After a long, exhausting week, I haven’t had much time to mess with the new camera much yet, but tonight I started working my way through the settings.
Still no clue what I am doing yet though 🙂
Belated Friday Cat Blogging
Author: lux
Dear World
We, the United States of America, your top quality supplier of the ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage has been located, and the software responsible was replaced November 4.
Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional on January 20, 2009. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage.
We look forward to resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding.
Sincerely,
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Tuesday Can't Come Soon Enough
Eight long years later, and the nightmare is almost over. Here’s two views I collected that sum up my feelings. First, from Ezra Klein, because he sums it up much better than I could:
Because George W. Bush was president, more people hate America. Because George W. Bush was president, more Americans view the presidency cynically. Because George W. Bush was president, this country is worse off, and this world is worse off. He betrayed us. I have no interest in engaging the debate that asks whether he was a cynical monster or a hapless fool. It is enough to say he was a failure, and leave it at that. He can spend the rest of his life giving speeches to justify his actions. But he will never be able to drown out the roar of his record.
And next, a bit of snark photographed by our pal Seamus:
Some kind folks at work have arranged to pipe in a live feed of the Inauguration Day festivities into a viewing area with plenty of seats and a big screen. I’ll be there, watching with a big smile on my face.
New Camera!
After hemming and hawing I pulled the trigger and bought a new DSLR – the Nikon D40. Now I need to learn how to do more with it than just use the automatic setting. 🙂
The Problem of Misaligned Incentives
I’ve spent some time this weekend cleaning up old financial files, shredding, organizing, and otherwise winding up the 2008 paperwork in preparation for the tax season and the new year.
Somewhat appropriately, today’s New York Times includes a longer-than-usual Op-Ed on the many and varied failings of Wall Street, the SEC, and a financial system that has gotten amazingly screwed up. In a word (well two words): misaligned incentives.
The Madoff scandal echoes a deeper absence inside our financial system, which has been undermined not merely by bad behavior but by the lack of checks and balances to discourage it. “Greed” doesn’t cut it as a satisfying explanation for the current financial crisis. Greed was necessary but insufficient; in any case, we are as likely to eliminate greed from our national character as we are lust and envy. The fixable problem isn’t the greed of the few but the misaligned interests of the many.
Read on and be disgusted. Then read this for a possible path out.
Hat Tip, my favorite financial blogger: Barry Ritholtz’s The Big Picture.
New Year's Meme: Three Threes
I’m going to try my hand at creating a New Year’s Meme & see if it catches on. Here it is:
The Three Threes
First, write down:
1) Three things that have changed since the beginning of the year
2) Three things that didn’t change
3) Three things you want to change next yearNext, tag either three, six, or nine people.
To start the ball rolling (or dropping as the case may be) here’s mine:
Three things that have changed since the beginning of the year:
1) New job! I can’t possibly overstate how much of my life this has changed (and for the better).
2) Finally got a smartphone. I still wish my Blackberry had a better web browser but otherwise it rocks.
3) New haircut. This one is not as life changing but it’s been way too long since I had a decent stylist.
Three things that didn’t change:
1) Still living in San Mateo. I’d like to move back to SF at some point.
2) Still renting. But at least I am not underwater on a mortgage.
3) Still not exercising regularly. Working 12-hour days makes finding the time hard, but even so, it’s a failing of will more than anything.
Three things you want to change next year:
1) Stop listening to my fears.
2) Take a photography class. I love photography but don’t know jack about doing it right.
3) Do the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. I was going to sign up last year and didn’t. This time I’m going for it.
Feel free to jump in if you’re so inclined. I’m also tagging a range of folks:
Jennifer Leggio
Michelle Oshen Feldman
Warren Sukernek
Mike Rohde
Michael Ashby
Craig Froehle
Seamus
Laura
and BTC