steve barrett

If you had purchased $1,000.00 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago you would have $49.00 left.

With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1,000.00.

With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have $214.00 cash.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle. It’s called the 401-Keg:

A recent study found that the average American walks about 900 miles a year. Another study found Americans drink, on the average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. That means, on average, Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon.

You’re looking at Julio, a robot singing to a recording of David Byrne of the Talking Heads. Julio was built by David Hanson and chronicled on Hanson’s blog. Hanson has a great collection of other videos at his website. David says he designed Julio to study the “uncanny valley.” Instead of giving you a wonky description I’ll just include the wikipedia low-down

The uncanny valley is a hypothesis that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The “valley” in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot’s lifelikeness….

…The phenomenon can be explained by the notion that, if an entity is sufficiently non-humanlike, then the humanlike characteristics will tend to stand out and be noticed easily, generating empathy. On the other hand, if the entity is “almost human”, then the non-human characteristics will be the ones that stand out, leading to a feeling of “strangeness” in the human viewer. In other words, a robot stuck inside the uncanny valley is no longer being judged by the standards of a robot doing a good job at pretending to be human, but is instead being judged by the standards of a human doing a terrible job at acting like a normal person.

I find this to be a pretty interesting concept. Something so close to real it’s harder to personify than a cartoon? It’s as though people have an easier time humanizing an object if its obviously not real than they do personifying a 99% accurate recreation.

The TWIP is a photoshop contest based on MSNBC’s “This Week in Pictures” series. Photoshop entries are supposed to be funny and original and somehow incorporate on of the TWIP series photos.

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After: **Click to animate**

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After: **Click to Animate**

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Prepare for a rant.

Look, without police and law enforcement society would be a whole lot more fucked up than it is - which is so scary I’d rather not even imagine it. I have a lot of respect for the men and women who risk their lives to keep the rest of us safe. Now, there are a few bad apples in any group; but in law enforcement those bad apples have state authority and are exponentially worse.

This morning I was driving across the state - cruising at about 80 MPH which is pretty routine on Michigan’s State Highways which are limited at 70 MPH. I come up behind one of these state cops in a tahoe - he’s going slightly slower than I am so I slow down and roll behind him for a while. Suddenly he begins talking on his cell phone and getting erratic with his speed - up to 85 then back down to as low as 65. Slowing down and speeding up because he’s obviously not paying attention. “Whatever” I think to myself as like most drivers nowadays I’ve come to terms that a solid margin of drivers are simply not paying attention. I go to pass on the right because this guy’s going real slow and obviously not moving over.

Here’s where things turn a bit sour, this cop saw what was going on - and decided to pick up his pace, I figure “good, now he’s ready to pay attention and move along as usual.” Instead he carries on pacing along side of me speeding up and slowing down to pinch me off and block my route past. He was now paying close attention to his driving and even taking frequent glances over his right should to check my position. I’d slow down, he’d speed up - so then I’d speed up, and he’d speed up as well and pinch me off again.

In his defense, I was most definitely going over the speed limit. But there comes a point where you need to make a decision within your position of authority to either enforce the law or not. This guy was completely arrogant and no doubt exercising poor decision making by putting into place what was essentially a rolling roadblock. If you’ve ever driven in Michigan you know cruising speed is about 10-15 MPH above the stated highway speed.

Ahhh, I feel better; now carry on.

What do you do when you spot something suspicious? What if that suspicious thing is a mossy floating blob in a rain-collecting barrel in your yard. YOU POKE IT WITH A STICK!

Well, this situation hit close to home for me. Someone close to me, ok ok it was my mom, ran into this mossy object and did just that poked it - the moss turned out to be fur and it all fell out with the slightest poke.

Now bare, the object was immediately identified as a squirrel which must have somehow inadvertently fallen into the barrel while running nearby or trying to get a drink. I wonder how long it had been floating.

I find it absurd that “Hilrod” is talking about going to the mat for you and dlivering the peoples elbow. Obama & McCain were just as stupid sounding with all of their wrestling references that were so obviously written into their speeches. This election has become a JOKE. I think I’m tired of both parties.

McCain is going to introduce Osama to the Undertaker. Oh, and DO YOU SMELL WHAT BARRACK IS COOKIN!?

I don’t like war. I do, however, soak up the images and video that spawn from it. It really is true what they say about war becoming a video game - the thermal imagery strips those on the ground of their identities and turns them into just another target. It is not for me to say whether anyone in this video had a right to do what they’ve done or even whether or not those on the bad end of the boom deserved what they got. I know I’m not interested in participating and thats why I’m not in the armed forces, but here’s some video for you to watch and perhaps enjoy at the expense of about 500 billion American taxpayer’s dollars and countless lives.

I think this first cartoon is pretty representative of the majority of protesters. As you’ve all no doubt seen on the news this last week or two - there’s been a rash of outcry over China’s relations with Tibet. I find it ironic that such a large group of people suddenly feels this strongly about a subject when they’ve supported China in every other way for years.

To be fair I’ve collected images from both sides of the argument. Personally, I think the Olympics are a symbol of unity and protests should focus their efforts elsewhere as not to spoil such an international event. The Olympics have a global impact and reach much farther than China or any other single country.

Here’s a video of my roommates new retriever/pitbull puppy named Luna. She’s still under 5 months old but starting to calm down a bit. Thank god the wild-animal-that-bites-everything phase is coming to an end. Seems like we’re moving into wild-animal-that-always-wants-to-run territory.

I’ve always loved photography. I was quite the slacker in photography class in high school, sleeping in the dark room and whatnot, but surprisingly I soaked up quite a bit of what the instructor had to offer and I really learned a great deal. I suppose that’s sort of indicative of my entire adolescent academic career.

I guess out of sheer coincidence my day job is very heavily influenced by photography. For those who don’t know me, I work in the printing industry training prepress departments as well as installing and servicing imagesetters and platemakers. Both of which expose a roll of photographic paper with a computer controlled laser, then proceed to feed the exposed paper through two tanks of photographic chemistry and output a completely processed plate. Printers use the equipment to turn a PDF into a tangible image they can mount in their printing press.

Anyway, I love to shoot photos. About 6 weeks ago I dropped my teeny tiny Nikon Coolpix L3 about 2 feet while kneeling down shooting the new puppy. It hit right on the expandable lens and the whole thing corked. It wouldn’t fully extend or contract and would give a “lens error” readout before turning off. Like any bored geek, I took it completely apart.

So what do I replace it with? Well, I’ve had a few point and shoot cameras - most are pretty good. I’ve become weary of the telescoping lenses because of my recent experience, I’ve also become accustomed to using the LCD as the viewfinder, and I want it to be FAST. I should be able to take a shot the instant it comes out of my pocket. I hate missing shots. So something with a flush lens, big LCD, and a speedy OS.

I used to have a Sony Ericsson phone back in the day, and although the camera was a 1.3 like most every other phone out there, the Ericsson took the best photos I’ve ever seen from a camera its size. That alone sold me on Sony’s CCD technology. Another thing I pay close attention to is the size, point and shoot cameras need to be small. If I’m going to carry it around in my pocket, I dont want a lump that might leave a passer by thinking I like them.

Yesterday I found myself at the Somerset mall in Troy, MI. There’s a Sony Style store there and I was on a mission. I settled on the 200 after a short familiarization with the product line they offered. Little perks like the full touchscreen on the back, face and smile recognition, and the slim form factor sold me.

The camera is a dream. I highly recommend it.