Category: arts and letters

LIFE on Google

I read a while ago that the LIFE photography archive was on Google, but I didn’t really think about it until I stumbled across it while checking out the new version of CoolIris, which I’ve mentioned before.

On a whim, I tried looking for the famous cover photo of the LIFE article on the Lindy Hop.

The Lindy Hop

In CoolIris you can easily see that this version of the image was scanned from a physical print that has creases in the upper right. Here is the magazine cover, August 23, 1943.

I’d have taken a video but for some reason the video in SnapzPro doesn’t work with CoolIris on Safari. 🙁

The name “Lindy Hop” came because a news article on Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 flight of the Atlantic. It is said that the newspaper headline of the day read “Lindy Hops the Atlantic.”

Speaking of which, I wondered if they had a photo of the man who introduced aerials to dancing: Frankie Manning.

Yep, there’s one.

I met Frankie Manning once in 1998. I used to take photos and video of my friends dancing, so I asked him, on a whim, to give an intro to the website on camera. He looked into the videocam and said:

Welcome to the UIUC Swing Society web site. Those hep cats are really swinging!

Haha. I should dig up that video. Good times.

Posted on by tychay 1

Challenges and Choices (Making Frameworks Suck Less Part 2)

As promised, as the election is over, I will get back to blogging non-political things.

And hey, I haven’t posted a continuation of my web frameworks presentation yet!

Good thing too because, if you don’t know, I’m giving a talk on that tonight at CBS Interactive (CNET) in San Francisco. Come see it or watch online at 7:30PM Pacific.

Software is about making choices

"Making Frameworks Suck Less" 2

Challenges and Choices

So the second thing is Challenges and Choices. When I wrote my Rant on Rails, some people jumped on me, but I don’t think they gathered the basic assumption I was coming from.

It is not so much an assumption as a fact: when you develop software, it is about making choices. It is about tradoffs. You can do “A” but you can’t do “B.” You can’t have both A and B. I know it sounds like it’d be great and I’d like to have my cake and eat it too, but really, I’d rather be playing Counterstrike—I only have so much time to devote to writing software, that software can only execute so many times, things like that. I can’t make something do everything.

One example of that is in design patterns.

Continue reading about More part two after the jump.

Posted on by tychay 9

Elane Photography

A friend of mine, a colleague and excellent photographer who happens to be a defense-of-marriage person posted a status update that erupted into a firestorm of comments on Facebook. His claim was that people like me are “intolerant” of his beliefs.

To those people, I might say disagreement is not intolerance. I’m not asking you to change your beliefs, I only hope that you be tolerant to others theirs. As for the bible, it says many things about marriage, some of which you’d be hard pressed to defend now. Some of “the other side,” you know, love us some scripture too. 😉

But more interesting than that rehash would be the part I find fascinating. In the course of the comments he brought up an interesting case that apparently has been making the rounds:

A same sex couple in Albuquerque asked a photographer, Elaine Huguenin, to shoot their commitment ceremony. The photographer declined, saying her Christian beliefs prevented her from sanctioning same-sex unions. The couple sued, and the New Mexico Human Rights Commission found the photographer guilty of discrimination. It ordered her to pay the lesbian couple’s legal fees ($6,600). The photographer is appealing.

Hmm, at first blush, I side with the photographer. But then a little thought breaks it all apart.

Continue reading about The first amendment defense after the jump

Posted on by tychay 14

Voting in America

California is the swingiest of swing states. In recent memory, two Republican presidents were governors here. Now it is bluer than the balls of all those fratboys voting for Sarah Palin. Even though the Presidential election in this state is a foreground conclusion, you still get a lot of mail

Voting mailers

Election mailers
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S, Canon 500D diopter
1/80sec @ f/2.8, iso 360, 28mm (28mm)

Especially egregious is the phone book the city of SF gave me. Not that the California ballot measures were that thin either. Luckily, I had a stomach flu this morning, so I had time to read and research this stuff.

Election packet

Election Packet
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S, Canon 500D diopter
1/80sec @ f/2.8, iso 320, 32mm (32mm)

There was no line at my polling place. It was next to Trader Joe’s.

My polling place

My polling place
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1
1/200sec @ f/4, iso 80, 6.3mm (28mm)

Yes, I voted for “That One.”

Yes, I’m voting for “That One.”

Yes, I’m voting for “That One.”
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1
1/30sec @ f/2.8, iso 80, 6.3mm (28mm)

After I scanned in my ballots, I grabbed an “I Voted!” sticker. At the street corner an old lady noticed me holding it and thanked me.

I’ve never been more proud to be living in America.

Posted on by tychay 5

To that seven-year old Muslim-American kid

I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards–Purple Heart, Bronze Star–showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life.

—Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama on Meet the Press

Posted on by tychay 2

Revisiting Saddleback

I haven’t watched any the presidential debates because I sort of like my LCD television set and don’t want to damage it just yet by throwing things at it. Plus, other people do a more amusing analysis by counting tongue juts and generating word clouds.

This explains why I’m furiously googling what the hell a “Joe-the-Plumber” is (not that it mattered).

It also explains why I base my opinion on word-based transcripts and not strange body language.

And it occurred to me just how different the transcripts on McCain’s end seemed between this and the Saddleback Forums. You remember that? It was the debate at a evangelical Christian megachurch in which to be fair the same questions would be asked of both candidates with the latter being in a “cone of silence” which McCain won handily.

Continue reading about On comparing Saddleback to the debates after the jump

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Presentation-Fu (Making Frameworks Suck Less Part 1)

People ask me all the time how I make such awesome conference talks, so I decided to give you the gory step-by-step. Along the way I’ll even include my top-sekret speaker notes which I never share! It’ll give you an idea of the intense mental preparation it takes to be a top conference speaker in the PHP world and general PHP hero.

Rated R again!

“Rated R again!

“Making Frameworks Suck Less”
by Terry Chay
– howto/controverse
– Rated: R (Drama, Sex, Language, Vilence)

I thought I was done with speaking for the year. I have milked my last talk for over a year now and it was time to retired it. Since I had used this talk at the conference last year, that meant skipping ZendCon. In fact, I was a little worried because I hadn’t had a clue what my next talk (to milk) was going to be about so maybe I’ll just sit out next year.

That was because I had forgotten Keith had asked me to give an unconference talk there and I had said Yes. Then, a week before said conference, I get this e-mail asking if I’d be willing to move my slot to a different day.

Doh!

I had better find out what my talk was supposed to be about. When I did, my heart sank, it was a new topic and one I had no clue what to say.

Continue reading about preparing presentations and the introduction after the jump (click)

Posted on by tychay 10

I CAN HAS BOOKZ?

I got a mysterious package and opened it. No, it wasn’t a unabomb, but some megalulz instead:

I CAN HAS BOOK?

I Can Haz Cheezburger?:A LOLcat Colleckshun will be released October 7, but I got a copy in the mail today.

The book is from lulzftw, and is a best-of collection of lolcats—slightly disappointed that there are no lolgeeks. 😀

Mai awesum benny faktor tells me they’re having a book release party and photowalk later this month in San Francisco.

I think I’ll make one and give my book to the first person who asks (and I have it on me).

Make the events and you can has (mai or ur) bookz, too! 🙂

(Follow them on twitter.)

kthnxbai

Posted on by tychay 0