Open standards are motherhood and apple pie β they ensure a level playing field in which many implementations can compete against each other, keep the barrier to participation low for newcomers, will outlive any given company, and ensure that systems can communicate with each other with a minimum of fuss. In other words, open standards … Continue reading Open Source and Open Standards
Tilt-Shift: Leave it to the experts.
I first ran into this tilt-shift effect in Harper's Magazine a few years ago. You make a regular photograph look like a photo of small things taken by a macro lens. This is done by messing with the "focus" of the photo. Done right, the subject looks like an impossibly elaborate model. I like that … Continue reading Tilt-Shift: Leave it to the experts.
Your New CIA Director
Our Constitution defines the rules that guide our nation. It was drafted by those who looked around the world of the eighteenth century and saw persecution, torture, and other crimes against humanity and believed that America could be better than that.-- Leon Panetta, "No Torture. No exceptions."
Meridian Hill Park: Full of Fail.
Meridian Hill Park, which is also known as Malcolm X Park, is at 16th Street NW and W Street NW in Washington, DC. It was built from 1914 to 1936. I had been told that it was created as part of a campaign to make Washington the host of the Prime Meridian. Many cities were vying for the privilege of hosting the arbitrary marker, and in the same way that a city will build a stadium to encourage the Olympic Committee, Washington organized Meridian Hill Park.
Here's a shot that captures the... sloppiness that can be found there:
Though it's a little down-at-the-heels, Meridian Hill Park still has an air of importance. Even if it's an importance that's mostly forgotten. For that reason, I think it's a very romantic place.
Or so I thought. Wikipedia tells me that I'm wrong. Completely.
Moleskine as iPhone Cozy
I like the idea of carrying around a moleskine instead of an iPhone.
New Year, A New Approach
So now we're going to try something different. The only way to improve is with practice, and we'd like to get better at being a creative, vital influence on the rest of the world. The day job just isn't cutting it. So every day, we'll be creating something. It might be a photograph, an art project, a mix tape, or even just a considered blog post... but everyday, *every day*, we'll be putting something back into the world. Today, of course, is the redesign of the site.
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Vice Admiral Mark Edwards on Open Standards
βThe days of proprietary technology must come to an end. We will no longer accept systems that couple hardware, software and data.β β Vice Admiral Mark Edwards, US Navy, 6 March 2008 Edwards spoke on the importance of open systems to ensure interoperability, and even went so far as to suggest that the Navy was … Continue reading Vice Admiral Mark Edwards on Open Standards
USA 193 to get done by Barking Sands
Per slashdot, the folks at satobs have found this NOTAM that suggests USA 193 is getting shot down right around Maui. We can only assume that Barking Sands Missile Range will be doing the dirty.
Update: the deed will be done from a ship. That Star Wars crap would never work anyway. In other news, this whole operation is probably a very, very bad idea.

He’ll Save Children, But Not the British Children
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbRom1Rz8OA Happy President's Day.



