I’ve been impressed with Halide’s “Process Zero” camera mode, which shoots RAW photos, but tones down Apple’s default aggressive noise reduction. It also lets shadows be shadows and highlights be highlights. I fine-tuned these photos a bit in Lightroom, so they were less contrasty, but they already …
My bestie Alan Ishii introduced me to Mae West, with a new year’s eve screening of I’m No Angel. We texted about it afterward. Turns out, Alan knows quite a bit about Mae West! With his permission, I’ve reconstructed his texts, below 😊 Something important to keep in mind, with Mae and Marlene, they …
I now have an Ergodox EZ for my WFH office. It’s a split mechanical keyboard with adjustable legs on each corner. I appreciate the adjustability of the legs — they create an ergonomic, negatively tilted typing angle — and the solid build quality of the case and keys. These features are not a given …
In which Stewie decides to hop on my chest as I ride on a foam roller. Special thanks to Benjamin Siegel for his editing suggestions 🙏
And joined my semi-retired parents on their own 60-day trip through Western Europe. I’d love for you to check out the photos I took in Barcelona, Granada, and Madrid. The country is beautiful, and I found the people to be so warm and helpful. But the start of the trip went wrong in so many ways, all …
Last week, I booked an Airbnb, but failed to note one key detail: A portable heater. The week of February 19 happened to be one of the coolest and rainiest in recent history, and the otherwise nice listing I’d booked for two nights had an underpowered portable heater for a guest house with a …
In March 2020, Shopify’s leadership temporarily closed Shopify LA, where I was working, because of the impending pandemic. Shortly afterward, the entire company pivoted from being office-centric with just a few remote employees, to a fully remote company. They called it “Digital by Default,” or …
I started my film career with traditional, long-form content. A few weeks ago, I decided to step out of my comfort zone, revive my YouTube channel, and start editing and uploading YouTube Shorts. It’s been a fun learning experience! Here’s my first Short, Terrible Matthew McConaughey …
As of macOS Ventura 13.1… if you select a Shared Album in the sidebar of Photos and hit the delete key, the album will disappear. As if you suddenly deleted it 🙀 I accidentally did this on Dec 11. It was a scary enough experience, that I felt compelled to email Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior VP of …
Eli Wiesel, KBE In April 2012, Elie Wiesel visited Chapman University to take part in an extensive Q & A session. From my vantage point in the auditorium, it seemed that half of the questions, mostly asked by students, centered on morality in fictional scenarios. For example, In a fire, is it better …
It was Christmas Day, which fell on a Wednesday in 2013. And Grandma Paula—82 years old and drifting toward the end of an agonizingly long battle with lung cancer—was only now catching up on the The Times' Sunday edition. I sat next to her at the kitchen table, keeping her company while futzing …
1: Mindy On a recent morning, I attempted to drive my trusty old Prius, Mindy, and by instinct, toggled the gear selector into [D] (as in “Drive Mode”). It was at this moment that Mindy decided to go sentient, filling the cabin with an incessant, deafening tone, accompanied by a surfeit of red …
N.B. #1: A couple years ago, I wrote a nerdy article for Yahoo about the history of and technical challenges surrounding frame rates. Unfortunately, Yahoo removed its Featured Contributor website, so the articles I wrote for them no longer exist. This is a fragmented attempt to reconstruct and …
Let's delve into a new and superfluous bit of technology: the Pono Player. Yes, it looks like a Toblerone. And something about the design harks back to the Game Boy Advance SP. The oversized "Plus" (aka, "volume increase") button looks so much like the Game Boy's D-Pad, I absentmindedly kept …
Erin Sherbert, writing for SF Weekly on Wed, Aug 27: The Medical Examiner’s Office this morning said it was 22-year-old David Getman who was hit and killed by a Muni bus earlier this week. According to police, Getman, a Berkeley resident, was walking along Lyon Street near Geary Boulevard early …
It would be an understatement to say I’m a fan of Stanley Kubrick. A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove and The Killing are among my favorite films. And Kubrick is directly responsible for sparking my passion for cinematography. I found the Stanley Kubrick Exhibition at LACMA a …