A Flickr gathering in SF last night

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Laura and I attended the Flickr demo @ the San Francisco Apple Store last night. As often happens, intense interaction online leads to a desire to get together in the same room. I was very curious to see who would be folks like us who would take the time and effort to see with our eyes not only the staff of Flickr but also our fellow Flickrites. Laura and I didn't want to rush to make the 6pm start time. Neither did we stay on for drinks at 111 Minna.


Below is my sparse collection of pictures of the event. Because my own pocket 5MP Pentax is at the shop right now, I was largely abstaining from what was predictably the most commonly engaged activity in the room: snapping photos of the event. When I did have the urge, I was left taking low resolution, badly lit cameraphone pictures:





















SF Apple Store









superhero presenting her photos









Andrea Sher (aka superhero)









Laura taking pictures at SF Apple Store









Stewart and Eric









Stewart Butterfield in front of uploaded pictures

A note on tagging pictures for the event. Since I hadn't seen any requests to tag photos of the event in a certain manner along with the announcement of the event, I was wondering how to tag my pictures. By consulting the list of hot tags from the last 24 hours, I figured that 'sflickr' must be the tag folks have been using. By looking at Flickr: Photos tagged with sflickr, I learned that sflickr has been used to tag pictures associated with the San Francisco Flickr User Group, which has been having meetings, including an upcoming one Upcoming.org tomorrow. Because the sflickr tag is generic (see clusters of photos marked by 'sflickr'), I wanted a way to mark photos from just last night. Upon a cursory search, I didn't see anyone tagging pictures from last night in a way to distinguish them from other meetups, I decided to use sflickr20050802 as a way of doing so.

Phillip Johnson and intelligent design profiled in the East Bay Express

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I saw the cover of the July 27, 2005 issue of the East Bay Express this morning. Phillip Johnson, known widely as the the father of the "intelligent design movement", is featured in the issue. I actually know Phil as a fellow elder at my own congregation, someone I see every Sunday morning.

What I actually think about ID is a topic for an essay some other day!

Are these “real women”?

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Are these "real women"?

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

I saw this display all over the Powell Street BART station. It's hardly news that Dove would use scantily clad women to advertise its products. What I find more surprising is that these women are held to be exemplars of "real women" (as opposed to supermodels). OK, they aren't skin-on-bones type supermodels, but I would hardly think of these bodies as those of the typical consumer of Dove producs.

See for yourself. Dove:

Firming the thighs of a size 2 supermodel is no challenge. Real Women have real bodies with real curves. And Dove wants to celebrate those curves.

Join these six real women who were asked to be in our ad campaign for NEW Dove® Firming. Get to know more about them and their experiences with the campaign. Help by telling more women to stand tall and celebrate their curves.

reading the quote about Lucille Isaiah, Laura, and myself in Tele-care article

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East Bay: Lunch brings Tele-Care volunteers and clients face to face:

Raymond Yee, a volunteer caller for five years, brought his new wife Laura Shefler to meet Lucille Isaiah of Alameda, whom he calls on Saturdays to check on her well-being.

"I sweet-talk your husband," Isaiah told Shefler. "Don't worry, I won't steal him away."