ken zirkel

I was in Hartford, CT last weekend for the Lego Kidsfest. I didn’t see much of the downtown, but I did take a little stroll from the convention center to Main St. The only place to eat was a Subway franchise. It seemed to be a depressed city. The Hartford Courant suggests that the city [...]

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There’s lots of craziness and lies being perpetrated by the right wing in this health care debate. But what’s got me amazed, more than anything, is how the mainstream media and Republican legislators (both backed by health care industry sponsorship) have convinced so many people that other countries which have nationalized health care systems (ie, [...]

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I’ve used PearLyrics to add lyrics to my iTunes songs for years (even after the program was withdrawn). PearLyrics was a widget that would automatically search the Web for song lyrics when a song was playing in iTunes, then add the lyrics to the song metadata. This was a pretty good system when I had [...]

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Here’s an interesting comparison from the news, which clearly illustrates the power of prayer:
In 2005, a Tunisian pilot flying from Italy to Tunisia lost power in both engines. What did he do?
Captain Gharby had turned the controls over to his co-pilot during the emergency and uttered a prayer, instead of following standard procedures that might [...]

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A year ago I suggested that there should be an academy award for best credit sequence (as well as best trailer). The NY Times today goes a step further and suggests nominees for best credits.
It turns out, I’ve seen four of their five nominees. I like all of them, but I would have to pick [...]

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I’m always interested in how technology interacts with creativity. Here’s a great article about how software called AutoTune is changing the music recording industry. Some observations:

The creator of the software got his start by developing sonar systems for detecting oil deposits
AutoTune was apparently something he did as a side project, almost on a dare
Creative artists [...]

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I’m a big fan of berries. I grow strawberries and blackberries in my yard. While my summer berry consumption is pretty high, my winter consumption tends to die down a bit.
But I was inspired by this article on “The Power of Berries” in the New York Times. Apparently black and red raspberries, blackberries, strawberries [...]

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NPR’s program “On the Media” has a great piece about portrait photographers and journalistic ethics. They interview some of my favorite portrait photographers including Jill Greenberg, Platon and Martin Schoeller. The basic point of the piece, I think, is how the subjectivity of artistic portraiture — which necessarily reflects the photographer’s own point-of-view — [...]

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I used to own a Widelux panoramic camera. I bought one in the early 1990’s, then sold it when I got a digital camera (and, truth be told, I was unemployed and needed the money). I don’t really miss it much; scanning the film was such a pain, and you can of course approximate [...]

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Years ago I read an essay by novelist John Irving, in which he suggested that talent is overrated. That is, hard work can overcome a lack of inherent talent.
I do believe that to be the case, and it was fascinating to come across a recent essay by Malcolm Gladwell that essentially expands on this idea. [...]

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