Dave's Picks

Dave Polaschek's collection of interesting links

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1 hour 32 min ago

May 16, 2008

05:00
miles of unpaved streets
Last December I pointed to an article talking about Minneapolis’ miles of unpaved streets. Well, in the Northeaster this month, there’s a story about how the city is thinking of paving the unpaved alleys. Sheesh. Maybe we could get to the streets first?

May 6, 2008

00:55
Nagasaki Saints
I forget to mention last time that I also met the guy behind the Nagasaki Saints last Tuesday. He’s the one who put together the Saints’ 2006 tour of Japan.
00:55
Microsoft says proxy battle not worth it
It looks like the Microsoft / Yahoo! merger is off: Microsoft says proxy battle not worth it. That relieves me a bit — I’ve been worried about what that might do to Flickr since the first talks of the merger. Yahoo ain’t perfect, but I just couldn’t imagine anything Microsoft would do that would make any of the Yahoo! websites more useful. jr, of course, has some commentary About that Whole Microsoft Thing, too.
00:55
35W bridge on pace to open in Sept.
Wow. Someone asked me yesterday if it was true that the 35W bridge on pace to open in Sept. and because I hadn’t heard any such thing, we decided together that he must have mis-heard “December” instead of “September,” but no, it’s really true. September. Wow.

May 2, 2008

05:00
Mike Marshall
At the first Saints game on Tuesday, I saw Joe Williams using the Mike Marshall delivery. Weird, and the guy didn’t have control until his third inning, when he settled down a little. I kinda hope he makes the team, since it’ll be interesting to watch. Plus Marshall worked with the Saints last Saturday, so maybe we’ll see more of that goofy delivery.
05:00
53-year-old knuckleballer impresses in 3-2 loss
I also got to watch Jon Secrist pitch again in the second game: 53-year-old knuckleballer impresses in 3-2 loss. He played with the Saints back in 1999, and didn’t impress then, but this time around he looks better. His only run was given up to Ayumi Kataoka from the Golds, who’s a 4′7″ gal (who can play at the level the Saints and the Golds are at). A knuckleballer facing that small of a strike-zone is entitled to have a little trouble, I figure. Heck, most catchers mitts used when knuckleballers pitch are bigger than her strike zone was.

April 26, 2008

04:26
gumption trap
One of the things that’s bugged me about the past week or two has been an overabundance of gumption traps. Maybe some of them have been self-inflicted, but there have been a lot of things out of my control that have been getting in my way, and it’s been hard to keep a positive attitude. But the Saints start their pre-season on Monday, so it really feels like spring now, even if there’s snow due by morning.
04:26
Rangefinder Follies
Ctein has a thoughtful essay on Rangefinder Follies and focusing which I liked. It also helps explain why I’ve been happier focusing with my waist-level finder on my 645 than with the eye-level. It lets me position the finder at a distance that works, and by having the camera down low it also encourages me to look through the right part of my progressive bifocals.

April 21, 2008

05:00
Ganley found not guilty of assaulting officer
U of MN student Gus Ganley found not guilty of assaulting officer in last year’s Critical Mass ride. If only the officers who assaulted him would face some sort of penalty, I’d figure things had come out good. As it is, it’s just less bad than I’d expected.
05:00
Y!Empire
Steveo’s got two posts, about the Y!Empire and the followup Ahem that I really like. He’s put into words the unease I was feeling about the videos feature on flickr.
05:00
Macworld reviews FinderPop
And to give a nod to Turly, Macworld reviews FinderPop. Cool!

April 13, 2008

05:00
Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups
Mother Jones says Cops and Former Secret Service Agents Ran Black Ops on Green Groups . Another one of those “I’m not surprised about this, but I kinda wish I was.” articles. Sad to say, but basically if you think you have anything approaching privacy when you’re walking down the street, throwing away your trash, driving to work or just about anything outside your house, you’re probably in denial.
05:00
Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone
Here’s an article from a woman explaining Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone. And then More From America’s Worst Mom as she takes a look at the aftermath. Only a third of parents who answered a poll about the issue would even think about letting their kids try something like that. While the original article gave me hope that there are some people who are raising their kids to be something other than wards of the nanny-state, the second drained that hope away, and then some.

April 11, 2008

04:32
Charlton Heston
By now you’ve probably heard that Charlton Heston died last Saturday. He was pretty generally pro-freedom, with the notable exception of having supported GCA68, and I figured he was one of the good guys. We need more folks to stand up and say Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape! to tyrants of all ilks. His video farewell back in 2002 was better than most of the obits you may have seen this week. R.I.P. Chuck.

April 6, 2008

14:40
John Paul Caponigro
One of the people I talked to at the conference was John Paul Caponigro. He’s a good guy, and we had quite a bit to talk about. He was part of the Epson Print Academy session with Jeff Schewe and Andrew Rodney. John Paul’s artwork is highly regarded, but it doesn’t exactly wind my watch. He does more manipulation of the images than I like, whereas I try more to get things right in the camera.
14:40
Ben Willmore
We talked about this following Ben Willmore’s talk on HDR. Ben tends to a more “illustrative” style of HDR processing and I tend to things that are more photo-realistic. On one of the photos Ben was working on, I said I’d just stick a strobe with a grid in there, and save myself all the editing time later, which got a laugh, since John Paul mostly shoots by available light. He also seemed to enjoy when I mentioned that I often shoot by “available darkness” and almost always want faster film/sensors.
14:40
uncanny valley
It’s not that I don’t like illustrations, or even manipulated images per se, but there are many that seem to me to fall into a sort of uncanny valley, where they’re realistic enough to look like a photograph at first glance, but a second look shows that they’ve been manipulated, and I don’t enjoy that as much.
14:40
Genius of Photography
When I got home, one of the things my TiVo had caught for me was the BBC’s Genius of Photography series. There was an episode which talked about the conflict between the pictorialists and the vernacular, which fit very well with the thoughts running around my brain after talking to John Paul. The show didn’t really change my mind about anything, but now I have the vocabulary to express what I’ve been thinking about. I’m pretty sure my photography falls much closer to the vernacular, and I’m okay with that.

March 31, 2008

05:00
D. B. Cooper's parachute was found
It says here that D. B. Cooper’s parachute was found. Except it might not be his. The F.B.I. is still trying to figure that out.
05:00
Iraq War vs. Major Battles Since WWII
This comparison of the Iraq War vs. Major Battles Since WWII is the source for the mention I’ve made a couple times recently that more soldiers died under the Clinton administration’s overseas adventures than during the current Iraq war.