Posts from — May 2008

Had a meeting today in the Third Ward at About Face Media

I got this ketchup and mustard dispenser in my Woot Bag of Random crap. Worth the full $8 (even considering I got a Roomba as well)

I love the smell of lilac. 

This is a bloom on a bush in our yard. We are in the process of planning some new plants around the house and will probably add more lilac.

Lawrence Lessig has a great op-ed piece in the New Your times today on Orphan Works. His solution to the problem is one he has suggested many times before (I think I first read it in his Wired Magazine column several years back) - move to a system similar to patents.  The initial copyright period would be shortened and extensions would not be automatic. If the original owner still thought there was value in the work, they could extend there copyright for a small fee (he suggests $1).

A hired expert shouldn’t be required for an orchestra to know if it can perform a work composed during World War II or for a small museum to know whether it can put a photograph from the New Deal on its Web site. In a digital age, knowing the law should be simple and cheap. Congress should be pushing for rules that encourage clarity, not more work for copyright experts.

The current iteration of Lessig’s argument is framed from the standpoint of small public institutions like orchestras or museums wanting to display or perform certain works, but I’ve also seen it framed from standpoint of the mashup/remix culture.  From using samples in music to combining various prior works into something new.  If a work had no more value on its own and the author let it fall into the public domain, it is available sooner to those artists that could give it a new lease on life.

Mashups!?! Think this is just for people looking to steal some artwork?  Walt Disney built his empire on works in the public domain - all of the early animation masterpieces came from fairy tales in the public domain. If you’ve got a school-age daughter, you know how big Disney’s "Princesses" are, including Cinderella.

If you’re a Wisconsinite like myself, you’ve got a double chance to do something - both Senators Kohl and Feingold sit of the judiciary committee.  Take a moment to let them know your thoughts on the matter. You’ll have to use the contact forms on their respective sites, neither take direct emails.

See also previous post:
Great Analysis of Pending Orphan Works Legislation

My sons and I are heading up north to my parents cabin for the Memorial Day weekend and plan to do some fishing.  I haven’t used this rod and reel in probably 15 years or more so I had it re-strung and bought a new setup for my oldest who is planning on eating nothing except fresh caught fish all weekend.

Lighting Info: Rod is hanging off of a kitchen cabinet, lit from below and slightly back by a bare SB-24 at 1/16 power and a 580EXII at 1/16 power camera right fired into a silver reflective umbrella (to control spill, I wanted the background black.  Looking at it some more I probably should have cut the SB24 back even more with a ND filter, or swapped the two strobes since the 580 will go dimmer.

I suppose like snow shots in the winter, flower shots in the spring will become boring, but I’ll take them over snow any day.  These are in my neighbors yard

All of the flowering trees around us are in full blossom right now.  This is a pair across the street from our house.  After taking these I realized that my polarizing filter for this lens is massively dirty, so this shot has had quite a bit of post production done on it.  I cleaned up all the dust and gunk, then a little LAB mode saturation boost.

Grilled tequila lime turkey breast for dinner tonight.

I tried to take shot shots of our fish (African cichlids), a recent addition to the house.  Easier said then down, out of 70 frames, this was the only one I liked, and even then there is a lot of noise in this due to it being ISO 1600.

I just realized I’m almost a full week behind on posting pictures to Project365.  They are all taken, just sitting on a CF card waiting to be processed. I guess I’ve got entirely way too much other stuff going on right now.  Hopefully I can carve some time out this evening and get through them. Otherwise, they’ll be up this weekend.

BTW - Welcome to all the new readers.  I saw a slight rise in hits after a link from Scott Kelby’s blog. You can subscribe to updates via the RSS feed which includes both my meandering posts and photos.