Similar to what they did with Aperture rebates a while back, they’ll be doing the same thing with the iPhone. $100 ain’t too shabby.

Do any of you Unix-heads know if there is some network-equivalent of the “nice” command for limiting bandwidth under Linux and/or OS X? For instance, it might let me issue a command such as the following:

netnice wget http://someurl

Yes, I am aware that wget itself has some bandwidth-limiting options, but that’s beside the point. There are other commands that do not, plus it’s easier to remember one command than it is to look up all the right flags for every command and it would be nice to alter a speed after a program has been launched. Architecturally, I don’t really see how this could work without a proxy or nasty Linux-specific drivers and iptables hacks because there’s not much in the network stack that can be hooked for such a purpose. I can do some basic Quality-of-Service hacks in my fancy Layer-2 router, but they’re based on what jack you’re plugged into (i.e. granularity down to a specific machine, but not program-by-program-within-the-same-machine.) I have a feeling this is an impossible search. Searching for various combinations of the terms “Unix network nice command bandwidth QoS, etc.” does not yield anything useful.

Everyone seems to be going hyper over Holga cameras. In case you do not already know, they are cheap (in both price and quality) film cameras originally manufactured in Hong Kong. They have cheap lenses, light leaks, and other “issues.” People love this–Wikipedia describes the resulting pictures as being “appreciated for their low-fidelity aesthetic.” You have no idea what you will end up with until after the film is developed. You either get a crappy picture or a serendipitous piece of art, but you don’t know at the time you’re framing the picture.

It occurred to me, a few weeks ago, that someone should make a digital camera equivalent. I’m not talking about a Photoshop filter (or set of filters), as that is more like “cheating.” The great thing about the Holgas is their apparent randomness, and being able to simulate that in post-production, to come up with exactly the style you want, loses that randomness. So this dream digital camera will have some amount of smarts inside of it. When you take a picture, it will apply some random filters to it, giving it the Holga look. It won’t have an LCD, just a peephole viewfinder. This not only prevents you from perfectly framing your dream shot, it also prevents you from reviewing the photos you just took until after you “develop” them by plugging in to a computer. The lack of an LCD would also keep costs down. You would be encouraged to just snap and snap and snap as many pictures as possible. You’ll end up throwing out a bunch, but because “developing the film” in this version of the camera is free, it doesn’t matter.

While I have heard of digital backs for Holgas and Holga lenses for fancy digital cameras, the key to this particular dream digital would be to make it cheap and accessible to everyone, without worrying too much about breaking it, messing it up, or any other thing that would cause you to leave it at home instead of taking it with you everywhere. A price point of about $50 would be ideal, and probably quite do-able, given the above constraints.

The gas! It is expensive! $8.88!

(taken in Wilsonville; the light-up digital numbers are new, replacing plastic numbers)

Pics from the BBQ…

…with more at http://adjectivenoun.org/gallery2/v/portland/bbq070707/. Although the iPhone’s camera is not the greatest in the world, the pictures didn’t turn out half-bad.

What better way to spend America-Fuck-Yeah day than in a restaurant with Middle Eastern music and Middle Eastern dance and lots of explosions outside?

If you made pickle chutney, would you then have relish?

Two books from the discount bin at Fry’s that elicited large “WTF” responses from coworkers and I.

  

An interesting little meme that uses those stupid “I support” chicklet images, but stacked sideways.

I downloaded it, but probably will not have the chance to play around with it until noon.

As seen in The Mercury:

http://www.schrutebuck.com/
http://stanleynickel.com/

If you do not understand the context, click the Mercury link for a short video clip of the relevant scene from The Office.