Uncle Jack

Last night my brother and his wife had a baby!

So I'm officially Uncle Jack now!

Here's the video



Here are some cool snaps.












The family finds out!












The proud father.












J.R. skips dinner to get to the hospital on time and eats a HD snickers instead.












GranNonie gets to hold Maya.












Maya and GranNonie












Grandaddy Stewart and Maya.

"The" President

Have you noticed our commander-in-chief's propensity to use a definite article in front of certain technological nouns?

Example #1

"The internets"

During the second 2004 Presidential debate Bush referred to the rumors on the internets that there might be a draft.

Maybe this explains it.

Example #2 (and #2a)

"The Google" (and the satellite)

Recently the pres was interviewed on CNBC and asked if he used Google. He responded that one of the things he used on the Google was to pull up maps. (link via crooksandliars.com)

He also mentioned the satellite. 'Cause there is only one up there.

The really scary part is his lack of comprehension about email. Where is Ted Stevens when you need him to explain things?

This explains a lot.

I stole this from Jayare who stole it from Hamster_grrl.

Fun with photoshop.

So I've been playing around with the new camera. There really are some neat things that you can do with digital images these days. One of them is HDR or High Dynamic Range images.

In the olden days of camera you basically could shoot several images and "bracket" the exposure to make sure you had a good shot. If you had your own dark room (and were shooting black and white), you could take these images and adjust the exposure time and burn and dodge in areas of the picture to give it a more even exposure. But this was virtually impossible to do with your average color snapshot.

Well with digital imaging you can merge several shots together and use the dynamic range in each shot to give the picture a more "true to life" feel.

Here's an example of my house in HDR.
















You can also play around with the compression techniques and get some super saturated HDR pics like this.



If you're bored sometime try searching Flickr for HDR images.

Consultant Scoreboard part deux

Consultant questions asked: 2
Consultant questions answered by myself: 2

Chance of almost losing my office, and getting moved into a cubicle with the video department: 50%
(My office with a window and a couch which is one of the few things that makes this job tolerable.)

Luckily with some smooth talking from the Video dept. head and some vague exaggerations about networking, routers, and servers from myself, I won't be moving.

Disdain for consultants:99.99%
(Thanks to Tray for the spellilng correction.)

Consultant scoreboard

Consultants:2 (neither named Bob, damnit)
Introductions: 2
Questions asked: 1
Questions answered (by me):1

Total time with consultants: 38 secs.

Mexico Update

I just realized that Amy and I will be in Mexico during Dia de Los Muertos. Very exciting. Hopefully I'll be able to have some supercool pics when i get back.

Tigers and Indians

Ok first off.

For those of you not following baseball, My Detroit Tigers beat the Yankees last week in a decisive 3-1 blowout. The last game was a joy to watch.For Tigers fans this has been great, the team hasn't made it to the playoffs since 1987. Not to mention they've been on the dregs of the AL for most of that time. I used to look at the box scores just to see if we could beat out the Royals for last place. So it's been a while.

Next.

I love Indian cinema. I really do. I think it's the combination of musical dance with the kitch factor. Take the opening scene of Ghost world for example where Enid is watching the 1965 film Gumnaam. Great stuff.

The best part is these people can dance to anything. I mean ANYTHING. But when they combine it with American pop culture, well sir, that's where Bollywood shines.

Here's the Creme de la creme. Granted it's not Bollywood technically, being from another part of India, but who's being technical.

Check out the Indian king of pop. So to speak.

Fight against Fascism!

For those who don't speak Russian the poster says "Hail those who fight against fascism" and "The Constitution of the USA - a moral aid and practical help for all those who now lead the battle against fascist
barbarianism." Slight edit from USSR to USA is mine.

Sure I may be exaggerating a bit. But maybe not.