An update on Rock Creek Hills Park is available.
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
February 8, 2014
January 5, 2014
Such ugliness should be an opt-in, not a secret vice. (An open letter.) [Puzzling color corruption in uploaded images turns out to be Google "auto-enhancement."]
Dear Google, please consider making the "auto-enhancement" of uploaded images an opt-in choice, rather than a hidden default.
I like your picasaweb cloud-based photo-hosting service, which I've been using for years. Recently, though, I discovered that I had a problem: newly uploaded photos had corrupt colors. Ugh. I tried deleting and repeating; same problem. What could the issue be? Was this a color management problem for which I was somehow responsible? Actually, no. Turns out, it was something that you, Google, see as a feature.
A few months ago, I found that it was necessary to upgrade my Google account to a "Google plus membership," in order to attend a meeting via a "Google plus video hangout." So, I did. Turns out that you processed all my image uploads thereafter using a feature that you, Google, call "image auto-enhance." Those bad colors were your idea of "enhancement:"
 |
| "ENHANCED" |
 |
| "REVERTED TO ORIGINAL" |
(Idiots.)
I've now cancelled the "enhancement" of those photos (individually, as you gave me no way to do so en masse; I was relieved that I did not have to re-upload everything). And I've also turned off the "auto-enhancement" of newly uploaded photos, going forwards.
In general, I do not alter my photographs. Light goes through a lens, and hits a sensor, and electrons get happy, and a file is written; that is what I want to see. How dare you, Google, presume that you should "auto-enhance" any image that I entrust to you for storage? And how dare you, Google, presume to do so without even telling me?
In closing: Dear Google, without mentioning that you would modify the images I uploaded, you made them ugly. I've fixed this issue with respect to my own image uploads. I respectfully suggest that in order to spare other people similar ugliness, confusion, and delay, that you please make image "auto-enhance" an opt-in choice, rather than a hidden default.
Respectfully,
Jim Pekar
Kensington, Maryland, USA
August 14, 2013
Proposed: Understanding the brain doesn't suck.
"... recall the famous quip from Jeff Hammerbacher, a former Facebook engineer, who said, 'The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.' We contend that working in biostatistics using complex neuroimaging data to solve the biggest puzzle of them all – understanding the human brain – is a worthy alternative."-from "WANTED: Neuro-quants" by Brian Caffo, Martin Lindquist, and Ciprian Crainiceanu, which appears in the the Huffington Post.
February 13, 2013
May 29, 2012
Привет, Россия!
April 28, 2012
Board of Education member: Rock Creek Hills Park not "adequate size," so Montgomery Hills site would be needed, too.
Françoise Carrier, Chair of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Planning Board, attended the April 17th meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Education. There, Board of Education member Laura Berthiaume told Ms. Carrier that, due to the small size of Rock Creek Hills Park, if Montgomery County Public Schools were to take the park to build Bethesda-Chevy Chase (B-CC) middle school #2, then it would soon become necessary to build a third B-CC middle school, on the site of the former Montgomery Hills Junior High (currently the Yeshiva and Torah School of Greater Washington).
You can read their exchange on Kensington Patch.
To help spread the word, after you click through to the blog post on Patch, click on the Facebook "recommend" button on that page!
March 22, 2012
January 24, 2012
"Dear Dr. Starr,"
A letter (in six bullet points) to the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools Superintendent is available.
January 20, 2012
November 17, 2011
Board Rescinds Park Choice; Restarts Site Search.
Today, at the recommendation of Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Joshua P. Starr, who began in that position on July 1st, the Montgomery County Board of Education voted to begin a new site selection process for the second Bethesda - Chevy Chase Middle School, rescinding their April 28th resolution that had selected the site of Rock Creek Hills Park.
However, Rock Creek Hills Park remains at risk (even though it fails to meet the overwhelming majority of the specified site evaluation criteria).
If you want to preserve this important community asset and support high-quality cost-effective education, please join us now in spreading the word to others who care about good parks and strong schools. Join us on Facebook!
August 23, 2011
Save the Trees of Rock Creek Hills Park!
Have you seen the two new videos from SaveRockCreekHillsPark.org?
• Trees.
• "... not going to be any trees left."
August 1, 2011
"res ipsa loquitur"
NeuroCooking friends who have been following our community's efforts to save Rock Creek Hills Park may be interested in this: A one-minute YouTube video, comprising two half-minute clips, has been posted to www.SaveRockCreekHillsPark.org on its own – that is, with no accompanying text (other than a title: "MCPS 'Feasibility Study' Process Lacks Integrity").
June 28, 2011
Save Rock Creek Hills Park!
What I said to the Board last night: "... don't build a costly and deficient school on this little park."
June 5, 2011
May 26, 2011
May 25, 2011
Save Rock Creek Hills Park!
What Paul Beck told the Board Monday night: "I invite you to reflect for a moment on our sense of betrayal."
May 24, 2011
May 15, 2011
May 8, 2011
Save Rock Creek Hills Park!
We have been writing here less often, NeuroCooking friends, because another topic has been occupying us lately, a great deal really, since the night of April 28th, when, out of the blue, something shocking and terrible happened.
In fact, ...
* * * * *
On second thought, we would prefer not to go into the matter here. However, we would like to take the opportunity to direct your attention to it.
And so, please, might we direct your attention to:
Thank you for your understanding, and your interest.
March 31, 2011
Click the shutter, & your photo is online.
Thom Hogan and others have been calling for camera makers to make "social cameras". The idea being that since your cellphone can take snapshots and upload them to facebook, why would you want to carry a point-and-shoot camera that can't, but that instead requires messing with memory cards and cables, etc.?
Well, the "social camera" is here: It's any camera (that takes an SD card), with an Eye-Fi card loaded in place of a normal SD card.
Remarkable and revolutionary. We've tried it, and we can report that it really works.
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