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Good thing this postcard isn't from the Council of Teachers of the English Language.

Keeping your eyesight and hearing are, to me, no-brainers. Smell and taste are so interlinked it's tough to pull them apart, so I'd almost consider them one and the same, except that tasting is done far less frequently than smelling. So between taste and touch, I might very well give up taste. It might even be good for me - I could eat purely for health and not worry about how great a steak tastes.

Even if forced to give up both smell and taste (to eliminate all taste), I still might. Touch is critically important to a lot of daily tasks - like typing, driving a car, etc. - and recreational activities like sports or even operating a camera.

Based on this article, which talks about the Cocoa Finder in Snow Leopard and a bit more, I've re-set my monitor to a gamma of 2.2.

I've resisted this change for quite awhile because, well, all it seems to do is make everything darker and a bit more contrasty. The dynamic range of my screen seems to be smaller, as if someone "upped the black point." Blech.

Apple also said that it has changed the default gamma display setting to help both consumers and professionals. The Cupertino-based company made adjusted the default settings to be closer to those used by Windows PCs and televisions. According to the latest Snow Leopard release notes, the default gamma setting has been changed from 1.8 to 2.2 - which is recommended by many professionals - and that applications that override the deftault and assume a gamma 1.8 setting may have different onscreen and printed output than they did in previous releases of Mac OS X. Although the 1.8 setting has been used as the default by Apple since its earliest monitors and laser printers, Apple already actually recommends on its website to re-calibrate monitors to the 2.2 setting for photographic work.

Those in the know: any changes I need to make in Aperture, Photoshop, or elsewhere? I changed the gamma by re-doing my display calibration in the Displays system preferences.

Anyone out there have a Windows laptop that meets these requirements:

• Windows XP SP2
• 800 MHz CPU
• 512 MB RAM
• 100 MB free disk space
• At least one USB 1.1 port
• 1024 x 768 resolution

Why? My wife wants to run this.

Willing to pay a little bit (some netbooks come close but many are often 1024 x 600, for example) or perhaps trade. Anyone need a snow dome AirPort base station? 🙂

With our win last night, the Tungsten Blades are above .500 for the first time in franchise history! Woot!

In this current season, we're also the only loss for one team and the only win for another. Uh hmmm.

How much does it cost - and what equipment is there to buy - in order to print photos at home?

I'm not looking to set up a print ship by any means, but if I do this, I'm not looking to print low-quality photos either. My wife scrapbooks and photography is an important part of our lives.

Nothing too big: 4x6 mostly, with some 5x7 and maybe some 8x10s at some point. I'm not all that concerned about color matching - "awfully close" will be good enough - but I am concerned about up-front costs.

What's the cost-per-print (4x6) once you factor in the non-reusables (ink, paper)? Is it even cost effective to print at home or will Wal-Mart's $0.19 printing still be awfully competitive?

I've read quite a few reviews of the Kodak Zi6, and nearly two weeks ago, I bought one for myself. It arrived shortly thereafter and I'm impressed. I've never had a Flip - never even seen one in person - but the Zi6 does two things that I wanted that the Flip doesn't do: HD and 60 FPS.

While I don't have time for a full review, but I do have time to write a list of likes and dislikes.

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I don't care for this sort of take on things:

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?"

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

As I said in my last post on this election, I am undecided. That's saying a lot consider I tend to align with what have historically been more "Republican" ideals. Since that post some 17 or 18 days ago, I've been swayed slightly towards one side, but not a bunch, and not with any finality.

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Joe McNally talks at Google, where the audience misses 90% of the jokes and doesn't seem to remember people like Ozzie Smith. I'm only 30 and I feel old. 😛

PhotoSwap, a free photo-sharing app for the iPhone. You take a picture and the software does two things. First, it sends your picture to another random PhotoSwap user. Second, it sends you a photo from a random PhotoSwap user in return. Perhaps a later version will include the ability to save the pictures you take (and perhaps those you receive) in your iPhone's photo albums.

Bonus Link: http://labs.ideeinc.com/multicolr/. Awesome. Played with that thing for ten minutes.

It's sweet to beat a previously unbeaten team, I've got to say.

P.S. Update.

I'm looking to start a small local digital photgraphy "club" in the Erie, PA area and am looking for someone to help run the thing. I've got what I think are some good ideas, but for various reasons I don't want to do this by myself.

There's a photography club in Erie right now, but from what I've heard they focus a bit too much on prints, birds, and aren't terribly technologically savvy. They're also mostly older photographers, and I'm looking to start up a group of people aged 18-50 or so with a strong tendency towards digital photgraphy, with a website, online contests, and more.

If you're interested in helping me do something of this sort, get ahold of me however you'd like.

I picked up a Kodak Zi6 a few days ago. Even posted a little video on Vimeo. I bought it for two reasons: one, it's HD (720p) and two, it'll do the HD at 60 FPS, which I consider critical to recording the golf swing (for analysis).

So far, I've been impressed. More to come. May even write up a little mini-review.

Oh how I wish Apple's App Store had this feature:

The Android Market business and program policies also include an item that says users can return any application for a full refund within 24 hours of the time of purchase. In the absence of a trial version of applications, this offer will let users return an application that might not deliver exactly what they expected. [Source]

I've held off buying software (for example) because there's no demo and I'm not sure it's worth $9.99 or whatever. Additionally, this feature would free developers from having to create a "free" version to serve as the demo.

I was going to use this post to question the use of "Jony" as a name for Jonathan Ive (as seen when watching the video at the Macbook section of Apple's site. Then someone told me that "Jony" is a valid abbreviation for Jonathan. So despite never having seen Jon Ive use "Jony" as his name, I'll go along with that.

Instead, what we now have is a caption contest. 🙂 I love freezing video at bizarre moments. You can get some pretty funny faces.

Unlike an actual contest, there's no prize. 😉

Awesome. Unfortunately, I'm lacking the time, creativity, patience, and talent to do anything like this, so I must simply respect in awe the work of others. This one's way up there.

P.S. I'll check out the "making of" page later, too.