(Originally posted at AugieShoots.com)

Making some changes around here. The biggest one is a complete rewrite of my concert portfolio. The new link and design is over here:

http://augieshoots.com/portfolio/

It should be an ever-evolving series of pictures from my concert shooting experience. I am constantly tinkering with it, so check it out from time to time. You can bet each new concert will lead to at least one new image up in there.

And, yes, sharp-eyed readers: That’s a new picture from the Jake Shimabukuro concert that I have yet to talk about here. . .

Ladies and gentlemen, here’s what happens when Weird Al Yankovic meets Jim Steinman and hilarity ensues:

As much as it pains me to say it, Amazon should start collecting sales tax and save itself a load of trouble. This is a fight it can’t win, in the end. Why fight the inevitable and piss off legions of people (Affiliate site owners, in particular) along the way?

There’s really no reason Amazon shouldn’t be collecting sales taxes today. They’re using an arcane and antiquated loophole in the law to justify not doing so. Honestly, it’s not that hard a thing to create a database to know how much sales tax to charge a buyer, given their billing address. Yes, it is a system that will require some resources to start and less to keep going in the future, but it’s got to be far cheaper than the lawyers they keep using to fighting local laws and politicians every couple of months.

I’ve enjoyed the tax-free shopping at Amazon for a long time now, but let’s not fool ourselves: we’re supposed to report it at the end of the year and pay it with our state taxes. Very few people actually do, though, and the cost of tracking this and fining people for it is a little overwhelming for state governments to handle. In the end, it likely wouldn’t make them enough money to cover costs.

It’s time for Amazon to grow up and be a real business and collect and pay the same kinds of taxes that every other business in the country does. When I shop at other on-line retailers, they calculate sales taxes and charge me accordingly, particularly the camera stores like Adorama and B and H. Some sort of system could be worked out at Amazon, too. It will level the playing field and save a whole lot of fighting — plus, more revenues for governments that can’t help themselves from wasting it!

And, as a consumer, I know I’m still getting everything cheaper than at a brick and mortar shop. That 7% sales tax (in New Jersey’s case) still doesn’t kill the 30%-plus discount on books we get today.

Still, I’d miss the extra savings. I admit it. But I’m also one of those “grown-up” types. Reality has to set in eventually. The internet is no longer the wild wild west it once was. And this is part of its maturation process.

Also, if your sole source of income is Amazon Affiliate links, you needed to rethink your business model before Amazon started closing its affiliate program in several states.

On the perhaps brighter side, we return to the research of Dr. Faustmann, who years ago I once sent the biggest charitable check in my life to. (Lee Iacocca was a big contributor to her work at the time. That link is from 2006.)

She’s seeing results now for curing diabetes through a TB vaccine:

The first trial in a handful of humans has suggested that injecting patients with Type 1 diabetes with an inexpensive vaccine normally used to prevent tuberculosis can block destruction of insulin-secreting pancreatic cells in humans and allow regeneration of the pancreas. Such a finding, if confirmed and expanded on, could lay the foundation for freeing the estimated 1 million U.S. Type 1 diabetics from their daily insulin shots. It brings up a word that is rarely or never used in considering the disease: “cure.” Such an outcome is still a long way in the future, but Dr. Denise Faustman of Massachusetts General Hospital has already come a long way in her quest to find a new treatment paradigm for diabetes.

So she’s actually showing progress, at least, moving in a direction that most people gave up on too long ago, in the hopes of making it easier to take shots and prick our fingers endlessly. Thanks, Dr. F!

Every month or two, this blog likes to highlight the latest cure-all for diabetes. Often, it involves only Type II diabetics, and usually nothing comes of it in the long run.

So goes another cure. This time, it’s extreme dieting:

Eleven people with diabetes took part in the study, which was funded by Diabetes UK. They had to slash their food intake to just 600 calories a day for two months. But three months later seven of the 11 were free of diabetes.

Still nothing’s been done for those of us who got screwed genetically, not just from eating too much damned McDonalds…

Time for another update…

I saw The Voice for the first time tonight. Besides Frenchie Davis showing up on there, I immediately recognized the singing sisters. i remembered their names first, properly, but I had no doubt who they were: Tori and Taylor Thompson, of American Juniors fame. Eight years ago, they were in the winning group formed by American Juniors that so famously did nothing, released nothing, and disappeared into obscurity. Lucy Hale — the eldest and best of the lot — has since done acting, but The Thompson Sisters stuck with the singing, bouncing from country fair to country fair. And then they, and their parents, found The Voice on NBC and returned to our living rooms for 2011.

Here’s some video of those original auditions. You’ll see Mom is in there, too:

Now you have “One Step Closer to Heaven” stuck in your head again, don’t you? It’s OK to scream. Go ahead…

Wait, was that Carrie Ann Inaba from “Dancing With the Stars” choreographing the kids? Crazy small world…

Here’s one of the spare comments I wrote about them at the time:

In the end, Chauncey is the lucky guy with four cute girls surrounding him, and the Thompson Twins’ parents are the lucky ones who don’t have to worry about favoring one sister over the other in the coming months or weeks. (I know they’re not twins, but I like the 80s sound of calling them that.) Lucy Hale will be the first to leave to pursue a solo act, and I’m afraid I’m not nearly crass enough to predict who will get the first Playboy spread in a few years….

That I know of, there have been no Playboy spreads yet…

I remember when the finalists were chosen that we all figured the second sister would make it once the first did. Sure enough, that happened.

And since that night, I can’t get “We’re the Kids In America” song out of my head when I think of the show. Watch them all in action once again, to refresh your memories.

Or, watch the whole group sing with judge Debbie Gibson, who’s now on tour with Tiffany, by the way:

Cross-posted from AugieShoots.com:

Last week, I wrote up five blog entries detailing my adventure in photographing the SCR concert. Now, for your convenience, here’s a link to them all:

Part 1: Time Constraints Part 2: Creating Exposure Part 3: Objects Getting in the Way Part 4: Be Nice to the Crowd Part 5: Behind The Scenes, or “How I Got My First Photo Pass”

• Last week at AugieShoots, I talked about my experiences shooting a Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers concert.  Pictures and technical stuff and more can be found in that five day series.

 

• Good news!  The new O.A.R. album has been announced, and it’ll be out in August.  It’s called “King.”

 

• Found an interesting band last week: Honeyhoney.  They have one album out on iTunes and Amazon’s MP3 store now.  It’s a duo from California, and they’ll be opening for Christina Perri on her tour this summer.  They’re a great match.

 

• And, of course, Weird Al’s new album, “Alpocalypse,” is due out at the end of the month.

Aetna has a “virtual assistant,” who is there to answer your questions on their website.  Basically, it’s a search bar with stock imagery of a smiling person who answers in conversational text.

Or, if you want to pretend it’s more expensive than it is, call it “artificial intelligence.” Being a technologically inclined kind of person, I decided to run it through its paces:

Ann: Hi, I’m Ann, your Aetna Virtual Assistant. I’m here to help you use your Aetna Navigator secure member website. I’m currently new to this job, so if I can improve somewhere please let Aetna know by clicking the ‘feedback’ button below. What can I help you find?

You Asked: Zork

Ann: Oops, I haven’t been trained on that yet. I want to get better, so please let Aetna know how they can improve me by clicking the “feedback” button below.

I’m tempted to leave the feedback that the correct answer is “At your service” or “They say talking to one’s self is a sign of impending mental collapse.”

You Asked: What is the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything?

Ann: That’s a question that only you can answer for yourself. As far as my own life, I find meaning in helping others.

Deeper than 42, but acceptable, I suppose.  and, yes, it looks like the kind of question the programmers have seen before and decided to have fun with.  OK, let’s test “Ann” further:

You Asked: Why is the sky blue? Ann: The sky is blue because of the way the earth’s atmosphere scatters light from the sun. The light from the sun looks white. But it is really made up of all the colors of the rainbow. Blue is scattered more than other colors when it hits particles and gases in our atmosphere because it travels as shorter, smaller waves.

Yup, there are either geeks working on this system who are too young for Zork, or I’m the first one to test that system.

You Asked: Do you have a good recipe for chocolate chip cookies?

Ann: Looks like I don’t know that yet. Please let Aetna know about this by clicking the “feedback” button below.

OK, let’s try getting personal, then:

You Asked: Are you married? Ann: I’m lucky to have a terrific virtual family, including a wonderful husband. Well, he’s wonderful most of the time: Even virtual people aren’t perfect! But I’d like to keep us on track. How may I help you navigate your Aetna Navigator secure member website?

Oooh, that pissed her off.  Let’s push our luck.

You Asked: How old are you? Ann: I am rather young, or as we say in the virtual world, new. But I like to think I have many years’ worth of knowledge. How may I help you?

Dare I ask her weight?

You Asked: How much do you weigh? Ann: As a virtual assistant, I don’t have an actual body. But I think my creators deserve credit for making me appear pleasant and helpful. Let me help you navigate your Aetna Navigator secure member website.

Hey, I’m THE ONE ASKING THE QUESTIONS HERE!  That’s it. I’m out of here!

Joseph Linaschke laments the loss of iPhone tracking:

It’s all a load of bull, frankly. Anyone carrying any cell phone is tracked by the cell phone companies anyway, and I don’t even subscribe to the notion that the real problem wasn’t “big government”, but the ability for your spouse to look on your computer and find where you’ve been. If you’re that worried about it, all you really need to do is enable that little check-box “encrypt iPhone backup” in iTunes and all your logs were locked up automatically. Anyway, it’s all a moot point now, since the most recent iPhone update gets rid of functionality. Which is a shame, because frankly, it’s cool!

I’m with him, actually. Looking at mine was pretty cool. I’m hardly a traveler, but I saw a couple of spokes in my travels that reminded me of specific trips. Fun stuff. Now, it’s all gone.

TMBG just announced their new tour. Check out this stop:

10/1 Boston, MA – Berklee Performance Center (2 entirely different shows featuring songs from A-M at 6:30pm & songs from N-Z at 9pm)

Crazy. I love it. And if you wanted to hear “I Palindrome I” AND “We’re the Mesopotamians,” you need to go to both shows. I make no guarantee that they’ll play either, though.

(Additional detail is in their email alert, though not on their website.)

Egads, I love this song:

Christina Perri’s “Lovestrong” album hit virtual and physical stands this week. What better time for Part 2 of this series?

While touring around earlier this year, Perri did a brief show in Paris at a small club of some sort. Someone up close took video of the entire thing. Here, then, is a six song set. Pretty cool:

More videos after the break!

|Read the Rest of the Entry…

Remember the early days when Amazon wasn’t profitable, but was going to be any quarter now? This week, Amazon announced that its quarterly profits would be down by a third because they were investing in infrastructure to continue to grow into a larger company — and Wall Street was disappointed at the way the profits “tumbled.” They were still profitable by a large margin. They just weren’t AS PROFITABLE, because they spent money to make more money down the road. They’re bringing in close to $10 billion per quarter — $10,000,000,000 — with profits in the hundreds of millions. (Nope, not a great profit margin, but here’s the classic case of making up slim margins in volume.)

And, of course, Wall Street hates it because Amazon didn’t “meet expectations.” In other words, the numbers that analysts plucked out of thin air and guess at weren’t right. And that’s Amazon’s fault.

Compare this to Apple, where every quarter Apple sets low expectations and then blows them away and gets a big stock boost. Everyone knows Apple is underguessing its numbers to help “meet expectations.” And everyone also knows that the armchair amateur revenue guessers on-line are always better at figuring out sales figures and dollar amounts than the “pro” analysts who are aid to guess these numbers. And they never get them right, or close to it.

I hate Wall Street. On the other hand, their game is so consistent(ly wrong) that it’s a good game to play, so long as you realize it’s a game and not anything based in reality at all.

The day after I post my “Farewell to Wii,” this short story pops up:

…a successor to the Nintendo Wii capable of displaying games in high resolution. Will Nintendo finally make it happen? Multiple totally anonymous sources say yes: they told Game Informer, IGN andKotaku that just such a system will debut at E3 2011…

Things just got interesting.  I’m not sure how “backwards compatibility” would work.  You can’t just reconfigure the games for widescreen. I suppose they could make 4:3 higher def, but it would still feel like a waste of screen real estate.  It’s almost better to start from scratch at that point. Maybe we’ll know better this summer…

It was almost six years ago now that I first mentioned the Nintendo “Revolution” game console. It promised such amazing things as wireless connections straight out of the box and a wireless controller.

The die-hard gamers started complaining right away, but even IGN knew why a gaming console that promised easy playability was so important.

And there was the first look at the controller.

The hype built quickly, the “Wii” name change was a point of major initial controversy (I admit that I hated the change from “Revolution,” too), and the rumor mill suggested — in 2006, no less — that perhaps the Wii would be a 3D projector. Or a built-in camera to put your face on a Mii.

When it finally came time to buy one, Amazon’s sale was not unlike a lottery. I didn’t win that, either. I missed it the first day. But then I took advantage of the Blue Laws, went into work late one Monday, and grabbed one for myself. And had some initial happy impressions. (I never got used to Super Monkey Ball and sold it off later. It wasn’t my kind of game. “Rayman Raving Rabbids” was a big hit for me, though.)

That all was four and a half years ago. Things have changed since then. Wireless internet is everywhere, and everything in the house will be wireless soon, including your toaster. High Def TV is the new standard. And the Wii controls have finally been copied by Microsoft with the Kinect and Sony with something so embarrassing that I can’t even remember its name right now.

Lately, the 360 has pulled ahead, leaving the Wii as a strong second best seller from month to month. And, seriously, the difference between #1 and #2 isn’t that great here. Furthermore, the Wii will go down as the top selling video game console of all time. That’s pointed out by Chris Kohler in this article that explains why the Wii’s days may finally be numbered. With a rumored price drop coming next month, it looks like Nintendo is ready to set the old girl out to sea and move on to the next console for next year sometime. Such is life.

More from Kohler:

But if Nintendo’s plan to woo third-party gamemakers does revolve around a new machine, that leaves only Nintendo to keep Wii interesting. And even Nintendo seems to be washing its hands of Wii these days. The company is largely focusing on games for its recently launched Nintendo 3DS. To be fair, this is the more important task at hand, but the effort seems to be coming at the expense of Wii.

Yes, Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will be released for Wii at the end of the year. I do believe that the excellent Japanese role-playing games Xenoblade and The Last Story will make it to America. And Square Enix says we’ll hear about Dragon Quest X for Wii later this year, which will be a very big deal … in Japan. Not in the United States.

The Wii was a great console for its time, and it did great things. It expanded the video game industry in a way much of the industry still doesn’t want to acknowledge, even as it’s spent the last five years trying to copy its every move, from wireless motion controllers to the stripped down family-friendly game console package. And it’s still very playable, with many years’ worth of addictive and group-friendly games. I’m not tired of my Wii; I just wish I had more time to do gaming. I still pick it up for the occasional game of Rock Band or Guitar Hero, and I wish I had the time to get back into both Wii Sports games.

But, yeah, at the same rate I really do with it was in HD, as I’ve become a complete snob about that. Other than that, no complaints here. I’m not giving mine up anytime soon, but maybe it’s time to acknowledge the passing of the torch to — of all people — Microsoft.