Variations On a Theme

I bought a $10 digital camera. Can it do anything? Amazingly I think it can!

This is the Original Shot.

Not too bad. But..... Other Things are Possible..........

For example:

A Raku Fountain..

One of the things about digital photography that makes it so fun is the manipulation that can be done.

Here are some variations on the theme.

My Sister Is On Steroids

Do I qualify for Jerry Springer now? Well I suppose since it is just prescription shots of cortisone, maybe not. She probably won't bulk up like Barry Bond because I am pretty sure she won't be getting into any weight lifting regime and 'roid rage' is not a likely outcome. She has some sort of back problem or something and it is really very painful. She can not stand for more than 5 minutes at a time or walk for more about 200 feet.

That would be a bummer for anybody, but when one of your major entertainments is flea markets and estate sales and auctions and such, well it is a real bummer. I, for example, might not feel that put out by such a circumstance. A good chair, my wireless keyboard and mouse, a nice big monitor and I could computer geek it all day. Not good for me but reasonably satisfying.

Anyhow, now she has a 'Rascal', a red one, Ferrari racing colors I believe, though she did settle for the 5mph model instead of the 15mph model. Can you imagine that, 15mph on a Rascal. Like I told her thats fast enough to be a 'grab and go' shoplifter. I can see the headlines now; "Red Rascal Terrorizes Tuscon" or "Market Mesmerized by Marauding Madam".

With that kind of speed you could organize actually exciting races in the park. Book the skateboard facilities three afternoons a week or something. With sponsors and all it could develop into big money, ESPN, pay per view, who knows! We baby boomers are a really growing market these days! Any maker out there going for that 20mph baby? In British racing Green?

A Cross Post test

Cross posting

The Case For KISS

I was reading an article called “Murphy Laws of Computing” and came across this one:

9. A complex system that doesn't work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.

....and it struck me how well this applied to any structured procedure. And it has a corollary:

Any simple system that works just fine will almost inevitably be massaged into a complex system that does not work as well, if at all.

I guess maybe we could call this the 'Peter Principle' of structured procedures. I am sure that you have seen it happen time and time again. I know I have.

For example: I work for a company that has occasion to end up with a fairly large quantity of odd sized but 'usable to somebody' pieces of material. So rather than throw them out they instituted a system that marked such 'culls' at the time they were created into one of five price categories and they were offered to customers as a service that also made a little extra money. The system worked fine and customers that only needed little odd sized pieces of stuff could get it and the check out system knew how to handle them and all was fine. Convenience on one side and a little extra money on the other. Then apparently someone decided that maybe lots of good stuff was being taken out of the store as 'cull' so a policy was put in place that required the checkout people to measure and describe, in detail, in writing, on a special form, each and every piece of cull material they checked through. This had to be done while the customer (and all the others waiting behind) waited the extra couple of minutes in the check out line. In other words, what had been a service for a small fee to customers now became a major annoyance to customers for a very nominal income to the company. (cull pieces ranged from .5 to 4 dollars a piece)
Well you say , maybe a lot of stuff that was not really 'cull' was going out under that guise! Then if stuff that should not be classified as cull was being classified as cull, monitor the cull bins and correct the procedures for classifying material as 'cull' as needed. Or if stuff that was not actually classified as cull was being checked through by cashiers as 'cull' (for friends or for a kick back or whatever) then monitor the suspect cashiers. Every minute of every day, of every cashiers station, is 'on camera' and every transaction of 'cull' material is pinpointed by the cash register system. (That is after all how they know if a cashiers checks through cull material and fails to fill out the dumb, time consuming form.)
I mean think about it! If a cashier wanted to do a favor for a friend it would be much simpler to not 'ring up' a piece of material at all, than it would be to ring it up as some relatively rare cheaper item.

The point is that experience shows that this 'complication to the point of uselessness' phenomenon is almost universal. It lead to the fall of Rome, the decline of aristocracy, and it will probably lead to the eventual fall of all current governments, democratic or otherwise. It appears to be ingrained in human nature to complicate all our social structures to the point that they collapse and we have to start all over again. I wonder how many Atlantis's there have been?

Ban The Gadgets

New York Senator Carl Kruger (D) wants to ban the use of any sort of portable information/entertainment device by pedestrians while crossing streets. I guess he compares it to seatbelt laws or helmet laws. But I wonder why it hasn't occurred to him to ban running over pedestrians while they are crossing the street? Maybe because that is already illegal? Or why not just ban crossing the street? That would really keep pedestrians safe! I know! Ban motor vehicles from entering intersections! Ah but then the jaywalkers might get hit by one of the vehicles buzzing back and forth from corner to corner. Ok Ok! now I have it ban vehicles from intersections and ban pedestrians using gadgets from jaywalking and fine anybody caught crossing the street without looking both right and left and fine anybody short enough not to see over the surrounding masses and fine the surrounding masses for blocking the vision of short people and ban thinking while you walk and ban getting hit by vehicles and ban having a headache because it is distracting and ban being alive because it leads to death and ban dying because it is the major cause of death and ............ Oh! Ban it all Ban it all!