Ideas, Language, Code

IM that I want to remind myself of

ddegner — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:38:02 +0000

My biggest fear is compromising too much, quitting, settling, taking the path laid out before me. It’s what everyone does, what they have to do. But no one has to do anything. Our default answer to “What next?” is chose from the choices we are given, compromise our ideals for our possibilities. It’s our default approach to life, I do it, but I don’t want to, and I must learn to ignore this default approach to life.

Rebrand carpooling and make sharing a ride part of our culture

ddegner — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:29:58 +0000

On the long holiday drives between my parents home and my own I had an idea that I can’t shake. Governments pour billions into bus systems, and train lines, all to transform our car-culture into a community transportation culture. They have done the math and know the advantages to our infrastructure, economy, and environment that reducing car use would bring.

I have three ideas that would help us reach that conclusion, but instead of greater government expenditure and a major shift in our culture they require only a small shift and applications of technology.

When I type in an address on google maps/mapquest/yahoo maps it should let me know if there is anyone else going that direction that needs a ride.
Each highway ramp should have a pulloff to pick up people heading in the same direction.
When I get in the car at 7:30am my phone should guess that I am going to work and alert me to any new carpoolers on my route.

The advantage of these ideas is they piggyback on successful technology and don’t require much on the uptake. Like the old “hitchhiker-thumb” method, any new ride-sharing culture must easily integrate into our current routines.

What other good ideas do you have?

Light meter app for the iPhone

ddegner — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:22:41 +0000

Yes there is an app for that. And it is almost always giving the same reading as my camera’s built in spot meter.

It is a little complicated to use, and hasn’t been updated in a long time, but it does what it says it will do and is as accurate as a spot-meter on my iPhone 3Gs

take a look at it here

News for 2009-08-06

ddegner — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:34:00 +0000

汉族喝酒办事，哈族喝酒没事，维族喝酒闹 #
@imagetic php photo gallery FTW in reply to imagetic #
My mac dies with the multi-language hard reboot after using the history brush in Photoshop. Occures about once an hour but annoying as hel #

News for 2009-08-04

ddegner — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:34:00 +0000

I freedove 70 feet down but busted some blood vessels in my eyes. Now I look creepy.
http://yfrog.com/5i4rebj #

News for 2009-08-03

ddegner — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 03:34:00 +0000

@karicollins no excuse necessary. We have sun and sand, water and tequilla. $190 round-trip from Coumbus. Consider it a business expense. in reply to karicollins #
I'm spending too much time on the computer. Time to take the Hasseblad out soon and pretend I'm Alec Soth #

Which direction do you pray?

ddegner — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:21:59 +0000

Tonight I ran across a interesting religious debate that is occuring in Islam. A major tennant of Islam is to pray towards Mecca 5 times a day. Which starts as a relatively simple commandment.
But tonight while talking to a sufi he enunciated a schism that seperates two sects only by degrees but goes deeper.
Acording to this Sufi traditionally the direction to pray has been based on the cardinal directions and a flat map. So if one is praying towards Mecca from Florida he or she would aim in a east south-east direction.
Wahabis determin their prayer direction with the modern understanding of spheres and the great circle. So like an airliner flying to Mecca they aim north east because it is the shortest route.
This story is based only on two sources and I want to cooberate it more, pin down details, and find some examples.

Avett Brothers in concert

ddegner — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:14:58 +0000

I don’t go to many concerts but when the Avett Brothers made it this far south I bought a lone ticket. Maybe I’m just a concert virgin but there was a palpable feeling of community in the small theater.

We had a hackle raising set of knee slapping and swinging, clapping and screaming. All the natural brunettes and boots in broward county were filling the aisles.

I felt at home.

First from the iphone

ddegner — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:54:17 +0000

As we grow up we put aside our childish things. Today I traded my 5 year old cell phone for the ubiquitous iPhone. With this change expect to hear more from me as I post ideas from the road. We will see if the bottleneck is in time or time with a computer.

War Photography by VII

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:31:48 +0000

A quick but strong photo essay about ongoing wars.

The RSS feed of Time’s photo essays is worth subscribing to. But they need to update their page design so that it doesn’t refresh the page with each new image.