I’m going to be away from almost all communication technologies for a bit.  When I get back, I expect someone to tell me what the heck is going on with the Halo 3 ARG.  I recommend getting in on it– if it’s anything like last time, the ARG is the best part of Halo.

The State Department’s passport status line just kept me on hold for four hours, and then hung up on me.

Passport renewal has devolved into serious chaos at this point.  If you are thinking of traveling overseas as soon as one year from now, and you’ll need a passport renewal, apply NOW.  If you need one in less than four months and haven’t applied yet, drop me a line– there are some things you need to know about applying.

I really did try to come up with a good caption, but I couldn’t– maybe this Sudoku speaks for itself.

Zombies took over Union Square yesterday. Fortunately I was not there, or I might not have been able to bring you this crucial information.

Brave photographers were able to bring us these chilling images (and more) , while there are more stories from survivors who hid in the Apple Store.

Totally unrelated to the site, but a striking photo set: the abandoned billboards of São Paulo, Brazil.

A friend’s just posted the fantastic LolCat Buildr.  Upload your own picture, punch in some text– instant lolcatz.  The best part is getting to view previous visitors’ contributions.  (Well, Ruth says the best part is being able to bestow the glamour of lolcats on your very own kitty.)  There are a couple with our own cats in there.

This is a screenshot of a program that plays movies: not just from a DVD in the drive, but from any supported movie file on your computer. Can you find the button to select a file? Hint: it’s not the play button, which (if there’s no video DVD in the drive) spins the drive for a bit then throws an error message.

If you’re a hard core gamer, you’re probably familiar with High Dynamic Range rendering. In short, pre-HDR rendering clamps all colors between 0 and 1, black and white. There’s no allowance for things that are “really bright”, so you often end up with lights not reflecting brightly enough, or sunlight becoming too dim when it filters through a stained glass window. HDR allows for a larger range of brightness, allowing for scenes to have better contrast and color, or for the “bloom” that occurs when an object is in front of a very bright light. Wikipedia has a good writeup.

What I was unaware of is that people have been applying high dynamic range techniques to photography. The principle is similar: you take photographs of the scene at different exposures. One photograph will use a long exposure, getting lots of detail from the dark areas, while the bright areas will be washed out. Another photograph will use a short exposure, getting all the detail from those bright areas. When you combine several photos, you get a final image that gives good color range and detail in all parts.

Note that HDR photography isn’t necessarily more or less “realistic”. It’s true that computer monitors can’t really display HDR: they display from black to white. On the other hand, when you view a scene, your eye travels over it and compensates for brighter and darker portions as it scans. If you browse HDR photos, though, you’ll definitely notice the difference from conventional photography.

I was turned onto all of this by a post in a friend’s blog. Here’s his latest shot:

Check out his original post on the subject, or his followup with a larger version of the thumbnail I’ve included here..

I’ve just started reading (Flipping through? Glaring at?) The Design of Everyday Things, so I found this especially apt. You may also find it apt if you use a computer.

I promise I’ll write a real post soon! However, I’m still getting used to regularly switching between computers, so I’m still trying to wrangle my software to work for me.

A chief offender is iTunes: I am not working the way it wants me to. I don’t just have one computer, which serves as the master mirror of all my music. I buy some songs on one computer, rip some songs on another, and may not be able to sync up to those computers next week at all. I want to be able to pop my tunes from any computer onto my iPod, so I can listen to them on some other device into which I’ve plugged in the iPod. iTunes hates my way of life: it is not condoned by the RIAA. Even when I’m not violating any copyright laws, I’m behaving in a manner that might make it possible for someone to do so.

Do you have a total iTunes replacement? Do you simply use a utility or collection of utilities to move unauthorized music to and from your iPod? Or have you transcended restrictive consumer electronics, opting instead for some online service that sends the music to whatever device you happen to be using at the time– as though driven to you on a truck, or sent through a series of tubes?