Microsoft has put out a video demo of SecondLight, an incredible surface display technology that adds vertical projection. It is really cool — definitely worth watching:

I wonder how long technology like this incubates in research labs before becoming practical.

me, giving a lecture at DEMA (photo: Adam Lau)

I just finished posting coverage of around 45 booths and events at DEMA (the big dive industry dive show here in the States). As someone who gets to see a lot of what is getting released, I have to write some sort of insightful commentary about trends and stuff, but I’m going to wait until Segal gets off his butt and finishes his posts, firsts (what — midterms? PSHAW!).

If you’re sort of interested in DEMA, but you’re not really interested, you may want to peruse the 97 images I pulled out and posted on the Wetpixel forums.

Congratulations to my friend, Andy Biggs, who won this year’s Wild Places category of the 2008 BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest! (read more »)

When is everyone from the white/western anti-shark-finning crowd going to realize that their efforts are going to amount to exactly NOTHING if they continue to be racist?

Obviously, it’s just the bad apples that are like this — you know, the sheltered urban folk who have never actually been out to see what they are fighting against. Do a bunch of fundraisers, and you’re going to save the world.

When someone talks about “the Japanese” or “the Chinese,” I’ve already tuned out before they finish the sentence. No amount of educating the western world is going to change what is going on out there (concerning shark-finning, I mean)¹, and alienating the target audience by being dimwitted and racist is common.

I’ve been struggling with a solution to my encryption dilemma: how to I encrypt my sensitive data and still keep my machine usable for heavy media work?

I need some sort of encryption so data isn’t compromised if my computer is lost. I was initially pretty excited about PGP Whole Disk Encryption, but my benchmarks show some pretty depressing numbers. If I were an email-and-web sort of guy, it would probably be sufficient, but I do a lot of media work, and a drive that reads at just over 20MB/s is just too slow. (read more »)

This is an advertisement, but it’s funny (if you’re a cat person). I have no idea why the company paid for an ad that has no relevance to their business, but I’m glad it was made. :) (thanks, Wendy)

My favorite “store everything” database, Evernote, has implemented offline support in its latest version for the iPhone, v1.4 (unfortunately, the blog entry announcing the news seems also to have gone offline — at least, for the moment).

When viewing a note on the iPhone or iPod Touch, you’ll see a little gray star in left corner of the note title. Once the note is fully loaded, tap the star and that note instantly becomes a favorite. It’s now quickly accessible any time, even offline. To view your favorites, click on “Favorites” in the tab bar along the bottom of the application.

For frequent travelers, this will prove to be the most useful feature Evernote has implemented to date. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at the airport trying to look something up on Evernote (e.g. frequent flyer numbers) only to give up because EDGE is too slow — and that is assuming I even get data coverage. I travel internationally so often that I often do not have data access on my iPhone (tried it, and gave up).

Now, if only Evernote would build a native Blackberry version…

I am astounded by how much Adobe CS3′s activation process sucks. (read more »)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do59qlLOK8A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA3EyRxdLYA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_vvI26NnwE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A7tLVIsuNw

And then, go back to work. :)

On far too many nights, the last thing that goes through my head as it sinks into my pillow is, “You’re STUPID. It’s SO LATE.” Believe me — I’d much rather be on a more normal schedule for someone so far past college age. I feel better when I go to sleep early and get up with the sun in the morning (although I suppose it doesn’t matter as much in this cave I live in now).

Still, late evenings do present the ideal working environment. North America is sound asleep, and Asia and Australia have finished their work days, leaving me only European correspondence to contend with. I receive nearly no email between midnight and my bedtime, which is normally between 3-3:30am. No email. No IM conversations. No phone calls. No distractions.

Tonight, I’m listening Renée Fleming and doing pre-press work in CMYK land. Du bist die Ruh’ just came on, and it’s five and a half minutes of pure inspiration. Tomorrow when I wake up to 50 morning emails, I know that I will regret yet another late night. But for now, it’s just fine.

Yesterday, I downloaded RjDj, which is a really interesting iPhone app that augments aural reality by sampling sounds and using them in a sort of real-time soundtrack played back via the headphone jack. The problem was that the application crashed upon launch (it’s affecting many users). Here’s the fix, which worked for me (posted by a user on RjDj’s website):

1. Delete the RjDj application from iTunes
2. Delete the RjDj application from iPhone
3. Hard reset iPhone (hold the sleep/wake button and home button down at the same time until the screen goes dark and the white Apple logo appears)
4. Quit and restart iTunes
5. Re-download the RjDj application in iTunes
6. Plug iPhone in and sync

Unfortunately, I am suffering from the low volume problem now, which makes the app essentially useless. The sound volume is so low that you basically cannot hear anything. I hope they fix it.

More of my friends are making it into reality TV! Alissa is going to be featured in a new series on the CW called In Harm’s Way.

Me ‘n alissa, self portrait in San Francisco

Alissa will be in the “War Photographers” episode:

They may not be soldiers, but war photographers risk their lives each time they set out to grab the headline-making shots that chronicle military conflict. In this episode, Hunter Ellis takes viewers into battle with two war photographers on the job in Israel’s West Bank and Gaza Strip, as they cover the region’s tense and tumultuous events.

UPDATE: The episode is on Hulu.

Below is about 55 minutes of tiger shark video clips from the Bahamas. It is partitioned into 5-minute chunks, which you can view via the “Scenes” interface. Alternatively, you can download the entire video, but it’s 650MB. (read more »)

Downtown San Francisco in HDR

While I was out shooting the fire on Angel Island, I snapped a few bracketed shots for SF in High Dynamic Range (HDR). They came out really mild, but they aren’t bad for a few minutes’ work in suboptimal conditions; one of these days, conditions will be perfect and I’ll get a really nice shot. (read more »)

Angel Island fire, San Francisco, October 12, 2008

I saw a tweet from @ravenb tonight about the fire at Angel Island, and rushed out of my house at 11:30pm for a quick view up in Diamond Heights. I hope no one was hurt in the fire, and I hope they get it under control soon. As of 11:15pm, it had already consumed more than 100 acres. (read more »)

These days, dinner = contact with other people. Had Korean food awhile ago with Bill, Juan, and Felicia. Bill and Juan really enjoyed the little yogurt drinks they give you at the end. Also, got to see Zandra for the first time in over a month, which was nice. We explored the Japanese restaurant inside the Metreon, which was decent (nothing special, but totally fine). Finally, dinner with Pam — and my favorite affogato!

After the show: Scott St. John, Chris Costanza, Fred Weldy

They played Ravel duo for violin/cello, another duo (slightly atonal, but blended with czech folk melodies), and Dvorak piano trio op.65 (my favorite). It was incredible.

Two signs that classical music is dead/dying:

1. only 100 people in the audience, with lots of empty seats
2. searching Google for “ravel duo” shows my mid-concert tweet ranked third

How depressing. But at least I got to enjoy the show with some friends.

Pat and me

She’s like a bobble head, but faster. Photos by Dave Patchen.

Don, Racquel and me at the Palace of Fine Arts

Me: “Oh… thanks. Um, can you take the shot again? This time, aim the middle of the camera right here.” (points at Racquel’s head)

Buy me on eBay!

I’ve put my MTRON 32GB 2.5″ SATA SSD on eBay. It is the same one I used for these benchmarks.