The Lost Realm

Although I might be wrong, I can't help but feel that this is a rather obvious Photoshopping job (another photo here). Seriously, the purple rocks in the background and the purple all over the outside of the bars — all of exactly the same hue — are such strong indicators of basic hue-shifting manipulation that should raise warning flags for everyone seeing that image. Sure, it might just be that the applied medication has been rubbed all over the place, but I can't ignore the similarity to several (bad) touchup jobs I've made to pictures myself.

Is this the future of the media, where not only is the audience uncertain as to the authenticity of what they see, but so are the journalists?

Today AOL cut the remaining Mozilla programmers from their payroll and announced that they will no longer be directly supporting its development. A separate, non-profit Mozilla Foundation that will oversee future development of Mozilla, Firebird and Thunderbird. AOL and other corporations have announced that they will provide substantial funding for the foundation, thereby ensuring its immediate survival.

I started using Netscape in 1995; it was a great product, and easily better than Mosaic. After Netscape was purchased by AOL, the browser's development slowed and has never quite been the same. Commercial interests and branding took place where innovation and progress should have been. Hopefully now that AOL/TW has removed any direct influence from Mozilla's development, Mozilla will take up where Netscape left off years ago. Hopefully this will be the beginning of some interesting changes for the web.

This has been a most unusual weekend. On Friday I (finally) got my driver's license. I still don't really like driving, but I had to get my license. I seemed to be the only person who had actually completed puberty sitting my final test, but I managed not to look too silly.

While driving Debs about this weekend (she rightly claims that I owe her at least five years of driving in the time that we've known each other), I almost forgot exactly why I've had to make so many changes in my life over the last year or so. Then, this afternoon while we were playing Risk with some friends, I was reminded: Romilly made her first, stumbling crawl across the carpet to grab a toy. The loud cheers completely distracted her from what she was doing, but it was enough to bring a huge smile to my face that's still there now.

I'm a proud father, and I'm responsible for a very important little girl. Sometimes change is worth it.

Sometimes, Google News finds the most interesting images to accompany articles:

I'm not even going to begin to wonder why Charlie's Angels would want a German green card, but I'm sure they wouldn't count as “foreign computer specialists”.