Chris DeLuca

Playing with photo filters.

A photo of an abandoned Brooklyn street under an elevated highway. There is graffiti on the retraining wall on the left, and parked cars on the street. The image is stylized with filters to produce hightened reds and pinks, with jagged color stops.

Demolition Man, 1993 - ★½

"Jeffrey Dahmer? I love that guy!" Largely a clumsy conservative power fantasy, Wesley Snipes still manages to be very entertaining. Read more

My smart talented colleague Laura Donalan is co-leading Untangling Your Drupal Migration: Lessons from the State of Iowa. If you’re considering any CMS data migration, it’s well worth a look.

Today I learned the term Data Piggy.

A tech sector Venture Capitalist who stuffs their little piggy faces on people’s private information until their little piggie overall buttons pop off their engorged little piggy bodies.

Seems incredibly useful. 👍

I added a new about page for this blog. It has everything: information, links, whimsy, that’s it.

Gripping read about one of the first women hackers, by Claire Evans for The Verge. I read this years ago, and only now getting around to sharing it.

In the ’80s, Susan Headley ran with the best of them—phone phreakers, social engineers, and the most notorious computer hackers of the era. Then she disappeared.

Vim Macro Trickz by Hillel Wayne is just that. For the vimthusiasts.

Anyone actively use Oblique Strategies?

I found this conceptually sprawling UX article in the depths of my reading list. It’s several years old, so you may spot an outdated reference or two, but the points are still salient.

The Future is Analog (if you can afford it), by Maroussia Lévesque, explores the “analog privilege” of economic elites to escape the automation and A.I. they apply to everyone else.

There’s a lot to digest in the story about the (hopefully) upcoming Prince documentary, but this quote from Questlove really jumped out.

…the idea of cool, the mere ideal of cool was invented by Black people to protect themselves in this country…

Let that sink in.

Today is National Register to Vote Day. Please, register to vote. And then, you know, vote. It matters. A lot. 🇺🇸

Today, I was introduced to the Alan Watt’s philosophical concept of Prickles and Goo.

Prickly people are precise, rigorous, logical – they like everything chopped up and clear. Goo people like it vague, big picture, random, imprecise, incomplete and irrational…They always argue with each other but what they don’t realize is neither one of them can take their position without their opposition being there…Life is not prickles or goo, its gooey-prickles or prickly-goo.

More Than Friends is a touching, personal, short-ish piece by Aubrey Hirsch on the inverse of a one night stand. Someone with whom you have a connection beyond friendship, but without sex.

Kurzgesagt has a fun, interesting video on how your body metabolizes tattoos (under 10 minutes).

I’m fascinated with tattoos, but as someone who received a permanent immune system alternating stem-cell transplant, this didn’t reassure me on getting one myself.

Although, if I felt more of a need to express bodily autonomy, that calculus might change.

Wonderful, in depth piece on colonial Willamsburg’s approach to teaching history by Laura Jedeed for Politico. One of its insights is a reimagined safe space.

First you establish the safe space, then you teach the facts. Only when people feel secure will they feel ready to grapple with realities that might upset them.

The whole piece is well worth a read.

“History is not there for us to like or dislike. History is there for us to learn from.”

I got to see Lake Street Dive at Madison Square Garden. I didn’t know them well, but they were so good I’m a converted fan. Their new album Good Together is great. 🎵
Me, a white man, years ago. I have messy hair, thin stubble, and a tired, sunken expression. I hold a film clapper. You can make out that it reads "Ghost house Shit house scene 2E take 1"

One time, in the far distant past, I used to both have hair and make movies. I loved every minute of both. 🍿

Hot Shots!, 1991

Watched on Tuesday September 17, 2024. Read more

The Boogeyman is just your dad when he dances.

I spent last Sunday in Central Park with my friend Lindsay, playing with her medium format film camera. She taught me how to focus, the F-stop, the focal range, and even got to peak inside and see how the entirely mechanical apparatus worked. So satisfyingly tactile. Thanks Lindsay!

It's a bright day with a metal foundtain as the focus. The fountain has a decorative angle on top. There's red cobbles on the ground, and trees in the background. Several people of various ethnicities mill around and sit on the lip of the fountain. A big dog on a leash, sleeping outside. The dog's people, a white couple wearing sunglasses, are sitting nearby, holding the leash. Green water with two box turtles, just their shells poking out from the surface. Green water with bushy, green plant clusters popping out in curated clumps. There's a fountain spilling water down in sparkled drops in the top left edge. A castle looking structure shot from a low angle against a bright blue sky. A leafy tree with twisting branches hangs between the viewer and the castle. A park square with many dozens of people enjoying the day, shot from above. There's a fountain in the middle, and behind that is green water. People in row boast glide across the surface, and there's green trees behind on the opposite bank. In the extreme forground, out of focus, is the top of a low wall overlooking the square. A plastic water bottle rests atop it.

A jury of pidgins. Five are on a bathroom break. 🐦

A fire escape outside a brick building. Seven pidgins are lined up on the fire escape railing horizontally.

Here’s Retsina, breaking in my new futon cover. 🐱🐈

A calico cat sprawled on a futon on the floor. There’s a tan blanket and a grey pillow. The blanked is pushed to one side, revealing a dark blue futon cover with white patterns which I don’t remember what they are and I can’t see them at this zoom level o. The photo.

I saw someone on the subway today with a tattoo of simply, “2009”. They were too old for that to be their birth year, so I can only assume it was the year they got that tattoo.

Whenever you hear the phrase, “process of elimination” do you just want to shit?