onfocus

Derek and Heather are putting together an offline, paper magazine devoted to amateur self-web-publishing photographers like myself called JPG Magazine. I think it's a fantastic idea, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it. Though if the target audience is "photobloggers", I think a website would make more sense. (Like Michael Buffington's wordphoto.) But I think JPG Magazine could be an excellent way to bring the world of web-photographers to a larger, not-as-web-savvy audience.

O'Reilly's Hacks Series seems to be growing exponentially. (I set up an Amazon RSS Feed so I can monitor the series and know when new titles are available.) Today there were three more titles available for pre-order on Amazon:

• Smart Home Hacks by Gordon Meyer
• Home Theater Hacks by Brett D. McLaughlin
• Mind Hacks by Tom Stafford, Matt Webb

I think Mind Hacks is going to be a fun one. If you want to check out the current state of brain-hacking before it's out, check out Mind Wide Open by Steven Johnson.

There is something eerily beautiful and chilling about ASCII_BUSH.
[via waxy]

Larry David has a great Op-Ed about "undecided" voters in the NYT: Are You Undecided? Or Not?:

We'd love to tell [undecided voters] to take a hike, but we're afraid to alienate you. If we really had any brains, we wouldn't spend another second on you, but on the people who can truly make a difference: the "unlikely" voters. And there are millions more of them than there are of you. Those people aren't after attention, they're just incredibly lazy.

I finally got my voter registration card in the mail a few days ago, so I'm all set. If you haven't registered yet, you can download, fill-out, and mail the National Mail Voter Registration Form (PDF). The deadlines are approaching, but you still have some time to get it done. There are probably some online forms you could fill out too, try Googling Register to Vote.

(Sorry about the registration-required NYT link. NYT must have found a way to block Bugmenot—the logins there haven't been working for me. BTW, if you click through to the article from Google, you won't be bothered by a registration form.)

Congratulations, Meg! (She left the glamorous world of web applications for the glamorous world of cooking.)

My interest in the web and tech was always more about people. With weblogs, it was making it possible for everyone to write online and share and communicate. And while I was doing it, I really did care very deeply about my work...But something was always missing, and I've realized that was true passion for what I was doing.

Want a behind-the-scenes look at meg's culinary skills? Here are some snapshots of her making pasta at my place in Sebastopol years ago.

Corvallis has had nightly anti-war protests for almost three years now—one of the longest continuous protests in the country. The Gazette-Times just did a story, Vigil nears third anniversary.

I went on a long road trip this past weekend, and found a great way to pass the time. I dumped hours worth of interviews from ITConversations onto my iPod, and listened to them most of the way. (Unfortunately I didn't grab enough for the trip home.) Some favorites:

• Bruce Schneier
• Tim O'Reilly
• Philip Greenspun
• Gatekeepers No More

There's nothing like rocking out to geekspeak at 80 mph.

Looks like O'Reilly has a Japanese Blog Hacks book (blog = chisel?). I wonder if they'll publish a version in English. Looks like they have a Japanese version of Amazon Hacks too, cool!

Erik Benson started a company with some friends called The Robot Co-op. Based on the job openings descriptions there, it sounds like they'll be doing something with weblogs.

Inspired by Stop Motion Studies, I put together this low-tech stop motion pic of Matt. [140 kb]

Some scenes from the Oregon State Fair on Saturday...

Happy Labor Day! (tomorrow in the US) Labor Day is brought to you by The Labor Movement. (You may remember them as the folks who brought you the weekend.) Thanks!