March 2006 – Page 2 – Dave Kellam

That stupid dog

Duck Hunt - The Dog

Recently, Nintendo celebrated the 20th anniversary of the NES arrival in North America. I found the GameSpot coverage mostly unremarkable (read: nerd wet dreams), but the Duck Hunt conversation hit home last weekend.

My mom’s off in Europe, visiting my brother at school, and taking a much needed break from teaching. Meanwhile, my Dad is left at home working. I know the peace and quiet drives him nuts, so I dropped by to cook steaks and show off my intelligence.

Our after-dinner discussion included the finer points of the other brother’s video system collection, how much wrath I’d incur from borrowing his GameCube and whether or not everything bad was indeed good for you. Conversation then turned to the NES, the lightgun and Duck Hunt — one of the few video games that he has actually played. His comment:

You could never shoot that stupid dog.

I’m probably paraphrasing a bit, but you get the idea. Of course, the internet allows you to satisfy your bloodlust and kill the dog. Maybe the whole Nintendogs craze is just an attempt to even out the company’s canine karma and cultivate some love for man’s best friend.

What’s the point? Even my dad hates the dog in Duck Hunt. That says something.

So long Babylon, hello Olympia

The time has come to say goodbye to Babylon. This intrepid theme has served me well but never quite turned out the way it should have. We will part ways now and welcome Olympia. A longer post will ensue.

Life is random

Sometimes you walk out the front door and there’s a parade going by.

Faking the tilt-shift

Don’t have the cash for a real tilt-shift lens or even a Lensbaby? Here’s a quick tutorial for achieving the fake model photography look. I didn’t have too many photos around with a downward perspective, but I needed to give the technique a shot. This is the result:

As Marc points out on the flickr photo page, it probably would be better with the top of the chimney more focused. Didn’t really have anything better to work with on short notice. There’s a Flickr pool dedicated to tilt-shift miniature fakes if you need more. It’s really not that hard to fake.

Update: Here’s a much better example, from a trip to Bristol:

Fresh baked and fabulous

This photo is brilliant. (via marc)

Newsvine is live

Newsvine is out of private beta, read the official statement to see where the site is headed. It’s been one of my primary news sources for the last few weeks, probably because it achieves a nice balance between automated wire articles and user submitted stories. That and the news breaks fast.

Stealth Sharks?

DARPA is considering the use of stealth sharks to patrol the oceans.

By remotely guiding the sharks’ movements they hope to transform the animals into stealth spies, perhaps capable of following vessels without being spotted.

The report also indicates that sharks were not the Pentagon’s first choice. Amid growing insurgency fears, the Dolphin President refused to commit more troops to the coalition effort.

Transmit

Panic Transmit

Transmit is the best ftp client I’ve ever used. How’s that for a shill? If you’re looking for something a little more indepth, Paul’s review of the current release goes into more detail. For me, the best feature is the tight integration with text editors (I’m partial to TextWrangler). Overall, it’s simple and easy to use, almost feels like an Apple product.

Now comes the hard part where I tell you that Transmit has been my client of choice for two or three years and I’ve only just purchased it recently. Why? I’m a bastard, that’s why — one of those jerks that stiffs the little guys. It’s equal opportunity jackassery though, I steal from the big boys too. It’s mine now though, and worth every penny.