Mike Cohen

Correct color balance isn't always best

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I wanted to take a picture of the two OWC Mercury On The Go drives connected to my iMac, which I thought looked kind of cool. I wasn’t too pleased with the automatic white balance (right image), so I used my White Balance Lens Cap to measure the white balance, which resulted in a much worse image (left side).

white balance

Although the left image looks pretty bad, it’s actually more accurate, since the incandescent lighting in my office gives a visible off-color tint. I ended up going with the auto white balance image, since it looks more natural. Of course I could easily correct either one to make the iMac pure white with Aperture’s color correction tool, but I prefer the slight tint.

"Find my iPhone" is live

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Mobile Me’s new “Find My iPhone” feature is already live for anyone running an iPhone with 3.0 software. You can locate your iPhone on a map (mine is slightly off) and send a message with a sound. I haven’t tried remote wipe, but I assume it also works.

Find My iPhone

A guide for moving to San Francisco

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Adam Jackson’s One Year in San Francisco series is a good guide for anyone considering a move to San Francisco.

My requirements are a bit different, though. I’d prefer to own a condo, rather than rent an apartment; and I need at least a 2 bedroom with 1000 sq. ft. or more so I can set up a home office. I’d prefer to live outside the city, but with easy access by Bart so I wouldn’t have to take my car into the city. I only took a car into San Francisco once, and I regretted it after I had to spend $20 to park.

What I'm listening to

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It’s still much too early to start making my best album list, but there are so many great albums I’ve been listening to recently. Here’s a partial list.

  • The Decemberists – The Hazards Of Love A rare album that needs to be listened to in its entirety.
  • Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest Simply beautiful music.
  • Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion Almost the entire album is now on my workout playlist.
  • Fanfarlo – Reservoir This one is by far my current favorite. They sound a lot like Arcade Fire, yet they still sound fresh and original.
  • Dark Was The Night (various artists) A must have album for indie music fans. The highlights include “Lenin”, a great new track by Arcade Fire; “Happiness” by Riceboy Sleeps (a side project by Jonsi of Sigur Ros), A new version of “Lua” by Conor Oberst, and new tracks by Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver, and The Decemberists.
  • Baaba Maal – Television Once again he proves that he can blend modern & traditional music better than almost anyone else. He still has one of the world’s greatest voices, although the arrangements frequently overshadow it.

DMB’s “Big Whiskey & the Groogrux King” would be on my list, but I didn’t get it until I returned from my trip and I haven’t had a chance to load it into iTunes yet.

Back Home

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I got home after midnight last night and I’m still feeling pretty tired, plus I still have a cold with an earache.

This trip was the closest I’ve come to an actual vacation in about the last 10 years, since I didn’t go to a conference or do anything work-related (except for one meeting).

I saw a few places I really loved, but most of them were way too expensive. Even a 1 bedroom unit in one of those condos cost more than twice what my 3 bedroom would cost even now. It looks like the real estate bust hasn’t hit the bay area.

I did see some very nice, new townhouses built in 2002. It’s a row of 8 homes in a little cul-de-sac, at least 4 of them are foreclosures or short sales for well under $100k. Unfortunately it’s in a pretty bad part of Oakland. The places I looked at in the Peninsula were a lot nicer, but also a lot more expensive and didn’t seem very pet-friendly. One of them even had a shuttle to the Bart station, which would make it easy & cheap to get into the city anytime I want and not have to worry about parking.

Where I’m living now, I’m very financially secure. I owe about half of the current value of my condo and my mortgage payments are only about 5% of my income, so I pay about $200-300 extra principal every month to pay it off faster. This gives me a lot of freedom, and I can afford to take chances. If I moved into one of those places, my finances would be a lot tighter. I like the freedom of living beneath my means.

There are some units nearby that are cheap enough that I can pay cash for, and after flipping one of them I can easily pay off my remaining mortgage, which would put me on my way to buying one of those condos in the bay area. It looks like I’ll have to delay my moving plans for a year or so.

Cab hits Cable Car

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When I went out this evening to find someplace to have dinner, I encountered this scene on Powell Street near Market Street. If you’re not familiar with San Francisco, Powell Street ends at the cable car turnaround on Market Street, where no cars are allowed on the last block. That’s exactly where this cab hit the cable cars.

According to witnesses, the cab’s brakes failed and he lost control. Fortunately no one was seriously injured, although both the cab and a cable car were damaged.

DSC_6344

I’ve posted a full gallery here. I’ve also posted many more San Francisco pictures here.

Video of the day

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I walked to the Embarcadero Center today, which is much closer than I realized. I just had to go there to mess with everyone at home (the name of my condo is The Embarcadero, so I emailed pictures saying I’m at the Embarcadero).

These musicians called The Jugtown Pirates were playing outside the ferry building. They’re pretty good and they sort of remind me of the Fleet Foxes.

I also took many more pictures, which I added to my San Francisco photo set on Flickr.