Saturday, June 25, 2011

Thank You New York State

...for passing laws such that my wife and I are no longer participating in a discriminatory institution by being married. Seriously, I feel much better about marriage as an institution now. (Of course we were married in Massachusetts, which was the first to make marriage non-discriminatory some years ago now... but we live in New York, and it's good to live in a free and equal state.)

It's nice to have good news -- such unequivocal good news, an inarguable step forward for humankind -- to wake up to in the morning.

A few random notes/links:
• I love that Andrew Cuomo showed up to the Senate to sign the bill on the spot. (It goes into effect in thirty days.) Update: Nope, I got that wrong: he did show up, and he also signed the bill last night, but he signed it in his office.
Josh Marshall was at Stonewall Inn last night, taking pictures.
Andrew Sullivan on Why New York Matters. (His real-time reactions are here.)
Joe Sudbay reprints a great passage from the print edition of the NY Times, missing in the online article:
On Friday night, as the Senate voted, a crowd jammed into the Stonewall Inn, where televisions were tuned to the Senate hours before the vote began. Danny Garvin, 62, said he had been at the bar on the night of the riot, and came back to watch the Senate debate on Friday. On the streets where police beat gay men in 1969, on Friday crowds cheered, as police quietly stood watch.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Extremely Cool Online Toy of the Day (Flagged for Photographers)

Via Andrew Sullivan, here is the coolest online toy I've seen in a while: pictures that you can focus after taking them -- changing the focus in various ways. Here, try one out:



Try clicking the flower in the far foreground (lower right); then click the flower in the medium foreground (the one sticking out in the upper left of the flower field); then click the background proper, the trees or the beach. Three different pictures.

Sadly, this isn't just a plug-in you can get for photoshop on a standard camera; it's a design for a camera, and one that's still in beta-testing, and not yet generally available. Still, something to look out for! (I wish I had one for my current project...)

Here's a NY Times story on it with more information (basically an extended press release, but hey, sometimes those are interesting (which is why I'm putting up an abbreviated one on my blog...). And if you click through to their web site, you can play with a couple dozen pictures like the one above. According to their faq, the camera isn't for sale yet (and they're not saying when or how much), but it sounds like they're working on it. Maybe later this year? Maybe someone wants to buy me a very expensive Christmas/Hanukkah present :)