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Episode 38 of Allen Rockwell's podcast covers a topic I've thought about off and on for a few months: photographers "devaluing" their own work by giving away photography to local newspapers, websites, friends, stock photo sites, etc. It's a bone of contention for professional photographers, and one I've given some serious thought to since becoming a bit more serious about photography earlier this year.

Yet nothing I've read on the subject has convinced me that pro photographers have a legitimate beef. Pros argue that amateur photographers are putting them out of work and simultaneously disrespecting themselves by not getting the money they could get from some of their images. Pros point to sites like iStockPhoto - where images of good or great quality can be had for a dollar or so - and pronounce them abominations that are ruining their careers.

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Steve Jobs mentioned Panasonics AVC-HD (the HDC-SD1) HD camcorder which records high-quality HD video to an 8GB SD card in his keynote.

The specs page says the camera has a high-speed shutter: 1/60th to 1/8,000th seconds.

But it doesn't list the framerate. Currently, to record my golf swing (for analysis), I record on my Canon SD550 (still camera). It does 60 frames per second (more than the 30 most DV cameras offer) at 320 x 240.

At $999 (or is it $799 as Jobs said somewhere?), I'm mildly interested in getting back to shooting video… and a little more interested if it can do 60 FPS (or higher) at any resolutions above 320 x 240.

Cyndicate (and Scorecard) users should make sure they drop in to the Cynical Peak Forum.

I've been gone all day, but I just found out that iLife '08 and iWork '08 are shipping, so I've already ordered my copies. I get more than enough use out of them to justify their fairly small pricing, and I'm glad to see Numbers is now included.

I'm considering picking up an iPhone well in advance of any official AT&T takeover of Cellular One. The reason? Cyndicate may have some features coming that need the testing capabilities.

I don't know, though… it'll be tough to justify the $60/month as a test unit. Perhaps I can just cancel my account after signing up (within the 14 days). The Web features still keep working, right? Hmm…

I'm pleased to announce that we've set up a coupon code for registered PulpFiction users to get a copy of Cyndicate at 20% savings.

To get the coupon code, please send an email to support@cynicalpeak.com. Include your name, email address, and PulpFiction registration code.

Carey and I took the kayaks out to Presque Isle today. We launched near the the boat rental spot past Perry's Monument. We paddled probably a mile through the lagoons, turned back, and then went out to the bay near the monument. I took the old Sony Cybershot (waterproof) camera out and we traded it back and forth to get a few pictures.

Afterwards, we went to Sara's for some 50s style grub. Carey and I noticed that, for some reason, the hot dog cost $0.20 less than the hamburger, but the hot dog value meal cost $0.10 more than the hamburger value meal.

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Thanks to Gedeon for the tip, and I agree: Amanda Congdon is rather smug.

Some more Cyndicate tips for you:

• If you hold down the option key, "Mark Unread" and "Delete" become "Mark All Unread" and "Delete All."
• There are a few contextual menus. Give them a try.
• Clicking the "Share This" toolbar icon quickly will prepare an email.
• Not a Cyndicate tip per se, but if you want to add a keyboard shortcut to "Blog This" or some other menu item, remember you can do so in the "Keyboard and Mouse" preference pane.
• It's quite easy to design your own stylesheets. Give them a go!

More to come as I think of them, or suggest your own in the forum.

The latest Safari 3 beta still can't remember the position of the scrollbars when you reload. Absolutely infuriating…

Some quick thoughts on Cyndicate:

• If you'd like a blank database, you can get one here.
• No, we don't include an inline browser. We left this out on purpose. Why re-invent the wheel? People use a variety of browsers these days, so why limit them to a WebKit one? Browsers support session saving and all sorts of features we can't easily offer without spending a lot of time doing work that has, really, very little to do with aggregating, filtering, rating, and otherwise managing and displaying the contents of feeds.
• Cyndicate, like PulpFiction before it, is article-centric rather than feed-centric. Though the "feed view" exists, we feel the effort to develop a unique (to each user) system of folders, smart folders, labels, filters, and ratings will result in a better experience than you can get with any feed-centric feed reader.
• We're considering a "competitive upgrade" reduction in price to about $25 or $24 for people with valid PulpFiction licenses. Thoughts?
• Cyndicate is on MacUpdate and VersionTracker, of course. As for the story behind the current MU comments, well, pfft.
• The user guide is really just a quick start kind of thing, it's not all-encompassing. Explore and enjoy and you'll figure things out. If you cannot, just ask, even here - I'll be happy to share my thoughts or provide answers.

The demo is limited to 21 days, of course, and is fully functional. Enjoy!

Cyndicate, or PulpFiction 2.0 as some might call it, is now available. Previously known as Iris on this blog, Cyndicate brings some pretty nifty features to a PulpFiction-like feed reader ((I hate that there really aren't any good names for these things. News Reader sounds like a usenet app, and "feed aggregator" doesn't sound quite right either.)).

Ratings
One of the coolest features is ratings. If we can use Bayesian methods to determine whether email is spam or not, why not apply the same methods to determine how interesting an article is likely to be?! Cyndicate does this. After a little training, the results are often impressive. I recommend everyone download it (or buy it for $29.95) and set up a smart folder that shows unread 4- and 5-star articles right now.

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Natalie Gulbis won her first LPGA tournament last weekend in France. In the post-round celebration, she was posed on a stool holding the trophy.

The problem is, she's also sitting on a U.S. flag which is displayed upside down and touching the ground.

This triple breach of etiquette has been talked about in a few places, like a thread in my forum (which I started) and here.

The offense ranks pretty low on the scale of errors, but I find the people saying "it's just a piece of cloth" and otherwise dismissing her lack of etiquette as incredibly more egregious.

More on the flag code (and general flag etiquette) can be found at Wikipedia.

Squish it!

I remember when I actually had a bug in my LCD display. I couldn't squish it (I tried to in a corner - really not very wise) but it was behind the LCD layer (duh). So I unplugged the display, put it so the vents (this was the old plastic 23" Cinema) were facing down, shone a flashlight in there so the ant would be drawn to the vents, and let it sit for a day.

When I turned it back on, the ant was gone. Thankfully. The thing was going everywhere on my display when it was there.

I'm playing hockey this winter and, since we have limited ice time available to us (90 minutes once a week) for the next month and a half, I'm wondering: are there any ankle strengthening exercises I can do? I've always found ankle strength to be one of the keys to skating well.

I went for 30 minutes last Sunday just to try out the new skates. Aside from the slightly wobbly ankles (and I'm being pickier here than most people), I've really gotta learn to slide stop again and skate backwards again. There's not much slide stopping in roller hockey on campus parking lots!