Author Archive
Saturday, August 28th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-28
Lorin Stein on the new Franzen novel: http://bit.ly/bBSnXF Yes, literary fiction still lives—Rejoice! #
No Comments » - Posted in General by Ricky
Friday, July 30th, 2010
40mm Leica Summicron-C: The best cheap Leica lens
Steve Huff recently posted his choice for the best budget Leica lens, the 35mm f/2.5 Summarit-M. It’s the second least expensive lens in Leica’s current lineup, and I agree that it’s the best bargain new M-mount lens you can get from Leica.1 However, one of the great things about shooting Leica is that there’s a [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General,Photography,Technology by Ricky
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
Against metrics, for art
Jed Perl’s piece in The New Republic is too short, but makes all the right points about why the arts matter and why being interested in things you know nothing about matters. It also reminded me of how so much media, so much of the online world assumes that its audience is stupid and incapable [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books,General by Ricky
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
David Grann’s Peter Paul Biro profile is the best New Yorker story of the year
If the New Yorker has run a better piece this year, I’m not aware of it. David Grann’s piece on Peter Paul Biro and art authentication (and forgery) is an absolute must-read.
No Comments » - Posted in Books,General by Ricky
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
Rediscovering film with the Leica M7
Six years ago I gave up shooting film entirely and made my transition to digital photography complete. In the process, I moved from an SLR with nice lenses to a series of point-and-shoots whose convenience, I thought, compensated for their subpar image quality. Eventually, I gave those cameras up and moved on to more robust [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in General,Photography,Technology by Ricky
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
Kodak Portra preset for Adobe Lightroom
Ever since I discovered it in 2004, Kodak Portra has been my favorite 35mm color film. So, I was thrilled when I saw that Michael Gray had put together some presets for color films, including Portra 160VC and 160NC. Click here to download the presets.
No Comments » - Posted in General,Photography,Technology by Ricky
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
How to show invisible files in Mac OS X
If you ever need to view invisible files in the Finder, open the Terminal application, type the following, and hit enter. If you want to hide invisible files again, repeat the process and change YES to NO. defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
No Comments » - Posted in General,Technology by Ricky
Monday, July 5th, 2010
Barriers to entry and start-ups
I’ve sat through more start-up pitches than I would like to admit over the past two years, and there’s one question that invariably comes up during every one: “What are the barriers to entry?” In other words, What will prevent someone else from doing exactly what you’re doing? It sounds great, right? Like, barriers to [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General,Technology by Ricky
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
Modified Panasonic DMC-GF1 firmware for 1920×1280 video
Here’s a modified version of the GF1 firmware that allows for full 1080p HD video recording. To update your camera’s firmware, download the file, copy it to the root directory of your SDHC card (after having formatted the card), turn on the camera with the card inserted, and press the play button.
1 Comment » - Posted in General,Photography by Ricky
Saturday, June 12th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-12
My favorite novel of the year, by far, is "Great House" by Nicole Krauss from @norton_fiction Is there a more beautiful book of 2010? # My thoughts on #SATC2 and the Susan Sontag book from @PicadorUSA that appears in the film. http://bit.ly/SATCrev # Did Jobs just compare the new iPhone to "a beautiful, old Leica [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Ricky
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
My favorite ad campaign of the summer
That Sam Mendes ad for the new iPhone is pretty good, but this Louis Vuitton campaign featuring Zinédine Zidane takes the cake. The photography is distinctly Annie Leibovitz’s and the website is excellent.
No Comments » - Posted in General,Photography by Ricky
Sunday, June 6th, 2010
Too much Sex (and the City): a review of SATC2 featuring Susan Sontag
There are many cringe-inducing moments in the second Sex and the City film—the poor jokes, the cheap moralizing, Samantha waving around condoms and giving the finger to an angry mob of locals in Abu Dhabi—but the one that really got me came at the very end of the film when Carrie places her latest book—its [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books,General by Ricky
Friday, June 4th, 2010
The best novel of 2010: Great House
I recently finished reading Great House by Nicole Krauss, and it’s so obviously the best book—the best anything—of this young decade, that I had to share my reaction here. I hope to write something longer about Krauss’s fiction in a few months.
No Comments » - Posted in Books,General by Ricky
Friday, May 21st, 2010
Interview with Leica M product manager Stephan Daniel
This interview took place before the public announcement of the Leica M9 last September. Although the questions are often too technical and boring for my taste, Daniel comes across as an excellent, thoughtful PM.
No Comments » - Posted in General,Photography by Ricky
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
One day a week: Ann Curry on photography
I watched this segment when it aired on the Today show a couple months ago. In it, Ann Curry discusses her passion for photography and gives the best advice you’ll receive all day: “All of us can find peace even in the chaos of our own lives if we can find that one thing we [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General,Photography by Ricky
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
Details’ 1996 Profile of David Foster Wallace
Here is a profile of DFW that ran in Details magazine back in 1996.
No Comments » - Posted in Books,General by Ricky
Saturday, May 15th, 2010
Listen to Tracey Thorn’s new album, “Love and Its Opposite”
This new record from Tracey Thorn will be replacing Katell Keineg’s At the Mermaid Parade in my stereo for at least the next week. Click here to order a copy. Or click here to hear an interview with Thorn on NPR. I was thrilled to see Sasha Frere-Jones’ review of the album in this week’s [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General,Music by Ricky
Saturday, March 27th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-27
Clearly, @FrancesSF is the best new restaurant in San Francisco: http://bit.ly/cZyzhR # I'm hoping for big wins today from Coach K and Speaker Pelosi, who can redeem herself after having wrecked the economy. @atcal #BeatCal # RT @BarackObama: Yes we can. # A great piece by William Deresiewicz on leadership: http://bit.ly/bG7j6P #
No Comments » - Posted in General by Ricky
Saturday, March 20th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-20
"…these days, it seems, the really unhappy people are working in offices." http://s.nyt.com/u/xQd # This video's form mirrors my personal motto: "Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!" http://bit.ly/cWYk8f (via @GinaGarzaNYC) # On @MLBNetwork John Hart just said Kenshin Kawakami has "Asian hesitation" and that the Braves bullpen is full of "Irish rogues." [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Ricky
Saturday, March 13th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-13
Is there a translated work of literature that readers consider to actually be better than the original work? # It's a testament to Sushi Zone that its waitresses waited 30 minutes for seats at the bar on their day off tonight. # “[It] is in failure and through failure, that the subject constitutes itself." –Michel [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Ricky
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Hear Tracey Thorn’s “Oh, the Divorces!” from “Love and Its Opposite”
More than, perhaps, any other songwriter, I’ve found Tracey Thorn’s songs from the past three decades to be consistently evocative. Every album has something that ignites my memory or feeling, and her new one is no exception. Love and Its Opposite is due in May, and its first track, “Oh, the Divorces!” isn’t a pop [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General,Music by Ricky
Monday, March 8th, 2010
Drawing Google Street View
This is the best use I’ve seen of Google Street View.
No Comments » - Posted in Books,General,Technology by Ricky
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
Yanidel street photography Aperture presets
I’m a big fan of Yanidel’s photo blog of his street photography in Paris. I’ve long tried to get a similar look to his photos by decreasing the desaturation slider and then selectively increasing the saturation of colors or spots in my photos. However, I’m nowhere near as good at it as he is. I [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General,Photography by Ricky
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-06
What a comeback by Finland in the Bronze Medal game! Nice to see Selanne still out there. # Where are the technologists who oppose this personal branding trend? http://s.nyt.com/u/70p # That was the best hockey game I've ever seen. (No, the perfect ending didn't hurt.) # RT @paidContent Mags To Their Digital Units: Drop Dead [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Ricky
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
Adam Gopnik on Canada’s gold
I’ll be writing about Canada’s hockey victory at the Olympics shortly. In the meantime, enjoy this piece and the following line by Adam Gopnik on the subject: Anything that depends on a single bounce or giveaway, though it can fairly be called victory, can’t really be called a triumph. But anyone who didn’t understand the [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Ricky
Monday, March 1st, 2010
I’m not a doctor but I still want to save lives
I just recalled one of my favorite quotes from anyone: Ricky Moody in an interview with the Times Book Review stated his aspiration to “save lives” with his fiction. After all, why shoot for anything less? I still want short stories to save lives. I want people to feel about the short story the way [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books,General by Ricky
Monday, March 1st, 2010
New York in miniature
Sam O’Hare spent a week making a neat video of New York City. He shot the entire thing with consumer-grade lenses on a Nikon D3 in burst mode. He added stabilization and the tilt-shift effect in post-processing. You can find more details about the production of the video here.
No Comments » - Posted in General,Photography,Technology by Ricky
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
President Obama on baseball
Why this video doesn’t have more views, I have no idea. How fun it is to hear President Obama talk about the sport.
No Comments » - Posted in Baseball,General by Ricky
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-27
Why President Obama should have never said that he "hated the bank bailout": http://bit.ly/cuINEI # I would trade legislative transparency for a health care bill. I've read Eating Animals. I don't want to see how it's made! bit.ly/9CgSCc # Thinking about social media as a return to a pre-literate and not desirable age. # Getting [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Ricky
Saturday, February 20th, 2010
Why Obama was wrong to say he hated the bailout
As anyone who discussed Obama’s State of the Union address with me knows, I absolutely hated the speech’s opening in which Obama expressed his own hatred for the bank bailout. I hated it because Obama’s words seemed to me so, so untrue—or at least they should be untrue if he’s at all listened to the [...]
