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Bernard Gladstone

admin — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:10:39 +0000

1921-2009

King of the DIY HOW-TO writers — Gladstone was a prolific writer, photographer and ideaman for Popular Science and later was the home-workshop columnist for The New York Times for over 30 years. [more]

Was also a boater and a WWII veteran who had enlisted in the Army in 1942, finally discharged after sustaining injuries in the war.

Retired to Bradenton Florida. Died Jan 29, 2009 in University Park Florida. At the time of his death, he was survived by daughter Robin, his second wife Sandra Zalbowitz, four stepchildren. He was also a grandfather.A funeral service was held on Monday Feb 2 2009 at 11 a.m. at Toale Brothers Funeral Home. [NYTimes obit] [Paid notice from Ruth] [Guestbook (behind paywall)]

Career

Wrote for Popular Science as a teen and soon worked up to editor — commuted to Manhattan from his Long Island home — lived there in late 40s with his wife and children and had one of the first bamboo-laden postwar basement tiki bars, with Kentile flooring (including shuffleboard court) plus other side for laundry, clothing storage closet (painted with cedar paint to deter moths and with an indicator light on outside to show if light was left on), and a photographic darkroom.

Also wrote for Mechanix Illustrated.

Later went on to be a popular and syndicated columnist for The New York Times and retired in 1991, but continued to work freelance from home and file stories for several years until retiring to Florida.

Gladstone was the author (or editor) of many DIY books such as The Complete Home Guide to Furniture Finishing and Refinishing and The New Boatkeeper: Motorboating & Sailing’s Authoritative Guide to Maintenance, Repair and Improvement.

Articles etc

Wrote hundreds and hundreds of short articles on home handyman projects as well as collections of hints and tips. Many of his Popular Science articles were collected and repackaged into paperback books for the handyman and do-it-yourselfer.

How to Install a Live Well
The Right Way To Choose And Use Solvents
Plaster ‘bridge’ repairs wall cracks
Insulate attic door to prevent cool drafts
Smoke and Fire Alarms (scroll down midway)
Pros and Cons on Reel and Rotary Lawn Mowers

For further reference

Cut-ups and the Internet

admin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:02:16 +0000

[An online “overview,” first published 1999; most recently updated [$Date: 2004/03/29 19:14:39 $]]

The cut-up (or “cutup”) is a method of juxtaposition where a work (usually text) is cut into pieces and the pieces rearranged in a random order, similar to the montage or collage technique in painting. The traditional cut-ups of Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs were done manually with scissors, razor blades, axes and other cutting devices. (Netmonkey.com has published an excellent summary of the theory behind the cut-up method, and another good one is in Brion Gysin’s own words.)

Scissors are no longer necessary for making cut-ups; they can be performed more efficiently using a digital computer. The following is a list of open source tools for cutting up etexts and other data using open-source software. The best of these tools improve on the process, generating Markov chains from text input and who knows what else.

Note that the cut-up does not free the artist from the duty of expression; cut-ups serve as a compositional aid and are not a substitute for the act of composition itself.

Florian Cramer’s “Permutations” contains what he calls “the only technically ‘proper’ CGI-Adaption of Gysin’s/Burroughs’ cutup method.” (All of the site’s Perl source code is GPLed.)
Lee Worden offers a similar cutup CGI which uses a different algorithm than Florian’s, but is also easy to use.
cutup, part of the tinyutils package (deprecated), is a small shell script for cutting up an input text file into four sections and then reassembling the slices diagonally. (a Perl rewrite should feature the ability to choose the number of x- and y- slices on the text.)
Luke Kelley’s Cut-Up Machine is a Web cgi that lets you insert up to 100 elements from Naked Lunch into the output text.
English as She is Spoken is Jonathan Feinberg’s Python script which takes text and runs it through AltaVista’s Translations service, and then runs the output through again, multiple times until no further “linguistic mutations” occur.
An earlier Translations tool is the Transmogrifier; this tool powers a multi-lingual chat room (within 10 years you will probably be able to select a default language in your net interface and see the entire Internet translated in such fashion.)
chef is a lex scanner for outputting its input text in the dialogue of a Swedish chef; the Debian filters package contains a bunch of these little text dialogue filters.
The Shannonizer takes text or URL input and outputs a translation by a number of famous writers, including Hunter S. Thompson and Lewis Carroll.
BABLE is a Perl script that generates Markov chains. It works best on large texts.
Dissociated Press is an Emacs function for “dissociating” the current buffer, combining words and characters to form newords and charcatures; in Emacs, type:

M-x dissociated-press <RET>
Jamie Zawinski’s dadadodo generates Markov chains of word frequencies. One of its best features is the ability to scan a given text and write a compiled object file which you can then use later to generate output based on the original text.
JWZ’s latest is webcollage, which builds a collage of random images from the Web on the root window of your X session.
Ideas for improvements/expansions to webcollage:
- ability to specify a single host or localhost directory tree when searching for images;
- ability to specify the number of random images to output (coupled with the above gives a random-image cgi that could be useful for Web sites).
- ability to save the image from the root window to a file (with as many of the original file properties saved as possible)
- ability to limit images from a site or sites (say, display random images from eBay auctions)
- integrated with the window manager so that a double-click with the left mouse button (say) opens a default web browser window with the URL of the originating image; a triple-click (say) pastes the URL to the X selection.
- option for outputting to an .html file, either with x number of lines or with an image map
- including a text option so that random pages/paragraphs/sentences/words/chars of text can be added to the output

This last one leads to an idea for an avant-garde web-art project: you write a program that obtains random text from the Web and then outputs that text in HTML, with random links interspersed through the text (the link heuristics are configured by a filter file whose entries contain two lines: the pattern to match in the input text and the link to use in the output, either a specific URL or a text value, in which case it uses a random URL containing that text); the resultant page is then a hypertext cut-up. Will sites allow you to link to them in such a context? Will linking out of context be outlawed? Or will popular browsers eventually contain cut-up-mode toggles, enabling a network of enthusiasts to trade and morph their filters, even holding filter-contests for the most unique views of/traversals through the Web?

Free software cutup tools are described in The Linux Cookbook, 2nd edition.

Related to this subject is a page on computer-generated writing.

As is Fuse by Scott Draves. The algorithm is inspired by dissociated-press but works on images, not text.

Another related subject is generative art — art where devices such as computers are used to generate source material (which, as with cut-ups, may then be reinterpreted, modified and otherwise used by the artist). Like cut-ups, it poses interesting philosophical issues of authorship and the creation or invention process. The definitive site for generative art research and free software tools is www.generative.net.

Adelle Davis

admin — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:38:55 +0000

Food-science expert and nutritionist, “First lady of nutrition” (1904-1974)

Daisie Adelle Davis, American health and nutrition expert, dietician, progenitor of the health conscious (“health food nut”) movement, advocate of unprocessed additive-free foods and high-protein breakfasts [wiki]

Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.

AD Today: the Adelle Davis Foundation, active online discussion group

B-vitamin shopping list

Pepup

Invented the pepup cocktail for vigor and energy: whipped milk and egg yolks

Original recipe

Corbis photo of Adelle Davis drinking milk, circa 1970

The pepup is discussed, along with new modern variations & improvements on it, in English writer Michael Allen’s book, The Truth About Writing: An Essential Handbook for Novelists, Playwrights and Screenwriters (Kingsfield 2003). Allen recommends the pepup as a daytime energy drink for writers. [PDF]

Mentioned briefly in short online essay “What’s a Mother to Do?” by Ardith W. Walker

Books

Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit

Let’s Get Well

You Can Get Well

Let’s Have Healthy Children (“America’s most famous food expert gives the vital nutritional do’s and don’ts for expectant mothers, babies, and growing children.”)

Let’s Cook It Right

Exploring Inner Space: Personal Experiences Under LSD-25 (as Jane Dunlap) (Mystical experiences mentioned in The Secret Chief Revealed by Myron J. Stolaroff.)

Quotations

“As I see it, every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself.”

“Thousands upon thousands of persons have studied disease. Almost no one has studied health.”

Articles and info

“Adelle Davis Revisited” is a site containing information on modern supplements, vitamins and routines related to Adelle Davis’ ideas.

“The Legacy of Adelle Davis,” a critical look by Stephen Barrett

Adelle’s Granola

5c old-fashioned oatmeal
1c cut almonds
1c unrefined sesame seeds
1c sunflower seeds
1c shredded coconut
1c soy flour
1c powdered milk
1c wheat germ
1c honey
1c vegetable oil

combine all dry ingredients
combine honey and vegetable oil in separate dish
combine all ingredients, spread on two cookie sheets
bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour or until slightly brown

(From Life magazine, Oct 1971)

For further reading

Shigeaki Hinohara

admin — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:24:17 +0000

Japanese doctor, almost 100 years old and still practicing (1911- )

Shigeaki Hinohara

Famous for his recipe for living a long life

Has been working at St. Luke’s International Hospital (Tokyo) and teaching at St. Luke’s College of Nursing since 1941

Was passenger on a jet that was hijacked in 1970 and then dedicated his life to helping people

Set up the Life Planning Center in 1973 (motto: “lifelong health”)

Helped save and restore the Massachusetts home of Manjiro Nakahama (John Manjiro, the first Japanese person to live in the USA, 1843) and gave the dedication in May 2009.

[long profile] [short profile and photo] [news]

New Old People’s Movement

Seeks “healthy people 75 years and older” to be part of his new “movement.”

When we reach 75 we should start something new in order to discover those unused genes and develop them. It could be painting, or making music, writing poetry, sports or volunteer activities. One of my patients in his 60’s had been admitted to St. Luke’s with cancer, and was getting neurotic with anxiety over the disease. So I suggested he try to find something he enjoyed, like painting. He tried to avoid the issue, saying he was too clumsy with things. But once he took up the brush, his talent came out, and 10 years later he was holding his own one-man exhibitions and winning awards.

Books, interviews, advice and writing

Published more than 150 books since turning 75

Honohara’s famous words of wisdom, a simple formula for longevity

Interview with the Tokyo International Forum: “At 75, we should develop genes we have never used and keep challenging the new!”

How to Live Well (2001) (original title: How To Die Well; Japanese, Ikikata Jozu or “Good At Living”)

Ongaku no Iyashi no Chikara (The Healing Power of Music)

Ikiru koto no shitsu

Oi o hajimeru

Oi to shi no juyo

Gendai igaku to shukyo (Sosho gendai no shukyo)

Inochi no utsuwa: Jinsei o jibunrashiku ikiru

Inochi o mitsumete

“Iyashi” no waza no pafomansu

Osler’s peregrinations in Asia: A report on an unusual event

Wrote stage adaption for the picture-book Happa no Freddy (Freddy the Leaf) (2000)

Wrote the forward to Art and Nature: Healing Design for Health in the UK & Japan, a book containing the work of over 70 archictects on health care design

Co-edited Osler’s A Way of Life and Other Addresses, with Commentary and Annotations

Mentioned in The Power of Life&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr&nou=1" style="width:120px;height:240px;margin:7px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0">, Caregivers: Drowning in a Sea of Cognitive Challenges, First to Arrive: State and Local Responses to Terrorism, Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine, and other books.

For further reference

Low-light photography techniques

admin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:10:33 +0000

Tips and techniques for indoor photography and photographing night scenes

Quick tips for shooting in low light

These are the basics.

Use the fastest lens you can — that is, a lens with the widest aperture — and one with the widest focal length you can. A wide, fast lens is always preferable in low-light situations: a 28mm f/1.8 lens, for instance, would be ideal for indoor low-light shots
Use the slowest shutter speed you can. You’ll have to be rigid with holding the camera — use a monopod or tripod if you can, or hold the camera hard and level against your body. A rule of thumb for hand-holding a camera without blur is given on a thread linked below: for image clarity, the minimum shutter speed is 1/[focal length] used. So if you have a 50mm lens, you can successfully shoot at 1/50 a second in the hand, but with a 250mm lens you couldn’t shoot any slower than 1/250 a second.
Higher ISO settings will let you get pictures in lower light, but they increase grain. Try setting a lower ISO and a slower shutter speed, allowing for crisper and less grainy photos — provided the camera’s held still; the basic rule here is to use the lowest ISO you can
If it’s too dark to use autofocus, try setting the focus manually

If you’re going for candid people shots, turn off the autofocus beam
Always remember to play with the white balance: in low light your camera’s sensor isn’t going to be the best with picking up color; the auto, manual, and preset settings will give you a range of different effects
Keep the camera steady, which means using a tripod or monopod all of the time; in low light, the difference between even a very steady hand and a tripod will be great
If you’re using a flash, play with the settings; try using a diffuser or an off-camera flash if you can
Shoot in RAW mode when you can; you’ll be able to grab more out of the uncompressed RAW-format files than a typical JPEG
If you’re shooting out-of-doors, try shooting at dusk or dawn if you can, instead of at night: you won’t have to follow so many of the above rules, so it’ll be easier to take better pictures

Digital “pushing”

If you don’t have a fast enough lens, so when you’ve set the aperture to the widest possible setting you’re still shooting at too slow of a shutter speed for holding your camera in the hand, what you can do is try to “push” the digital image: set the exposure compensation down one to two stops so that you can shoot at a slightly faster speed. Shoot a RAW image instead of a lossy JPEG, and then use your RAW conversion software to “push” the image.

If you have the time, you can always try bracketing: taking a series of shots with the exposure compensation adjusted + a bit, at 0, and - a bit.

Fill flash tricks

You can try a very slow shutter speed with flash; HP’s guide (linked below) suggests 3 seconds with flash for a night portrait shot. Also see if your camera has a Night Snapshot or Night Shot mode; this mode can adjust the shutter speed and gives a fast flash at the end of the exposure for interesting effect. (Be sure to try this with a tripod.)

MacTalk user gallet explains his fill-flash trick for getting good, colorful and atmospheric shots under tungsten lighting. Basically:

Set flash to TTL
Underexpose by about 1.5 or 2 steps
Use a “daylight” color balance / white balance setting
Set the ISO to 800 and don’t go higher than that
Use a shutter speed of 1/30 a second — shooting at Shutter Speed Priority mode if your camera has it — and hold the camera steady

The slower shutter speed allows for some blurriness in the photo, which gives interest to candid people shots. But these settings will also ensure that you’ve got a colorful image with no overwhelming dark areas.

Some photographers recommend setting an even lower ISO setting, such as 400, and upping the shutter speed to 1/60. There will be less blur, but if full clarity across the frame is what you’re going for, that would be better.

Another photographer on the same board, Sitthixay, recommends experimenting off these basic guidelines and not be afriad to try setting the camera on Aperture Priority and Manual modes. An example of a nighttime Aperture Priority shot at f/4.0 with ETTL flash and taken at 1/20 a second is his people shot of New Year’s Eve in Kuala Lumpur. He notes that rear curtain sync was set on the flash in order to emphasize movement; notice how the entire image is colorful but the two foreground figures are in sharper focus than the rest and seem to jump out of the frame. Other photographers have used this technique with 1/20 a second, a set aperture of f/5.6 and flash compensation set -1/2 or -1. With a smaller aperture and increased exposure time, some areas of the image will be all blur and light.

Color tricks

For indoor club or candid people shots, try turning the color temp up if your digital camera has that setting. For example if the normal setting is around 5200, crank it to the 7500-9000 range. Everyone will have a tan, but the overall effects on the color will be interesting.

Study the output of others

Read the EXIF data on the digital camera shots of other good photographers. Some good examples of indoor photography and club photo galleries are at Cooljunkie and Ryan Pfieffer, and the very bright and colorful night photos of Forrest Stewart.

For further reference

You need light to make a photograph. In low light scenarios you’re trying to squeeze out the most from your camera and the scene to make a great shot; here are more links with information on how to do so.

The Nocturnes is a site dedicated to night photography and has workshops and plenty of examples.

Ken Rockwell has a very good article with tips and advice on this subject: Night Photography.

“Get Great Photos in Low Light” by Derrick Story is a good article that covers the basics for shooting in low light with a digital camera.

Low light photography: a long series of short ideas and suggestions.

Hewlett-Packard’s online photo tip guide has a section called “Night and low-light photography” with various good tips.

Steve Mirarchi’s online tutorial, “Concert, Stage, and Low-Light Photography”

M. Kirschbaum’s long and informative 2005 article, Tips for Night and Low Light Photography

“The New Low-Light Photography” is a 2008 article on the new digital SLRs and the possibilities for low-light shots that their image sensors now give (“ISO 1600 is the new 200”).

More…

All about AWK

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:48:56 +0000

wiki

The GNU version, Gawk

short outline and intro

a page about AWK programming

AWK tutorials, articles and books

Eric Pement’s awk intro and list of handy one-liners

“An Awk Primer”

simple awk tutorial

“how to use awk

interactive awk tutorial

Awk by example: 1 2 3

The original “awl” book by Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan and Peter J. Weinberger: The AWK Programming Language

Free online book: Gawk: Effective AWK Programming

ToC for another online awk book

a list of awk scripts

awk FAQ

Pop-out photos

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:20:41 +0000

Technique to make digital images appear to “pop out” [archived discussion and how-to]

Linux file recovery

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:16:37 +0000

All about “undeleting” a file in Linux

“Recovering files from /Proc”

“Our Continuing /proc and lsof Investigation”

“Deleted files recovery howto”

“Undeleting opened files on ext3”

smallest writeup on deleted files ever

Then again this might even beat it

Using lsof to troubleshoot a Linux filesystem

This story of an intruder placing a backdoor in a program relates to file recovery on linux.

You might also want to see the Linux ext3 faq.

DPI, PPI, image resolution explained

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:20:35 +0000

See this Usenet thread in rec.photo.digital from 1999

Illustrated article: “Calculating DPI”

PPI vs DPI and a discussion on photo scanning and image scans

Street photography

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:18:19 +0000

A collection of links and information on street photography.

Techniques, issues and instructions

“Photojournalism Assignments and Techniques”

Lens stabilization is key to making good SP images.

An illustrated essay on legal issues with photojournalism

Getting sued for taking street portraits

Still alive, a photoblog with technique and how-to articles of interest to street photographers, all part of Nitsa’s “no rules” site of nonphotography (freeform street photos). (Example: Holga of Randy’s Donuts)

Good discussion: “Gettting those great candid shots. I am too shy or scared. What do you do? got any horror stories?”

Nick Turpin was featured on Strobist in 2009 for an interesting Men’s Health photo shoot he did: in taking street photos of various well-dressed people, he underexposed the ambient light and then used a few strobes to “carve in some highlights”; and since he didn’t need tripods or stands for such shots he was fine even in a photo-unfriendly city like London (In-Public is Turpin’s street photography site.)

Examples and tips of getting architecture on the streets.

Good examples of street photography

Todd Gross, NYC: Quarlo.com

Philip-Lorca Dicorcia, NYC: Times Square shots, a series called street portraits

Joe’s NYC

photoethnography