I’ve been on flickr nearly since it first started. It’s been a great community to learn about photography and hook up with others who are really into photography as well. I have 10 700 photos on flickr so I’ve looked on various flickr developments with fear because of how invested I am in the site. I was scared when Microsoft was going to buy them because they haven’t always been as open a company as Yahoo. Frankly, I wasn’t too happy when Yahoo bought flickr because they’ve been so stagnant and development did stall for many years there. I used to listen to a lot of photography podcasts and they were constantly talking about the fall of flickr because the largest photo repository online was now Facebook. There were two reasons I never put photos on Facebook. At first it’s because I wanted to aggregate all the comments and views in one place. Later it was because posting photos to Facebook was a bad deal copyright-wise.

I’m writing this in late August - by the time this post appears I should have received all of my Kickstarter goods or they should be in the mail. Interestingly, even though the Kickstarter backer cycles were spread over about a three month period, they’re all supposed to be delivering the product at around the same time - 4th quarter of this year. As of the time of this writing, this is the status of my Kickstarters:

[caption id=“attachment_7361” align=“aligncenter” width=“604”] NPR All Music Considered works correctly now[/caption]

It’s not a surprise that I love Amarok. Take a look at the related posts below. I think nothing beats it as a music program. If the KDE4 for Windows libraries were more robust I’d recommend it for everyone. As is, I think it’s the best on Linux. But, until the most recent updates there was something lacking that really bothered me. On a stream like NPR’s All Music Considered it wouldn’t update the Now Playing track to the song that was on. And that made it really hard to use that stream in the best possible way - to discover new music! It’s fixed now and that’s awesome! Woohoo!

Scarlett first did this about three weeks ago before she started watching Disney’s The Little Mermaid non-stop. I was playing with her in the living room and she was making her various stuffed animals dance to the music. Then she took two animals - a dog and a cat or something and put their faces together and said “kissing”. This was baffling to me because Danielle and I don’t really have lots of PDA. It’s not a conscious decision, it’s just that we’re usually trying to juggle about three things at once when Scarlett’s around. And she pretty much only watches PBS and I doubt there’s much lip-on-lip kissing on there. So I wonder where she picked it up? It may be like the other things that people blame on daycare (biting, hitting, etc), kids just pick it up from the ether or they see it once - that one time you had some TV show on or that one time the wife and I kissed in front of her - and it just gets ingrained in their heads. Not sure, but definitely fascinated that it happened.

Yet, despite his non-existent range, Schwarzenegger has continually taken on projects that either cast him as a character with multiple identities ( Raw Deal, Total Recall, True Lies, Escape Plan) or require him to play multiple characters ( The 6th Day, the Terminator franchise). This results in a Hollywood hall of mirrors: Schwarzeneggers interacting with other Schwarzeneggers; Schwarzenegger pretending to be Schwarzenegger; Schwarzenegger discovering that he’s not the Schwarzenegger he believed himself to be, but a different, identical Schwarzenegger.

A couple days ago I heard the latest episode of the You Are Not So Smart podcast. In it we learn about how where you grow up has a profound affect on the way you think and act. On of the coolest conclusions they mention is that the reason that the American Deep South is known for being so ridiculously polite is that honor is so important there that people fight over it. Meaning, it’s an act of survival to ensure you do nothing possible to piss off those around you for fear of besmirching their honor and having them kill you.

This article on AV Club considers how A Tribe Called Quest’s most critically acclaimed album is their worst artistically. I felt the same thing happened with GRITS - I LOVE their first two albums, but hate everything after that - which is when they started to pick up steam and be featured on MTV. It’s not some kind of hipster hate of the popular - I kept buying the albums hoping they’re return to a sound more like The Roots. Eventually I gave up. I feel like the same happened with Childish Gambino - I really don’t like his first commercial release, but I loved his mixtapes. I hear the same said of Lupe Fiasco.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary by David Sedaris

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With this book David Sedaris is a modern day Aesop. In the same way that we use Science Fiction and Humor to allow us to discuss our condition without chafing (they’re not talking about good ole ‘merica, they’re talking about aliens!), by using animals Sedaris is able to get us to think about the way we interact with others and how we fit into society. Sure, sometimes of the time the metaphor/analogy doesn’t work perfectly as in a story that involved a breeder dog and was about infidelity. But it was still a pretty poignant story.

[caption id=“attachment_7470” align=“aligncenter” width=“449”] LG Chocolate Touch - the phone I will be talking about in this paragraph[/caption]

Around three or so years ago I was ready to get a new cell phone. My phone was no longer maintaining a charge and a new battery was more than the nearly free phone I could get by renewing my contract. Smart phones had been around for a few years, but I didn’t want a smart phone. I just wanted a phone with a decent camera. I absolutely love my dSLR; it helps me take the best photos I’m capable of taking. But I rarely have it with me unless I know I will be going somewhere I want to be able to take photos; I always have my cell phone. I spent an hour in the Verizon store finding just the right phone - it looked and behaved like a smart phone (for the most part) and it had a great camera compared to my dying phone. I got the phone and the agent told me I’d need to get a data plan. I informed him that I didn’t want one. He told me about all the functionality I’d be missing. I didn’t care. This phone did what I wanted - it made phone calls and it took nice photos for a point and shoot. OK, he did some wrangling on his computer and told me the data plan was removed. I fought with verizon every time a bill arrived because the system kept adding a data plan. Eventually, I was told I couldn’t have it without a data plan and so I got rid of the phone.