hey just letting some peeps know things i was lookin for for xmas...

miles davis - kind of blue
miles davis - bitches brew
herbie hancock - headhunters
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also a pci card thatll expand my ata and/or sata capabilities - i need more HDDs!

if you get any of the albums let mom know as she may also be looking for them...
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yeah.

-xris

The election is less than a week away, so I thought I would post something political. Here is a recent article from the New York Times Magazine about our current president. Many Americans do seem to think that he was appointed by God, and the president uses his faith in all his decisions even in the face of contradicting facts. This article gives a good history of how this came to be in his life, and how the rest of Washington reacts to it. Feel free to discuss this in the comments.

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Browsing around I found some cool photography taken with a Canon Digital Rebel (EOS 300D). Everything is good, especially the macro shots.

Home page here.
DeviantART page here.

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More online comics for your head:

Undergrad computer science, fanboyism, and chibi. Nice artwork. Check it out here.

Powerpuff Girls? Dexter? Invader Zim? And more?? In a very well drawn comic?? Cool.

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The latest for the former MST3k people is The Film Crew.
Movie make-fun-of goodness.

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Okay, I changed the format. Let me know what you think in the comments section. This is a preformed design, i'll do one of my own at some point. But this is better than the blah page that was here before.

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Greedo shoots first! Comic here!

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Need an encyclopedia? Try Wikipedia!

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Hey! Biodiesel rocks! I've already been researching it alot because I want my next car to be a cool-as-hell tricked out VW Jetta that also happens to run on SVO (straight vegetable oil) or at least biodiesel. There are alot of conversion kits out there and some companies have certified garages where you can get them installed professionally (which is what I would probably do as I have little to no working knowledge of cars). And naturally, tricking it out would require a sweet sound system inside but thats just my personal preference. It would also be fun to stick a small PC in there and connect it to one of those sweet (and suprisingly inexpensive) Alpine DVD player/LCD screens - I know Jeff at least has noticed those rediculously small box PCs that are only a little bigger than a gamecube (I saw them on newegg, I dont know where we could find them at the moment) - and then I could have a wireless keyboard/mouse dealie and keep them in the glovebox. Its an idea that I've been working on...heh heh. But back to biodiesel, its much better for the environment though if you use SVO it can make your car smell like french fries, because its the same grease that they are fried in - in fact, you can get free grease from restaurants that have deep fryers because they have to pay to have it shipped away (theoretically, you could just talk to the restaurant owner and he would pay you some lower amount than he is paying at the time, and you could actually make money off of getting free gas). The only drawback is that you have to then filter it yourself, though apparently the process isn't that difficult.

Anyways, I just found it interesting that you posted about something I already find very interesting and have researched, Jeff. Uhhhhhhhhhhh, yeah - I'll talk to y'all lata then.

-xris

Biodiesel!

Make your own fuel. Look here!

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A statement I found interesting on current digital photography basics and more (posted by Siegecube in the Slashdot discussion here.)

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OK, some basics about (digital) photography from a working professional photographer (not advanced amateur, not EX-professional, not wannabe professional, but a real-life I-pay-all-my-bills-by-taking-pictures professional)

1. Image quality will be determined by the combination of how many pixels you capture (megapixel count/resolution) and the size of those pixels (sensor size/photosite size), with the weight of the influence going to the photosite size. Thus, resolution being equal between two cameras, the camera with the larger sensor size will give you higher quality captures.

2. Garbage In, Garbage Out applies to cameras too. This should be obvious. Make sure your lens is able to capture all the data you want to feed to your sensor. If you have a full-frame, 24x36mm 11mp Canon 1Ds (the current professional favorite, myself included), you are wasting it's resolution by putting a cheap lens on it. I've noticed, in fact, that even the highest-quality lenses tend to be unable to deliver enough detail to this stunning sensor, so a cheapo lens is going to f*ck you.

3. For professional use, film is now dead. Game over. I've done the head-to-head comparisons. I own medium and large-format cameras. I own a high-end drumscanner. I own a large-format printer. I've compared the quality from my previous breadwinning equipment (medium format film scanned by drumscanner) to my current breadwinning equipment (full-frame digital Canon 1Ds) and the digital kicks film ass. That's why it's my current breadwinner.

Seriously, I had 4x6 foot prints made (notice I said FEET, not INCHES) from drum-scanned 6x7cm transparencies, and from 11mp Canon 1Ds captures, and my own lab couldn't tell the difference. Bye-bye film. And the $10,000 price tag was paid for in film/processing savings before I even got the credit card bill. (for more about how cost affects quality, see below, #5)

4. The best camera for you is all about what you intend to do with it. A camera is just a tool. Pick the right one for the job. Because of this, most professionals have, on average, more than 3 different camera systems. So, decide what you want the camera for, and the rest of the decisions about it's suitability get easy.

The most important factor is usually not sheer resolution and image quality. It's about usability of design and ease of handling. If it were all about resolution then most photographers would be using 8x10-inch view cameras. But we realize that a stunning, mega-high-resolution image is useless if the important moment we wanted to capture was missed due to slow camera operation.

That's why most pros use medium format or 35mm, and most ams use point'n'shoots.

So, pick a camera that feels good, is understandable to operate, and doesn't get in your way. After these criteria are satisfied THEN you look at resolution/sensor size.

5. The single most important equation for making better photographs is (forethought x volume of action). In other words, think about what you want to achieve with your images, then shoot as much as you can, and hone your results. This is really where digital capture shifts paradigms. Once you go digital, ANY digital, your visual experiments cost you nothing.

With film, every time you want to try something new, you are still paying for film and processing (even if you own your own darkroom). This means, effectively, that film and processing are an economic tax on your creative growth.

So, as long as you stay focused on what you want to achieve (rather then just shooting because you can), buying ANY decent digital camera will yield you better results then sticking with film, and it's use tax.

Class dismissed.

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Here is a Weird Al quote (from here):

Q: Hey Al!!!!! What do u think about Napster? I just want to know if you approve.

A: I have very mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I'm concerned that the rampant downloading of my copyright-protected material over the Internet is severely eating into my album sales and having a decidedly adverse effect on my career. On the other hand, I can get all the Metallica songs I want for FREE! WOW!!!!!