The Public's Right to Know

I recently read a story The New York Times entitled, "Rare Double Agent Disrupted Bombing Plot, U.S. Says" that really struck a cord with me. The story is that intelligence agent from Saudi Arabia infiltrated the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month posing as a suicide bomber who was going to blow up a United-States bound airliner with Al Qaeda's latest bomb that was supposed to be undetectable.

I would have thought that the U.S. would have celebrated this achievement and used it to gain more popularity for the Obama campaign because it shows that he is tough on terrorism. Instead, U.S. intelligence officials were angry that the story got leaked because "they feared the leak would discourage foreign intelligence services from cooperating with the United States" and because leaking the story is "causing our partners to be leery about working with us." I certainly understand the argument that the intelligence officials don't want the methods that they use to become known and also that the U.S. needs to maintain a trusting relationship with other countries in order to better prevent terrorist attacks.

But isn't it also the public's right to know what is threatening their safety? Ignorance is only bliss until something goes wrong. I feel that while the facts about the double agent should not have been leaked to the public, the public should at least know that a new terrorist plot was foiled that involved a brand new harder to detect underwear bomb. How much harm could 300 million extra sets of eyes do? The news has the possibility to cause paranoia but I'd rather be on the safe side when it comes to issues like this.

Improving Your Focus

Today I came across a new camera called the LYTRO camera. Basically it allows you to take a picture and then choose what you focus on later. The LYTRO website shows some of the amazing reviews that the camera has recieved. Popular Science said that "digital cameras have consistently and dramatically improved... but those changes have been incremental compared with the leap taken in Lytro's light-field camera." Popular Science even gave the LYTRO camera the 2011 innovation of the year. 

All of this high praise made me think that this was photography's liberator of the people. Helping normal people to create more professional looking pictures. This was until I looked around a little more and found a blog post by Chase Jarvis, a professional photographer, who said in his blog that LYTRO's technology combined with other technologies that are being developed could truly lead to something amazing.

The part that I found interesting was when Jarvis backtracked a little, saying that the LYTRO technology could create amazing pictures "Unless… your pictures have no focus." He says in order to make your pictures stand out from the crowd, you need to focus on subject, content, meaning, and artistic vision. This LYTRO is a photographic tool. It does not manufacture amazing pictures for you.  Below is a video by another pro photographer Jared Polin. In this video, he points out some flaws of the camera. Just like Chase Jarvis, he talks about how people take photos with bad composition but overlook it because they can choose what to focus on. 

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It's interesting that the professionals just view the camera as another trend and that it won't improve the quality of images people take, but on the other hand non-professionals are singing the cameras praises and saying that it improves their photography. After seeing the video, I have to side with the professionals. Just because new soccer cleats come out that are 50% lighter doesn't mean that wearing them will make you a better player. Pros are pros for a reason. Instead of trying to find a shortcut to the professional level, you have to find a way to separate yourself from the rest because if the camera had the possibility of turning you into a professional, you have to think everyone would have one.

Is This Really in the Christmas Spirit?

This is a recent Best Buy commercial that completely goes against the spirit of Christmas. In the video the women beats Santa at present buying and hasn't left any room for Santa to leave his presents. In a way this goes represent the American value of competitiveness. Santa was too slow so a faster better gifted person took up his spot. The Christmas industry had evolved and Santa couldn't keep up, what a shame. We are surrounded by so many advertisements for all of the latest electronics that represent a fast paced world where things are only new for a few days because there is always something better. It's sad that the spirit of Christmas seems to be fading away as the magic of Santa is being bested by low-price electronics. Unfortunately, the Christmas magic has been fading for some time. It is now thought that children aren't learning the Christmas music that used to a staple of the holidays. This has got me thinking, why have larger corporations been able to commercialize cornerstones of society like Christmas? Is this commercialization unavoidable? Also are there other traditions that have started to lose their true meaning as corporations look for new ways to expand their business?

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