Monthly Archives: December 2008

End of Empire

It’s over.

The Ottoman Empire lasted some 300 years. The British Empire managed 200. The United States? 90 or so. Welcome to the Asian century.


End of Empire. Crown Graphic 4×5, Verichrome. 135mm Xenar.

Empires come and go. Nothing new in that. What is totally mystifying is how our politicians are trying to recreate an over-retailed, over-banked, over-leveraged, nation of sloths rather than letting the invisible hand of economics do its thing. We need $20 an hour plumbers and car mechanics a lot more than we need another mall. Sure, some will starve in the process. No bad thing. Have you checked American waistlines recently? They can be put to work making new roads. It may take years to learn the intricacies of mortgage backed securities, but you can learn to use a shovel in 2 minutes.

Whereas the French and British monarchies were the cause of their own demise, it’s the spread of unrealistic expectations by Americans, fueled by weak politicians, which has destroyed our empire. No one questions the decoupling of education, intelligence and success any more. The illusion of hard work is lauded as the be all and end all. Forget grey matter. You make cars in Detroit? You deserve upward mobility and success though your skill set took all of one week to acquire. By contrast, spend ten to fifteen years learning and applying a challenging profession – be it medicine or engineering – and you are automatically prey to the worst elements in our society. The same blue collar worker who steals at every opportunity thinks little of retaining a class action thief, posing as a lawyer, to get his share from you. The era of the barrow boy masquerading as capitalist has arrived.

In days past I would have been optimistic about the prospects of another Bastille Day, this time in the USA, whereby the corridors of political power are stormed and a few legislators and their legal cronies lose a head or two. There’s nothing like decapitation to focus the mind, if you get my drift. But once government consumes one half of the country’s GDP, and has one half of voters beholden to it, prospects of such curative surgery fall to zero.

America, I weep for you. It was good while it lasted.

Bento

No time like the present.

Ask the average consumer to recommend an insurance company and you will get saccharine encomiums about his local broker. Ask how they handled the most recent claim and you will get a blank stare, for chances are all the consumer has ever done is hand over premium payments to the smiling broker whose newly whitened teeth testify to the industry’s profit margins.

Simply stated, insurance companies are in the business of not paying claims. That’s how they make money.

So the consumer has to try that bit harder to prove loss and recover payment and in a modern digital world nothing could act as a greater antidote to an inherently morally challenged industry than photographs. Pictures not only beat a thousand words, they also beat the crook at the corner fronting for an industry whose morals are comparable to those of Wall Street.

Collecting and collating all the data relating to your personalty is, let’s face it, a pain in the nether regions, but it sure beats sifting through the ashes of a fire or the trauma of a burglary. I am as guilty as most of procrastinating on the awful job of making a good home inventory but a simple database application named Bento makes it a lot more fun than a root canal.

Bento is a database program wrapped in a glossy coat which requires no technical skill from the user. An included Home Inventory template makes it instantly usable and all I did to mine is add a second picture field. Each item (or ‘record’ in database-speak) has two pictures (or fields) – one for a snap of the item, the other for one of the related purchase invoice. A few other text fields add information for description, serial number, location and so on, but the the pictures will include most of what you need to fight the forces of evil when it comes to making a successful claim for loss recovery.

Here’s an example from my Bento home inventory file:

The invoice was scanned on my ancient Epson 2450 flat-bed scanner and simply dragged and dropped into the invoice picture area. Click on it and a full size version opens in Preview for review or printing. Same with the picture of the lens.

What was surprising to me is not only how little time all this takes but also just how much valuable junk I have lying around. Just like you.

So here’s a good project for those post-turkey lazy hours. Get your camera out, snap away at anything of value and scan all those invoices. Of course, Bento only runs on Macs but you are smart enough to have one of those already, right?

Once you are done, export the database to your remote file server and you are safe. Or at least better prepared for the scum bag the insurer will confront you with when you make your claim. Appropriately, he calls himself a “loss adjuster”. It’s a classic bait-and-switch. The guy with the teeth takes your money and the one without makes sure you do not get any back.

For movies and books I use Bruji’s products as they are more tailored to these assets and you can see the related databases for these on my ISP’s file server by clicking the related links on the right. These are more aimed at retrieval of favorite titles but serve equally well for insurance battles. Mac only, of course.

Yeah, right.

Pull the other leg – it has bells on!

Life with(out) walls. Downtown San Francisco. 5D, 24-105mm @ 70mm, 1/8000, f/9.5, ISO 400

Well, truth in advertising was never the Evil Empire’s strong suit ….

As for new products, I understand Windows 7 will be named Walls and it’s June 2009 replacement is codenamed Balls. And one special feature has been added to the Zune for Christmas shoppers, one found on every version of Windows since that product’s release.

Aw, c’mon!

You can fool some of the people all of the time.

Downtown San Francisco. 5D, 24-105mm at 82mm, 1/1500, f/5.6, ISO 400

Mercifully, this potential customer is having second thoughts about depositing his cash with one of the greatest criminal conspiracies of our time.

Union Square at Christmas

A gorgeous day in San Francisco

Chinese city, Chinese owner, Chinese dog.

Union Square, San Francisco. 5D, 24-105mm @ 70mm, 1/160, f/6.7, ISO 400

Though fashionably attired for the nippy weather, this poor pug was pretty dehydrated, what with all the Christmas shopping, but his loving owner came prepared.

This year an ice skating rink has been installed in Union Square so I braved the rabid shoppers in Macy’s on the way to the top floor to snap this:

The ice rink. 5D, 24-105mm @ 28mm, 1/6000, f/5.6, ISO 400

Some are less fortunate than others, and even busy Union Square can be an awfully lonely place.

Mendicant. 5D, 24-105mm @ 35mm, 1/4000, f/6.7, ISO 400

Others disregard the hue and cry and do a quiet bit of computing.

Laptop guy. 5D, 24-105mm @ 50mm, 1/1000, f/6.7, ISO 400

After all that trudging about, nothing beats a corned beef on rye at Lefty O’Doul’s.

Lunch at Lefty’s. 5D, 24-105mm @ 24mm, 1/20, f/5.6, ISO 3200

And finally, vanity dictates a self portrait.

On Maiden Lane. 5D, 24-105mm @ 99mm, 1/90, f/6.7, ISO 400

Is that 24-105mm L zoom a corker or what?