tv shows and reality: a quote

abby: i am good mcgee, but i cannot work miracles. this is impossible. i told you once, i told you a thousand times -
mcgee: there is no substitute for quality source imagery, i know.

[finally a show that does not try to screw with the information theory, insult the audience, and try to extract 10mp worth of information from a crude 1mp cell-phone image... CSI fantasy shows should get a clue, and go back to something resembling science. oh wait, narrative brain damage is irreversible...]

leica M8 in iraq

a working photographer has to read michael kamber's detailed field review of leica m8. if that does not deliver the swift, smarting kick leica needs, i do not know what will.

I have found the Leica M8 to be unreliable, poorly designed, and to deliver substandard results in most of the situations in which I have used it. I can’t think of any camera--or for that matter any electronic device I have recently used--that so thoroughly fails to live up to its potential and its heritage.

[some of us have spotted a few of the design issues without having to make a living out of it, or paying the outrageous sums of money required, thank goodness...]

a zen poem

the moon's the same old moon,
the flowers exactly as they were,
yet i've become the thingness
of all the things i see!

bunan (1602-72)

[found in zen poetry: let the spring breeze enter edited and translated by lucien stryk and takashi ikemoto]

recently noted quotes

yeah, don't give me any ideas. i am getting too farfetched! -- eren yigit [age 10]

there is no pause button on reality. -- eren yigit [a remarkable observation that gives difficulty to many religious fanatics and republicans]

i love the word "smear"... -- laura calder [french food at home]

The life of a contrarian is inherently frustrating. Whenever you point out the flaws in a particular dogmatic position, there is a tediously-predictable, reflex reaction that you must be a dogmatist, for the opposite extreme. -- david brin [Airline deterioration, the new elite, levees and clkimate deniers]

Thought, without the data on which to structure that thought, leads nowhere. -- victor stanger [has science found god?]

I bought it because I'm a sucker for finishing a series. DON'T DO IT. Put the mouse down and walk away. Do NOT check that box. -- from a review of stross's "clan corporate" at amazon [we get reviews]

[...] but I trust my family jewels only to Linux. -- donald knuth [interview with knuth]

hating bit fields in c structs. dat shit nevah werkz -- peter honeyman [tweet]

finding a needle in a haystack isn't hard when every straw is computerized. -- dexter

We need to kick the bishops out of the House of Lords, ban the Police and judiciary from taking donations from religious organizations, and get religion out of politics by any means necessary. -- charlie stross [when is a cult not a cult?]

i do not even know what a square looks like. i operate from a circle. -- dolores pitcher

fear is a frighteningly effective sales pitch. -- arianna huffington [right is wrong]

twee ... splat

this morning's fun task: feeding twitterrific to appzapper.

i have all but given up on twitter; a relatively interesting idea badly let down by inexperience and hyped-up, quick-and-neat frameworks that let you do well in boring situations, sell a rack-full of poorly written books, but cannot scale to the real world. talking about books: here is another possibly useful book idea that should be titled (you guessed it) twitterrible...

[related reading: release it!: design and deploy production-ready software]