Banksy’s Wall and Piece

One of the cool things about doing what I do is that sometimes, people send me things for free. Such was the case last night when someone named “Alphonse” and with the initials “AAA” (is this a real name?) gifted me a package through Amazon that contained two photo books: Jeff Bridges’ Pictures and Banksy’s Wall and Piece. First of all, Alphonse, if you’re a real person and you’re reading this, thanks so much for the awesome gift! It made my day.

I haven’t had too much time to dive into either of the books, but they both look incredible. In particular, Bridges’ book, which I didn’t even know existed, has tons of awesome behind-the-scenes shots from his decades as an actor. Very cool, and especially salient to me given my developing photography career.

I wanted to share some quick tidbits from the book, which is essentially a compendium of Banksy’s street art.

Here’s Banksy’s foreward, which lays out his motivations for his work:

I’m going to speak my mind, so this won’t take very long. Graffiti is not the lowest form of art. Despite having to creep about at night and lie to your mum it’s actually the most honest artform available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on some of the best walls a town has to offer, and nobody is put off by the price of admission. A wall has always been the best place to publish your work.

The people who run our cities don’t understand graffiti because they think nothing has the right to exist unless it makes a profit. But if you just value money then your opinion is worthless. They say graffiti frightens people and is symbolic of the decline in society, but graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives, and graffiti writers.

The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scrawl their giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available surface, but you’re never allowed to answer back. Well, they started this fight and the wall is the weapon of choice to hit them back.

Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.

Great insights into the mind of one of the most audacious artists of our time. If you have a chance, check out our review of Exit Through the Gift Shop.

I also love the back cover quote.

Sony Playstation Network Compromised in Unprecedented Security Breach

Today, my thoughts of “Man, I wish I could play Portal 2 on my Playstation 3″ quickly turned to “Oh crap, now I gotta change my passwords again.”

Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

To paraphrase gaming guru Garnett Lee, “Holy crap, an absolute worst-case scenario security breach and it takes Sony almost a week to own up to it.”

For consumers, the fact that Sony waited this long to inform users that their credit cards might have been compromised is an unconscionable delay. That said, from a corporate standpoint, I understand why they did it. This is not a situation where you can afford a “false positive.” Announcing that people’s accounts have been compromised before understanding the nature of the breach creates unnecessary panic and instantly destroys credibility. There were very few pitfalls for Sony, as a company, to wait and figure things out (Their credibility was already going to be in tatters after this. Waiting a few days longer didn’t change that too much, except to make the tatters more fine and decrepit looking).

My guess is, they knew immediately that data had been compromised, but they didn’t know how much of it or in what manner (it sounds like they are still figuring that part out). If the scope of the intrusion was limited, they could have made a determination, made a brief announcement and tried to deal with the limited number of people that were affected. But it turned out not to be limited, and now millions of people are pretty pissed about it.

Lots of questions still remain. How did this intrusion take place? Who was responsible? Did one single individual or party really get access to dozens of millions of credit card numbers? Who was affected? And so forth. Whatever the case, this news is huge, and will shape people’s perception of the Sony brand and the Playstation Network for years to come.

Highrock Easter Service, 2011

I recently picked up the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 USM II lens. This thing is a beast. It is long and heavy, and looks like you could shoot a small cannonball out of it. That being said, it’s also one of the best lenses in existence today. With an extremely wide aperture and a image stabilization (thus allowing for fast shutter speed in low-light situations), this lens is considered by many wedding, portrait, and event photographers to be absolutely essential.
One of the biggest difficulties of using this lens is that it’s so conspicuous. You can’t carry this around a public place without looking like either a photographer on a job or a stalker. As a result, I only feel comfortable using it for specific events.

I was thrilled that my local church, Highrock, allowed me to shoot its Easter Service, which was held at Arlington Town Hall in Arlington, MA. It was an awesome celebration, and while the service itself was moving and powerful, the meal afterwards was pretty awesome, resembling a town fair more than a church luncheon. Here are some of the photos I was able to produce:

I’m still getting the hang of using this thing, and I am particularly curious about the use of image stabilization, and trying to optimize it in certain settings. 

Always Plan for the Worst

James Fallows from The Atlantic has written up a nice summary of what you can do to protect your Gmail account from getting hacked, as well as how to protect your data. The biggest obstacle people face to implementing these protections? A false sense of security:

I’ve made this point before, but I stress it again for this simple reason: I believe that most “normal” users do not imagine that this can be so. They don’t think it’s really possible that everything they’ve archived for years and years might be vaporized. But indeed it is possible, and online life should be conducted with appropriate “tragic imagination” of that fact.

As a result of reading this article, I just signed up for Google’s two-step authentication, which dramatically reduces your likelihood of getting hacked. Basically, you download an authenticator app to your phone, then use it to login to your Gmail account along with your password. It’s a super-cool feature that, bizarrely, banks don’t even have yet.

My biggest fear is forgetting about the whole thing if/when I get a new/replacement iPhone, and the authenticator forgets all my previous settings. Then I’d be right screwed. But maybe just the act of blogging about this fear will prevent that from happening. Only time will tell…

The $23 Million Book

Michael Eisen has an interesting story about how sellers on Amazon’s marketplace have deployed algorithmically-based pricing, with absurd results:

A few weeks ago a postdoc in my lab logged on to Amazon to buy the lab an extra copy of Peter Lawrence’s The Making of a Fly – a classic work in developmental biology that we – and most other Drosophila developmental biologists – consult regularly. The book, published in 1992, is out of print. But Amazon listed 17 copies for sale: 15 used from $35.54, and 2 new from $1,730,045.91 (+$3.99 shipping).

Chronicling the Decline of ‘The Office’

Few people make a more convincing case for the decline of The Office than television writer Myles McNutt. I’ve known and respected Myles since before he was rich and famous (and we’ve had him on the /Filmcast a number of times to talk TV), and I’ve particularly been impressed by his work at The AV Club, as he does weekly Office recaps.

McNutt approaches the show and each episode as though it has the potential to be something transcendent, informative, and/or moving. And why shouldn’t he? At its best, that’s what The Office was, a celebration of the foibles of American working life. Lately, though, the show has been uneven and mired with inconsistent characterizations. The penultimate Michael Scott episode, “Michael’s Last Dundies,” exemplifies this. Myles writes:

I know some of you don’t care if an episode of The Office means anything and that you just want it to be funny. I also know that wanting the show to have a sense of meaning or purpose renders me pretentious for some of you. However, “Michael’s Last Dundies” obviously wants to take on a particular meaning given that final song, to be about “the best in every one of us” that Michael believes the Dundies should represent. As a result, I think it is perfectly fair to hold the show accountable for the fact that the rest of it was built around a transparent set of bits being played by two actors, not two characters, and to wish that the big picture was more than just a musical afterthought in Carell’s next-to-last episode.

As Steve Carrell wraps up his time on the show, it’s instructive to look back and see how the show has changed. Be sure to check out Myles’ other recaps of the show.

Drew Grant from Salon has a different take on this week’s episode, though it doesn’t necessarily conflict with McNutt’s. She argues that The Office can recapture its spirit if it “could go all the way back to its Schadenfreude roots and get mean.”