Fifteen minutes and NetNewsWire.

VF: Mark Seliger’s Portraits From the 2024 Vanity Fair Oscar Party. Beautiful light.

Atlas Obscura: Why the April 2024 Total Solar Eclipse May Blow Your Mind. A nice discussion of the experience of awe. Reminds me of some of my experiences back in September and October of last year.

fx guide: The Ultimate RC podcast +1 (Reunion Show) – Nikon buys RED. “The Good, the Bad, and the Damn Annoying.”

The Hill: Press: Does telling the truth matter anymore? Bill Press hits the target.

Popular Information: New data explodes myth of crime wave fueled by migrants. “… across America, rates of violent crime are dropping precipitously — and the decline is especially pronounced in border states.” We all know the 'crime wave’ rhetoric was bullsh-t.

PVC: The Updated Professional’s Guide to Buying an M Series Mac. Still love my M1 Ultra Macbook Pro.

Guardian: Legal action could end use of toxic sewage sludge on US crops as fertilizer. I thought this had been outlawed decades ago! Good lord. So many more toxic chemicals these days, on top of heavy metals.

New Scientist: Mars's gravitational pull may be strong enough to stir Earth's oceans. Now that’s going to set tarot readers and astrologers wild.

ReadWriteWeb: A rogue AI might be able to replace all music with Taylor Swift covers. Our local radio station plays “Hotel California” so many times a day, I think I’d welcome a Tay-Tay cover.

Medium: How long does it take to design a website? Many clients will balk, yet this is a very realistic timeframe. The reality is, many will not have the cash or the deep desire to have such a highly-customized site. Hence Squarespace, Wix, Wordpress themes.

Tedium: Create for yourself.

“If you’re a creative person, one of the most important actions you can take, full stop, is to take some ownership over your work. Maybe, if you want to have a financial upside, you can’t own all of it. Maybe you have to pick and choose what your ownership picture looks like. But own some of it. Make it yours.”

Damn straight. No selling one’s soul to just afford an occasional latte. That’s beyond the pale.

Personal observation about sharing techniques, information.

I have this philosophy about how I work. I do a lot of research to keep my production streamlined; I will purchase the best tools to keep my hourly costs down, and amortize those software costs.

I make NO attempt to hide these systems. Why?

Because I can tell you from experience, if I’m still using that same workflow, those same techniques by the time competition catches up with me, I would have lost my advantages anyway.

One thing in this life. You keep moving, changing. Always.

Another booked day.

Morning links, some afternoon links. I’ll be occupied from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, configuring some projection equipment and doing another portrait session with both mirrorless and conventional cameras.

Update: “Command decision.” Had to call off the photo shoot. Sun moved too far by the time most of the locations were freed up. Rescheduling. Take the hit, don’t quit.

NY Times: For Bookstore Owners, Reopening Holds Promise and Peril.

"Booksellers will wear masks, and customers will be required to wear masks in places where the state mandates it. Trolleys have been set out with signs instructing customers to leave any books they have touched on the cart, so that the books can be placed in quarantine for five days — long enough for any potential viral particles to die off — then reshelved."

Libraries are going to have to consider the same thing, as well as limit users. Not just limit because of distancing, but limiting to avoid a giant pile of books waiting to be decontaminated. You can inadvertently touch a great deal, reaching for books ... and how long could the virus live moist inside tightly closed pages? No studies on that one, I'll bet.

Co-working from home.

Wirecutter has recommends. I can firmly state that separate rooms and agreeing to knock before interrupting someone's work, are ESSENTIAL. In addition, social media and the refrigerator beckon like a carrot on a string - if you've never done home working before, a Pomodoro timer can help you stop mentally wandering for social bits, or physically wandering for tasty bites.

ReadWrite: How to do Keyword Research.

"Most importantly, note that targeting the right keywords is pointless if you don’t create high-quality content around them. For example, when optimizing your blog, make sure your posts are informative, insightful, and authentic. They should keep users engaged and deliver value to them. Such content is more likely to rank high in the organic search, compared to spammy, keyword-packed articles."

Yes, well ... don't be ridiculous with keywords. If they torpedo your credibility, don't use them. But if you can coherently integrate them, there's an upside to doing so. All the more reason to hire a good, skilled writer ... and an SEO-friendly editor. The unskilled tend to make a mishmash of this. And please, don't let 'SEO experts' genericize you. Your differences are your strengths. Leverage them.

naked cap: Elizabeth Warren Slams Democrats for Helping Gut Financial Regulations.

They stopped training credit officers who were able to analyze the risks of lending to idiosyncratic businesses, and to the extent that there will still old-school branch managers who had those skills, they cut or got rid of their ability to make discretionary loans and also gutted the higher level supervisory apparatus for small business loans.

And to what loan instruments do small businesses turn, if not the above? Credit cards. But interest rates have gone sky-high compared to previous decades. Miss a payment, you can end up in usurious ranges (30% or more, rates that shouldn't exist). So small business is suffering in America. More than it should. Politicians really want to brag about us on one hand, whip and starve us on the other.

The Atlantic: The Original Sin of the GOP Tax Plan.

And it makes life hard for some of the very small businesses it’s trying to help.

"Clownshoes" Ryan strikes again. That's all I need to hear. Boo, hiss. If someone would throw a lifeline to small business in America, the prosperity would go off the charts. We just need a freaking break, that's all.