute girls spotted on my vacation, etc.)

I also respect those who by faith and tradition do not like their photos to be taken. See Aniconism. I think we need to be considerate of people who, for whatever reason, do not want captured on film, whether it is just vanity or because they are wanted by authorities. I am also worried whenever my children are photographed, knowing there are (literally) hundreds of their pictures on the Internet now. I fear stalkers, pedophiles, etc.

All that said, my wife is a shutterbug! She takes photography classes. She has a photo-a-day website. She has thousands of pics on facebook, etc. She probably has many gigabytes of photos on her hard drive. When people attend parties at our place, they are surprised if there are not pictures being taken constantly.

On the bright side, there are no gaps in the chronicle of our lives. Everything even remotely significant seems to be immortalized in (digital) film. Whether it's a new Lego castle some kid built or graduating from college, it's all there. Kyle back from the war-Snap. Disney on ice-Snap. Even my kids are in on the act. Chicken lays a big egg-Snap. Chicken poo looks like Italy-Snap.

Our eldest has had so many pictures taken, so many scrapbook pages made of him...he uses these to recollect days gone by. The others have not been forsaken, but they are surely not so thoroughly documented as the eldest.

This, then, leads me to the question I'm wrestling with. When Jax reviews these pictures, how much of what he rattles off is truly memory, and how much of it is reconsititued by pictures he's looking at? Is it memory or is it "photographic memory," pardon the twist on the phrase. I wonder sometimes if making it easy to "remember" by capturing everything in digital images might somehow make it harder to really forge memories.

It's the same information retrieval question I was working on a month or more back. In this era of electronic memory and information, how much content is going to find some traction, some stick, in our true meatspace memory? If it's so easy to access every cake, candle, and present ever received, why would one go to the labor of really remembering it, when it can just be retrieved on a file and reviewed.

I like fond memories and special pictures. I am not so partial to what I am considering an over-documentation of life.

Hmmmm.

Told'ya So

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

Tomorrow is coming!

I am a student of the future, and I am always in awe of Ray's insight...er...foresight.

WATCH THIS NOW and reflect on it as it comes true:

Introducing...web camming!

I am very excited (and grateful) that I now have a web cam! I do not know that I will post video footage here, but I do intend to use it in my courses. I also hope to use it for video-phone calls (Skype, VOIP...) but I do not yet know how much I'll use it for such things. I know I will employ it in desktop lectures, screen capture how-to's and the like.

I feel like a guy with one of those old telephones, the big boxy kind in which the ear piece was on a cord and the mouthpiece was a horn affair that jutted from the box; had to wind it up to ring and use it on a party line after all that... In the same way, I think all this compatibility crisis we have between software and hardware (and wetware for that matter) will be a thing of the past. Some fine day we'll be able to comfortably, afford-ably, flexibly have live-time video conferencing on hand held units. (You can see it in commercials--or in really old Dick Tracy comics--but it's still the stuff of dreams here in my office and lifestyle and most importantly, my budget.

Meanwhile, I'll cobble together whatever tools I can to communicate as well as I can and hope for the best, overall. As technology catches up to fancy, I'll be there in the stream.

dejavaboom's Fotobabble

WHEW!
First it was bigger seats on airplanes, now this?

I was just shopping for toilets when we snapped this pic a couple years ago...strange way to spend the day--toilet shopping. Not a good first date project, I would not think.

Honestly, in this post, I'm just experimenting with a new link I was led to: fotobabble, which allows you to "journal" on your photos digitally. I don't know if these could be incorporated into an online scrapbook or not. Worth exploring, anyway.


dejavaboom's Fotobabble

Make mine SciFi

Ever thought about how this genre, science fiction, is something of an oxymoron in itself--I mean, science is all factual and well...scientific, while fiction is lies, lies, lies.

This entry is to explain to some folks why I like science fiction.


First of all, I like gadgets. I subscribe to feeds on new gadgets. (even though I cannot afford them) I can't get enough of Rube Goldbergian, overly-complicated, old school gadgets. I think early inventors rock, and I have bookmarked several patent/invention sites I visit frequently. When I was a kid, I would get a buzz out of the Jetson's and all those gadgets in the opening credits that got George around for the day ahead.


Then, I like to make things. While I aspire to great gadgetry, I'm just as happy making a crude box from scraps with my kid and a pneumatic nail gun, like we did just yesterday. I like to concoct crazy fixes and employ things other folk might discard. I like to re-purpose things. I especially enjoy solving problems with technology.


I am a man of conundrums. Puzzling principles and complicated circumstances draw my attention. This might be a convoluted plot in some work of fiction, or it might be some issue of life/society that is unresolved or annoying me. For example, I find the time it takes to get somewhere to be very, very bothersome. (I know, you're supposed to enjoy the journey, but....). I think I like science fiction because it can step up and offer solutions for commutes that get in the way (teleportation) or language barriers that lead to battles (universal translators).

I am an optimist, and much of science fiction (the Roddenberry strain, and soft sci-fi) addresses worlds and cultures that have overcome all the -isms and moved on. Many SF environments are free of pollution, no longer burdened with consumption, want, lust... When I am seeking a better world, I can usually find it in the pages of a SF novel or film.



Admittedly, when it comes to art--film, in particular--I am all about the eye candy. The fanciful worlds of space and science that could be...breathtaking! Fusing fantasy (the entire gamut of what-if) and scientific gadgetry on screen is awesome.

Now THAT'S a Tool!

Check out this old-school typewriter.

I think that any tool one uses as much as I use a keyboard should have similar bling. It should be classy, iron, decorative, etc. Instead, I use a nasty plastic keyboard from HP made in China.

I believe that when one has a tool of the right caliber, it can help them work at a higher level. I have certainly discovered this to be true with tools of farming, wood work, etc. I expect it crosses over into more cerebral work as well.

In one of my favorite movies, Final Cut, the lead character works on a wood and brass laptop. It is beautiful. I should at least be working on a keyboard like this. Classy, brass, steampunk.

Instead, it's the ol' out of the box model. Maybe that accounts for my shoddy workmanship, my procrastination, my poor....

STAR WARS: in concert

How did this never make it to my radar?

Last night on PBS there was a fund raiser with a clip on the making of this upcoming concert to be here in Wichita in May. (It began the arena tour last October, and I'm just now privy!)

According to StarWars.com:

Star Wars: In Concert, the unique multi-media event featuring music from all six of John Williams' epic Star Wars scores, returns to North America on May 13, 2010 in Ft. Myers, Florida (May 13), beginning a fifty-city leg of the worldwide tour that will include dates in the United States and Canada. Over 350,000 Americans attended Star Wars: In Concert during its three-month inaugural 47-city North American tour last year, which Pollstar rated as the 9th biggest tour of 2009 in January.

The tour's return to North America follows a month in Europe -- from March 7 to April 8, 2010 -- with stops in Dublin, Liverpool, Glasgow, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, Milan, Antwerp, Hamburg and the O2 Arena in London, where it began one year ago.

The production features a full symphony orchestra and choir, accompanied by specially edited footage from the films displayed on a three-story-tall, high-definition LED super-screen -- one of the largest ever put on tour. The footage actually runs in sync with the live music to create a full multi-media, one-of-kind Star Wars experience.

Accompanying the concert is an exclusive exhibit of Star Wars costumes, props, artifacts, production artwork and specially created behind-the-scenes videos from the Lucasfilm Archives. Many of these pieces are leaving Skywalker Ranch for the first time ever. The exhibit features many classic fan favorite artifacts, as well as several new and never-before-seen items, including:

• Full costumes for Jedi Masters Kit Fisto and Plo Koon will be on display.
• For the first time ever, pages from John Williams' original hand-written sheet music for Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace will be exhibited for the public.
• Also on display will be various never-before-seen props from the films, including blasters and helmets from Coruscant, Tatooine and other iconic Star Wars locations.

My oldest son and I are going to be there, regardless of ticket prices, etc. We simply MUST GO. I give my wife grief about not getting me to Willie Nelson, but this is bigger, exponentially bigger...legendary. Those who follow my blog know I am a big John Williams fan, and though he will not be there, his music will be center stage. There will not likely ever be another SW movie, so this could be the end of the run. I have to be there! The show features a traveling museum, too, that includes the original Luke Skywalker light saber...I so want that thing!

e-Failures

So, yesterday we had a very slow loading Internet interface that could have botched a presentation we were doing. Fortunately, I had made screen capture handouts and my associate was good at pulling up the site on another browser as we forged ahead.

The day before, something similar happened to me in class, when I was attempting to demonstrate some tool of the web-supported class.

The day before that, my iTunes had to be reloaded.

The day before that, my vehicle would not start.

...and last week, a student handed me his cell phone to read a joke, and I almost toasted the phone in attempts to navigate on it. (Ended up at some very interesting pictures before I handed it back to him with a shrug.)

What I'm listing here, what I'm offering is: technology fails. "Epic fail," as the young'ns say today.

I enjoy technological advances. I depend (too much) on them. However, I also know full-well that they are fickle and inconsiderate. They are not always going to serve me, so I should be prepared (like yesterday) for the occasional flight of whimsy. I have come to be okay with technology's temperament.

Now if I could just get my Ever-sharp (mechanical pencil) to work right!

Avatar, some more

Again, Avatar has recycled themes and a very transparent green agenda, and for all that I say, who cares! It's a marathon of eye candy, employing computer animation in over 70% of the film better than I have seen it used ever before. The landscape and wildlife of Pandora are imaginative and colorful and (other than the dinosaurs) very otherworldly.

I've yet to watch a "making of" video or to read any behind the scenes pieces on the film. I can tell it uses the same animation technologies of Polar Express, etc to capture realistic facial expressions and body movement. This was most obvious with Sigourney Weaver's avatar (but then, that figures, for she was the only seasoned actress in the film, and obviously her acting even came through the CGI well).

The picture following is just an impression of the landscape...

What most wowed me was the world of Pandora, particularly the plant life (as mentioned, most of the animals looked like crude dinosaur knock-offs to me). The way the world changed at night to a blacklight ultraviolet show was as amazing to me as it was to the human character first experiencing it in his avatar. It is so very beautiful! I cannot wait to go see it on a bigger screen in brighter projection (we saw it locally on the cheap last weekend). My desktop image these days is of the floating mountains of Pandora (impossible, of course, but cool). I have a crush on Neytiri (behind the scenes and the avatar, actress Zoe Saldana).

Blow me down!

Wind energy really does seem to have potential, especially here in Kansas (and ESPECIALLY where I'm from, SW Kansas!). Free energy just coursing by...and drawing on it has no bearing on it, so it is truly renewable.

I know the current way we generate energy from the wind is a bit less than well-received. Environmentalists worry about bird migration and bats suffocating and the general dominance of big wind farm turbines on the landscape. None of that is to be discounted.

Personally, I like the wind farms; they look like something from a sci-fi novel. That's probably why my dad liked the look of them too...that, and he was seeing dollar signs. Farmers get something like $2,000 per turbine on their land per year, at least that was the going rate 7 years ago.

Still, cool sci-fi looking turbines aside, I think we're not thinking this through well. I mean by the time you build, transport, assemble...then operate these giant things--c'mon. It's like putting a V8 on a skateboard. The generator housing atop these turbines is bigger than a full-sized passenger van! The blades are over 30 feet long!

I think that we need a better turbine, if we insist on wind-to-electric energy. Like the satellite dish, I think we need to go smaller. A thousand little propellers would be nicer to look at than 100 giant windmills. If you could wear a beanie with a propeller like this, and it could power your onboard electrically heated jacket in the winter, your iPod, smartphone, laptop, etc...that would be great!

The energy of ocean tides is harnessed, again convert it to electricity. Maybe all these Kansas wheat fields waving could likewise somehow be captured. All that back and forth has to generate static electricity. Maybe we can just run some kind of filament grid over a field and suck up some of that power?

Maybe we need to return to the original harnessing of wind energy and skip over electricity altogether. We could use windmills to turn:

• flour mills


• water pumps


• saw mills


• forges


• treadmills


• ceiling fans


• record turntables

...and doubtless, lots of other things.

I visited a bar that had belts and pulleys all over the ceiling operating the ceiling fans from one power source, an elaborate-looking Rube Goldberg affair that had me spellbound (and I wasn't drinking, either). I think it should be a staple in every home to have such a power transference mechanism like this to move the spinning of the windmill to the various speeds needed throughout a home. It would be cool.

Pandora, Begorrah!

Click "TEXT VIEW" in the box above for most engaging results. Click any title and Pandora takes you to information and a sample. "VISUALIZER" is cool, too, though less informative.

"Quick, who's the one person who has been nominated for an Oscar more often than anyone else in any category? That would be composer John Williams, nominated over 40 times for his original film scores and orchestrations. He received his first Oscar nomination in 1969 for the score to Valley of the Dolls, and since then he has become the most recognized film composer in history, not just because of his scores, but also because he has successfully followed in Arthur Fiedler's footsteps as conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra." --from Pandora (which provides a bio of nearly every artist on their site)

Here's a product endorsement: get Pandora! It's free, and it has introduced me to more new music than I can begin to list here. I also like listening to various internet radio stations, iTunes, tuning into LastFM and a variety of podcasts, but Pandora is my favorite. Why? This site features the Music Genome Project that intuitively calls up songs you're likely to like (and wow, is it accurate!) Up until this fall it was a commercial free, bug-free site. Now there's a tiny commercial every 1/2 hr or so, but it's not bothersome. The only fault of Pandora is a fault of my own: bandwith. That's all that's ever stopped Pandora from being a high performance machine!

Now back to John Williams. From Star Wars to Indiana Jones, from Superman to Jaws, Williams is all that! Pandora's music genome project has further led me to parallel artists from Hans Zimmerman, Philip Glass, Danny Elfman and Jerry Goldsmith to lesser-knowns like Jeff Johnson.

I am so impressed with his work that I have a John Williams station at Pandora, and it plays hours of epic soundtrack tunes just like I need when I'm contemplating the origins of the universe or grading papers...like I should be now!

Rediscovered: Google SketchUp

Recently, I rediscovered Google SketchUp, a cool, free tool that allows one to draw in 3d, rotate and resize, skin the image, the works. Sure it's not AutoCad or something elaborate, but hey, it's FREE. While some people could lose track of time watching television, I think I could spend days on SketchUp and never leave the chair.

If ever I generate anything worthy, I'll post it here.

It's free in Google's Labs.

Leave my 'net alone!

Last week, I found an alarming article at the Technology Liberation Front, here, that forewarned the Internet is being threatened by Obama's CyberSecurity Bill: "According to a report by CNET’s Declan McCullagh, a draft bill in the U.S. Senate would grant President Obama “cybersecurity emergency powers” to disconnect and even seize control of private sector computers on the Internet."

BFD? OMG?! What will it be?

Are we going to continue being electronic sheep, letting ourselves be narrowed to nothingness online? What's the hope for free speech if even the Internet is in peril. Obviously hardcopy newspapers are blowing away. Obviously televised news is all under the heel of media giants. What will happen if someone fires up a swarm against something the big "O" considers sacred? Will he then wave his majestic hand and cut off the 'net? What will govern the government's grasp on this? Maybe our current president is of sound mind and only going to use said powers judiciously, but what about the next president, or the one after that?

The more power we align under the executive branch, the more we tilt toward fascism.

Steampunk

This is my current desktop background, one I love so much I may never change it. It's from one of my treasured new websites, Steampunk wallpaper. I've long been fond of the general motif of all things steampunky, but I had not put the term to my tastes. That is, I've always been a motorhead, fascinated with sprockets and gears, Jules Verne and HG Welles. I used to make these "installations" of gears and cranks. One filled a 4x8 sheet of plywood, featuring meat grinders, cherry pitters, egg beaters, and a whole host of gears in all stages of rust and patina. (I should never have let that thing go!) I've always been a fan of Rube Goldberg and all his overly complicated design ideas.

I was first turned this direction, to this terminology, from my experiences in SecondLife. See this blog, the Heliograph! If my avatar could, I'm sure he'd live there (New Babbage) forever.

I just didn't know I was a steam punk until I finally learned what the term means. One could always go to Wikipedia for a bastardized cut/paste perspective. I suggest, instead, clicking to Brass Goggles (directly to their FAQ page) a great (and long-running) blog on the subject. Or, for a history of steampunk related more to literature, consult Steampunkopedia.

As with most things, I come to this late. The surge and popularity are long past. That suits me fine, anyway, for I am enthused regardless. The art and imagery attracts me more than anything else.

Go here for a very thoughtful and in-depth discussion of steam punk ethic, literary genre and style. Go here for a manifesto that says it all!

Social Media Revolution

THIS video is an eye-opener. I showed it to some classes. I thought I was informed, but I am now so-much-more enlightened. Watch this video. Learn of the future. Are YOU connected? (I am woefully disengaged, at the moment.)

Wordle

I used this in my syllabus!

Blogging...what fer?

I am asked this all the time. I suppose this blog is not too exciting, not the drama that many people share. It's not heavy on political commentary or anything specific and there's not a lot of dialogue. So, why bother?

I ask my students to keep journals, so it's only fair they have access to my head/heart, too. Sometimes I like to post content that might be worth looking back at, and since I'm known to lose stuff, this is a good place for it. Besides, sometimes what I share helps my students, family and friends understand me better.

I keep more personal blogs and rants and such in other environs.

Blogging, outside of myself...well, some folks have an agenda to push, and a blog is just the place to pump out their propaganda. Others see it as a tool of enterprise, even companies and products have blogs. (Blogger has a blog.) I suppose the intent is to keep users, subscribers, fans, etc up-to-date and engaged. It's less bothersome than email.

I like to read subject oriented blogs, where people post pithy content on their areas of expertise. I personally think that this is one of the best things about the so-called web 2.0, where users can make the content, for so many everyday Joe's know so very much. That content knowledge can be very, very specific, too, like the guy who writes only about his Farmall tractors...or the young lady who documents her attempts at raising a giant pumpkin. I get a lot of good advice from parenting blogs, and I also get a sense of assurance that maybe I'm not so bad at being a dad. My favorite subject area at the moment tends toward futurists--crazy stuff is afoot!

Some blogs are just bleeding emo, especially over at xanga and myspace (if one considers those blogs). I get my fill of narcissistic, repetitive, goth drama high school blather very quickly.

I'm getting more and more into vlogs and podcasts, for they are convenient for me at work, where I can multi-task (listen as I tidy my office or check my other accounts, etc.) I like travel-blogs, too, for some folks are out there living the life I am too timid to, myself.

Above all, I enjoy reading blogs of people I thought I knew, that is, people with whom I have personal contact sometimes. Why? Because I get inside their heads; I get to know them on another level that seldom comes out in conversation, work, etc.

It's hard for me to remember life before blogs, and I've only been engaged in them two or three years!

Clone my dog?

Headline on radio show today related a yellow lab was cloned in Korea for $150,000.

This is not the first instance of a pet being immortalized by being cloned. Apparently, this cloning generates a puppy that looks exactly like the original, even though it will grow up with a personality of its own. It truly IS the original, right down to the genetic makeup, but honestly folks, is there any being that's worth dubbing for $150,000? At my most arrogant, I would not want to be immortalized at any price.

I've been fond of some pets, sure, but I'd rather just go to the pound and save one from certain death. I'd rather just return to the kennel/breeder that brought me Roger , our beagle, than go to all the money, time and effort of having him cloned.

What's it say about our world when we're willing to sink that much cash into cloning a dog rather than feeding starving people or investing that money in education?

Jeepers!

Fax me an iPod, will ya?

Rapid Prototyping has intrigued me for some time. I think I first saw a fictional version of it in action in the movie "Small Soldiers." In the film, Chip Hazard and other characters are formed with a laser-looking thing that squirts their image into 3-D.


I saw similar technology employed in Mission Impossible, when Tom Cruise has a mask made so he can infiltrate the bad guys' camp. Basically, it's a technology that builds up layer after layer of goop into a shape designed by a computer aided drafting/drawing (CAD) system. It's called "additive fabrication," for it builds by building on itself, one tiny layer at a time. Primitive versions of this actually use old ink jet printer technology, so renaming Rapid Prototyping "3-D printing" seems to be a good idea to me.

I've seen footage of an iPod case being manufactured via rapid prototyping. It reminded me of a monster-making kit I had when I was a kid, a "fright factory!"



I've read that in short order parts can be ordered via computer over long distances and then just "printed" at your location. This will require one to have the hardware, of course, but imagine if this were to catch on!? It could reduce transportation costs, eliminate the middle men, and generally speaking be pretty darn cool! From what I understand, as this technology evolves and is coupled with nanotechnology, even computer components will be "manufactured" by pouring substances as per advanced CAD directives. One may actually, someday, be able to order something like an iPod to be built on site, on demand!