We should end Medicare, not tax Corporations!

The Tax Haven That's Saving Google Billions - BusinessWeek

The heart of Google's (GOOG) international operations is a silvery glass office building in central Dublin, a block from the city's Grand Canal. In 2009 the office, which houses roughly 2,000 Google employees, was credited with 88 percent of the search juggernaut's $12.5 billion in sales outside the U.S. Most of the profits, however, went to the tax haven of Bermuda.

To reduce its overseas tax bill, Google uses a complicated legal structure that has saved it $3.1 billion since 2007 and boosted last year's overall earnings by 26 percent. While many multinationals use similar structures, Google has managed to lower its overseas tax rate more than its peers in the technology sector. Its rate since 2007 has been 2.4 percent.

When shooting landscapes

When shooting landscapes what I enjoy is that to do it right you have to frame up your shot then breath for about 15 seconds to take it in. See what else will show itself to you in the frame. Maybe it will change a bit and be better and maybe not. But it's a great time to stand still for 15 seconds and just take it all in none the less.

The live concert experience is a valuable thing now

Punk Pioneer Steve Albini on Music Festivals, The Future of Radio and Why He Wants GQ To Fail

The parallels between that and the Internet are quite obvious. Everyone said that radio would kill live music and kill the existing music industry because people wouldn't leave their houses because radio would bring the ballroom to them. It had exactly the opposite effect—it made people much more interested in music. The same thing happened with the Internet—people said access to music on the Internet was going to kill the music industry. What it killed was the record industry. The music industry—bands, concerts, things like that are doing great. The live concert experience is a valuable thing now.

Got to get me some of that.

Vital Signs - A Good Massage Brings Biological Changes, Too - NYTimes.com

Does a good massage do more than just relax your muscles?

Volunteers who received Swedish massage experienced significant decreases in levels of the stress hormone cortisol in blood and saliva, and in arginine vasopressin, a hormone that can lead to increases in cortisol. They also had increases in the number of lymphocytes, white blood cells that are part of the immune system.

Volunteers who had the light massage experienced greater increases in oxytocin, a hormone associated with contentment, than the Swedish massage group, and bigger decreases in adrenal corticotropin hormone, which stimulates the adrenal glands to release cortisol.

Which reminds me....

I want to believe?

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Have Been Compromised by Unidentified Aerial Objects | Reuters

Ex-military men say unknown intruders have monitored and even tampered with American nuclear missiles

Group to call on U.S. Government to reveal the facts

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Witness testimony from more than 120 former or retired military personnel points to an ongoing and alarming intervention by unidentified aerial objects at nuclear weapons sites, as recently as 2003. In some cases, several nuclear missiles simultaneously and inexplicably malfunctioned while a disc-shaped object silently hovered nearby. Six former U.S. Air Force officers and one former enlisted man will break their silence about these events at the National Press Club and urge the government to publicly confirm their reality.

One of them, ICBM launch officer Captain Robert Salas, was on duty during one missile disruption incident at Malmstrom Air Force Base and was ordered to never discuss it. Another participant, retired Col. Charles Halt, observed a disc-shaped object directing beams of light down into the RAF Bentwaters airbase in England and heard on the radio that they landed in the nuclear weapons storage area. Both men will provide stunning details about these events, and reveal how the U.S. military responded.

Bokeh and how to fake it.

Bokeh Tricks in Scott Pilgrim

Start with a 16-bit picture (8 will work too, but for mathematical reasons you’ll get better results with a raw image) with really sharp well-focused point sources of light (street-lamps, christmas lights, ferris wheel bulbs) and then run a “Filter->Shape Blur” on the part of the image that you want the custom bokeh effect to show up in.

Thoughts on Post production....

This always comes up that So and So relies too heavily on Post Production to make their images look good and it always gets under my skin. The darkroom and photography has been about manipulation since it's birth. Here is the master of manipulations himself, Ansel Adams.

Canon EF 100mm F2.8 L IS USM review from DPReview.

Canon 100mm F2.8 L IS USM Macro Lens Review: 6. Conclusion & samples: Digital Photography Review

There's little doubt that, all round, this is one of the very finest lenses we've seen - optically it's superb, and operationally it works very well too, with fast and positive autofocus, and one of the most effective image stabilization systems currently available. Throw in the high build quality, including dust- and splash-proofing, and it all adds up to a very desirable package indeed.

Sharpest lens out there. I have the older version, may be time for a upgrade...

Hoo hoo HOOO!

Best song of 2010. Possibly ever. And if you think it's dedicated to you, from the deepest part of my heart, it probably is.

Jamie Kripke, GoLite campaign

I helped Jamie Kripke out with this campaign for GoLite which is shown over at The Denver Egoist.

Sukle Advertising & Design, Denver just finished up a new campaign for GoLite, highlighting the company's Spring/Summer ‘11 trail running, hiking and travel apparel. The images were shot by Jamie Kripke of Boulder. Here's what they had to say about the campaign.

"Since its beginning, GoLite has been all about lightweight gear made for the trail. Whether it’s an after-work out-the-backdoor loop, backpacking the Colorado Trail or connecting the dots on an overseas adventure – the more time we spend on the trail, the better we feel.

The insight for this campaign is about choices. The choices we make determine how much time we have for the trail. Do I choose to watch some reality TV or do I get off my ass and go for a run? Do I pack the blow-dryer, the curling iron, the straightener AND the krimper? [Or GoLite?]"

Really fun smooth project. Jamie has such a great eye for subtlety that taking his images to the next level is effortless. He is the example of a photographer who understands that this look does not entirely happen in Post and has everything to do with the photographer's eye. Many photographers just lean on the post way to heavily to achieve this look and it never gets to this level.

I should be posting the before and afters in the portfolio as soon as I get some free time.

Yeah the rain came...

There is something that I just love about waking up to a cloudy, rainy day.  Something about it just makes me move a little slower and more deliberately.  To take my time and notice things instead of the daily rush about mucky muck crap I can get caught in. And well, the leaves are falling in the yard and it's raining with the gutters doing their splunk noise. Which all tells me summer is rapidly coming to a close up here in the NW.  Don't tell the wife, OK?

With this in mind I wrote a little piece in the old pen and paper journal (not this fancy digitally, whop-di-do one) and I think it's a nice fit for the day.

"Now and Next is so yesterday

It's all about Forever."

Then on Metafilter this morning I find this Allan Watts gem.

The Unsettling Truth About Life

Title of this post is from "My Town" by Jane's Addiction.  If you caught that you are old.

Neil Burgess on the death of Photojournalism

We have now reached the stage where magazine supplements offer me less for a story which might be used over a cover and eight pages than their associated papers pay me for a single picture of a celebrity. The picture editors shrug and say, “This is just the way it is.” But, it is an active decision that has been taken by the managing editors who believe that photojournalism is not valued, it can be got for free, and so needs no budget. Money is still around in newspapers, it’s just that it’s spent on other things.

I woke up this morning with a dream going around in my head. It was as if I’d been watching a medical drama, ER or something, where they’d spent half the programme trying to revive a favourite character: mouth to mouth, blood transfusions, pumping the chest up and down, that electrical thing where they shout “Clear!” before zapping them with 50,000 volts to get the heart going again, emergency transplants and injections of adrenalin …, but nothing works. And someone sobs, “We’ve got to save him we cannot let him die.” And his best friend steps forward, grim and stressed and says, “It’s no good. For God’s sake, somebody call it!”

Okay, I’m that friend and I’m stepping forward and calling it. “Photojournalism: time of death 11.12. GMT 1st August 2010.” Amen.

<A href="http://www.epuk.org/Opinion/961/for-gods-sake-somebody-call-it">Neil Burgess on the death of Photojournalism.</a>

Sad but true. But I have to say there is a glimmer of hope and that is the iPad / tablet computers. I know I have said it before, but you just can not fuck around with shitty images on those things. Plus it seems like people are willing to shell out $5 a issue for it. That is some serious revenue for the magazines who no longer have to print and ship dead trees around.

VIA wood s lot who proves yet agin he is a much netter blogger then I.