The holidays are always a great time for pictures. Me, armed with the iPhone’s 3MP teeny camera and a 12MP Sony TSC point-and-shoot, was ready to commemorate the occasion and maybe even get a few decent prints out. Hell, maybe I’ll actually learn to shoot bokeh or HDR or whatever.
Photography’s one of those hobbies guys flock to – along with cars and video games – after a certain stage in life; in this case, it’s usually right around having a kid and wanting to cherish the early years. It’s also one that’s been widely practiced since the advent of digital cameras and onboard image processing, rendering most shots into passable email material. Like most people, I approached the subject of picture-takin’ from a purely utilitarian perspective: I wanted to etch memories into physical being. My artistic side (admittedly, limited) hated how 90% of my shots weren’t even clear enough for a normal print, and those that were in focus looked aggressively ordinary. I knew there were lessons in composition, exposure, white balance, and depth of focus I had to learn, but every time I read an article and tried to replicate the results, I was met with disappointing quality.
The next web revolution – Web 3.0 – is going to be centered around real-time data and search, so say the tech media mavens. Leading the charge is of course Twitter (now available in your search in both Google and Microsoft form), but everybody else is jumping into the fray too, saying how awesome it is to report locations, in real-time, and otherwise leave a conspicuous digital trail ripe for exploit.
When CNN and Fox News are holding regular news segments that consist of nothing more than reading prescreened online posts, you know traditional media is desperately trying to speed up the news cycle too.
I say it’s going in the wrong direction.
The Wall Street Journal recently published their 2010 survey findings on the best and worst careers, based around factors like income, outlook, environment, etc. As usual, software engineering ranks near the top of the field, though, for the rest of this post to make sense, you’d have to ignore “Web Developer” at #15 -I’m guessing HTML monkeys – and whatever the hell “Computer Programmer” is down at #34.
Now that I think about it, I’ve been pretty lucky to pick a career that seems to have an insatiable demand for a work force, in a place that not only fosters talented software people but also encourages entrepreneurship. That is, there’s always someone with an idea with a need for an engineer for implementation; the demand drives up wages and perks, with an unfortunate downside in jacking up living costs and, well, Californian taxes. The net result is that a “high-tech” job here in the Bay Area pays 60% more than one elsewhere, with cost of living expenses to match.
Having a household pet is akin to having a baby without the DNA connection: they’re messy and needy and hungry, crash around the house, and wake up when you sleep. For three weeks, though, I was catsitting for my vacationing uncle, so I guess it can be practice for the real thing (baby, not a litter of cats).
The cat is Tabby: a chubby, unusually timid (even for a cat) animal who specializes in hiding in dark corners. I had looked after him once prior, and back then he found in the laundry room and a niche behind the microwave to be his shrines of solitude. New place, new comfort zones; after locking him for a day inside my current laundry room (), we fished him out of the corner and into the bottom of the couch. Once we grabbed him from that hiding spot, he went crawling under the bed.
Oh boy. I feel another productivity rant coming on. Reader beware.
It’s pretty hard to be productive – trying to maximize the amount of work done in a minimal amount of time requires serious discipline, process, and fairly in-depth knowledge of all the moving parts (including, in a lot of cases, people). Though, there is a sweet solace which comes from the extra time saved and accompanying relaxation.
So why don’t more people try it?
Hitting on six years removed from my college graduation, I still find myself fighting for a precious table seat with SFSU students at the local Borders. Though I’m really just here to leech their wifi while sipping on an iced tea, Sui’s the one reviewing notes for her board exam. Due to the supposedly insufficient lighting at my place (I totally spent time trying to fix this), we’ve hopped from cafe to library within a 15-mile radius for four straight days searching for quiet, wifi-enabled places of study.
Call me old-fashioned, lazy, and easily-distracted; I don’t get the appeal of seeking out a crowded public area for study or work.
