how i mistook our planet for a spec of dust
This image will put some perspective in your morning java.
The pale blue dot in the brown band on the right side of the photograph is planet Earth as seen from 3.7 billion miles out at the edge of our solar system. The image was shot Voyager 1 in 1990. After the Voyager 1 completed its primary mission it was commanded by NASA to point back towards our solar system and shoot pictures at the request of Carl Sagan.
The photograph is hardly “current events”, but I had never seen it before randomly coming across it on Wikipedia last night. I can’t stop thinking about how everything I know is, from the perspective of the photograph, no bigger than a pixel.
the passing of a non-celebrity celebrity in los angeles
Am sad to report that the Silverlake Walker has passed away. I’m a west sider who only rarely makes my way to far north east side of Los Angeles that is Silverlake, and I still caught a few sightings of Dr. Marc Abrams on part his daily walk along the reservoir.
Mel Melcon has done a brilliant short documentary on the Silverlake Walker for the LA Times.
british petroleum helped me lose weight
At the beginning of BP’s Deep Water Horizon disaster I’d rush home, put on my workout clothes and watch Tony Hayward, BP’s CEO, talk. I laughed so hard for several continuous weeks that I lost ten pounds and got myself some four pack abs. When Mr. Hayward got removed from the public eye by the BP board, I feared for my svelte figure.
Then today, reader @carlainsf, reached out to me about BP’s latest gaffe. It seems that the images of the crisis command center have some obvious fake Photoshop elements. You can see the story, that was broken by America Blog’s John Aravosis, here and here.
I can feel the pounds melting away.
penn and teller interview
In Vegas, our investors don’t give a f—- about us. The people who are our bosses see our show maybe once a year. One of them will bring their kids and come by. And they are pleasant and they love us and they sincerely enjoy the show. Then they leave and they don’t think about us.
And because nobody’s paying attention we do exactly the show we want. As long as people come to see it nobody cares what we do.
From the Penn and Teller interview at the Telegraph UK. It’s a wonderful read. Makes me wish the advertising industry had few more balls like the entertainment backers in Las Vegas.
the image driven time machine
Every once in a while when I have to locate an old picture that I shot years ago, I get a full blown flashback to the day of the shoot. This particular image was shot at the pool at my alma mater, the University of Southern California, probably ten years after I graduated. I’m always fascinated by how vividly the human brain can recall events given the right catalyst. After staring that the image for a few minutes, it almost felt like I was back at the location via some fabulous time machine.
Hmmm, all this without any cocktails. The power of pictures. In many ways I think photographs will always be more powerful than video.
How companies should respond to piracy.
If you Google my name and piracy, you’ll find videos of me extolling the virtues of letting one’s photography get pilfered for use on blogs and in creative remixes. The simplistic maligners screamed that I was pro piracy and a bastard. Many others took the time to listen to the depth and breadth of my thesis and decided that there was something to it. I’ll always owe a debt to those folks.
This is a question from a Nintendo share holder to the president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata;
In connection with Nintendo’s basic strategy of “gaming population expansion”, I would like to ask about the handling of fan activities and intellectual properties. Recently, there are many fan magazines, original short movies, music bands, cosplay activities, websites, orchestras and so on, based on Nintendo’s titles. If these activities threaten Nintendo’s intellectual properties or licenses, will Nintendo crack down on them aggressively, or just view them as fan activities? If Nintendo has any policies, please let us know.
This is part of Mr. Iwata’s response;
As the principle, please understand that the question is regarding a rather delicate issue to which no one can perhaps identify a clear-cut criterion. Of course, we cannot say that we can give tacit approval to any and all the activities which threaten our intellectual properties. But on the other hand, it would not be appropriate if we treated people who did something based on affection for Nintendo, as criminals. It is true that some expressions are detrimental enough to diminish the dignity of our intellectual properties, and others destroy our intellectual properties’ world-views by connecting them with something not based on fact. We think one of the criteria for deciding how to respond is whether the expression in question socially diminishes the dignity or value of our intellectual properties or not. Of course, it is very hard to have a blanket standard as this problem involves many complex elements that are very difficult to judge.
The man should be lauded as a hero for having such an enlightened understanding rather than a legal quick draw every time there is a literal violation of Nintendo’s intellectual property rights.
If you want a fascinating read on piracy and how we’ve all benefitted from it, I can’t recommend Matt Mason’s The Pirates Dilemma enough. Also, you can see my perspective of my own work in the copyright paragraph at the bottom of my about page here.
Avast ye mateys.