Color calibrated screen

I finally gave in and bought a hardware color calibrator. With four LCD monitors in the house, it was becoming impossible for me to have any confidence in the colors I was getting for photos. There are some good perceptual calibrators available: Apple ships quite a nice one built-in to MacOS X, some people prefer SuperCal for the Mac, and on Windows Powerstrip looks useful (though I’ve never used it). While software only calibration is better than no calibration, I’ve been pretty frustrated at the difference between how my photos look on various people’s screens. Now that I’m convinced that my monitors are accurately calibrated, I’m just going trust that everyone else is at least in the same ballpark.

I am trying to save up for a more complete color matching system — if anyone is interested in getting their monitor calibrated, I’m willing to hire out the existing calibrator to friends. I’m thinking about $25/weekend — it works with Windows or Mac OS 9/X; I think the Linux crowd is out of luck.

Quest for clam sauce

In the early 1992 Stella’s Trattoria in Seattle’s U-district was a regular, late-night haunt for my particular group of friends. Dave Dawson had a habit of ordering the creamy, clam sauce and resulted in getting several of us addicted to the stuff. It was especially surprising when I became addicted since I generally dislike all clam sauce, and white clam sauce in particular — in the end I would commonly order two servings, one to eat there, and one to tide me over till we came back. I’m not sure what Stella’s put in it, but consensus at the time was that it had to have crack in it. At last report, Stella’s no longer has the clam sauce, nor is it open 24/7 everyday, which is a travesty on two counts; this recipe is my attempt to recreate the magic of that sauce. It’s no where near as good, but it’s pretty much one of the few clam sauces I will eat today. If anyone finds out the recipe for the original Stella’s clam sauce, I’ll be your best friend.

[recipe moved to a static page]

J.P. was complaining about the inclusion of recipes in the blog since he’s currently on Atkins — this recipe should be pretty Atkins friendly, so long as you don’t put it over pasta.

Rumors Apple Acquiring TiVo

Reuters is reporting on speculation (as if that represents news) that Apple is targetting Tivo for aquisition.

Personally, I think this is a natural play for Apple. There has been rampant speculation that the Mac Mini is positioned as a Media Center Device (DVD-Player/Writer, HDI interface); add Tivo software to the Mac Mini and you have the next “Insanely Great Thing” in the home.

The pairing is particularly brilliant since the vast majority of the development for moving the Tivo to the Mac is already done. The Tivo already runs on a Unix platform (Linux in this case), and even uses a modified Macintosh File System and PowerPC CPU (same as the Mac) in it’s exisiting hardware. Tivo brings to the table: the software, user base, back-end data distribution agreements with cable companies, and existing content agreements with select networks and vendors. Apple brings world-class hardware design (let’s face the Tivo hardware isn’t that great beyond the cool remote), marketing expertise, and a successful online media store (iTunes Music Store). The pairing seems to be Sony and Microsoft‘s worst nightmare.

Imagine forgetting to setup a show to record on your Mini/Tivo, and going to the Apple iMedia Store and ordering the show you missed (and it’s soundtrack) downloaded straight to your TV in hi-definition. Or getting trailers for upcoming movies or the next season’s shows based on your Tivo ratings. Two shows on at once? Just order one for download from the iMedia Store, and setup the other on the Mini/Tivo.

Think Different, think of Apple as the next big media comany.

re: photos

The photoblog is chugging along. I’ve managed daily posts for the last week. The good news is the next couple of days of photos are queued and should pop up on their own (no late night updates for a bit).

I’ve been watching my rating over at photoblogs.org drop pretty regularly; from a high of twelve to the rather pathetic seven I’m currently at. I’m not sure if people drop me when I post bad pictures, or they’re dropping me because I don’t go over and vote for their photos. I check out alot of people’s photoblogs, but I won’t be bought, I vote my heart. If you like what you see on my photoblog, head over to photoblogs.org, register, and vote for me now. Thanks!

Huzzah!

The Powerbook is back from Apple Service! They erased the hard drive, but I made a backup just to handle such an eventuality. I feel much better now, thanks.

WHFS redux

Driving to dinner tonight, I was surprised to hear Neci, once of WHFS fame, back on the airwaves at 105.7FM. As a little background, WHFS 99.1 FM went off the air on January 12th, 2004 at noon, replaced by an all-spanish format station. In the ensuing ,angry fans protested, and Live 105.7FM in Balitmore picked up the slack and started running the “legendary HFS” programming 7pm-3am weeknights and all day weekends. Apparently, they’ve hired a few former HFS dj’s including classic HFS dj Neci, and moved to a more traditional HFS (read less commercial) format. Unfortunately, after hearing Linkin’ Park just about everytime I’ve had this station on in the last week, I’m beginning to despair for this new HFS.

For those who miss the last incarnation of WHFS — not I — whfs.com runs a 24/7 internet stream of the former 99.1FM. For those of us geezers who remember the good ole days, I’m told that WRNR 103.1FM should fit the bill — hey they’ve got Damien and Rob Timm, so they can’t be all bad.

Now if someone would just get Weasel back on the air.

Random numbers, the future, and me

Red Nova is running an article about scientists examining the possibility that events in the world effect (or are predicted by) a random number generator. I haven’t checked the credentials of the scientists involved, nor do I care to. The fact is I’ve believed the basic premise of this article for several years, and I find nothing terribly surprising in it — except that it’s taken this long to figure out how to detect the phenomenon. I’ve have no idea how the universe operates for the rest of you, but my particular version has been surreal for decades, and this article just points out one of the more obvious oddities of it.

Those who know me, will tell you I’m a Buddhist. Those who’ve known me a long time, will tell you I’m absurdly lucky. Maybe two people in the world know that I’m deeply troubled by the latter, which basically forms part of the reason for the former. I’ve always had the sneaking suspicion that either: I have no actual free-will, my free-will and predestination work in alternation, or there is something deeply wrong with the universe. Assuming I have no free-will, no worries it’ll all work out in the end. If I have free-will, but sometimes predestination kicks in, I’m going to get it for slacking off so much. And in the third case, I’ve been mucking with my Karma for a long time now, and payback is going to be a bitch.

The good news is that as far as new-age wackiness goes, this one has been around for a couple thousand years and forms a reasonable part of Buddhist thought. The concept underlies a lot of people’s superstitious behavior (and forms the basis for our concept of the Karma Dogs). I’ve believed in universal consciousness (and one’s ability to access it) for years, and happily I’m still able to (minimally) function as a member of society.

I hope that this article sounds like just so much nonsense to you and that your universe makes more sense than mine. If that’s the case, I envy you — I’d like to feel that way; it would fit into the mental model I was taught to believe in much better. As it stands, I’ve lost too much sleep over this problem to be surprised now.