I'm gonna have a bad ass stair case in my house one day which turns into a slide at the press of a button when you're going down...
- Zee.
from Bookmarklet
These examples map poorly to my drinking habits.
- Oldengrey (Jay)
tell me about it Jay - imagine trying to walk up the middle ones eh...
- Zee.
I once had a loft with a cast iron spiral. I barely survived.
- Oldengrey (Jay)
Lol...I had an awesome apartment in the heart of Soho in London - as awesome as it was, it was on the top floor, no lift and about for landing between ground floor and the apartment. The number of times my neighbours woke me up in the morning as they walked down the staircase finding me on the 3rd landing is embarassing.
- Zee.
I've seen the laretto staircase in person, it's really incredible
- anna sauce
That is crazy! I love the second one.. even though.. it would be hard to run up
- Kyle Lacy
OMG! I love it! I have a preoccupation with stairway walks. this is too much for me! *swoon* (and everyone makes fun of me too)
- Anna Lynn M.
I love them! They immediately remind me of a staircase/library featured on one of the home restoration shows on TV. Article in Apartment Therapy here http://twurl.nl/qedgfa
- Allison Kipta
somehow i just can't stop stairing...
- Cecil Sandus
no no, i can't take credit - i believe it was the posts name. I gotta say though - I had NO idea there were so many stair junkies on friendfeed!
- Zee.
This is the kind of thing you'd only want to get if you're considering having kids and haven't yet. Having to stick a babygate in front of one of these would just un-cool-ify it a bit methinks.
- Gus Perez
chuck come to my east-ish LA hood and you'll see the early 80s are alive and well. all the kids look like rejects from fast times at ridgemont high
- Captain Bubbles
@faboo_mama come to think of it, I saw hairdryers on sale at Shoppers Drug Mart. I guess I should buy some plaid pants and get it over with.
- Chuck LeDuc Díaz
omigosh! I had 2 hypercolor shirts... been years since I thought about those!
- Lindsay
chuck, your comment reminded of lady in front of us at target the other day. she bought that huge tube of electric blue hair gel and like 5 cans of aquanet. i had a flashback to the cholas of my youth.
- Captain Bubbles
so if it's cold it's cloudy perfect like garbage says "i'm only happy when it rains" then again i live in oregon so it behooves me to be that way
- Cecil Sandus
Meh. In Pittsburgh, it's not the kids rockin' the 80s. It's the people of my generation who were in high school during the 80s who have never moved on. There's a woman on my bus in the morning that has crispy, permed and highlighted mall hair like you wouldn't believe.
- Marci Maleski
Where I it's it's both the kids and the classes of 85-89 that are rockin' the 80s look. It's like some weird rift in time.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
All right, I need a pink paisley sweatshirt, a pair of soft gray baggy pants that I can cuff demurely above the ankle, and a pair of round tortoiseshell Oliver Peoples eyeglasses. And maybe some suspenders? And a Swatch!
- Chuck LeDuc Díaz
@marci I had the pink and purple one too. hypercolor flashback!
- Carmen
"We just launched a new set of customizable FriendFeed widgets for spicing up your blog or web site. There are several ways to embed FriendFeed, and you can pick as many of them as you want."
- Paul Buchheit
Thanks for more options but still JS only. :( The likelihood of any site I don't maintain allowing me to use JS is slim to non. Please add 1 flash widget? Pretty please? With sugar on top?
- EricaJoy
FWIW, in http://pastebin.ca/1186734 I've put my FriendFeed badge setup. Stolen elsewhere, I forgot where, thanks to the original author. Hope it helps.
- Cesar Cardoso
For those that are using the feed widget, note that you can change num=x in case the defaults of 1,5, or 10 aren't what you want.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
Mark, the white is div class = friendfeed widget and needs to have the background overridden, it's set to white (obviously). The classes in the nested divs below it should inherit the new BG color.
- FFing Enigma (aka Tina)
I really wish the Flickr/Zoomr thumbnails looked as good as the Smugmug ones. Either way I really like what you've been doing with the SM galleries Thomas.
- Eric P
I find it refreshing that you have a vested interest in Zooomr, but still are willing to talk up the benefits to competing services like Flickr and SmugMug.
- cjmart
"Thomas Hawk has been doing his $2 Portrait Project and when I first read about it, I thought it was a great idea. I’ve been trying to think of a way to alter his project in my own unique way. I know $2 is not a lot of money, but while walking down Haight Street the other day, I knew I would be asked for money quite a few times. If I stuck with the $2 project, I would have to stop at the ATM before lunch. So, I decided I would still be doing a good service while still keeping the the project alive if I only offered $1. It sounds cheap, I know, but this is not my intention. To take it one step further, every single one picture that is part of this project will be black and white. So, my project will be: Black and White Dollar Portraits (BW$P)."
- Justin Korn
This is the first time I've heard of this, and it's an amazing idea. I peeked over at Thomas' blog as well. Both of you took such great photos. Very awesome. More people should do this!
- Candace
Justin... Epic, I love this type of photography. Look forward to it.
- Johnny Worthington
Thanks Candace and John. I'm really glad people are enjoying this project, from both Thomas and I. It is not only fun, but rewarding as well.
- Justin Korn
Chap on the UK Ubuntu podcast was saying that he had some problems with the drobo not starting up and because the disks are in a Drobo's own format there is nothing he can do to recover his data. I still think that you can't go wrong with plain old disk and a copy of rsync.
- John Cooper
WHS is treating me well, cheaper and just as expandable.
- Brian Blankenship
Unfort. you have to jailbreak it. Hope real video comes soon!
- michael sean wright
Yup. Jailbroke mine post 2.0.1 upgrade. Qik is nice, though a bit slow even over WiFi. Guess that's par for the course. Just broadcast my first live stream from my iPhone 3G. Not I have to figure out how to delete it.
- Greg
Nice Fish Films - I don't think it will ever happen...
- Justin Korn
Anybody know why it can't be sold in the AppStore?
- Brandon Titus
Call me when it doesn't require a jailbreak... same situation as before
- Bwana ☠
It most likely won't be coming to an unjailbroken iPhone. AT&T definitely doesn't want this eating their bandwidth. Same reason for netspace I'm sure. I don't even know if that tethering app is called that. I'm using it on my phone and love it.
- Dennis Jackson
I just downloaded last night. My first one is up at qik (teejayhanton). Not sure why Apple wouldn't let them sell through app store, but glad they developed it anyway!
- tj hanton
Does this work in Sweden or is it US only?
- Svartling
The very fact that you have to jailbreak the phone to get this to work suggests to me that the iPhone Video is just round the corner. A phone with video now that's innovation.
- John Cooper
There was a demo of a jailbreak version of Slingplayer for the iPhone but I haven't heard much since a few months ago.
- Andrew Leyden
is it impossible to create a native app for locked phone that would allow video?
- Bob Blunk
I thought the problem was the iPhone only handle a few video codec, none of which were very popular for streaming (but I'm not sure on that).
- Andrew Leyden
I think the problem is AT&T's block on data transfer such as streaming over the cell network. So you could theoretically get your account terminated. (Hope that doesn't happen to me :P). It's in the ars technica article: http://bit.ly/1XzxCz
- Brandon Titus
Look at that there... THAT is a prince. Wow. The great cats have SO much poise! They LOOK like the kings of the jungle.
- Parth Awasthi
Once over the cute overdose, I must say, I understand how animals this powerful need to be this adorable when they are young. It's the only way to survive. What a gorgeous picture.
- Juan Carlo Rodríguez
Hmmm, mildly NSFW, definitely inappropriate if pregnant ladies are in the workplace, clearly too true to life, and absolutely LOL; oh yes, I will continue to LOL
- Pete Delucchi
"Recording the Birth" was my favorite, should have been captioned with a Qik video url.
- jcunwired
any favorite/reputable online t-shirt vendors that offer single quantity digital printing? I need to make a text-only t-shirt for a friend adn would rather use a recommended site than the one's google returns on a search
i did a google search last night and looked at a couple of the top results - they all use the exact same design interface - price isn't too bad (around $26 for an American Apparel t with printing on the front and back) but I would rather not punch in my CC info until I hear from someone else that they have used them and were satisfied.
- Marco(aureliusmaximus)
I've used VistaPrint and was very pleased. About $9.25/shirt for two shirts with my own graphic. Pretty quick too, if I recall correctly.
- Dave Roth
Take a look at Zazzle, they are pretty great as far as quality is concerned.
- Steve Spalding
I have a friend that owns a screen printing business... http://dudsbydudes.com/ They have good prices, I believe. You can name-drop me if you want :)
- Frankie Warren
What a great article. This is absolute truth.
- Meryn Stol
"No one can be a rock star without a great scene" -- and who really wants or needs a rock star anyway? If you want longevity and success hire craftsmen and leave the rock stars to their sex and drugs.
- Brian Sullivan
Goes along with the toxic environment problems. Another thought about this: recognition of great work makes for an above average environment. Even if it's just a thank you. It's frustrating to bust your butt for something and then get a "meh" reaction.
-
37signls remains the coolest company in the Valley.
- Duncan Riley
I agree with the premise, but it's not what I expected from the title.
- Steve Lowe
There's truth in this. I've seen it and been there. But there's also some truth in the old adage 'a poor workman blames his tools'
- Mo Kargas
Very interesting piece. I think overall from all I've seen in different organizations is that leadership sets the tone, sets expectations, and sets the environment.
- Eric Berlin
Lost in all this is the fact that a lot of performance is context-related. The same person who's done really well in one company can do poorly at the next. The same programmer paid $50k a year in India might be worth $250k in the US. The American attribution of performance to the individual is an analomy that many cultures in other parts of the world do not subscribe to (the Japanese are much more interested in setting up systems that perform, for instance, rather than being focused on hiring superstars).
- Piaw Na
On 1 August 2008, we are asking anyone with a passion for usability to solve a usability problem...any usability problem at all...and help make the world a better/safer/less annoying place.
- Shey, Jamaican of FF
from Bookmarklet
Yes, Yuvi. They're from the official NASA site.
- Mona Nomura
"The Heavens are declaring your works" These are so awe-inspiring and then there is also a sense of delight about them at the same time, really, when you think about it. If Joy were to burst from an intelligent heart into the universe, this is what it would look like. There is no art to compare. Thanks @Mona N for sharing.
- Melanie Reed
Your post must've slipped me by... If I had known, I would've re-shared :) Btw, aren't the archives absolutely fascinating? I'm glad NASA is opening up their library to Google and this site. And that we, have the tools to share this information with everyone :)
- Mona Nomura
"SHOCKED showroom driver Martin Bullen faced a tricky phone call to his boss after this £250,000 Ferrari went up in smoke. "
- LiquidLag
A half million dollar car. People should be able to do with their money what they wish, but you could house two or three families quite nicely for that.
- Chris Baskind
Chris Not to make a straw man out of you...or 25 + families in many countries where people don't have computer or time to comment on FriendFreed but that's how the capitalism cookie crumbles. Just sayin.
- Mark Forman
Yeah, I was thinking in terms of suburban Americans or Europeans. A half million could build a village. Or about a thousand safe water wells in Africa.
- Chris Baskind
Oh my god. This makes me cry. What a beautiful car... or used to be.
- Johan
It's so wrong to say that I "like" this -- but it's oddly compelling. I had to go back and watch it a couple times. Re-affirms my fear of snakes. Ugg.
- Wayne Schulz
I just can't believe the camera-person was that close to that big snake and wasn't paying attention to the head. What a maroon
- Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah
"The Color Blind Web Page Filter, which was used in this post to demonstrate the different types of colorblindness, allows you to view what a site looks like to people with each type of color blindness. Here are a few examples from some popular websites."
- Jason Toney
from Bookmarklet
this could certainly be useful for designers as they create pages that are usable for everyone, including those who are color blind. even just for those who arer curious, this is kind of interesting
- Kyle A Koch
I'm part of the color-blind population so those logos look extra strange to me.
- Kyle Hebert
I didn't know that, Kyle. Are you saying the logos in this post look weirder than normal for you?
- Jason Toney
Yeah, Jason. That Google logo up there looks really off compared to how I normally see it.
- Kyle Hebert
Ok, after spending time with Photoshop CS3's HDR functions which only sporadically work on some images and downloading a trial version of Photomatix's HDR software, I can officially say that HDR is a huge pain in the ass and definitely not worth my time or energy anymore.
Adobe really needs to work on HDR. With a lot of tweaking you can get good results. The secret is in the conversion to 8 bit. It will never do the overly-stylized effect of Photomatix.
- Andrew Smith
Even though I've seen some other people do some interesting things with HDR, all of the images that I played around with look like crap. Photomatix makes your images look like syrupy sweet and sickening cotton candy and Photoshop is just too frustrating to use when it's HDR processing only works on about 20% of my RAW files for no explainable reason. I'd expect more from software that I paid $700 for.
- Thomas Hawk
Photomatix made me want to throw up. I did create a few images with Photoshop converting them back down to 8bit but CS3 would choke and crap out on about 80% of my RAW files that I tried to use so I couldn't really merge to HDR with the files that I really wanted to use. At least I can now say I've officially given HDR a run and it's not for me. Regular old processing in Adobe Camera RAW beats HDR hands down.
- Thomas Hawk
Are you going to upload the HDR images somewhere? I'm actually experimenting with HDR, and would like to see some other HDR images. Edit: I know how to find HDR images on Flickr, but I am still interested.
- Rishabh Mishra (p248)
possible248, they look like puke. definitely not going to upload them anywhere.
- Thomas Hawk
Try doing merge to HDR > move the slider farther right than you think, making the shadows too dark. Then convert to 8bit keeping the gamma and offset too dark still. Then bring it back with Image > adjustments > Exposure
- Andrew Smith
Thomas, I know what you mean. I have only done 16 HDRs in the couple of years that the fad has been out. I probably have another 20 that I have the images for I just cant get myself over the effort. I use photmatix. If only my HDRs weren't so "interesting" on flickr or I'd never do it again. I like Lucis art better but the programmer has gone dark and the new Lucis tool is going to cost $500. http://flickr.com/photos...
- Mark Interrante
I think a Photoshop familiar person will likely have better results with simply manually blending multiple exposures. The HDR blend tries to "automate" something that people have been doing manually in darkrooms for ages. Multiple exposures are great for getting nice ground and sky in the same image when there is a lot of dynamic range in between.
- Jason Wehmhoener
I'm tired of HDR photos. They look a little too good.
- Sean Davis
On a related topic, does anyone know of an iphone app that would use the camera to take HDR?
- Mark Interrante
HDR became hackneyed before I really ever started to play around with it. It does seem like a lot of work.
- Matt
I tried HDR on a few photos - decided that I'd rather go back and reshoot in better light than do anymore HDRs if at all possible. :)
- Patty Hankins
It is possible to make HDRs that do not have that HDR "look". I prefer to use HDR as a way of getting just a bit more dynamic range. See the first two on the link http://bit.ly/38IpH2 (made with Photomatix). Photomatix (actually HDR in general) requires quite a bit of tweaking so I am not too fond of the extra time needed to process things.
- Jauder Ho
the HDR feature in Photoshop really isn't worth a dime. Photomatix and a bit of understanding of why you're doing what you're doing with the tonal mapping or light recovery and you're in and out very quickly.
- Frank Jonen
from Alert Thingy
Thomas, Your images have to be tone mapped after they are merged, otherwise they WILL look like crap. Photoshop CS3 is not the greatest tool for HDR. Photomatix is a very good tool if you learn how to use it. Here is a link to an article by Uwe Steinmueller who is an expert at HDR on how to shoot and process images in Photomatix. http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc...
- Jeff P. Henderson
"they look like puke. definitely not going to upload them anywhere." - HA! I played with HDR in photoshop also and was completely turned off. Haven't tried photomatix yet.
- Justin Korn
Trebor, I was kind of playing around and made them have that HDR look, because I thought it looked interesting. You can do HDR images that don't look like the typical HDR. Check out Uwe Steinmueller's article above. He does many HDR images that you would be hard pressed to tell that they were HDR. It does take a lot of practice to do HDR correctly. I've seen HDR images that span the spectrum from cartoonish to completely undetectable.
- Jeff P. Henderson
A comment on the intent of HDR. The original intent of HDR photography, where several images of the same scene are taken at different exposure levels and then merged, is to produce a photographic image that has the apparent dynamic range of human sight. A single image taken with today's state of the art DSLR has the capability to capture somewhere in the vicinity of 10 to 14 stops of...
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- Jeff P. Henderson
(CONT) When several images are merged, they often appear quite dark or just plain don't look correct. This is because no display or output device has the dynamic range to properly display it. To correct this, programs like Photomatix do a tone mapping which basically moves everything in the image into the dynamic range capability of your monitor or printer. The end result is that you...
more...
- Jeff P. Henderson
I disagree. I think HDR sometimes can add something to an image if applied correctly and with cause. I'm not sure what platform you are on, but Photomatix Pro on the Mac works like a charm.
- Rutger Blom
This photo, while not the awesomest, would not be possible without HDR - handheld, no flash, 3 frames bracketed +1.33 0 -1.22 and 0 = f/22 1/30 iso800 http://www.flickr.com/photos...
- Andrew Smith
Agree Trebor. Edited the order of frames now. It's not the best photo but it's an example.
- Andrew Smith
HDR is certainly very time consuming and for that reason alone I can understand everyone who does not want to bother with it. But the results can look as realistic as you want. In Photomatix, a realistic look is achieved by setting all "Smoothing" controls (Light Smoothing, Highlights Smoothing, Shadows Smoothing) to high/very high values and be careful with introducing too much microcontrast.
- Ole Begemann
There's a group on Flickr that specializes in "Realistic HDR": http://flickr.com/groups.... Not all photos in the pool qualify but it might be a good starting point for examples.
- Ole Begemann
Have to disagree with you there, yeah there's some awful HDR imagery on the net but used well you can produce some very interesting pictures. I like it though it is just another way to get creative with your photography
- Kol Tregaskes
Here's Erik Reinhard with his take on "What's wrong with 'Flickr HDR'?": http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~reinha.... "HDR is a good thing --- if done right. Unfortunately, the Flickr HDR community does it wrong on a massive scale. ... If you want to deliberately produce an artificial looking image, then by all means do so. However, please do not abuse tone reproduction to get there. And please do not then go and call it 'HDR'."
- Ole Begemann