Author: Tim Wayne

h/t to timw.com.

Some of the Faire photos I’m seeing on the Sea Dog group have that dual-exposure problem when half the group is in sunlight and the other half is in shade. You either get overexposure of the people in sunlight or (more often) underexposure of the people in the shade. I did five minutes of clean-up on this one and was able to pull out a lot of details from the shadow. If I had the full-resolution version to work with, I would have done a lot better, but this was a test.

(OK, it looks like the handle on my slider has stopped working. Look for the green sliver in the middle – you can grab on that and slide it back and forth.)

Alex and I went to Macworld 2012 today at Moscone Center West. Macworld is like a grandparent: she’s beloved, but each year she shrinks a little bit. And when you see her around the edges, you can’t help worrying how much longer she’ll be around.

Macworld is turning into the iPad/iPhone show. I think three quarters of the booths are device cases, covers, arms, attachments, cleaners, accessories or other related gear.  Although I’ve been an Apple Computer person since my Apple II, I’m not much into the gadgets. I finally have a newish iPod, which I love, but not the iPhone nor an iPad. And so really, three quarters of the show is not for me. As a Mac user, I’m used to feeling left out, but I’m not used to feeling left out at Macworld.

And, like I said, it’s shrinking, bit by bit, it seems. If things go on their present course, there will be nothing there but iPad and iPhone booths in a few years. Well, maybe by then I’ll have an iPad.

I made the following observations on the MacWorld 2012 show floor:  

1. Seeing the data recovery booth is off-putting, at best. Yes, I know they are providing a valuable service. Yes, I understand they are great at what they do. But advertising for data recovery is like advertising for chemo. There may be a few of us who really need it right now, but the rest of us avert our eyes, superstitiously, in the hopes that we never, ever need to remember the name of that booth. (I’ve already forgotten).

2. The boys bathroom in Moscone Center needs hooks above the urinals – the same kind of hooks they provide in women’s stalls for their purses. All of us male convention goers have our bag of goodies and all of us go pee and not a god damn one of us likes setting our bag of goodies on the floor anywhere near the god damn urinal. Disgusting!  We also don’t like the alternative – trying to hold our bag with one hand while trying to unzip and unbutton and all the rest, while trying not to pee on our bulging, unwieldy swag bag.

Please, Moscone Center. Give us the god damn hooks. It could not possibly cost that much to install. You could even use the cheap-o plastic ones from the container store a few doors down. It would cost, at most, a hundred bucks.

3. No wifi on the convention show floor is mind-numbingling stupid. Really. Yes, I know, Moscone Center gets a king’s ransom for selling wifi at incredibly jacked-up prices to the booth owners (we’re talking north of a thousand dollars each in some cases), money Moscone Center won’t get if there’s public wifi on the show floor. But Jesus H. Christ, this is the iPad show and every one of these iPads is hobbled without wifi. Let up! Those of us attendees who want to do online things with our laptops can’t do any of those things on the show floor. It’s incredibly frustrating because we all, every one of us, knows the reason: The wifi signal is blocked by Moscone Center’s sickening greed.

4. The show floor is about ten degrees hotter than it should be. It’s always this way, every show, every god damn time. Why can’t it be cooler? Why, oh why? I ask this every god damn show.

Conservatives who turn livid when you bring up the Gingrich-hospital-wife-cancer-divorce story are the same conservatives who brought up Chappaquiddick at nearly every mention of Teddy Kennedy.

From Politifact:

Both Republicans and Democrats would no doubt agree that Ryan’s plan for Medicare is a dramatic change of course. But we don’t agree with the ad’s contention that the proposal ends Medicare. Additionally, images in the ad imply that current seniors will have to go back to work to pay for changes to the program. That’s not true either. It’s actually those 54 and younger who will need extra money. With its scenes of seniors going back to work, it seems intended to frighten those who are currently enrolled in Medicare. Finally, the Republicans’ vote was symbolic and didn’t actually change the program. When you add up all those distortions, we find the ad highly misleading.

John Cole responds:

Here’s what is happening:

America turns off the lights, goes to bed, leaving their Mercedes in the driveway. While we sleep, the Republicans sneak into the car, drive it off, and sell it, but they keep the Mercedes hood ornament. They then split the proceeds between their rich buddies, and go out and find a Ford Pinto up on cinderblocks in a field, with the grass growing through the floorboard. They place that in the driveway, cleverly glue the Mercedes ornament onto the front of the Pinto, and sneak off into the night. The next morning, America and Democrats are screaming- “What the hell happened to my car.” Republicans say- “What are you talking about, there is your Mercedes right there, we just modernized it and fixed it up a bit for long-term financial stability,” and point at the Pinto.

Then, the rocket scientists at Politifact drive by to take a non-partisan look at things, see the Mercedes symbol on the front of the car, and tell us all we’re lying about the Republicans stealing our Mercedes.

I get it. We’re still evolving. Yuk yuk yuk.

But are we? Evolution happens when the environment stresses an organism, forcing a change in its physiology. What stresses are there on us people? We don’t adapt to fit our environment, we adapt our environment to fit us. We use heaters, we wear clothing, we use lights where it’s dark, we bring water with us where there is none.

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Update.

Dammit. As usual, I am late to the party.