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The Hidden Power of Photoshop CS: Chapter 2: Color Separations. Pt. 1The Hidden Power of Photoshop CS:
|
 "Science
is all metaphor", said Timothy Leary, philosopher and guru of
psychedelics, in an interview in 1980. In the last few years we have
been bombarded with metaphors, analogies, similes and personifications
such as:
Use of these devices is a very human tendency: They make things easier to understand. When used properly they can bring clarity the way no amount of detailed explanation or information can, and do so very quickly. They can also trigger the imagination, and produce brilliant creative insight. But these devices are often also misused and overused: Much of the subtlety can get lost in the translation, as elements of the comparison that are not particularly analogous are simply omitted from mention. Opinion polls do this by limiting respondents' choices and then claiming the results represent public opinion. And they can be dangerous, when used to manipulate and deceive, by distorting or exaggerating comparability. Editorialists, politicians, advertisers and spin doctors do this all the time, equating dictators with Hitler or dissenters with terrorists. In a recent interview in Edge Magazine that I mentioned a few weeks ago, George Lakoff explained the tendency to use metaphor this way: When
Mark Johnson and I [studied] the cognitive sciences in detail, we
realized that there were three major results that were inconsistent
with almost all of Western philosophy (except for Merleau-Ponty and
Dewey), namely: The mind is inherently embodied. Most thought is
unconscious. Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.
The differences [when you approach philosophy from a cognitive science perspective] are differences that matter in your life. Starting with results from cognitive semantics, we discovered a lot that is new about the nature of moral systems, about the ways that we conceptualize the internal structure of the Self, even about the nature of truth... We are neural beings. Our brains take their input from the rest of out bodies. What our bodies are like and how they function in the world thus structures the very concepts we can use to think. We cannot think just anything - only what our embodied brains permit. Metaphor appears to be a neural mechanism that allows us to adapt the neural systems used in sensory-motor activity to create forms of abstract reason. If this is correct, as it seems to be, our sensory-motor systems thus limit the abstract reasoning that we can perform. Anything we can think or understand is shaped by, made possible by, and limited by our bodies, brains, and our embodied interactions in the world. So if business and politics are complicated and abstract, let's make them simpler and more concrete, more physical, by describing them as 'games' or 'wars'. Games have simple rules and short time limits (wars once did as well, when what was at stake was more defined and realizable). Business and politics do not. Games and sports have a clear winner, so when you're describing what 'winning' is like in business or politics, you can use a sports analogy ("We wil defeat the competitors on their home turf" or "Nature always bats last".) Wars no longer have winners, but they are more serious matters than sports, so when you're describing something that requires sobriety, you can switch to a war analogy. Everything today that its proponent believes requires serious effort or entails serious risk is described as a 'war'. And if you're a dim-witted, drug-addled American president, you can even build a whole, simple artificial world around that analogy, seeing and portraying your whole existence as a 'crusade', taking orders and advice directly from that ultimate personification -- the one that is so powerful its name is spelled with a capital letter. Psychopaths love analogies and metaphors, and get very good at using them for manipulative purposes, which is one reason they often succeed so well in politics and business. The oversimplification and deception that result from misuse of comparative rhetorical devices are, in my opinion, essential elements in the 'dumbing down' of all of us, as citizens and consumers, especially over the past century. We want things to be simple, because it makes decisions easier and gives us more time to devote to other things. We want reassurance that what we believe is valid, morally and/or intellectually, so we can turn our attention as voters and buyers to issues where we are less sure. But we don't want issues to be oversimplified (even if that makes a decision easier), and we don't want to be lied to (even if that deception is reassuring). Even the brightest and most critical minds can be seduced by the comforting and stimulating allure of these devices. Consultants and employees making presentations to executives (in both public and private spheres) are encouraged to simplify the alternatives to just two in order to get broad approval quickly. They build metaphors and analogies into the presentations that make difficult, complex concepts appear absurdly simple, and to use the first and second person plural form of verbs describing the organization to flatter the executives to see themselves as the personification of the whole company. And, of course, they use stories with protagonists the executives can relate to, and antagonists that personify what they loathe, so that the story metaphorically surfaces and engages their personal struggles as powerful, self-aggrandized decision-makers. It's revolting to watch, and epidemic (if you'll forgive the metaphor) in large organizations and government bodies. But as organizational complexity increases exponentially with size, and available information is less and less adequate for competent decisions, and the organization becomes increasingly unmanageable, it's irresistible. It's also one of the reasons why large organizations, both public and private, are so horrifically bloated, top-heavy and inherently inefficient: Misinformed, underinformed, overconfident executives and self-proclaimed 'experts' remote from the front lines (sorry, another metaphor) inevitably make mostly bad decisions. Models are a form of analogy, simple representations of (perhaps) infinitely complex and unknowable realities. As Timothy Leary's quote suggests, that's really all science is. Scientific models are fascinating, they appeal to our instinctive search for pattern, and they are occasionally useful. But scientists, too, get overly enamoured of what are essentially fabrications, inherently imprecise representations of reality. There is an insatiable desire to find the ultimate indivisible particle that completes the model of matter, makes it 'perfect', or the grand unifying theory of everything. The concept of a universe that is infinitely complex, undefinable, endless, and infinitely varied is deeply unsettling and unsatisfying to many scientists, who will go to almost any length to argue (by analogy, of course) that this could not be possible. We have been so seduced by the power of analogy and metaphor to enrich our ability to understand and conceive, that we have promoted conception to a higher plane of credibility and value in our lives than perception, and our denigration of the latter (and of instinct, that form of knowledge that is intuitive and not consciously conceived) has led to a permanent 'detachment' from the sensory, physical world, to our great impoverishment and peril. As philosopher Merleau-Ponty put it:
Synaesthetic [involving all the senses together] perception is the
rule
[among all life on Earth], and we are unaware of it only because
scientific knowledge shifts the centre of gravity of experience, so
that we have unlearned how to
see, hear, and generally speaking, feel,
in order to deduce, from our bodily organization and the world as the
physicist sees it, what we are
to see, hear and feel.
Writers of novels and screenplays, likewise, are advised, if they want to be successful, to 'get real', to physically describe their characters and environments, to use realistic dialogue, and never just say what a character is thinking. A good novel transports you metaphorically to another place (and sometimes another time). And bad novels and screenplays push the analogy too far, oversimplifying the characters to grotesque caricatures of good and evil, oversimplifying and distorting their artificially-constructed reality to emotionally manipulate and 'dumb down' their audience. So today, the information (both fictional and non-fictional) with we are bombarded is replete with analogies, metaphors, similes and personifications, each intended honesty or dishonestly to help us 'make sense' (yes, this time I'm being ironic, not metaphorical) of that information. What are we to do? If these devices are double-edge swords (oops), or like a car (oops again), powerful and useful if employed cautiously and competently but very dangerous in the hands of the inexperienced or the deranged, should we play it safe and minimize use of them, and require warning labels when they're used? That's pretty impractical, and there are lots of other techniques available to manipulate people with language, some of which have no redeeming value whatever. The only practical answer is to learn (and to teach young people) to recognize them, and to recognize them for what they are: Useful, incomplete, imprecise shorthand representations of reality. We could use some help in this, from teachers, from the media, from novelists and scientists and politicians and surveyors of public awareness and opinion. They are (sorry, can't resist) the most potent weapons in the fearsome and wonderful arsenal of language. |
 In last month's Fast Company, Shoshana Zuboff,
author of The Support
Economy, points
out
that when it comes to consumer goods that we want, and which we buy
through regular retailers, we can be very demanding -- the iPod or
this
year's hot toy, for example. But when it comes to things we need,
like decent affordable health care and housing, a quality education,
safe, healthy food, and adequate pensions, we tend to be meek and wait
for politicians to do something for us. When they don't, we just shrug
and say "Oh, well". We've been conditioned to the learned helplessness
that allows outrages like the recent disgraceful, pork-laden US
omnibus
bill worked out in back rooms by sleazy, corrupt politicians and
sleazier corporatist lobbyists, to pass with hardly a squeak from the
media, opposition groups or even consumer advocates. She
concludes:I cannot help but wonder if and
when our lack of voice and shattered trust will again awaken our
revulsion and turn it into revolt. Instead of "no taxation without
representation," our cry could be "no choice without voice." It says
we're no longer seduced by a superficial array of choices. We once
found the strength to confront the
power of an empire. Can we do it again? Will we?
Why do we put up with this? I've just been watching a program on the Haida Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Heritage Site, on the Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) in BC, which provides a remarkable cultural contrast to the problems that bedevil our culture. The park and the site are jointly protected by the Haida people and the Canadian government, and the number of visitors is strictly limited. An area of stunning beauty (depicted above and below) and astonishing wildness (some of the highest rains and winds on the planet), the site is of course seriously threatened by the oil cartel's shoddily constructed and negligently managed oil tankers. And the Haida people, whose self-contained and rich culture is arguably one of the best models of how to live in human history, were ravaged by epidemics of the white man's diseases, to which they had no immunity, brought by miners, loggers and whalers. The 9000 year-old matrilineal Haida culture had about 30,000 people living in total harmony in 800 communities scattered throughout its 4000 square mile, 200-island area. Between 1780 and 1915, disease, mainly smallpox, reduced their numbers to about 500, and children were forced into residential schools to indoctrinate them into the colonizers' culture. Our culture clear-cut the Northern forests and drastically reduced the fish population on which the Haida culture had thrived.  The
remaining Haida have been able to protect only the Southern third of
the islands from logging and other development by our invasive and
destructive culture. The area sports a staggering biological
diversity,
including, because of the islands' remoteness, some species not found
anywhere else on Earth. These were a people who, for 9000 years, knew nothing of the learned helplessness that oppresses our culture. The word Haida means simply 'People'. Their genesis legend is that Raven, the great spirit, coaxed the first humans out of a clamshell. Their relationship with the land, the sea, the forest and the air, and all their creatures, is a profoundly sacred one, one of complete interconnectedness. Think of the problems that we are struggling with today: lack of adequate and affordable health care, housing, education, safe and healthy food, and security in old age. For 9000 years the Haida had none of these problems. They lived within their means. They had an egalitarian society where resources were shared. They learned what they needed to know (and what we would be wise to learn) from studying nature, from each other, and from the stories passed down from previous generations. They lived in a world of great abundance, and took only what they needed. They revered the community elders. Although they had the wherewithal to create an exploding population and imperial, urban society (they were the only ones skilled enough to cross the strait to the mainland, but did so rarely), they did not -- their population was never more than 8 people per square mile, and women had an average of only 3-4 children, which kept population stable for millennia. In short, they managed their numbers and their consumption in a way that prevented any of the problems that plague us today from ever arising. They lived responsibly and sustainably. And very comfortably. So my answer to Shoshana's question is: Our culture is doomed, and we will not 'confront the power of empire' and overcome our learned helplessness. In our urban, horrifically overpopulated, rapacious and expansionist artificial world, we can no longer see that the 'power of empire' is an inevitable consequence of living beyond our means and of disconnection from the appreciation of nature as sacred. We cannot learn the lessons of the Haida because our culture's constant noise and indoctrination, the 'machine in our heads', no longer lets us hear or understand these lessons intuitively, there is no natural context for us to see and hear and feel the truth that allowed previous cultures to thrive for millennia. We need people like Shoshana to stop wasting time trying to make a hopelessly damaged and self-destructive culture work, and instead help us design the next culture, after ours has destroyed itself. That next culture will be one that melds the best innovation and technology of our present dreadful culture, with the timeless and instinctive wisdom of all other cultures, successful and sustainable cultures, human and animal, that we have so tragically forgotten. |
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci
"I want to read the Notebooks, but there are 1,565 pages and I have too much else to read.
At a page a day it would take a little over four years, but be manageable.
Fortunately Project Gutenberg (who make freely available online out-of-copyright books) has created a text version of the Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci. You can download it. It lacks the illustrations of the original, but it's Good Enough.
Using this site, I can read one page a day using my RSS News Reader. Find an RSS News Reader. I started at page 1 on May 30th, 2004. I'm now on page 3. You can either read along with me, or start reading at page 1 today.
Subscribe to one of the following two feeds (copy and paste the URL into your Reader):
¨ Start reading today (starts at page 1): http ://interconnected.org/home/more/davinci/2004-06-01.rss
¨ Read with me (starts at page 3): http ://interconnected.org/home/more/davinci/2004-05-30.rss" [Interconnected, via del.icio.us/tag/rss]I am thoroughly intrigued by this, and my first thought is how similar this is to what the Chapter-A-Day folks do. Of course, publishers could also offer this service directly to readers, but wouldn't it be great if libraries did? Or if we start providing RSS feeds of new materials from our catalogs, what if we could also provide the first paragraph of each book in the feed?
3rd-Party Power Book Power Adapters?
3rd-Party Power Book Power Adapters? 01/23/2004 02:18 PMEDS hit by US Airways' Chapter 11
EDS hit by US Airways' Chapter 11 09/17/2004 06:55 AM
Forecast slashedC&W flogs US ops by way of Chapter 11
C&W flogs US ops by way of Chapter 11 12/08/2003 08:07 AM
Gores is buyerThe next chapter in the Patriot Act
The next chapter in the Patriot Act 04/04/2005 06:23 AM
CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh previews what promises to be a stormy Congressional debate starting this week.MCI out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy
MCI out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy 04/20/2004 12:38 PM
The telecoms giant formerly known as Worldcom emerges from bankruptcy protection in the US.New Chapter For Indevus
New Chapter For Indevus 06/03/2004 10:20 AM
Drug company puts troubled history behind it with the launch of Sanctura.The Next Chapter for Toys "R" Us
The Next Chapter for Toys "R" Us 08/23/2004 02:34 PM
Has the specialty retailer come to terms with its plight in the domestic toy market?Spam filtering, the next chapter
Spam filtering, the next chapter 05/24/2004 09:17 AM
I've been experiencing good results filtering out spam with a combination of Popfile (a Bayesian classifier) and the built-in filter in Eudora 6. I get well over 1,000 spams a day, so I need accuracy both in identifying spams and avoiding false positives with legitimate mail.
The biggest problem with my setup is that it all runs on the client side. Popfile works as a transparent proxy that runs on my Windows machine. I don't see the spam in my inbox, but I still have to download it before it can be filtered. As the spam volumes have increased, that has become an increasingly significant burden. Every check pulls down scores of messages, most of which wind up in the trash. I've had several cases where the sheer numbers crash Eudora. Getting email through my Treo is basically a waste of time, because it doesn't have the filters. If I'm on the road and don't check my mail, there are thousands of messages waiting for me when I get back.
I finally had time this weekend to set up filtering on the server side. Werbach.com and my other domains run through a Web hosting provider, Pair Networks, which offers a version of SpamAssassin. The tricky part was configuring it to automatically filter or delete messages, using procmail, rather than just putting something in the email header for later processing on the client.
I think I have it working now. I'm using SpamAssassin on a forgiving setting, because the client-side filters are still running after the mail goes through. If I can just weed out 60% of my spams before they reach my machine, life would be much better. So far, it looks like I can do significantly better than that.
I'm still tweaking the set-up, so it's possible some legitimate email will get stuck in the filters. If you write to me and don't get a response for a while, please try again.
Chapter Eight: SMS Installer Scripts
Chapter Eight: SMS Installer Scripts 04/19/2005 11:17 AMMCI Delays Chapter 11 Exit
MCI Delays Chapter 11 Exit 02/11/2004 04:26 PM
TheStreet.com Feb 11 2004 7:51PM GMTPerfect Circle: Chapter 3
Perfect Circle: Chapter 3 07/23/2004 08:06 AM
"Look, this chick, she is after you. I mean, your car is the last thing she ever saw. The dead are like that. They get fixated." The third excerpt from Sean Stewart's ghostly page-turner.Liberate files for Chapter 11
Liberate files for Chapter 11 05/03/2004 04:50 PM
Liberate Technologies, a formerly high-flying maker of software for set-top boxes, files for reorganization under U.S. bankruptcy laws.MCI breaks free from Chapter 11
MCI breaks free from Chapter 11 04/20/2004 10:09 AM
'A tribute to the human spirit'Perfect Circle: Chapter 2
Perfect Circle: Chapter 2 07/09/2004 08:34 AM
I never walked down a ghost road myself. There are some places we just aren't meant to go. Our second excerpt from cult novelist Sean Stewart's unearthly thriller.Freespace: The final chapter
Freespace: The final chapter 06/05/2005 11:29 PM
Timothy Sandefur shuts down Freespace .. is suspending .. Freespacesandefur.typepad.com/freespace/2005/05/the_final_chapt.htm l
track this site | 2 linksWelcome to OCA: Greater Chicago Chapter
Welcome to OCA: Greater Chicago Chapter 03/23/2005 05:13 AM
Organization of Cocachicago.org
track this site | 4 linksPerfect Circle: Chapter 1
Perfect Circle: Chapter 1 07/02/2004 08:13 AM
Ghosts are all different, like demons, not all the same, like zombies. They all want something. If you've got the sense God gave a cockroach, you stay away from them.Chapter 8 of the 9/11 Commission report
(pdf)
Chapter 8 of the 9/11 Commission report
(pdf) 07/23/2004 01:22 PM
read this chapterwashingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/911report/documents/911Repo rt_Ch8.pdf
track this site | 4 linksRedback Emerges From Chapter 11
Redback Emerges From Chapter 11 01/05/2004 04:20 PM
TheStreet.com Jan 5 2004 2:29PM ETPerfect Circle: Chapter 4
Perfect Circle: Chapter 4 07/30/2004 08:17 AM
Life is a firework, a burst of light in the sky. When you die, it's like the rocket is falling. But for a ghost, like the girl Hanlon killed, death is a bad photograph, transfixing you.Siebel's Next Chapter (NewsFactor)
Siebel's Next Chapter (NewsFactor) 05/10/2004 03:05 PM
NewsFactor - As the smoke clears following Tom Siebel's (Nasdaq: SEBL) bombshell that he was stepping down as CEO of the firm he built over the last 11 years, analysts, competitors and customers are wondering what is next for Siebel -- the company that has, for better or worse, defined CRM as we know it today.
Grok Description matches for The Hidden Power of Photoshop CS: Chapter 2: Color Separations. Pt. 1
GrokA matches for The Hidden Power of Photoshop CS: Chapter 2: Color Separations. Pt. 1Smugmug Online Photoshop
Smugmug Online Photoshop 03/19/2005 02:22 AMWhy would anyone pay $29.95 for an online photo album? Well what if it gave you a smooth and beautiful interface, unlimited photo storage, and huge photo size limits, the ability to backup your online album, your users can download the original size photo which you uploaded and the ability to upload 100's of photos at once. Upload from your cellphone, and never see any ads or spam pop-ups. Oh yes, post photos to blogs and forums, password protect the embarrassing ones, and monitor visitors to the site that has your own vanity name. That's just for starters.
Smugmug gives you as much as you need. They offer three levels of membership starting at $29.95 with the Pro level at $99.95 which allows you to run your own online store. I will list the levels and the services below, but the one thing you cannot list is the speed, ease of use, and the ability to change the album to your specific look and feel. I love this online photo shop the best of any I’ve found. I know Flickr has been getting a lot of press, but give Smugmug a look-see and let me know what you think.
If you decide to purchase a plan from Smugmug, I can save you $5 on a membership by using this code "t7xidGXRdLOYw" in the referred by field in the signup form.
NAPP launches online Photoshop CS2
Learning Center
NAPP launches online Photoshop CS2
Learning Center 04/04/2005 04:31 PM
Today the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) launched the Photoshop CS2 Learning Center. The goal of this online resource is to be the most comprehensive look at Adobe Photoshop CS2 available anywhere. The site includes free online videos, articles, reviews, news, and a downloadable CS2 overview.
NAPP has also published a special bonus issue of their magazine, Photoshop User, that is completely dedicated to teaching the new features of Photoshop CS2, and it's already on its way to NAPP members (it's included with their June issue). To learn more about NAPP, who they are and what they do, visit their web site.
Online Shopper: Bad Fit? Bad Color? Good
Riddance
Online Shopper: Bad Fit? Bad Color? Good
Riddance 12/31/2004 09:07 AM
Nytimes.com - Fri Dec 31, 07:06 am GMTeWarna Awarded Patent For Online Color
Management Technology
eWarna Awarded Patent For Online Color
Management Technology 09/08/2004 02:53 AM
eWarna, the global leader in online color collaboration solutions, has been notified of acceptance of its first U.S. patent application (No. 09/971,976) for its “System and Method for On-Line Color Algorithm Exchange”. [PRWEB Sep 8, 2004]So much for the separation of powers
So much for the separation of powers 03/23/2005 05:33 PM
An anti-abortion judge never confirmed by the U.S. Senate could cast the deciding vote in the Schiavo case.Separation: The Web Designer's Dilemma
Separation: The Web Designer's Dilemma 05/14/2004 09:13 AM
Presentation separated from structure. Structure separated from content. The foot bone connected to the ... what were we talking about? Michael Cohen steps in to examine our assumptions and relieve our separation anxiety.Jail separation under fire
Jail separation under fire 02/11/2004 02:39 AM
A decision to separate paramilitary prisoners at an NI jail is dangerous for staff implementing it, an MP says.A separation of Church and State??
A separation of Church and State?? 07/02/2004 04:29 PM
The spokesman said its 'Important to reach out to every single supporter' I guess I shouldn't be suprised, and I guess it's not illegal, but I'll try to be bi-partisan here and say this just seems wrong!!BarlowSpam: No Degrees of Separation
BarlowSpam: No Degrees of Separation 01/07/2004 02:15 PM
An ecosystem is an information sorting engine. Whether photons entering a rain forest or heat gradients entering the deep ocean, biological systems pass these differences back and forth among themselves, creating increasingly complex matrices of structure. Hence, Life. And yet, the most complex information sorting system yet devised by humans, the Internet, remains relatively simple and flat, rather as life was before the Cambrian explosion. Every IP address is like a single celled animal, with larger critters yet to emerge. I've been expecting to see more new forms of order in Cyberspace than I have so far and am always watchful for the substrates of connection that might support it as it emerges. Lately, I've been watching sites that seek to narrow and map the famous 6 degrees of separation, like Friendster, Tribes.Net, and LinkedIn.Com. I'm not entirely sure these things are going anywhere truly interesting, but they are certainly diverting to observe from a sociological standpoint. The former two are like gigantic singles bars for Burning Man refugees, while the latter seems to function largely as a means to reduce professional surface tension between aspiring business types. It occurs to me, however, that since I am eager to increase the personal connectivity among you BarlowFriendz and give you better opportunities to know one another without passing through me, these sites might be useful to us. (There is already a so-far fairly quiescent BarlowFriendz "tribe" on Tribes.Net.) At least, it feels worthy of an experiment....Six degrees of separation in identity
management
Six degrees of separation in identity
management 08/18/2004 04:46 AM
John Guare's play "Six Degrees of Separation" posits that we are all connected by six or fewer stages of circumstance or acquaintance. As one writer explains:Separation: The Web Designer’s
Dilemma: A List Apart
Separation: The Web Designer’s
Dilemma: A List Apart 05/15/2004 02:52 AM
ALA 181: »Separation: The Web Designer’s Dilemma«alistapart.com/articles/separationdilemma
track this site | 5 linksConjoined Twins to Undergo Third
Separation Procedure
Conjoined Twins to Undergo Third
Separation Procedure 02/19/2004 12:11 AM
On Friday, Carl and Clarence Aguirre, 22-month-old Filipino twins who are joined at the head, are scheduled to undergo their third operation to tease apart the network of shared veins in their heads.comment on freedom of religion and
separation of church and state
comment on freedom of religion and
separation of church and state 12/29/2003 07:18 AM
force ones God on everyone else .. Religion, politics, and geekdom .. Robert Scoble .. entryradio.weblogs.com/0001011/2003/12/27.html#a5943
track this site | 4 linksDiscovery makes 'green' separation open
to pharma
Discovery makes 'green' separation open
to pharma 03/26/2005 05:40 AM
LabTechnologist.com Mar 26 2005 9:27AM GMTIntroducing the world's first mobile
six-degrees-of-separation friend’s
network
Introducing the world's first mobile
six-degrees-of-separation friend’s
network 09/01/2004 02:41 AM
A unique UK based friends network uses six-degree's-of-separation via your mobile phone to meet friends, or friends of friends safely and easily on your mobile when your out and about on the town. [PRWEB Sep 1, 2004]The Vermont Governor: Dean Narrowing His
Separation of Church and Stump
The Vermont Governor: Dean Narrowing His
Separation of Church and Stump 01/05/2004 06:09 AM
Old Or New Testament? .. Jesus cardnytimes.com/2004/01/04/politics/campaigns/04DEAN.html?ei=5062&e n=1a78968b2fd09908&ex=1073797200&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print&posit ion=
track this site | 4 links"The Vermont Governor: Dean Narrowing
His Separation of Church and Stump"
"The Vermont Governor: Dean Narrowing
His Separation of Church and Stump" 01/05/2004 04:16 PMUPDATE: Droids
And Ewoks DVD Covers Online
UPDATE: Droids
And Ewoks DVD Covers Online 08/27/2004 03:20 PM
DVD Toons has posted the DVD cover artwork for Droids and Ewoks. They are being released under the "Star Wars Animated Adventures" banner. Looks for them on 11/23/2004. Check the link above for the cover images. Thanks to Ralph for the alert! *More info on this has been posted at Starwars.com!DAVE'S
FAVOURITE ONLINE RADIO STATIONS
DAVE'S
FAVOURITE ONLINE RADIO STATIONS 05/01/2004 11:43 AM
Last winter I wrote about the growth of Internet Radio, and many of you told me about your favourite online music sources. As a result, I've started listening quite regularly while I work, enough to have assembled a small list of favourite stations and tools:
Favourite rock music station: Rock Chicks Radio - 128kbps Stereo - All the great women of rock, and interactive: you can get them to add your favourite singer & song to the rotating playlist of about 300 songs, send 'dedications' that will come up everytime your favourite song is played, and vote on songs and increase the amount of play they get.
Favourite African music station: Pan-African All-Stars Radio - 64kbps Stereo - I love modern African music, especially West/Central African soukous. This station plays a great variety from throughout the continent, and they have a very informative website as well.
Favourite Latin American music station: SalsaStream - 96kbps Stereo - Readers know I'm taking Salsa dance lessons (coming very slowly, by the way, but great fun). But I've loved Latin American music for years, and this site has great sound and lots of variety.
Favourite folk music station: Omzig Kicks Ass - 64kbps Mono - Scroll down the list until you find 'Omzig'. As much as I like Hober Radio, this one's at least as good. Great mix of old and modern folk.
Favourite eclectic mix music station: Radio Paradise - 64kbps Mono - This station bills itself as an 'intelligent music' station and plays a wide variety of consistently high-quality, often little-know and rarely-heard music.
Favourite classical music station: InLiv e Katharsis - 128kbps Stereo - Scroll down the list until you find 'Katharsis' (not a 24-hour station so if you don't see it, it's off-air). This is a tough choice, since there are some excellent alternatives from France, Switzerland and Russia. But this station, surprisingly from South Korea, has excellent sound and plays not only an excellent selection of music from Medieval to Contemporary Classical, but seems to pick the best possible performances of each composition. When it's off-air I listen to MagnaTune all-indie-performers' Shoutcast Classical Radio station.
Most unusual station: Radio KanKan - 24kbps Mono - The country of Guinée in West Africa is one of the least-known in the world, but a source of great music (including some amazing electric/tribal instrument fusions). This station and its site play a lot of music and also take a courageous stand against it's government's corruption. Some fascinating local stories, that tell you more about the people of this land, caught between the indigenous, French colonial and Arabic cultures, than you'll ever get in a book. They're also nuts about football (soccer). In French.
Favourite Internet Radio Directory/Player: ShoutCast with BOOMBox. The BOOMBox player is free to download. Access to hundreds of Internet Radio stations (including all of the above), which you can listen to with one click (no need to go through the station's website). Very comprehensive list of stations, and well-maintained. Uses ShoutCast as its streaming system and works best with the sister WinAmp player (which is also free online). Set up your own favourites list and then browse through your favourites with one-click.. Identifies the selection currently playing as you browse. Also one-click recording capability. No annoying ads. I'll never go back to Netscape Radio or Yahoo Radio. If you can't find what you're looking for in the BOOMBox list, the ShoutCast page has more detailed listings and info on the available stations, as well as popularity ratings and one-glance look at what's now playing on all the stations on a particular genre.
Sure beats the hell out of ClearChannel. Check 'em out, tell me what you think, and what your favourites are.
Tutorials
Tutorials 02/10/2004 02:55 AMI attended the 'Reverse engineering' tutorial by Andrew Huang - the guy who cracked the X-Box. He had also cracked his arm, but that didn't seem to slow him down. I have to say that I got a bit bored of all the x86 assembly code flowing with a font that was just barely readable, so I spent some time tweaking the all new Finnish blog awards page, coming soon to a server near you.
Russ on phone For the second tutorial of the day, AT&T kindly gave us Sony Ericsson T616 phones, so that we could try some hands-on hacking. I promptly found that the screen on these babies is abysmally bad at direct, 25 degrees Californian sunlight... *grin* But Russell Beattie's cool to listen to - he's certainly the archetype for us NADD people. At the moment he's hacking at his home server using SSH on a big screen... Then he showed us accidentally his password to a web service :-)
However, I don't believe that these tutorials are really of too much value - for me anyway. Most of the stuff I am already familiar with, or could learn quickly otherwise; or it is too detailed to get me excited. *shrug* Should've gone to the Digital Democracy thing.
DV tutorials
DV tutorials 06/21/2004 01:20 AM
i wrote a couple how to's, the first is how to make "auto-movies" with all the footage we all have on dv tape, but never do anything with it. the second how to is how to record movies (dvds) to portable video players. the deal is, all these portable video players are coming out and if you own movies, you can't get them on the device you just bought, well- you can, it's just not clear how or if it's legal. the how to explains all this and more.
Tutorials - Using CVS With XCode
Tutorials - Using CVS With XCode 07/16/2004 01:38 PM
Have you ever been working on a project in Xcode, taken a direction in the code, and wished you hadn't? You sat there and just wished you could go back to the way your code was three days ago before you decided that bad idea was a really good one. Maybe you work in a team and were frustrated when your coworker was working on the same file you were and saved over the three hours worth of changes you had just made. Both of these issues would be nonexistent if you used some sort of version control in your coding projects. Version control is taken care of by some sort of source code management system. These applications keep track of version history, releases, code differences, and many other features.Web Design Tutorials
Web Design Tutorials 08/13/2002 10:09 PM
Stickysauce Aug 13 2002 9:22PM ET
The Hidden Power of Photoshop CS: Chapter 2: Color Separations. Pt. 1
The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry: online tutorials photoshop cs color separation
