The Evil Eyebrow

  • Blogger Code of Conduct and the Rhetorical use of Fuck

    The NY Times reports today on a movement to enhance civility in the blogosphere. This code is based partly on the BlogHer community guidelines and a draft is delineated here and here.

    This code was founded directly or indirectly due to a flamewar on a blog posting that was interpreted as misogynistic with threatening overtones (For details, follow any of those links above). I, personally, feel that a level of civility should be adhered to in any public forum where your words can be resurrected in later years, if only for your own protection. You don’t want to be twenty years down the line, running for mayor, and have someone dig up your old MySpace pages. Not good. Personal protection aside, the golden rule is always good to follow. Public discourse is not enhanced by crazy flaming.

    This brings me to a small point I’ve been meaning to write about for a while:

    Why the fuck to people write f*ck?

    I see this often in the blogosphere. It seems a bit silly. It’s not like the most harebrained 8 year old can’t figure out what f*ck means. I don’t tend to use much profanity on my blog, but I feel that a well-timed expletive has some rhetorical value in a less formal setting (which most of my blog postings are). Putting an asterisk in a swear-word is a cop out. Use it, or don’t; half measures don’t get my respect.

  • Jane Austen, Dr. Who, Jack Aubrey, Buffy…

    This would be the best literary mashup of all time.

  • DSLR Sensor Cleaning

    As I mentioned in a blog post about a week ago, I was getting ready to clean the sensor on my Canon Digital Rebel XT.

    Here’s what it looked like before I started.
    IMG_4604 Before Cleaning

    Look at all those black spots! What a mess.

    Here’s what it looks like now.

    IMG_4613 After Cleaning

    I’ve still got some dust on the top of the image (which is the bottom of the sensor) but I can deal with this for now. I’m very leery of touching my camera’s sensor any more than I need to. This is a huge improvement over the uncleaned version, and I declare it good enough.

  • Favorite Photo of the Week

    Delta planes at the terminal

    This was taken at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson international airport, where Delta reigns supreme.

    A close second, and I only threw it out because it was a total accident is this image.

    She Looked Away

    This one was at Baltimore-Washington International airport and I was wandering around, killing time by photographing anything that looked even remotely interesting. I spared everyone the tedium of uploading all of those photos.

  • This Week in Traffic: 2 April 2007

    Life in the Big Apple

    Quotes from the street.

    Kung Fu and the Art of Not Yelling at Numbskull Drivers

    Title has it all.

    Open Source Car

    Have a gander at the worlds first open source car.

    German Road Sign Quiz

    Warning: Knowledge of german required for the quiz.

    India Drivers

    Apparently, Indian drivers don’t obey striping as much as Americans do.

    More Discussion about Uncontrolled Roads

    Title again has it all. This has been mentioned in previous editions of This Week in Traffic.

  • DSLR Sensor Cleaning

    I’ve learned a lot about Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera sensors and their foibles in the last few days.

    Foible numero uno is dust. You don’t change sensors like you used to change film rolls, therefore dust that gets into the body will slowly (or not so slowly) accumulate on the sensor. If you live in a place like Atlanta that had a pollen count last week of 5,200 particles per cubic meter you may see a quicker accumulation than elsewhere (120 ppcm is considered extremely high. Yes, one hundred twenty). These dust particles will cause shadows on the sensor under the right (or wrong) conditions, leading to little black spots on your images. Not a high level of mojo, in my opinion.

    With several very helpful suggestions from the Atlanta Flickr Group I ended up at cleaningdigitalcameras.com, which describes in exhausting detail the various methods and products to clean up a sensor that looks like this.

    Image of Dust on my Digital Rebel XT Sensor

    I obtained this image by opening up Photoshop to a new (white) file, setting the camera to f/22, exposure 2 seconds. I didn’t bother with focus and moved the camera around in a small circle during exposure to avoid picking up anything on my computer screen. After importing the image, I ran auto levels and voila! Dust.

    What am I going to do about it? I ordered a Rocket Blower, Eclipse, and Sensor Swabs, with which I will clean my sensor in a week or so. Until then, I guess I’ll just deal with it.

    For information, this article analyzes the various automatic dust removal systems for DSLRs by the big manufacturers. Boils down to: Olympus’ system works. Others don’t.

  • Nerd Test!

    I’m happy to see that I am a…

    What Be Your Nerd Type?

    Your Result: Science/Math Nerd
     

    (Absolute Insane Laughter as you pour toxic chemicals into a foaming tub of death!)

    Well, maybe you aren’t this extreme, but you’re in league with the crazy scientists/mathmeticians of today. Very few people have the talent of math and science is something takes a lot of brains as well. Thank whosever God you worship, or don’t worship, so thank no deity whatsoever in your case, for you people! Most of us would have died off without your help.

    Gamer/Computer Nerd
     
    Literature Nerd
     
    Artistic Nerd
     
    Musician
     
    Social Nerd
     
    Drama Nerd
     
    Anime Nerd
     
    What Be Your Nerd Type?
    Quizzes for MySpace

  • New JibJab

    The geniuses at JibJab have published their next animated political commentary entitled What We Call The News. You may remember This Land from the 2004 election season, which made a huge splash, deservedly so. Go check out the new one.

  • Favorite Photo of the Week

    Squirrel Print in Pollen

    It is pollen season in Georgia right now. It’s the time of year where no one washes their car for three weeks. We’re all hoping for some rain this weekend to make everything a bit less yellow. The image above is from my front porch, where evil squirrels regularly case my house.

  • Georgia Marathon Fiasco?

    As you may have gathered from the previous postings here and here, I attended the inaugural ING Georgia Marathon last weekend in and around Atlanta. I confess some disappointment with the organization of the race.

    I know several people who ran this race and they all complained about the way in which it was operated. For one thing there was no corralling at the start line; all marathoners and half-marathoners were mixed together with no regard to projected finish time. This led to a mess at the start due to numerous passing maneuvers, etc. The Atlanta Journal Constitution, and a blog or two, reported that some water stations were out of water and/or sports drink. One runner said he detoured into a bakery and asked for salt to replenish his electrolytes.

    From my vantage point, it seemed like they didn’t think this all the way through. “How do we get runners to the start?” “How do we communicate splits?” “How do we get the half and full runners to part ways at junction?” “How do we keep the Half marathoners from getting in the way of the elites?” These would have been good questions to have answers for.

    I mention that last item because I was getting worried around the 1:30 mark. Saint Charles was packed from left to right by the mid group of half-marathoners and I was expecting the elite marathoners at any moment. It turned out I was too early in my estimate by about 20 minutes, but that 20 minutes was more than short enough for the elites to catch up to that pack before they finished. I wonder if they ran (ha ha) into any problems, but I haven’t heard anything about it.

    If you’re reading this entry and haven’t read my offer of images to all (well, most) runners, make sure you go here and find out how!

The Evil Eyebrow

There is no knowing the Evil Eyebrow

Twenty Twenty-Five

Designed with WordPress