New York City Cultural Desert

The fact that there is only one movie house playing "Sie, Je" reaffirms me that New York City is a cultural desert ... or the NC-17 really limits the release, there is simply not enough audience for a foreign movie in Chinese.

A Review, A Cad And A Femme Fatale Simmer from The New York Times by Manohla Dargis for the New York Times.

Random Post

Kodak 400nc. When you are serious of making pictures, you sometimes shoot film still.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Shot using a Nikon D70, MF Nikkor 50mm f1.4, on-camera flash set at manual at 1/2 output. NEF converted to JPEG using UFRaw. No manipulation.

Accidental Reading

From the New Yorker: Shouts & Murmurs: Greenspan and Simpson on Writing by Andy Borowitz. published on October 1, 2007.

Untitled

Shot using a D70 with a MF Nikkor 50mm f1.4, guesstimate on exposure, ISO 200. UF-RAW converted NEF to JPEG.

Apple New MacBook

This is sourced from 9to5mac.com

Slim Aluminum MacBooks Coming Soon from Apple

Submitted by Cleve Nettles on Fri, 09/21/2007 - 10:02.

We have received some information about some upcoming Apple laptops - we think they are MacBooks but aren't 100 percent sure they aren't the fabled Pro slim line.
What we know:

• Black aluminum and silver aluminum (like MacBook Pros) have been seen
• They are considerably slimmer than current MacBook and even a bit more than MacBook Pros
• The screen reaches much closer to the edges than current MacBooks but is the same size as current MacBooks - indicating a somewhat smaller footprint
• The keyboards resemble Apple's new Bluetooth Keyboard
• There is something strange about the touchpad (more on this to come)
• They are set to be priced extremely aggressively
• While they are dense, overall they are lighter than the current MacBooks

If it's as alleged, a MacBook model then the price point should remain the same meaning relatively affordable, if it'in between the MacBook and MacBook Pro then it can still be very attractive depending on the configuration, the maximum RAM and the video memory, so on and so forth.

New OS X, Leopard is limping to come out in October after being pushed back by the iPhone, that can be 10 or 41 days from now. If new hardware comes out with Leopard, that would be very interesting. And I have to give it to SPJ for keep cranking out price gouging worthy consumer obsessed items day in and day out.

Sony ImageStation Obituary

ImageStation bites the dust. On an otherwise sunny and pleasant morning, Sony gives us the sad news. ImageStation is formally a failure. I always find their logo strange, like a red pepper? R.I.P. ImageStation. What follows is ImageStation's obituary via email. Actually nobody really cares as nobody uses it except one of my friends.

Dear [redacted],

On February 1st, 2008 Sony will close the ImageStation® online photo service. The closure will happen in phases and most site features such as upload, sharing and shopping will be disabled on November 12th 2007.

We sincerely appreciate your being an ImageStation member and we want to help you find a new home for your images, so we've worked with the online photo service Shutterfly. Together we've made it easy to transfer your pictures to Shutterfly so you can take advantage of their online storage, sharing, prints and photo gifts. If Shutterfly isn't for you, that's OK-we've put together several ways to reunite you with your images. Just click on the link below to review all your options.

http://www.imagestation.com/shutdown.html

Please choose the option(s) that is right for you before February 1st, 2008 because at that time the ImageStation web site will be permanently closed and any images left behind will be deleted.

For more information on the closure of the ImageStation site, please visit our frequently asked questions:

http://www.imagestation.com/closingfaq

Thank you again for being an ImageStation member and rest assured we remain committed to providing you with exceptional customer service throughout this transition.

Sincerely,



You have received this email to notify you of the ImageStation closure.
Sony ImageStation, 16765 West Bernardo Drive, San Diego, CA 92127
Privacy Policy/Your California Privacy Rights | Legal/Trademark
© 2007 Sony Electronics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

MTA Gets Cellular

Daniel Barry/New York Times

When in the subway, nobody can hear you scream. "Can you hear me now? fuck no." "I can't fucking call nobody down here?" "Where are my bars? I thought they raise 'em?"

Just when I thought the MTA is determined to stay in the 1960s when cellphone was non existent, then they came out with this half baked cellular plan for us riders: cellular service in the subway stations but not in the tunnel. For the cell phone happy set and the luddites, both can claim victory and both can't be completely happy.


From the NYT.

SPJ Subpoenaed by SEC

While Steven P. Jobs is busy gouging the Europeans in Germany, England, France and whatnots, he's been subpoenaed by SEC concerning options backdating according to Bloomberg, details as reported by Yahoo news. SPJ is not the target of the investigation but it can't be good news for Apple.

Hardest working CEO in Germany.

Deep Thoughts and Readings

The most read article is ... anything written by yours truly, and some minor pieces by some others like from The New Yorkers.

The Most Read Article of The New Yorker goes to A Critic At Large: Candid Camera, The Cult of Leica, by Anthony Lane, published September 24, 2007. The more things change, the more they stay the same. At least that's some of those Leica die-hards want or until Leica pulled off with a digital themselves, the M8.

Another shorter but no less interesting piece entitled The Privacy Paradox by James Suroweicki which makes the case that copycat of the fashion industry is actually good for the industry and any counter measure in terms of legislation may actually do more harm than good, in short, the cure is badder than the disease. The latest fashion war against copycat is waging all the way to the highest temple of legislation, that is the Congress. On the street level, Anna Sui is handing out Wanted T-shirt of caricatures of Forever 21 founders who allegedly are guilty of ripping off runway pieces by boldface designers like Ms. Sui herself and selling them at a fraction of the original's price to people who want high fashion but not the high price.

That makes me think of all the copyright and intellectual property rights on the Web. My brain is not big enough to address let alone solve this problem but then it doesn't stop me from blogging about it. I think it's really low to steal someone's post and treat it as one's original, it's like counterfeits that pretend to be the real ones, it's just wrong and illegal. What irks and fascinates me the most is that some of the posts that got pilfered aren't even great or anything. And even some paper, allegedly steals from bloggers, you know or I know it's bad when the paper, of all the bloggers they can choose to steal from in the whole wide web, is stealing from some blogger who can't even blog. That's just very disturbing. The day that my post is stolen will be the end of civilization as we know it, not because the act of stealing per se but because of the bad choice.

Then there is this whole fair use gray area. I personally always use other's jpegs and I normally give attribution if I don't forget or too tired or confused to put it. But does it make it OKAY though? Or if your site has all those crazy Google ads, does it make your site commercial (even we know the only persons clicking those ad links are you and your dog, I personally tried it but got busted by Google for suspicious clicks), can you still claim non commercial use of some images you get from the web? Or like embedding songs on the web? I don't really know. My web doctrine is to give attribution whenever you can.

More on knockoffs.

TimesSelect Obituary

R.I.P TimesSelect. Once they have permalinks on their articles, I know it's about time they end this TimesSelect thingy. WSJ is soon going to be free for all. Maybe I should stop subscribing the dead tree edition, so every Tuesday, I have less paper to recyle. Plus I don't have to endure the terrible color printing of their print edition. It's like every photograph that comes with Cathy Horyn's article will get messed up by default. This shoddy Times standard should not be tolerated by us subscribers. But then our subway system is so 1960s where underground cell or Internet connection is nonexistent. All right, I guess I will have to keep the paper edition, thanks to our antiquated NYC subway system.

Here is the TimesSelect Obituary. R.I.P. TimesSelect.

Dear Home Delivery Subscriber,

We are ending TimesSelect, effective today. This will not affect any services you are already receiving as a home delivery customer.

The Times's Op-Ed and news columns are now available to everyone free of charge, along with Times File and News Tracker. In addition, The New York Times online Archive is now free back to 1987 for all of our readers.

Why the change?

Since we launched TimesSelect, the Web has evolved into an increasingly open environment. Readers find more news in a greater number of places and interact with it in more meaningful ways. This decision enhances the free flow of New York Times reporting and analysis around the world. It will enable everyone, everywhere to read our news and opinion - as well as to share it, link to it and comment on it.

All other benefits of home delivery remain the same. You will continue to have complimentary access (100 articles every month) to the complete online Archive back to 1851. For additional benefits, including our All Access suite of digital products, click here: http://www.nytimes.com/allaccess.

We thank you for your support of TimesSelect, and hope you continue to enjoy The New York Times in all its electronic and print forms.

For more information, including answers to frequently asked questions, click here:

http://www.nytimes.com/marketing/ts


Sincerely,

Vivian Schiller
Senior Vice President & General Manager
NYTimes.com
________________________________________________________________________
ABOUT THIS E-MAIL

This is a one-time e-mail about your subscription to TimesSelect.

NYTimes.com
620 8th Avenue
New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

IBM Frees Us From The Tyranny That Is Microsoft Office

Or Does it?

I really don't like the idea of personal word processing, spreadsheet and database. Any such office suite, individual or bundled together from Microsoft or otherwise, is just pure evil in the office environment. Who needs Word? Let's just have a simple text editor, write in html via blog or wiki. Most people aren't writing any document that needs fancy features say table of contents, index or such. Excel spreadsheet and database for PC users? Please, they just mess up the data and scattered garbage all over the network and on the harddrive. If users need anything, the right way to do it is to custom build it from some SQL server and deliver to the users. Never mess with spreadsheet or PCish database like Access. And the big wigs love PowerPoint. I mean for Pete's sake, just type some words on some slides and show people, I never understand the appeal of PowerPoint. Just say no to office (non)productivity suite, that's my ideal office setting. But it's not going to happen.

So I really don't care too much about IBM's offering free download of some office software. Office software, some invention that shouldn't have happened but happened. Most workers would be so much happier and productive without them. (The New York Times get on the permalink program, good for them)

Nikon D3 Samples From The Moose

He took a few here and here in his blog. Again sourced from Nikonwatch.com, a web site that doesn't talk about Nikon watches (do they even exist?) but call itself Nikon watch.

UPDATE: A couple hours after the above link, Moose's Wordpress is totally overwhelmed.

UPDATE: Moose has created a D3 section for you D3 suckers out there.

Thom Browne

Photo: Marcio Madeira from men.style.com

Is Thom Browne a great American men's designer or is he Pee-wee Herman in disguise? Scratch that, the real life Pee-wee. Either way you can't help but notice his works and him. He actually practices what he preaches.

Notes to Self

We have LAMP installed. Now let's tackle Apache. How to configure your Apache (Apache2 2.2.3-3.2ubuntu0.1)

There are myriads of Howto's out there but this one is mine.

Fire up your firefox, at the URL, type http://localhost/ or http://127.0.0.1/ you should see some website. Good. Now configure the website.

To create your lame or state of the art web site:-
Change Apache default site to your own. Your index.html is going to be stored in /home/some_user/public_html/ (note replace some_user with user name in your system)

Fire up your terminal, call it terminal cutie
now type the following to copy the default site to mysite.

sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/default \ /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite

Fire up another terminal, call it terminal cutier
now type the following to change the configuration, you can # or rem out the original line before changing it.

gksudo gkedit /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite

Change DocumentRoot to point to the new location, /home/some_user/public_html/
Change the Directory directive, replace <Directory /var/www/> to <Directory /home/some_user/public_html/>

UPDATE: oh, and take out the Indexes to disable automatic indexing of directory, that's a personal preference of me. I did that by adding # in the front to rem out the original.

#Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews Options FollowSymLinks MultiViews

Save the file.

Now deactivate the old site (the default) and activate the new one, mysite
From terminal cutie, type

sudo a2dissite default && sudo a2ensite mysite

To create an index.html under /home/some_user/public_html/
From terminal cutie, type

echo '<b>Hello World!</b>' > \ /home/some_user/public_html/index.html

Finally restart apache by typing at terminal cutie

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now point your browser to http://localhost/ you should see Hello World! I know I did.

Original reference from here.

Notes to Self

How to setup LAMP in Ubuntu 7.04 fiesty fawn. (LAMP is Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP)

There are myriads of guides out there, but this one is mine.

As far as I know, which means not much at all, the Ubuntu way is rather easy. Everything you do is going to be GUI driven, and you don't have to know a lot to do a lot. But if there is some wrinkles, you are pretty much screwed. And then you really have to know what you are doing.

System / Administration / Synaptic Package Manager
You will be prompted to Enter your password to perform administrative tasks

From Synaptic Package Manager, Edit/Mark Packages by Task...
A dialogue window asks Which tasks should be performed by your computer?
Mark LAMP server and follow the onscreen instructions.

And you are done.

Untitled

shot with my lowly D70 and MF 50 mm f1.4.

I Want My Dog Back

SWF seeks thugs to kill.

When the dog's gone, it's gone for good. Nothing can bring it back.

After a traumatic New York incident, Jodie Foster's Erica Bain is not what she used to be or what she thinks she used to be. Or she totally lost it. The unfortunate incident brings out the blood thirsty vigilante in her and nothing stays the same anymore.

I don't know since when but Foster has come to represent on the big screen the intelligent white female who refuses to be victimized and more than often a fearsome motherly protector of the young and helpless, think "Panic Room" and "Flightplan." Foster just can't do no wrong or so it seems. She is the only female star in today's Hollywood that can actually open a movie.

Disclosure: I have not seen the movie "The Brave One," but that doesn't prevent me from writing about it. The movie is rated R for rather silly one liner.

Read what A.O.Scott has to say.

Notes to Self

The harbingers, geeks, cheapskates of Linux: How to set up a dynamic IP web server in your basement.

By Henry H. Lu and by Jason Bailey(?) circa year 1996 and 2001. I did it some years ago and got hacked into. And I never recovered until now.

Nikon D3 Samples

As a 3rd rate blogger, the best I can do is to recycle the news.

Here's is a post sourced from Nikonwatch. Nikon comes out with some samples from D3 and D300. The D3 samples are all shot with the newly AF-S 24~70mm f2.8G, except one that is shot with the AF-S Nikkor 85mm f1.4. The D300 has only 2 samples, both are done using the AF-S DX Nikkor 17~55mm f2.8G.

The D3 samples are here page in Japanese (page in English) and the D300 samples are here. Enjoy.

Breaking: "Lust, Caution" Won Golden Lion

Ang Lee's erotic spy thriller "Lust, Caution" won the top prize Golden Lion award for best picture.

I hope the winning is not tainted in any way or form as Zhang Yimou, also a Chinese, was one of the 7-member jury. And the win was characterized as "surprise" as in unworthy? Related news from yahoo.com.

Thom Browne

Well protected from the elements or even a possible light kick in between the legs. By Thom Browne. Photo by Hiroko Masuike for the New York Times.

A piece by fashion critic high priestess Cathy Horyn

Some Cell Phone Pictures

Sex And The City

Fashion Week Day 4

Fashion Week New York marches on without me. At lunch time, I was there at Byrant Park trying to rub shoulders with the rich and famous or the pretty and broke people. I saw a lot of big glasses and strobes with various dome-shaped add-ons. The weather is nice. I was thinking I should look the part and just walk through the back entrance you know just trying to help the models dress or something. I am sure they can use some help. On second thought, maybe not.

The official site is like me: miserable and not going anywhere fast. Mercedes Benz are better off doing that on Google's blogger for free I guess. It's just a waste of money as it is. How can people get away with that I can never fathom. Meanwhile, for a better browsing experience, one can try my website, or not, or http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/ for inside scoop of the show.

Novak Djokovich - Clown Prince Of Tennis

The new clown prince of tennis just ousted tennis "old" guard Carlos Moya in three straight sets. Djokovich, dark horse of this Open is wowing the Open crowd with his own brand of humor. If he keeps his concentration, he can probably meet reigning tennis great number one R-Fed in the final.

Breaking: Steve gives you back $100 Store Credit

To all iSuckers who paid full price for their iPhone, that is $599 cold cash, Steve Jobs gives you back $100 store credit.

To all iPhone customers:

I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.

First, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, and that now is the right time to do it. iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to 'go for it' this holiday season. iPhone is so far ahead of the competition, and now it will be affordable by even more customers. It benefits both Apple and every iPhone user to get as many new customers as possible in the iPhone 'tent'. We strongly believe the $399 price will help us do just that this holiday season.

Second, being in technology for 30+ years I can attest to the fact that the technology road is bumpy. There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever. This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you'll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon. The good news is that if you buy products from companies that support them well, like Apple tries to do, you will receive years of useful and satisfying service from them even as newer models are introduced.

Third, even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple's website next week. Stay tuned.

We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.

Steve Jobs
Apple CEO

Now, that's one responsive and responsible company. We all kind of know Apple makes about 50% gross profit margin on its iPhone. So as long as your marginal utility of an iPhone is more than that of your $599, you are willing to part your cash. You know you are paying a premium for being an iSucker, so why bitch about it later? Well, I guess it pays to bitch now, you get a $100 store credit from Mr. Jobs, and an apology for exercising the maxim "you charge as much as the market can bear."

Fashion Week New York

Live reporting from the OUTSIDE ... oh well, you do what you can.

The official site is slow and badly Flash designed, see when you paid big money to build a site, it actually could turn crappy and useless.

Wall Street Doesn't Like What Steve Says

Wall Street is not happy with "The Beat Goes On" special Apple event held today. Apple stock dropped more than 4 or 5 or 6 (make it $6.90 at closing) dollars when Jobs was hawking more iPods and slashing iPhone price. NBC Universal has just given 90 days notice not to renew its contract with iTunes and takes its business to Amazon where nobody really buying, well maybe that would change with new contents added, or maybe not. NBC Universal always thinks iTunes should price their video offerings at a higher price, but for Apple, the iTunes Store is just a means to sell more expensive iPods, so the video is selling at 1.99 a price most content providers aren't happy but grudgingly go along because of the huge iPod user base. NBC Universal has just had enough with chicken shit Apple and decided to play hardballs. Let's see if other content providers follow suit. An iTunes store with no content is no store at all. But then iPod has this huge user base. It's going to be a great fight. Well, we can always go back to pirating if things don't work out.

The new iPodtouch comes with WiFi, it plays songs, video, browse the world wide web and do your dishes, okay, maybe not the last bit. But can it do VoIP? Guess not (because that would eat into the iPhone market and pisses off its wireless carrier at&t ... well maybe not so much on the last bit, let's just turn a blind eye to let hackers unlock the iPhone.). If it does then it would be fantastic. You have an iPod that can do phone calls without the phone company getting into the way between you and your callee. I hope Google can come up with something like that. They should, I would buy into that.

... iWhoring finished.

Apple slashes iPhone price.

Sperry Top-sider

Joining Doc Martens, Top-sider is enjoying some press and come back recently. Band of Outsiders is updating this classic and selling them at where else, Barneys for $190~300 a pair, and they don't even come with the leather laces. The original is selling for $64.95 a pair at Sperry's site and they do come with laces. My pair of top siders never got to walk on a boat deck, its purpose of existence was never fulfilled.

From men's style. From Gawker.

UPDATE: One of the most searched posts here. If you were to ask me what to buy, I think any sane person would opt for the orginal top siders which are like the original and they come with laces.

US Open Updates: Henin vs. S. Williams

Henin took the first set in a tie breaker.

The 2nd set, Henin is off to a good start taking the first three games. Williams has to figure out something quick to dig herself out.

UPDATE:
Henin never let up the pressure and finished off Serena Williams in two straight sets. Henin packs a lot of power in her 5'6" frame and it showed on this match. For some reason and probably not the nicest thing to say, after her divorce, she seems more personable. Now Serena can enjoy her early exit, probably can attend the New York Fashion Week at Bryant Park tomorrow.

US Open Updates

Feliciano Lopez took the first set from number one Roger Federer. That was a real surprise. Though no one expects Lopez can knock out the number one tuxedo man in the fourth round of the US Open.

UPDATE
Lopez is on fire, trading backhand with Federer and actually won the point.... Federer is slowly turning the game around, that's what a number one player can do, figure out your opponent on the fly and crack his game. Sharapova faltered when she couldn't come up with a plan B when played against Radwanska. As an aside, while plenty of spectators were rooting for Sharapova, her father-cum-coach is her toughest critic, he walked off the stadium before the match was over in total disgust, now that's some tough parenting. I totally digressed.

UPDATE
Lopez in the end was no match to tennis great Roger Federer. Federer, after losing the first set, regained his composure and rather quickly broke Lopez down in a four-set victory