And though I suppose it makes sense, as they’ve been unable to keep up with the digital photographic revolution, it’s going to be sad to see the old girl go.

My whole life, the name Kodak has been synonymous with photography. From the Super 8 movies my Dad shot of us as children, to the film and paper used for my high school pictures, to the Kodachrome slides I shot in the 90′s, Kodak has been with me the whole way.

Of course, the advent of the digital camera has seen the end to all that, and I knew in my heart when I bought my first digital camera – a Canon S10 Digital Elph with all of 2.1 Megapixels – that the day would come when ‘classic’ photography would go away.

Yes, there are still niche markets for things like reverse-engineered Polaroid film (The Impossible Project) and there are still people out there creating daguerrotypes, but the mainstream went digital years ago and there’s no going back.

One thing that’s changed and that most people don’t realize is why people take the pictures they take. I remember when ‘the camera’ only came out for special occasions like Christmas and birthdays, and of course you took it on vacation. Just about every picture of me as a child is of me at Christmas, on my birthday, or somewhere on vacation.

Comparing this to the pictures we have of our kids, all of which are digital, you can see a real difference. Sure, we have the birthday shots, and we have the Christmas shots, but we’ve also got loads of Easter shots, playtime shots, walking-down-the-street shots – we’ve got shots of the kids doing just about anything you can think of, and we’ve got thousands of them. Pushing the button on a digital camera costs nothing, so there’s no disincentive to taking another shot, or another 100 shots.  Though the subject of the photos is as important as it always was, the photograph itself is a worthless commodity item because it’s just so cheap to create.

Add to that the ever-decreasing price of global data transmission and you get services like Facebook. Yes, Facebook, where not only do I get to see pictures of what people are doing or where they are, I can easily see them while they’re still on the slopes or wherever it is they are while they’re still there.  It also lets me see critical things like what people are about to eat for dinner…or what their dog ate for dinner.

Because pictures are so cheap to create, we’re snapping the things at an alarming rate. I can’t find any numbers that look credible to me, but I don’t think it would come as a surprise to anyone if it were that 10 billion digital pictures were taken every day.

And because the things are so cheap to create, we don’t put the same value on them that we used to. Pictures are disposable things now – valueless things that exist only as a stream of digital bits – and that’s how we treat them.

I also worry about keeping our digital photo library backed up, but that’s another article.

It’s a real shame, too, because negatives and slides are tangible, valuable objects that have stood the test of time.  And you’ll never just stumble across a hard disk drive in a shoebox in the back of the closet.

I just love the “Imported from Detroit” line. Says as much about an industry trying to rebuild and reinvent itself as any tagline I’ve ever seen.

Sure, there’s some frank assessments of World leaders in there, and maybe some embarrassing stuff…like Gadhaffi’s cadre of hot nurses, and Silvio Berlusconi being up Putin’s arse about as far as he can get.  On the whole (pun intended) I think it’s giving us a peek into a place that normally us mere mortals would never get to tread.  It’s exciting armchair-espionage at its very best.

The thing that’s totally changed my attitude are the revelations about North Korea, and how it is viewed by China.  We’ve always thought that China was a staunch ally of the DPRK, perhaps the only thing keeping it afloat.  And now we find out that the Chinese have had quite enough of Pyongyang, thank you very much.

They’re all for Korean reunification, as long as the New Korea was not aggressive toward them.  And, really, why would they be?  The Korean electronics powerhouse, now with more cheap labour that would be just so happy to have something to eat, right on China’s doorstep?  I couldn’t think of a more beneficial arrangement if I tried.

So we found that out through the cables, but that’s all rather unofficial.  But, of course, the Chinese have seen their chance and have now publicly stated that this is correct.

I’m now firmly in the camp that believes WikiLeaks is a force for good in the World.  If it forces a resolution on the Korean Peninsula – bloody or not – I believe we will all be better off.  (Yes, it might be bloody, but I don’t think any of us can reasonably say that it doesn’t have to happen sooner or later.)

Bye, bye, Kim Jong-il and Kim jong-un.  Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

What with the passing of Richard “Mr.” Blackwell a couple years ago and the loss of his worst-dressed list, the time is ripe for you to step up with a New Year’s list of the Fools You Pity.

Just think of all the hilarity you could give to the World every year with a list of those you pity the most.  Actors, wannabe actors, politicians, public figures, people who died in strange ways like that cave guy, The Queen…really, you’ve got limitless material there.

If you need help writing it, I can be available.  But please, whatever you do, do this.

Cheers,
Daryl

Since Robert Dziekanski was cruelly taken down by four RCMP officers with substantial assistance from such a Taser, I have been watching this with great interest.  And I say it’s about damn time.

For Taser to maintain for so very long that their guns are absolutely harmless to all simply defies reason.  Anything that can make someone involuntarily drop to the floor and writhe in pain cannot possibly be harmless, yet through aggressive litigation they have managed to silence law enforcement, courts, lawyers and even medical examiners.

Tasers were originally approved as a “less-lethal” alternative to the use of a firearm in disabling dangerous suspects.  I don’t know specifically when it happened, but somewhere along the way it became okay to zap anything that didn’t immediately succumb to a spoken word or two – whether they were a danger to anything or anyone, including themselves – became irrelevant.

For that irrelevance, I blame Taser.  They present reams and reams of research and evidence that they have bought and paid for as though it is the empirical scientific data it is not.  It only serves to reassure the people that use them that they will do no harm.  And if it will do no harm, what harm is there in zapping an old lady when she’s small and you’re obviously huge?

Not that it matters.  Our police do need something that is less lethal than a gun, and that thing might as well be a Taser.  It is less lethal, after all.  And I suppose I’d rather be knocked down with electricity than with a hail of bullets just about any day of the week.

But let’s at least acknowledge that these things are dangerous.  Let’s admit that they can cause grievous bodily harm, and let’s get the people who carry them to treat them with the same respect they would treat a firearm.  As long as the capacity to kill is there, it cannot be ignored.  To do so makes fools of all of us.

It does strike me that Big Tobacco did much the same thing for a very long time.  Cigarettes weren’t addictive, they weren’t dangerous, they just tasted great and made you a sexy cowboy or something.  Of course, now we know they were lying through their teeth the whole time, and I suspect the same sort of revelation from Taser in the years to come.

So, come on, Taser.  Fess up to these things being dangerous.  Sell them as something that is dangerous.  I’m sure Glock or Smith & Wesson or Colt or Browning or whoever doesn’t get sued when someone gets shot by a gun they made, so put yourselves in the same boat.  It won’t stop the police from buying them, but I suppose you might sell less cartridges for them as they would hopefully be used much less.

2.  I bet Tiger Woods’ wife Elin has an extra-large putter.  So she can hit 2 balls at once.

Of course, when Dubya was the President they were on his side.  Now that a Democrat is back in power, the Fox attack machine has really gone to town.  They say it’s a risky strategy for the White House to pursue, but I do think that it is something that has needed saying for a long time now.

And, hey, if we can make Glenn Beck cry about something that’s actually real, then we’re all better off.

So suck it, Fox.

This e-mail and its attachments are confidential and intended for use by the above named recipient(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient, please note that any use, modification, dissemination, edition or reproduction (either in whole or partially) of this e-mail and/or its attachments, or of the information contained herein, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail by mistake, please notify the sender immediately, and immediately delete this e-mail with its attachments and any copy of it from your computer system.

Now, IANAL, but it seems to me that if I receive something from someone that was unsolicited…I can do whatever I want with it.  I can modify it, disseminate it, edit it or reproduce it in any form that my little heart desires.

Indeed, that’s the law.  The real law.  And no lawyer can write anything that breaks the law.

Strictly prohibited?  Funny stuff.

I would think that the only possible grey area would be that if I had received an email that was not actually addressed to me – but that really doesn’t happen any more (if it indeed ever really did) – so big deal.

What goads me the most about this “legal” warning is that the original writer of it was obviously relying on the gullibility of the masses to protect…something…should it manage to slip out. Big, fancy, legalese to confuse and dumbfound us mere mortals.  Kind of like getting a DMCA takedown notice for something that you wrote, but that somebody else might not like.

Anyway, I just wish that people would grow up and get rid of that silly, silly warning.  Maybe replace it with:

If you have happened to get this message by mistake, we would appreciate it if you could let us know so that we can fix the problem on our end.  We’d also like to ask that you then delete this message.  Thank you very much, your friends at Company X.

Now go and get that done.

If completed, that would make Fiat one of the largest carmakers in the world, and Sergio and his buddies will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Picking up one of the “Not So Big Three” American carmakers – which has some not-so-bad products these days – gets Fiat firmly into the North American car market, and it does it at pennies on the dollar from what it would have cost just a year ago.

And now to consolidate their position in Europe they’ll get Opel, Saab and Vauxhall – and they’ll get those three marques at fire-sale prices because GM is looking to consolidate in North America.  Oh, and because GM is out of money and there are no other buyers.

I think the one lesson we can all take from this is that in a downturn the best-run and most forward-looking companies are the ones that stand to profit from the colossal stupidity of others.

Have any doubts about Fiat being forward-looking?  Even though the software is by Microsoft, try to find this on an American car:  Fiat Eco-Drive