wiredfool

* Tutorial Bucket: Good overview of basic retouching techniques.
* Retouch Pro: Lots of links to tutorials, some good some less so.
– Flickr Groups: Photoshop support group, Retouch Magic
– Another approach, from a pro.
– Christy Schuler on retouching.

Fictional Stars Get a 21st Century Facelift – NYTimes.com:

“It’s a terrible world, and modern parents are trying to cocoon their kids as much as possible,” said Alfred R. Kahn, chairman of 4Kids Entertainment, which also manages franchises like Pokémon and the Cabbage Patch Kids. “What better way to protect them than wrapping them in nostalgic brands?”

Fear is a very profitable business tactic. Fear sells. Fear sells lots of things, and makes people do things that aren’t in their rational best interest. And because of that, there’s an industry devoted to informing people, parents in this case, that they should be afraid. So that they will buy something to make them feel better.

Don’t mind me. I’m just sick of the culture of fear. Fear is a choice.

Heavyweight physics prof weighs into climate/energy scrap:

…biofuel crops demand vast amounts of land to produce quite limited energy yield. he notes that once upon a time the human race generated nearly all its energy from biomass fuel, but that only worked with a Middle Ages living-standard and population.

One of the things that annoys me about the global warming/renewable energy/hydrodgen economy arguments are that some attractive arguments aren’t terribly well grounded in numbers, the sort of numbers that tell us what would need to happen to make a significant difference at our current rate of energy consumption.

I’ve never been convinced that crop based biofuels are a good idea from a net energy perspective, and I’m really not convinced about hydrogen as a power source, unless there’s fission or fusion involved. Biofuels are great for turning a waste stream into usable fuel, but it doesn’t scale. There’s just not that much waste product to make a dent in the oil stream.

Found in the “Not wearing, but can’t bear to throw away” pile today.