Mike Cohen

Oktoberfest

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I went to Oakland Park’s Oktoberfest today. It took place for the first time in the brand new Jaco Pastorius Park, so there was a big traffic jam & lots of confusion with parking.

I took lots of photos and a few videos with my D90. Most of the activity took place in a large tent with very uneven lighting, so I had to do some experimentation to get the exposure right. I found that in this case center weighted metering worked better than matrix, since the outside light seemed to throw it off.

I had to raise the ISO since it required a long exposure even with the largest aperture. This was the worst case, at 1/20 which blurred the dancers, although I liked the effect so I kept it.

Oktoberfest 2008

Here’s another one, this time with more cowbell.

More Cowbell!

You can see the full set of pictures here.

No Oktoberfest is complete without the chicken dance, so I had to make a video of it.

I Can Has a new app

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I’ve submitted the official I Can Has Cheezburger iphone app to the app store. Hopefully it will be approved. I also removed the original LOLcats from sale, to avoid any confusion.

Unlike the original LOLCats, which searched Flickr for public photos, the new app uses RSS feeds from I Can Has Cheezburger and related sites, including FAILblog, Engrish Funny, and ROFLrazzi. It also has some user interface refinements, like a navigation bar that hides when you tap the screen.

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links for 2008-10-02

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Apple has dropped their F***ING NDA!

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Apple has finally dropped their ridiculous NDA which has plagued iPhone developers.

From http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.

We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Not a hate crime?

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How is this not a hate crime?

DAYTON — A 10-year-old girl sprayed in the face with a chemical Friday, Sept. 26, while at a local Islamic mosque was not the victim of a hate crime, police Chief Richard Biehl said.

The girl was watching children whose parents and relatives had gathered at the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, 26 Josie St., to celebrate Ramadan when she noticed two men standing outside a basement window about 9:40 p.m., according to police.

One of the men then sprayed something through the open window and into the girl’s face from a white can with a red top, according to a police report. The girl said she immediately felt burning on her face and felt “sick to her stomach,” the report stated.

Other children and a woman in the room felt affects from the chemical and the mosque was evacuated.

If they weren’t Muslims, it would be all over the news and it would certainly be called a hate crime. The attack is widely believed to be inspired by a terror scare DVD being distributed by a pro-McCain group.