We have posted before about tilt-shift lenses. Meant for architectural work, the basic gist is that you can, well, tilt and/or shift the lens as it’s mounted to your camera. The goal is to correct angles, so your shot of a building from the front doesn’t have the lines on the sides looking like they’ll converge. A neat side-effect is that you can use this to leave only a ‘slit’ of the image in focus, which has a really neat effect making the shot almost look like it’s a scale model. (Since tilt-shift lenses cost around $1,000, most photographers fake the effect in Photoshop… Though the linked one did not.)

Of course, in addition to neat “this looks like a scale model!” effects, very selective focus is useful for drawing one’s attention to something.

[warning: has music] is possibly the most awesome thing ever. It appears to be thousands of shots from a camera with a tilt-shift lens stitched together into a (time-lapse) video. And I don’t really know where to start, other than to say that this is awesome. And that it’s totally not helping my resolve to not buy a high-end DSLR that can do HD video or a lens with a four-digit pricetag.

I tend to sit the abortion debate out, since it ultimately comes down to when you believe human life begins. Despite what some try to paint it as, I’m not sure there’s anyone who thinks that, at 8.5 months old, the baby isn’t a baby. (And, in fact, Roe v. Wade doesn’t allow abortions then.)

But a few points that drive me crazy:

• The President can’t overturn Roe v. Wade, since Presidential powers don’t include overturning Supreme Court cases.
• We’ve had what many consider to be a very conservative President for 8 years. Roe v. Wade stands.
• Some conservatives are freaking out about how Obama is “the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president.” Besides the fact that I’m not sure where he’s getting his facts, what could Obama do? Allow third-trimester abortions? Allow abortions three months after birth? All he could really do would be to keep status quo, which has been in place for something like 20 years.

My point isn’t that women should or shouldn’t have the right to have abortions. My point is that 98% of people who talk about the issue don’t seem to get it. Abortion isn’t really up to the President. Abortion is legal (within some sane boundaries). And, after eight years of conservative rule, abortion not only remains legal, but it hasn’t even been challenged. So before you go praising or condemning Obama (or any other politican) for their stance on the issue, consider whether they’re really any different than the status quo.

Blackberry-carrying President-elect Barack Obama has announced that he’s going to give weekly “fireside chat” equivalents, addressing the nation’s status and what he’s been working on… via Youtube.

(Youtube may be regretting hosting videos for free, as the Obama team has 1,823 videos up on its Youtube account right now, and I’d wager that a lot of them get tons of views…)

This monitor is extremely tempting. $200 (after rebate) for a 22″ would be tempting enough, but this one has a secret weapon: it’s 1920×1280 instead of the 1680×1050 that you’d normally find. Great for people like me who crave lots of screen real estate. (Though my laptop chokes trying to drive a second panel at 1280×1024, so I’m thinking I clearly need a new computer.)

Also, we all have our heros. My hero today is this kid, because of their hero.

There are a lot of things in the ecosystem that play valuable roles despite being seemingly undesirable. Spiders and snakes, for example, both play important roles. That being said, I wholly support the complete extermination of the following plants and animals:

• Skunks. I normally don’t mind the smell too much driving by on the road. But my dog just got sprayed, and it’s a horrible pungent odor. Like burning rubber and burning onions, permeating the whole house. Only worse.
• Porcupines. If I went around stabbing everyone, the state would try to exterminate me, too. Only I don’t go around stabbing people, because I’m not an awful anti-social animal.
• Snakes. Unfortunately they apparently do play a bit of a role in the environment. Thus I could compromise and only eradicate poisonous snakes, snakes with a diameter greater than 1″, and any individual snakes that came near civilization. But if the extermination teams get carried away, you won’t see me losing any sleep.
• Fire ants. I’d just as soon say all ants, but I suppose we need some little creatures to eat wood, even if it’s usually problematic.
• Mosquitoes and horseflies. Horseflies supposedly play an important role in pollination, “especially in South Africa.” I’m more than willing to donate all of North America’s horseflies to South Africa, which can have a bumper crop next year.
• Poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac. No one wants to touch you anyway, so ease up. I don’t like it when people bump into me, either, but I don’t go around giving horrible rashes and blisters to everyone who might brush my arm on the subway.
• Poison hemlock and water hemlock. When your main function in society is killing, society doesn’t welcome you.

Humans have proven themselves to be pretty good at rendering various species extinct. But instead of killing dodo birds and unicorns, let’s turn our collective extermination abilities to the terrorists of the animal and plant worlds. In our quest to achieve world animal/plant peace, you’re either with us or you’re against us. If anyone is concerned about these things becoming endangered, they can take in pet skunks and rattlesnacks, and grow poison ivy and water hemlock on their windowsills. Just don’t expect me to ever come visit you.

A handful of insane news stories, all involving churches:

• Given discount tickets to a freak show, some were frustrated to learn that they’d paid to watch an, err, freak show, about abortion put on by the local church.
• Meanwhile, a Russian church was stolen. That’s right, the whole church has gone missing.
• A man in Florida (where else?) was arrested for trying to steal a handful of communion wafers during a church service. I’m not sure which is the most insane: that anyone would try to steal them (from a priest!), that he was pinned down by elderly people until the police arrived, or the guy’s mugshot.
• Okay, this has nothing to do with religion, but the headline says it all: Shoplifter With No Arms Steals 24 Inch Television. And it gets better.
• After having successfully outraged homosexuals with its ardent support of “traditional marriage” in the form of California’s Proposition 8, the Mormon church has moved on to outraging Jews, and in an even more insane fashion: by posthumously baptizing Holocaust victims. Shockingly, this has some people offended.

It’s been a while since I posted a screenshot. In fact, it’s been a while since I booted into Linux on my “main” computer. It dual-boots Ubuntu and Vista. I needed to use Linux (for what’s going to be my new job!) the other day, so I rebooted into Linux, and did some housekeeping, which including spiff-ifying my desktop.

title=”Desktop by n1zyy, on Flickr”>

Ironically, Vista is refusing to boot now. It goes to “Configure Update 3 of 3,” and seems to be in a reboot loop of doing so. But I’m not missing it an awful lot, actually. Pretty much just missing Photoshop and my Treo sync program, though I think gnome-pilot will do the same. (Replies with a screenshot of your own desktop setup more than welcome!)

Peru has apparently offered a dog to Obama after hearing of his plans to get his kids a dog for the White House, but also that one of his daughters has allergies, which is restricting their choice. The Peruvian dog is hairless and, apparently, toothless. Which, I suppose, is a good quality when it comes to White House dogs.

Without creating any international diplomatic catastrophes, I’d like to encourage Obama to reject this dog. I’m envisioning Obama in the Oval Office with his kids and a cute puppy, not with a frightening monstrosity of a dog.

That said, if he does become forced to accept this to stay on good terms with Peru, “Cheney” has a nice ring to it for a dog’s name.

I used to swear off desktop wallpapers, because they always seemed to be a burden on the system. Advances in technology, or maybe just competence on the part of OS makers, has rendered the impact of using an image as your background moot.

The excellent Smashing Magazine has a post, More (Really) Stunning Desktop Wallpapers, and it really lives up to its name. My only problem now is picking which one to use!

For those of you interested, I found an informal-looking photo series from what seems to be the campaign’s official photographer from election night. Whether one supports him or not, I really like the idea of White House photos ending up on Flickr, as opposed to being archived in a vault somewhere.