artomatic 2008

Artomatic 2008
May 9 through June 15, 2008
Capitol Plaza I
1200 First St., NE (intersection of First and M Sts., NE)
Washington, DC

Take Metro's Red Line to the New York Ave-Florida Ave-Gallaudet U station and use the M St. exit. Turn right on M St. and walk one block to the big building at the corner of First and M, NE.

Sunday: Noon to 10.00p
Monday and Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday and Thursday: 5.00p to 10.00p
Friday and Saturday: Noon to 2.00a

Admission is free, but donations are welcome and encouraged.

So yeah, I am exhibiting this year! It's my first time showing at Artomatic and my first time exhibiting my prints in public. (I still consider myself very much a photographer in learning.) Artomatic is a month-long, unjuried community art show/festival that features nearly 1,000 local artists in what I like to call artistic sensory overload.

My photography display is on the 9th floor, SE quadrant, area C6 (9 SE C6).

Photo by Jess Hang

I made this informational poster (two 11 by 17 inch sheets mounted on foamcore) to hang to the right of my display. It's kind of a introduction to my display and a key to all the photos I chose to share/show.


Finally, shoutouts to everyone who I've met in the photography community this year who have given me their feedback and encouragement as I've been learning, some of whom are exhibiting at Artomatic this year (Artomatic spaces listed below). Definitely take a moment to stop by their displays: their talent really inspires me and I assure that you will enjoy seeing their work.

Matt Dunn on the 11th floor, SW quadrant, area D7
Karman Lee on the 9th floor, SW quadrant, area B5
Adrienne Moumin on the 6th floor, SW quadrant, area B7
Paul Oberle on the 8th floor, NW quadrant, area A2
Paivi Salonen on the 8th floor, SE quadrant, area D6
Davin Tarr on the 11th floor, SW quadrant, area A6
Jack Whitsitt on the 8th floor, SE quadrant, area D6

then and now

Another silly post with no original content on my part, but with two entertaining videos. The first is an episode from MinisodeNetwork on YouTube that features Janet Jackson as Willis' girlfriend. So that was then.


And this is now. Janet Jackson tries (really hard) to teach Larry King how to dance.

influences from the 1970s

No original content in this post. Just had a few videos to share...

I saw this Amy Winehouse video for Tears Dry on Their Own while I was on travel in Ecuador.


I recognized the background layer in Tears Dry on Their Own from Ain't No Mountain High Enough, vocals by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, instrumentation by the Funk Brothers. One of my favorites.


And then there's Amy Winehouse's single Rehab.


Some people say it's derived from Easy Reader, performed by Morgan Freeman in The Electric Company.


I can hear the similarities in the melody, but I can't say for sure if it is a derived work or not. One tidbit of related news though: a new version of The Electric Company is returning to PBS this fall.

washingtonpost.com redesign, round 3

Last April, I wrote a full-length post here on this blog on what I thought was wrong with the washingtonpost.com redesign. Two days later, I wrote a follow up on this blog containing my posted comment to washingtonpost.com editor Jim Brady. Shortly after that post, I wrote a short follow-up on Edward Tufte's Ask E.T. forum topic on the redesign. The text of my post in the Ask E.T. forum appears below.

You might appreciate seeing this marketing piece on Apple's website that profiles both Mr. Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com and Ms. Jenn Crandall, the producer of OnBeing. It sheds a lot of insight as to why washingtonpost.com is the way it is today.

http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/washingtonpost/

A couple of things to put into perspective... washingtonpost.com is an entity separate from The Washington Post newspaper, both part of Washington Post Newsweek Interactive (WPNI). Obviously, the web site draws from the work of the print newspaper as well as from its reporters, but from what I've read in the corporate information, washingtonpost.com is there to cull highlights from the paper for the web and provide web-only features. What I'm saying here is that the organizational hierarchy probably plays into the organization of the website. Hence, the washingtonpost.com logo is not the same as the masthead of the print paper and we see that the "print edition" or "today's paper" as it's labeled now has always seemed kind of detached from the remainder of the page.

Second, I'm sure we're all aware of the pressures that traditional newspaper organizations face. Subscriptions are decreasing, ad revenue is decreasing, and as a result, newsrooms are shrinking. I get the feeling that washingtonpost.com has become the experimental proving grounds to find a new revenue source to make up for lost traditional revenue. In the words of one of my friends in the news industry, "we're trying anything and everything to see what sticks.

Hence, they are trying to work all sorts of media into washingtonpost.com. Not all of it is bad, but of course, the problem is as Mr. Tufte stated, the Washington Post is a news organization -- that is its reason for existence. The fanciest multimedia and the neatest interface can't make up for a lack of depth in the content, which is going to be the trend if they continue to shrink the newsroom.

-- Kendrick Hang (email), April 12, 2007

The marketing video has changed since then, but the spirit of it is still the same. And if you go to washingtonpost.com right now, you will still see two logos: one for washingtonpost.com and one for the Washington Post. I have a correction to my above post though: the parent company is not Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (WPNI), but rather The Washington Post Company. WPNI is in charge of washingtonpost.com and newsweek.com, while The Washington Post Company is parent to The Washington Post, WPNI, Express, Newsweek, Slate, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, and Kaplan (the educational services company), among other ventures.

Now, in this week's Washington City Paper, a story on what I mentioned above: One Mission Two Newsrooms. In addition to the story, the City Paper made a video to show how geographically separated washingtonpost.com is from The Washington Post.



My point still remains the same: why should readers care and have to differentiate what the corporate organization of The Washington Post Company is? Why are there two navigation structures on their website: one for washingtonpost.com and an alternate structure for the print edition of Washington Post (under the link Today's Paper)? To us, it's all one single newspaper. If I spot an article in the Food section on Wednesday, I have to figure out if it appears in the Arts and Living section on the washingtonpost.com main page or if I have to go under the Today's Paper link to find it the Food section under the print edition Washington Post.

Maybe this is just a classic problem in DC. Is the Washington Post just a reflection of the turf wars and bureaucratic infighting that is so common in so many workplaces around the region? This is definitely not the first time I've encountered multiple people or divisions in an organization vying for influence without regard for the greater organization. I will admit however that integration, within organizations and within the context of design is quite challenging. However, I still believe in the bottom line: people external to an organization, particularly customers and users, should not have to be exposed to the bureaucracy within the organization, especially in the form of design.

licensing versus certification

The following is a short, informal piece I wrote for a class last year while we were debating whether or not software engineers should be licensed. The debate continues in real life as the software industry as a whole is trying to find agreement on the issue of whether or not software engineers should be licensed.

In casual English, licensing and certification have similar meanings. However, in the context of the debate on whether software engineers should be licensed like traditional Professional Engineers (PEs), licensing and certification have very distinct meanings.

The following are definitions from Knight and Leveson (2001), ACM Task Force on Licensing of Software Engineers Working on Safety-Critical Software. The notion of licensing is to have some authority grant permission to an individual to engage in an activity that is otherwise unlawful.

Similarly, certification assures that an individual meets a minimum set of requirements.

Licensing and certification differ primarily in the permission to act. Licensing is mandatory and is a state or federal activity (usually state) while certification is voluntary.

The local governments in Texas and provinces in Canada are licensing software engineers today as PEs with legal rights. Meanwhile, other professional organizations in industry are in the business of certification. For example, the IEEE has the Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP) program, the Project Management Institute has the Project Management Professional (PMP) program, and of course many are familiar with the gamut of technical certification programs like the Microsoft Certifications.

My point is, if we software engineers are going to discuss/debate this topic and be understood, we should aim to be precise in our wording. It's the only way we can all understand what someone really is saying instead of making assumptions and implications. I know, this sounds like an advertisement for good requirements analysis and specification techniques.

Now for the alarming part. If one takes note of the Texas PE exam requirements one will find that their exam has little to do with software engineering as it is typically treated in academia and in industry. Searching around on their website, I found Texas Board of Professional Engineers meeting minutes (pdf) (2005) where they decided to use the IEEE CSDP certification exam for licensing software engineers as PEs in Texas until a better exam comes around. From the minutes, "IT WAS MOVED AND SECONDED (Frailey/Rodriguez) that the Board accept the CSDP examination as an interim substitute for a PE exam in software engineering, until such time as a national exam is provided by NCEES and reconsider the licensure of software engineers."

To me, this is not a real confidence builder in their system of licensure -- I just think Texas jumped the gun a little. Before we as a software community have understood what the implications of licensing are and before we decided on what the best means of licensing are, Texas already started issuing licenses to legally allow people to do things, while considering to use a minimum certification exam to allow them to do it. One would like to think that if licenses are being issued to people who are trusted to do something safety-critical like design software for an aircraft system or a medical device, they should know more than the minimum requirements. The Texas exam, and any exam really, determines a minimum level of knowledge, but it does not determine competence or mastery.


References
IEEE Certified Software Development Professional Program. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.computer.org/certification

Knight, J., Leveson, N. et al. (2001, August). ACM Task Force on Licensing of Software Engineers Working on Safety-Critical Software. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.acm.org/serving/se_policy/safety_critical.pdf

Microsoft. Microsoft Certifications Overview. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/default.mspx

Project Management Institute. Certification Project Management Professional Overview. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.pmi.org/info/PDC_PMP.asp

Texas Board of Professional Engineers. Examination Information. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.tbpe.state.tx.us/lic_exams.htm

Texas Board of Professional Engineers. (2005, August). Minutes, Industry Advisory Committee, August 16, 2005. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.tbpe.state.tx.us/minutes/ind_81605.pdf

spring 2008 dc film festivals

10 February 2008
Our City Film Festival
Ok, the one-day Our City Film Festival came and went and I missed it. But I like the concept of the festival: to feature films that feature DC. I'll keep an eye out for it again next year.

6-16 March 2008
DC Independent Film Festival

11-22 March 2008
DC Environmental Film Festival
In it's 16th year, the DC Environmental Film Festival will be screening 115 films at over 45 different venues around town over the course of 11 days. I checked out the listing of films and there are many that I would love to see, including: All In This Tea, Ansel Adams, Darwin's Natural Heir (a biopic on E.O. Wilson), and Galapagos: Born of Fire. I will miss seeing the films this year (I'm hoping some of them will be released on DVD) as I will be out with my camera in the Galapagos! Although I will not be retracing the voyage of HMS Beagle, I will be wandering from island to island on this wooden schooner:


Photo credit unknown. (This photo was all over the web without attribution.)

24 April - 4 May 2008
Filmfest DC International Film Festival
From their website: "Films will encompass a global range of cultures, music, and politics from over 30 countries. Festival highlights will include the cinema of Latin America and Politics on Film."

16-23 June 2008
Silverdocs: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival
Still accepting submissions from filmmakers, the regular deadline is this Friday 15 February.

If you want to keep an eye out for the fall film festivals, some links to follow: DC Shorts Film Festival (September), National Geographic All Roads Film Festival (October), DC APA Film Festival (September-October), Latin American Film Festival, Reel Affirmations (October), and the Washington Jewish Film Festival (December).

potomac primary voter info

Courtesy of Maria F., voter information for tomorrow's Potomac Primary, Chesapeake Primary, or Mid-Atlantic Primary. Whatever you want to call it, the info for Va., D.C., and Md. is below.

Virginia
Voter registration status
Polling place locator

District of Columbia
Voter registration status
Polling place locator

Maryland
Voter registration status and polling place locator

ocean of the streams of story

I read a short passage this morning that stuck in my head all day, maybe a sign that it was meant to be shared.

…so Iff the Water Genie told Haroun about the Ocean of the Streams of Story, and even though he was full of a sense of hopelessness and failure the magic of the Ocean began to have an effect on Haroun. He looked into the water and saw that it was made of a thousand thousand thousand and one different currents, each one a different color, weaving in and out of one another like a liquid tapestry of breathtaking complexity; and Iff explained that these were the Streams of Story, that each colored strand represented and contained a single tale. Different parts of the Ocean contained different sorts of stories, and as all the stories that had ever been told and many that were still in the process of being invented could be found here, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was in fact the biggest library in the universe. And because the stories were held here in fluid form, they retained the ability to change, to become new versions of themselves, to join up with other stories and so become yet other stories…

Rushdie, S. (1991). Haroun and the Sea of Stories. New York: Penguin.

I've read this excerpt before, but the language and the allegory really struck me today.

my photo policies

After several years of having an informal policy in my head regarding the rights to my photos, I decided to finally put it in writing. These policies apply to any photos I publish on the Web, particularly those appearing in my Flickr photostream. Each photo in my photostream will have a (c) or (cc) designation noted beneath it.

Photos designated as "(c) All Rights Reserved" are fully copyrighted. No reproduction or distribution without prior permission is allowed. However, if you appear in a photo, you are welcome to a copy of that photo for your personal use -- my way of saying thanks for being in the photo -- ask me if you would like an original full-resolution file or a print (my complements).

Photos designated as "(cc) Some Rights Reserved" are licensed as "Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives" (English, legalese) through Creative Commons. Everyone is welcome to reproduce and distribute, without modification, for non-commercial purposes as long as attribution (name credit) is provided. This is my way of contributing to the spirit of the web and sharing some of my work for the world to use, for free.

After taking Pfaffenberger's class in college I know this policy is not very enforceable on the Web, where copying is easy and rampant. Plus, I know that copyright laws were written in an era prior to the Internet and information age, so interpretations can sometimes get hazy. Theoretically, it should still hold up in court if someone out there steals one of my photos for their benefit. It's amazing how one's view of copyright changes when one shifts from being a consumer of intellectual property to becoming a producer of intellectual property (IP).

The thing is, I'm not really one of those people who defensively hoards their IP. I feel like if I'm posting something on the Web, I'm doing it because I want to share. This is why I never have and probably never will put watermarks on my photos. Watermarks put ugly clutter into the photo and it doesn't really protect the photo because someone can just crop it off or work some photo editing magic on it. There is no way to prevent copying. If I really wanted to prevent people from copying something I created, I wouldn't put it on the Web. What I don't want to happen is someone taking my stuff and claiming it as their own and/or making a profit off of it.

Flickr Community Manager Heather Champ phrases this all a little more succinctly at the bottom of her About page.