Another view of two of the Presidential Tower buildings, taken a few seconds before this photo.
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: Salvador 84
Flash: Off
Film: DreamCanvas
Tag: iPhone
links for 2010-10-11
“Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan (Hardcover)” Jake Adelstein
I just finished this book last night, can you tell?
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I have a guarantee from someone up high in the Yamaguchi-gumi that they won’t touch my family. Their word is pretty solid. It’s a gentleman’s agreement that they’ll only kill me, which makes me feel better.
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Jake Adelstein talks about a Japanese crime lord who flipped other members of the Yakuza to get a liver transplant in the U.S.
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This lack of cooperation was partly responsible for an astonishing deal made with the yakuza, and for the story that changed my life. On May 18, 2001, the FBI arranged for Tadamasa Goto — a notorious Japanese gang boss, the one that some federal agents call the “John Gotti of Japan” — to be flown to the United States for a liver transplant.
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since each lens, film, and flash produces a different look, it can get overwhelming. You know, like, what does the Jimmy lens look like if you use Pistil film and the Dreampop flash?
6 lenses + 7 flash options + 8 films = 336 different combinations. YIKES!
So we took 336 photos with every possible combination of the Hipstamatic arsenal. (Because we love you.) And we’ve even broken it down into an easy guide to tell you which combos go together.
Ephemeral Echoes
A flower pot’s reflection on a table top is but a pale echo of the real thing, in many respects.
Developed in SwankoLab for iPhone1
Taken with Hipstamatic 1752
Lightbox version is just a click away…
Footnotes:links for 2010-10-04
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Appcelerator and IDC surveyed 2,363 of over 70,000 developers who use Appcelerator’s Titanium application development platform on their plans, interests and perceptions of the major mobile and tablet OS providers. The Macalope asks this every time one of these surveys appears: is that representative of the whole? Of course not. It’s representative of the fact that Appcelerator wants to drive traffic to its site by publishing some incendiary survey results. This survey most likely specifically excludes those who’ve been developing for the Mac for years and are nominally more likely to be Apple enthusiasts.
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Artisanal breads begin with just four ingredients – flour, water, salt and yeast – and turn them into loaves so crusty, chewy and fragrant that you cannot stop eating them. If they have some whole grain in them, even better.
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Most Chicagoans who work in the Loop have some familiarity with the Pedway, Chicago’s network of (mostly) underground passages and tunnels that transports pedestrians from the E,l to shopping, to work, without having to step foot out into the snow or rain. Many of us, however, use it purely to get to work and back, without ever bothering to find out just where the mysterious bends can actually take us. Let’s face it–the Pedway can be downright intimidating. So, both locals and tourists will be interested in local improviser and tour guide, Margaret Hicks’, reprisal of her Pedway Tour. The intriguing, 90-minute tour begins again this month, and features some of Chicago’s most famous buildings, without stepping outside.
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In 1976, two years before his 60th birthday, Ingmar Bergman was rehearsing a play at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm when two plainclothes policemen arrested and booked him for income-tax fraud. Although the charges were false and eventually dropped, this terribly humiliating experience caused the internationally acclaimed Swedish filmmaker to suffer a nervous breakdown and a deep depression. He vowed never to work again in his native country, and began a self-imposed exile
Disappearing Mist
Lightbox version
iPhone photo from quite a while ago, at Big Bowl, I think, modified recently in SwankoLab.1
Title is again a poorly remembered Japanese proverb, which according to Wikiquote reads as:
雲散霧消 unsan mushō
- Literally: scattered clouds, disappearing mist
- Meaning: Disappear without a trace.
- using Grizzle Fix, Rasputin, and Vinny’s BL94 [↩]
Shadowy realms
A self-portrait composed of shadows and window illumination.
Developed in SwankoLab for iPhone using Jerry’s Developer, Vinny’s CO34, and Zero
www.flickr.com/photos/swanksalot/4993298821/lightbox/
created using a Photojojo lens, which isn’t really a viable lens for an iPhone, but I used it anyway. Blocks the flash, and isn’t compatible with my iPhone case anyway. Oh well. Can use it for a moment, but not for long.
Should have looked away
Developed in SwankoLab for iPhone using Vinny’s BL94, Vinny’s BL04, Noir Fixer, and Noir Fixer
(the blue is from a bug in the current version of SwankoLab)
self portraits August 1 2010
More fun with iPhone camera applications. This was created using pic grunger and IncrediBooth
This self portrait just with pic grunger alone
End of Days blues
Developed in SwankoLab for iPhone using Vinny’s BL94, Vinny’s BL94, Noir Fixer, and MineCo Sapphire Wash
view of afternoon traffic out of my office window…
Click twice to embiggen
We are Apple We Don’t Even Own Suits
Loved this quote about wardrobe choice in the middle of a long, interesting article about the fractious relationship between Apple and AT&T1. I’ve had a contract with Verizon previously, and the restrictions Verizon placed on the phone were ridiculous.
Looking back, it’s clear that the cracks in the Apple-AT&T relationship began forming as soon as Jobs announced the iPhone in January 2007. It was the first time the public got to see the long-rumored device — and, shockingly, the first time AT&T’s board of directors saw it as well. (Apple refused to show the phone to all but a handful of top AT&T execs before the launch.) The split only deepened from there. Apple and AT&T have bickered about how the iPhone was to be displayed in AT&T’s stores: Apple insisted the phone be presented on its own display stand, away from other models. They have even fought about wardrobe: When an AT&T representative suggested to one of Jobs’ deputies that the Apple CEO wear a suit to meet with AT&T’s board of directors, he was told, “We’re Apple. We don’t wear suits. We don’t even own suits.”
(click to continue reading Bad Connection: Inside the iPhone Network Meltdown | Magazine.)
Also, kudos to Steve Jobs for telling the AT&T hack to piss off. Apple isn’t a servant to AT&T, if anything, they are equals, and one could actually argue that Apple is in the dominant position.
Solipsistic note – was recently at a high level meeting, and I wore a suit, sans necktie, and was happy when the room full of execs we met were all in business casual attire, and not a suit to be found. I don’t mind having to wear a suit actually, as long as I don’t have to put on a tie.
Footnotes:- SBC [↩]
Martin Peers Despises the iPhone
After reading articles like this, you have to wonder if Martin Peers is short-selling Apple stock, or perhaps a paid consultant for a competing cellphone corporation. Or else is quoting, without attribution, trash-talk from a friend who is a member of one of these cult-like Wall Street industries.
If the iPhone 4 has become “the most successful product launch in Apple’s history,” as the company says, one wouldn’t want to imagine the worst.
Apple’s statement overlooked the fact that its fourth-generation phone has an antenna design that may require consumers either to buy a case or learn to hold the phone in a particular way to ensure reception. Usually the idea is to produce phones that get clearly better, not worse, with each new version.
So far at least, Apple’s cult-like fan base seems willing to give the company the benefit of the doubt. Apple said Monday the product had sold a remarkable 1.7 million units in the first three days.
Investors shouldn’t take too much comfort, however. A lot of those sales likely came from preorders placed before reports of the antenna weakness circulated. What’s more, many of the initial sales also were likely upgrades by existing iPhone owners. These people already have shown themselves willing to put up with reception problems—although in the past they could blame AT&T’s clogged network.
The real question has to be whether concerns about the antenna, combined with carrier congestion issues, will slow uptake of the iPhone among customers not yet converted to Apple worship. Not only are they likely to be less patient with any product failings, they can now choose from an ever-widening array of alternative smartphones.
(click to continue reading HEARD ON THE STREET: The Curious Case of iPhone 4 – WSJ.com.)
Oh yes, this is the worst launch of a new product, evah! Worse than the Edsel, worse than the Palm Pre, worse than Zune, yadda yadda. Even worse than the Apple Lisa!
In Mr. Peers world, isolated media reports about antenna failure if you hold your fingers in an odd spot is the same as an antenna failure in all 1,700,000 iPhone 4s sold.1 Also, if you purchase an iPhone, you apparently join some sort of religious cult, though I don’t know why this is even relevant to the WSJ readership. I’m not sure how purchasing an electronic gadget transforms one into a brain-eating zombie, Mr. Peers forgot to include his exposition explaining how this occurs, or the editors removed it for space reasons. Maybe FaceTime does something to your neurons?
Another point worth noting, Mr. Peers believes there are exactly zero improvements in the iPhone 4; battery life increases, better camera, higher pixel display, these are actually downgrades. Who knew? Silly me for believing that doubling the RAM2 would be an enhancement.
Look, corporations are not people3, and Apple is not your aunt Millie – Apple deserves and should receive criticism sometimes. But this Martin Peers dude isn’t dishing any valid criticisms, he’s just asking to replace John Dvorak as linkbait troll of the day, worthy of cynical laughter, no more.
Footnotes:iPhone 4 sold like gangbusters
Unfortunately, the goobers at AT&T were overwhelmed with the amount of pre-orders, and couldn’t handle 600,000 hits on their servers. Amazing, really, how poor AT&T’s website is, especially since this is the fourth iPhone they’ve sold. Didn’t they remember what happened for versions 1,2, and 3? I tried to pre-order my iPhone 4 upgrade about 50 times yesterday, and never got very far in the process.
This morning around 9, I tried a last time, and all went smoothly, if a little slowly. I can’t really be mad, the thing is just a fracking gadget, but still, I wasted a lot of time repeatedly entering my ten digit phone number, my billing zip code, and the last four digits of my Social Security number, only to watch the gophers at AT&T churn, and fail to process the request.
Apple Inc. said it took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of its new iPhone 4 on its first day of availability, amid strong demand that overwhelmed computer systems and resulted in “many order and approval system malfunctions.”
The company said “many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration. We apologize to everyone who encountered difficulties, and hope that they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4 is in stock.”
AT&T Inc. said Wednesday it had stopped taking advance orders for the iPhone 4 just one day after orders started, citing inventory issues and unexpectedly high demand.
The carrier is suspending the orders “in order to fulfill the orders we’ve already received,” it said in a statement. It might resume taking pre-orders before the June 24 launch, depending on inventory, AT&T added.
The suspension comes a day after a crush of traffic paralyzed AT&T and Apple’s Web sites on the first day of pre-orders, leaving many unable to reserve the new iPhone ahead of time while some customers inadvertently ended up on others’ account pages.
(click to continue reading Apple, AT&T Cite Record iPhone Sales – WSJ.com.)
Imperia Russian vodka
From St Petersberg since 1894, quartz filtered
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Film: Float
Flash: Off
The embiggening
Can’t claim I even like vodka very much, and yet….
Dreaming of Fulton Market Cold Storage
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Film: Float
Flash: Off
Was considered to be converted into condos, but that was before the mortgage bubble ended.
Morning Metaphorical Ablutions
Embiggening is just a click away…
Developed in SwankoLab for iPhone using Vinny’s BL94, Vinny’s BL04,
and Flamoz Fixer
sun rising above the skyline this morning