When (not) To Use Flash

What is photography's greatest scourge? Cellphone cameras? MySpace self-portraiture? Neither even comes close to the insidious, creeping threat that is your camera's built-in flash. Here's when and how you should—and more importantly, shouldn't—use a flash.

Avid photographers, you already know the score, and this isn't a guide for you. Nor is it for the dude with the brand-new 5D Mk II with an external flash gun, or the weekend strobist. This is a reference to be passed around as a public service; a quick guide for the aquarium-flashing, face-flushing, baby-blinding friends and family you all know and tolerate love.
When You Shouldn't:

At Large Events
Every time I go to a nighttime sporting event or concert, I see hundreds of starry flickers coming from the stands. When I see them, I die a little inside. For your average point-and-shoot, the effective range of your built-in flash is about 15 feet. You might stretch this to 20 feet if you jack up your camera's ISO settings to 800 (or God forbid 1600), but under no circumstances will your camera's flash reach down to the field or stage.

http://gizmodo.com/5376271/giz-explains-when-not-to-use-your-cameras-flash
http://gizmodo.com/5376271/giz-explains-when-not-to-use-your-cameras-flash

The looming trade war between China and the U.S.

Don't worry about the U.S.-China trade war over poultry and car tires. Worry about the coming conflict over T-bills and derivatives.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/216754?from=rss
http://www.newsweek.com/id/216754?from=rss

Comcast finally does something right

Comcast is launching a trial on Thursday of a new automated service that will warn broadband customers of possible virus infections, if the computers are behaving as if they have been compromised by malware. For instance, a significant overnight spike in traffic being sent from a particular Internet Protocol address could signal that a computer is infected with a virus taking control of the system and using it to send spam as part of a botnet.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-350878.html

This Is The Road I'm On, And There Is No Other

There is a teaching in Buddhist thought that says you shouldn't worry too much about the things that might have gone wrong in your life because there is only one path.
There is a destiny, and we are merely running the program.
Regret is pointless, dread is pointless.
We are living the only lives we can.
We are being the only versions of ourselves that we could possibly be.

CrimeReports.com maps where the crime is in your neighborhood

http://crimereports.com/
http://crimereports.com/

More Info. Leads To Less Knowledge

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-02/st_thompson
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-02/st_thompson

Is global warming caused by humans? Is Barack Obama a Christian? Is evolution a well-supported theory?
You might think these questions have been incontrovertibly answered in the affirmative, proven by settled facts. But for a lot of Americans, they haven't.

Robert Proctor doesn't think so. A historian of science at Stanford, Proctor points out that when it comes to many contentious subjects, our usual relationship to information is reversed: Ignorance increases. As Proctor argues, when society doesn't know something, it's often because special interests work hard to create confusion. Anti-Obama groups likely spent millions insisting he's a Muslim; church groups have shelled out even more pushing creationism. The oil and auto industries carefully seed doubt about the causes of global warming. And when the dust settles, society knows less than it did before.

Cooking Is What Makes Us Human

The simple, everyday act of cooking could have given humans an evolutionary edge over apes, researchers proposed at a scientific meeting this week.

Preparing meals is a "signature feature" of the human diet that likely originated in the extinct species Homo erectus 1.8 million years ago.

"The hallmark of dietary evolution is our flexibility and plasticity. What made humans humans is the ability to find or make a meal in the environment," said William Leonard, an anthropologist at Northwestern University who was not involved in the new research.

H. erectus had a large brain and body size, and many believe that the species' hunter-gatherer lifestyle—associated with more cooked meat—fueled its growth.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090213-human-diet-cooking.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090213-human-diet-cooking.html

What Are You Good At? - written by Seth Godin

What are you good at?

As you consider marketing yourself for your next gig, consider the difference between process and content.

Content is domain knowledge. People you know or skills you've developed. Playing the piano or writing copy about furniture sales. A rolodex of movers in a given industry, or your ability to compute stress ratios in your head.

Domain knowledge is important, but it's (often) easily learnable.

Process, on the other hand, refers to the emotional intelligence skills you have about managing projects, visualizing success, persuading other people of your point of view, dealing with multiple priorities, etc. This stuff is insanely valuable and hard to learn. Unfortunately, it's usually overlooked by headhunters and HR folks, partly because it's hard to accredit or check off in a database.

Venture capitalists like hiring second or third time entrepreneurs because they understand process, not because they can do a spreadsheet.

As the world changes ever faster, as industries shrink and others grow, process ability is priceless. Figure out which sort of process you're world-class at and get even better at it. Then, learn the domain... that's what the internet is for.

One of the reasons that super-talented people become entrepreneurs is that they can put their process expertise to work in a world that often undervalues it.


http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/01/what-are-you-good-at.html
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/01/what-are-you-good-at.html

Black Swan Theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory

The theory was described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book The Black Swan. Taleb regards almost all major scientific discoveries, historical events, and artistic accomplishments as "black swans"—undirected and unpredicted. He gives the rise of the Internet, the personal computer, World War I, and the September 11, 2001 attacks as examples of Black Swan events.

The term Black Swan comes from the 17th century European assumption that 'All swans are white'. In that context, a black swan was a symbol for something that was impossible or could not exist. In the 18th Century, the discovery of black swans in Western Australia metamorphosed the term to connote that a perceived impossibility may actually come to pass. Taleb notes that John Stuart Mill first used the Black Swan narrative to discuss falsification.

Quit Every 3 Years - by Chris Anderson

"When I was at The Economist, there was a policy to rotate everyone every three years. The idea was that fresh eyes were more important than experience.

I was thinking about the three-year rule while reading about Malcolm Gladwell's observation that it takes 10,000 hours to become truly expert at something. If you really throw yourself into a job, you'll spend 60 hours a week working. That's 3,000 hours a year (allowing for vacation), which means you'll hit the 10,000 hour mark a few months after your third year.

So maybe that's where the three-year rule comes from. You're now expert at what you set out to master. Great. Now go do something else."

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/12/do-something-ne.html
http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/12/do-something-ne.html

how to connect your laptop to your TV

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/how-to-connect-your-laptoppccomputer-to-your-tv/
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/how-to-connect-your-laptoppccomputer-to-your-tv/

ultimate boot CD for windows

http://www.ubcd4win.com/index.htm
http://www.ubcd4win.com/index.htm

the 10 most useful Linux commands

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=452
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=452

How To Make The Ultimate Haunted House

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Make_The_Ultimate_DIY_Haunted_House