While looking for some information on how to export photos directly from Adobe Lightroom to Flickr, I landed on Andy’s My Enlightenment blog. In addition to featuring some beautifully illuminated photos there and on his Flickr account, Andy also had a couple of posts that included an embedded Flickr slideshow. Off on a different search now, I found a tool called “flickrSLiDR” on the Great Flickr Tools Collection, that turns out to be the same one Andy is using.

The tool is available here and it described in more detail by its creator, Paul Stamatiou, on his site, here.

Below is a slideshow of my photographs from the Atlanta History Center. You can move the mouse toward the top of the slideshow to control the display and speed, and toward the bottom to select individual photos from the set. Or, click on any photo to stop the slideshow and get links to my Flick account.

I seriously love the way this thing works!!

Created with Paul’s flickrSLiDR.

Like most of the RSS readers, Newsgator Online has a clippings function, where you can save copies of blog articles and other readings from around the Internet, for future savoring. For a while now, I’ve been clipping things I wanted to write about “lateron” — but in most cases I never got around to doing the work. So, of the fifty or so I’ve accumulated, here’s a set of something-for-everyone links (with free remarks!):

– From the excellent technology site Ars Technica, an exhaustive review of the iPhone — a gadget I’m fascinated by (isn’t everybody?), but I don’t own and don’t plan to buy any time soon, mainly because of the price. There are too many other things I could do with $500 to $600.

– From Popular Photography and Imaging, a review of a new Sony Zeiss lens, something I’d much rather spend my money on than the iPhone (no offense intended against the iPhone cult!). New lenses… mmmmmmmmmm….

– Via Jesse Walker’s article Cartography for the Masses on Reason’s Hit and Run, a link to Google Maps is Changing the Way We See the World on Wired. This article begs for a whole lot more attention from me than this short mention, believe me; I hope to get around to giving it a slow, careful reading … and writing more about it.

– From Scott Yarborough at StorySouth, a discussion of the state of the short-story market and how that market has been affected by other media, including the Internet and electronic publishing. It reminds me of that gnawing sensation in the back of my mind: the question of whether or not I’ll put some fiction writing on this site. When I know the answer, I’ll tell you. Articles like this one, however, make me feel like I should.

– A few articles about the emergence of a blogger’s “code of conduct” — a subject that I thought I would be interested in then completely forgot about. But I might decide to look at these and the articles they link to again: Bloggers React to the Blogger’s Code of Conduct, You are your own code of conduct, and Bloggers Get Civilized?

– From Fusion View, a thoughtful reminder that the virtualization of our lives and our cultures comes at a price.

– From Ben Casnocha, an article and a review — The Expected Value of Being a Fox vs. Hedgehog and Book Review: One Person/Multiple Careers — that introduced me to the idea of “slash careers” and to Marci Alboher’s blog. The timing of Casnocha’s articles and discovering Alboher’s blog was very useful to me; I had right around the same time been working toward my own conclusion that all these different things I’m interested in (namely: writing, history, photography, and technology) don’t have to be treated as mutually exclusive from a career perspective, and that I’ll figure out ways to integrate them all into who I am and what I do. I’ll come back to this topic later; it’s one of the most fascinating technological/cultural (slash!) developments of our time that people are exploring multiple career paths. The things that have made this possible are culturally, technically, and socially very complex, and the potential effects are yet-to-be-understood and enormous.

– From Performancing.com, a Blog Reboot Session with some excellent suggestions. Since I just added Google’s AdSense to this site, I need to take a closer look. But I’m not so sure about the idea of including ads on every post. While I can understand how that would improve ad traffic, I’ve always thought it was visually unappealing and distracting — equally so when the ads are captured by an RSS reader. But I’ll think about it.

– From The Austrian Economists, When Global Cooling Was Upon Us… complete with the image of 1975 Newsweek article announcing the impending disaster. Good to know we survived that one….

Phew! That was exhausting! But that does it, that empties out the clippings file (except for three more that I’ve stuffed in my back pocket). I feel SO CAUGHT UP now! Or should I say … “for now” ….

From Marc Andreessen, a nicely written set of observations on his experiences since starting a blog less than two months ago. My favorites are the fifth and the seventh. Some excerpts:

Fifth, writing a blog is way easier than writing a magazine article, a published paper, or a book — but provides many of the same benefits. I think it’s an application of the 80/20 rule — for 20% of the effort (writing a blog post but not editing and refining it [to] the quality level required of a magazine article, a published paper, or a book), you get 80% of the benefit (your thoughts are made available to interested people very broadly). Arguably blogging is better because the distribution of a blog can be even broader than a magazine article, a published paper, or a book….

Seventh, it is totally clear that original content is what generates readership, at least for most bloggers. Some bloggers who blog a lot and link to a ton of interesting things every day have high levels of readership without a lot of original content, but I’d argue they are in the minority — most of the bloggers I’ve talked to over the last year who have significant levels of traffic attribute their readership mostly to original content, and this is certainly true for my blog….

His comments on challenges to traditional media are exactly true, I think, especially when he points out that the scope of that challenge is still unknown. I think creative discourse across all fields will benefit, in time, but there’s a rupture out there waiting to happen that will need to be healed first. While I hate to cast it as a battle (especially one that hasn’t fully engaged yet), I still think “both sides” will need to be vigilant as we begin to confront the ways in which media is once again changing. What matters, in the end, is that the conversations continue through the connections we make. “Only connect,” is the well-known E. M. Forster phrase we should resurrect for the new century and stamp somewhere on our sites.

Original source: Matthew Ingram: Do Blog Comments Still Matter?

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I’ve added a new feature to the far right sidebar, My Flickr Slideshows, which will run Flickr slideshows for each of my photo sets. The slideshows will open in a new tab or window, depending on your browser, and you can either click the slideshow link to go my Flickr site when you’re finished, or close the session to return here.

I’ve also added a new section called Featured Books. Unlike the books shown under Current Reading and Recent Reading — both of which are images of books that I’m reading or have read but haven’t necessarily discussed here — I’ll use Featured Books to highlight some that I write a post about or take the time to formally review. Like the other books displayed throughout my site, clicking the book’s image will take you to Amazon.com via my associate’s link — by which, of course, I’ll get rich. In addition, I’ll include a link under each book’s image back to the relevant post on this site, so you can read what I have to say about it.

The first book I’m featuring is The Landscape Design Answer Book: More Than 300 Specific Design Solutions for Your Landscape by Jane Bath. Bath is a landscape designer from the Atlanta area, and I heard about her when she approached a friend of mine here in Grant Park, and asked to photograph his home for the book. If you have the book, his house is shown on pages 57, 196, and 312, along with Bath’s comments on various elements of his property that she found exceptional.

I’m writing a discussion post about the book that I’ll publish in the next couple of days. For now, the “More about this book” link will take you back to this entry; when I get the review written, I’ll update the link. In the meantime, if you stumble across Bath’s book at a bookstore, spend some time with it; the writing and the photography (along with the instructional format Bath used to highlight key elements of each photograph) are excellent.

… it sounds an awful lot like a gun going off! Trust me! Don’t try this at home:

Apparently this is what happens when you sit down to write a quick blog post after setting some eggs to boiling, the blog post takes longer than you thought, and you forget about the eggs … they wait about forty minutes then remind you to PAY ATTENTION! Or set a timer next time….

Lunch will be delayed indefinitely….

I’ve set up a collection of photos from two trips to the Atlanta History Center last week. You can learn more about each of the subjects I photographed here:

About the Atlanta History Center

Centennial Olympic Games Museum

Swan House

Tullie Smith Farm

This is the first time I’ve used a Flickr collection, and it seems like they’re a decent way to organize blocks of photos, especially since I tend to take quite a few and post a lot (too many? certainly not!) on the site. I also moved my existing sets into collections; the collections page is here. It would be nice, I think, if Flickr let you pick the images that appear when you direct someone to your photos, and also set a sequence for the collections. Maybe I should send them a suggestion!

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

A few days after I posted this brief rant about television, I saw this Computerworld article, Survey: Internet on the verge of surpassing TV as ‘essential medium’. The article describes a survey done by Edison Media Research, that ranks changes in consumer perceptions about different types of media and how those perceptions have changed in the past five years. You can find the company’s press release and summary of the survey findings here.

Overall, the Internet is closing in on television as the essential source for information and entertainment. This certainly echoes my own experience; like the respondents to the survey, I’m much more likely to turn to the Internet first for news stories and information. For me, that is entertainment. And I’m certainly not surprised that others are finding a growing amount of information and pure entertainment all over the net.

If trends highlighted by the survey continue, the Internet will expand as not only an alternative to television, but as a challenge to it. Whether that challenge improves the quality of television programming, from news to “reality shows” to your favorite cop shows, is a huge unknown right now … but I do hope television executives are paying attention. I was a little surprised to see the survey result that respondents thought television quality had improved over the past five years; I wouldn’t have expected that result for the major networks at least, though I might have come to that conclusion about some of the more popular cable channels.

It would be fascinating, I think, if a survey of this type was conducted with a more detailed comparison of actual uses of the different types of media. A hierarchy seems to be emerging where television and the Internet are competing for the top spot, with radio trailing behind both in its own niche, and newspapers falling quite a bit behind. The newspaper, as many of us have grown up knowing it, is probably close to dead, though wrapping itself in technology may make it useful to us in different forms. Whether or not The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal present themselves as primarily digital content or on paper isn’t critical; their cultural role is the same regardless of the form they take. But they will need to adapt well to the new forms, or they’ll make themselves obsolete.