Too cool not to share

We got back from DC almost a week ago, but I'm just now getting around to culling through my 500 or so pictures. I'll have a full gallery and whatnot up in a few days, but I stumbled across one I had to share. I wasn't blown away when I took this picture, but when I got back to the computer, the expression and angle on the lead soldier's face just seemed to fall into place. A quick trip through Aperture and Silver Efex Pro, and this is what I came up with:

Worth a (re)post

Some of you may have already seen this picture, but I just rediscovered it and wanted to share again.

My youngest brother Brent was but a high schooler in 2005, when Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of The Sith was released. He and a bunch of his nerdier friends decided, as Star Wars nerds are wont to do, to go to the premiere in costume. He's the second character from the left in this picture; can you guess who he is?

If you guessed "George Lucas, the director of the movie," you're correct. That's him "directing a scene" with his friends. He said he even signed a few autographs at the theater.

Congratulations, little brother; you've managed to out-nerd the nerds. Now that's Jedi.

Annals of Great Software Design: Lotus Notes

I've long been a fan of Lotus Notes for its user-friendly, functional UI design. One important concept in designing a great UI is to keep it as simple as possible. Here's an example from the latest version of Notes for the Mac:

Click it to make it big so you can fully appreciate the design aesthetic.

I appreciate the gigantic-ness of the dialog box itself, obscuring almost all of my desktop and encouraging me to focus on my meeting response. The tiny-by-comparison text area keeps the text relatively narrow and easier to read. The Text Properties button follows along as you type, ensuring that your ability to change text properties is literally at your fingertips. Of course, the ability WOULD be there—if the button actually did anything when you clicked it.

24: Mad Libs

I'm a big fan of 24; well, I have been for a long time, but this season is... iffy. As someone who works quite a bit with technology, I'm usually willing to let the occasional technological TV nonsense-speak slide for the sake of entertainment. I spent several seasons of 24 happily letting everyone 'send info to everyone's screens,' which, although it made no real sense, was inconsequential enough that it was OK. But this season's plot is centered around technological nonsense. Exhibit A, my favorite short blurb of techno-babble so far:

In case you didn't get that, the quote was:

We're going to have to tie the main servers together. I need an AVI motherboard but you're going to have to reconfigure it for a macro uplink.

I just couldn't let that one slide. It's like they just combined random words that are mostly from the area of interest to the conversation. To try and translate that into another vernacular:

We're going to have to marinate the carburetor. I need some V8 tires but you're going to have to retread them for a stick-shift lug nut.

If you come up with a good one, leave a note in the comments.

This is exactly what I was doing last night as I was blogging.

Like I've said before, this comic gets me.

Stars on Tanks

OK, last post for the night, I promise.

While out at Yuma for work recently, I came across their display of Army equipment that had been tested at Yuma Proving Grounds. Some of the tanks were WWII- or Vietnam-era equipment that saw battle. These pictures are battle-worn stars from those tanks on the front lines. They are sized to be used as wallpapers on widescreen monitors—if you want 4:3, let me know and I'll see if I can recrop them.

P.S. Thank a vet today (or tomorrow).

The Bailey Family

I was looking through some pictures from Christmas (finally processing them) and found one of my favorite things: an unexpectedly interesting picture that I forgot about almost as soon as I took it. For as long as I can remember, grandma and grandpa have had a set of little clear plastic magnetic picture frames on the fridge—one for each of their grandkids. As they get new pictures, they simply put them in front of the old ones. There's a surprising amount of family history in small little piles on that fridge.

(P.S. In case you can't tell, I'm having a love affair with Aperture and Silver Efex Pro tonight.)