1. Photo a day Project: I know that I have tired this before, but I am trying it again. Hopefully I will get through it this year. I want to really do a good job. Last year I stopped in February. Yes, the wedding planning did me in. This year I hope to get it done.
2. Add people to all my Flickr Photos: A while ago Flickr added a people feature, so you can add other Flickr users to your photos. I wanted to make sure I did this for all my photos. I added the tag needsflickrpeople too all the photos I posted before this feature was added. At this moment I have 9,245 photos with this tag. I want to make that number zero by the end of the year. I know that is a lot of photos to review in the next year, but I think I can do it.
3. Get a total of 3,542,374 flickr views: To get this many views I need to average 2000 views a day for the whole year. There was a good four month period that I got over 2000 views every day. I know I have little control over this. I need to go to Comic Con to get this done. More costume photos might also be a good idea. I know that more promotion using Facebook and Flickr is important. We will see if I can do this.
4. Best songs of 2009 mix: I have been making these mixes for years this is not the year to stop. I hope to have this done by the end of the month.
5. Best albums of the 2000s list: I have been working lists for each year. I also want to make an overall list. I want to have this done by the end of the month, but the end of February seems real realistic.
6. New Movie Review Blog with Kate: I set up the blog, Movie Reviews with My Spouse. We watch a lot of movies together. This will mostly be movies from Netflix. I think this will be fun. If you have a suggestion for a better name, let me know.
There are more then one thousand photos of me on flickr, but there are currently 1000 photos of me tagged on flickr. Of these 1000 photos 535 are in my photo stream. That means other people take a lot of pictures of me too.
I am going through all my photos to make sure they are tagged. You can get out the tags Needsflickrpeople to add people, if you think it is fun. This is the tag I added to every photo in my photostream to make sure I review them all. There are still 9800 photos for me to go through here. You can also check out Unknownperson if you want to help me identify people I don't know.
If you have a flickr account and I don't know it, I would label you as nonflickrperson. You can always add yourself.
I am hoping to have all my photos with people added to them by the end of the year.
Like just about everyone else, including Barack Obama, I was surprised that Barack Obama won the Nobel Price Prize. I am not sure anyone really expected this. I did not even know that he was nominated for it.
My second reaction to Barack Obama winning was to think back to January when he was sworn in as president. It made sense to me if it was a reference to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. winning in 1964. When I watched Barack Obama being sworn in I did think of the Civil Rights March on Washington and the I Have a Dream Speech. I have the feeling if this prize was given out to in February or March of this year, the reaction would be very different. I think more people would have seen it better. It would have said something about civil rights in the US.
Now, I am on to my third reaction. My reaction now is that the Prize committee made a mistake. If you looks at Barack Obama's time as president you cannot see anything that makes this a good choice. Right now we are still in the potential part of his Presidency. He has not signed any new treaties, brokered any cease fires, or ended any long standing arguments. The truth is he might never do these things as President.
Maybe the pressure will be on now. Maybe winning the award will change the way Barack Obama approaches Afghanistan or Iraq. I am not sure that is the right way to effect change.
My biggest disappointment is that it might effect the image of the Nobel Peace Prize. I really believe in the Nobel Prizes. I think the price has added legitimacy to causes in the past. An act like giving it to Barack Obama hurts that legitimacy for the future.
I suggest every look at the list of past winners. You will see some other mistakes here, but not too many.
I am surprised that this photo has even 15 views. I took this photo to show how scary it was to see this face of Jack Black looking at me while I drove. The photo might be amusing, but it is not very good looking. It could have been a better photo, but I took it while at a red light.
This is another uninteresting photo. It is from the upper deck of AT&T Park. Yeah, I sit in the cheap seats. It is hard to get interesting photos from my seats.
Uploaded on May 27, 2007 Taken on May 4, 2007 Viewed 10 times
I think it is easy to see why this photo only has five views. I do not think it is very interesting. I could see this photo topping out at 25 views, but it will take a long time.
Uploaded on April 15, 2008 Taken on April 14, 2008 Viewed 5 times
It is easy to see why this photo only view in five months. The subject matter is not interesting and and not well expressed. It is not part of any groups. Just adding it to a few groups might increase the views.
Uploaded on March 31, 2009 Taken on March 25, 2009 Viewed once
This photo has no title, few tags and is part of no groups and no sets. There is also another photo right next to it of the same subject matter. That might be why it has no view. I know that adding this blog entry this will no longer be a zero
Uploaded on April 24, 2009 Taken on April 4, 2009 Viewed 0 times (Not including you)
More of the follow up for my April/May 08 Flickr view posts. This will finish this series. Next I will have the new version of this project. How have these views grown? just check it out.
Back in April of 08 I did an entry showing how many views on flickr some of my photos have. Recently I passed 2 million total photo views on flickr. that made me think about revisiting this idea. If I do this again, I should start by looking at how many views the photos from the April 08 post have now. I think it is going to take me more than one post.
We got up early to hit the road and have the complimentary hotel breakfast. We both just wanted to get home. I had to stop at the Trees of Mystery to take a photo of the huge Paul Bunyen and Babe the Blue Ox Statue. We spent a lot time on the trip home talking about Pelican Bay and Super-Max prisons. We drove down the Avenue of the Giants, but I did not drive through a tree. Kate said that I have to save something for when we have kids. It was a amazing to drive down 101, from the coast, to the great north woods, to wine country. The views were amazing. We stopped for Milkshakes in Santa Rosa, but I could not convince Kate to go to the Warm Puppy Cafe. It took us 45 minutes in traffic to get from Berkley to past the Bay Bridge.
Woke up early Drove around San Jose, it was very quite and peaceful Had a donut for breakfast Andrew J Thomas came over to my place to get ready Got to the wedding site before any of the guests Ran around like crazy before the wedding started. Spent what felt like a long time on the wedding platform trying not to see Kate before the wedding started. We were waiting for the wedding party to be ready, I was on alone on the stage. All the guests where standing there looking at me. I stood there in front of the guests. I took questions to warm up the crowd. I was asked how we met and if Kate offers a 401k. I am so happy I waited for that moment to see Kate in her wedding dress for the first time. It was almost overwhelming in a good way. I think this is a good tradition. During the ceremony, the whole world faded away except for Kate. I almost cried when Pat read Corinthians 1:13 I could hear people go ahhhh when Kate and I read our vows. It felt like the photos took a long time and that we should have done more. I did not take many photos with my camera. I did not get the time to talk to as many people as I wanted to. The day really did fly by. It rained before we cut the cake. It was amazing to see my friends start grabbing stuff to get it out of the rain. We cut the cake while it was raining. The cupcakes where a big hit. Cupcakes are a great idea for an outdoor wedding. No one had to spend time cutting the cake. Peter and Kelly did the toasts. It started to rain as we decided to do our first dance. We both had a great time with the first dance. Pat was a real ham with his first dance. After the first dance was over, all the guests left to get out of the rain. That was the end of the wedding for the most part. The bridal party decorated the car with Shaving Cream and Tin Cans. The tin cans fell off the car somewhere before the highway. Kate and I snuck out of the hotel for a romantic sushi dinner. After dinner we opened some of the gifts and had some left over cupcakes After dinner we went to the hostility suite to see some family. We were really tired by the time we went to bed.
This is for all the people that want to see the year by year breakdown of my romantic life. I know how fun that can be. I think there is something that might be learned
Yesterday I posted this picture to Flickr. It is a photo I took in a parking lot because it made me laugh. In less than 24 hours this photo got more than 10,000 views. I would expect a photo like this to get 40 views in 24 hours on a good day. Thanks to stumbleupon.com it got a lot more than this. It is currently the photo with the my 7th most traffic on Flickr. It is the only photo in the top 10 that was not taken at Comic Con in San Diego.
Just about now is when I wish I could make money from my Flickr feed.
I love that they took this picture for the movie. I think that this show how seriously Zack Snyder takes the source material of the graphic novel. I think that is a good thing. There is a small voice in my head that worries that this is just pandering. Either way he has my two movie ticket.
Above is the best photograph I took in 2008. I do not think I have done my best photography in 2008. I think I took better photographs in 2007. I had things other that photography to focus on. I like photography, I think it keeps me looking at the world. It keeps me thinking about what I am seeing. I have noticed that Taking pictures can take me out of the moment sometimes. It pulls me away from the people in the moment to take the photo. The challenge is for me to take good photos without derailing everything else to do it.
Below is what the runner up for the best photo of the year. Here are the photos I think are my best 48 of the year.
There are two things the photo above makes me thing about:
1. I had a high school history teacher who said that American runs at its best when there are four former U.S. Presidents. Hopefully that is true. Soon there will be four former U.S. Presidents again.
2. Is this photo arranged by height or is that just an illusion?
On flickr I made a set of the best photos I took in 2008. Above is the mosaic of the photos. I have not decided which one is the best yet. If you have any ideas please let me know. I am trying to pick the one that is the best for photographic reasons, not sentimental reasons. This year that might be really hard. That is why I need some outside input.
I am not sure what the best photo I took in 2008 is. I took a lot of photos and posted a lot to Flickr. I have started a Nomination Set. These are the photos that I think are the best or might be the best. You might disagree with me. If you think a photo is the best of 2008 make a comment on that photo. I will add it to the nominations group. Hopefully I can make a decision by close to the start of next year.
I ask a lot of people a single question, What is wrong with Yahoo's Business? Lots of people can only muster one answer, "They are not Google." I do not get any answers that have to do with they way their business is run or how they use their properties.
Yahoo has a very simple business. Generate traffic and monetize it. It generates traffic through services and content. It sells advertising around them both. Their strategy should be to acquire every and any company that makes their traffic, services, content or monetization stronger.
Yahoo should be the most aggressive acquirer on the planet right now. In case you haven’t noticed, everything and anything owned by private equity firms in the media and technology spaces are on sale at a huge discount. VC’s are freaking out that their companies not only have no exit strategies, but might also have to close down. No PE or VC in the world wants to make a capital call. Which has created an amazing opportunity. The same on the public company front. Any company that has any level of dependency on advertising has seen their stock tank. The opportunities for a company with a strong balance sheet won’t ever be any better than they are today.
Yahoo should be on the warpath, vetting each and every media (yes media) and technology company it can sit down with looking for bargains.
I am worried that Yahoo is too scared to do something like this. I am worried that people in the tech world would not understand this strategy and they would scare off people that Yahoo could buy. I just hope I am wrong.
I am thinking about subscribing to Marvel.com electronic comics. I am not sure if it is worth it or not. I like the idea of reading comics again. I love having physical comic books. There is something really good about being able to hold the book in your hands and the pages in your fingers. The problem is that Comic Books are really expensive. For the $5 a month for Marvel.com electronic comics I could afford one comic book and the gas to get to the comic book store.
I am just not sure it is worth it reading comics on my computer. If anyone out there has used Marvel's Electronic Comics let me know.
Today I noticed that I have more that 1.5 million views on Flickr. I crossed this number about a week ago. This blows me away. I know that this does not mean that 1.5 million people have seen my photographs. I have no idea how many people have seen my photos and no good way to estimate. I still know that they have been viewed 1.5 million times.
This number blows my mind. I know that I have a lot of views because I post a lot of photos. Still, people keep on coming back to my photos. People keep on looking at them. I think this is cool. When flickr started if you told me how many people would view my photos I would not have believed it.
I just wish there was a way for me to make money with my flickr stream. I wish I could use a pro account and sign up for ad serving. I wish there was a way for me to cash in. For now I will have to settle for watching my views go up.
I was not happy when I read in Gizmodo that Joe Biden is Pro RIAA and MPAA. This scares me a little. There is more than enough reason to dislike the RIAA and MPAA. It is not only the lawsuits, but that they protect the industries and not the artist.
Obama's website piece about technology says that he is for Net Neutrality, but if vague about copyright and says nothing about file sharing. I want to know where he stands on the DMCA and extending copyrights again.
I know this might sound like a small issue in terms of everything in this election. I know it is not as important as Iraq, Energy Policy, or Health Care. The problem is that I work in the Tech Sector. The last two companies I have worked for could have been legislated out of existence. It is important to me to know how these things might be treated.
There is one thing I want to hear from Barack Obama's speech tonight. I want to hear that his administration will not treat the Constitution with the same disregard as the Bush administration. I want no warrant wire tapping, no spying on American citizens, and now water boarding. I want no black site prisons, no passing prisoners off to other countries to be tortured, and no holding people without charge. These are the real things that can be done to get America's standing back in the world.
If Barack Obama addresses these things in his speech he will go a long way toward winning my vote. If he does not I worry that the change and hope he is talking about is all a smoke screen.
Yahoo! Sports did a list of the worst Cities to be a sports fan. I am happy to hear that Philadelphia did not show up on this list. In fact Philadelphia teams have done well this decade. Yes, no titles, but lots of playoff appearances. I am happy to say that Philadelphia is not playing big bucks to watching losing teams. They are paying big bucks to see teams that cannot get it don in the playoffs.
Julius Carry passed away on August 18. I think he was a good actor, even if he was in mostly be movies. I found that he passed away because the photo above got a big spike in views. I got more that 500 views in a day. It is the number one result for google image search for Julius Carry. This is just another case of the internet being strange.
My condolences go to Julius Carry's family and friends. You were the master.
I need your help tagging my Comic Con photos. I took over 700 photos at comic con. that is a lot of photos. I have not had time to tag all of them. There are lots of them which I have not idea what the tags should be. There are other photos which I know what the tag should be, but I have not found the time. I created a set of some comic con 2008 photos that need tags. You can also just look at the tag Needstags. Any help you can provide will be appreciated.
I saw an odd trend at Comic Con this year. There were lots of women wearing men's costumes. I have seen this before, but it was really big this time. It is not that the women were trying to pass as men. They were trying to look like women, but they were dressed like Han Solo, Iron Man, or The Joker. I think this is getting to be a bigger and bigger trend. I think it is a good way for people to make costumes that no one has ever seen before. I think that having something people have never seen before is a big thing.
There were lots of women dressed as male characters. I only saw one man dressed as a female character. That is the man dressed like Harley Quinn in the photo above. I can see how there are few female characters that would look good as a man. I think that it would be cool to get a male Rouge or male Raven.
I am not sure what the increase in "cross play" mean. Yes, cross play is the term for dressing as a character of the opposite gender. I think that people are trying to push more the edge. I think cross play is an easy way for people to do this. It might also be a way to dress like a character that is not a sex symbol.
I will say again that this is the costume century. By 2100 people will be dressing like movie and comic book characters as part of their everyday life.
The comic con bump for my flickr photostream is coming to an end. I estimate that I received an extra 60,000 views from July 20 to August 10. I have to admit that this is one of the reasons I love comic con. I know the photos will get a lot of views. It would be nice if I could somehow make money from this.
The odd thing is that my older comic con photos also got a bump this year. The costume photos from other years got a lot of extra views. This has never happened before. I am not sure how it happened.
I also did not have any pictures that just took off. Many times a few photos would get 1000 views before I left San Diego. The photo below is my most view photo from Comic Con 2008 and it has less than 500 views. Many of the photos are in the 100 to 200 range.
Right now I am working on my checklist. I have over a thousand photos of people in costumes. I want to figure out who I have and who I still need to get.
Jimmy Gownley did a parody of Meet the Beatles as a tshirt using the characters of Amelia Rules. Talking to him he said that he was thinking about doing a new t-shirt for every show he does. I took it upon myself to make a list of album covers I would like to see as Amelia Rules T-shirts. I hope everyone likes the list
Album Covers that should not be done, but I want to see:
1. Michael Jackson - Thriller 2. MC Hammer - Hammer Time 3. Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan 4. Nirvana - Nevermind 5. The Police - Synchronicity 6. Guns n' Roses - Appetite For Destruction' 7. Bruce Springsteen - Greetings From Asbury Park 8. Moby - 18 (This might work for Earthdog) 9. Crowded House - Crowded House 10. Prince - Purple Rain 11. Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
My vacation is just about over now. I did not blog very much while I was on the road. I spent my time, at comic con, with Kate, with my friends, seeing people, seeing movies, eating, and doing other vacation things. When I did have time at my computer I was working on my photos. I was looking through photos, uploading to flickr, or adding tags to the photos.
Comic Con was great. Kate had a good time going with me. It was her first comic con and I am happy that she had a good time. This makes it likely that we will likely back to Comic Con in the future. I am happy she had a good time.
One of the reasons she had a good time is because we got to see lots of friends there. Kate got to meet a lot of people from the first time. I am happy that Kate liked my friends and they liked her.
Top ten thing about comic con
10. Dumbrell Panel 9. Chuck Panel 8. Buying the first copy of Cool Jerk Vol 2. 7. Animation of Peanuts Panel 6. Taking Photos of People in Costume 5. Watching Chris Being a Tonight Show Correspondent 4. Shopping at Scarlett's Corsets 3. Walking around the floor before it was open 2. Watchmen Panel 1. Helping set up the Kids Love Comics booth
Top ten non-Comic Con Specific things
10. Driving down the San Diego with Kate 9. Sunday Brunch with Steve and Kristin 8. Swimming in Steve's Pool 7. Dinner at Pizza Port with Gerry 6. Karen's Birthday Dinner At Fred's Mexican 5. Dinner with the AZ girls at Ocean Beach 4. Dinner with Jimmy, Karen, Harold, Anna and Stella. 3. Staying with Steve and Kristin 2. Seeing people I do not see Often 1. Kate meeting my friends
Is it too early for me to be thinking about the best albums of the 00 decade? I hope not, because I have been thinking about them for a while. I know that if I do not think about this list now, I will never get the list done in a reasonable time.
The funny thing, this is the decade that I have been the most interested in music. In the 80s I was very young when it started and could not find music for myself. In the 90s I was very connected to music while I was in college, but after that I all but forgot about music. By the end of the decade I was not listening to anything.
Because of the internet, iPods, and blogs, I really connected to music early in this decade. It has been a great decade for music. There are a lot of bands that I know of that I doubt I would have heard of in former decades. It is true that the music industry has also changed in this time. These bands might have been signed in the past.
I have started working on my list of the best albums from this decade. So far the list has over 100 albums on it. Those are just albums which I have tracks from on my laptop. I think the list will get bigger as I look at all the albums from the decade. I know there are things I must be forgetting.
Of course this means I still listen to albums. I am not sure how many other people are still listening to albums. I keep on hearing how albums are going away, but I have not see it yet. The bands I listen to are still putting out albums. It might be a little while longer before they go away. This might be the last decade for a list like this.
Let me know if you want to do this as a project. I want to know if I can get lists from enough people so I can give more than just my ranking.
Is anyone else going to make a list of the best albums from the 00's? How many albums will you put on your list? How detailed are you going to be about the ranking?
Update: I am defining the decade at 2000-2009. I know the whole zero year thing is in play, but I think it is esthetically better to start on 2000.
For the third year in a row, my photo a day project failed. I have sent out to take a photo every day of the year and have not been able to keep it up. I have a hard time with this for two reasons. I have a hard time finding the artistic drive that the project needs. I start to run out of themes quickly into the year. After a while I started to get lazy. It would have taken a lot of effort to take photos that are new.
Part of the problem is that I have some 8000+ photos on flickr. There are lots of things subjects in this area which I have already shot. It was also hard to find the time. It was not at the front of my thoughts everyday.
Here are a few things I can try next year to make it work better.
1. Pre-plan more photos - Try to have my next week of photos figured out before I get there. This will help me figure out when I need to go out of my way to get a photo. 2. Let myself take photos I have taken before. If I need to take a photo of City Hall or the Mary Statue it is okay. 3. Do not go to the same well too many times. I got bored because I took too many photos of myself in the same way. This got really boring after a while. 4. Put time aside to take pictures. It is hard to find time some days. It might be easier to find the time if I put it on my calendar.
Let me know if you have any hints about doing a 365 photo project.
I love the idea of people using flickr at a recipe site. This Tuna Noodle Casserole was made by a friend of ours Louise. She is a good cook so I think this is likely a good recipe. The photo makes me think it is a great meal.
I have been looking at flickr stats since it has been added to flickr. I was hoping it would tell me something about my photos that I did not already know. I was hoping I would get a good idea where my views come from. I now have a good idea where my views come from. Below are the numbers as long as Flickr shows them:
Every other site is less that 1%. It would take about 5000 views to get to 1%.
At the time is an image of my stats. You can see that big spike. After looking at those big spikes a few time I came to a realization. Those big spikes do not come from a single photo getting a lot of view. It does not come from a lot of photos getting a higher than average number of views. Those spikes from from many photos getting one extra view that day. That just amazes me.
I have 8,600 hundred photos on flickr. On an average day I get 1700 views over 700 photos. I will get a spike where I get 9000 views over 5000 photos. It is just like lots of photos go an extra view.
I am finding that my photography is defining the long tail.
I was looking in the referral logs of my blog. Most of my search referrals are currently image searches. I used to get all kinds of crazy searches that would find Sad Salvation because of written content. Now random people find me because of images. I am not sure why that is. Have Google text searches got better? Are people searching for fewer crazy things? Are images really what my blog is about?
I am not sure if this is good for my blog or not. I am not sure how to attract people who have never read it before. I am not sure that people that do not know me would even like reading it. I would love to be a big time blogger, but I am not sure this blog is going that direction.
I am really jealous of the guys at gizmodo because of their lego land trip. This is a must read for any Lego fan. You have to read the question and answer and watch the trip to the vault. This is a very nice series.
I am not sure what is going to happen at Yahoo! I like Yahoo. They have some of my favorite internet brands in their company. I really do not want to see them self destruct. I am happy that they were able to hold off Microsoft. I am worried that so many of the top people there have decided to leave. I just hope that it does not mean anything really bad for them.
This is my most viewed photo. I do not think this is my best photo ever. I do not think these women are the most attractive in my photosteam. When I took this photo, it wa just a spontaneous snap shot. I just had a few seconds to take it. They did not take to time to pose most most people in costume take. Maybe that is why it is so well liked.
This is also my most commented photo. But part of that has to do with Supergirl having a belly ring. People wonder how a person with skin the strength of steel gets a belly ring.
For a long time this was my most viewed photo. It is easy to see why this photo was the most viewed photo. This is where my obsession with Metal Slave Bikini Leia. This was the moment I found out that there are so many women who dress like this at comic book conventions. I guess this is where I found out I should try to take more photos of women in costumes.
This photo has been viewed so many times because it was blogged so many times. During comic con it turned up on six different blogs. People loved the idea of a Steampunk Ghostbuster. I have to admit that this is one of my favorite costumes of all time.
I am not sure how blog views are counted. I know that most of my flickr views come from inside of flickr. Site referrals only account for 2% of my views. 2% of 1.2 million is still 24000 views. Maybe a big chunk of that is part of this photo.
Views on Flickr: One Thousand Fourty Eight view photo
I average between 1900 and 1100 views a day. This is the range my views stay between. Some days I see a big bump, but it never falls below 1100 views. Everyday my photostream gets as many views as this photo has totally. That is a strange idea. At the high end of views, photos get 100 to 70 views. On the low end hundreds of photos get 1 to 2 views. I think this is very interesting.
Look at all the elements of this photo. It is easy to see why this photo has so many views. It is a great costume group. I think that is one of the reasons it has so many views.
My nephew noticed that I took lots of photos of signs. Yes it is something I do all the time. Some of my most viewed photos are of signs. If it was not for Comic Con they would dominate the top of my popular lists.
I was surprised to find out that Wolverine is one of my biggest search terms for my photosteam. I am not sure why over 5000 people in the past year have searched for Wolverine. I know it is my Comic Con that keeps people coming back.
This is a great photo because it is an in joke. Not everyone knows this is Spider Man. Not everyone knows that this is actually from a comic book. Lots of people think it is combining the Unknown Comic and the Fantastic Four. I am happy this has so many views.
Views on Flickr: Six Hundred Eighty One View Photo
This is my 200 most view photo. Flickr users know the importance of this because 200 is the default last photo when users are looking at their most viewed photo. I hope that someone sees this as interesting. This photo has a lot of elements that make my photos interesting. I think I do a pretty good job with my best photos. I think my 200 best photos are pretty good. That might be because I take so many pictures that I am only getting lucky. I will still take that.
On Saturday Kate and I went to Maker Faire. It was cool, but I do not think it was as cool as Maker Faire 2007. Maybe it is because I expected it to be better than last year and I was disappointed.
For one thing it took me an extra hour to get there. Getting from the 101 offramp to the ticket gate took me one hour and fifteen minutes. That is really long. The traffic was really bad. Sitting in traffic that long really took a toll on me. After being annoyed for that long it was a little harder for me to enjoy things.
Of course a more crowded Maker Faire means exhibitions were harder to see. I did not get to see the life size mouse trap go off because there were too many people around. Several things where that way. If the life size Mouse Trap is there next year, I hope they have bleachers around it so more people can see it go off.
I did get to see some cool things there. I just did not have the patience to look at a lot of the things there. It seemed like I was just missing or too early for a lot of the things.
I will go to Maker Faire next year. I will try to make more time, get there earlier and stay there longer. It make take a little more from me, but I think it will be wrk it.
In 2005 at comic con I decided that whenever I saw someone with a comic book themed tattoo I was going to ask them if I could take a picture. I had not noticed that many comic book themed tattoos before. Taking photos of them really made me notice them at comic con. Now whenever I see a tattoo I have not seen before I want to take a picture of it.
Tattoos get a lot of views on Flickr and on my blog. In Sad Salvation's referral log I see lots of images searches for tattoos. I think it is easy to see why this photo would get so many views.
Lets go down the checklist here, Comic con - Check, Woman - Check, Corset - Check, Costume - Check, Goth - Check, Spider web - Check, Mowhawk - Check. I have no question why this photo has over 500 views.
Above 500 views there are very few Comic Con photos. I will keep on going to Comic Con because of this. If I leave the west coast, I will have to go to the New York Comic Con or Dragon Con in Atlanta.
I am not sure what I can say about this photo. It is really not like any the other photos in my collection. It is the typical "Stand here and pose with this person" photo. I love the expression of both Chris and the woman in the grapes.
I wonder what other people think when they see this photo.
Flickr has added a "Share This" Feature. I am testing the like it give me. I wonder how it decides the size for the photo. I wonder if I will start to use this feature. You can also use this feature to E-mail, Link, or Blog the photo.
Tattoos get a lot of views on my photostream. They also get lots of views on my blog. I love taking photos of Tattoos. I do not have any tattoos, but I respect people that do. I think there is a lot of art in tattoos. I also see lots of commitment in tattoos. I love when I see a tattoo that I have never seen before. I love when a tattoo has a good theme. I love when I have the feeling that I have seen something I would not see anywhere else. That is what makes photographing a tattoo special.
I am not sure what makes searching for a tattoo on flickr special.
I once had a conversation with another flickr user about views on flickr. I asked him about how many views his photos average. He said he did not take not of that. He said that he has about hundred contacts and all his photos get about 100 views. This idea blew me away. I knew that this did not happen to me. I know that most of my contacts do not see most of my photos.
When I got to know this flickr user better I found out how this might be true for him and not true for me. He posts about three times a month. He also only posts about two or three photos at a time. I post between 20-30 days a month. I also post between 100 - 300 photos a month. I think it is much harder for all my viewers to view all my photos.
There are other problems. I know that many of my contacts do not long on often. At least 50 of them have not uploaded a new photo in 2008 yet. I know that I am uploading several days worth of photos between when they log on. That gets me less views.
I would love if all my contacts saw all my photos. I know that is not going to happen anytime soon. I know that I am not even going to average that many views. I could reduce my number of contacts to see what happens, in the end I am not sure that would help.
Costume photos are very popular on my photo stream. A large percentage of the photos with more than 200 views are from Comic Book Conventions. Most of these photos are of people in costume. As I get close to the top of my most viewed list, it is almost all people in costume. There will be several more of these photos in this project.
When I look at my biggest search terms, they are all most all comic book terms. I think this really says something about the people who are using flickr. It will also have a lot to do with which of my photos are actually interesting.
One hundred fifteen photo is my average view. That means that average view is 71 views higher then my median view. That means that my photo views are very top heavy. This is not a surprise to me. This photo is ranked 1631 in overall views and my median photo is ranked 4112. That is a pretty big spread.
This photo is a good example of what I get rewarded for. It is something funny that is in everyday life. I have a good eye for these things. I can see what photos might people laugh a little. It is better to be one of a few people that can express something funny than to be one of a huge crowd who is technically good.
I have no idea why this photo of my trash has 100 views. It is not a good photo. it is not an interesting photo. It is a photo of trash. There is something that always happens all the time. I am often asking myself why are people are looking at this photograph. Now there is a stats feature on flickr, but it was not there when they were looking at this photo. I do not know why people looked at this photo. I just know that they did. Hopefully I will be able to figure this out in the future.
This photo starts to show what kind of photos I can take when I take when I do a good job. I think that this is a good portrait. The SB600 flash I use here really does a good job. It really improves what I do with lower light.
This photo is good enough that the subject asked if he could use the picture for his Facebook profile photo. I can see how better photos are getting more views.
At 50 views I start seeimng photos that I think are good. Before this my photos are ordinary at best. I will admit that I think they are a little under rated at 50 views. I think the photo above should have over 100 views. This photo is not special, but I think it is good. Around here I can see photos that I want other people to really see.
You might ask why 44 views. This happens to be the median view of my photostream. I have about 150 photos with 44 views. Over the last two years my median started at 30 view, crawled up to I have lots of photos of people in sitting around coffee shops at meetings. These photos look the same often. I think this is a little better that the average photo like this.
This photo could get more views if I spent time improving the tags and adding it to more groups.
This is what a twenty five view photo looks like. The subject of the photo has a limited appeal. This photo has my sister at the Giants game. The photo is pretty well tagged and it has been added to my standard number of groups. I think this is a pretty good example of a twenty five view photo.
This is what a photo with ten views looks like. It is a good idea, but it is not there. It is a photo that you can find all over the place on flickr. There is nothing special about it.
This is a pretty typical five view photo. I have about 100 photos with 5 views. All of them are poorly tagged. Most of them have poor composition. all of them have been uploaded in 2008. They have been added to few groups.
I cannot say the above photo deserves very many views. I like the idea, but it is not executed well. It is missing that thing that makes it a good photo. That thing is a real idea of that the shot is telling us. Once again, a poor photo does not get rewarded on flickr.
I want to start a new series of blog posts looking at views on flickr. Above is a photo titled 2008 Spring Vacation: The Motel Room. This is a good example of a photo that only has two views. I did not have any photos on flickr that have been posted for more that a month that has only one view. In practical terms, this is on of my worst photos on flickr. I have not be rewarded for posting it on flickr.
One of the things that I notice is that it is poorly tagged and not in many groups. Right after I post this photo I will update the tags and add the photo to more groups. Even as I do that, it will not get this photo that many extra views. There are few good elements in this photo. I expect in a few weeks this photo will top out at about ten views.
I understand the idea that the customer is always right, but I am shocked at how entitled some users are. They feel offended that flickr would stoop so low as to offer video. Of course everyone knows that video is the least common denominator on the internet.
If they do not like a feature, don't use it. I think that Elkit in Wonderland said it very well.
I get that you may have no use for this feature, but I don't get the part where you want to forbid it to everybody just because it's not *your* thing.
I know people have very strong feelings about flickr, but you need to give it a chance to grow. I get it that at this time just about every internet user has a favorite site that has been ruined by change. Everyone has a story of a site that used to be great but changed and never recovered.
My problem is that people have not given video a chance. Instantly they said all the idiots from youtube would flood over here and destroy Flickr. They have not even used the feature. Months ago when I first heard rumors of video I did not like the idea, but I think flickr has done a good job with it. The 90 second limit seems to be a great idea. They are long photos and not short video blogs.
Now lets see if there is any change. I trust the flickr staff not to screw this up. I just wished more users had that kind of faith.
Gapingvoid did a webcomic about why he deleted his twitter account. This is interesting to me. Lately I have been less active on my blog. I know this has to do with being engaged. I spend a lot of time with Kate. Even when I am sitting at my computer, I cannot just whip up a good blog entry. It takes time and a lot of effort. What I want to say is just not on the top of my head. It takes a little drilling for me to get to.
I have a twitter account. It is an interesting communication tool and it is worth using for me. It just not the same as a blog. I spend much of my time just deleting messages. Most of the time I am using it on my phone. While it is entertaining, it really makes the rest of text messaging less useful to me.
Twitter at its best feels like a really good short blog, cutting through all the crap. The problem is that is rarely feels that way. Most of the time it is just people talking too much. It seems like less worth my time than reading blogs.
I am not sure if I stopped twittering I would write or read more blogs. Twitter is like a lot of web 2.0 things, I like it, but I will it was more useful.
I have not blogged a photo in a while, so here you go. I have been posting some old photos on Flickr lately. I guess I am getting bored with the photos I am taking right now. I have been feeling that way for a while.
Looking at old photos is strange. The first thing that stands out to me is how I could have taken a better picture. I could have framed it better or composed it better. I think I am a better photographer now, just because I have looked at so many photos. It makes me want to go retake all these old photos. That is not something I can always do.
The Watchmen movie is do to come out in 52 weeks from today. I have been reading the Watchmen movie blog. I am sorry to say, but this movie looks like it is going to be really good. I am a little worried. I love the Watchmen and I cannot see how a movie can do it justice. Everything looks good. I am trying not to buy the hype. There are too many ways to get this wrong and too few to get it right.
Over the weekend I went to Wonder Con. It was an alright comics show. It would have been nice if there were better booths. I was not impressed with the booths that were there. There seemed to be fewer indie booths this year. They also seemed to be of lower quality. The number of people in costume was good, but not great. I would say it was not as good last year.
In other comic book convention news, I hear that Comic Con overbooked the convention by 1000 tables. I hear that are cutting people back with over 10 year relationships with the convention. It is true that I am getting this information third hand. If this is true, I hope this is not the end of the convention as we know it. I doubt they care cutting the big booths from the major studios. What I like the best is the hard to find stuff, not the stuff I can find anywhere.
The Amgen Tour of California came rolling by my door. I was there to see it. This is something else that I have been missing over the last couple of years. Yesterday I worked from home so I could see it. There are lots of cool things that happen around here, but it is not always easy to find the time to do them.
Wonder con is this weekend. It starts on Friday. Of course I will be there. It is not as big of an event as Comic Con. I only go to WonderCon for one day. I think I would get really bored if I went there for all three days. Maybe if I did I would go to more panels.
Above is my most viewed Wonder Con photo. I will be there with camera in hand. I will be trying to get as many photos as possible. Photos of people in costume fuel views on flickr for me. Now that I have flickr stats to look at I will be interested to see what wonder con does to my views. Let me know if you will be there also.
I am love. I am not sure how I can say it any plainer or clearer. That is not the best part. The best part is that the woman I am in love with loves me back. Maybe that is not the best part. Maybe the best part is that I have never felt this way about someone before.
I do not know what to say about my love life. I spent my 20s being alone. I did not have a meaningful romantic relationship from the age of 19 to the age of 30. When I turned 30 a friend told me that it was about to change. Guys like us look better in our 30s than in our 20s. I guess he was right. I am not upset at not having relationships in my 20s. I think it has helped mold me into the person I am right now. I think I am a good person now, ready to love. I am doing my best to use my past to my advantage.
I cannot put into words how I feel right now. I have deleted this paragraph four or five times. Every way I try to describe Kate seems to fall short. The worlds do not seem to live up to the task of conveying the truth. I cannot find words that show what is really in my heart. She is so much more to me than I ever expected.
I have seen Kate very day in the last four months. I cannot not imagine not seeing her everyday. I cannot imagine seeing her more than I see anyone else. I cannot imagine her not being this close to her. I cannot imagine being without her touch, her sent, her voice, or her close to me. I want to spend the rest of my life being close to her.
The state of my heart is very good right now. I am amazed at everything that has happened in the past few months. I was not expecting it to happen. I was not looking when it happened. I was opened to the idea that it could happen. When it happened, I was not afraid of what could happen.
I started writing the State of My Heart Addresses back when I was in college. That goes back over 10 years now. The only old State of My Heart Address on line are the ones since I started to keep a blog. Here is your chance to see my old collected State of my Heart Addresses. This is a good reason for me to keep this blog going. Tomorrow you will see my State of my Heart Address for 2008.
I have been an eMusic user since 2002. I left after you stopped offering unlimited downloads, but I came back to you in 2005. You have helped me find new music. There are bands which I am not sure I would have ever found without you like, The Decemberist, Drive-by Truckers, Akron/Family, Jason Anderson, Art Brut, The Hold Steady, Antony and the Johnsons, Kimya Dawson, Avert Brothers, and Josh Ritter, just to name a few. I really love your service. It gives me a relationship to music that is really strong.
All that being said, eMusic has not made any major changes to their website since 2005. You have not given me any new features. I know that some people might thing that this works, but it does not. It is not enough for you to just go out and sign more music. The world of online retail is changing all the time and you are all the same.
My biggest problem that there are a lack of ways for me to have an idea of I will like music before I download it. There is is also a lack of ways for me to find music I might not know to look for. An example of this problem is that eMusic does not have a suggestion engine. You know all the albums I download, but you do not know if I like them or not. I want a good suggestion engine where I can refine the suggestions. This way I can find bands that I might like.
I would also like some kind of last.fm or iLike social feature. A feature that lets me see what other users are like me and what music they like. A way to communicate with these users. I want to see what they like and dislike. Hopefully that will help me make choices about music.
Lately I want easy ways to share the music I find on eMusic with the outside world. I would like good blogging tools. I want a way to a way to share my lists with an RSS feed. I want to be able to show people how cool eMusic is by adding content to my website.
I will keep using eMusic even it if does not ad these tools. i worry that they are leaving customers on the table by not updating. There site has changed very little since 2002. that is forever in internet time. I am just worried in the current age of DRM free music they will be left behind.
I would like to list this photo under deserves more views. I know the truth is that I should file it under: not as good at it could be.
I am thinking about starting a Photo Blog up. I am not sure if it is worth my time or not. I already have a flickr account. What would it mean to also have a photo blog? I am not sure it would be worth the time.
My Average view per photo on flickr is 110. My median views per photo is 47. This tells me that the photos with the most views have a lot of views. The median photo is number 3677. My average view photo is number 1559. I get have my views from 21% of my posted photos. I wonder how it is for other people. I know I can figure something out something by looking at these photos. I am just not sure what I can learn.
Total Photos Posted by 12/31/07: 7275 Photos Posted in 2007: 3947 Photos from 2007 posted: 2772 Month with the most posts: 686 Month with the most photo: 1005
Views: Photos 806,720 Photostream 190,243 Sets 63,936 Total 1,060,901
I want to focus on traveling on inside of California. There are lots of places in the state that I have not gone yet. I need to start knocking some of these places off this list. I made a list of 20 places that I have not gone before. I hope to go to 10 of these this year. I know lots of these are baseball themed, but I am a baseball fan.
Getty Museum Santa Clara University Baseball Game Joe DiMaggio's Grave Joe DiMaggio's Boat Lake Tahoe Disneyland Sacramento AAA Baseball Game Modesto Nuts Game San Francisco Zoo Yosemite Golden Gate Fields Chabot Space & Science Center Humboldt State University Natural History Museum USS Hornet Museum U.S. Naval Museum of Armament & Technology Naval Air Weapons Station, China Lake Dodger Stadium Asian Art Museum of San Francisco san francisco academy of sciences lenny dykstra's car wash Castle Rock State Park
This view no longer exists. There is a building that is going in between the camera and the buildings in the background. I have living in San Jose long enough to remember how the skyline has changed.
Loans at the Flea Market. I am not sure what this says. When I see this I think of people getting the wrong load for their needs. We are starting to learn a lot more about the problems with the subprime market. I wonder if what we learn will match what think we already know.
I was surprised to hear that investors own about 20% of the bay area homes in foreclosure. It should not be a surprise that speculators are left holding the bag. That happens a lot is situations like this. I wonder if I will hear any politicians talk about this. I am not sure anyone will ask what it means that home flippers got caught.
I am not sure what will be done about the subprime mortgage meltdown, but I have the feeling it will be the wrong thing. The problem is that some of the people that made money were people who sold their homes. Not a politician in the world will go after them. I am worried that the actions of politicians will keep home prices high and will benefit people who took the wrong risk this time. That will just encourage people to make the wrong choices again. That is what happens when politicians mess with markets.
My girlfriend wants me to get my hair cut before Christmas. She is worry about what my Dad will say when he sees my hair this long. She also does not want me to cut my hair this short. She says that she does not like me with really short hair. I just want to let my hair get longer. If I get it cut it will have to be soon.
The New York Times travel section did a story about the 53 places to visit in 2008. I would like to be able to visit all of them. Right now San Francisco and San Diego are the only two places on the list that I will likely travel to next year. In San Diego I doubt I will get a chance to stay in the new Hard Rock Hotel. If you want to hire me for some kind of job that will send me to all these places, I will be happy to go.
There is a good chance I will go to Portland sometime next year. My guess is that I will do a lot less travel next year. I doubt I will get to as many places as I did this year.
For the fifth year in a row I have done National Novel Writing Month. That is the challenge where people write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. For all five years I have completed the challenge. That means that in all five years I have written 50,000 words. If I had to testify in court, I would not say that every year my 50,000 words would add up to a novel. Only one year has the story come to a nice neat conclusion in close to 50,000. Most years the novel is no where near being complete. It is usually a mess of text that would take major work before it could be as a novel.
Every year I track to see how long it takes me to write. I track to see how many hours the novel takes me and how many words per hour I write. This year it took me 57.75 hours to write a total of 50200 words. That means I averaged over 850 words an hour. Some of those hours were total clunkers that I wrote a total of 77 hours. I also know that I rounded down some of the time. For Argument sake, lets say it took me 60 hours to write 50000 words or 830 words an hour.
When I go to a write in I try to write 1000 words an hour. I can do this with minimal distraction. Back in college I was told that 1000 words an hour is what the average person can compose and write. That is a good 50 minute hour of writing. I have noticed that I can usually keep this pace up for about 4 hours at most. More things creep in that really pull me away from writing. Simple things like eating and using the bathroom can really put me away from working on my novel.
I think that if it takes someone more than 80 hours to write the novel they will never do it. That means you need to write for 3.2 hours a day. I will admit that I have never written from 30 days in month. I have never written for more than 25 days in a month. Between work and having to interact with other human beings, writing 25 days in a month is really hard. At writing 15 days, that is writing 3.2 hours a day. That is where it starts to get hard. If you set the goal of 2000 words a day, that give you five days free during the month.
I have always found write-ins key to getting nano done. It is hard to explain why this is. Most people see writing as a solitary experience that you have to do for yourself. Somehow write-ins change that expense. I find that there is something special about writing around other people. It inspires me to get past blocks. If I need help with something other people are right around me. It gets me past all the the distractions of life.
In some ways write-ins help me compete with people. I am not really interested things like word wars and the kind of on line things people have come up with. Being around people who are either in front or behind me helps me. I want to catch the people in front of me and I look down my nose at people who are behind me.
One of the keys it to use your time well. It can take me 10-20 minutes to get to a write in. I have been asked in the past if it would be better for me to stay home and have that extra 20-40 minutes of round trip minutes to write. For me I have to say no. There are ways t use that time well. If I am leaving from work to go to a write in, that time is useful for me to switch from a work context to a writing context. If I bring all the ideas from work to writing I will be distracted.
If I do not have to come down from work, I can use this time to think about my novel. The key to writing quickly is to have already thought about where you want to go. Have some ideas in your mind. be ready to hit the keys once you are in front of your computer. I do not totally know what is going to happen until I sit down to write, but it is good to think about what might happen.
*Be careful of days where you get nothing done. If you are writing very slowly, it might server you better to close up for the day and put things aside.
*Keep your per hour average writing high. It does not work to write a lot of hours and get little done. If you are not getting things done, stop, and plan for the next time you can write.
*Set up what you are going to write before getting to write ins. If I have a little time watching TV before or after a write in, I plan for the next write in. I jut down some notes setting up what I will write next.
*Have more than one plot line going at the same time. This structure makes it easier to get the writing done. I find when I hit a block with one plot line, I can switch to the other plotline. I will admit that sometimes I have to write something to make the story work, but I am not interested in writing it. This is when having another storyline comes in helpful.
*Don't be afraid where the story might take you. I know that everyone might think they know where they want the story to go, but it is good to go with it sometimes.
I am going on a vacation soon, but it will not be a roadtrip. I will have to wait a while until I get to take a roadtrip. The road has been calling my name lately. I have really wanted to see other places lately. I have wanted to get away from here. It will have to wait a few more months. For now my next chance to get away from here will have to be enough.
The hardest thing for me is making it so my life so it is not about what I own. This is a hard thing because owning is such an important idea. Even if I am okay with what I own, other people have something to say about it. At some point it becomes about if I own a house or not. I want to own less, but I am not sure I can.
I am not going to make a total of 200,000 views this year for my flickr account. I have less than 190,000 views right now. I do not see anyway to get a 10,000 view boost this month. I guess I am going to miss that one.
If you want to look at what I think are good photos you should check out my set, "Should Have 100 Views." This is a group of photos that I think are underrated in my flickr stream. Go look and tell me if you agree.
I do not know when I will get to Portland next, but it has been calling me. Next year I think I will be there. I have visited Portland every even year since I left there. I am looking forward to going again. I know I was not there long, but it still has some of my heart.
This photo has over 500 flickr views. I cannot tell you why that is. It should not have over 500 view. I do not think it should even have 50 views. Tell me if you know why so many people have looked at it.
This was one of my least viewed comic con photos from this year. The funny thing is that it is a pretty good photo. I wonder why the sand people get no love.
I made a hand full of resolutions in 2007. I have been successful for most of them. One I just finished was blogging 150 photos. I think that blogging photos makes my blog more interesting and it makes me think about photography. Both of those things are good things.
If you want to see all the photos I have blogged this year they are in one place, you can look at my set on Flickr. They are in roughly the order I blogged them. I think it is cool to just look at that set.
Tuna Noodle Casserole by loumcf
Median
Average
