Jon Searles' most read articles

As I explained in my last blog, this entry will attempt to examine the situation of train simulators at present. I should emphasize that I make many generalizations below based on experience. If you want me to elaborate further, get back to me. Sometimes I expect you'll know something that I don't. Introduction and Background Strangely, my experience as of late has been that train simulators are in a far better position than flight simulators, at least at the consumer level. They…

Well...I've run into another technical problem. My upcoming video project is threatened (at least to some degree) by my camera breaking down. I'm having a problem with the "mosaic" interference on MiniDV tapes that's normally caused by a dirty play head, but in this case it seems to be connected with the recording process since my old tapes play just fine. I've made 21.5 tapes with the camera, basically, and since the 12th tape, the problem has been intermittant, mostly in the first 15-25…

Introduction This post is a break from what I usually write, as I have a backlog of photos to scan, and for the moment I won't have anything new in the way of photography. As everyone knows, iPernity is an art site, as much as a photo site, and this is partly what makes it preferable to Flickr. You won't have your work booted or censored just because it's a drawing, painting, sculpture, video, CGI, or written work, among the various things that you can post here. Until my most recent upl…

This was forwarded to me.... Hi Everyone, Bad news… Conyers, Berman and the House leadership are in active discussions to pass the House bill NOW. We had a scare earlier tonight when we thought that the bill would be put on the suspension calendar this evening (which means it would be voted on), but now it looks as though it will be tomorrow morning unless we can do something to prevent it! After consulting with Brad Holland, Cynthia Turner and the other team leaders, here’s the strategy: W…

    In explanation to why my stream is suddenly flooded with old photos from 2005, I did a massive 8.6MB upload today of old stuff I shot in Ceske Budejovice, Pecka, Brno, and Bratislava in 2005.  More will be on the way tomorrow or the next day, as I have quite a backlog to do.  Please check out the photos, of course, but I doubt I'll have time to have any of them scored in competitions on Flickr until I have more of them in the stream.  Incidentally, I now have over 1000 photos online!!  First…

I was sent the following this morning, but in spite of its optimistic tone, note that the more important thing is that it includes a link to fliers to distribute against the next vote, as the bill isn't dead yet. So, in any case, here's the email I was sent... Dear Group, Thank you for all your efforts in trying to stop s.2913/hr.5889. We had great success; we stopped the bill (hr5889/s.2913) from passing in this session in Congress. It seems unlikely but there maybe one more short sess…

    A very belated Happy New Year to everyone.  I have to apologize for my very-slow return to photography.  I've had a tremendous amount to do with my "real" job, i.e., the one that actually makes me money, as well as with my ongoing 3D modelling projects, of which I should have examples of on iPernity and DeviantArt soon.  I still have to update my own website, as it's still announcing my December video show, and I would do that right now except that I have so much to do!!!  I'll certainly get…

Below is another mail from the Illustrators' Parnership buuutt......first I should mention a few additional things. Google may indeed be compiling genuine Orphan Works, as what they want to do is create a giant archive of public-domain material. The problem is that they claim it would be too much of a burden to track down the authors of NON-ORPHAN works, which represent a large proportion of what's online. That, as far as I can tell, means that they would publish material that we own, but whi…

    Well...as has often been the case lately, I don't have much in the way of news, but enough has happened that I should at least write an update.  First of all, on the positive side, one of my photos on Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/14629221@N00/2140197756 made the Explore page on Flickr.  Since is only the second time this has happened, I'm still quite happy about it even though its bounced on and off Explore erratically this week.      On the negative side, though, I have to a…

I should first of all apologise to everyone for dropping off the radar for so many months, as I've only made my first uploads this week after 10 months of nothing, with none of my 2008 or 2009 photos displayed until a few days ago (with all my 2009 photos still waiting). It isn't that I haven't been shooting photos, as I actually have over 1000 waiting to be sorted through, with the end result being probably only a few hundred new ones for public display. Since 2007, I've mostly been too busy…

Okay, in response to at least one person on Flickr who pointed out that the Orphan Works Bill does not explicitly set up a copyright database, I should clarify why the register will still be an inevitability under this legislation. I think the source of this confusion was my fault, as I didn't use clear wording in the mass mailings I sent to some people, or in a post I made on FlickrCentral . "The main problem with this law would be that it would require us to register all our photos as…

Here's the link everyone.... www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=30849 Nag Congress if you want to keep your copyrights!!!

Yep, that's right.  Having intended to finally get back to uploading the photos from my November Josefuv Dul trip, I actually found out that I had another roll of shots from BEFORE the trip.  Therefore, today, after a week or two of preparation and simple procrastination, I finally uploaded them.  Hopefully very soon I'll be able to get back to the Josefuv Dul photos, prepare them, and get them up, and then it will be onto the stuff from the Christmas Break.  In the meantime, I'm not shooting ve…

I'm not a lawyer, but.....here's an explanation for why all photographers, especially poor photographers like us, should be against this bill: www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/opinion/20lessig.html?_r=1&oref=slogin query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E5DA1F3BF935A15756C0A96E9C8B63 andybosselman.blogspot.com/2008/05/rights-to-your-own-work-threatened-by.html www.flickr.com/photos/morrows/2472211544 www.flickr.com/photos/jenniferesperanza/2517129670 www.flickr.com/photos/d…

I've been putting off this blog entry for a few days, basically because I've been trying to scan and post-process older shots, but now I have a question... Does anybody know where I can get these rolls of 120 film scanned in Prague? I don't want anything fancy, just 1200dpi scans to .tif, .bmp, .jpg, or some such file format that's readable by my Mac. Nobody's willing to set their scanners (numerous in Prague) to 1200, even though most labs have them. They want to scan at print resolution (2…

This is actually not my writing, but a form letter sent out by the Illustrator's Partnership addressed to all those who oppose the Orphan Works bill. In any case, here it is, as written... Subject: Update concerning the passage of s.2913 from the Illustrator's Partnership Orphan Works: The Devil's Own Day Never Too Busy to Pass Special Interest Legislation 9.28.08 As lawmakers struggled Friday to clean up the mess on Wall Street, sponsors of the Orphan Works Act passed mor…

My enormous catchup effort continued today, and there are plenty of new photos up today for you to see, albeit from my cameraphone. The Flickr Importer for single photos failed today, however, as I was uploading to iPernity. I'm not sure who to contact about the Greasemonkey problem, but being a realist about these things, I figure it's just as likely to be a problem on Flickr's side. In any case....I'll ask around. I've got a couple more month's worth of stuff to upload now.

Okay, first of all, iPernity has effectively disabled my blog by installing a rich text feature that doesn't work, then refusing to provide a simpletext alternative. Therefore, I had to initially write this blog in the comments box...and then I tried the email feature. In any case, getting to the blog itself...this is actually NOT my blog, but the blog of the Illustrators' Parnership... ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com They say they've had 8000 artists write their Congressman, and you should…

This is connected to a Czech Facebook group for auto safety, Nemyslíš - zaplatíš!, which is connected to a larger nationwide safety campaign... http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=394563290990#!/photo.php?pid=73981&op=1&o=global&view=global&subj=167358171878&id=100000475054895&fbid=102820129743822 The other photos are of totalled cars in accidents, but this one belongs more in the Idiot Parking Gallery, I think. It's not mine, though, so the most I can do is link to it.

I've been fairly busy uploading stuff this week, although I've deliberately held back somewhat so that people can notice everything.  My most notable uploads have been from my 1998 trip on the Bernina Express on the Rhatische Bahn (Rhaetian Railway) from Pontresina to Tirano in Switzerland.  This was one of my most exciting rail trips ever, and yielded some of my best photos, or at least that's my opinion.  Reviews on the various scoring groups on Flickr have been good to very good, so I'm satis…