Cool DSLR Camera Remote iPhone/iPod Touch app from onOne software. The camera has to be connected to a computer, but could be good for some situations and seems well made. You can adjust shutter settings from the iPhone and even bring up a live view if you go for the pro version.
Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet announced today that they're making some changes(Google translation) to their comment system. Two changes primarily. The first change I understand, they want to lessen anonymity by making commenters registered with their full name and a picture rank higher in the article comments. That sounds logical, less anonymous users probably means a lot less headache for the newspaper in trying to sort out the chaff, trolls and spam.
The second change leaves me rather baffled. They're introducing micropayments for comments. When I read the ingress I thought it meant they're going to pay users for comments. They're not. Users have to pay them 5 kr (roughly 1 USD) a month to comment. A symbolic sum for sure, but isn't there something oddly wrong there? I understand newspapers are exploring new paths of making money as the old paths close up, but to me the value of the comment system is quite evenly shared between the commenters and the newspaper.
The commenters get a place to vent, get visibility for their blogs if they link to it, and get a social arena to participate in.
The newspaper on the other hand, gets free content, and probably also gains a bit more traffic as people who are likely to comment on articles probably go back to articles several times, increasing ad views.
That's why it strikes me as a bit odd that commenters now have to pay to participate. Is it just me?
Stark, dramatic images by photographer Lu Guang of pollution and its effects in China. The unhuman, insidiously industrialised world portrayed in these pictures could well be from a dismal sci-fi film.
The tag line from a recent XKCD strip seems apt (hover over the image to see the title text):
At some point there, we left the present and entered the future.
The leader of the Swedish Pirate Party, Rick Falkvinge, has an exceptionally clear-headed open letter to the music industry up on his blog after experiencing both positive and negative reactions after speaking at a UK music industry seminar on sunday. Well worth the read for an insightful angle on the copyright problem:
This, of course, brings our agreement into question. If other providers are offering to perform the same service — creating music — without the cost that you have charged, in terms of a life-plus-70-years-monopoly, then we, as the legislators, are going to renegotiate the terms of that agreement.
The National Film Board of Canada, NFB, has put out an iPhone app (iTunes link) that makes a great mobile companion to their web site. Nice uncluttered straight forward interface and good search and browsing capabilities. The movie loading seems a bit slow at the moment, but I'll give them a few days for the rush to settle, and I don't have a problem with waiting a little for the gems in this treasure trove of documentaries, animation films, trailers and dramas.
Bonus points for the Watch later feature that downloads the film to your iPod or iPhone for offline watching! Good job NFB!
Hanna Sköld's film Nasty Old People is a thoughtful and charming story. It is, I'm happy to say, definitely worth watching just in its own right.
I'm also equally happy to say that the film is licensed under a Creative Commons license, which means that, firstly, you're free to download the film from The Pirate Bay where it is being distributed. The license variant is specifically Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike, meaning that you're free to change or remix the film in whatever manner you want, as long as you give credits to the original creator, use your remix for noncommercial purposes and give other people the same opportunities for your remix.
Congratulations to Hanna Sköld for risking her money with this project, it's a wonderful addition to a growing arena of CC-licensed works. So get the film and give her a donation if you want to support great CC-licensed films!
A lot of vinyl records you buy these days come with a code to download the mp3 version of the same album. It's the perfect marriage, you get the vinyl to play at home, a (sometimes) well designed cover to drool over and digital files of the same album for your mp3 player or computer. It hasn't swayed my decision one way or another yet when I've been faced with choosing between two different albums, one offering an mp3 download and the other not, but it sure is a nice bonus.
Leave it up to record companies to mess this up too, however. As I tried to download the mp3 version of my newly purchased Modest Mouse album, No One's First and You're Next I was told the download was only available in the United States. To be fair, it says as much in small print on the sticker on the outside of the record, but I can't help but feel slightly disappointed. It's not just an artificial geographical division in a world where I can order almost whatever I want from abroad, but an even more artificially created distinction between different distribution formats.
Bad practice, Epic - and Sony. Not the way to make your international customers happy.
Might I add, the album is readily available from distribution channels that are simpler to use than the download page of record companies.
The infamous Balloon boy already has his own Wikipedia page of course, but follow the link from there to read about Larry Walters who with the help of his girlfriend in '82 floated off sitting in his patio chair tied to a bunch of big helium balloons. He was arrested for being in controlled air space, after he managed to land the thing, and when queried on why he did it he had this to say:
A man can't just sit around.
Indeed. Have a good week end!
Conehead mantis, CC image by Béotien lambda
The intriguing looking figure above is a Conehead mantis. I was browsing Reddit and happened upon one of its cousins, the African Devil Mantis. No less interesting that one but I thought the sinister looking Conehead deserved the Diabolica moniker more. The Mantis order are an incredibly fascinating and varied group. Careful when following that wikipedia link, you'll quickly lose half your day clicking around!
My wife is doing a sketch of the day thing at the moment, leaving me rather impressed. Check it out!
