Author: Jake
It has been a busy week. I’m so glad that the weekend is finally here. A few highlights from the last couple of days are:
1. My Olloclip arrived in the mail. I ordered one after reading about it in wired. The image above was one of the first ones that I snapped, while using it. Incidentally, this week I read an article in Wired about Instagram. It made me feel a little better about myself, hahaha.
2. Honest people rule. Yesterday I received a mystery paypal deposit. I was a bit nervous, at first. When I checked into it a bit more, I realized it was from a dude in the UK who I had licensed some photos to in May of 2010 for his postcard biz. A welcome surprise. I had basically just written off getting paid for that one.
Have a great weekend.
Author: Jake
It’s been a busy week already. Do you know what it feels like to fall in love all over again? I guess I sort of do, now. Reagan and I had one of our most memorable anniversaries to date. I mean, it really was pretty good, despite all of the hype surrounding the 5 year mark. We did the Soho Grand last night. I love the decor, and the locale. I slept in an hour longer than normal, had quick breakfast with my bride, and still made it to work early. Dude, I need to move to lower Manhattan. I really don’t mind downgrading to a studio. Its all about the tradeoffs.
Speaking of my bride, check her first post on DC (Divine Caroline, not District of Columbia). Quick screenshot of the sidebar promo below. Da*m, whoever did those photos is skilled. Hahahaha.
top photo: accessory pile at the soho g.:
- Belt: Tiffany’s
- Watch: Diesel
- Necktie: Nautica
- Chapstick: Natural Ice
Photo by: total nerd.
Author: Jake
Since I have been working out again with some degree of regularity, I have also started recording my personal metrics again. Just for kicks, I pulled up my totals from last year, and compared them to my totals from 2010.
In 2011, I only had 552 total miles, with an average pace of about 7.5 minutes per mile. I have to say that the Garmin reports (above) are not nearly as interesting to look at, as the ones that Nike+ generates (below). But I am willing to give up the fancy graphics for the additional accuracy that Garmin provides. According to my Nike+ stats from 2010, I ran 798 miles with an average pace of just over 7 minutes per mile.
I’m pretty sure that the Nike+ stats are padded resulting from inaccuracy. But I know that I ran a lot more in 2010 than last year. In 2011 I didn’t run at all until March. I took the beginning of January off, this year. But as of last week, I have already racked up a handful of miles in 2012. So, I already have a leg up on last year. Here’s to beating last year’s 552 miles, in 2012.
Author: Jake
First of all, happy Friday. What better way to kick off the weekend than more photos of torn apart computers? Hahaha. I picked up a new computer on Wednesday night, and have basically been working on that stuff during every free minute, since. Hence not much blogging (or anything else). In the photo above, I’m ripping my old hard drives onto my Linux server. Luckily, I was able to save everything that I wanted from the computer that died.
After that, I loaded up my new computer with memory, a new video card and power supply. Once I got that running, I networked everything. It’s working awesome. Now I just want to get a RAID box, so that I can scrap the Linux machine. Maybe this weekend. The one that I want is currently out of stock at B&H.
Shifting away from the nerdy stuff, I’m pretty excited about the weekend. We are going to try to do our holiday card photos tomorrow. We are also attending a b-day party. Sunday should be full of maxing and relaxing.
I’m sorry that I couldn’t come up with a good A train poem for today. As I was flipping through my little orange book, I just felt like everything was sub-par. But I will leave you with this: As I was getting ready for work this morning, I asked Reagan if she liked Ewoks. She said no. I was a bit surprised to hear it and asked why not. She said, “because they are jobless little nuisances.” Something to think about.
Author: Jake
The tower that I built 5ish years ago finally died when we were out of town over the weekend. I never shut it down. I have fixed it/upgraded it on more occasions than I would like to admit. When I say that it died, I mean that the mother board is toast. At first I thought it was an HD issue. But when I tried to reset the BIOS, and change the boot order, so that I could attempt to restore the windows installation, I was getting gibberish on the BIOS screen. Not awesome.
Redeeming factor: I was planning on buying a new comp this week anyway. I have had it picked out for a few weeks. Just waiting for some overdue funding to come through. In the mean time, I’m using the lappy on the bamboo keyboard setup. If I could just get a pair of bamboo monitors (as Kari and Rae suggested), I would be good for another 5 to 10.
On days like this, I just have to remind myself that there are plenty of people out there who are starving, let alone under-computered. I can deal.
Author: Jake
So stoked about this new keyboard/mouse combo. I came across the setup last week, and immediate ordered 2 sets. They arrived today. I immediately swapped out the oem parts at my work desk for the bamboo goods and thoroughly test drove the bamboo for the rest of the afternoon. I have been very pleased, so far.
The tricky thing about seeing something that looks really awesome online, is that there is always a risk it won’t be as awesome as it looks in the photos, when it actually arrives. I’m very pleased to report that there were no such unpleasant surprises, here. The quality appears to be pretty top notch. The only thing that I would change about the keyboard, is that it doesn’t have the little flip-down feet underneath. I’m sure that If I really needed to angle the keyboard, I could rig something up.
The mouse actually had an added bonus. The scroll wheel is back-lit by a blue LED. I love that detail. It has some small metal glide plates on the bottom. They slide perfectly on my formica desk at work. But I may have to get a mouse pad at home. The wood surface of my keyboard tray isn’t quite as smooth. Anyway, for the price, I think that this combo is totally a value. I would definitely recommend picking one up, to anyone who is considering it. You can order them over here, and they ship from California. I also might be giving one away in the near future or offering a promo code (or both). I’ll get back to you as soon as I work out the details. More images below.
Author: Jake
…you need to just chill out, go up on the roof and get a shot of the only pink cloud in the sky.
Author: Jake
I sort of can’t believe that September is here. I’m so glad that Sept. 11 falls on a weekend this year. Because historically, getting to work on that day has been a joke. I suppose that it wouldn’t matter much this year anyway, since it is smack in the middle of fashion week. I’m getting pretty stoked about FW. My calendar is getting more and more packed by the day. During ’11 spring FW I turned over the 7D’s clicker. In those few days I snapped close to 4000 images, and loved every second of it. The in between shows is what stresses me out.
Anyway, the screen shot above is of part of my August image folder. Yes… I’m a windows nerd. I also still rock a blackberry. Now that Steve Jobs has stepped down, I may venture over to the Mac (dark) side. Only if Mac decides to open up their gigantic tight fist a bit, when it comes to creating/servicing your own builds and custom software/apps. Otherwise, I will most likely continue to be a stick in the microsoft mud.
Back to the matter at hand. Did anyone else* who reads this stuff (besides Bob, Zach and Tammy) shoot anything cool in August? Hit me with links please!
*I’m sure that I left some ppl out. Please forgive.
Get ready for aperture basics, as a part of the photog series, on Monday (probably).
Author: Jake
Despite what this may look like, no, I was not hanging out on the set of some forthcoming Daft Punk video. I spent the day Tuesday hanging out with a bunch of scientists. I was basically the only person in the room without a PhD. I’m not going to lie, it was a bit intimidating. But, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to kick it with my good friend Tadd (on the left in the above photo), while he was in town for the day. Throw in some time playing with high speed cameras and lasers? I was basically in nerd heaven. I heard the word “laser” more times in a non-joking context yesterday than I had probably heard before that, my entire life.
I thought I was the only one who drew nerdy diagrams in my notes. Apparently Tadd also does. I had to get a shot of his notebook above.
Here are a couple more looks at the lab.
I’m pretty sure that I chose the wrong profession.
Author: Jake
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This is kind of a random post, that will probably only be interesting to me. But, here goes anyway. Some may recall that that one of my good friends moved to Florence fairly recently. It is the same dude that I went on the “man trip” with earlier this year. Anyway, he recently sent me some pretty interesting (if you are e nerd like us) shots from his observations in Florence. The first set is of the tricked out Hyundai pictured above (extra points if you know where the title of this post comes from). When he first sent over the images of the Fiorucci Hyundai, I thought it was a joke. I thought it was like all of those minivans that I see driving around my neighborhood with NoS stickers and fake intake ducts glued onto the hood. But, when I looked into it a little further, Fiorucci really did team up with Hyundai on a model called the i10. How funny is that? …an iconic Italian fashion label choosing a Korean built joke of an automobile to collaborate with. It’s like if Toyota released a Fendi trimmed Prius. Except, not even, because Toyota is more reputable than Hyundai. Anyway, I’m not trying to trash talk those automakers, I’m just trying to highlight the irony of the fact that a designer based in the same country that produces Lamborghini and Ferrari, chose to team up with Hyundai. Bold move. And, super entertaining (if you are a nerd).
Next, we turn to “G. Bianchi” bicycles (not be [although hard not to be] confused with Bianchi). Mike said that he has seen several of these bikes around Florence. When he and I looked into it, we discovered that G. Bianchi is a now defunct brand of bikes that was founded in the 60′s by Giuseppe Bianchi, out of Florence. I doubt that the dude even meant to have his brand confused with the Cycle giant Bianchi (or did he), since it was the guy’s name. Anyway, as most people probably know, “bianchi” just means “white.” It isn’t like the word is super uncommon in Italy (I’m assuming). But, now I kind of want to try to get one of these G. Bianchi bikes, just for novelty’s sake. I really like the quarter length chrome fenders.
The end.
Photography: M. Cuomo
