Monday, October 28, 2002

This is very chilling, but not terribly surprising. In the absence of morality one would expect to parcel the tasks as a function of skill and the time required to become proficient on a rifle is much less than the time required to drive a get away car well enough to evade the law for a long period. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/28/national/28SHOO.html When I was a kid the local NRA sponsored high school gun club had many sixteen year olds who were proficient on "varmint" guns at long ranges. One of the standard contests was shooting eggs at two and three hundred yards. 5:48:48 AM     Our corner of the Northeast is experiencing a rather lame Fall at the moment. In normal times we would be just past the peak of the season with amazing yellows, oranges and reds. Why leaves turn certain colors is still not completely understood and the issues with red is noted in a recent Science News article http://www.sciencenews.org/20021026/bob8.asp 5:39:43 AM     In the spirit of Halloween, a spider story. Folks who don't like eight legged crawlies need not click on the link. http://www.fray.com/criminal/blackdeath/ 5:13:37 AM     The search to find interesting and very different streaming radio stations has turned up WOMR in Cape Cod. http://www.womr.org/listen.html Their "Latest Score" program airs new "serious" music. Catch the show on Tuesdays at 1 to 4 PM Eastern Time. CKLN in Toronto is another extremely diverse station. I can't say that it is my cup of tea and their stream isn't robust, but it is very different from the norm and several people have suggested it as being one of their favorites. http://www.ckln.fm/guide/guide.html This is a good example of an Internet station - their FM station only has 250 watts, which must make serving Toronto a challenge. Sadly WFMT, one of the best classical stations in North America, has shut off its Internet stream thanks to the RIAA, Clear Channel and other organizations bent on control. http://www.networkchicago.com/wfmt/realstream.htm A real loss. Unfortunately the US Congress only understands the arguments articulated by the folks whose lobbiests can write large contribution checks. 4:44:50 AM     A few years ago I had a chance to chat with a very famous fashion photographer. He told a story of a shoot thirty years ago in the South Pacific where his cases of equipment never arrived. Unfortunately the models were there and the clock was ticking... A trip to the hotel store yielded three Kodak "Brownie" cameras for about eight dollars each. He bought every roll of film he could get his hands on and put up a sign offering to buy film from tourists. The result was one of the legendary shoots for Vogue. Cameras are much less important than the photographer. If you bought a digital camera more than six months ago it is likely that newer models might give you the impression that you have made a mistake. The trick is to build technique and treat the camera as an expendable. The images are much more important. Many books have been written on amateur photography and many high schools and community colleges offer courses through adult education. Nikon has wonderful one day courses for advanced amateurs. Of course there is a huge amount on the Web - I ran into this one this morning. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/10/22/digi_photo_tips.html If you are looking for digital cameras you might want to take a look at the user reviews on epinions. Many of them are much more careful and thoughtful than what you'll find in Consumer Reports or C|net. http://www.epinions.com/Digital_Cameras/_redir_att__~1 4:34:54 AM     It is interesting watching what happens when tools become inexpensive. http://www.ojr.org/ojr/lasica/1034121182.php Digital storytelling can be great. Even if 98% of the creators don't figure it out, that leaves us with a huge body of fascinating work. 4:34:37 AM

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