adrian is rad

I’m enjoying this piece debunking the air around pro photographers. A quick sample:

I often leave my ISO dangerously high. I get more email about why I shot something at ISO 800 than anything else and that tells me (a) I should get my act together and (b) y’all need to lighten up on the whole ISO issue.
…
People ask me about how to use their flash in two groups balanced with ambient and I stare awkwardly at them and give them Joe McNally’s email address or home phone number and beg them to (a) never tell Joe I sent them and (b) never to speak of this ever again.

I have long forgotten everything I knew about the zone system and now expose purely in reverse. Shoot first, look at the histogram, then get it right, instead of the way I learn which was the more sensible “meter twice, shoot once.”

Yay, I’m not alone in some of those.

A friend just forwarded me this email I sent from the day before my 23rd birthday, just as I’m about to leave Boston. It displays my sadness about my favorite MIT dialup[1] server being retired.

(All of the MIT servers were named after hacks. I’ve linked the hacks below.)

From: bischoff@MIT
Subject: sad
Date: August 26, 2003 3:27:31 PM PDT
To: tepd@xyz.org

nerd-xing and cathedral-seven are no more. nerd-xing was my favorite dialup for a long time

18.7.16.67       25  TEST        contents-vnder-pressvre           3000
18.7.16.73       25  ATHENA-NORMAL  buzzword-bingo                25731
18.7.16.69       25  ATHENA-NORMAL  department-of-alchemy          25902
18.7.16.80       25  ATHENA-NORMAL  magic-pi-ball                  26066
18.7.16.75       25  ATHENA-NORMAL  biohazard-cafe                 26092
18.7.16.71       25  ATHENA-FTP  mass-toolpike                    26227
18.7.16.64       25  X           no-knife                          41390

(and mass-toolpike isn’t an express server anymore. it’s ftp!)

Cheers,
Adrian

[1] Of course we didn’t actually dial-up to them, we just used our T1 and sshed in.

I have a new blog. It’s called Secret Cape Town. Check it out if you’d like. I’m hoping it’ll help me learn even more cool places to go in the city.

I also have a twitter channel if you’re into such things.

I’ve been really enjoying going through and reading a number of the pieces on this list of best of journalism 2009. Possibly my favorite is the Michael Lewis piece on the financial collapse of Iceland.

It’s been hot here. Hot like I remember from Boston, from Pittsburgh. Drenched with sweat and skin melting off your skeleton hot. But the heat wave broke the last couple days, particularly with the rain today.

Not really. But the place I lived was torn down and the new house that was built there was sold for that much.

Last night I put ice cream between two Hob Nob milk chocolate digestives. It was incredible.

Some days I have no choice but come to the conclusion that I’m the smartest person alive.

I bought a bike this week. It’s road bike, a few years old. It runs well. I’m going to modify the set up a bit to make it more into an around-town bike, but I’m liking it so far.

(I’m definitely getting rid of the red bar tape.)

I never mentioned this. It’s a start.

It’s appropriate to say “I’m just looking around” in response to “Can I help you?” in just about any store, except hardware stores. You should always be looking for something in a hardware store unless you want funny looks. If you don’t have something in mind, I suggest “picture hooks.”

I got new scissors today. The packaging is marked “Cutting Series.” I wonder what other series of scissors they have?

Two instances:

• A couple weeks ago, running late for lunch with the friend, I parked at the wrong restaurant, so went to get back into my car to drive to the right one. I got in the left front seat and looked for the steering wheel.
• A few days ago, distracted by a whole host of things, I made a left on red. That is not legal in South Africa.