Category Archives: Thoughts

Thoughts

Where’s the SmugMug Publish Service for Lightroom?

I love the Flickr Publish Service in Lightroom 3, and would love to see SmugMug make their own.

The only thing missing for the Flickr service is for it to know which photos I’ve exported and uploaded to Flickr before the service became available, in previous versions of Lightroom. I for example have either tagged the photos uploaded to Flickr with, obviously enough, “Flickr”, or have added them to a Flickr collection in Lightroom, so I could easily find them.

Here’s where SmugMug has the chance to shine! I’d love to be able to publish my photos to SmugMug directly from Lightroom, using the Publish Services functionality, so I could always sync up any photos that I’ve re-developed or where I’ve updated the metadata. But for this service to really stand out, it needs to know which photos I’ve already uploaded.

You can see where this is going, right? I’ve already tagged all my SmugMug photos, and have already placed them in collection sets and collections that match my SmugMug categories breakdown exactly. With a little bit of computing power and some smart algorithms, the folks at SmugMug could put together a killer Publish Service for Lightroom that incorporates all the Flickr functionality and bests it by matching my already-uploaded photos.

What about the cost? The Flickr Publish Service is free to use for all Flickr users, but you cannot re-publish uploaded photos if you’ve changed them in Lightroom. (You can, but if you’re not a Pro, it’ll wipe out any comments and faves on the photo, so it’s not advisable.)

SmugMug could use a similar approach. Their Publish Service could be free for basic SmugMug users, with limited functionality, and it could offer full functionality to Power and Pro users. (I myself have the Pro membership.) I’d even be willing to pay a one-time fee to download and install the service, because I think the functionality would be amazing.

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Thoughts

The kittens at play

âť— Free kitten alert! âť—

We’re getting ready to say goodbye to our kittens. We’re going to give them away for adoption in the next week or two. If you’re in Romania and you’d like one, let us know. Otherwise, we’ll take them to a pet store in Sibiu or Tg. Mures, where eager children will surely squeal in delight and tug at their parents’ sleeves, wanting one.

We have four little tomcats and two kitties: two black males with white socks, two grey-brown striped males with white socks, one brown-beige striped kitten and one beige-orange striped kitten. They’ve been lovingly cared for since birth by our two cats, Mitzi and Trixie, who’ve shared responsibilities in grooming and feeding them. They have already visited the vet, have their health cards, have been treated for internal and external parasites, are weaned, eating solid food, and they’re ready to be welcomed into someone’s family.

Here are photos and a couple of videos of them. The first video shows them playing inside, and the other shows them playing and suckling outside, in our yard.

The photos were taken while they were playing and suckling inside one evening.

This last photo shows the two striped tomcats sleeping next to each other.

Just so there’s no confusion, let me make it clear that they’re free. If you want one, as long as you can come and pick it up, it’s yours.

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Thoughts

Two mothers, six kittens

The wonderful (and unique) thing about our two cats, Mitzi and Trixie, is they share responsibility for their two litters of kittens. They each gave birth to three kittens, a few days apart, and soon afterward, began to take care of them together. They groom and feed each others’ kittens, regardless of who they are, and the six kittens play together and sleep together all the time. I haven’t heard of another case like this.

We expected this somewhat, though. Mitzi and Trixie are sisters, and they’ve always cared about each other, although they do argue from time to time. We got them when they were close to two months old, and they’ve been together ever since. They’ve eaten together, played together, slept together — done everything together. I think they were even courted by the same tomcats. Before they gave birth, I recorded a video clip where they were comforting each other, and that’s another thing I hadn’t seen or heard of in cats until then.

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Follow the PCB and Mercury trail in our oceans

Marine biologist Stephen Palumbi gave a talk at TED about the massive problem with pollutants in our oceans, and the disease and death this causes everywhere in the world, throughout the food chain, including us.

Keep in mind what he says, then read this article, where the problem of toxins found in whales is shown in grim detail. Quoting from the article:

“The researchers found mercury as high as 16 parts per million in the whales. Fish high in mercury such as shark and swordfish — the types health experts warn children and pregnant women to avoid — typically have levels of about 1 part per million.”

“Ultimately, he said, the contaminants could jeopardize seafood, a primary source of animal protein for 1 billion people. ‘You could make a fairly tight argument to say that it is the single greatest health threat that has ever faced the human species. I suspect this will shorten lives, if it turns out that this is what’s going on,’ he said.”

“‘The biggest surprise was chromium,’ Payne said. ‘That’s an absolute shocker. Nobody was even looking for it.'”

“He said another surprise was the high concentrations of aluminum, which is used in packaging, cooking pots and water treatment. Its effects are unknown. The consequences of the metals could be horrific for both whale and man, he said.”

“‘I don’t see any future for whale species except extinction,’ Payne said. ‘This is not on anybody’s radar, no government’s radar anywhere, and I think it should be.'”

Guess who is the largest manufacturer of PCBs in the world? Monsanto.

Is the US government doing anything about this? No. They’re too busy blocking the press from seeing and reporting on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Neat infographic about Walmart. See below:

  • Last year’s sales: $405 Billion.
  • Walton family’s net worth: $83.6 Billion, out of which they give 2% annually to charities. By contrast, Warren Buffett’s net worth is $47 Billion, and he gives 78% annually to charities.
  • It has 1,400,000 employees.
  • The average salary of a Walmart employee is $20,774/year. The annual salary of Walmart’s CEO is $19,200,000.
  • Walmart’s “Buy America” campaign showcased “Made in America” banners hanging over imported goods made in China and other countries.
  • Walmart imports over $30 billion in merchandise from China every year.

Walmart: The Stats
Via: Home Loans

The stats on Walmart

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