Nicest of the Damned

New Flickr album: Ellie and Bowie

Added a Flickr album for the dogs. We've had Ellie since my son rescued her about 10 days after our previous dog died. We had considered whether she needed some canine company even before the coronavirus lockdown, and in July, we adopted Bowie, who was about 4 months old at the time.

New Flickr gallery: Tucker Kelly Cofer Fall 2020

Posted a few new photos I took a couple of days after getting laid off. These are from Kelly Cofer Park in Tucker. Amazing how nice a job the iPhone (11 Pro Max) camera does with these. The vertical shot is from a DSLR, where I could use my 80-200 lens to compose even across the lake. The landscape is from my iPhone, and I used more of the lake as part of the composition. Think they both came out very nicely.

Podcast Pick: Jesse Thorn interviews David Letterman

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn | David Letterman

 

Over on the Maximum Fun network, Jesse Thorn spends an hour with David Letterman, unearthing Letterman's late-'60s radio reel, and reviewing Letterman's career from his nightly talk shows to his new(ish) Netflix series "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction."

2014 BMW X5, spotted in testing

Late in a car's production cycle, the manufacturer takes the car on the road for real-life testing.

On our way to the Falcons blowout of the Giants today, my son and I spotted five BMW X5s in swirly camouflage coming off I-85. It's not uncommon to see new BMW models in Atlanta, since the company's Greenville plant is only about 2 hours up the road. There was a period around the introduction of the X6 when I saw three small caravans of the new X6 on my way to work.

This was a little different, because the 2014 X5 hasn't been introduced yet, and is expected at next month's Detroit Auto Show. I got 10 seconds of video as we passed the line of SUVs, and my son shot 4 stills, only one of which was really usable, so I've added it at the end of a video I've uploaded to YouTube and embedded below.

For more info on the X5, here's a Car and Driver preview with some stills.

links for 2010-08-11

• Welcome | ScraperWiki

links for 2009-06-16

• E-P1
  Olympus introduces its "Micro Four Thirds" DSLR. The sensor is much larger than point and shoot standard, while eliminating the viewfinder and pentaprism leads to a body size close to the classic SLR size for the AE-1, OM-1, etc.
  (tags: photography olympus dslr)

links for 2009-06-12

• Fix Time Machine probs after logic board swap
  I had a MacBook Pro that suffered from the nVidia 8600GT problems, and just came back with a new logic board. I didn't realize Time Machine is linked to your machine via its hardware address. Here's a shell script to reassociate your backup drive with your new machine.
  (tags: timemachine osx mac)

So full of crap: Wingers continue stupid attacks on Letterman

Background here.

So I see that conservatives continue to froth over David Letterman's "tasteless joke about the rape of Sarah Palin's 14-year-old daughter." I put that in quotes because it's their frame, not mine.

This is of a piece with their previous suggestion that then-candidate Obama was equating Palin with a pig when he suggested the Republican Party was "putting lipstick on a pig." The only way their frame makes any sense is if you abandon all reason and the rules of English and comedy.

Here's Letterman's joke:

Setup - Governor Sarah Palin had visited the new Yankees stadium for a game. "During the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez."

It's not let's make sure he's dead..." funny, but Dane Cook has never said anything that funny. To me, it's a joke with two levers: First, Palin's got a daughter who did, in fact, get "knocked up." Second, Alex Rodriguez is seemingly dating every woman in New York these days.

Letterman's audience has no idea who is traveling with the governor of Alaska these days. They know only a few things about Palin: 1) She's governor of Alaska, 2) She was on the ticket with McCain, 3) She was in a beauty pageant, 4) She's got a child with Down's Syndrome, 5) Her husband does something professionally with a snowmobile, 6) She had a disastrous interview with Katie Couric, and 7) She's got a daughter who got pregnant in high school.

To assume that any talk-show comedian would make a joke about Palin that doesn't pivot on one of those 7 things is to intentionally delude oneself. It's perhaps not surprising that The Right is demagoguing this one; Letterman is, at least technically, part of the entertainment industry, but I think they attempt to paint him as a lefty at their own peril. The broad middle may hear that Letterman is on the Republican hit list and decide that it's not much of a party for them, either.

links for 2009-05-25

• Watch free TV on the iPhone | Grand Forks Herald | Grand Forks, North Dakota
  Best thing to come out of North Dakota since....well, maybe forever.
  (tags: iphone television appstore)