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Archives (page 39 of 97)
President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Seriously. Wait, what?
President Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.Less than nine months into his presidency, Barack Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.Less than nine months into his presidency, Barack Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.The first African-American to win the White House, Obama was praised by the Norweigan Nobel Committee for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
Next week the President will show the world he can walk on water. The Birthers and the wingnuts conspiracy folks are going to go bat**** crazy with this one.
I really think this is going to make President’s job much harder. Talk about raising expectations.
Looks like the Swiss aren’t taking chances.
Ministry spokesman Folco Galli said prosecutors opposed the release because the government believes there is a high risk Polanski could flee if released from custody.
via VOA News – Swiss Prosecutors Reject Polanski Bail Request.
A high risk of fleeing. Gee, ya think?
Note to self: next time you install PSE 8 make sure you turn off the Auto-Analyzer. The PSE 8 Organizer tried to analyze 23,000 old photos. That did really bad things to my CPU usage.
I’m playing with Typekit at the moment and having font fun. As I write this I am using Legendum by Roger van Dalen amd Droid Serif by Google Android. Today I received an e-mail from Typekit with my invitation (I applied a couple of weeks ago). I created my account, selected my fonts, and inserted two lines into my blog’s header.
The idea works like this: instead of just using the built in fonts specified in your style sheet, you can select and implement the font you want from Typekit’s offering. This way, the fonts that are displayed match what you want versus what the browser thinks. It works with all current versions of web browsers such as Firefox 3.5.x and Internet Explorer 8. It does not work with Internet Explorer 6, but who cares?
I signed up for the free trial so I’m limited to 2 fonts. Once you select a font you can apply it to the CSS tags that you want. I did not have to change my style.css in anyway, just get the CSS tags right. You can see the badge in the lower right hand corner and if you click it you’ll get to see what’s running font-wise on this page.
Very cool and I’ll keep poking at this.
I may have been under a rock lately. I saw on Reddit that Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 supported StartSSL certificates. So as a goof I signed up at https://www.startssl.com/ and applied for a free server certificate.
I generated via their web page a certificate for blog.dembowski.net, installed it on my apache server and started using it. Firefox complained that I’m not certified as I have not validated who I am. That’s reasonable and very X.509v3 of them.
Internet Explorer 8 used the SSL cert for my server without a single hiccup. Other than my WordPress mixes http and https on the same page, there were no complaints. Internet Explorer just used the SSL cert without any problems.
I use SSL certs for privacy and not for identity, so self-signed SSL certs that I have generated are no big deal for me. But having a Microsoft browser not complain about my SSL web site is surreal.
Edit: Oh. Turns out you also need to follow these instructions too. I added SSLCertificateChainFile to my conf and on my other laptop Firefox does not complain at all now. Chrome works like a charm too.
How did I find out about my misconfiguration? Because I recieved this e-mail from StartSSL this morning:
This mail is intended for the person who owns a digital certificate issued by the StartSSL™ Certification Authority (http://www.startssl.com/).
It seems, that the installation of your server certificate with serial number 45568 for blog.dembowski.net is not complete! You should add the intermediate CA certificate to your installation. This is important, because most browsers will issue an error if this is not properly done. Please consult the installation instructions at http://www.startssl.com/?app=20 on how to do that. The missing certificate can be obtained from http://www.startssl.com/certs/sub.class1.server.ca.pem
—
Best RegardsStartCom Ltd.
StartSSL™ Certification Authority
So after I applied for a cert, they reached out to check if I installed it correctly. For Free. How cool is that?
I’m playing with my new camera and got to a feature that does not exist on my D60: off camera flash. It’s easy to set up the D300s to use the built in flash solely for commander mode.
On my SB-800 flash, I held down the SEL button for two seconds to get to the next menu. There I was able to set up the flash as a remote. On the camera I set the flash to commander mode without also using it as a TTL flash (you can use it as TTL flash and commander at the same time).
The results were really good. I put the flash on its stand and pointed it 45 degrees at a wall. Resting it on the floor worried me because of the kids running around. Bouncing off of the wall filled up the room nicely without making the light harsh at all.
This feature exists on most of the Nikon cameras such as on the D70 and above. It’s an old feature that is part of Nikon’s Creative Lighting System (CLS). But for me it’s all new and very cool.
So after months of waiting, I finally got a Nikon D300s with the updated 18-200mm VR lens.
I was originally planning on getting a Nikon D90 which would have been a fine upgrade from my existing D60. But Lily intervened and pointed out that getting a D90 now and possibly repeating this in a year in a half might not really be a good idea. A new D300s would almost certainly keep me entertained for a couple of years.
The conversation went like this:
Me: I’d like to replace my D60 with a D90.
Lily: No. Get the next model up, that makes more sense.
Me: Oh, okay. But only because you are twisting my arm and forcing me.
That conversation was in May. I waited for the D300s because I knew that the D300 was at the end of its for sale life and I like to get the latest and greatest versions. The D300 is an amazing camera but the controls are updated on the D300s and for fun Nikon added video. The video is more of a novelty for me, I just like how fast my new camera focuses and handles low light.
Right after I got it I updated my Adobe raw converter to version 5.5 and downloaded the latest PTLens version. My Photoshop Elements work flow is to fix the white balance, adjust for lens distortion, and crop. Not complicated but having the updated software helps.
Today I took over 200 photos of a 5 year old’s birthday party. Compared to the D60, the D300s felt heavier but not unwieldy. The autofocus is fast and accurate. Low light bounces the ISO up to >1600 but that works out on this camera.
I’m playing around with it like crazy and I’m hoping that I get a chance to take some memorable pictures soon.
Remember in Fight Club, the main character was addicted to support groups? Posting in the WordPress support forums is sort of like that.
You know how when you can’t sleep, your eyes sometimes wander to the digital clock on the night table? At some point everyone does that. It’s no good since you are not going to sleep, you are just watching the clock countdown. The whole night can go by that way repeating that same counter productive routine.
Last night I was trying to sleep along those lines. But being an overachiever, I was much more counter productive than that.
Yesterday evening Lily and I went swimming and we did 10 laps together. She’s a better swimmer than I am, since I don’t push myself too hard. My muscles will not cramp up because at the first sign of warning I slow it down. Even taking it easy I still get really tired.
Just like last week, water got into my right ear and I could not hear much from that side. We got home and eventually went to sleep. Or Lily did, I spent the night pulling, tugging and prodding my sensitive ear.
At some point around 3 AM I went to the bathroom and poked at my ear with a q-tip. Then in a pre-dawn state of mind, I poured some hydrogen peroxide in my ear. My thinking was that I had a build up of ear wax. This flat out did not solve my problem but my ear sure got sore.
Now, I do not know anything at all about the human ear. If I was not so tired and had slept, then I am sure my response to my idea for treatment would have been “Wow, that’s just stupid”. Normally I would expect that my ear would get worse from that plan but at 3 AM it seemed like a pretty good idea.
I did not get to sleep at all and when the alarm went off at 5:30 this morning I tried to go downstairs to have my coffee. I did not make it, I was just too freaking tired. I thought that if I went to the office in my nervous state of mind, I would have a psychotic episode. So I called in sick and kept my hands off my ear.
It’s now 12 hours later and still no sleep. And my ear is only a little better. I have to do a parent-teacher meeting tonight, it’s my first one this semester. I think I will let my wife do all the talking. Next week I have a scheduled doctor’s appointment so I’ll skip any further swimming till I speak with him.
I’m really hoping I sleep like a log tonight.
