How to Bleach Images in Photoshop from Mac|Life
April 21, 2012
The bleached out color effect is a popular one these days and you may have wondered exactly how this is achieved. This tutorial on the “bleach bypass process” by Rob Lawton from the Mac|Life website shows you how to do it in clear, easy to follow steps.
I’ve been a subscriber to their print magazine since it was called MacAddict and was the first American Mac-centric publication to include a CD-ROM with each issue back in 1996.
The editorial tone is far less fannish and insular these days and more accurately reflects the broad appeal of Apple products to the audience beyond the fanboys. They used to have an inane stick-figure mascot named Max and their reviews used to rate software and products from “Blech” to “Freakin’ Awesome.”
At that time it always seemed to me a mash-up of skate-board kulture and computing. Adults would hide their copies behind an issue of the more mainstream and respectable MacWorld (where New York Times tech columnsit David Pogue got his start).
Today no one needs to hide their copies of Mac|Life; it’s been one of the most successful re-brandings of a print publication in this new century, IMO.
Why Do Dogs Love to Stick their Heads Out of Car Windows?
April 21, 2012
Anyone familiar with the canine nose already knows the answer to this one. It’s not the sights or sounds, it’s the smells.
On average a dog has more than 220 million olfactory receptors compared to the 5 million or so that humans have. They’ve also got something else we don’t have: a chamber called the vomeronasal organ. When a dog sniffs odor molecules accumulate in another unique structure, a sort of nasal pocket created by a bony subethmoidal shelf. This is the structure that allows dogs to compare a scent and then track it.
Their noses are far more acute than their eyes; the opposite is true for humans. So for a dog the appeal of having the air rush through their noses at the speed of a car is a sensory smörgåsbord of every smell in the area, constantly refreshed with new scents as the terrain changes. It’s stimulating to them in a way that is hard to compare to a human’s ability to sense and appreciate pleasant smells.
So, within reason, this is a pleasure you shouldn’t deny your pooch. I don’t allow it on highways, for example, but cruising around town on local roads I’ll always lower a window for my dogs, even in the bitter cold of winter.
New, More Accurate Dog Age Chart from Tufts University
April 20, 2012
It used to be that you multiplied your dog’s age by 7 and came out with a rough equivalent human age. Then this was refined by making the first year of your dog’s life equal 10 human years, the second 8 years and all the rest 7. This certainly seemed appropriate to me as the owner/guardian of two Labrador Retrievers.
At 2 years old they did seem like 18 year-old boys, not quite fully mature but certainly no longer “kids.”
Now the folks at Tufts University who publish the excellent Your Dog newsletter have added an additional factor: your dog’s weight, making this calculation even more accurate (see the chart below). Click image for larger size.
WordPress Stats Infographic from Yoast
April 20, 2012
Click image for larger size.
Optical Illusion of the Day – April 20, 2012
April 20, 2012
The Café Wall Illusion. All lines are straight and parallel to each other. Don’t believe it? Put a straight edge up against your computer screen for confirmation.
Click image for larger size.
Glucosamine for your Arthritic Dog – What’s the Benefit? from “Good Old Dog”
April 20, 2012
“Glucosamine. When it comes to glucosamine, a supplement used to quell arthritis pain, the evidence is a little more compelling, with the emphasis on a little. That is, the science showing any benefit is not nearly as strong as word on the street.
Note that as an ingredient in store-bought food, there will probably never be enough glucosamine to have a therapeutic effect. That’s true even for therapeutic foods you can get only at the doctor’s office. Yes, they are analyzed so that glucosamine levels indicated will be in the food. But most do not reach levels that may have potential therapeutic benefits. Glucosamine must be taken in the form of pills to reach a therapeutic level.
Specifics on choosing glucosamine for an arthritic dog will be addressed in Chapter 4, but be aware that even if you do choose to give your arthritic dog glucosamine supplements, whatever it does for him won’t be a drop in the bucket compared to the benefit of helping him get into optimal body condition, meaning helping him to lose weight if he’s overweight. Lifestyle-wise, that’s the number one thing you can do to lessen an arthritic dog’s pain.”
DogTV: Minimally Useful Cable Programming for Your Pooch
April 20, 2012
Your dog does not want or need this but you can probably be guilted into wasting your money on it.
If you read the article carefully you’ll note the various disclaimers. Remember also that journalists are often shills for marketers (newspapers are, like television stations, primarily advertising delivery systems).
Dogs are not primarily visual creatures, they live in an ocean of smells. As Dr. Nicholas Dodman, Director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at the Cumming School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University and celebrated author of many great books on dog care makes clear that the service to add here is smell.
It’s not even proven that dogs can recognize images on digital televisions, as they couldn’t on analog sets previously. Certainly they can hear the content of DogTV. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this service can in any way replace proper socialization for puppies.
The claim that you can prevent rescued dogs from going kennel-crazy with a combination of DogTV a two 20-minute walks a day is an accurate statement. The only problem is that you can eliminate the DogTV and achieve the same result. It’s like saying you can add water to water to make it more watery.
The only aspect of this that can be of any real benefit is the audio component. But dog radio wouldn’t get the marketplace traction that dog TV will.
My opinion? Don’t waste your money and save up to hire a dog walker to take your dog out while you are at work. In the real world. With smells and interaction with actual grass, sidewalks, other people and, hopefully, other real dogs.
Not dogs on a LCD screen.
Facebook is Evil: 5 Binding Terms of Service That Should Give You Pause
April 20, 2012
If you know me, and you probably don’t, I think Facebook is evil, as I’ve said before. Any group, online or off, with close to a billion members is one I want to avoid on the Groucho principal: “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”
I was once told that because I wasn’t on Facebook I didn’t exist. This person couldn’t understand my elation at that thought.
She did not grasp that people are only tolerable in strictly limited numbers. As my close personal friend Jean-Paul Sartre is always reminding me, “L’enfer, c’est les autres.” (I won’t translate, someday you’ll understand). Get a group of them together and what do you have? A mob. And mobs are capable of the most vicious things imaginable. Except when they gather together for a Zombie Walk. Then they are just swell.
Here’s an article from Business Pundit that lists 5 sections of the Facebook terms of service that should give you pause.
1.) Facebook retains the right to use your content however they see fit, forever.
2.) Facebook tracks you based on where you log in, even after you’ve logged off.
3.) Facebook’s arbitration statement insures that they will never be held liable for any damages you may suffer from their service.
4.) Facebook sells your address, your email, your cell phone number and all other information it collects to third-party developers, external websites and advertisers.
5.) Finally, like most TOS or EULA’s (end user license agreements) Facebook can change their Terms of Service any time without notifying you.
So go ahead. Give your digital life over to Mark Zuckerberg. You can trust him with your intimate relationships, your marriage, your career, your future job prospects, your friends, your family and your reputation. He’d never do anything that might cause you the slightest difficulty. After all, his only concern is making money off you. And when did that ever go horribly, horribly wrong?
Bacon Roses
April 20, 2012
I was speaking with a neighbor the other day about how my religion prohibits exercise – hail Satan! – and has as its primary sacraments Bacon and Cheesecake (the finest in the world comes, of course, exclusively from Junior’s on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn).
Later that same day I was perusing pages on the InterWebs and came across this photo (below).
More proof, as if any was needed, that there’s nothing that can’t be improved by adding bacon. . .
Dain Fagerholm’s Stereoscopic Drawings
March 29, 2012
Seattle-based artist/illustrator Dain Fagerholm is making excellent use of the classic Compuserve GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) to create wobble-stereoscopic drawings (see examples below).
The second version of the GIF format (released in 1989) supported animation on multiple file layers with a palette of 256 colors and has been responsible for some of the most annoying visuals on the web since the early 1990’s. So it’s wonderful that after all this time – and the rise (and fall) of Flash and HTML5 – someone is using it to create real art.
The illusion of depth is compelling and the charm of these low-tech, hand-made creations is captivating. Please check out Dain’s website and support this artist’s unique work.
