As an artist...I have a problem with this...

Recently on Engadget, an article about Lytro's new focus-after-the-fact "camera" talked about the coolness of this new style of camera. For those that looked at the Engadget article and did a "too long; didn't read", I'll spare you the long read and give you the gist of how the camera works. The camera runs on a 2/f aperture, with no moving parts. With Fourier Transform Slicing it "guesses" where it should record focal lengths at in the image. From what I can tell it picks a close, medium and far focal length. All the talk of depth-of-field, really is focal length. No sample shot shows a depth-of-field of 16-32/f.

Technologically it is a great piece of hardware, but as an artist, who's medium has been the photograph for over 10 years I find this products application hard to fathom. You open the road for others to be able to "refocus" your image. The example I find I relate to is this: it is like giving everyone the ability to change the subject, or paint type/texture/palette for say an image by Picasso, Bacon, or Van Gogh. If these artists intended for your view to be anything other than what they wanted to express they would have. Any excellent example being Gérome's Pollice Verso (link: wikipedia.org), where he has purposefully show a maximum depth of field, or Van Gogh's Irises (link: vangoghgallery.com) where his use of texture and limited depth of field is purposeful. In Gérôme's or Van Gogh's images, if they were painted in any other style the intended style and/or subject would be unable to be conveyed.

With this in mind, we return to photography. The artist may purposefully leave the background out of focus with a short depth of field or long depth of field with everything in focus. For if she/he wanted you to know what was there, then they would have included it into the image they wanted to convey. A change in this begins to change the meaning of art or artist at a fundamental level. If you can no longer have something with staying power where someone does not feel the need to "improve it" and then does so, then there is no longer a driver for creativity. Which leaves me to question if this is really the future of photography?

MySQL & IP Address Storage

While designing a schema for a event system here at my current job, the task of storing efficiently IPv4 addresses in a MySQL database came up. IPv4 = 4 bytes, okay no problem, did some research, and didn't get anything on an easy way to do this. So after some work, I present the following:

CREATE FUNCTION ipv4BinaryToString (ipbinary BINARY(4))
RETURNS VARCHAR(32) DETERMINISTIC
BEGIN
DECLARE ipstring VARCHAR(32) DEFAULT '';
DECLARE oct_count SMALLINT UNSIGNED DEFAULT 2;

SET ipstring=CONCAT(ipstring, CAST(CONV(HEX(SUBSTRING(ipbinary,1,1)),16,10) AS CHAR) );
WHILE oct_count < 5 DO
SET ipstring=CONCAT_WS('.',ipstring,CAST(CONV(HEX(SUBSTRING(ipbinary,oct_count,1)),16,10) AS CHAR));
SET oct_count=oct_count+1;
END WHILE;
RETURN ipstring;
END

CREATE FUNCTION ipv4StringToBinary (ipstring VARCHAR(32))
RETURNS VARBINARY(32) DETERMINISTIC
BEGIN
DECLARE ipbinary VARBINARY(32) DEFAULT "";
DECLARE oct_count SMALLINT UNSIGNED DEFAULT 1;

WHILE oct_count < 5 DO
IF LENGTH(ipstring) <= 3 THEN SET ipbinary=CONCAT(ipbinary,unhex(hex(CAST(ipstring AS UNSIGNED)))); END IF;
SET ipbinary=CONCAT(ipbinary,CAST(unhex(hex( CAST(SUBSTRING(ipstring,1,LOCATE('.',ipstring,1)-1) AS UNSIGNED) )) AS BINARY));
SET ipstring=SUBSTRING(ipstring,LOCATE('.',ipstring,1)+1);
SET oct_count=oct_count+1;
END WHILE;
RETURN ipbinary;
END

This may not be the best solution, but work well. returns successfully a binary representation and standard octet string of addresses.

It feels like I just took a payoff...

In the last couple of months I've had an open complaint at the FCC regarding an issue with the "Truth In Billing Act" with Covad Communications. Lets start by rewinding the way back machine to November 16th, 2010.

In October 2010, we received our monthly bill from COVAD for our TDM internet service and found that COVAD had left us a nice little present of $61.51 labeled "Regulatory Surcharge". Previous months it was not listed on the bill and we caught it with raising the price per month was outside of the normal rate. Further research on the bill showed the following description...

Important Message:

Effective immediately, your monthly bill will include a Regulatory Surcharge of 9.5%. The Regulatory Surcharge recovers the costs of administering various federal, state and local takes, fees, surcharges, assessments, and requirements. If you have any questions, please contact us at 888-642-6823 opt 3 or refer to http://support.covad.net/web/resources/announcements/COVAD_Billing_Update.pdf for more information.

Regulatory surcharges are a slippery beast. But something about this bill didn't sit right. I checked out the URL and found that it stated almost verbatim the same paragraph. So I decided to phone the FCC. While dialing I expected to sit on hold waiting for an agent to receive my call for sometime, but was pleasantly surprised to immediately be greeted by an agent (and have been every time that I've called). His name was Andy, and I explained what I was seeing, and he agreed that it sounded like things were a little sideways. He also illuminated me upon the FCC "Truth In Billing Act", and explained that by law a company must break out and explain the taxes, fees, and surcharges on the bill. At this point I decided give COVAD a chance to clarify the "regulatory surchage" before opening a complaint.

As suggested on the bill, I had questions and thought that maybe calling would help clarify what taxes or fees (federal, state, or local), or surcharges are being rolled into this "regulatory surcharge". After being on hold for more than a half hour, I finally got Shannon. I asked her about the charge, and she practically read back the above stated paragraph, again verbatim. As which point I asked her to clarify what government agencies required the fees, or what the break out was on the "regulatory surcharge". She did not know, and asked if I'd gone to the URL? Again stated to her that it states the same thing as the bill, which doesn't answer the question of why this was not being clearly stated as per the Truth in Billing Act directs. She simple stated, "Oh it's just a government requirement for the taxes and fees". I thanked her for her time, and hung up. I immediately call the FCC back, get Jerry, and open a complaint that COVAD was not following the Truth in Billing Act, and would like it investigated.

Fast forward to late December, 2010. I receive a phone call from the FCC asking if we'd been contact yet regarding the issue, and so far radio silence. I let her know that we had not heard anything yet from them in regards to the complaint.

Lets jump ahead again to Feb 4th, 2010. I receive a phone call from a Dale Hogg at COVAD, looking to resolve the complaint, and gives me this great offer. If I agree to drop the complaint, they would be happy to charge back the fees from that day all the way back to when I filed the complaint.

Wait...humina what? You are going to just give us the credit on the account?

Dale continues, that since your contract is up in May, if you re-up your account for an additional year, they would be willing to cut the "regulatory surcharge" in half. Better yet, if we update our account to 2-3 years, they will be happy to drop the surcharge all together. At this point I asked if this was a charge that every customer was paying, and he responded with "it is". So to clarify, every customer on the COVAD network pays a 9.5% "Regulatory Surcharge", and you're going to just not have us pay it? Dale, "correct". I let him know that I have to talk with our CEO and finance officer to see if this was an acceptable "offer".

Four hours go by, and I receive another phone call from Anthony at COVAD, wanting to refer to this issue, and wanted to offer me a deal. Which was funny since we'd just gone over this four hours previously. Anthony's deal was different you see. His deal was simple: "accept now, get everything back charged, and never pay the fee again."

I felt like I'd been hit by a brick. So you complain that you're being charged a fee they can't breaking out, and they hope you not say thing anything more by not having you pay it. Meanwhile everyone else is having to pay this fee, and as I'm to find out it's not a fee or surcharge by the government, it's an administrative recovery cost for COVAD...

Today I receive a piece of mail from COVAD...

Quiche Lorraine

Ingredients:
8 sticks of bacon
4 eggs
1 1/2c Whipping Cream
1/3c chiffonade french onions
1c swiss cheese
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Prepare 8 slices of bacon you preferred way (baked, fried, dried), and shred your cheese.
With a frozen pie crust, thaw, dock, and get that bad boy cooking. While it's going get the filling prepared.

Start with chiffonade (to cut thinly) french onions, and chopping your bacon. Measure out you dry goods (peppers and salt). Once the pie crust is done, take it out of the oven and turn the temperature up to 425'F. Layer bacon and cheese in your pie crust and top with your french onions and dry goods evenly over. In a mixing bowl, mix eggs and cream, and pour over layers in the pie crust.

Bake at 425'F for 15 mins, then lower temp 350'F for 30 mins or until knife comes out clean.

LOL $country Scammer script...

Hello $lastname,
I have tried to reach you on Skype phone, but your line was busy, so I decided to write you this message. I have been in search of someone with this last name uc($lastname)", so when I saw you online, I was pushed to contact you and see how best we can assist each other. I am uc($name), a Bank Officer here in $country. I believe it is the wish of God for me to come across you now. I am having an important business discussion I wish to share with you which I believe will interest you, because it is in connection with your last name and you are going to benefit from it.
One Late uc($firstname) uc($lastname), a citizen of your country had a fixed deposit with my bank in 2003 for 60 calendar months, valued at US\$$seventybagillion ($seventybagillion_spelled_out US Dollars) the due date for this deposit contract was last $date_in_past. Sadly uc($firstname) was among the death victims in the May 26 2006 Earthquake disaster in Jawa, Indonesia that killed over 5,000 people. He was in Indonesia on a business trip and that was how he met his end. My bank management is yet to know about his death, I knew about it because he was my friend and I am his account officer. $firstname did not mention any Next of Kin/ Heir when the account was opened, and he was not married and no children. Last week my Bank Management requested that Michael should give instructions on what to do about his funds, if to renew the contract. I know this will happen and that is why I have been looking for a means to handle the situation, because if my Bank Directors happens to know that Michael is dead and do not have any Heir, they will take the funds for their personal use, so I don't want such to happen. That was why when I saw your last name I was happy and I am now seeking your co-operation to present you as Next of Kin/ Heir to the account, since you have the same last name with him and my bank head quarters will release the account to you. There is no risk involved; the transaction will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of law.
It is better that we claim the money, than allowing the Bank Directors to take it, they are rich already. I am not a greedy person, so I am suggesting we share the funds equal, 50/50% to both parties, my share will assist me to start my own company which has been my dream. Let me know your mind on this and please do treat this information as TOP SECRET. We shall go over the details once I receive your urgent response strictly through my personal email address, $emailaddress We can as well discuss this on phone; let me know when you will be available to speak with me on Skype. Have a nice day and God bless. Anticipating your communication.
$name.$emailaddress

MS SQL 2000 to MS SQL 2005 import duplicate SID mayhem

The problem: importing a db from a 2000 src resulted in duplicate SIDs.

Utimately the fix:

1. 1. Create a user login.
2. 2. Run `ALTER USER WITH Name = [], DEFAULT_SCHEMA = , LOGIN = [];` and sub out the parts

Fixed, imported...other issues still pending...

Chipotle Lime Cilantro Rice = Win

This recipe is dead on...though I'd add an extra 1/2 c of water. My rice wasn't quite done with only 1c of water.

http://www.chipotlefan.com/index.php?id=rice_recipe