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devb

611 karma · joined February 9, 2011

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devb··on Vermeer's paintings might be 350 year-old color photographs
I'm guessing a mirror pointed at the subject over one eye with the other eye looking at the blank canvas? Then it would just be a matter of filling in paint on the canvas where it should match up with the original.
devb··on 100-year-old negatives discovered in Antarctic (2013)
> My solution is way too complex for practical use, though.
devb··on 100-year-old negatives discovered in Antarctic (2013)
Consider the fact that the Library of Congress doesn't even allow modern color negative and transparency films into its archives, let alone digital files! Only silver based negatives and prints that have gone through a very specific washing method are allowed in, as they pass the "500 year" test.

I've actually been shooting a lot more black and white film these days, on the off-off chance that someone will want to look at my pictures some day.

devb··on 100-year-old negatives discovered in Antarctic (2013)
I guess there are only so many ways to arrange a piece of cloth with some holes in it.
devb··on Oxford Electric Bell
Thank you for pointing out this major issue.
devb··on Show HN: Google Privacy Enhancer – "smoke bombs" your search history
Charming.
devb··on Photographing A Town That Never Was – The Meta Picture
Sure, you can spend as much as you can possibly imagine on some equipment. Linhof, Cambo, Leaf. Those are more business investments for the majority of people who buy them, in a sense.
devb··on Photographing A Town That Never Was – The Meta Picture
It's funny that current TS/PC lenses cost upwards of $2000, but Michael Paul Smith stated that he has to use a cheap Canon Powershot because the cheap lens obscures the details enough to make them believable and the tiny aperture keeps the "real" background enough in focus to keep the scale believable.
devb··on Photographing A Town That Never Was – The Meta Picture
You would really like Geography of Nowhere by James Kunstler, if you haven't read it already.

http://kunstler.com/books/the-geography-of-nowhere/

Many small cities (including Jersey City, my home) will not allow commercial businesses to be built without residential above it, at least in downtown commercial districts.

devb··on Scientists Send Text Message Using Vodka
Sounds like they're shooting for an Ig Nobel prize.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners

devb··on The engineer who fixed his own heart
If it dissolved, it would be pointless to have it put in.
devb··on FastMail’s servers are in the US – what this means for you
> moral obligation

Keep in mind that these companies' only obligations are to their shareholders.

devb··on Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation
The purpose of an article's title is ONLY to get a reader to start reading the article. Journalism 101.
devb··on Learning how to think
Do manufacturers try to even out the number of cars with fill caps on either side? Imagine the chaos at gas stations if everyone had the cap on the same side of the car.
devb··on Railroads beware: Technology is gaining on you
By volume and especially by weight, time sensitive mail deliveries are a tiny, tiny fraction of the bulk of coal, grain, scrap metal, etc. that make up most freight traffic.
devb··on Railroads beware: Technology is gaining on you
If you want to talk about "Back in the day", telegraph companies had been running their lines along ROWs since the 1860s. They would obviously have to duplicate ways across vast expanses of the country otherwise. In exchange, they would leave a few conductors open for the railroads to use for their communications.
devb··on The flawed psychology of government mass surveillance
The speechwriters.
devb··on The demise of the DSLR
What? He mentions it in the fourth paragraph.

> The elephant in the room is legacy lenses: it’s tough for a DSLR owner to give up his glass collection, because a similar depth of offerings simply does not exist in other smaller formats.

devb··on AOL CEO Fires Somebody for Pulling Out a Camera in a Meeting About Layoffs
Do you have any evidence of that at all?
devb··on Cyberscare: Ex-NSA chief calls transparency groups, hackers next terrorists
> Corporations are owned by people like you and me, composed of people like you and me, run by people like you and me, and paid by people like you and me.

That's really sunshiny happy and everything, but corporations and I have entirely different motives and values. I could just as easily point out that murderers, pedophiles, and (yes) Nazis are people like you and me.

devb··on How an accident revolutionized guitar sound
This article covers a number of accidental "discoveries" of distortion:

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/columns/the_history_of/accide...

devb··on Riding the New Silk Road
The paywall is more restricted now than when it was first enacted. I won't pay for much online, but I recently signed up for the weekend papers + full online access because I thought the journalism is better than most of the crap found online.
devb··on Fake Signs On Bay Area Highways Say Drones Looking For Speeders
NYC, or at least Manhattan, has had a law requiring underground utilities since 1888!
devb··on Fake Signs On Bay Area Highways Say Drones Looking For Speeders
They're definitely a distraction? Excellent! Let's start getting rid of roadside advertising, billboards, obnoxious fast food signs...
devb··on The Forbidden Island
Because of the conditions, or because of how far removed their lifestyle is from western societal norms?

What if the tribe decided our children were being severely mistreated with glowing distraction screens, processed corn sugar, helicopter parenting, etc.? Surely you'd let them take our kids away.

devb··on A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent
Only hike into a head wind.
devb··on ADHD Drugs Don't Boost Kids' Grades, Studies Find
If it was code that significantly impacted your ability ti live your life, absolutely.
devb··on Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crashes at SFO
I think it's the best possible service he could be performing at that moment in time. Letting his friends/family know he's ok, confirming for others that it was not a mass fatality event. What should he have done in that scenario?
devb··on Google Reader Founder: I Never Would Have Founded Reader Inside Today's Google
And with the shutdown of Reader went any chance of me investing any of my time in Google+, or Docs, or Hangout, or any service they offer in the future.
devb··on Illegally climbing the Golden Gate bridge at dawn (2011)
Further, it does not appear on this list:

http://www.cr.nps.gov/archeology/sites/antiquities/Monuments...

I'm assuming you made an error.

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