The Big Klosowski

From the everybody knew but those in charge file, comes a tale of the blatantly obvious. There are major problems with e-voting machines made by Diebold.

Diebold (now Premier Election Solutions) announced this week that their electronic voting systems lose votes.

The maker of touch-screen voting machines used in half of Ohio’s counties has admitted that its own programming error is to blame for votes being dropped in some counties.

Premier, formerly Diebold Election Systems, initially speculated that the problem was a conflict between its system and anti-virus software. However, on Tuesday the Premier President admitted that further testing showed a source-code error that can cause votes not to be recorded when memory cards are uploaded to computer servers under certain circumstances.

Critics of Premier and touch-screen voting in general have long argued that the systems aren’t secure and can’t be trusted.

Now counties are dumping millions of dollars worth of e-voting machines into the trash, or selling them for pennies on the dollar. Who knows how the elections during the past 8-years would have turned out without Diebold. Considering how the then-president of Diebold committed to give votes to Bush in 2004, maybe very different.

The DNC has taken over my city of Denver. So far I’ve seen protests, news reporters, celebrities, and even a bomb squad response to a suspicious package in the middle of the downtown. Barack Obama has plastered his face on the buildings around mine, and he wants to be my president. In choosing Obama, I’m now also choosing Senator Joe Biden .

I’m a technology obessed individual, so I can’t help but share this link from CNET on Joe Biden’s voting record on technology issues.

My major concern:

Last year, Biden sponsored an RIAA-backed bill called the Perform Act aimed at restricting Americans’ ability to record and play back individual songs from satellite and Internet radio services. (The RIAA sued XM Satellite Radio over precisely this point.)
…
But these pro-copyright views don’t exactly jibe with what Obama has promised; he’s pledged to “update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated.” These are code words for taking a more pro-EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) than pro-MPAA approach.

More downside is that Biden has proposed $1 Billion dollars this year to police P2P networks, Biden is against the public having the ability to encrypt their data and communications with tools like PGP, and he is wishy-washy at best when it comes to Net Neutrality.

Was Biden really the best Obama could do?

Okay sir, you’re a Lebowski, I’m a Lebowski, that’s terrific, but I’m very busy, as I imagine you are. What can I do for you, sir?

Well, as it turns out, we are in the The Decade of the Dude according to Rolling Stone Magazine. At first I couldn’t believe I missed the article, then I realized I stopped reading Rolling Stone when I was 15, so go figure.

You might know that I am a huge fan of the movie The Big Lebowski, a Cohen Brother’s film that made little or no impact on the big screen, but garnered a cult-like following for the last 10 years. If the name of my blog didn’t give it away, then you probably weren’t paying attention.

I’ve even been to the Lebowski Fest in Austin to watch movies, dress in costumes, and drink White Russians. I have a “Mark it Eight” sticker on my car, which often elicits loud shouts of “Mark it Zero” as I drive around Denver. In my circle of friends, the Lebowski quotes flow like water, and have since the late 90′s. I’ve introduced more people to the movie than I can count, all of which have thanked me for it later.

I once stopped a conference call with business associates dead in its tracks by announcing that our revenue plan was necessary because, “you gotta feed the monkey“. Uncomfortable silence followed, reminding me that the movie isn’t a cult favorite for everybody.

What makes the movie so appealing to me? I think the Rolling Stone article sums it up pretty well.

Early in Lebowski, the narrator (a cowboy named the Stranger, played by Sam Elliott) intones, “Sometimes there’s a man, who, well, he’s the man for his time ‘n place.” The odd truth is this man — the Dude — may have been a decade ahead of his time. Today, as technology increasingly handcuffs us to schedules and appointments — in the time it takes you to read this, you’ve missed three e-mails — there’s something comforting about a fortysomething character who will blow an evening lying in the bathtub, getting high and listening to an audiotape of whale songs. He’s not a 21st-century man. Nor is he Iron Man — and he’s certainly not Batman. The Dude doesn’t care about a job, a salary, a 401(k), and definitely not an iPhone. The Dude just is, and he’s happy.

“There’s a freedom to The Big Lebowski,” theorizes Philip Seymour Hoffman, who played Brandt, the wealthy Lebowski’s obsequious personal assistant. “The Dude abides, and I think that’s something people really yearn for, to be able to live their life like that. You can see why young people would enjoy that.”

I am that business man tethered to the internet, emails, blogs, and constant barrage of mobile communication. I find The Dude becomes more appealing over time. He reminds me to chill out, slow down, and take it easy man.

So in summation, let me explain something. I’m not Mr. Lebowski. You’re Mr. Lebowski. I’m the Dude. So that’s what you call me. That or His Dudeness… Duder… or El Duderino, if, you know, you’re not into the whole brevity thing…

Here’s an old Stroh’s beer commerical that has Fidel Castro longing for a decent beer. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth watching.

I’m not sure if this is real or not, but it’s amazing. David OReilly just finished coding an application for the iphone/ipod touch. It gives the illusion of a 3d hologram jumping off the screen.

Here’s a video of it in use, featuring the Cat from his award-winning but unfinished cartoon PSS:

Made by David OReilly, the application works by assuming a constant viewing angle (35-45 degrees), typical for when the device is placed on a tabletop. The 3d scene’s perspective is warped using anamorphosis, the same technique used in Hans Holbein’s painting The Ambassadors. This application does the exact same but updates dynamically.

As many of you may know, I do professional commercial and studio photography through my business K2 Photo Studio. Currently I’ve been using OS X on Apple hardware as my workflow method of choice. Simply put, using Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Bridge, and the OS X color management is essential to my image workflow.

Here’s an image I shot for Sublime Fashion’s product catalog.

When working with clients like Sublime Fashion, accurate reproduction of color is extremely important. This is an example of where the OS X workflow cannot be beat. Or can it?

I am a Linux lover from way back. The advantages are that the operating system and most software is available for free. I used Linux long before I used OS X, and it really was my operating system of choice. It has the stability of OS X. It can run on cheap hardware with great results, so you are not locked into Apple’s historically higher prices.

Unfortunately, about 4-years ago, as a photographer, I felt I had to move to OS X. The availability of commercial image manipulation programs, plug-ins, and native camera raw support were important. OS X had it and Linux didn’t. Additionally, Linux color management needed to come a long way before I was able to use it reliably.

It looks like things might have changed recently. The folks over at Linux Photography are saying that it might be time for photographers to give Linux another look. Their conclusion.

I don’t think that the answer to Linux for photography is “Photoshop & Lightroom on Linux”. Open Source Software has developed some amazing pieces of software and I don’t see why photography would be an exception. My dominant feeling is “work in progress” and I see the “Linux photography ecosystem” maturing and moving forward in the right direction.

But let’s face it: Linux is not a drop-in replacement for Windows or MacOS for photography yet. Far from it. You can use Linux for serious photography, but critical pieces are still missing or are too kludgy for efficient work; you need to be willing to accept sacrifices. I use Linux for photography as an amateur, but I would never recommend Linux to a pro photographer with time / production constraints.

So there you have it. If you are rocking a DSLR, and are trying to get the advantages of using the high-level tools without the high pricetag, give Linux a try. There are lots of great flavors out there, and each comes with a plethora of image editing tools. Color management has come a long way on Linux, and that is an exciting step in the right direction.

My recommendation is Ubuntu if you are new to Linux. You can even run Ubuntu without installing it to your hard drive by using a Live CD. Setup is easy, and it runs on just about any computer you have lying around. You can dual boot it with Windows/OS X as well. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Personally, I’ll be sticking with OS X for now. However, I might just have to give Linux another shot when it is time to upgrade my system again.

Okay, I’m not usually a Star Wars merchandise fan. I did have all of the original action figures, including a full replica of the Millenium Falcon when I was a kid. But my mom sold them all in a garage sale and I’ve never really looked back – although they are worth thousands now!

But every now and then something comes along that catches my eye, and I have to share. These Star Wars Tenugui (Hanging Japanese Banners) over at ThinkGeek are pretty cool from a design standpoint. I love mixing the old with the new in such a creative way.
Now, the question is, will your girlfriend/wife appreciate them as much as you do?

This is a bit off topic, but just so incredible that I had to share it. I know we’ll never use something like this for transportation – but this guy is a genius!

Theo Jansen is the Dutch creator of what he calls “Kinetic Sculptures,” where nature and technology meet. Essentially these sculptures are robots powered by the wind only.

Take a look at this video and let me know what you think.

The $3 Billion spent on electronic voting machines after the 2000 Election debacle has gone wrong in so many ways.

Vanishing votes, breakdowns, malfunctions and evidence that the e-voting machines are vulnerable to hackers has caused the problem. The result is warehouses full of unused e-voting equipment, and millions of dollars worth of equipment being sent to the junkyard for pennies on the dollar.

Many states have lost confidence in the machines and have stopped using them, or they are facing lawsuits that make the machines useless.

What to do with this high-tech junkyard is a multimillion-dollar question. One manufacturer offered $1 a piece to take back its ATM-like machines. Some states are offering the devices for sale on eBay and craigslist. Others hope to sell their inventories to Third-World countries or salvage them for scrap.

Setting aside the massive taxpayer boondoggle that e-voting has become, this news is just depressing. It’s a shame that we seem to be moving forward technologically on all fronts except with our democracy.

The phone in our pockets are mini-computers, our cars have Bluetooth and voice recognition, and the GPS is now ubiquitous in society. Yet, as advanced as we’ve become, the US is reverting back to paper ballots and potentially even hanging chads.

I honestly thought we would be past this point by now.

Looks like Steve Jobs, in a rare and candid personal response, has vowed to fix the iPhone application crashing issues in an update this September. Application crashes have been all too common in iPhone Firmware 2.0+ .

“This is a known iPhone bug that is being fixed in the next software update in September,” reads the one-line message from the Apple co-founder.

Let’s hope that it can fix the 3G reception and dropped call issues too. iPhone Firmware 2.0.2 did little to relieve the problem, and many have even reported that it made dropped calls worse.