Les Jones

Moving the blog to a new server

Sunday, May 31st, 2009 | Misc | Permalink | No Comments |

I’m moving the blog from Westhost to HostingMatters. When the move and domain change is done everything will look the same as before and all of the old URLs will still work. The blog will still be here at this address. It’s just on the machine behind the blog that will be different.

This will be the last post on the old blog host. See you at the place soon.

My Million Dollar Googlezon* Idea

Friday, May 29th, 2009 | E-commerce | Permalink | No Comments |

So you know how you can sign up as an Amazon affiliate? Like I can link to something on Amazon with my affiliate code and if you follow the link and buy it I get a commission.

So just think how many times every day someone searches Google, sees an Amazon link in the search results, then clicks on the Amazon link and buys the product.

Eureka! Google just needs to sign up for the Amazon affiliate program and append their affiliate code to search results links to Amazon. It could work with any company that has an affiliate program. Then the guys at Google could sit back and let the mad affiliate money roll in while they play ping-pong, eat gourmet food, and get chair massages.

If they haven’t already thought of it I hereby patent, trademark, and copyright the idea, call “dibs,” “shotgun,” and “no do-overs,” and if you don’t want those gourmet pickles I’ll eat ‘em.

* The unholy alliance of Google and Amazon.

Tags: million dollar ideas

Un-classiest pregnant mama pics

Friday, May 29th, 2009 | Misc | Permalink | No Comments |

Sure, Demi Moore appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair showing her pregnant belly. There’s nothing wrong with that in principle, but the results aren’t always going to be pretty. Demi Moore was Demi Moore and she had Annie Leibovitz taking the pictures.

Sebastian found a pregnant belly example that’s just a wee bit less tasteful. At least when Heather Armstrong did it, she was being ironic.

Fantasygoat was ahead of his time when he found this pic:

In praise of Nikon’s 70-300mm VR lens

Friday, May 29th, 2009 | Photos | Permalink | No Comments |

Good reviews of the Nikon 70-300mm VR lens keep coming. Wildlife photographer Moose Peterson has a huge kit of expensive telephoto lenses, but he still likes the 70-300mm VR, calling it Nikon’s best kept secret.

Likewise, Thom Hogan likes his 70-300mm VR and would choose it as one of only three FX lenses on a desert island. “You’re probably surprised with the 70-300mm VR. If you don’t need f/2.8, then you don’t need the 70-200mm. Indeed, you’ll like the 70-300mm at f/5.6 or f/8 better on an FX body. Close your mouth, that dropped jaw makes you look stupid. Really. The 70-300mm has very good edge to edge performance and doesn’t really start to fall down in any way until you start to approach 300mm. And even then, it’ll do in a pinch.”

Do the math

I like mine, too. It’s a heck of a lens for a reasonable amount of money - not cheap, but not crazy expensive. To realize how good this lens really is you have to take a look at what it would take to get a better lens.

At current prices (inflated due to a strong Yen) the 70-300mm VR is about $550. Weight is 1.5 pounds, length is 5 inches. The next longer lens, the 80-400mm VR, costs $1,500, weighs 5 pounds, and is 7 inches long. The next faster but shorter lens, the 70-200mm VR 2.8, is $1900, weighs five pounds, and is 8 inches long.

The weight of the 80-400mm means you’ll mostly wind up carrying it in a backpack and you’ll mostly shoot it off of a tripod. Not that there’s anything wrong with that - but it wouldn’t work for the kind of photography I get to do in my spare time. The 70-200mm is more reasonable, but pretty long.

You know how I carry my 70-300mm when I’m walking around? If it isn’t on the camera I stick it in the pocket of my Columbia pants. No problem. I do that all the time when I’m switching between the 70-300mm and a shorter lens.

I’m not putting down those other lenses in any way. They can do things the 70-300mm can’t. It’s just that they do them at double or triple the weight and triple the cost.

My review

I use the 70-300mm on a Nikon D40, which is DX a (1.5x crop sensor) body, but it’s an FX lens that works on the new full frame D3 and D700 bodies. Better, some say, than the 70-200mm VR, which will probably get a redesign to reduce vignetting on the full frame bodies. DX users won’t see vignetting with this lens because the image circle is overly-specced for a DX body. Whenever I look through the viewfinder with this lens I notice how very bright it is compared to my DX lenses.

This is a good portrait and wildlife lens, which was my original motivation for buying it. On a DX body it has the same field of view as a 450mm lens. I find that’s plenty for mammals and large birds, though not really enough for tiny songbirds. If you want to photograph songbirds you’ll either need to attract them with a feeder, stalk them, or get a second mortgage.

As a sports lens it’s limited by its maximum aperture of 3.5-5.6. That’s fast enough to freeze action outdoors on a sunny day. With a newer Nikon like the D90, D5000, D3, or D700 you can boost the ISO to extend its usefulness without sacrificing too much picture quality. If indoor sports is what you want to shoot you’ll eventually want a 2.8 or faster lens, which is where the 70-200mm 2.8 becomes the lens to have.

Autofocus speed is very good. The VR (Vibration Reduction) II system helps greatly in counteracting shaky hands, which means more pictures are keepers. The lens makes it easy to throw distant backgrounds out of focus on the long end. The quality of the out of focus backgrounds is good, if not up to the level of faster aperture lenses.

Sample photos

Hogan’s birding photos

Sports photos

Shooting across the river

Some pictures I’ve taken with the lens:

Continue reading the rest of this post ›››

Tags: d40, nikon

Best steak cuts for the least money

Thursday, May 28th, 2009 | Food & Drink | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Washington Post - Affordable Steaks That Make the Cut

There are bargains to be had in the meat case, for $5 to $7 per pound. Affordable cuts of beef tend to fall into three groups: hanger and flatiron steaks, long prized by chefs; flank, flap, tri-tip and skirt steaks, which used to be even cheaper when they were less popular; and gems such as chuck eye, chuck shoulder and top sirloin steaks, which are, for the moment, the least expensive of the lot (less than $5 per pound).

There are some good grilling tips there, too. One I’ve gotten in the habit of is pulling meat out of the fridge before grilling so it can warm up a bit. That makes it easier to get the inside and outside of the meat cooked to the right levels. It’s especially helpful with thick cuts.

When I grill or sear marinated meat I use paper towels to remove excess marinade before cooking. If you don’t the outside of the meat gets boiled and doesn’t develop the texture it should get from the heat of grilling or pan searing.

P.S. I’ve added a grilling tag to older posts for easier browsing. Have I mentioned how much I like keyword tags?

Previously

• Zenreich’s Tri-tip Steaks
• Grilling: Flat Iron Steak

Tags: grilling, This Here De-pression

Word of the Day: Spork, Splayd, Spife, and Knork

Thursday, May 28th, 2009 | Word of the Day | Permalink | 7 Comments |

A visual guide:

It looks like the spork is the only spoon descendent that’s practical for lifting soup to lip altitude. Backpackers know that a spoon and a Swiss army knife are all you really need, even if those titanium sporks fill our campfire dreams.

And for East meets West harmony there’s always forkchops.

Previous WOTD - Parasitoid (Biology)

Amazon reviews you can use

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | E-commerce | Permalink | No Comments |

Collegehumor.come piece prompts hundreds of tongue-in-cheek Amazon reviews of cheesy t-shirt. Via Ace of Spades:”Anyway, this has become a craze, and the t-shirt is now selling 100 per hour, with the small t-shirt company attempting to crank out 30,000 a day. (Note: I have no idea how 100 per hour becomes 30,000 per day, either. But that’s what the ABC article says. Take it up with the wolves.)”

FWIW, I don’t think the reviews are all that funny on this one, but the t-shirt company has to be thrilled with the orders.

Previously - Amazon reviews you can use

Tags: amazon

It’s crazy enough that it just might work

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | E-commerce | Permalink | No Comments |

You know how the ATM always asks if you want English or Espanol? Here’s an idea. “Couldn’t the ATM card tell the machine which is your preferred language instead of asking all the time?”

“No more tears” goggles

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | Home Life | Permalink | No Comments |

I like it. Our four year old has gotten past shampoo problems, but the two year old insists on a washcloth to cover her face when we wash her hair.

Look at the size of that paddlefish

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | Misc | Permalink | No Comments |

I first saw paddlefish at the Chattanooga Aquarium. They’re cool-looking fish with enormously long snouts. The ones I recall seeing in the aquarium were small - up the size of a smallish large-mouth bass.

I was amazed to see the monster paddlefish a guy caught at Melton Hill Lake in Oak Ridge last week. He estimates it weighed over 75 pounds. He took a picture and released it back into the water so it would live. The state record is 125 pounds.

Hat tip to Michael Silence.

S&P 500 earnings in the gutter; index overvalued

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | Economics | Permalink | No Comments |

Via Mish, cratering earnings estimates for 2009 show that the S&P is wildly overvalued:

In Is That Recovery We See? John Mauldin posted the following chart of earnings estimates.

The S&P closed Thursday at 888. That’s a richly priced PE of 31. Let’s assume that earnings recover to $48. That’s still a richly priced PE of 18.5. A bear market bottom might sport a PE of 10-12 but let’s be generous and use 15.

15*$28.51 would put the S&P 500 at 382!
Let’s be more generous and use an earnings estimate of $48.
15*$48 would put the S&P 500 at 720!

Medicare prescription program would have funded Social Security

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | Social Security | Permalink | No Comments |

I’ve said before that the Medicare prescription drug program was a disaster. We didn’t know how we were going to fund existing liabilities for Social Security and Medicare. Then Bush added the prescription drug benefit without raising a single dime of new revenue to pay for it.

I knew the Medicare prescription drug benefit was bad. I didn’t realize it was this bad.

We could also look at this another way. The federal reports released this week indicate that the unfunded liabilities associated with Social Security are about the same size as the unfunded liabilities associated with the Medicare prescription drug plan. So for the cost of the drug plan, we could have funded Social Security forever without cutting benefits or raising taxes.

Getting ready for a server move

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 | Misc | Permalink | No Comments |

I mentioned a while back that my WordPress blog had a problem with excess CPU usage. I’ve never been able to get the CPU usage under control. I tried WP SuperCache. I tried disabling plug-ins. Nothing really worked.

I eventually downloaded WP-DBManager and used its repair and optimize functions. That made the biggest difference by far. I’ve gotten my CPU usage down from 20%+ to 3-5%, but it’s still not good enough. I suspect some database corruption.

All the same, I’m moving the site to HostingMatters along with some other domains and projects. If the site goes down this week, it’s because the old server went down before the new server came up. I’m trying to avoid that if at all possible, but it could happen.

Work in e-commerce or online content? Read Rex Hammock.

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 | Misc | Permalink | No Comments |

Lately I’ve been praising Rex Hammock’s blog to people I meet in the online industry. I met him a few years ago at BlogNashville. Rex has roots in the print magazine world, but is a visionary for the new digital age. Here are some recent links from Rex.

Analyst: Kindle Will Generate $1.6 Billion InRevenue By 2012 - A publishing platform with a revenue model and backed by the infrastructure of the world’s most popular shopping cart and one-click checkout system. What’s not to love?

Look at This Article. It’s One of Our Most Popular - The perils of self-reinforcing “most popular” lists.

Welcome, Wired. We call this land “Internet” - Wired magazine, which documented the Internet explosion, had a hard time transitioning from print to the Internet. The real story is in the comments, where past and present Wired staffers sound off. I loved this souvenir of the painful transition from print to the Web at Playboy:

Having never written for Wired or Wired.com I can’t speak to the specifics of this but while reading this article I couldn’t help but agree every step of the way from my own experiences working for Playboy.com.. back in 1999.

It was the same situation - very well known and established magazine brand that had fantastic articles written by amazing authors trying to find balance with it’s newly created web counterpart. In someways Wired.com is still new since it’s only recently been brought into the fold.

At Playboy.com, the people who made the major decisions about what would and wouldn’t happen on the site sometimes didn’t even have browsers on their computers and for a while the magazine wing charged the web wing anytime they printed the URL in the mag as if it was an advertising.

GM, Chrysler, now Porsche in trouble

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 | Economics | Permalink | No Comments |

Telegraph - Porsche on the financial brink:

German car maker Porsche is struggling to raise €1.75bn (£1.54bn) to cover debts and unwind derivative positions stemming from its botched attempt to take over vastly-bigger Volkswagen.

It is understood that Porsche is also in talks with the Bank of Tokyo for a €750m loan, and is seeking help from the regional government of Baden-Wurttemberg. The crisis is yet another headache for the German authorities as they put together a rescue deal this week for Opel, most likely with Fiat.

Porsche acquired a 51pc share of VW earlier this year after a series of derivatives deals that tripled Porsche’s debt to €9bn.

I have a hard time seeing how tiny little Fiat is going to save Opel and Chrysler both.

Since when is a law giving people rights a bad thing?

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 | Guns, Media Behaving Badly | Permalink | No Comments |

Unc catches the Ass. Press in a slip.

Triune, TN Renaissance Festival 2009 Pictures

Monday, May 25th, 2009 | East Tennessee, Photos | Permalink | No Comments |

We made a last minute decision to visit the Renaissance Festival in Triune, TN. It’s open every weekend in May and on Memorial Day. Look at how happy these people are. It’s infectious.

And our favorite, Ispy. She stood motionless in a group of mannequins until we spoke to her. Then she played I Spy with Katie and added her to her network of spies:

And one for the ladies:

Most carnivals have games of skill where you try to hit target X with object Y. At the Renfest the object Y ranged from throwing knives (hardest to make stick even though the barker made it look easy):

to throwing stars (easiest to make stick, and the barker juggling the throwing stars was a riot):

to axes (most satisfying to make stick):

Sharp, stabby things were a constant theme:

Continue reading the rest of this post ›››

Tags: goofy trips

Looking for professional photo printing in Knoxville?

Monday, May 25th, 2009 | East Tennessee, Photos | Permalink | No Comments |

Tom Geisler, the photo instructor I keep raving about and a professional wedding photographer, writes:

Many of you have been asking me about which local print lab to use.  Of course this is your choice, but I have been working on this issue since last December when Memories closed. The attachment offers a choice you may or may not choose to try.  Please give me your feedback if you will about any local lab you may be using.

Attachment saved here.

Even if you’re not in Knox Vegas you might want to read the answer, because there’s probably one near you if you’re in the Eastern U.S. I’ve also read good things about their competitors.

“Land of the Lost” Memorial Day marathon on Sci-Fi channel

Sunday, May 24th, 2009 | A&E | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Saw an ad for this last night.

Sci-fi channel will be running a full day marathon of the original series on May, 25th.

Beginning at 8AM and running until 4AM they will be showing 40 of the 43 episodes.

You can log on to the schedule here:

http://www.scifi.com/schedulebot/index.php3

It looks like the show will also be going onto their regular daytime schedule starting in June.

Set TiVo to stun.

More underfunded public pensions

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 | Economics | Permalink | No Comments |

Baltimore Sun - Baltimore pension dispute illuminates public/private divide:

Severe market downturns lay bare any number of Ponzi schemes, and under-funded defined benefits pensions, public and private, can be justly described as such schemes. The problem with private plans is large enough. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which insures the pensions of 44 million Americans, said in a report this week that its deficit has tripled in just six months to a record $33.5 billion. Chances are it will have to be added to the growing list of entities to be bailed out by Uncle Sam. But this is trivial compared to the under-funding in public plans, which cover about 22 million workers. The deficits in the latter systems are said to total more than a trillion dollars. And these are not insured.

The gap between the public sector and private business in wages and benefits continues to grow. Last month, USA Today reported federal figures showing that public employees earned benefits worth $13.38 per hour in December 2008, compared to $7.98 for private sector workers.

What would you say about a government whose employees make more money than non-government employees performing the same job? That doesn’t sound like a government that has the best interest of its people at heart.

There was a time when people took government jobs for the security they offered. The bargain was that they would sacrifice pay for that security. Over time, the bargain tilted totally in favor of the government workers as they got both job security and higher pay than their counterparts outside government. Can this system be sustained? I think not, but we shall see.

The nature of our current bailout mania is wealth redistribution in reverse. Ordinary people are bailing out banks, car makers, and unionized and public sector workers who make more than them and who have better benefits. If California gets bailed out it will be bailed out by all of the states that are smaller and poorer. The rich are becoming a burden on the middle class and the middle class is becoming a burden on the poor. This can’t last.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

Tags: bailouts, pensions, unions

USA Today video of Millennium Manor

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 | Misc | Permalink | No Comments |

Link here. The video is undated, but appears fairly recent based on the renovations I saw last year. The open house is Monday, Memorial Day.

Tags: Millennium Manor

A teensy-weensy fact that NY Times economics writer left out of his story

Friday, May 22nd, 2009 | Misc | Permalink | 1 Comment |

You may recall the NY Times writer, Edmund Andrews, and his tale of financial woe, his rollercoaster ride through mortgage market, and crazy $50,000 credit card debt. Background here and here if you missed it.

Here’s the news. Megan McArdle got a tip and did a little digging. She found that this shocking turn of financial events wasn’t so shocking for his wife. California bankruptcy records show the wife had declared bankruptcy in 1998 with her previous husband and again in 2007 after marrying the writer. He failed to mention those bankruptcies in either the NY Times story or his new book. From McArdle:

The financial statement they filed with the court indicated family income of $174,000 in 1996, $87,000 in 1997, and $126,000 in the first nine months of 1998. The income fluctuations are not surprising, given that her husband was in the film production industry. By the time of the filing, the couple owed about $30,000 on 8 credit cards, over $200,000 in back taxes, and almost $15,000 in private school tuition, as well as substantial car and mortgage payments.

Andrews has been admirably open about many of the poor decisions and the wishful thinking that led him deep into debt.  Nonetheless, he has laid much of the blame onto irresponsible bankers and mortgage brokers.

It’s hard to argue that Ms. Barreiro was forced into bankruptcy by crazed subprime mortgage lenders in 1998.  Greedy bankers certainly didn’t keep her and her first husband from paying their taxes.

This changes the story from “innocent victim of the easy credit industry” to “spineless jellyfish who let a deadbeat wife with terrible financial habits ruin him.”

New law for guns in natl. parks may simplify rules on car transport

Friday, May 22nd, 2009 | Guns | Permalink | 3 Comments |

Everyone thinks about carry in national parks in terms of going to the national parks. What if you’re just passing through a national park?:

Reader P.J.M. makes a more serious point than I did: Yosemite (which is in California, which has its own silly gun laws) is less the issue than, say, the GW Parkway here in Virginia. Those of us who hold Virginia concealed handgun permits can carry throughout the state, except that we can’t drive down the GW Parkway because it’s a national park (ditto Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park).  Even if it made sense to keep people from having guns in the wilderness (which it doesn’t), many national parks are in more populated areas.

True. Where I live in East Tennessee the most direct route to Cherokee, NC and parts nearby is US Highway 441, which happens to go through the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

It’s already dicey enough going between states, which often have dissimilar laws on vehicle carry. Adding the separate federal rules created a legal minefield that’s liable to trap law-abiding citizens. Here’s hoping the new rules signed into law today will simplify traveling through national parks with a firearm.

Millinneum Manor open house on Memorial Day

Friday, May 22nd, 2009 | East Tennessee | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Millennium Manor, the quirky stone castle in Alcoa near the duck pond, has its annual open house on Memorial Day. For background, read the News-Sentinel story from last year with photographs by the late, great Clay Owen.

Google Map to Millennium Manor - corner of Wright Rd. and Harding St.

P.S. I’ve gone back and tagged older Millennium Manor posts for easy browsing.

Tags: Millennium Manor

TN Renfest this weekend at Castle Gwynn in Triune, TN

Thursday, May 21st, 2009 | East Tennessee | Permalink | 1 Comment |

The Tennessee Renaissance Festival is this weekend, May 23-25 in Triune, TN. The backdrop is Castle Gwynn, a modern recreation of a European castle. One review seems to indicate you can’t enter the castle. Bummer.