Yukon Ho!

A mere 6 months after returning from Alaska I have managed to get my photos online. I haven't done any retouching or removed any of the terrible ones, so you're seeing the complete, unfiltered trip as recorded by my trusted SD-400, which has since gone to sleep with the fishes.

Photo Sharing 2.0

I broke down last night and spent the $25 required to upgrade to a Flickr pro account. I've been torn between continuing to use my own personal web site for photo albums, or moving towards a sharing service. In the end, despite all the infrastructure I put into place on my site, it's just much easier to work with a service, and I've found Flickr to be the best, so I made the move. I still plan to use my site for my favorite shots, maybe a gallery of actual quality photography vs. simple photo sharing. We'll see how that goes.

For now, let's explore some of the features of Flickr that I could never hope to replicate on my own. Today, we'll discuss different ways to explore my photos.

1. Tagging. You can't be Web 2.0 without supporting tagging. Want to find all of my photos that I tagged lighthouse? There you go!
   
2. Geotagging. While this feature isn't unique to Flickr, it's the first time I've used it, and I think they've done a great job with the implementation. Want to see all the photos I've taken in Maine? No problem!
3. Calendar. Want to see all of the photos that I took in February, 2007, laid out in a nice, clean calendar? Sure!
4. Combined. Sure, geotagging is neat. And yes, viewing on a calendar is great. But what if I want to combine them and see where I took photos in February, 2007? No problem, Flickr does it!

Now of course, tagging and geotagging require me to put in some effort when I upload my pictures. Tagging is probably going to stay that way, but camera manufacturers are already beginning to embed GPS receivers in their devices, so automatic geotagging is becoming a reality! Unless you take pictures in the subway. Then you're just hosed.

If you're actually viewing this blog, and not reading this post in an aggregator, you'll always be able to see my three most recent Flickr photos over on the right. If you're using an aggregator, why not add me as a contact and subscribe to your Friend's Photos?

I fought the weather...

...and the weather won. I'm stuck in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, trying to get back home to the bay area. There are no seats available today or tomorrow, but hey, waiting standby for a dozen flights promises to be a good time. I'll keep you posted.

United's detailed description of the first flight I'm trying for is as follows:

Time enroute: 4 hour, 38 minute
Meal: null
Entertainment: Movie

I guess I'll need to get dinner before we leave if I get on this one...

Oh Tony...

Three Super Bowls in four years, and Bill Belichick didn't credit God with any of them. Hooray for the separation of church and football.

That's Me!

While sitting in SFO waiting to fly to Boston this afternoon, I encountered the following clue in a Boston.com crossword puzzle that Erica was kind enough to print out for me:

Adam's third son and clockmaker Thomas

Now if you're religious, you might get the answer from the first part. If you're into clocks, you might get it from the second. If, however, you happen to have been named after the aforementioned clockmaker, and even better, happen to have grown up with a giant picture of him in your living room, then you're going to be pretty excited. That's right, the answer is Seths, and it marks both the first time that I have used my given name in a crossword puzzle and that I have seen a crossword clue make reference to a relative of mine. Talk about a red letter day. I think I may have to retire from puzzling.

No, I did not finish the puzzle, although I fought the good fight until the in-flight movie started. Quick, I need a five-letter word for "Bikini Blast".

ps. Although I knew that Seth was Adam and Eve's third son, I didn't know until tonight that Eve believed him to have been a replacement for Abel. Thanks Wikipedia. I'm still relatively sure I was the first child.

Making Radio

When we were in college, Sean and I had the great privilege of running the nation's premiere student-operated commerical college radio station. I have a lot of great memories from those days, but none is more important than this, originally available as a radio dispatch, which is why I was recently overjoyed to find out that I can still enjoy such high-quality programming.

The Strategy Revealed

I just decided that one of my New Year's resolutions is to blog periodically. Not because I think you care what I have to say, but because it might help me to keep my writing sharp. Here we go...

The New York Times has a good response to the President's lackluster presentation tonight of his new plans for Iraq. Here's what I decided after reading it (plus a less damning piece at the Washington Post):

When President Bush unveiled his new tactics for Iraq tonight (and I think that any relatively unbiased observer would agree that they represent, at most, a shift in tactics, not strategy), he unwittingly confirmed for us his actual strategy, which I believe he settled on some time ago. The President has concluded that, given the current state of affairs in Iraq, the only logical thing to do is to look as though he's trying his best until January of 2009, when the problem will suddenly belong to someone else.

The idea that Bush can't bring himself to change course in any meaningful way is interesting: is he absolutely resistant to change, or simply unable to make the move? After reading David Rose's recent article in Vanity Fair, in which the leaders of the neocon movement lament Bush's mismanagement of the war, I'm fascinated by the view among neocon insiders that Bush, the self-anointed decider, is anything but. Here's an excerpt in which in which Rose recounts a discussion with Richard Perle.

Yet Bush "did not make decisions, in part because the machinery of government that he nominally ran was actually running him." That, I suggest, is a terrible indictment. Perle does not demur: "It is." Accepting that, he adds, is "painful," because on the occasions he got an insight into Bush's thinking Perle felt "he understood the basic issues and was pursuing policies that had a reasonable prospect of success." Somehow, those instincts did not translate into actions.

You really have to read Rose's article, it's fantastic, and it hammers home a point that I have heard sporadically in the past: the President isn't dumb, in fact he's quite smart. Unfortunately, he's never been a successful manager of anything, and right now he's foundering at the top of the largest bureaucracy in the world.

I'll leave you with another piece from Rose (the link is mine).

The most damning assessment of all comes from David Frum: "I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that, although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything."