photosig is filled with some great pictures and advice, which is nice for very amateurish photographers, such as myself. it's all the more fun to catch the funny critical commentary:

"I don't have any problems with pictures of breasts, but I think that if you're going to shoot breasts, you should be honest about it and not try to pass them off as portraits. This photo could only be tackier if you'd sprayed the model with cold water first or asked her to stand on her head so her breasts fell out of her shirt and obscured her face. Even if you accept that it's okay to ask the model to bend over so you can get a look at her cleavage, the fact remains that breasts just don't look very attractive when they're hanging down like udders."

so take that mr. pedestal sink! haha! you may have won a few skirmishes, but looks who's the laughing now, mr. pedestal sink. sure, it may have taken me 16 trips to the home despot, one trip to ace hardware and more plumber's putty than i care to contemplate, but who's not leaking now.

i will not have my manhood mocked by porcelain. i say, give me a wrench and enough time and i will conquer all plumbing tasks.

bwahahahahaha!

diveintomark cracks open a can of strong reality:

"We are on the event horizon now. The end is certain, but it has not arrived. Life has gone, but death has not yet come. We spent two long years praying for life. Please join us now as we pray for death."

it's a little short on any new details, but E Pluribus Unum still makes a nice friday evening read:

"Commercial wireless Internet service is, for the most part, still a market in search of a business plan. However, non-profit wireless community networks are springing up all over the place -- and there're good reasons for that."

the ojr's let slip the blogs of war takes a few good swings at the warblog phenomenon:

"Shine on, you crazy bloggers! Someday the rest of us will hold our manhoods cheap that we did not blog with you this day. But as long as courage lives and liberty endures, every American will be proud to have you out there, blogging for an audience of none."

Enron and the Gramms:

" How long will it take? How many decades and how many scandals have to come and go before we catch on? We're human. We're self-interested. And when left to our own devices, some of us will do the wrong thing.

Some perspective is needed. Unchecked deregulation is an express route to chaos and tragedy. Where the public interest is involved, a certain amount of oversight — effective oversight — is essential."

the sigia list is discussing the Extreme Programming vs. Interaction Design article that i linked to yesterday. there are a bunch of great posts which serve as useful moderating voices in the face of an irrational exuberance for extreme programming tactics. this response is a good case in point:

"It always seems like these guys are trying to defend the software practices of Kafka Software, Inc. I doubt, for example, that anyone at Microsoft or Adobe or Macromedia (or LucasArts or iD or Valve) would ever seriously propose programming first then designing. Maybe that's why those companies are so successful and companies like Netscape can't get rid of 7 year old software bugs. XP is a survival strategy for working within a wild beast. I think the statement that Interaction Design and XP can work together is like saying that recipes and napkins can work together: Napkins are useful for messy dishes, but you cant cook without a recipe."

"A Web-centric system that’ driven by traditional programmers will quickly come to the point where those developers must come to grips with the details of the user experience, thus leading them outside their comfort zone (the realm of Java programming, for example) and into the issues of color theory, balance, and form. In the absence of specialized help, this will often lead the team to craft a beautiful, elegant product with the user appeal of a dead fish.

Similarly, a Web-centric system that’s driven by traditional graphic designers will quickly come to the point where those designers must give some life to their pretty pages, thus leading them outside of their comfort zone and into classic programming. In the absence of specialized help, this will often lead to systems with a beautiful presentation that, unfortunately, breaks every time a user clicks their mouse.

Culturally, it’s a challenge to mix these two disparate skill sets."

ohmygod! Extreme Programming vs. Interaction Design is so much fun it should be illegal:

"Kent Beck is known as the father of "extreme programming ," a process created to help developers design and build software that effectively meets user expectations. Alan Cooper is the prime proponent of interaction design , a process with similar goals but different methodology. We brought these two visionaries together to compare philosophies, looking for points of consensus—and points of irreconcilable difference."

the new iPhoto applescripts demonstrate why i think things are looking good for apple:

"Make Audio Card: Combine the power of AppleScript, iPhoto, iTunes and QuickTime to create audio cards. Select a track in iTunes, then drag a single image from the iPhoto window onto this droplet. The two elements, the MP3 audio file and iPhoto image, will be combined in the QuickTime Player to produce a movie. Double-click the droplet to set preferences for the card width."

on monday, january 14th at 3:56a.m. eastern standard time, i witnessed a miracle. my sister-in-law and her partner were kind enough to invite me and my wife to participate in the home-birth of their baby girl, ruby scott griffin salmi. it was truly an amazing, awe-inspiring, beyond words experience.

somewhat to my surprise, i discovered that it took about 5 minutes to get past the obvious, superficial aspects of watching a nude woman going through what is typically considered an intensely personal exerience. any uncomfortable feelings soon gave way to very natural emotions of family, bonding and community that i haven't felt in some time. i'm tremendously grateful for gina and diane for being gracious enough to make us part of the birth of their daughter.

experiencing a birth is really, truly beyond words and is something that can instantly alter your perspective on what is important in the world. amazing.

i'm just plain giddy at the thought of three smarty pants - dan bricklin, bob frankston and david reed - getting together to blog. you can see the initial results at satn.org:

"This is a web site for commentary, essays, etc., from David P. Reed, Bob Frankston, and some of their friends. It was initially set up and maintained by Dan Bricklin.

Topics covered include: Internet, computing, telecommunications, protocols, governmental policy, history, innovation, and reliability."

why is it that i continue to attempt to delude myself into believing that i can start and finish a plumbing job in anything approximating a reasonable about time?