Zoom zoom – Photo of the Day #20

December 30th, 2009 • 1 comment chatter
Tags: cars, photo of the day, photography

Cars zooming by on the road next to our apartment complex. I like the warm amber colors in this photo, which is almost identical to what the actual light from the streetlights looked like.

The TSA, a dog and pony show

December 29th, 2009 • chatter
Tags: security, tsa

As we Americans know, some crazy Nigerian tried to blow up an airplane with explosives planted in his underwear this past weekend. What many of us also know, from experience, was that the TSA — Transportation Security Administration — put in some bizarre new “regulations” in quick reaction to this latest “threat”. These include the following:

No potty breaks in the remaining hour of a flight

Nothing in your lap (including your own child) during the last hour of the flight

Absolutely nothing in your last during the remaining hour of the flight, including MP3 players, laptops, DVD players, and in some instances, books.

“More stringent” physical searches of one’s person and baggage

No in-flight wifi

And the list goes on, literally for pages. And why all the new regulations? Knee-jerk reaction to extremely poorly designed and executed rules in place already. None of these new regulations are going to stop anything and the airlines completely proved that this weekend. By Sunday, airlines such as AirTran, jetBlue, and others had already dropped the regulations because they were greatly displeasing to their customer base. If they have enough sense to opt out of out-of-this-world regulations, I think they could do something about their service as well. But that’s another story altogether.

Now, eight years after its creation, the TSA has fully shown itself to be completely incompetent and useless, all around. It started out as a great idea and, like many things thought of by the government, it was executed very poorly. In 2001 and early 2002, world renown security experts like Bruce Schneier and Jeffrey Goldberg were asked to review the drafted regulations and provide their input. Well, they did and they said one thing: the regulations won’t make a difference. That was eight years ago. And today, on CNN, Bruce Schneier goes on record to, again, say that the TSA really doesn’t do anything preventative or useful. And he’s absolutely right. Limiting our liquid volume and removing shoes obviously didn’t stop some crazy Nigerian — who the British embassy were actually notified of, including flight plans and “recent radicalization” — from stuffing explosives into his underwear and trying to cause a big ruckus in the plane’s cabin. All the regulations do, as Schneier blatantly points out, is that it tells terrorists what not to do and does so publicly. Our government through ignorance has given the keys and blueprints of the castle to the raiders. Good job.

And now that the searches are “more random” than before, passengers can now easily second guess taking a flight anywhere, including overseas. I say “random” because they’re anything but random. Since 2006, I’ve taken perhaps nearly a dozen flights. However, during four of those flights, I was “randomly” selected to be searched. Why? The one thing the TSA devoutly states they cannot and will not do (because it’s illegal): racial profiling. Since they still thought, at the time, that all terrorists had big bushy beards and possibly long hair, I got physically searched at every airport every single time. I even came to expect it. All thanks to my collar bone-length beard and pony-tailed hair. Since last October, I’ve shaved and have taken four flights. How many of those was I searched on? Not one. Before that? Nearly every single one. I even saw an 80 year old grandfather in a wheelchair get searched for explosives. We all know that he must have been wearing aging make-up and was hiding C4 in his cushion. And I saw a woman of no younger than 75 get searched as well. Crazy old Jewish ladies must be hiding guns in their hair wraps. This latest threat this weekend proved without a doubt that these “random” searches don’t do any good.

Why all of the diatribe? Because the nation may finally be realizing what the rest of us in the security sector have known all along: TSA is the high-fiving and back-patting facade for politicians and it needs to stop. Schneier calls it “theater” and I have to agree. Everyone goes through the motions, does the dance, and expects the same result each time. Security through complacency has never worked, fallen empires through the centuries have taught everyone that. Everyone but the US government.

I hope that Bruce’s recent media explosion helps TV goers understand how futile of an effort the TSA and its regulations are. Perhaps more people will start complaining to the politicians and get it reformed, or better yet abolished entirely. It’s a pipe dream, I know, but it’s one I’ve held to for eight years.

The following link at Slashdot is actually of good and informational comments by intelligent readers, some of which can provide some eye opening ideas to the futility of this “security theater”: Slashdot.

It’s almost time to open presents!

December 24th, 2009 • chatter, photography
Tags: christmas, photography

This is our little plastic Christmas tree, ensconced by our multitude of presents. I like to write little things on each one so my girlfriend gets a chuckle before opening a present. I think I started that about 2 years ago, which was also the same year I double and triple wrapped her presents and put them in deceptively shaped boxes, just for fun.

While I don’t believe a bit of the mumbo jumbo behind Christmas, I do believe in getting together with your loved ones and making a damned fine time out of this tradition. So, please have a safe and happy one, and have a drink for me!

PS – Disregard my scattered anime DVD collection behind the tree, we’re still re-arranging our new Ikea shelves.

Some of the things I learned this year

December 21st, 2009 • chatter
Tags: chatter

It’s been a great year, much better than last year! Outside of school, I think I learned some interesting things:

- No matter how much you try to watch what you eat, college football season will wreck your diet. Every time.
- A job is more than likely something you’re always going to hate.
- A good pair of cowboy boots can be the last pair of shoes you need to own.
- American Apparel makes the most comfortable tee shirts known to man. Too bad the rest of their clothes are aimed at hipsters and their ads are the epitome of “sex sells”.
- Photography is a lot of fun. I can see why “hobbyists” will spend as much money as they do on something they’ll never make a profit on.
- Writing is also fun as a hobby. Blogging to try and make money is worth its weight in headaches and lead, and sucks the life out of you.
- Comparatively, music gets worse as you get older. However, upon looking back, most stuff you listened to as a kid/teen is just as bad as today’s music. Sometimes, it doesn’t even sound different.
- Progressive rock is an immeasurably deep genre.
- Never randomly play ELP’s Karn Evil 9 (Parts 1 & 2) in a bar when you’re getting ready to leave. It’s probably best not to play at all since it’s only 20 minutes long.
- On average, I drink over one gallon of liquid every single day. That’s typically split up between coffee, tea, and water — mostly the latter.
- I think I have started smoking too much.
- Beer tastes really good. Except at the end of the night when you lie down and it gives you heartburn.
-Netbooks, as popular as they are, are huge wastes of money. If you want a netbook, buy any laptop with an Intel Celeron or other ULV processor. It’ll be just as slow and useless as a netbook.
- E-book readers, also very popular and chic right now, need a lot more work before they’re ever an acceptable replacement for books. All the UIs stink, the e-ink screens refresh too slowly, the physical device designs are all boring, publishers are deliberately dragging their feet on a market that could easily make them gobbles of money.
-Journalism is, essentially, dead. This goes for “old” media and “new” media alike. Of course, people have been saying this for at least two decades but it’s proven itself this year. A great example of this was the Fort Hood incident in which most media outlets depended on Twitter for news. Their first problem: depending on Twitter. Their second problem: depending on Twitter.

I could go on but I’ll choose not to, I really need to get back to work. Let’s hope 2010 is as fun

Billboard has willingly made itself entirely irrelevant

December 17th, 2009 • chatter
Tags: economics, music

I’m going to choose to use the National Post’s exact headline runner for this, because of the sheer absurdity:

Nickelback: ‘Band of the decade’, according to Billboard

Yes, they deemed Nickelback as the band of the decade based on one analysis point alone: sales. And they somewhere throw in and derive “importance”. Who are they important to besides their record company? I have exactly one friend that actually likes Nickelback, basically on the same premise why everyone else dislikes them: they suck. I don’t know about you but I’ve found their last 5 or 6 singles to sound exactly the same — musically, they are — and that’s what is making them money. I’m glad they found a formula to keep the cash rolling in and they have no need to innovate or progress in their music. Frankly, take their first album and compare it to their latest album, you’ll hear that it’s basically the same album, rearranged differently and with different lyrics. Instead of writing songs that might be insightful to someone at some point, they’ve simply delved into writing radio songs about sex. Only sex.

I love this quote from the NP article:

“We’ve just accepted that we’re never going to be the critics’ darlings, and we’re OK with that,” frontman Chad Kroeger told Billboard in 2007.

He’s OK with it because his label is shipping them off for tours around the world and bankrolling them. The subtext of this is pretty simple: they’re completely content with being lowballed by critics and other reviewers (who help to get their music sold) because they’re making money. Truck loads of it. Kroeger knows economics well.

I find the comments equally funny because it shows just how many people, myself duly included, despise such a terrible band. However, I find it even more sad that Billboard would actually come out and say this even though I understand completely what their own metrics models are based on: sales. Although, Billboard is also used to trend popularity and where the market is going, musically. They have a hue bevy of data at their disposal about this stuff and they chose to home in on a single vector. Why? I have no idea, but I’m sure it was done in good intentions although, they did not think about what they were doing to their own reputation in the process.

Meteors come and sometimes they glow

December 14th, 2009 • chatter, photography
Tags: photography

Last night was the Geminid Meteor Shower and I was lucky enough to see a few — two to be exact. However, my girlfriend, in the span of 10 minutes, saw nearly a dozen. I have no idea how I missed so many since I was standing in the middle of a field looking up, mostly. I admit that I was fairly busy snapping shots of the hanging fog and attempting something artsy. I did get some neat pictures but all of my sky-ward shots turned out terrible, I think it was due to the overall amount of ambient light around coupled with the hazy night. Everything is either too blue or too amber/red, despite having tweaked all of the white balance settings to get as much black as possible. I’ll see if my pictures from the shower tonight are a similar color, although I’m going to a different location entirely where there should be a lot less ambient light around.

Here’s one of the hanging fog pictures from last night since all my actual sky pictures turned out looking like absolute garbage

Holiday break, time for action

December 9th, 2009 • chatter, photography
Tags: d90, nikon, nikon d90, photography

Now that classes for me have officially ended as of yesterday, I can begin whittling away my free time in the next few weeks. I’ve got plans to redo my office and clean it top-to-bottom and get rid of some of the crap that’s accumulated in the last year. I can’t wait to get to this undertaking as it’s severely affecting my allergies along with my ability to work in my own space. Both of which are entirely my own fault. Maybe I should also hang some pictures that I’ve taken.

Along with pictures, I got a few new lenses recently that are from the mid 1960s and are pre-AI so they’re not working just right on my D90. I’ve got to get them sent off to be fixed up and I can tool around with them. One of the lenses, a Nikkor-s 35mm f/2.8, is fun to shoot with and I think it will prove interesting to use in a photo shoot — we’re trying to plan one or two for the remainder of the month. There’s a portraiture shoot/call this weekend but I’m not sure if we’re going to go; we also lack most of the equipment really needed to shoot portraits. Speedlights alone will not be enough lighting I think.

I really think it’s time for an employment change. I’m growing more fond of staying outside rather than sitting inside, working all day at a computer. I could be doing so many other things rather than slaving around, fixing email and hacked accounts. Plus, it’s not like I’m actually going anywhere at my current company and I’m certainly not moving to their shit hole office to get a raise or job advancement I may already be due since they simply dislike remote employees. Of course, the things I could be doing as a job don’t sound very financially feasible to my girlfriend, which stinks because they’re a lot more fun.

I’ve got to go find something temporarily fun to do, I can’t stare at this screen any more.

We’re back!

December 2nd, 2009 • chatter

Even though we got back last Monday, my schedule has been so bizarrely screwed up due to timezone changes, I’m just now getting back into my “regular” schedule of things. Just a few more days until my AMH-4930-001 paper on Jewish women is due and tomorrow is my LIT4930-001 final. I’m glad the semester is almost over!

Ireland was absolutely amazing and 4 days there was simply not enough time to do everything we wanted to do. Especially considering parts of the country were underwater, and those just happened to be placed we had planned to visit originally! Dublin was fantastic. Wicklow and Bray were also fantastic, but Waterford (birthplace of the fancy crystal) was pretty drab and boring. I would never suggest someone go there unless it’s to see the giant suspension bridge or the crazy shaped Guinness brewery there. Otherwise, skip it and go somewhere else, like Galway.

The rest of my photos are here: Flickr: Ireland collection.

Ireland bound!

November 18th, 2009 • chatter

I won’t be posting anything this week besides some pictures because the girlfriend and myself are off to Dublin for a week. Time to drink some delicious Guinness!

See you guys on Tuesday!

Wow, November’s already here!

November 6th, 2009 • 1 comment chatter

This year seems to be flying by to me. This semester has just flown by and it’s not even over. November is going to whiz right by me too. In just a few short weeks, we’re headed off to Ireland for a week long jaunt. When I lived in the UK, I never made it over to my ancestral home (aside from Scotland, where I was living). We’re to be staying outside of Dublin and spending most of our time there. We’ll also be devoting time to Galway and Belfast. The latter of which came highly recommended by my friend Mike — the owner of Holloway’s Pub — after his last visit in the 90s.

However, before we go, I have a presentation to do for Dr. Lawrence. My research paper is over the changing roles of Reform, Conservative, and Traditional/Orthodox Jewish women post-WWII and after the feminist explosion. Research is slow going since I’m not Jewish, a woman, nor a feminist; I’m also being slowed by my lack of Hewbrew and Yiddish. I guess I will need to get with Dr. Greenspahn on some particulars of pronunciation so I don’t totally botch my presentation when I talk about halakhah and mitzvot.

I haven’t taken many pictures in the last few days, school has simply kept me too busy to worry and I’m currently at a loss for subject material. We’re considering a joint photo shoot in December but I don’t think it will pan out due to time constraints. At least it won’t interfere with football!

Anywho, work is calling so I need to get back.