In other news, I’m really working through my podcast backlog.

Now, my natural inclination is to say something like “you should consider using RAW mode to get the most quality out of your images,” because my natural inclination is to avoid conflict. But the more I think about it, the more I think that if you’re not shooting in RAW mode you are wasting your time. Why did you spend so much money for a camera if you’re going to throw away 93 percent of the data your sensor captures? I regret every shot I have ever taken in JPG mode with my 20D. Many of my early pictures are useless because I did not shoot in RAW.

RAW files take too much space? Please. 500 GB hard drives run 89 bucks these days, and last week I saw a terabyte drive on sale at Best Buy for 160. In 2007 I shot 19,125 pictures, and those pictures take up 119 gigs of space on my hard drive. At that rate it will take over 8 years to fill one terabyte hard drive.

Not all cameras have RAW mode, of course. But if you have a sufficiently advanced digital camera you have RAW mode. Did you pay more than 500 bucks new for your camera? Does it have a detachable lens? Then you probably have RAW mode. Enable it! Buy Lightroom and be happy! Lightroom has a 30 day free trial too.

The only reason to not enable RAW mode is if you don’t care about the last 10-20 percent of image quality. And that’s fine as far as it goes. I mean, I know at least 3 DSLR owners (none of whom read my weblog, so I’m not talking about you) who don’t care about that last 10-20 percent of image quality, and never will. But if you bought your camera because you care about photography, and not because it’s a pretty toy, then just enable RAW mode; it’s a no brainer!

Alright, end of rant. Got that out of my system. Don’t know what got into me; most of the time I’m a “gentle persuader” kind of person but I must be in a mood at the moment.

The other thing I did recently is buy a Flip video camcorder (which was a disaster; I’ve already returned it, more on that later). Here’s a video I shot of C in our backyard with the Flip:

CHANGE. CHAAAAANGE!

That was the first thing I thought of and I almost collapsed in laughter at the farmer’s market. I didn’t even read the poster, I just snapped a couple pictures. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized it was a poster for a bake sale.

I mean, a bake sale? Really?

Never forget that the original policy was also “democracy in action”. Nothing about democracy guarantees you good (or even mediocre) laws. Jim Crow is democracy in action. Plessy v. Ferguson is democracy in action. Democracy is, at best, only as good as the people who vote the legislators into power, and frequently, is a lot worse.

You may not like Guantanamo. But many people in this country think it’s a great idea. They are voters too, and their opinion is just as valid as yours, right? I mean, a majority of people in this country think gay marriage is wrong. What if you think it’s right? Who wins? They do.

It doesn’t matter if you’re on the ethically right side of an issue or not; if the majority votes against you you’re screwed. That’s a fundamental problem and is what is MOST worrying about today’s ultra-high partisanship, win at any cost politics. By demonizing our opponents, burning our bridges, and refusing to admit we are wrong, we can weaken or even lose our best defense against the evils of democracy.

I’m not even talking about gross corruption, nepotism. chicanery, gerrymandering and general tomfoolery. You get crap like that in any government.

Meta note: the post title was orginally a typo, but a felicitous one, so I decided to leave it.

Thanks, Amy. Of course I’d normally just link to the tweet but my updates are protected. Click to embiggen.

As for where I’m at with getting a final edit of the book, well, it’s been busy around here. Peggy just quit her job and we’re moving, so I have to clean and pack and find a place to live on top of everything else. Finding a place to live has taken up most of our free evenings for the past month or so. Basically the book sits on the corner of my desk, mocking me.

Sheets after the jump. (more…)

Cops aren’t taught to do that anymore because today it’s all about numbers. You can get a number by just going up on the corner and grabbing somebody and getting a bag off of him. That’s the easy thing. If taking a guy in for drinking a beer on the street is a “1,” and catching the kingpin is a “1,” well, it takes two minutes to catch the guy with the beer can. It could take you two years to catch the kingpin. If numbers are all the department cares about, then the guy who pursues the kingpin is wasting his time.

• Cookie
• Cake
• Berries
• Flowers
• Music
• Olive
• Juice
• Poopy
• Shoes

Phrases my 19 month old daughter still has problems with:

• Come here please
• Leave that alone
• I’ll be right back
• Put that down
• Let go of Kitty’s tail
• Stop eating rocks
• No, Goddamnit
• Get back here!