Was anyone else surprised by the Fed’s quarter point rate cut yesterday?

I haven’t been following the financial sites lately, and apparently I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. It seemed like a good time to sit back and do not too damned much.

Does anyone else think that it’s sort of cool that the Chinese government now has a super secret underground lair?

Well, maybe not so super secret since everyone seems to know about it, but it does fit the bad guy image they’ve been cultivating of late, doesn’t it? And, no, I’m not particularly worried about the thing; I’m pretty sure James Bond managed to single-handedly destroy more impressive super secret underground lairs a few times in his career. Once call to our friends in the UK and that thing is toast.

Does anyone else think that Josef Fritzl is going straight to hell when he dies--and that his is a clear case where his government should give him a helpful push down the path?

There are reasons that we keep the words “monster” and “evil” in our non-ironic lexicon. He serves as a reminder that evil is very real, that there are monsters in the world, and that we need to remain vigilant if we plan to keep citizens safe from the worst of us.

Is anyone else terrified of the fact that we’re having a worldwide spike in food prices and availability because, largely, of destructive government policies?

Let me continue that thought for a moment: most modern food shortages occur because of natural events. Floods, droughts, disease--acts of God if you will. The food shortages now (because we are tying our food policy to our energy policy, because trade barriers are being erected, because the cost to bring food to market are growing wildly) are manmade. I’m sure that, as we always do, we’ll absorb the painful losses, change our policies somewhat, and adjust to new realities and costs. We always do. What scares me, though, is that if our policies aren’t changes wisely, what happens to energy costs, food costs, and food availability when God visits us will a really good flood, drought, or plant disease that severely limits the supply of some staple grain? Because what has happened over the last year or so has happened without dips in actual production.

I might be missing something that makes it all okay, but this has me worried.

Does anyone else think that the whole Lesbos/Lesbian thing is absolutely hilarious?

I’ve got nothing to add to that. It’s just funny, I tell you.

Does anyone else think that the Open Source Boob Project kerfuffle sort of goes to prove all the worst stereotypes about a certain subset of geekdom?

To the point, that this class of geek imagine themselves to be extra-special-evolved in cultural terms while the rest of us just recognize the reality of their sexually immature, juvenile social ineptitude. To try to somehow demystify breasts by making such a big deal about an ongoing gropefest seems a good way to miss the actual point of their point.

That’s only compounded by the native geek tendency to suck the spontaneous fun out of a thing by codifying it, over-explaining it, and extending it like overeager schoolboys into places where it doesn’t belong. All the while they see it as a way to make a social statement of some indistinct kind.

Hi, I’m socially evolved and don’t buy into the cultural taboos about boobs. Can I fondle you now? I promise it will be totally non-sexual.

Proving with impressive emphasis that some of the worlds smartest people can still buy into stupid like nobody’s business. Especially when breasts are the topic.

I originally saw this on Scalzi’s site. He’s nicer than I am.

For the record: any deals you make to grope or be groped by another consenting adult aren’t any of my business, I know. But pretending to some heightened sexual enlightenment because of something like the oddly named “Open Source Boob Project” just looks dumb.

In the face of high royalty payments owed by online radio stations, does anyone else think that we’d all be better off when the record companies had to pay for their stuff to get played?

Instead of working toward the destruction of Internet radio, we would see a boom in the number of stations, the variety of music, and the financial health of the businesses that, for all intents and purposes, are advertisers for the record companies. By comparison to this superhighway robbery, was payola really such a bad thing? Hell, I think it was more honest.

12 is the Magic Number.
The Avs won the series 4-2 after scoring first in every game and only giving up a first period goal in one game. The Wild were often more aggressive--they pushed the play, the got shots on goal, they hit hard and often. But the Avs had better goaltending, made more of their scoring opportunities, blocked more shots, and never seemed to lose their composure--something that the Wild couldn’t say after racking up over 100 minutes of penalty time in game 4.

Great series. I hope the next one is just as exciting (and blessed with the same happy ending for Avs fans).

Congratulations to Danica.
It’s nice to see that she is both hot and talented. I’d been wondering a little about the talented part.

Danica Patrick became the first female winner in IndyCar history Sunday, taking the Indy Japan 300 after the top contenders were forced to pit for fuel in the final laps.

Patrick finished 5.8594 seconds ahead of pole-sitter Helio Castroneves on the 1.5-mile Twin Ring Motegi oval after leader Scott Dixon pitted with five laps left and Dan Wheldon and Tony Kanaan came in a lap later.

MacUpdate Promo looks pretty good.
For Mac OS X users, the MacUpdate promo looks like a better bundle of applications than the current MacHeist Bundle. Of course, that’s assuming that they reach the target sales goal and actually release all of the applications to they buyers. There are a few useful applications in it that I’d been thinking about buying, so I’ll be ponying up for the bundle.

Oprah is a pusher.
I try to stay nice on the subject of Oprah since there is much to admire. Her charities have done real good in the world, she’s risen to become one of the most powerful people in American entertainment, and the girl likes her enough to subscribe to her magazine. For that matter, she’s got all the business savvy that Donald Trump wishes he had--and he has the bankruptcy filings to prove it.

Anyway, where my admiration stops is right at the edge of her social and political commentary--commentary that leans less on thinking and more on feeling. That is doubly so when she’s pushing a self-help title of the nature of The Secret. Her new business venture with Eckhart Tolle, though, makes her seem more like a huckster than a reputable businessperson.

Disappointing isn’t a big enough word.

Check out what Sokwanele, one of Zimbabwe’s most powerful voices in support of non-violent, democratic change, is using Google Maps in a unique and powerful way. By mapping election irregularities Sokwanele is showing us just how “fair” the upcoming elections are going to be. For instance, I can see in Bulawayo, where I lived for a time when I was a boy, that there have been cases of political cleansing, violence, and disruptions of the right to freedom of association.

Clicking on one of the icons on the map brings up a synopsis of the story and a link to the incident in their database. The offenses can be filtered by incident type, too.

It may not change the results, but dictators like Mugabe don’t often do well with bright light shining on their transgressions.

I hate that Sokwanele’s creative use of the technology is so necessary, but glad that technology is serving a good cause.

Al Gore recognizes, in a virtual panel discussion on business technology and the environment, that corporations are ahead of governments when it comes to tackling emissions issues.

“Most business leaders are way ahead of political leaders, and that’s good news because once the market shifts, that really starts to make a difference,” Gore said.

Chambers agreed, saying that there has been a “market transition” where many business managers and government leaders are trying to reconcile economic growth with environmental stewardship.

“For the first time, the environment is not just hitting (leaders’ ) radar screen; they also know this is doable with economic growth,” he said.

Then he totally misses the point and continues to embrace economically destructive mandates and the clumsy hand of government over-regulation instead of realizing that the solution is coming to us (although, admittedly, without all the fun political grandstanding that comes with saving the planet from our evil, corporate overlords). The market--consumers and producers--are already addressing emissions issues through a combination of economic and ecological interest.

On the economic side, consumers want energy efficiency because the cost of energy has risen sharply over the last few years and those costs are shaping the way that they shop and build. Producers, on the other hand, have seen their own costs rise for the same reasons--and it’s not just direct energy costs and commodities, the cost increases have crept into things like shipping and printing costs. Working for a publisher, I can tell you that we’re facing a year where we know that our paper, ink, and mailing costs are going to bump significantly--which means that we either pass the increases onto our advertisers, we see our margins shrink, or we find ways to increase efficiency to lower our costs.

To cut those expensive bumps in costs, especially since we’re unlikely to be seeing a barrel of oil at $60 or less any time soon, companies are looking to find new ways to do the same jobs with significantly more efficiency--which means less emissions without the economic pain that an artificial government mandate might leave us. An interesting story on CNet today talks about a new use for a very old technology that could yield significant gains for shipping companies.

Sail power is back.

The MV Beluga SkySails, a cargo ship rigged up with a billowing 160-meter sail from SkySails, used approximately 20 percent less fuel than it would have without the sail during a two-month voyage. Put another way, that’s 2.5 tons of fuel, or $1,000 a day, in operating costs. Beluga Shipping ultimately hopes to save $2,000 a day with the technology.

The ship left Bremen, Germany, on the 22nd of January, sailed to Venezuela, and then headed toward the Norwegian port of Mo-I-Rana, docking on March 13. In all, the ship sailed 11,952 nautical miles. The sail was up, depending on the winds, from between 5 minutes and 8 hours a day.

The point is that businesses and consumers want to solve the same problems that Gore does, although not always for the same reason.

But consumers and producers operate from environmental concern, too, even though the professional protesters would never imagine that it’s so. Al Gore’s troops believe that they have to fight against the corporations and consumers to achieve their positive goal--which is why their focus remains on government action instead of funneling their energy into technology and solutions on the corporate side. The truth is that, in many ways, corporations and consumers have joined the fight voluntarily because they believe either that global warming is as scary as Gore portrays it to be or because they believe the world will be cleaner and better if we reduce our energy use and waste.

I’m in that second camp. Through my thirty-seven years of life, I’ve heard lots of scary warnings from communities of scientists, and those warnings are almost always proven to be overstated hugely. Forgive me for being cynical when they tell me that the world is about to end.

I do believe, though, that inefficiency bleeds growth out of the economy, any metro area would be a more pleasant place with lower emissions, it will be easier to deal with energy demands if we find more clean ways to feed energy into the grid, and it’s awfully hard to want a car that gets poor gas mileage when the price of Regular keeps sucking money out of my wallet like the big, scary NAFTA monster in Ross Perot’s nightmares. Like most people, my desire to cut emissions comes from a combination of beliefs and desires driven by my own personal values (economic and ethical).

My desire to save the world may not be as pure as theirs, but it’s just as useful and results-oriented.

If politicians and scare-mongers like Gore would just stay out of the way, the market will continue to tackle the problems that government can’t.

Read the story.

In Palenque, Mexico, the saviors of humanity are converging to lend their knowledge of the sciences to the fight against global warming be teaching us about “reviving Indian notions about ownership, use, compensation and respect.” Which doesn’t sound like it will go far in finding ways to increase fuel efficiency in cars, cheap ways to sequester emissions from coal burning plants, or even a practical way to get the nuclear power industry jump-started in the US.

Which is a shame since, according to US EPA regional administrator Elin Miller, “The planet-wide stress on the environment today means that collaborative efforts ... are not just good things. They may well be essential for our survival.” If that means we die unless collaboration with these folks brings useful solutions, we are well and truly screwed.

Seriously, though, looking to cultural guides for wisdom in how to live our lives from a practical and moral standpoint isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But only a fool could expect a solution to providing the amenities and necessities of civilized society (health care, longer lives, abundant food, clean water, the new CD from the Gutter Twins) with clean energy sources that aren’t so disruptive to economies that they see us fall into a global depression. This native wisdom isn’t going to solve those problems, and, with all due respect, I want better health care, a longer life, better nutrition, and better insulation than the average Native American saw before the Damned, Evil white devils showed up.

Ultimately, all religions do what they can to remain relevant to their times, but religion and cultural wisdom don’t engineer anything other than the shape of society, and then only within certain boundaries.

Those lessons--generally some variations on things like respect and responsibility to the planet and to future generations and the expectations of our behavior placed by a God (or whatever deity or deities you prefer) who gave us a special role in His creation--are important and useful guides to the way we should approach living our lives. Those ancient wisdoms did little to teach us how to combat infections with antibiotics, treat cancer with radiation, or revive lagging libidos with little blue pills.

If we need salvation on a global scale from anthropogenic global warming, then it won’t be at the whim of religious dictate, it will be because of scientific breakthroughs and smart energy policies.

Of course, if we follow the indigenous path, we might all get some hella nifty Flinstone-mobiles to ride to work. Not sure how I’ll get the drive to be downhill both ways, though…

Read the rest.

Take a Taser, make it fabulous, and give it a gig of memory with which to store the musical screams of the Tased, and what do you have? That’s right: a really bad idea.

The company today is unveiling a leopard print TASER(r) C2 personal protection and its TASER Music Player, which combines a TASER holster and and am MP3 player.

Naturally, the new weapons are being showcased in Las Vegas. “The 1GB TASER MPH allows for both personal protection and personal music for people on the go,” the company says. “Red-hot red” and “fashion pink” are two more new colors the company plans to reveal.

It’s electric. Boogie woogie woogie.

Yeah. Okay.

To put the exclamation point on the idea that Apple is shaking up the cell phone industry, check out this story about Nokia’s response to the disruptive influences of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android.

Apple, with its innovative iPhone, is changing the business relationship between the handset maker and the carrier. “Apple has managed to get operators to pay a bounty for new customers signed up — that is a sea change,” said John Tysoe, an analyst with the Mobile World, a research firm in London.

Google plans to create software that will turn cellphones into the principal portal to a mobile Web. Android, Google’s open-source platform for software, aims to transform the cellphone into a pocket computer in which any number of software applications could be added to a phone just as software is added to a PC.

Nokia views Apple as the first credible entrant into its market in years, Mr. Kallasvuo said. As for Google, he said he would wait for more details before deciding whether it is a threat or an opportunity. It did not go unnoticed that Google did not ask Nokia to join its Open Handset Alliance, a 34-company group that includes Motorola, Samsung and HTC.

No matter how you feel about Apple’s product, the fact that it is encouraging a new level of competition in the industry is good for consumers. And it will be an aggressive competition: the companies already entrenched in the industry have a lot of territory to defend and the money to make it interesting.

Competition is good.

The iPhone is a success. For everyone who thought that it would limp out of the gate and have little to no effect on the cell phone industry, it would be a good time to look for a little crow. Regardless of the final number sold, the iPhone has done a number of things that truly define success and truly define innovation.

First, the iPhone has changed consumer expectations of how a cell phone should work, how it should appeal to the senses, and how beautifully the interface works. It also showed that a good chunk of the public was willing to pay for their phones if only those phones were actually good. It isn’t just the well-to-do or people who need the constant contact of a smart phone that went crazy for the iPhone; it was people who liked the idea of an easy-to-use almost smart phone that integrated useful features in a stylish package.

Which isn’t to say that the iPhone is perfect or even that its features are for everyone. It’s just to say that this imperfect (I would still suggest that Apple released a stable beta on a willing public and that is just now getting close to a fully functional release) phone from Apple has not only sold well, but it has changed the industry. That Apple accomplished this with their first shot at the industry has to have the bigger players feeling a little nervous.

Apple didn’t achieve the feat without engineering a beautiful piece of technology.

The first and most important thing to the iPhone’s success is the interface. The touchscreen, which lets users interact with the phone in an simple way, is only part of the story. The organization and simplicity of the thing make it quick to learn, but the hidden features (like double tapping on a browser window to zoom in and then zoom out on a section of the screen) make it an absolute joy to use. It works well not just because most of the bits are so well designed, but because it encourages discovery.

Yes, that makes it sound a little like a toy, but that isn’t the right way to view the achievement. It is an incredibly useful phone with powerful network capabilities that opened my eyes to the possibilities of a cell phone. My last cell phone--a Motorola SLVR--had some of the same features as my iPhone. At least, it listed those features in the ads.

Read the Rest...

I was planning on writing my two month review of the iPhone this weekend and, if the rumors are correct, before I’ve written the piece, one my biggest complaints will be answered by an update to the iPhone’s software.

Apple may be preparing a significant update for the iPhone as early as this weekend that will have some heavily requested features, according to a claim from CNET France.

The site points to multiple reports that a 1.1.3 upgrade for the iPhone will appear by Saturday which adds both a disk mode for storing general data on the device and a voice recording mode for capturing lectures or voice memos.

One of my bigger disappointments with the iPhone was that I couldn’t use it to shuttle files back and forth between the office--something that I do with my iPod Nano on an almost daily basis. Giving me this feature now would make me awfully happy.

The voice recording feature wasn’t even something that I realize that I wanted--but I do. When I interviewed Ryan Frazier (for anyone who is interested, he did win his seat) a while back, I used an old, battery powered voice recorder with no easy way to get digital files off of the device. The transcription process was slow and painful especially as the fast forward and rewind functions were, essentially, non-existant. What I would have given to record the audio on my cell phone, transferred the file to my computer, and done the transcription directly in a format where it would have been easier to note times and go back and forth through the conversation.

These are features that will make my iPhone far more useful for me, and Apple’s habit of offering regular updates means that I might be using an iPhone six months from now that has only a superficial resemblence to the iPhone that I’m using today. It could well be so feature rich--especially with the addition true of third party applications rumored to be coming early next year--that my little phone feels like a brand new thing entirely.

That’s good news.

Read the rest.

Wheels offers up an antidote to the competitive text messaging post from yesterday--old guy supporters everywhere dance a little dance of victory.

The technology revolution really has changed our world. I no longer have to buy my porn, I have 24 hour access to more music than I ever knew existed, I can order my pizza online, and many of life’s tougher moments can be handled through instant messages and emails.

It’s a better world that we’re creating.

More than four in 10 teens, or 43 percent, who instant message use it for things they wouldn’t say in person, according to an Associated Press-AOL poll released Thursday. Twenty-two percent use IMs to ask people out on dates or accept them, and 13 percent use them to break up.

“If they freak out or something, you don’t see it,” said Cassy Hobert, 17, a high school senior from Frenchburg, Ky., and avid IMer who has used it to arrange dates. “And if I freak out, they don’t have to see it.”

Overall, nearly half of teens age 13 to 18 said they use instant messaging, those staccato, Internet-borne strings of real-time chatter often coupled with enough frenzied multitasking to fry the typical adult brain. Only about one in five adults said they use IMs - though usually with less technological aplomb or hormone-driven social drama.

I wonder how this reliance on IMs effects the ability to interact face to face--so much of human communication is non-verbal that it seems that IMs, with clipped dialogue and very little nuance, misses much of what it means to effectively communicate with someone. In fact, it even misses the subtleties captured in a phone conversation. Does over-reliance on text messaging stunt growth in mature and meaningful conversation?

Frankly, asking a girl out is tremendously difficult. Every time a guy does it, he opens himself up to humiliation and ridicule--at least in his own mind. I fully understand the urge to keep the potential for embarrassment as far away as possible. But is it such a bad thing for a kid to learn how to muster up a little courage and do the deed face to face? Learning how to take risks, learning how to handle a little failure, is an important part of growing up. If kids only learn how to take the easy route on everything that they do, where are we going to find the business, technology, and political leaders who will be willing to put themselves on the line for the big things in life.

Maybe I’m just an old guy and too out of touch with the advantages of texting; maybe I’m just missing the point. Entirely possible. But I’m not entirely fond of teaching kids to rely on a technology that makes it easier to be a coward.

Read the story.

With Christmas not all that far off and all of you early shoppers wondering what to get me, I thought that it might make sense to put some suggestions out there. Useful suggestions for keeping the zomby in your life happy.

Gift Idea #1
You really can’t go wrong with a vintage Mustang. Say, perhaps, a 69 Shelby GT500 Convertible once owned by Carroll hisself.

That would be a great start. 

Today, Wired details how Ron Paul enthusiasts out-crazy Apple fanatics by a mile. Which I find, personally, gratifying, although I also wonder just how much crossover there is between these two groups.

Apple fans pummeled Kim for her story on the iPhone’s controversial security model, while Ron Paul boosters went after Sarah for her piece on a recent spurt of deceptive spam promoting the Republican presidential candidate.  Some representatives from each group got vicious, resorting to personal smears, sometimes laced with misogyny.
In other words, just another day at the office; smears and ad hominem attacks are an occupational hazard of journalism. But having two backlashes at about the same time provides us a rare opportunity to compare the religious fervor of two net-savvy cults of true believers.

While their methodology isn’t what you might call strict and seems to have tongue canoodling happily with cheek, the article will probably draw them even more hate mail. Truthers (who aren’t the totality of Ron Paul’s supporters, but certainly make up a good chunk of the most vocal contingent) aren’t known for their keen sense of humor, and the Apple fanboys are notoriously thin-skinned.

Good show, Wired!

Read the story.

Admit it: you’ll miss me while I’m gone. I’m off to a land where there is much beautiful stuff, beaches, warmth, and booze--and where I can hide from everyone and everything for a few days of overpriced overindulgence.

While I’m gone--and before my two buddies, Don and Jerry, start imparting their wisdom--I thought I’d leave you with a handful of links.

First, Macomber introduces me to Drowning Pool. I mean, I already knew of the band, but now I know a lot more about the band--and this one is for the soldiers. Good stuff.

They should have kicked him in the balls a few times, too. Anthony Anderson is a sick, inhuman bastard.

Ridiculously cool and creative artwork for graphics geeks. I mean, wildly inventive.

No one wants to give me the power of invisibility. I like to think of myself as a reasonably ethical guy, but some temptations are just too hard to resist. Just sayin’.

Some fights are worth losing. No, that isn’t the sound of creeping anti-Americanism, just the belief that even Americans get it wrong some time. If I have time, I’ll address this further when I get back.

Okay, you are now cleared to start missing me. Don’t cry. I’ll probably be back.

I mean, unless the plane falls down or something.

What I think (when I say “CompactFlash RAID") is why? At least, for now I think why?

Addonics Technologies announced a $50 PCI card Tuesday that’s got four CompactFlash card slots. The cards can be configured as four individual drives, a single large volume, or set up with RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) 0, 1 or 10 to stripe data across multiple cards or mirror data from one onto another.

Note that there’s no support for RAID 5 and that cards can’t be hot-swapped, so no adding capacity nondisruptively by plugging in newer, bigger flash cards, according to President Bill Kwong.

Not as flexible. Tremendously more expensive even with far lesser capabilities. Not hot swappable.

When the price of those little cards comes down enough, this will make far more sense--at least, assuming that there isn’t a similar reduction in the cost of spinning platters or that some other technology doesn’t supplant both of the above. Maybe I’m not thinking creatively enough--maybe there is a person out there thinking, “CompactFlash RAID. I need that.”

I’m betting it’s more of an object of minor geek lust right now, though. I really don’t see a situation where the need isn’t served better by cheaper spinning platters.

Now, somebody set me straight.

Read the rest.

1. Not ready for prime time.
   The headline and the idea of a “electric superbike” sounded pretty cool to me. A fast, smooth, battery-operated motorcycle with slick styling is just the kind of toy that my garage is begging for (although my checkbook holds veto power over these kinds of decisions). Unfortunately, the promise of the headline wasn’t carried through in the article.

   Top speed of 62 mph? Range of just 68 miles? What a waste of a pretty design.

2. Too Much Pirates of the Caribbean in your diet?
   Nissan’s new crossover vehicle, the Rogue, may be a great little vehicle. It’s also awkward, ugly, entering a cluttered field of competitors, and poorly named. Rogue? Silly, cute, juvenile, and almost as awkward as the nose-heavy design and ungraceful wheel arches.

   Perhaps it was intended to appeal to a younger demographic or to women; and, perhaps, it actually does appeal to a younger demographic or to women. It sure as hell isn’t grabbing the David J Zombyboy demographic, though. Which, as any marketing professional will tell you, is the most important possible demographic to target.

3. Thank you, beautiful.
   This Ford Thunderbird Italien, a one off concept car from the 60’s, would grab the DJZ demo with a death grip, though. I like some of Ford’s current crop of cars, but, aside from the Ford GT and to a far lesser extent the latest generation of Mustang, the designs range from tepid to staid. If for were to build a car as pretty as the T-Bird Italien, updated with contemporary materials and safety equipment, but with aggressive lines, distinctive visual touches (yes, even those big, round taillights), and the overwhelming personality, it would be on a short list of cars to buy when my car is paid off. Even in an era where cars have become something close to utilitarian appliances, personality and beauty still count.

   Hubba hubba.

Someone is still working on the Amiga OS?

Why?

I’m all for catching bad guys, and this story from Foxnews.com could well lead to the capture of a child abuser. Which is nice. But, I have to admit, it’s the thought of what technique they are using to help identify the guy that is really intriguing to me.

See, as a designer, when I’m working on photos, I use layers, adjustment layers, and a variety of other techniques to avoid “destroying” pixels. That is, original images are made up of pixels; when a designer makes changes to those pixels, he or she can destroy the original image. That could be a problem if the changes end up being unacceptable, if the client wants to step back to a more natural look, or for a raft of other reasons. When I first start working on a picture, I’ll make a safety copy of the original and, opening the file in Photoshop, I’ll start working on a copy of the original layer just so that I ensure the integrity of some untainted copy of that first file.

Doing things like blurs and twirls are destructive--they change the pixels so much that the original mapping is gone. Which is still true, but maybe a little less true than I though.

In a first, Interpol appealed Monday for public help to identify a suspected pedophile shown in photos posted on the Internet sexually abusing young boys in Vietnam and Cambodia.

German specialists have produced identifiable images of the man from the original pictures, in which his face had been digitally blurred, the international police organization said. But the man’s identity and nationality remain unknown, prompting Interpol’s worldwide appeal.

Visiting the link, you’ll see a before and after set of pictures--one where the suspect’s face had been twirled, and one where the image specialists had reconstructed the original. While there are still significant artifacts from the image manipulation, the reconstructed image is relatively clear and, I would imagine, could quickly lead to identifying the criminal.

When the original file is twirled, the section of pixels that is changed streaks, bleeds, and bends until all that is left are stretched lines of the original colors. Un-twirling isn’t as simple as just sending the pixels back in the other direction--all that will do is cause new streaks, bleeds, and bends in the opposite direction. It won’t even come close to undoing the damage that the first manipulation caused.

Again, or so I thought. Assumptions can really kick your ass, can’t they?

Below is a set of images. The first image is the original. The second image has had a twirl of 449º applied in Photoshop. The third image has had a twirl of -449º applied to the second image.

As you can see, the image is still distorted--there are streaks and artifacts and detail has been lost--but has become recognizable again. It wouldn’t save me from a needing to step back from a mistake, but it is a much easier process than I had thought. Criminals beware.

You learn something new every day.

Read the rest. And, if you think know the guy, contact the authorities and help put him in jail.

1. I like that the CU Buffs beat the #3 Sooners. Cool. Surprising. Signs of a resurgent CU team? I wouldn’t quite go that far yet, but it’s obviously going to be a better season than last year.
2. I like the idea of an “eternal net tax ban.” I’m not actually opposed to taxes and I do believe that the government at its many different levels does provide services that are valuable and necessary. But taxes are an eternal struggle--to keep politicians and bureaucratic growth in check, it’s the responsibility of citizens to tug money out of the pocket of the government when they have the chance. An eternal ban on Internet access taxes is one of those things that citizens should support to keep our money from flowing into government coffers (and because network access taxation would likely have an adverse effect on small businesses and consumers).
   

   “Preventing the taxation of Internet access will help sustain an environment for innovation, ensure that consumers continue to have affordable access to the Internet, especially high-speed Internet, and strengthen the foundations of electronic commerce as a vital and growing part of our economy,” they said.

   The officials’ statement is likely geared toward lighting a fire under a U.S. Senate committee scheduled to vote Thursday on a bill that would merely extend the tax ban for four more years, as opposed to making it everlasting. President Bush in the past has also advocated for the tax halt.

   If the moratorium is allowed to expire on November 1, states would be allowed to levy taxes on digital subscriber line, cable modem, wireless and even BlackBerry-type data services. They would also be free to charge different tax rates for goods sold on the Internet and goods sold offline. It’s unclear how many states would have immediate plans to enact such laws, though, if the ban lapses.

   Because none of the pending permanent tax ban bills has been called up for a vote in the Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday, a temporary extension appears more likely. That approach represents a compromise of sorts with state and local officials who have balked at the idea of never having the opportunity to revisit the potential for Internet access taxes as a revenue source. (Some states are still allowed to levy such fees because of “grandfather” provisions in existing law.)
   

3. I love my new iPhone. More about it later, but, damn, what a wonderful piece of kit.
4. Speaking of the net tax ban, I don’t like that quiet congressional inaction could kill the idea. In fact, it makes me cranky.
   

   If a lackadaisical Congress does nothing, in other words, Americans soon are likely to be paying more to local governments for the privilege of buying DSL and cable modem service. (These are some of the same local governments that have adopted as their motto: “If it exists, tax it. And then tax it some more.")

   Time’s running out. Sen. John Sununu, a New Hampshire Republican who does support renewing the moratorium, made a good point in a statement after the nonvote: “We introduced a bill to permanently ban Internet access taxes back in January. I just don’t understand the continued delay in action. The clock continues to tick, placing Internet tax freedom in real jeopardy.”

   You can blame the Democrats for this state of affairs. Not all of them in the Congress, to be sure, but if this was a priority for the Democratic leadership, Majority Leader Harry Reid would make this happen post-haste.
   

5. I really like the idea of BMW bringing back the Triumph marque. They did a damned fine job with the Mini. I doubt it will happen, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt my feelings.
6. I don’t like that TheDenverChannel.com was a little overzealous in protecting their copyright in relation to a story published by Trench. I understand their point; I just don’t agree with it.
7. I like that the Rockies are in the hunt for their first playoff spot since way back in ‘95. Although, to be fair, I’m pretty cranky that it has taken this long for them to really show the potential.

This isn’t a full on review of AmazonMP3, really. Just a series of thoughts about the new service--and why, for now, it’s still not for me.

1. The Amazon store interface doesn’t work as well for me as the iTunes Store interface, but, using Amazon’s downloader, the store does integrate nicely with iTunes. That’s not a huge issue, but it is a nice touch.
2. I like the eMusic Remote better--not the old downloader, but the new one. Essentially, eMusic has a standalone browser that has all of the functions easily bookmarked, integrates nicely with the site, and now has an integrated downloader.
3. On content: eMusic has a great selection of older and obscure stuff, but it occasionally frustrates me with partial albums, limited availability of albums for an artist, and a serious lack of mainstream music. AmazonMP3 will probably get better, but, frankly, didn’t have much music that I wanted. iTunes has a better selection than AmazonMP3 and a wider range of stuff to buy and download (music videos, podcasts, movies, and TV entertainment), but still misses much of what I listen to. All of the services are lacking, really, which is why I can’t imagine myself saying “I use such and such and I won’t use the other.” I have no sense of loyalty in this comparison.
4. On pricing: AmazonMP3’s prices are all over the board: I say everything from $.89 to $1.35 for individual songs and albums (with just a few songs) from $1.99 to higher cost albums. On average, the prices are far better than iTunes for either the DRM or DRM-free songs, though. I have a 65 song subscription to eMusic which costs just $14.99 per month--a far better per song price than either iTunes or AmazonMP3. iTunes is the most expensive of the bunch at $.99 for the rights managed AAC files and $1.29 for the DRM-free files.
5. On quality: AmazonMP3 sells 256kbps VBR mp3 files, while eMusic serves up 192kbps VBR mp3 files (that’s an average rate for the Variable Bit Rate files, by the way), which is definitely a big deal to the average audiophile. The difference probably won’t matter to most listeners, though. iTunes Music Store sells 128kbps AAC files with DRM protection and 256kbps AAC files without--which Apple claims are better formats for maintaining audio integrity--so the 128kbps AAC file should sound significantly better than a 128kbps mp3 file. I won’t judge since I’m not the audiophile that others are; I can hear the difference between compressed files and original CD quality just as I can hear the difference between CD and vinyl. What I can’t hear is the difference between the iTunes DRM files and the eMusic files (which is probably tantamount to heresy in someone’s book).
6. On other features: eMusic has a great feature set that I wish Apple would steal from. The “save for later” feature, the community features, great suggestions every month--all great stuff. iTunes has a wonderful assortment of music and entertainment and a brilliant interface that works so beautifully with iPod products that I’ll always and forever use it for some of my purchases. AmazonMP3 has the Amazon interface, so you have some nice bits thrown in with suggestions to buy Hefty bags and Senseo Coffee Pods (which isn’t bad, just not quite what I’m looking for in my music-buying expeditions).
7. Bottom line: I’ll keep my eMusic subscription for all my odd purchases (and, currently, the majority of my music intake); I’ll continue to use iTunes Music Store for downloadable video, some music, and games for the iPhone that I keep promising myself; and I’m sure that as AmazonMP3 matures, I’ll buy some songs and albums there, as well. It’s nice, but not earth shatteringly good.

I think the only reason AmazonMP3 is getting press is that it is the first competitor to iTunes Music Store that makes sense and competes head-to-head. eMusic is a different model (a subscription model that lets you own your music as opposed to the many shots at “renting” libraries of music for a subscription), and I included it simply because it is where so much of my stuff comes from these days. But Amazon goes the iTunes route, has a solid interface, and integrates with iTunes quite well. It’s a second music store done right--far better, as far as I’m concerned, than the attempts by Microsoft, Wal Mart, Real, and the many other pretenders. Add good quality and, generally, better prices, and I can’t imagine that Amazon won’t be successful with their downloadable music store.

Good for them, but it doesn’t really make much difference to me. eMusic is still my favorite music store (although I wish that the selection of contemporary popular stuff) and iTunes is still my favorite downloadable entertainment store (although I wish there were more obscure, older, odd stuff) and lower prices to get in step with Amazon wouldn’t hurt my feelings either. The DRM issue simply isn’t an issue to me--I can’t play the songs on my work computer, the two laptops we have at home, and the two desktops that we have at home, burn CDs, and play the songs on our iPods; I understand why iTunes DRM is an issue for others but it’s not to me.

Maybe when AmazonMP3’s library of music bulks up, I’ll be changing my tune (har har har--sorry about that) and that will become my music store of choice. For now, for me, it’s just another option--but that’s no bad thing.