October was a good one... pictures from London & Paris

Jen and I were able to take a much needed long break from work and life in Columbus and headed off to London.  We kicked off the vacation with Jen's 30th birthday.  We stayed with my sister at her flat in Fulham for a few days before taking the Eurostar (via the chunnel) down to Paris for 4 days.  Back to London, and a few days later back home....


Jen & Jay's Europe 2008 Vacation Slideshow from Jay Karr on Vimeo.

You can also view the full picture set at Flickr.

Simplify Meda available to stream iTunes library to iPhone over EDGE, 3G, WiFI

Simplify Media available in the App Store now, allowing streaming of iTunes music library to your iPhone.  The official app has album art, lyrics and artist bios and works over EDGE, 3G and Wi-FI.

It's free for the first 100k downloaders:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284941327&mt=8

Posted by email from jaykarr's posterous

Congrats on the medal tonight!

I got an email last night from Cam.

> From: Cam Rink
> To: Jay Karr
> Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:51:33 +0000
> Subject: olympics
>
> We all agree - you look like the swimmer Vanderkay (sp?)... Congrats on the medal tonight!

There are a couple mysteries here:

1) Who is the "we" in reference?

Whoever it is, there's apparently some critical mass.  My receipt of the communication must have been an action item outcome from a board meeting.  OR, he means he and his wife, Kristi, and their new(ish) baby, Campbell.

Either way, I have to take this seriously.

2) Why do I naturally object to comparisons like this?

I think it comes down to a simple but powerful term: terminal uniqueness.  I think this originated in the 12-step circles but the concept is universal.  As we go through life, we feel that our situation is completely different than everyone else, that no one else could possible understand what it's like to walk in my shoes.  Terminal comes into play because it holds you back.  I'd go as far as to say that there's an even smarter implicit concept at play as the single most un-unique characteristic of life is that it will end, regardless of what you do.

I came to grips with my own ununiqueness some time ago.  Just as Google helped to teach me how to eliminate rust from a stainless steel kitchen sink, it has also tought me that someone, somewhere has already had that completely insane thought, totally weird idea for a product and even better, provided an answer to the question I didn't ask.

And, there's something absolutely comforting about that.  I'm happy to take the ego hit, to know that I'm not alone.

Oh, here's a shot of Peter Vanderkaay.

Acceptable Quality and Resolution for Digital Photography Archives

My sister has asked me for copies of photographs from about 10 years ago, when she visited my in Italy.  The truth is I'd love to share those pictures but most of them don't exist in any digital format.  She's now looking into some other options for her other old photos but it got me thinking: what's an acceptable "archive" format?  I remember the old days of ripping CDs to MP3s and regretting years later that I didn't have the foresight to rip to a lossless format like FLAC (or even WMV).

Years ago I bought a scanner with the intent of scanning as close to source material as I could (35mm negatives, slides, photos themselves when there is nothing better).  I didn't get very far, which is a shame because I have a lot of cool memories hidden away in there from trips to Russia, Italy, Spain, London, etc...

What is an acceptable resolution for photographs?

According to the U.S. National Archives standards, a digital equivalent should roughly match the quality of a 35mm photo.  That's a good benchmark.

Here are a few of the details for digital photos:

• Color images must be produced in RGB (Red Green Blue) color mode as 24-bit or 48-bit color files.
• Effective January 1, 2005, digital camera files must be captured as 6 megapixel files or greater with a minimum pixel array of 3,000 pixels by 2,000 pixels. Records produced at this resolution and size are comparable in quality to 35-mm film photographs, which is the minimum quality level for still pictures currently accepted by NARA [see 36 CFR 1228.266(b)].

Here's the scoop on scanned photos:

• Photographs must be scanned as minimum 2,000 line files 8 to approximate a 2 megapixel file according to the following image size and resolution guidelines. (Note: image resolution for scanned images of photographs will vary according to the size of the source document, which may affect actual pixel dimensions and aspect ratios):
• Scan an 8" x 10" original (print, slide or negative) at 200 dpi 9 to produce a file that is 1,600 x 2,000 pxels.
• Scan a 4" x 5" original (print, slide or negative) at 400 dpi to produce a file that is 1,600 x 2,000 pixels.
• Scan a 35-mm original (print, slide or negative) at 1400 dpi to produce a file that is 1,300 x 2,000 pixels.

You Son of a Bitch.

s0u1man: hey, what's your twitter account again?

slightlyseven: jaykarr. i don't really use it.

s0u1man: oh man, that was totally a test! and you so completely failed! I had high hopes for you, my friend.

slightlyseven: always unfounded. i just can't get into it.

s0u1man: i hear you, i'm chained to a computer enough as it is.

slightlyseven: it just feels like more work to me. i guess i don't understand the benefit.

s0u1man:you don't? everyone gets to know what you're doing. right.... now.

slightlyseven: i'm not that special or cool.

s0u1man: and now!

s0u1man: now!

s0u1man: NOW!

slightlyseven: i'm still working on a blog. i'll get to tweeting in a few years.

s0u1man: by then, microblogging will have moved on. oh man, i just had the best idea of my life. what's the next step below micro? whateverthatisblogging..... we'll set up a site where you log in and just constantly change your status to a new, 1-word descriptor..... "eating" "coffee" "train" "sleepy." we can really cut to the chase that way. 140 characters is clearly too much work

s0u1man:nanoblogging? does that work?

slightlyseven: actually, the problem will become this: at some point, it becomes so granular the only thing you have to update is on the act of updating. so my twitter entry will be "updating my twitter entry" and i won't have time for anything else. it'll be insane once my twitter account reflects my action of updating my facebook state.

s0u1man: ha! i'm seriously going to set this up... you know, in my free time

slightlyseven:"free time"

s0u1man:and one of the default options available will be "twittering." ha!

slightlyseven: i'll follow you. and get a text message every time.

s0u1man: i think i've found my next blog topic

slightlyseven: yeah, i already had that idea first

s0u1man: bullshit

slightlyseven: no, seriously

s0u1man: well i called dibs

slightlyseven: i'm way ahead of you

s0u1man: we'll see who can code it first, i guess

slightlyseven: i'm twittering right now about how i'm going to blog about it

s0u1man: you son of a bitch.

Jackpot: new Goldmund and Helios releases announced for 2008

I love music.

I filled up my shelves with thousands of CDs that followed me around from college to move after move. In boxes, in storage, all the way to Chicago in 2002. The Amazon marketplace sales paid for rent while I searched for a real job. I remember walking from our apartment on Patterson Ave., a couple blocks from the lake, up to the post office on Irving Park to deliver around 30 CD mailings a day as I sold off the physical collection. But, I lived on music.

It was a fundamental shift, as CDs were replaced with ripped mp3s on iPods, now to even to huger harddrives on my Windows Home Server. My tastes have grown, stretched, refined but I've also discovered the decrease in the marginal return for a new "album." Yes, I still call them that. Born in '77, my first music was vinyl but more along the lines of the Sesame Street collection played on the Fisher Price. It wasn't until I was older -- right around the pivitol 1991 period of rock -- when I decided that the best songs weren't the best known songs. I'm a full disc, full album, full catalog completist. I work the same way with books and authors, devouring every single book from Haruki Murakami.

It starts with a song. It's the album, though, the consistent growers, that I live for.

And Helios is impressive stuff. Keith Kenniff is probably my favorite artists right now. Under the names Helios and Goldmund, every release has been worthwhile. Nothing matches the absolutely perfect collection of songs in 2006's Eingya. I found it in those Chicago days. I remember the first time I listened to it on the Blue line commute home from Jackson to Division, underground and white-noise quiet the whole way, lopping tracks and syncopated distractions scoring the backdrop after a day's work. By the time I got to track 5, I was blown away. This is the sound of the stuff that I would write and record, if I could write and record. Well, anything other than ringtones (I'll get to that in another post). It resonated.

And here we go: jackpot.

New Goldmund album: The Malady of Elegance

The new Goldmund album, "The Malady of Elegance" will be released on Type Records in late July. Clips are posted on the main MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/goldmundmusic.

New Helios album: Caesura

To be released later 2008. In the interim, Keith has promised to provide an unreleased song a month until the release. Check out more details at http://www.myspace.com/thesadepicurean.

Download three Helios unreleased tracks:
Helios - Land Father
Helios - Isoline
Helios - Radiohead Remix

Download a new Goldmund track from "The Malady of Elegance":
Goldmund - In A Notebook

Firefox 3 is good, not "awesome"

I've finally made the update to Firefox 3.

My deal breaker during the betas was the lack of an update for Google's Browser Sync, confirmed as discontinued. After searching out the beta of Mozilla's Weave I have that functionality replicated so I'm happy. The additional "evolutions" of the browser are pretty subtle but nice.

I have a big problem with the AwesomeBar. The functionally is great -- it pulls from my browsing history as well as bookmarks to give me some smart results based on “frecency” (an algorithm combining frequency + recency). But... do you see what's happening here?

Maybe it's because I've just plowed through a full season of "How I Met Your Mother" in a 24 hour period, where Barney, Ted and Marshall use "awesome" to an astoundlingly awesome degree, but I hate the trendy nature of the marketing around FF3... it's just so 2007. We're doing the same thing to "frequency" and "recency" as we do for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? Clever, VH1's writers of Best Week Ever, also moonlighting as marketing communications at Mozilla! It's awesome.