Shall we mutually agree to take our hands off the keyboards and go outside to play?

But for the longest time, I’ve been trying to take decent photographs with my Hasselblad 500C/M.  Over countless rolls of 120, I can just never seem to get the results I want, no matter how much experimentation I do with aperture and shutter combinations, lighting conditions, and film stock.  I bracket and meter and re-meter.  I try to get accurate depth of field.  When I want soft shots, I get sharp ones.  When I want contrasty shots, I get washed out ones.  And the same applies in reverse.  Honestly, I get more predictable (and more satisfying) results from my $20 plastic Holga! Very frustrating.

I know it’s all a learning process, and medium format isn’t as forgiving as 35mm, but it still annoys the crap out of me that a lot of other photographers in my skill set range can get great results with the same camera, yet I Just Can’t Seem To Do It Right.  Especially in light of my discovery of the Apollo 11 film library yesterday.  I mean, when a guy — in a spacesuit, on the surface of the moon, in 1/6th gravity, pumped full of adrenaline from being the first person to set foot there, wearing a huge helmet and operating the camera with enormous gloved hands — can take an amazingly well exposed and focused photo like this, with minimal photography training, and essentially the same camera that I use, then what the hell is my problem?

Nice photo, Neil Armstrong, you spacesuited bastard.  Astronauts are such showoffs.

[ Update: a reader pointed out to me that the Apollo crew did indeed have quite a bit more photographic training (in both equipment and technique) than I gave them credit for.  Doesn't make me feel any better though. h/t Derek ]

I should make a sign:

-The pool will open on Monday next week
-The waiting list is a year to a year and a half
-Yes, that’s the real wait
-No, it doesn’t move faster
-Yes, you can have an air conditioner
-No, your new lease isn’t ready yet because we’re too busy kicking people out to take care of the ones who still live here
-No, I don’t know offhand how much your rent is
-I don’t care if you hate your neighbor
-Yes, we’ll send an exterminator
-Please don’t ring that goddamned doorbell

That got me wondering why there isn’t the same sort of instant-gratification model for adult treats, like street food.  Yes, I know I can walk three blocks to get mashafasticulakos on a stick from the guy with the cart, but the same holds true for ice cream and kids around here.

Which is to say, if a van rolled slowly down my street with a bell ringing and a speaker blaring “Singapore noodles! Laughing Phoenix Red Curry! Gado gado!”, I would grab my wallet and run with all speed towards said van.

There’s a missed opportunity there, is all I’m saying.

Other days, it kicks you square in the junk.  Fun?  Not so much.

But occasionally, and for no reason, there are days when the Universe gives you candy, then kicks you square in the junk.  Those are the worst of all.

“Ooh, steampunk,” my friend said.

“No, it’s not steampunk at all, actually.”

“Well sure it is.”

“No, really, it’s not.”

“What would you call it then?”

“I don’t call it anything, yet. It’s a story. In progress. It doesn’t have a genre. It’s a little extropian, maybe. But just because it has an $ANOMALOUS_OBJECT and an $OBSCURE_HISTORICAL_PERSON in it doesn’t make it steampunk. Just let me write the damn thing, okay?”

“Fine.”

“Good.”

“Just finish it soon, because I really like steampunk.”

Grrr.

A robot that can pluck and move individual hair follicles on a person’s head makes hair transplants look more natural than those performed by humans, a US company claims.

Oh, the wonders of modern medical science.  Don’t you just get a happy little tingle every time you see the words “robot” and “pluck” together in a sentence?  Neither do I.

Once the “harvest” is over, the patient sits up to let the robot implant the follicles into the top of their head.

Again, another word that is just sinister when paired with robot: “harvest”.  Shudder.

Behind doors on the tombstone that can be locked is a QR code — a square code read by mobile phones that can link to Web addresses. Grave visitors can use the code to access images and photographs of the person while they were alive.

I, for one, eagerly await the release of the “.dead” top-level domain.

(via BoingBoing)

¡Viva la somethingorother!

Automakers, parts suppliers, governments and global agencies from the United Nations to the OECD are all looking at ways to relegate to memory the roughly 1.2 million deaths and 50 million injuries caused by motor vehicle crashes each year.

But in what some analysts see as a bid to hold its lead in consumer perceptions of safety, the Swedish carmaker now owned by Ford is the first to set a target date to eliminate death and injury in its cars.

That’s great news, because maybe then they can finally start working on an uglyproof car.

(via Scientific American)