DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

The Chron has published a list of their Top 100 Wines of 2003.

Of particular interest are the three reds with single-digit prices. It seems to me that wine prices have climbed steadily for the past ten years, at least until Two Buck Chuck came along — but you won’t find Chuck on the list. It might only cost $2, but it is not a Top 100 wine. It’s merely drinkable, and then only if you’re so busy gloating over the low price that you forget to swallow.

Which is not to say that we haven’t put away a few bottles of Chuck ourselves…

I do wish they’d come up with some $5 Zinfandels though.

I’m still trying to catch up on last year’s digital images. Some of the photos needed surgery.

An ambient-light photo of a Lego cathedral presented an obvious need for color correction, but my typical approach (using Photoshop’s Curves) failed. The red channel was completely blown out, and the blue channel was horribly noisy. I could have prevented some of this damage by adjusting the camera’s white balance before making the exposure… but I guess it doesn’t matter, as I was able to fix it.

The “after” image is the result of two channel blends, which attempted to bring the red channel back into a usable state, and which attempted to reduce some of the distortion in the blue plate, followed by Curves. I think it worked pretty well. Certainly the cast is gone. For comparison, see this version in which curves were applied without first blending channels — notice that the red cast is still present.

(The cathedral pictured here was part of a Christian-themed Lego display we visited over the holidays. It included a near-life-sized Nativity scene and a miniature rendition of Bethlehem, complete with tiny Lego sheep.)

I ended up at this year’s Expo on opening day. My first impression was that the convention center was packed fuller than ever before, because within minutes of entering the space I was gridlocked, forced to stand still for probably 10 seconds — that’s a very long time when you’re on foot, trying to get somewhere — while some indecisive people in front of me put enough consecutive synapses together to step the hell out of the way.

But a lot of the companies I’d hoped to see were not in attendence. Subsequently I saw a report pegging the count of exhibitors at 50 or 75 less than last year. I can believe it.

As I did last year, I saved enough money on discounted software to pay for my entrance ticket, bridge toll, and parking. Spending money to save money is one of my favorite things. Saving software receipts for tax deductions is also one of my favorite things.

The neatest series of products wasn’t even designed for Macs. A company called Hoodman had a large booth displaying a collection of LCD shades for digital cameras (still and video). If you’ve ever been frustrated by an inability to see your camera’s LCD in the sunshine, check ‘em out.

One of the reps at the booth, who may well have been the company owner, pitched me on their new series of shades for Powerbooks. “I have one of those already,” I replied, “and to be honest I’m pretty disappointed with it. It just doesn’t fit.”

“Oh, here, take a new one,” he said, handing me a free replacement. “We recently redesigned them specifically for Powerbooks. This one will fit.” And so it does — it’s great. So I guess you can consider this a paid endorsement.

Any other companies who’d like to send me free gear in exchange for a mention in this space can consider themselves officially invited, especially including Apple, Nikon, and Ferrari.

The other fun part of the Expo happened at the DigiDesign corner of the Avid booth. A lone DigiDesign rep maintained a small crowd as he demonstrated ProTools and the various DigiDesign audio recording hardware. I’m an intermediate user of ProTools, so although that aspect of the demo wasn’t enlightening, seeing the Digi002 in action (with flying faders and extremely tight integration with ProTools) was impressive. Add DigiDesign to that list of vendors who are welcome to forward nonreturnable demo gear. Damn, maybe I shouldn’t have written nice things about them already.

As of today we are officially generating solar energy. PG&E installed our “time of use” meter, which effectively tracks the power we use, and when we use it. PG&E will send a monthly summary, but our next actual electric bill won’t arrive until our anniversary, one year from today. If we’ve sized our PV system correctly, the bill amount will be $0.

Weather and our own consumption habits will affect the balance, of course. Lately we’re thinking a lot about our consumption. Although it has always been true that leaving lights or appliances running unnecessarily would result in a higher electric bill, now I’m especially conscious. I feel like I’m in a contest to zero my annual bill. I’ll be replacing a few more incandescent bulbs with CFs this weekend.

The new meter is digital. It starts at 50,000 kWh, apparently because it’s easier to track negative consumption (that is, net energy production) if the counter doesn’t roll backwards past 0 kWh to 99,999.

The small triangle in the lower left quarter of the display points either right (as pictured) to indicate consumption, or left to indicate production. As was true with our array installation, the TOU meter went in during a rainstorm… resulting in a fairly dismal showing of all this technology. I’m looking forward to the summer, for its long clear days and thousands of watts of free energy.

Well, this is disturbing.

When President Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up “free speech zones” or “protest zones,” where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event. (Source: How the Secret Service protects Bush from free speech)

Why is it disturbing, other than the loathsome same-old-same-oldness of it all?

1. This has been going on for at least six months, yet this is the first I’ve heard of it. I read Google’s news page and the SF Chronicle daily. I skim the NYTimes and LA Times frequently. I’m not uninformed. And yet a story as ugly as this has escaped my attention. Is the media complicit with its own manipulation? I guess the media isn’t as liberal as conservatives claim.
2. I find the Bush administration’s sarcastic use of the term “free speech zone” despicable. Bush’s supporters are allowed to line the roadways, but dissenters are evacuated to a cage a half-mile away, far from the view of TV cameras. How is that “free speech?”

   The precedent of naming something for what it is not is an old Bush (or, really, Orwell) trick; it worked well with Bush’s “Clean Air” act. For my part, I’m not fooled… just disgusted.

3. What Bush is doing is probably unconstitutional. Imagine that, a US President ordering regular and frequent violations of the 1st Amendment. Then again, I shouldn’t assume Bush is aware of any of this. This is more likely the work of the puppet masters.

The obvious solution is to stealth-protest: show up at Bush’s next rally with pro-GOP signage, but then after the Secret Service has sanitized the crowd of dissenters, strip away the “more blood for oil” text (or whatever such a feel-good Bush rally sign would display — really, I can’t imagine) to reveal something more honest and heartfelt like “I’m about to be arrested for exercising my 1st Amendment right to assemble peaceably!”