Permanent Minority

This deserves to be quoted in whole:

“50 years ago you shouted nigger, 30 years ago you talked about States Rights, now you ask to see the president’s birth certificate.”

I’d say it dates back even further—to secession and the Civil War. Back then the reason was Slave Power, for the last half century it was the Southern Strategy, now they’ve been reduced to Glenn Beck throwing a hissy fit and senior citizens screaming to keep government out of their Medicare.

You’d think that after being on the wrong side of history for the last two centuries, these people would get a clue.

Continue reading about Addendum: The Lion of Liberalism after the jump.

Posted on by tychay 2

One door closes…

Chris just left OmniTI and so did Jon, Jeremiah departs Forrester, Andrei’s last day at digg is today, Lucas’s last day at Facebook is today…

I got to get me some of that action…

Letter of resignation

It’s been an interesting ride. When I joined Tagged, we were doing around 20 million pages/day—almost all of them coming from the viral registration flow. Today, we have virality turned off, and yet we still do over 240 million page views per day—close to a billion dynamic requests per day—as well as having been profitable for over 16 months now.

In a weird coincidence, Mark Jen is today the Director of Engineering at Tagged. Congratulations!

As for my future? Stay tuned. 🙂

I need a drink first.

Posted on by tychay 11

Below red

A package came in the mail when I was on vacation, I went into work to pick it up. It was my Nikon D70 back from LifePixel. Of course, I had to take some photos on the bus ride back.

On a crowded MUNI

On a crowded MUNI
San Francisco, California

Nikon D70+eIR, Tokina AT-X PRO 16-50mm f/2.8 DX
1/30sec @ f/2.8, iso 400, 16mm (24mm)

Hmm… maybe it isn’t obvious, perhaps an unprocessed image will help…

Looking out the window

Looking out the window
San Francisco, California

Nikon D70+eIR, Tokina AT-X PRO 16-50mm f/2.8 DX
1/180sec @ f/6.7, iso 200, 17mm (25mm)

This photo is pretty much, straight out of the camera.

Yes, I had the camera modified for infrared photography. And, yes, I’m going to have a lot of fun with it…

San Francisco at sunset

Nikon D70+eIR, Nikkor 14-14mm f/2.8G
1/250sec @ f/8, iso 500, 22mm (33mm)

View On Black

Continue reading about Some IR snaps after the jump

Posted on by tychay 9

Hiring a wedding photographer

A friend wrote me:

I was curious if i could hire your photography skills for my wedding day Sept 12. My favorite photos of myself in the last couple years were taken by you at parties in SF. Do you do that sort of thing? Not traditional wedding posed photos, just good-time party photos.

While my friend was just looking for a primary photographer to shoot a party, this lead me to think what it must like to hire a wedding photographer? That’s a private trauma I never had to endure…

I need to descend again?

I need to descend again?
Mia and Ken’s Wedding, Rancho Santa Fe, California

Nikon D70, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G VR, UV filter
1/100sec @ f/2.8, iso 200, 82mm

My sister-in-law

Continue reading about About hiring a wedding photographer after the jump.

Posted on by tychay 3

GDGT launch

gdgt is a gadget-based social network that hosted a launch party today since I had an invite, I thought I’d stop by. Alas, the line was long!

Outside the GDGT launch

Outside the GDGT launch
DNA Lounge, South of Market, San Francisco, California

Nikon D3, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D
1/60sec @ f/5 iso200, 50mm

View On Black

The line was so long, I didn’t go in. It was between a Costco hotdog and this, the hotdog won. (I’m sure it was a great event, and the line moved fast.) In any case, I should have known better—I guess the reason I rarely see my friends in the gadget industry is…these things are popular!

One of these days, maybe I’ll avail myself to the multiple opportunities to cut in line. No matter, I’ve seen the inside of DNA lounge before.

(My user profile on gdgt.)

Continue reading about the postprocessing of this image after the jump

Posted on by tychay 1

Lenses as software

John Gruber links Brian Tiemann’s piece on the cost of platform switching.

Pounce the Geek Cat

Pounce the Geek Cat
Mountain View, California

Pentax Optio S
1/8sec @ f/2.6 iso800, 5.8mm (35mm)

My ex-cat Pownce preparing to jump away from the Mac OS X platform?

The argument centers around that the cost of switching in photography is high because of lens investment just like the cost of switching in computers is high because of software (purchase) investment.

Bullshit.

Continue reading about Lenses as software after the jump

Posted on by tychay 0

Bear Cans

I was amused to read about the bear Yellow Yellow’s ability to break into the BearVault 500.

When doing outdoor photography it is very important to know the bear-proof rules for your area. For instance, when I last hiked Tahoe, it was okay to use a bear-bag—a canvas bag that you throw up into the trees and anchor by tying to a tree. But in Yosemite and Mount Whitney, this is a big no-no as bears long ago figured out how to pull down a bear bag, you have to use a bear proof canister.

Upper Yosemite and Half Dome

Upper Yosemite and Half Dome
Yosemite Falls Trail, Yosemite National Park, California
Nikon D70, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G, UV filter
f/11 at 1/20 second, 18mm (27mm), iso 200

Luckily, all campsites at Yosemite have food lockers to protect your stuff.

Continue reading about Bear vs Car after the jump

Posted on by tychay 0

PHP Job: PHP 'guru' position in San Francisco

Senior Software Engineer (PHP/MYSQL)

Someone who has help build scalable web apps for sites with millions of users at established Web 2.0 company.

Seeking a self-directed senior software engineer with a desire to build scalable and interesting web applications. We desire someone who is comfortable writing efficient database schemas, clean and efficient back-end code, and has passionate opinions about user interface and interaction. Developer will be working to design and implement new features and improve the overall experience for millions of people. Developer will be part of a team that works on diverse, site-spanning projects involving community-facing tools, video, web services, security, anti-spam, user-to-user interaction, advertiser network, and more. Projects will be for both internal tools and highly-used public-facing products.

Continue reading about Qualifications and contact after the jump

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Symmetrical compositions

After this article, Kara convinced me to sign up for the Worldwide Photo Walk this year. I ended up going to the Marin one even though there were five in SF.

The big challenge of an outdoor nature photo walk—besides watching others take better photos than you—is getting your gear down to something you can live with. Especially if you haven’t been photographing in forever. Even if you see something you like, it means compromises to get there. I noticed that the lighting was too flat, but the sky had nice texture, and from the town, I could see Rat Rock Island standing off the promontory.

I really had to shoot that:

Rat Rock Island

Rat Rock Island
China Camp State Park, Marin, California

Nikon D3, Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G, handheld
8 exposures 1/400sec @ f/10 +/-2/3 stop, iso200, 14mm

View Large on Black

Continue reading about About composition after the jump

Posted on by tychay 1