Sleep Deprivation
From a series of articles in Slate.com about sleep:
Robert Stickgold, a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard, said “We think we can deprive ourselves of sleep and drink triple espressos or take Modafinil. But that’s like saying, ‘I’ve figured out how to cure hunger in Africa: I’m going to send over amphetamines so people won’t feel hungry anymore.’ It doesn’t address the underlying need.”
Fallen Mascot
Grace and Rameses, November 2005
Since I live in Chapel Hill, have die hard UNC fans for children, and have opportunities to go to many UNC games, we have lots of pictures like the one above. I just don’t post them very often.
Jason Ray, the student who cheered on the Tar Heel nation as the UNC mascot, died from injuries suffered in a tragic car accident. I want to pass on my thoughts to his family members and friends. He sounded like a great kid that will surely be missed.
Apple Product Announcement
Personal Headline Connection
Even though I just said below that I am not very likely to post about leading news headlines, I do feel a need to commnent on the latest news about John and Elizabeth Edwards.
When I read the following quote from the 60 Minutes interview:
ON WHAT JOHN EDWARDS AND HIS WIFE TOLD THEIR TWO YOUNGEST CHILDREN: “I said, ‘Well, Mommy’s cancer’s back.’ And they said, ‘Can she die from this?’ And then Elizabeth said all of us are going to die eventually. We’re all going to die from something. And Mommy knows now what she’s probably going to die from.”
All I could think about are the kids. Jack and Emma Edwards go to the same school as my kids, and were in the same classes as my kids last year. I know the kids better than their famous parents, and it pains me to think that they had to talk to their mom about her death.
These are pretty normal kids, even though they have grown up in the spotlight. They have eaten meals in the White House, they have been on the campaign trail, and have even addressed large crowds of people. Well, at least they were on stage while their parents addressed them.
Perching Peter
Here’s a photo of Peter at the Carolina Hurricanes game. Since I frequently post pictures of Grace, here’s one of Peter for balance.
Post Relevancy
I was recently reading the Wikipedia notability requirements for inclusion, because I want to add a listing for my client, plus I had recently heard a story about an author who’s listing was removed because he wasn’t notable enough, and I thought about the notability requirements for my blog.
Generally if I find something on NPR, Slate or some random site, and it interests me, I would include it here. If something is on the front page of Google News or CNN, like the YouTube link to the Hillary 1984 video, there is no reason for me to blog it here. I blog as much for my own benefits, rather than generating links on any of the social media listings. I don’t actually use any of those anyway, although I have listed this blog on Technorati and I finally have my first link, giving me a rank of 1,873,219.
This flurry of blogging is happening from a coffee house with free internet, while Grace is at a birthday party.
Size Matters
There is an online/print photgraphy magazine called JPG that I have recently encountered. People upload photos according to a series of themes, and site users vote on the best photos. The winning photos are printed in the magazine.
I tried uploading the above photo (theme: reflection) that was about 1MB in size (shot at the 2nd highest setting of my camera), and it was rejected because the resolution was too low. It was 1600 x 1200 and the requirements are minimum 2200 pixels in its smallest dimension. They require this resolution for print. Since this is photography magazine, I’m sure they want to have the flexibility to print large photos, so I definitely understand the requirements.
The effect this has on the quality of work is that the photos are already self-selected by shooters who have at least pro-sumer level cameras. The other option is to shoot film, as I’ve done and get the negatives scanned at high-res.
Poster-sized Photos
If you are looking for a way to make poster sized versions of your photos, go to The Rasterbator. It is a very flexible tool that creates individual PDF pages that you can print out. I tried to limit the amount of paper required, and I didn’t have enough resolution on the output. I need to experiment more but it seems cool.
Grace’s Protest Sign
Last night Peter had a friend sleep over, and Grace was not leaving them alone, including going into the bathroom while they were showering. She got in a lot of trouble for this, and was told that she needed to shower and go straight to bed. It was already past her bedtime, so this was not that much of a punishment.
I went into her room after her shower and saw that she was making a poster. She had her dictionary out and was trying to look up a word. She closed the dictionary and asked me how to spell world. She tried to cover the poster and told me not to look at it.
After she went to bed she put the poster in her doorway. It said, I hate the whole world.
Zombie Brands
There’s a recent piece in Slate.com about marketers’ penchant to resurrect old and dead brands like a horde of zombies:
Last October, few tears were shed when Ford ended production of the Taurus. The unlovely, workhorse sedan had been the company’s best-selling unit for much of the 1990s, mostly because of huge sales to rental-car companies. Shutting down production was a sign that Ford, in the midst of a serious restructuring, was looking to the future. But then in February, Ford announced that it would resume producing a car with the Taurus nameplate in the summer of 2007. continue reading
There has even been a follow-up, a return of the zombie brands article.