Debbie Harry (updated) - French Kissin' In The USA

Not my favorite-ever of Debbie's but I just now noticed her voice in a fresh light... it's really amazing, isn't it? Sort of larger than life, a unique quality to it.





And Debbie's (Deborah who?) biggest solo hit, I Want That Man:




"I want to move like what's his name / I'll keep the money, you can have the fame."

Barbie turns fifty

This has probably been around for a while, since Barbie turned fifty in 2009.
Hey, did you know her full name is "Barbara Millicent Roberts"? Holy cow.

I'm always fascinated by megahits like Barbie or Harry Potter. What exactly makes the difference which takes something from Successful to World Domination? Sure, good marketing and such things matter, but there must be something in the Common Public Mind... an archetype they just exactly fit, or something.

Amazon Publishing and bits versus atoms

Amazon Publishing: How it controls whole book supply chain, article.

Amazon... an innovative publishing partner who gives authors much more control even when Amazon is an actual publisher for them? Or a predatory near-monopoly which gobbles up whole industries on its merciless path?
Or both? ["Dad! Lisa is making me see both sides of an issue again!"]

It's clear though that a key issue is that words and sound and images are inevitably moving to digital delivery. If nothing else, the as the physical delivery gets more marginalized, it will become more expensive, which will marginalize it further. And Net bandwidth just gets bigger and cheaper. The book Being Digital told us about "bits versus atoms" over fifteen years ago! And despite this, many traditional companies had clearly not really realized this, seeming to cling to a sinking ship in desperate hope that it won't sink much more. Borders was not a small chain, but now it is gone.

In the meantime Amazon, which started by just shipping paper books, made a risky and difficult move by starting on the whole Kindle venture. Making such a device and publishing system is far from trivial. But it's becoming clear that they did many, many things right, and they are well on the way to just owning ebook publishing. Even Apple, which otherwise is the kingpin of the tech world right now, has not made much inroads in competing with Amazon, at least not in books, the iBooks store is not much to write home about. And with the new Kindle Fire, Amazon is seriously coming after the other arms of media publishing also.

Some say that the new Kindle Fire 7-inch tablet is a feeler, and that if successful, Amazon might bring out a bigger tablet next year. And it's hard to see why they should not do so, honestly. If anybody has a shot at the "iPad killer", jogging past the dead corporate bodies littered over that battlefield, it's Amazon, simply because they already have the infrastructure in place, not to mention the customers. Something which you could not say about HP or RIM.

But apropos traditional publishing: it's interesting how apparently getting rid of the high expenses of printing and distribution would make it harder to make money for some companies!
But then everybody else got rid of those expenses (barriers) too, levelling the field enormously, almost completely. And I guess when the field gets levelled, those who stand to lose are those who previously had the hill tops.

Update:
Bruce said...
I have to tip my cap to Amazon, because they have shown that they can change direction and adapt to what is going on around them. I tend to overlook Amazon's achievements because I'm a big fan of Apple, who are the best at adapting and changing. But Amazon is a strong second place, with most other companies tied for 50th place! :-)
There is also a lot of encouragement to buy more that what I'm looking for. Buying one thing from them leaves me feeling like I have disappointed them because I didn't buy three things.

 eolake said...
Yes, they are *total* geniuses at business. I have bought for tens of thousands of bucks from them over the years, and they've given me no reason to stop.

Just one example is that unlike most companies, especially big ones, they bend over backwards to give extra-extra good service. If somebody breaks the screen of his Kindle, as like as not they'll just send him a new one straight away.

I guess if one thing is regrettable, it's that their low prices and their cut makes it very hard for their partners to make money, from what I hear, yet most feel it's worse to not be on Amazon than to be. At least I've heard this about (paper) books, not sure to what degree it's true of all the other businesses they're in.

Indian summer

We seem to have an Indian Summer here in Northern Europe. I mean real summer weather despite it being late September, yesterday, today, and seemingly for a couple days yet, then they predict a pretty drastic temperature drop.

The weather service said the temperature here in Northern England reached 26 Celcius! Hokey mama. That's ridic.

New Kindle models

Four new Kindle models today.

Dylan Moran - On The French

One of his best bits. Seems improvised, freewheeling. Inspired for  sure.

Moose hunters

Two hunters got a pilot to fly them into the Alaska wilderness, where they managed to bag two big bull moose.

As they were loading the plane to return, the pilot said the plane could take only the hunters, their gear and one moose.

The hunters objected strongly saying, "Last year we shot two, and the pilot let us take them both...and he had exactly the same airplane as yours."

Reluctantly the pilot, not wanting to be outdone by another bush pilot, gave in and everything was loaded.

However, even under full power, the little plane couldn't handle the load and went down, crashing in the wooded wilderness.

Somehow, surrounded by the moose, clothing and sleeping bags, the two hunters survived.

After climbing out of the wreckage, one asked, "Any idea where we are?" The other replied, "I think we're pretty close to where we crashed last year."

"Rob Liefeld sucks"

The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings
Thanks to Pascal, here is a long and funny rant about a guy many considers extremely overrated. It has lots of examples and explanations why the drawings suck.
I think everyone needs to realize that Rob Liefeld was THE MOST POPULAR COMIC BOOK ARTIST IN THE WORLD at the time.  His comics sold millions of copies.  He starred in a Levi’s commercial that was ABOUT HIM.  AND THIS IS WHAT HIS ART LOOKED LIKE.  HE MADE MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS FROM THIS

Yep, the world is not fair, it seems.

Admittedly the author seems excessively upset, and arguably the article is not better written than Liefeld's drawings are drawn. But it's funny I think.

By the way, I wouldn't really blame Rob Liefeld. Let's be honest, if the market wants to grossly over-pay you, how many of us will say no, on the grounds that we are undeserving?
(And if that's not a straight line for dear Anon to hack away at me over, I never wrote one.)

Dylan Moran

I found him originally in the wonderful series Black Books.

Never worry

Quit worrying about your health. It'll go away.

           -- Robert Orben

The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum.

           -- Havelock Ellis

Juxtaposition

Normally I update both my monitors's desktop art at the same time, with two images that match. But this time I just updated one. And I just was struck by the odd and funny juxtaposition of the two images, the soft and warm drawing on the left, against my stark and cold photo on the right.

Slowmowl

[Thanks to Jim]

(Another one deserving to be seen in HD on youboobs.)





They are remarkable, seen as mechanical flying constructions.

Carl Larsson art

Thanks to Adam for sending me this outstanding drawing by Carl Larsson. I think it's really good considered either as a nude or just as a drawing.
The composition is unusual, at first look it falls apart on the left, but he may be purposefully pushing the envelope, I think I could get used to it. And the world certainly does not want for drawings/paintings with safe and overly balanced compositions.

(If you want an even larger version than Blogger allows, here is a 4.4MB zip file of a 4000 px version.)

Alfa Romeo

Determined dog

Short video about a dog who knows what he wants and how to get it.

Shadow Art

Shadow Art. More.

Hawks and paragliders

[Thanks to Henry]

Hawks and paragliders, nice video. (Goes up to real HD.)

Sarah Mensinga

Sarah Mensinga, Extraordinary, an illustrated story.
I don't know that she's a great writer, but she could really be something as an illustrator. (Some color would be nice though.)

"One-Eyed Doll"

[Thanks to Jes]

Hot stuff.



Aha, it seems Kimberly Freeman and her "band" is getting a lot of recognition, goody.
It's amazing they can get such a full sound with just two people.

Beers, Steers, and Queers

By the Revolting Cocks. (I'm pretty sure it means the rebelling roosters.)

 

"Squeal! Squeal like a pig, boy. City slicker."
... Well, for some reason that famous sampling from Deliverance is missing in the the good sounding version above. Quelle domage. Well, it's here:


(I include this live vid because it also include Attack Ships On Fire (surely a Bladerunner quote) which I like in the orig.)

It seems "RevCo" is touring again.

from wiki:
The band got their name after a fight in a Chicago bar in 1983. Jourgensen, Richard 23 and Luc Van Acker celebrated the formation of their new band with a few drinks. The evening ended in a brawl, with bar stools thrown through the windows. As he ejected the trio, the owner, a man Jourgensen recalls was named Dess,[7] shouted, "I'm calling the police! You guys are a bunch of revolting cocks![7]" The trio decided to use the name for their band.
[...]
Despite Jourgensen's previous insistence that Ministry would never return, a reunion was announced on August 7, 2011. The band will play their first show in 4 years at Germany's Wacken Open Air festival in August 2012.[6] A new album, entitled Relapse, is also in the works.

 The vid below show why I don't go to rock concerts. Some goings-on!


There's some rock, even crazy-hard rock, which I really like. But I don't care a bit for the seemingly required drunkenness, drug culture, and general air of violence and criminality and hate [update: just an air of it] which seems to go with most of it, once you look outside of the actual studio-recorded music. It's just juvenile. Nay, infantile.

Help! I’m on the IRS hit list

Help! I’m on the IRS hit list, article.
The Americans have an unusual view of citizenship. Once an American, always an American, even if you left the U.S. the day you were born. The U.S. is the only country that requires its citizens to file a tax return and report their worldwide income, no matter where they live and what other citizenship they hold. 
-

Nikon goes mirrorless

Mighty Nikon Joins Mirrorless Revolution, tOP article.
I haven't even had time to read the article yet, but I am sure that One: this camera is interesting, and Two: Mike will give it a good intro like he always does.

We've been waiting for years for Nikon or Canon to finally make a camera system like the one which has been so successful for others: a compact camera without mirror, but with exchangeable lenses. Now Nikon has it. Here is Nikon's page about it.
How about that moniker, huh? "Nikon 1". I feel they want to make us think this is a big development.

Update: Aw, durnit, it's not a big development! They've made the damn thing with a sensor which is smaller than the M4/3 sensor! And I agree with Mike that M4/3's sensor size is pretty perfect for a compact system camera, a good compromise. Any smaller just doesn't deliver real professional results, at least not at this point in time (well, depending). And the introductory lenses seem pedestrian. It's clearly a snapshooter camera rather than an enthusiast camera.

Luna fighting sleep

I feel that way sometimes.

Shatner: 'Star Trek' is way better than 'Star Wars'

[Thanks to Kirk]

xkcd

xkcd

John Sculley interview

John Sculley interview.

Really good managers want to turn one-off projects into as much of a routine process as they can. I am a project-centric leader. I like to work on projects and solve tough problems. Whereas a really good manager will say, "How do we replicate the processes so that when a problem comes up like this again we can routinely solve it?"

My Kindle interview

I was interviewed about ereaders.

Bitter rant of today

I suddenly understand the popularity of Twitter: the 140-character limit makes sure anything and everything said there is completely content-free, just like the popular bottle-feed culture demands.
"Let's have a debate."
"Great! But we must stick to 140 characters per statement. This makes sure nothing is ever said which requires thinking for me."

Stephen Wilkes photography

[Thanks to TCGirl]

Stephen Wilkes photography.

Unfortunately it's one of those accursed Flash site which prohibits giving direct links to anything, but these are from Fine Art/ nudes and /day to night.

Follow-up on Google

I’m Not Liking Google Much These Days, article.
Google+ has not merely positioned itself as a more secure version of Facebook. We found that out when Eric Schmidt, Google’s Executive Chairman, over the weekend, revealed that Google+ is fundamentally designed as a national identity service

Steve Ballmer - Developers

(You can find the source videos here and here.)

Maybe it would be more lovin' to stop making fun of him after ten years. But heck 1) it's still damn funny, 2) The music is cool. 3) Somebody behaving like that on stage has thrown away all claim on dignity all by himself.

Olympus Pen Lite custom grip

Richard Franiec continues to make custom grips for high-end compact cameras which inexplicable are missing grips. I have his grip for the Canon S90, and the new one for Olympus Pen Lite (aka "E-PL3") seems equally gorgeous, and I've already ordered it. If I were a camera maker, I'd buy the design off'a him. 

The Pen Lite, by the way, is pretty amazing. I think it's the smallest Micro-Four-Thirds camera yet, and it still manages to have a flip-out screen, and the fastest auto-focus on any compact camera yet (as fast as on DSLR cameras). All of those are traits which I have valued highly in cameras for a long time. (The much bigger and more expensive E-P3 doesn't even have a flip screen.)

It'll be interesting to see how it performs with the upcoming 45mm F:1.8 portrait (short tele) lens, a sort which has been missing from the platform until now. The lens is supposedly very good (lenses of that focal length often are), and not even very expensive (unlike the new 12mm wide-angle lens). (To get the 35mm equivalent focal length of a M4/3 lens, just double it.)

Aw, buggrox!!

I just got the captcha (distorted confirmation word) "buggrox" on another blog. For sure I'm gonna use that for swearing!

It's funny, "bugger" is a very common mild swear word for Brits, but really it means having anal intercourse, so it's weird that it's not a bad one.

It's funny, I wonder how it's decided what's rude. The F-word is still bad, but not as bad as the C-word. Hmmm, I think that it's connected to social guilt about oppression in the past, since that word was aimed at the female gender. The fear of offending makes us take the side of the offended, thus building up the strength of the feelings of being offended, which increases the fear of it, which...

Traditional foods

I've been having Traditional Danish sausage and cheese for lunch for days, since my sisters brought some with them. It's delish to a Dane, but man, I'd almost forgotten how fatty it is. I feel so heavy after eating.

But I guess most "traditional" foods are not exactly what people would call Health Food these days. I once had a "traditional English" lunch in a restaurant, lots of bacon and sausage, positively swimming in fat. I nearly couldn't stand up after that meal!

I suppose it's connected to most people having physical work in the olden days, whereas the most we lift these days is the computer mouse. If you work hard in the fields or such all day long, it's more desirable to get a 3,000-chalorie meal. But we still often want the heavy meals, 'cuz they kick off the ol' brain pleasure centers.

"Fail Safe Investing"

Many, if not most, books I've read on investing say that stocks are the rocket ride to riches. But even if it is true in the long run, which I'm not sure about, it seems to me that it takes hard work and an iron stomach to handle that roller-coaster ride. Especially now, when disaster bells are clanging all over the world.
For people who like reasonable financial security without having to worry too much about it, there's a book which our long time reader Timo recommended me a few years ago: Fail Safe Investing by Harry Browne. It has a simple philosophy of four kinds of investments which balance each other out: They will never all go down simultaneously.
And here's an article which shows how that golden advice is more relevant now than ever.

Update: Jan said:
Thank you! I love Harry Browne's investing ideas.
It's designed to preserving your money during troubling times and so far has done admirably well.

Update: here's an interesting article from a favorite site: Lemmings. (This site can be trusted.)

Small dog, large bladder

"Google doesn’t get people, it sells them"

Don Norman: Google doesn’t get people, it sells them, article. 

“They say their goal is to gather all the knowledge in the world in one place, but really their goal is to gather all of the people in the world and sell them.”

[...] “Google doesn’t understand people,” he said. “Have you ever spoken to a Google support person on the phone? They don’t have them.

Here's another article, about the reason for Google's insistence on real names on G+. Is it to make people behave better, or for Google's future profits? 

For example, there’s a San Francisco-based sex blogger named Violet Blue. She’s an institution in the Bay Area and very popular across the Web. Shortly after she signed up with Google+, her account was suspended because the service’s operators (or its algorithm) didn’t think that was her real name. However, Violet Blue really is her name, and her account was later reinstated (complete with a “verified” badge). 

[...] He replied by saying that G+ was build primarily as an identity service, so fundamentally, it depends on people using their real names if they’re going to build future products that leverage that information.

The Psychology of Bitterness: 10 Essential Lessons

The Psychology of Bitterness: 10 Essential Lessons, article.

Contrary to countless pop culture depictions of cranky old men and bitter spinsters, depression is not a normal part of aging. [...] 
New research offers a way for this at-risk group to ward off depression: "goal disengagement."

Popular spam

Just been checking my spam folder... isn't it astonishing that even after 15 years, the most popular spam promotions are still viagra and penis enlargement? Something tells me that lots of sex, and male inability to attain it, is a lively market.

Good weekend

My two sisters visited me over the weekend. Fun was had by all, and amongst other things we had a couple of excellent meals in my fave restaurants.

They also brought the foodstuffs Danish ex-patriots always miss, Danish yellow cheese, spegepølse (related to Salami), Danish pickled herring, etc. They brought so much that I got tired just helping to carry it home to my fridge from the hotel, I don't know how they managed to carry their own stuff besides.

To top it off, they've been cleaning out old family stuff, and they found that small Buddha statue I'd talked about. I don't regret buying the big one of course, it's really great.

I was asked if I've become buddhist, and no, not really, only a non-dualist, and some aspects of Buddhism and Hinduism are the closest that traditional philosophies come to real non-dualism. Non-dualism is the belief that when we perceive many things, or any divisions at all, it's an illusion, only one thing exists, and it has no divisions. This thing one may call "That" or "The Universe" or even "God". (I prefer "Source" sometimes.)  This state is near impossible to grasp for the human mind, which is based in a highly dualistic universe, with splits and conflicts everywhere. But some teachings are based on the belief that Love and letting go of conflicts and grievances are parts of a Way which will eventually lead back to Oneness.

Jamie Dee photos

[Thanks to Joe]

Jamie Dee photos.

What progress comes from

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
- Samuel Butler

How to Tow a Building-Sized Iceberg

How to Tow a Building-Sized Iceberg, article.

French engineer Georges Mougin has a big idea. He wants to go to Antarctica, tie a big rope around a six-million-ton iceberg, drag it back to Africa and melt it into fresh, drinkable water.

They don't talk about whether they'll try to cover it to reduce the melting. I'd have thought that would be an important question.

How about pumping seawater into a desert and let the sand filter out the salt, then pump up drinking water from below? Wonder if that could work. Would probably be a long line, and maybe the sand wouldn't get out all the salt. Perhaps too there'd be too big a loss of water over the process. And probably the energy expense would be huge, as well as the environmental impact.
This article says that salt is very hard to separate from water, so maybe sand simply wouldn't do the trick. Well, I was just spitballing.

Trying googling for this, I found this small-scale, but smart method.

Saturn seen from the dark side

[Thanks to TCGirl]

Hard to believe this is an actual photo, but that's what they say.

Here is a short fly-by movie composed from photos taken by the same space probe, Cassini.

Pendulum waves

[Thanks to Lou] 

Don't miss this one, it's surprisingly beautiful.

Alizee flaunting what she's got

[Thanks to Dave]

It's interesting to see the stiff-faced older women (judges?) in the audience at Alizee's concert. They probably suspect that she's playing off her sexuality a leeeetle bit.
They may also suspect that all the men there would trample over their bodies like wildebeests to get at Alizee, and they don't like it a bit. It's a jungle out there.

 

Emma Watson hawks perfume

She doesn't look at whole lot like Hermione now, eh?

 

Rethinking the 'Never Unsubscribe' Rule for Spam

Rethinking the 'Never Unsubscribe' Rule for Spam, article. 

I've come to the same conclusion as David Pogue. Recently I decided to revive my old classic address. I put it on hiatus and heavy spam filtering (SpamArrest) years ago. But I figured some of the spam had died away and spam sieve would deal with the rest. And it works pretty well. But one thing I did notice is that a lot of otherwise respectable companies have taken advantage of "found" addresses, and send me promotion. But these usually have an Unsubscribe button at the end of the email, and it works. 

I also found out at some point that from what I could glean, many more addresses are distributed wrongfully from when you sign up with some company or site, compared to those picked off web sites by robots. So for years I've been using a special "throw-away" gmail address for signing up for newsletters and companies which demand it to sell me something, but who I didn't care *that* much for, so that if the spam ever gets too much on that address, I can dump it. 

But by the way, Gmail is genius at filtering spam, I get almost nothing to gmail addresses. I've heard it's 'cuz they are web-based, they can check links in the mails and see if they lead to known or reported spam or virus sites. 

.xxx rated: internet's red-light district has arrived

[Thanks to Tommy]

.xxx rated: internet's red-light district has arrived, article. 

A lot of fresh money for the product-less registar business. 

The bit I fear is this may eventually lead to a lot of pressure to make all porn sites use XXX domains and only XXX domains. But how about nude art sites, and oddities like Domai, will they be forced into this "shameful ghetto" also?

Also, just the idea that you need a special domain for sexual content really strengthens the feeling that this kind of thing is shameful and immoral. It could be a very big step backwards after all the progress the West has made in recent decades in tearing down the artificial barriers between erotic culture and "proper" culture. 

Ghost Town with Téa

In the series of actresses I worship: Téa Leoni.
And this one is serious.

Watched her in Ghost Town. Lovely and funny film.
Finally a part which made me like Ricky Gervais better, instead of creeping me out.

(Again I wonder why it so often is so hard to find good photographs of people who are both beautiful and famous. They are either poor paparazzi shots or glamour shots which make the subject unrecognisable.)

I think part of Téa's appeal is that she feels like she's missing the defensive barrier that most people, especially beautiful people, have. The "don't come *too* close or I'll have to defend myself" barrier. It's very rare to have very little of that, and it's very pleasant for others. Based on primal fear, I guess.

Leno drives a Bugatti

[Thanks to tOP. There's another guy who has strong interest in many things.]

I admire people who have strong enough interest to have an impact in more than one area. Take Jay Leno, TV star, comedian, and car nut. Here he talks about an amazing Bugatti 37A racer. He actually drives it too, from around nine minutes into the video. Like Mike says in his post about roadsters, hardly anybody ever talks about driving these things.

Lenka - The Show

We're many who enjoyed the find of Lenka's Trouble Is A Friend, so I looked for one more of hers, and I was not very surprised when I liked the first one I tried. She's fun.

Running to, not just away

Don't simply retire from something; have something to retire to.

- Harry Emerson Fosdick

I think those are wise words. A great number of people, especially men for some reason (I think women are better at socializing), just go to seed after retiring without any interests to go to. Many of them simply die after a couple of years.

---------
Fellow Blogger bloggers: how do you like the new posting/management interface? It's really dramatically different, innit? 

Suffering from small equipment?

[Thanks to Norm]

 
Small Penis from Espen Hobbesland on Vimeo.
Lean back, turn up the volume and enjoy our graduation film, "Small Penis".Be sure to watch all the way to the end as we have a great set of bloopers:)It's the story of Daniel, a man who all of his life has felt insecure because of his penis size. This changes when he joins a support group a little bit out of the ordinary.The budget was about 4-500 dollars. Filmed in 5 days in Bergen, Norway.Shot on Sony XDcam, 1920x1080, 25p. Edited in Final Cut. In case you are wondering, the language they are speaking is Norwegian.

Alexa Vega-Game Over

Alexa played one of the kids in Spy Kids one to three. I guess she grew a lot in the couple of months between filming and this release party!
(Sorry, couldn't find a better quality video.)



I liked the movies by the way. Family flicks of course, and very unserious, but good fun and often very funny.

Pakistan bans VPNs

Pakistan bans VPNs, article. 

The notice said that use of "all such mechanisms including EVPNs [encrypted virtual private networks] which conceal communication to the extent that prohibits monitoring" must be reported to authorities.

What is this, 1984? You need special permission to prevent authorities from spying on you? Woa, kids, can you say "totalitarian"?

Copenhagen Central Station

I've gotten quite a bit of interest of the site of the symphonic concert below, Copenhagen Central Station.
For a building this central and this busy, it really is surprisingly pleasant.
It was opened in 1911, but considering the size and cost and time of building such a thing, it was probably designed in 1890, I'd hazard.

(The last pic only shows a third of the width if I recall correctly.)

I guess my liking for it could be related to it being present in several of the periods of my life where I felt I went through a lot of personal/spiritual expansion. I could imagine that if one knew it mainly for going through it when going to a job one hated, for instance, it might "taste" different.

Chooka Parker

[Thanks to Basil]

Talk about don't judge a book by its cover. If I met this guy accidentally, I'm sure I'd like him, but I'd never guess he could play like that.



---
What a beaut, that middle judge. A bit over-made-up, though. It seems to be a trend in recent years, an unfortunate one in my view, to put so much paint on pop culture women that you can't see a square millimeter of their own colors.

One-woman cover of Gorillaz 'Feel Good Inc'

[Thanks to Robert C]

God loves redheads.



Great vocal performance, and playing instruments in real time. Kewl.
I didn't see any info on who she is. But if she ever needs cover/promo photos, she can come to me anytime.

TCG sez: Looks like her name is Josie Charlwood.
-

"Bolero" played by Symphonic flash mob

[Thanks to Jim in Seattle]

Copenhagen Philharmonics playing Ravel's Bolero and leave. 



This station is like a second home to me. I've no count of how many times I've been in it, but thousands for sure, maybe tens of thousands. I really like it, it doesn't have the hostile super-busy feel that bigger international stations do, it's more relaxed and friendly.
It changed over the years, the great pillars for instance didn't used to stand free.
I often used to have coffee in a coffee shop on the first floor, above the hustle and bustle, what a great place to read and look at people for a while. One day I saw a film crew film a scene with well known actors. They were using one of the long rows of pay phones which used to be there. That's another thing that's changed!

Lenka - Trouble Is A Friend

[Thanks to Anna]

Good song, pretty singer, very cool visuals, and even thought-provoking lyrics. I've heard about how periods of trouble have helped people in their personal development much more than plain sailing had usually done.

Fuji X10

New: Fuji X10. It's not a large-sensor camera like the X100*, so it won't have the X100's outstanding low-light performance, but on the other hand it has zoom, something I'll admit to miss when I don't have it.

Update: I have the camera now, and the low-light capabilities are actually *really* good.

I like the look of it, very "camera like", meaning it's a machine, not a blob. And apparently it's a dang good lens, so it'll be interesting to see what reviewers say. And it's a 28mm-e to 112mm-e and 2.0 to 2.8, so that sounds great. Still very few zoom lenses are that fast, and the range appeals to me, unlike 12x super-zooms, it has a chance of delivering high fidelity over the whole range.

*The sensor is still larger than most compact cameras', including the one in the Canon S95. Thanks to ES.

----
tOP also has an interesting little article about which is the best aperture to use, fidelity-wise.

Wolfman 2010

When I wrote about the classic monsters recently, I found out that Universal had re-done Wolfman in 2010. And being a fan, of course I had to see what blu-ray and recent tech could do with this story.

I am a fan for at least one reason beyond being generally a lover of SF and F, and that is that when I was just the right age, 8-13, Danish publishers were putting out versions of the classic Eerie comics from the fifties. And many of these were not only good, they were amazing. Subversive and surprising stories, and some of the best artists on the planet drew them. So Dracula, the Wolfman, etc, stuck with me good and well.

Reception of the 2010 Wolfman was mixed, but I liked it. Beautifully lit and photographed (and created digitally, like Victorian London rooftops scenes for example), and solid story and solid acting. And very good effects. Unlike some movies done in recent years (van Helsing for example), not done mostly in digital but kept physical where possible, and blended with digital quite seamlessly.  I don't know that the ending quite held up the pace in terms of importance to the story, but overall I quite liked the film.

Just as was the case with the 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula, I found the intermediate stages of the monster-transformations to be the "scariest" and visually most interesting. In the final shape of both Dracula and Wolfman, they are stuck in the traditional depictions, it seems, but in the middle of the changing, the designers could go wild, and found some interesting far-out inhuman shapes.

Ebook search

Inkmesh, ebook search engine, find formats and compare prices. Seems highly useful.
... Oh, it even includes audiobooks, excellent.

Richard Branson, Victoria Secret Models

Here's a tidbit for the reader or two for whom I clearly am a huge irritation. Seeing as how Richard Branson has, if possible, an even bigger ego than myself, maybe he can be lightning rod for a few hours...



Most people in this world has been taught to not speak well of themselves. But still if you combine them, there are still very many people who have not learned the lesson. Given that, it must take an enormous amount of energy to snarl and lash out at all of them. And does anybody thank you for your hard and selfless work? Nooooo!

Update:
I'm happy to hear that the promotional stunts paint a wrong picture of him. Timo points this out, and Philocalist wrote:

I met Richard Branson several years ago, quite casually in the coffee lounge of a large London hotel.
I was sat on a couch, waiting on the arrival of a courier, with my nose deep in a book: I took no notice of the guy who sat down opposite and ordered coffee, which arrived for 'two' rather than just him - the waiter had made a simple mistake and assumed us to be together.
At this stage I looked up to recognise him immediately, and before I could even react, was offered coffee and cake by him!
Purely coincidentally, his company, Virgin, had very recently purchased a large country hotel close to where I lived, and there was talk of him moving his UK office there, into a refurbished stable-block - it gave me something to talk about :-)
What I found very different about this guy was that he sat and genuinely listened to what I had to say, asking questions of me that perhaps only I, as a local, could answer honestly.
We sat for maybe another 30 minutes: his appointment arrived at the same time as my delivery.
This was in direct contrast with another 'celebrity' who arrived into reception as we sat there.
I won't name names: he was, and possibly still is the biggest game-show host (amongst other things) in the UK. I've never seen such rude arrogance on open display: it was such a marked contrast ... the staff were very happy (and relaxed!) to be around Richard Branson, but avoided GSH like the plague! 
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Darren's Great Big Camera

Darren's Great Big Camera blog.

"No fix for that" says Virgin UK

My TV cable box with the Virgin extra V+ service can record programs. And normally it does it fine. But recently it has suddenly deleted a whole string of recordings at once, everything on it. When rebooted, it has "recovered content" files listed, but these files won't play. It has happened several times.

Not great, so I called Support. After much checking and waiting, I was told that "there's no fix for that". Apparently not even getting a new box would help. And there was no light on the horizon either.  I would simply have to sit back and accept my recorded fave TV programs disappearing periodically. Or, I guess, get Sky TV instead. But I don't think they do broadband.

Wow, that has to be the worst ending of a Support call I've ever had! "There's no fix for that"... seriously?

German city introduces parking meter for prostitutes

German city introduces parking meter for prostitutes, article.
Juanita Rosina Henning, from the Dona Carmen prostitute-support group, called for the meter's removal, saying the women already pay income tax on their earnings.
"This has nothing to do with fiscal equality," she said, adding that prostitutes were the only workers to be taxed in such a way.

Yello - Si Señor the Hairy Grill

[Tak til Benny]

Human penguins

Norm found this video, a commercial which uses nude humans to show how penguins survive in the cold, or maybe it's the other way around.