The drive to own bigger, faster, smaller, and ultimately better things have made the average consumer myopic about what he really needs. Remember the first time VCRs came into the market? It flew off the shelves, but very few have really put all of its features to good use. Well, the one of the current frenzies has to do with pixels. People salivate at the thought of more dots per inch. And while this ratio does matter to computer screens and LCD televisions, it matters less for the photographer, especially your casual picture taker who likes to preserve every little thing his Siamese cat does. When it comes to megapixels, more doesn’t necessarily mean better.

Forget what your friends and the men behind the counter say – the key to great pictures isn’t in the high megapixel pixel count. Megapixels only determine how crisp your photograph becomes once it is enlarged; this may be relevant in the bygone years when negatives were still used and every shot counts, but with modern digital cameras affording you to take and retake pictures without worrying about scrapping Polaroid prints, it is less likely that you’ll be tempted to blow them up to very large sizes. At best, you’ll make prints in 6×4s and 7×5s, but even if you want to crop, enlarge and the picture to 8×12s, you still wouldn’t need a high megapixel count.

If you want to publish them at the web, the megapixels matter even less. You’ll most likely publish them at 7×5 inches, with thumbnails at 72 dots per inch. You’ll also have to consider loading times and the patience of the viewer, so a very large, hyper-real picture won’t count for much if it takes forever to download. If you intend to send them via email, you’ll either have to compress them or keep the dot-per-inch ratio small so they’d get through as quickly as they can.

Photos were meant to be printed, and that still applies for many people today. But do you really need all those megapixels? Well, yes and no. Professional photographers need a higher pixel count, that’s for sure, since they’ll need plenty of space to work with in editing, cropping, or enlargement. But for those who intend to keep their pictures in photo CDs and stock photo websites, they’d do fine with less – five megapixels should be enough. You can come up with high quality pictures with sizes as large as 8×12s, and you’ll notice no difference if you do the same thing with a ten megapixel camera. Of course, the distinction becomes visible when you enlarge the picture to poster size, but consider this: which of the prints you currently have now are that big?

Digital cameras with higher megapixel counts surely have other features which can enhance the clarity of the shots and the quality of the prints, and for this reason they are worth buying. But buying a camera solely for its pixel count is like buying a 1-terabyte hard drive; they’re only good if you can handle their capacities and put them to good use.

Comic book collectors have more reasons to hang on to their mint copies of Uncanny X-men #1 with a viselike grip. It seems that the comics industry is slowly, yet inevitably marching on towards going digital. It’s been half a year since Marvel made the move by publishing 2,500 issues from its archives into a digital format, available for online viewing (by subscription of course). The fees are luring – 10 dollars per month, 60 dollars per year, but you can’t download the copy on your computer, much less touch the crisp images with you fingers. DC and Dark Horse Comics followed suit not long after; DC put up digital copies on massive networking site MySpace, and launched Zuda Comics, a format which allows users to comment and evaluate each other’s work. Dark Horse showcased anthologies on the same site, featuring large, scrollable pages in hyper-real color (dubbed as “Dark Horse Presents”).

So where’s the comic industry now? The days when you could buy an eighty-cent copy while picking up your stash of toilet paper at the local 7/11 are long gone. The target niche has moved on from the spinner rack and into the wide world of the web. P2P sharing and torrent downloads hasn’t helped the industry either, and sometimes an issue leaks out to the web days before it reaches the corner newsstand. You couldn’t fault the heavyweights of the comics industry for rolling with the punches.

The move is probably the best they’ve made, and in the nick of time as well. The younger generations know only of Spiderman as he is portrayed on the celluloid screen, not as the Amazing Spiderman in all its newsprint glory. The generation gap is widening, and they must do something to catch up with the internet generation. Besides, many titles have been ported over by freesharers on the net, and if you can’t beat them, you might as well get ahead of them.

The adult-audience wing of DC Comics has used the best of both worlds, by using the internet for what it truly is – a very efficient mass-marketing tool. Case in point: on its initial issues, “Y: the Last Man”, a post-apocalyptic title of a lone male in the midst of a female society, was released on the web in piecemeal. A sneak peak of the next issue’s first few pages is offered to online visitors of its website in downloadable PDF format, serving as a teaser of sorts. Sales soared within the following weeks.

Marvel, on the other hand, is branching out into more familiar terrain, with massive movie franchise deals, as well as related merchandise like toys and video games. But in an effort to bleed out into current pop culture, Marvel is in danger of overstepping its limits, alienating die-hard comic fans in the process. Movies like “300” and “Sin City” (both from Dark Horse) only entered the mainstream through films, and many thought that the comic itself was a spin-off instead of the inspiration for the films. It’s an egg-chicken scenario which bodes ill for printed comics, and the publishers will bear the brunt of the burden for sure.

What’s with the trend for Chinese character tattoos these days? It seems that everyone has caught on into the Oriental vibe and intends to permanently etch it into their skin. Chinese tattoos look cool, there’s no doubt about that, but the language itself is designed in such a way that using the wrong character can throw a tattoo’s meaning completely off base. Britney Spears had a tattoo which she thought meant “different” but actually meant “strange” (a dose of poetic justice), and you may similarly pick a cool-looking character at a tattoo shop which may mean “duck” for all you know (go figure). If you’re insistent on having a Chinese tattoo on your thigh or neck or where else, make sure that you do your research before you let that needle come anywhere near your skin.

If you aren’t a native Chinese and are not especially familiar with its subtle nuances of meaning, try to consult someone who is a native speaker about your choice of design. Talk to them about the exact message you want your tattoo to imply, and solicit their recommendations; it is probable that there will be varied suggestions as to which characters you should opt for – the Chinese language is that complex. In stark contrast to English, written Chinese is phonetic, intended on representing the spoken word as closely as possible; the characters you end up with should consequently look and sound right, all the while being as close a translation to your message as possible.

Also, try not to impose your preferences on the person you consult, asking for characters which mean a specific concept; several characters may mean roughly the same thing, some characters being more off than others. It’s better if you explain the meaning you want to convey and ask the person you consult to come up with a similar idiom in their language, rather than come up with a literal translation of your message. If you want a translation of your name, take note that Chinese comes in many dialects, and each may have a different transliteration of your name. There are certain Western names which do not have a serviceable translation into Chinese as well; in this case you can ask for a new name which is the best description of you as a person. Be sure to do this with someone you trust, and consult it with others before you keep it.

Once you’ve zeroed in on particular characters, ask native speakers of the language to write them on paper, and these should be the ones which you should take to your tattoo artist. Don’t make the mistake of picking out characters from a wall on a whim, or ask your tattoo artist for recommendations if he or she isn’t too keen on the language. Since you can also choose the font style for your tattoo, use common sense in picking out a script; needless to say, a menacing tattoo which says “dragon” would look stupid in a cartoon script – if you think that there’s a slim chance that you would pull off such a blunder, remember that even those who should know better have made worse mistakes, and you wouldn’t want to become a laughing stock for a such a permanent error.

Throughout the 20th century, the United States was recognized as the undisputed skyscraper capital of the world. New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other major American cities were considered the pinnacle of glass and steel architecture, leaving other world metropolises in the dust (sometimes literally) behind their tireless vertical expansion into the skies.

But in the 21st century, the emerging metropolises of the world are competing and even surpassing the great cities of the West when it comes to vertical architecture. The skyline of metropolises like Istanbul, Beijing, Dubai and Shanghai are all growing at astronomical rates, with economic development in those cities financing ever higher and more modern skyscrapers. In fact, the traditional metropolises of the West (London, New York, Paris) are beginning to pale in comparison to the enormous development of the world’s emerging cities.

China, in particular, is in the middle of a sort of skyscraper boom. The skylines of Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong are constantly in flux, with new and more modern architecture sprouting up all the time. It is China’s tremendous economic development that is fueling the rush toward ever higher and more progressive architecture, though most of the architects designing these buildings continue to be from the West.

Even Moscow, once written off by the West as a mere shell of its former imperial glory, is experiencing an architectural boom. A giant pyramid is currently being constructed in downtown Moscow that will reach a height of 450 m (1476 feet). The pyramid, the brainchild of British architect Lord Norman Foster, has been called, “the world’s most ambitious construction project.”

Meanwhile, the Middle Eastern kingdom of Dubai is busy creating its own astonishingly vibrant skyline. Flush with oil money, the kingdom has engaged in some of the most ambitious architectural projects the world has ever seen. It is claimed, for example, that the relatively small country of Dubai has more construction cranes than any other country in the world. This is a clear testament to the country’s obsession with vertical growth — new and ever more elaborate skyscrapers are appearing on the Dubai skyline every month. And as long as the oil money continues to flow, the construction is sure to follow.

While the developing world competes for the highest skyscrapers and most elaborate architecture, the “old world” metropolises have seen a slowdown and development, especially since the mortgage crisis of 2007. At the moment, lending large sums of money to build skyscrapers is pretty low on the agenda of most banks. The same cannot be said for China, Moscow or even Istanbul, where emerging economies are causing a boom in lending, growth and development.

The traditional skyscraper capital of the world, New York, no longer holds that title. And as the development in China, Russia and the Middle East continues, it seems likely that Dubai, Shanghai and Moscow will be the new world leaders in vertical architecture.

One of the most interesting hobbies which you can probably take is oil painting. It is considered to be the most flexible of all painting mediums, and that is because you can apply many different oil painting techniques in this artwork. In addition to its own flexibility, oil painting techniques can also be applied on different types of canvasses. You can either choose to apply it over a transparent and thin glaze as well as a similar type of wash. Doing this, you can simply dab a paint brush on your oil palette and begin painting. Aside from this technique, you can also mix up oil in some form of butter-like consistency. But in this thick texture you will need a painting knife to apply the oil painting.

But apart from these two different options, there are also other fun and interesting oil painting techniques which you can use. Each of these techniques can be used according to your own preference. Also, these techniques vary in difficulty and other processes which you must also use to bring out the beauty of the painting in oil. But before you use any of these techniques, you should have a basic knowledge of painting because doing so will help you find it easier to dabble on the techniques and even eventually create your own.

Here are some of the oil painting techniques commonly used:

1. Dry Brush – This particular technique makes use of only a small amount of an oil paint. This medium commonly uses a tube of oil paint which will be brushed thinly onto your paint brush. The dry brush is often used for painting on canvasses with a rough surface. In using the dry brush oil painting technique, the raised parts of the surface will be the ones effectively picking up the paint colors. Then the dipped parts of the canvass’ surface will not be able to pick up the colors. In effect, this will help bring out a broken effect as colors seemed to be detached in small partitions.

2. Alla Prima – This particular oil painting technique is also known as the direct type of painting. This type of oil painting technique can be easily accomplished in a small span of time. Most people who make use of this particular technique are able to finish the whole process within just thirty minutes. However, you may find this a risky technique since it makes use of wet paint directly applied onto the canvass without a sketch or outline to guide you through. But if you want to make all the placing sure and less problems to arise, you can try outlining some sketches by using an oil paint that has been already thinned down.

3. Painting Knives – This is a definitely great experience which you should try. Painting knives are an alternative instead of using the same old paint brush. However, this particular oil painting technique involves a certain demand of consistency since you will be seemingly spreading butter on your bread-like canvass. You should also ensure that your oil paint is kept thick and creamy throughout the process.

There are many possible ways to tune an electric guitar, and the easiest and most conventional way to do this is by the use of a tuner. For anyone who wants to be a pro guitarist, one should know how to set the instrument to its right intonation since this will train the ears to distinguish different sounds of every note.

Here are the different kinds of technique to tune this musical instrument:

• Adjusting the strings helps to maintain the tune of the guitar.
• Start tuning the guitar with an open A (the 5th string).
• Adjust the string below its usual tone while tuning and increasing the tension. Use other instrument as a guide (e.g. harmonica, piano, another guitar), then adjust the A string to mimic the tone of the other instrument guide.

After the A string has been tuned to its right pitch, the following must be done accordingly:

• Let the D string (the 4th string) vibrate by placing the middle finger on the 5th fret on A string—this will give a D sound.
• Continue pressing it with the use of the middle finger while adjusting it until the right D sound has been achieved.

After the D string has been rightly tuned, this must be done accordingly:

• Place the middle finger on the 5th fret on the D string and continue pressing the finger down while adjusting it—this will result to a G sound.

The B string (the second string) is located directly under the g string, in order to achieve the sound of the former, this must be followed:

• Press down the middle finger on the 4th fret of the G string while strumming it, after doing this, adjust the B string to mimic the sound.

The upper E string (this is the thinnest string located below the B string) sound can be achieved by doing this:

• On the 5th fret of the string, placed the middle finger; this will eventually lead to an upper E note.
• While doing this, continue strumming it until the right sound has been achieved. Remember to correctly adjust the E string to achieve the right sound.

The lower E (this is the biggest string located at the most upper part) can be achieved by doing this:

• On the 5th fret of the lower E, firmly press down the middle finger, while doing this, the open A sound is achieved.
• Adjust the sound being produced until it matches the one created by the A string to the 5th fret note; then correctly adjust the lower E until the right sound has been achieved.

Always remember that adjusting the strings will put a lot of tensions to it. By doing it incorrectly, these might break, so avoid over pulling it beyond its limitation. Also, every now and then, the strings must be adjusted to achieve the correct sound.

It is always been advised that it is better to tune an electric guitar under the supervision of someone who already knows how to play this instrument.

Having a new tattoo entails a process of caring for it. After you finish having your tattoo done, there is also another round of considerations which you should face. After all, you need to keep in mind that having a tattoo also means that you have an etched wound if not a colored scar right onto your skin. You should remember that the thing which makes a tattoo permanent is that because it is embedded right onto your skin. The ink stays forever because it is deeply rooted on your skin already. After getting your tattoo, your tattoo artist will also advise you on how you should take care of it. If it is your first tattoo ever, your tattooist will even advise you in detail on how you should treat it so make sure you are all ears as he says his words of wisdom.

Aside from your tattooist’s instructions, some tattoo shops will also give you an instructions list by default. This is actually better because at least you really get to follow something strictly and not just based from what you remembered or picked up. Chances are, you are still high from the new tattoo you have had so you would not really be too involved with listening about technical or even scientific stuff—no matter how much you actually need it. In general, there are actually three important things which you need to remember in caring for your tattoo.

The first thing which you need to remember is that you need to moisturize your tattoo. You may ask why. Remember that your skin will become really dry after going through the whole tattooing. This is because all of a sudden, it has gotten stripped of the natural moisturizers in place of the ink’s chemicals. Although the tattoo’s ink are generally safe, they will take up the space of your skin’s used to be moist spot. Your tattoo artist may suggest that you simply put on some baby lotion so that you keep the chemical interaction mild. You should also be careful in placing moisturizer or lotion over your tattoo because you might end up accidentally erasing or blotting out your tattoo’s ink.

Then the second important thing you needed to remember is to never overdo how you moisturize your tattoo. Just keep it at a normal level and do not swamp the part with too much moisturizer. After all, you do not want the whole thing to get erased do you? Also, overdoing how you moisturize your tattoo can also affect the quality of its colors. Although it might not get totally erased, the vibrant colors may lose their edge and character because of too much additional stuff put on them.

And lastly, never ever pick at the scabs of your tattoo. As previously mentioned, your tattoo etches some sort of wound on your skin so you might as well expect some scabs to follow as an aftermath. Never ever touch them and just let them come off naturally because you might end up infecting yourself if you pick on them instead.

Only one institution in the world provides a comprehensive look at how moving images are made, marketed and shown. That’s the American Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens. Opened in 1988, it is housed in a historic film studio complex that once played host to Gloria Swanson, W.C. Fields and the Marx Brothers and other stars of cinema’s early days.

February 1996 marked the debut of the museum’s expanded core exhibition, Behind the Screen. Re-designed at a cost of USD 3 million, the 14,000-square-foot exhibition incorporates some of the most advanced technology in today’s moving image industries. The stories of the many people who work together to create movies and TV shows are told with artifacts, interactive displays, video screenings, live demonstrations by museum educators, commissioned artworks and text.

Interactive stations give visitors first-hand experience of jobs such as sound editing, computer graphics design, bluescreen effects, automatic dialogue replacement and animation. The work of cinematographers, TV directors, special effects artists, screenwriters, musical composers and others is introduced through screenings of documentaries and historic works of film and television shown on monitors and in mini-theaters throughout the exhibition.

Behind the Screen presents a selection of about 1,000 artifacts from the museum’s collection. These include the original Yoda from The Empire Strikes Back, a golden chariot from 1959’s Ben Hur, fan magazines, celebrity portraits, and other examples of what historians call the “material culture” of movies and television.

How to Get There

Take the R train to Steinway Street; use the 34th Avenue exit.

Where to Eat

Astoria is the largest Greek-speaking enclave outside of Greece. There’s no shortage of good Greek restaurants to choose from along Ditmars Boulevard and 31st Avenue. Manducati’s is an Italian restaurant in nearby Long Island City, and is popular with those who work at the Kaufman-Astoria Studios and Silvercup Studios. Water’s Edge is an upscale restaurant in Queens’ only skyscraper, serving American cuisine.

If you wanted to try a new style for your skin, getting a tattoo is one of the most creative ways to do it. Some people often find it too daunting, if not really uncomfortable. This is the reason why tattooing has become a staple alongside eccentricity. There are also those who become initially too hesitant to have a tattoo placed on their body simply because they think it can interfere with their professional lives. No matter how fast paced and how many changes the world has encountered already, the corporate image remains strict and rigid.

But actually, the issue of having a tattoo despite a professional image to keep can already be solved? How? Having a half sleeve tattoo design provides a solution for the problem. This particular choice can offer you lots of benefits other than the fact that you get to finally enjoy your dream tattoo. Most people nowadays, regardless of their professional lives, often opt for a half sleeve tattoo design. This particular choice can be done on either arms or on the leg part. Most people who opt for this place to have their tattoo do so because they can conveniently showcase it as well as hide it if they need to. A half sleeved tattoo design occupies just the upper part of your arms or legs. In this way, you can easily cover the tattoo with your top’s sleeves and with your long pants if you chose to have it on your legs.

However, you need to remember that there are certain things which you need to consider if you want to get a half sleeve tattoo. First of all would be the design. Although the place of a tattoo is definitely strategic, you should also take note of the fact that the place or the canvass where the design will be engraved is in a circular shape. Thus, your tattoo artist would definitely have to make adjustments to make sure that your chosen design will be effectively printed on your skin. It will be wise to choose a tattoo design which can still be seen despite the circular angle.

After choosing the design, what you need to think about next are the costs. The more elaborate the design you choose, the more expensive it may be for you. Most people wanted to really get the most out of their half sleeve tattoo design by zeroing in on big patches of design to place on their skin. While this may be a really creative option, you should never forget about the literal costs of the said option. You should refer back to the design you chose. Also, if you plan on having a colorful tattoo that can also add up to the additional expenses which you have to pay for.

And lastly, consider the tattoo artist with whom you will be asking to do your tattoo. Make sure that they have been around in the business long enough for you to trust their craft. While the image of dark and rock-themed tattoo shops often seem quite appealing, you should never overlook hygiene. You should choose a tattoo shop which is not just known for their designs but moreover known for their best practices in actually doing tattoos for customers.

If your skies aren’t as blue as they could be, or your pictures of water looked washed out, you may need to learn a little about polarizing filters.

Again this is a good time to break out that manual on your camera. Many point and shoot cameras have a coating on the lens that automatically polarizes everything in your photos. However if your camera does not have this coating, you may need to purchase filters for the camera that will polarize light as it comes in through the lens. If you are using a 35mm SLR camera and you didn’t buy it as a package that cames with filters, you will need to purchase one of these filters.

Filters look like very thin lenses and screw onto the lens itself. There are two kinds of polarizing filters: a fixed polarizing and a circular polarizing filter. I recommend the circular polarizing filter, because it rotates and allows you to polarize different areas of the image. This comes in handy when shooting pictures of water, because the polarizing filter also knocks a lot of the glare off of reflective surfaces like water and glass. If you have auto focusing lenses on your camera, you may need to use a specific polarizing filter. So if you don’t have your camera’s manual, you might want to take it down to the camera store and see what kind of polarizing filter they recommend for your specific camera.

While you are purchasing filters for your lenses, you may want to pick up an inexpensive Ultra Violet filter as well. This filter helps remove haze from skies and landscapes, and can be used along with your polarizing filter. I also recommend that you purchase one of each of these filters for every lens you have for the camera if you have multiple lenses. The lenses may be different sizes where the filter screws onto it so you may have to do this anyway. It also saves you from having to add and remove filters every time you change lenses. The filters serve another purpose for helping protect your expensive camera lens.

Once you have the filters on your lenses, try a little experiment. This only works with cameras that allow you to focus through the lens instead of through a separate view finder. Take your camera outside and look at the horizon through it. If you are using a circular polarizing filter, turn the filter as you are looking through the lens. You should see the sky changing color. Polarizing filters only work at certain angles from the sun though, around a 45 degree angle. The closer you get to the sun or directly opposite of the sun, the less the polarizing filter will work. So if you aren’t seeing the change in sky color, try rotating your position to the sun.

As I mentioned before, polarizing filters also allow you to take the glare off of reflective surfaces. This helps you get better color in water scenes and can help a lot in reducing reflections off of glass or any reflective surface. You will find this filter very handy in situations like taking pictures of animals at zoos where you often have to take photographs through a glass viewing pane, or even when taking pictures of mountain streams, lakes, rivers cars and even the ocean.

The color difference is sometimes subtle and sometimes startling. As you get used to using a polarizing filter, you will begin to automatically check to see if the image looks better with just a turn of the filter. The polarizing filter and UV filter are both essential tools to add to your camera bag.