I am now officially home, exhausted to the point of nearly comatose. I have many thoughts but I want to sleep. Blogging tomorrow & Thursday to catch up, now that I am back on good fast, reliable wifi/internet.
I took a cool photo as we fly over Labrador, just as the plane crossed over into North America, but I can't find it on my phone to post.
Glad to be home. Bizarrely, Los Angeles is cooler in temperature than London by some.
Tue 06.30.09 - Fare thee well, London-town.
Mon 06.29.09 - Speaking of Carl Zeiss lens's, Dan Rubin brought his lovely eBay steal of a Hasselblad with him to my last night in London meet up at the Phoenix Artist Club. And the Hasselblad had a Carl Zeiss lens on it. Everyone at the table was very excited when Dan brought the Hasselblad out of his bag.
Yes, photo geeks we are. All too true.
Mon 06.29.09 - As I was walking back to the Tower Hill Tube station after visiting Steve and Lobelia Lawson at their house barge on the Thames near the Design Museum, I saw The Gherkin, the glass skyscraper euphemistically named after a pickle rather than a phallic symbol, framed by the Tower Bridge. I was in a rush to not be late to meet up with folks at the Phoenix Club, but I stopped nonetheless to catch this photo.
Mon 06.29.09 - A small tug boat on a barge dry dock in the Thames River, moored to a wharf on the Southbank near the Design Museum. I was visiting Steve & Lobelia Lawson when I spied this marvelous approach to boat repair.
Sun 06.28.09 - Much fun was had by all at the post-birthday BBQ for Ms. Vikki Chowney that Camilla Blackett held at her fabulous loft flat at the Church in Camden. This photo was taken after a flat of Kinder Eggs and a fifth of Jose Cuervo tequila was procured. The chocolate exterior's of the kinder eggs were used as shot chocolates for the tequila. It was later determined by the testers that rum worked better in the kinder eggs than tequila, as rum is more favorable to milk and white chocolate. Tequila would do better in a dark chocolate egg.
Allix formed the internal plastic kinder egg cases into jewellery for Cam.
Sun 06.28.09 - Vikki Chowney and James Whatley display the best of English summer BBQing weather...
;oD
Sat 06.27.09 - Saturday was a big delight. I took the train from London Paddington out to Oxfordshire to hang out with Family Hicks. We had a nice lunch in their backyard, I got to meet Tufts and Tom Tom the new guinea pigs, and then we went out to Chipping Norton for Mantha's 8th birthday musical theatre adventure.
Upon return to Chez Hicks, the little ones had tea then went to bed. Leigh and I procured beverages and very good Chinese to go food, friends dropped in, and then karaoke was sung on Sing-Song (?). Unfortunately for me, I had to get to the train station to catch a the last train back into London before I could sing my Darkness song.
Even more unfortunately, my train was 1.5 hours late (o.O). But it was all worth it for the gloriousness that is Oxfordshire in the summer.
Big thanks to Leigh and Jon for hosting me.
Fri 06.26.09 - After dinner at Busaba Eathai on Wardour St, we walked over to Broadwick St. to get a photo in front of the cholera water pump (see "Ghost Map") and then to have drinks at the John Snow Pub. It was good fun and Dan Rubin brought his bag of camera fun, which included a Fuji polaroid style camera that at the very end of the night, we took lots of photos with. More like all the ladies took photos with Jason Santa Maria (in the red shirt) and Jeremy Keith (white shirt with stripes & crosses).
All in all, it was a completely delightful evening. Many thanks to all.
Fri 06.26.09 - Jon Hicks and Andy Budd enjoying the sunshine outside of the Southbank Royal (something) Hall near Waterloo Station, London. About a half hour later, or as the cat herding organizers turn, a group of us walked over the bridge, through Leicester Sq, up into Soho to go have dinner to the same delicious Thai restaurant that Andy took my Mom and I to in Nov of 2007 and whose name I have forgotten now. The said Thai place was able to seat 14 of us with no reservation after a small wait on a Friday night. They Rock. If I could just remember the name...
A nice Google search has yielded the name - Busaba Eathai at 106 Wardour St. Delicious.
Fri 06.26.09 - Two of the bestest, dearest gentlemen on the planet: Steve Lawson and James Whatley.
Fri 06.26.09 - This morning I had the most delightful time at the Tuttle Club London, which due to a music conference at the ICA was held on the deck of a cafe in St. James Park just across the Mall from the ICA. Being in the park, on a deck, surrounded by grass and trees on such a lovely, sunny morning was the most delightful summery thing I can think of doing in London. Esp. when said activity includes great conversations with like minded geeks.
I think the Tuttle Club LA (LB) needs to meet outside sometime this summer.
Thurs 06.25.09 - A horse chestnut flowering in Hyde Park.
Thurs 06.25.09 - Praise the minor and major deities that rule over YouTube and BTInternet! I have *finally* after 2 days of trying, got video uploaded. In case you were wondering, the internet connection at my hotel in London had slowed the BTInternet snail got off the salt bed intact and found a nice cool misty forest to traverse over, thus while it was still slow it was reasonably slow rather than chew my f*ing arm off slow.
Thus, here it is my video of Phil Campbell reviewing the Nokia N86's video capacities mere minutes after Anssi Mäkelä handed us the phones as we got in the car to go to the Carl Zeiss lens factory tour.
Phil was quite happy with the video capabilities of the N86, and I am more than quite happy with the photography capabilities (with the exception of the focus on the macro setting, but that can be fixed in a software update).
My full review of the N86 and my review of the Carl Zeiss factory tour upcoming.
Tues 06.23.09 - Since I am having video upload FAIL due to my London hotel's bad BTInternet connection, I am uploading this rather amusing video that Rita Khoury (aka Dotsisx) has posted of the two of us giving a Nokia N86 review as we were on the bus from Aalen to Stuttgart after our 1.5 days of Carl Zeiss lens factory tour happiness.
My video of Phil Campbell doing his off the cuff review of the N86's video recording will be coming as soon as I can get the dang thing uploaded.... (grrr...)
Tues 06.23.09 - This panorama is a bit clunky, as I was just learning how to use it, but I love it. I love the Panorama option on the Nokia N86's camera.
Sun 06.21.09 - Sunday night the nice folk from Zeiss took us to a restaurant in the Aalen town center that had good food and drink, and a shiny table.
Sun 06.21.09 - Driving from the Stuttgart airport to Aalen via the autobahn. The countryside was lovely in its summer glory.
I will be on an airplane flying from Los Angeles to Stuttgart, Germany, most likely somewhere over northern Canada when the official summer solstice occurs tonight 10:45pm PDT (5:45am UTC), which is highly appropriate to be in a northern clime during the actually time of "sun-standing".
Here is a cool chart from the US Navy on the relative length of longest day and longest night depending on your latitude: If you live just a bit north of Los Angeles at 35N, then today/tomorrow will have 14 hours and 31 minutes of sun, but if you live in Helsinki or Anchorage at 60N, then you will have 18 hours and 53 minutes of sun (providing it is not cloudy, so I should say daylight)!
If you belong to a good old fashioned Sun based religion, enjoy your day and evening... Happy Midsummer!
Late this afternoon, I will board an airplane at LAX to travel to Stuttgart, Germany, with the eventual destination of arrival in Aalen tomorrow evening. The important detail here is that Aalen is the home of one of the two Carl Zeiss lens factories in the southern part of Germany.
Yes, that Carl Zeiss, the Carl Zeiss of gorgeous Hasselblad lens kits, the Carl Zeiss lenses that photographers drool over for their (D)SLR's, the Carl Zeiss lens that has been on every Nokia Nseries camera phone since the N90. Yes, that Carl Zeiss lens.
Now I love factory tours. Love 'em.
This love dates back to elementary school when we were taken on a tour of the Laura Scudder's peanut butter and potato chip factory in Los Angeles. I love the maze of machines, I love the idea of constructing items within this large space and seemingly endless array of processes. I have gone on tours of champagne bottling, plum jam, peanut butter, extra large printing presses, among others.
On Monday, I get to go tour the Carl Zeiss lens factory.
Photography + Great Design + High Tech Factory + Tour = HAPPY!!!
***********
The next equation I will write about in this series on the Carl Zeiss tour, will be what makes a great digital or mobile phone camera:
Lens (optics) + Sensor Chip + Algorithms + Memory
PyS60 Developers Blog: http://croozeus.com/blogs/
Mobile Lenin on PyS60 ( Mobile PyS60 author) : http://mobilenin.com/pys60/menu.htm
Nokia Open Source on Python for S60 : http://opensource.nokia.com/projects/pythonfors60/
Fri 06.12.09 - Created with PicSay on my Google Ion... I am trying out
all my moblogging options. So far, PicSay is a bit of a fail.
Fri 06.12.09 - Will PostOffice for MT post this cron job email now that I have the correct cron job command?
Update: Yes, it did, but not with the cron job command that my server support team said would work, but with the one that Movable Type said would work.
Update at 4:48pm: Sorry, it ran a couple of times too many before I deleted the test email out of the inbox.
For two reasons, email photos to this blog is going to be an imperfect way to moblog:
1) If one does not delete or move the email out of the inbox, after the cron job runs, then the PostOffice plugin will post again the next time the cron job runs - at least when using Gmail.
2) One first has to resize the photo in the phone before emailing, otherwise there will be a large photo - both in pixels and kilobytes - that is posted to the blog.
With the G2 Ion / HTC Magic phone, I downloaded PicSay from the Android Market to do the resizing and emailing all in one go, as the PixelPipe Android app did not send the photo resized.
Given that a super-user/moblog addict like me spent many hours over days to set this up, no wonder why regular folks don't want to blog from their phones to a blog that lives on one's own server but prefer instead if they do moblog to a hosted service. gah.
Oh, Lifeblog, Oh Lifeblog, why did Nokia discontinue you? You were such a lovely and perfect moblogging app for Nokia phones...
Thurs 06.11.09 - Will PostOffice for MT post this cron job email now that I have the correct cron job command?
Update later in the evening: No it did not. The support fellow at my server gave me a new command for the cron job and it did not work, so I just triggered the script via the command line and it did post. Now back to the cron job drawing board.
Fri 05.29.09 - I have set up the Post Office plugin for Movable Type to see if I can blog from email, if so then the sting out of life after Nokia's great but now discontinued moblog software - Lifeblog.
Update: Thurs 06.11.09 - Two weeks later, I finally have the Post Office moblog plugin for Movable Type working with tech support from Dan Wolfgang at Uinnovations. Big thanks to Dan for the 4 lines of tweaks to make this work.
Now I just need to get my server to help me on why the cron job is not working, I was able to get these posted by using SSH to trigger the task. Once I can get an hourly cron job working then Post Office will make my moblogging life easier from any camera phone that can email. w00t!
The next two weeks are going to be very busy with me flitting here there and everywhere for (mostly) business purposes.
On Sunday, I will drive up to the Bay Area for some Python Rehab. Actually, I am going to some training but it sounds much more fun to say to people that Python and I aren't speaking right now, due to some tuples, and so I am checking myself into programming rehab. No seriously, I keep getting tuple errors (little ass*s)...
If you live in SF or Oakland or South Bay and want to get together for dinner, I am trying to get folks together either Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday evening in San Francisco proper.
And then sometime, not quite sure when yet, late next week, I will be flying to Germany for a big adventure of which when I have a bit more info, I will blog about. Yes, this another one of the WOM World / Nokia adventures. This one will involve Industrial Design + Manufacturing + Photowalks, which means it will be AWESOME. I love factories, esp. if I can take photos and ask lots of questions.
Rather than flying back to LA after 4 days in Europe, I have requested that I get dropped off in London. I plan to be in London until the 28th of June at the very least and I will be attending Tuttle Club at the ICA on Friday, June 26th. Thus, if you are in London-town from the 25th to the 28th and want to go for a photowalk or to dim sum or to a museum with me, let's meet up.
For as much as I can get ear worms of songs stuck in my head for weeks at a time, I also find that a line or two of poetry can worm into my head, reverberate, expand, and live a full multi-week life, and not exit.
Lately, I have had two lines of poetry on rotation in my head along with will.i.am's* "Chunky" from Madagascar 2, one line from "The Act" by William Carlos Williams and one line from Ursula Le Guin's "The Old Lady".
Tonight I will point you to William's "The Act" as I blogged about it when Vanessa, Edel, and I were turning it into an interactive flash piece in February of 2006:
The Act
There were the roses, in the rain.
Don't cut them, I pleaded.
They won't last, she said.
But they're so beautiful
where they are.
Agh, we were all beautiful once, she said,
and cut them and gave them to me
in my hand.
Tomorrow or the next day I will blog about Le Guin's wonderful new poetry book, Incredible Good Fortune. For now I am off to bed.
* p.s. Am I the only one who thinks that will.i.am and animation team at Dreamworks are having good fun at poking at "My Humps?"
This is all Erin Gieschen's fault! She showed me this video back in the beginning of May and I have been signing the song ever since...
Fri 06.05.09 - At Tuttle Club LA (really LB) this morning, I demo'd the Google Wave Sandbox to those assembled. Vaughan Risher video'd my demo/spiel. Ernie Hsiung and Kyle Ford were kind enough to be logged into the Wave Sandbox and participate in the three of us producing a Wave to demo to the Tuttle folk. It was fun.
Vaughan wrote the following to accompany the video on Vimeo:
"Jenifer Hanen (@msjen) got to go to the Google IO conference this week! She showed us Google Wave up close and personal. I was literally 2 feet away from a computer that was actually connected to it. Crazy.
People you see in the video - Jenifer Hanen, Jeb Brilliant, Al Pavangkanan, and myself. You'll also hear the indomitable Geoff Hickman's voice in the background."
The best part is the preview has me in classic family photography mode - eyes closed. ;o)
Mobile Tidbit #1: I just tweeted:
LG Viewty Smart & Samsung Pixon will do it, will Nokia & Apple do it? Choosing camera focus with touch: http://tinyurl.com/touchfocus
Honestly the most interesting bit of the new camera phones that LG and Samsung have coming out is not the 8.1 megapixels on the LG Viewty Smart nor the 12 megapixels on the Samsung Pixon, but the fact that both of them will be using the touch screen to introduce a "manual" focus to camera phones. By touching the area of the view screen, you can choose what part of the photo that you want the camera to focus on. This is exciting.
I am *shocked* that the Apple UX geniuses did not first come up with this innovative use of the touch screen as applied to camera phones, but then again, I am not really shocked, as the camera is just an after thought on the iPhone.
When I had my 45 minute trial of the Nokia N97 at SXSW where I compared its photos to the photos that my Nokia N95 took, my biggest complaint about the Nokia N97's photos is that the focus was off. It would be great if the N97 had the touch focus feature on it, as then I could have chosen where or who I wanted the camera to focus on rather than have sharp backgrounds and slightly blurry subjects.
Hey Nokia! That first firmware update for the Nokia N97... The update you will most likely release in July? Make sure that touch screen camera "manual/auto" focus is a part of that update, as it is too brilliant and and too useful to be left out.
Mobile Tidbit #2: What is in a Name?
For the last 5.5 days, I have been calling my new lovely Google I/O gift mobile device the "Android HTC Magic", as that is what folks that the Google I/O conference were calling it. But I heard at the event some folks calling it the G2 or the HTC Ion.
When I was hanging out with Justin yesterday, he was calling it the G2. And today on Android and Me, Taylor calls it the Google Ion (HTC Sapphire).
People, can we decide on one name and stick to it? Thanks.
Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her HTC Magic (G2) phone.
Mon 06.01.09 - Dropped by Alex's house this afternoon to join he and Jackie's Monday booking meeting. We discussed various bits of how to improve the Alex's Bar website.