Grade School Photo Retouching Front Page Material

Perhaps it is because it's a Saturday and everybody is sick and tired of bad news already.

This front page article talks about how modern photography can easily manipulate image, at a price and at the request of the parents.  It goes on to discuss should we or should we not do it just because we can and how it might affect the child's self esteem or some crap like that.  Personally I have never requested any retouching (or implanted false memories) because my kids are just perfect the way they are, period.  No, actually we have way bigger problems than that.  Because often times, the pictures came back blurry and totally out of focus.  What horror.  How the photographer, if he can call himself one, manages to take an out of focus picture in a studio kind of setting is beyond me.  I am ecstatic when the picture is actually in focus, forget about retouching.

New York Times Print Edition Goes 3D

The New York Times print edition has Nadal's picture on the front page above the fold on the left. It shows love to Nadal and to tennis. The picture is printed in 3D I think so without the 3D glasses, the picture looks horrible, like it has ghost, like newsletter printed by grade school kids, like they don't know how to print color, like very unprofessional, like I am wasting $2 on the print edition.

PowerPoint: is it so Bad? Yes

A slide that shocks and awes and above anything else epitomizes everything that is wrong with PowerPoint.  PowerPoint slide illustrates different dynamics America faces in Afghanistan.  Source:  The New York Times web site.

Out of no where, the New York Times has a front page, above the fold article about PowerPoint and how the military uses it grudgingly.

I don't use PowerPoint, I don't know PowerPoint but I just have a healthy disdain for people who spend lots of time making PowerPoint slides.  In my mind, it's a colossal waste of time.  One spends so much time fixing the slides instead of attacking the problems that one is supposed to solve.

St. Patrick's Day Is News Worthy in NYT's Book

The New York Times mentions the annual St. Patrick's Day on today's paper.  So apparently it's news worthy.  Whereas the Chinese New Year is not and has not been so.  Being a Chinese American I am frankly disappointed at the Chinese New Year coverage or actually the total lack thereof from a major New York newspaper (A22 on print).

On the web:  A Shorter Parade Means Less Green for Some on St. Patrick's Day.

For Chinese New Year coverage, you have to see it on my blog.

The New York Times Sucks

New York Times doesn't give a f.u.c.k about Chinese or Chinese New Year despite New York City has one of the biggest freaking Chinatown on Earth and it calls itself The New York Times.  The event wasn't even covered in their regional area section.  Anyhow, I did my part and "covered" the event as much as I could which is hardly good or enough.  The New York Times sucks ass.

Grey Lady Weighed In Protest and Democracy in Hong Kong, Finally

The New York Times' Keith Bradsher is calling Hong Kong's protest culture lame, essentially.  That's until our Goddess of Liberty Christina Chan changed everything.

Until recently, Hong Kong had a tradition of orderly political protests that were uncommonly polite by international standards[editor's note: read lame]. When 500,000 people took to the streets in 2003 to oppose successfully the introduction of stringent internal security regulations, the police did not make a single arrest.

Here our Goddess of Liberty speaks:

 “We’re just sick of going to rallies that political parties organize, and we hold our banners and don’t accomplish anything,” said Christina Chan, a 22-year-old graduate student in philosophy who was arrested at her home[editor's note: outside of a radio station, RTHK] this month on suspicion of assaulting police officers at two rallies. Released on bail of 500 Hong Kong dollars, or $65, she has not yet been formally charged and has denied any wrongdoing.

Though the part that says she "was arrested at her home" seems wrong but overall, the account of the event as a whole was accurate.

Read the original piece here.

UPDATE 1/29/2010:
I wrote to Mr. Bradsher regarding his Times article and expressed my doubt on the place of arrest.  He checked with Ms Chan and confirmed that the arrest was made not at her home but outside a radio station.

The Red Camera Actually Exists

I thought it's all marketing BS but when I read "Robbie Cooper, a British photographer who employed a Red Camera--a very-high-resolution video camera . . . " then I know it's real--a video depicting kids paying full attention while gaming, a kid was so attentive that he teared up because he didn't blink while gaming.

Stills were made from the footage and appear in print in the NYT Sunday Magazine.

Looking at the video, I came to the sordid realization that there is no such thing as attention deficit disorder, only you can't get their attention.

Flushing For The Gastronomic Adventurous

The New York Times, in a ground breaking sort of way, introduces its readers Flushing, Queens as the culinary equivalence of Beijing, except it's right here in the backyard not 4,000 miles away. The feature is chock full of information both in print and in Web multimedia, the way it should be but seldom is. The printable list in pdf, with dish names in original Chinese characters is good especially if you are going to plan your gastronomic expedition. I think I must have tried a few of those eateries it mentioned. One shop I won't forget is Nian Shian Dumpling House. The food was all right, I don't think it was "the best soup dumplings in Flushing" as proclaimed on the list. I just think Joe's Shanghai still has an edge in its crab meat soup dumplings. When it comes to service, one of the women that served us was really bad. She was taking our order sitting on a stool, with the attitude of I couldn't be bothered. When an appetizer was not available she made us seem a bunch of idiots for even ordering that and proceeded to tell us to see the appetizer station ourselves to see what's available and again with an attitude that was reminiscence of some dragon lady. She would not lift a finger if that would make us just a bit more comfortable. Other wait staff from prior visits seemed a bit better. Basically don't expect professional hospitality from the wait staff at all. If you can look past that perhaps you can enjoy the food better. I have much better experience at other places like Happy Beef Noodle House (which is actually more of a Taiwanese food) also mentioned on the list.

Beach Reading

I was at the Sunken Meadow State Park beach this past weekend, again. This is one of the cheaper way to enjoy the summer. The gas is now $4.40 a gallon and the park admission is $8 per car. We bring our own food. Cheap entertainment is fun too.

Between yelling at the kids and playing in the water (also eyeballing bikini clad chicks too, but by and large, the beach is really a family beach with mostly overweight adults like myself, not many killer bods to look at, so I am mostly minding my own business ... ), I was actually able to read something, half naked under the sun.

I didn't know what David Carr looks like until I got this week's New York Times Magazine. I was appalled at how skinny he looks now and how overweight he was ... so I guess something major must have happened in between these years. I knew I wanted to read the article so I brought the Magazine to the beach. The article was adapted from Carr's soon to be released memoir "The Night of the Gun."

This is addiction literature, arguably popularized by James Frey, except Frey's memoir "A Million Little Pieces" turned out to be a fraud. Carr, in his own words, seems more careful in tracing his days of addiction some twenty years ago, with interviews from family members, rehab staff, friends and with family pictures and mug shots on the cover to back his story. His tumultuous relationship with women, drug abuse came to an end, albeit slow and gradual when his twin daughters were born more than two months premature. Carr doesn't fall into the trappings of victimhood or in any way romanticizes his abuse, at least I don't read it that way. Things were presented as a matter of fact. The chronicle of his addiction is a mix of gravitas, humility and humor, which makes it a great read on the beach or I imagine at home too. Carr might think "we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds," but his reportage on his darker years is anything but frauds.

Me and My Girls by David Carr, published July 20, 2008.

Daniel Nutty Day-Lewis

And in America, the articulate use of language is often regarded with suspicion. Especially in the West. Look at the president. He could talk like an educated New Englander if he chose to. Instead, he holds his hands like a man who swings an ax. Bush understands, very astutely, that many of the people who are going to vote for him would regard him less highly if he knew how to put words together. He would no longer be one of them. In Europe, the tradition is one of oratory. But in America, a man’s man is never spendthrift with words.

So it's all an act?

I always think Day-Lewis is a bit nutty and Lynn Hirschberg's piece The Frontier's Man in The New York Times just confirmed that.