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My grandma turns 80 today. I'll have pictures later on, but for now: happy birthday, Grandma!

Unfortunately, my golf game has yet to arrive. 🙂

Ron came over last night to "make up" for this coming Sunday when we might miss our weekly photography trek (we're kinda like gym buddies that help force each other to take pictures once a week). We weren't terribly inspired, but we did start with a "floating" light bulb and got some decent pictures. Here are some of my favorites below.

All shot between f/11 and f/8 with the 24-70/2.8L on my 5D (of course). No white balance - just a little levels adjustment (to drive the back to black or near-black) and a crop. I kind of like the extra-warm tones the light pushes onto the skin.

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My friend Heinrich has posted information on the forgotten Vista wallpapers. Some are quite nice - the package is well worth a download.

I've gotta call bullshit on this one:

Clearly offline unlock codes aren't a viable solution at all. Relying on "honesty" is a huge mistake.

I said this two years ago and I still believe it:

Incidentally, Freshly Squeezed Software's approach to piracy … is, basically, to ignore piracy. We always tried, at FSS, to make sure honest people paid up, but nothing more. None of our software even blocked pirated codes - it wasn't worth the effort to maintain such a list. The pirates would simply generate a new code, and we'd add that to the list, and it'd become a vicious cycle that took development time away from actual features - the things that sell software to honest folks.

Product activation is goofy and unnecessary. It puts hurdles in front of honest people. And, to be honest, I'd rather ten or a hundred dishonest people steal my software than upset a single honest person.

The iTunes model relies on this trust in the honest of people, and the coming EMI non-DRMed music even more so. If Apple can sell a bazillion iTunes because people can be trusted not to turn to file-sharing when given a reasonable option to be honest, indie Mac devs can earn money too.

I gave up waiting and ordered a Lowepro SlingShot 300 AW from Adorama. I'd have gotten it from B&H, but being run by the religious folks, B&H was closed for a good length of time over Easter. I wanted to try it out first and see how well my gear fit, but frankly, I was tired of waiting and from what I'd read, I was rather confident it would work out just fine.

Click through for some pictures of the bag with my gear included.

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Can WordPress be hacked to search pages as well as blog posts? This functionality would be nice for a site I've recently done at edga.org, most of which is built on WordPress pages, and for a site I'm currently working on.

A search turns up a bunch of SEO-related pages as well as this plugin from 2005. 🙁 There's a discussion here.

Though I don't agree with all of this (and it contains some factual inaccuracies or misleading parts), it's still amusing and more accurate than I would ever wish. From an email forward, the obituary for Common Sense:

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn't always fair, and maybe it was my fault. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student only worsened his condition.

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This reminds me a bit too much of this.

30+ dead to a young Asian man dressed like a boy scout? I'm curious what possible motivation this person had for acting in such a way, and I wonder what effect - if any - this will have on the gun debate.

If you're into two things - golf and numbers - I'm in need of a new columnist at The Sand Trap to fulfill the Numbers Game position. Contact me in some way to see if the column is for you.

Initially, I didn't want an AppleTV because I wasn't sure how hackable it was, nor did I think it would work really well with my current setup. That "current setup" is this: I have a third 500 GB drive in my Mac to which I've ripped some DVDs I own. I tend to do so in MPEG-4 with the H.264 decoder and AAC audio, though I have a few I ripped in straight MPEG-4 (whatever that option is in HandBrake). I also have a few AVI files that play just fine in VLC.

I have these items stored in folders called "Movies" or "TV Shows" (for my Sports Night and West Wing rips) or whatever on a drive, again, separate from my main drive. They're not in my iTunes library, nor will they be.

I wrote the AppleTV off previously because I didn't think it would work in this situation, though I'm starting to think that perhaps it will behave in this way just fine. Am I correct? Can I use the AppleTV in this fashion to play my ripped DVDs on my computer, despite them not being in iTunes? I doubt the AVIs will play, but might they (somehow)?

P.S. No, I'd rather not re-rip the movies in a different format, if possible.

P.P.S. I have read Bill's take, yes.

From a friend's AIM away status:

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know
-- Ernest Hemingway

I may have more to say on this later, but for now, just a poll.

The ten-day forecast for the Erie area doesn't even reach 50°. Not once. This is April, fer crissakes, and we're not even going to hit 50 degrees. Sure, it started well - we had a day that hit 75°, but now we're paying for it.

I just watched An Inconvenient Truth today, too. While I don't doubt the science or much of the movie, really, I know you'd have a hard time convincing anyone in Erie right now that there's any such thing as global warming.

Took this picture in the yard today with the 70-200. Color saturation on yellows, greens, and reds bumped up a little bit, and white and black point pinched in. It's on the Desktops page, too. Handheld, or I'd have more DoF than f/5.6 gave me.

I hope to get some golf in on Saturday (please reach 45°) and Sunday Ron and I are going to take pictures somewhere. Does anyone have any suggestions? Someplace that doesn't need to be alive (and green)? If the weather is crap, we might be forced inside anyway.

I found this critique of Dan Brown's writing awfully amusing. Among the gems:

Brown's writing is not just bad; it is staggeringly, clumsily, thoughtlessly, almost ingeniously bad. In some passages scarcely a word or phrase seems to have been carefully selected or compared with alternatives.

I read The Da Vinci Code. In about a day and a half of part-time reading. It's quick, it's vaguely interesting if you don't let the poor writing get you down, and it led to some discussion about some interesting topics (which actually may be the only reason it is interesting in and of itself - it's not like the characters have any depth or anything).

Normally I have a hard time reading for pleasure because "editor mode" is always turned on. Having read this critique, I think my brain must have realized it would be hopeless and just shut down, because I admit to not thinking much about the grammar and word choices made in the book.