Month: December 2007

darkroom completed

I nailed some 1/2 inch quarter-round around the frame and lined that with felt and that effectively blocks out the light from there…. This was the same window where I had a flood from a corroded cast-iron pipe under the sink upstairs, so I had to replace a lot of drywall first.

After many fits, starts, and interruptions, I completed light-proofing my darkroom tonight. I had two doors and a window to deal with and the window was the last piece of the puzzle.

The doors were pretty easy. One was an opening — no door or fittings — so I managed to get a pocket door via FreeCycle and trimmed that to fit. I nailed some 1/2 inch quarter-round around the frame and lined that with felt and that effectively blocks out the light from there. The other door I simply sealed with more felt with the liberal use of staples.

the hatch coverThe window was a bit more challenging. This was the same window where I had a flood from a corroded cast-iron pipe under the sink upstairs, so I had to replace a lot of drywall first. I hate drywall installation. But once that was done, I ended with an almost square opening to fill with sheet of 1/8 inch lauan plywood. I cut that to fit and added a frame from some strips I ripped from a 1 x 12 I have laying around. I took a couple of 1 1/2 inch lengths and mitered them to make a frame a little smaller than the opening. Then I cut some wide strips of felt (2-3 inches) and glued them under the frame sections, folding them double as I went. So I have a hatch cover with a felt gasket/seal around the edge. By the time I put it in place it was too dark to really test it, but I suspect it won’t need much more work.

The enlarger was mounted a week or two back, and it works. No good place to put it, given the weird angles and headroom constraints I’m dealing with, but it will do.

Omega DII

In all, it feels pretty anti-climactic to have it ready. It’s not quite a “Now what?” moment but it’s still a bit strange.

the price of ownership

A rose is a rose, and a real name at the end of a blog post is an indication that the person who authored the statement is taking responsibility, indeed ownership of the words — it is a simple act of honesty. For too long bloggers have been given license that is not tolerated in letters-to-the-editor columns of newspapers and magazines (except in extraordinary circumstances).

I agree with this, in principle.

Steven Heller on anonymous commenters:

A rose is a rose, and a real name at the end of a blog post is an indication that the person who authored the statement is taking responsibility, indeed ownership of the words — it is a simple act of honesty. For too long bloggers have been given license that is not tolerated in letters-to-the-editor columns of newspapers and magazines (except in extraordinary circumstances). If one is willing to expound, exclaim, or critique it should be done under a real name and with links to a valid email or website address.

★ [From What’s in a Name?]

But there are times when you may want to leave a comment without leaving any personally identifying information. The Flying Monkeys of the Interwebs are often hot on accountability but not so much on responsibility.

transparency

Uneasy Silence reports that Adobe CS3 apps are phone home periodically with connections to “192.168.112.2o7.net” — a web server whose name is clearly designed to look like a local area network IP address (particularly when the “o” is capitalized in “2o7.net”).

…They offer services of an undisclosed type to a varierty of business but I don’t see Adobe listed (not that they are not involved, just that I don’t see them).

Uneasy Silence reports that Adobe CS3 apps are phone home periodically with connections to “192.168.112.2o7.net” — a web server whose name is clearly designed to look like a local area network IP address (particularly when the “o” is capitalized in “2o7.net”).

Assuming this is true, it’s a disgrace, whatever the actual reason for the connections.

★ [From Uneasy Silence: ‘Lies, Lies and Adobe Spies’]

that address goes to some place called Omniture.com (how meaningful). They offer services of an undisclosed type to a varierty of business but I don’t see Adobe listed (not that they are not involved, just that I don’t see them).

Wonder what would happen if you added

192.168.112.2o7.net       127.0.0.1

to your hosts list?

links for 2007-12-27

2008

I’m not much on resolutions, especially as regards self-improvement (even as I feel compelled to take a showed in the dark rather than see my unsightly physique), I do want to learn some things and looking at the calendar, it looks like they will be 2008 accomplishments.

…I think it will work better to express these ideas as things to learn rather than milestones to reach.

I’m not much on resolutions, especially as regards self-improvement (even as I feel compelled to take a showed in the dark rather than see my unsightly physique), I do want to learn some things and looking at the calendar, it looks like they will be 2008 accomplishments.

I want to learn some things about joinery and cabinet making. I have done enough crappy butt-jointed woodworking and want to move on from that. I want to be able to make things that look as good as they are useful.

I want to garden better and more productively. My Territorial Seeds catalog arrived today, and it’s never too early to plan, especially in this fickle climate.

I think it will work better to express these ideas as things to learn rather than milestones to reach. One could even define a fitness/health-related goal in those terms, but the ideal form eludes me.

learning something new everyday

I recommend having at least one TiVo file for the rest of this to make sure things are working as you go…. You’ll need to connect over HTTPS and use the username “tivo” and your MAK as the password to do the actual downloading.

, ,

I didn’t realize I could pull recording off the TiVo without special software.

Picture 3.jpg

You can go to your TiVo in Safari and pull down videos one-by-one as well. I recommend having at least one TiVo file for the rest of this to make sure things are working as you go. Your TiVo’s address is in the network settings area on the TiVo. You’ll need to connect over HTTPS and use the username “tivo” and your MAK as the password to do the actual downloading. [From How to View TiVo Recordings on Your Mac or iPod | Mac Geekery]

But there it is. Read the rest of the article to learn how to transcode the m2v files into mp4.

missing the point

“We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women who have had years of education, to know nothing about the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some specialty or other, for instance, computers,” [Doris Lessing] said in her speech. “We never once stopped to ask, How are we, our minds, going to change with the new Internet, which has seduced a whole generation into its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging and blugging etc.?”

As someone once said, specialization is for insects.

“We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women who have had years of education, to know nothing about the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some specialty or other, for instance, computers,” [Doris Lessing] said in her speech. “We never once stopped to ask, How are we, our minds, going to change with the new Internet, which has seduced a whole generation into its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging and blugging etc.?” [From Blog, Blug. To the Writer Doris Lessing, It’s Whatever. – New York Times]

The comments in response to this are hard to figure out: do they not realize how they might be proving her point, that increased specialization (or more pointedly, ignorance of the wider world) is not necessarily a Good Thing?

General knowledge is more important than ever, even if it means one has to swim against the tide of what current norms. We’re increasingly able to program our entertainment, our political content — whatever we like, someone has found a way to slice and dice it into pieces that reflect anyone’s taste. (This is, of course, all about segmenting the audience for advertising and sales purposes.)

This is a real problem that will become more prevalent in years to come, as today’s high-tech kids come of age with their own personal media bubble. They’ll be voting, either in the marketplace or in the voting booth, using information they have cherry-picked, often without realizing it.

And someone who writes at “Pinky’s Paperhaus” thinks One Laptop Per Child — a laudable idea but one that can easily be perverted into a more global instance of a problem we see in the developed world — is the solution?

Continue reading “missing the point”