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The moral of the story? Be careful who you back, unless it’s for the least political of reasons: As Regimes Fall in Arab World, Al Qaeda Sees History Fly By.
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SRSLY?! This story of Ireland’s collapse is unbelievable; and the biggest endorsement for buying The Big Short, I reckon.
Heaving breathing
25 February 2011 · Comments (2)
My sister did end up marrying the man who charmed her cat.
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Mind and body: The reason loneliness could be bad for your health. At least I’m a loner, not lonely! Heh.
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Gaddafi’s clearly a complete nutcase. When you amass a force of foreign mercenaries against your own population (after trying to drop bombs on them), I’m don’t think they will go quietly.
Saturate the peanut
24 February 2011 · Comments Off
Why get a Holga (or Diana Mini) and/or pay for cross-processing my negatives when all I need is the digital image and some clever colour curve adjustments on the GIMP?
Ah, more plans. I’ve got a Canon EOS SLR (note the lack of a ‘D’ there) and it’s time to start shooting film again. Neil and I spotted a second hand dealer of audio and photography equipment recently and I’ve been looking wistfully at the old Nikons, Pentaxes and Canons on the shelves. I’ve mentioned before that the snazzy Lumix is more Neil’s baby, and the one thing that really bugs me about digital cameras is the lack of a viewfinder. A friend has a cool digital camera with a viewfinder (Canon Powershot G11), but they cost more than I’m willing to pay for a second digital, so I’ve decided to go ‘backwards’.
In the meantime, I’m trying out these processes. Here’s a photo from my Flickr stream, which has had absolutely nothing done to it in post-process:
It was shot with my phone camera. The colours are a bit dull, but it was a dull-looking day. So I plunked it into the GIMP and played around with the Colours menu (Curves, Saturation) and partly followed this tutorial on adding a vintage effect.
I think it looks better, it makes me more depressed with its bleakness. And finally, I installed the Lomo filter and ran it without colour effects.
I like being able to have fun for free. And once I — highly untrained in the ways of shutter speeds and aperture — get my hands on my SLR, I’ll be able to shoot some new things and mess about with them in the GIMP. Wahey!
(Plus, at some point I may learn how to compose a photo less amateurishly. I live in hope.)
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The “Asian values” excuse is merely moral relativism, which is a very dangerous philosophy to embrace. Via The Online Citizen.
Sprung a leak
23 February 2011 · Comments Off
I think the park across the street wants me to know that spring is here:
Reviews → The Women
22 February 2011 · Comments Off
Frank Lloyd Wright. Architect. Designed a lot of amazing shit.
That’s all I knew or cared to know about the man. And then I spotted The Women at the local library and pounced on it — it’s T.C. Boyle, so I know it’s going to be good.
The story is narrated by Sato Tadashi, one of Wright’s many ‘apprentices’ in the pre-WWII period (this is fiction with main events grounded in fact). He is reminiscing on his life as one of the chosen few who got to live and work with the master in Taliesin, his house in Wisconsin. He wants to tell the story of the three final women in Wright’s life: Mamah (pronounced May-mah) Borthwick Cheney, Maude Miriam Noel Wright, and Olgivanna Wright (as well as a small appearance from his first wife Kitty).
The Tea Party attracts opportunists who are mostly xenophobic and selfish. Quite the inspiration!
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What will happen to Greenwich, if and when the clocks move forward permanently? Won’t it be funny that Greenwich will be on GMT +1?
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Oh, very funny. Ron Charles’ book review videos on the Washington Post website.
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Initially spotted on my sister’s Facebook profile: standing with Planned Parenthood. Legislators should be ashamed of putting political ideology before essential health care provision.
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True, ‘dat: I think people in Manchester will look at their council and say ‘cut out the waste, cut out the bureaucracy, start to cut the chief executive’s salary and only then should you be looking at services, says PM.
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I’d be concerned about the slurry management, too — I’m not opposed to a giant dairy if the prices and costs take the environmental impact of such a large-scale facility into account. (This proposed dairy was mentioned in a documentary series I saw recently.)
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The chickens (American and British policies in the Middle East) are really coming home to roost, aren’t they?