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Peenie Wallie Peenie Wallie: A firefly, swarms
of which can be seen flickering at night in the rainforests of Jamaica
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw "Humility is not my forte, and whenever I dwell
for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin
to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all
like the staring defects in other people's characters."
Destruction of Indian Ocean Tsunami - December 26th, 2004
I've created a slideshow in an attempt to caputre the devestation of the Tsunami of December 26, 2004. Slideshow is an 11.8 Meg self-playing executable produced using Imagematics StillMotion PE. Satellite images courtesy DigitalGlobe. All other images courtesy AP. Audio is "Still Dead" by Thomas Newman from the "American Beauty" soundtrack. Click on the photo above to download the slideshow. Click here if you need help. Posted on 12/31/04. Permalink.
I recreated the slideshow of photos from my trip in April of '04 to Mexico City using ImageMatics. This is an 18 Meg self-playing executable slideshow. Audio is "Still Dead" by Thomas Newman from the "American Beauty" soundtrack. Click on the photo above to download the slideshow. Click here if you need help. Posted on 12/29/04. Permalink. Just returned from the land of Pig Skins and Camoflauge. This is a 14 Meg self-playing executable slideshow. Audio is "Wayfaring Stranger " by Jack White from the "Cold Mountain" soundtrack. Click on the photo above to download the slideshow. Click here if you need help. Posted on 12/28/04. Permalink.
This is a little time lapse photography project I did today with the Canon EOS 20D. I stuck it on a tripod, and connected it to my laptop with a 10 foot USB cable. The laptop controls the camera, and sucks the photos down onto the harddrive, so you're not limited by the memory card in the camera. I was shooting every 10-20 seconds, and set it to play back at 8 frames per second. So, it's effectively sped up between 80X to 160X. The audio is by Alison Krauss from the Cold Mountain soundtrack. Posted on 12/19/04. Permalink.
From the "You never know who you'll run into" department, I was wandering through the San Mateo Halls of Injustice, trying to take care of a $777.21 felony parking ticket, when I noticed all of the news cameras. Turns out, it was no less than John Gilmore and John Perry Barlow, two of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization dedicated to defending online privacy rights. John Gilmore is currently fighting for our right to travel anonymously on airplanes. John Perry Barlow was in court trying to defend our fourth amendment rights in the airport. Read my diatribe about it here. Posted on 12/17/04. Permalink. Latest photos from San Francisco - December 2004.
Click on the photo above to download the slideshow. Click here if you need help. Posted on 12/17/04. Permalink.
Dashboard Confessional - Vindicated
Slideshow of Jennifer's latest photos made with ImageMatics StillMotion Creator PE. Audio track is "Vindicated" by "Dashboard Confessional". File is about 16 Megs. Takes 1-2 minutes to download. Click on the photo above to download the slideshow. Click here if you need help. Posted on 12/4/04. Permalink.
November '04 San Francisco Bay Area Photos
I'm really having a good time with the new Canon EOS 20D 8.2 Megapixel Digital SLR camera. Last week, I splurged and bought a Bogen tripod with a pistol grip and the remote control shutter release. This new setup is the bomb. My sister suggested I get away from shooting graffiti and homeless people so much, and try to tackle some more diverse subjects. As a result, I shot more photos this time of the San Francisco and the beach. Most of these photos were taken the last week of November '04. The beach photos were shot from Point Reyes National Seashore down to Santa Cruz. There's still a few graffiti pictures, as I tend to shoot them on cloudy days because there are no harsh shadows, and because the landscapes look better with blue skies, IMHO. Movie is about 18 Megs, made with ImageMatics StillMotion Creator PE. Audio track is "Cablecar" by a local band here in Denver called "The Fray". I'm starting to better results with this software, now that I discovered that putting in 4 meg photos instead of 800 x 600 photos creates a cleaner movie. Movie is about 19 megs. Takes 1-2 minutes to download. It downloads an executable named cablecar.exe. It's not a virus, it's a slideshow just run it. Resolution is excellent. Best resolution of any movie I've ever made. Now if I can just take better photos... Click on the photo above to download the slideshow. Click here if you need help. Posted on 12/04/04. Permalink. Windows XP Media Center. A lot of retail and etail outlets are pushing the new Media Center computers as entertainment centers. Here's Dell's Media Center package. Unless you were lying on the couch thinking "I wonder if I can get Windows to run on my television", this is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Their theory is that, with everyone pirating movies and songs off of the internet, it makes sense for the computer to play them. In theory, it isn't such a bad concept. If you think it through though, you'll see that it's a disaster. I know because my neighbor has one. He buys it, brings it home, and sets it down in place of his old obsolete computer. So far so good. Now, let's see. It can play movies. Great. But I have to sit in my office chair to watch them on a 19" monitor two feet in front of my face? This sucks. So, the next question is, "how can I get my movies to play on the television so I can lie on the couch and watch them". Glad you asked. You can either buy another computer, solely dedicated to playing movies (think of it as the world's most expensive Tivo/DVD 1,500 DVD), or, you can get a media center extender. A media center extender allows you to rebroadcast locally over an 802.11(g) network from your Media Center desktop to your television. So, you'll be streaming video through the air from your desktop to your television. What could possibly go wrong, right? According to MicroSoft's troubleshooting tips Everything in a straight line between wireless components affects performance. Move even small objects such as potted plants. Metal objects or mirrors are particularly bad; make sure your signal does not go though other A/V components. And keep in mind that streaming video is a bandwidth hog. So, the reality is, it isn't possible to stream full motion video locally through your house. Trust me. I've tried. It doesn't work. You may be able to stream mp3 files to the media center extender, but I seriously doubt that you'll be able to broadcast video successfully from your computer to your television unless they're sitting right beside each other. (Mine aren't). They say you can wire it up directly using Cat 5 ethernet, as long as you use 100Mbps (Fast Ethernet) components. But, I don't really feel like rewiring my house just so I can watch television. Finally, the real question is this. Why would you possibly want to allow MicroSoft to control your entertainment center? Now you're going to see the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death" on your television. Now, instead of grabbing the remote control and flipping on the television, you're going to have to wait for the "Windows Media Center" to boot up. Why not just burn your media onto CD/DVD's and then play them in your entertainment center? Posted on 12/04/04. Permalink. If you're wondering what kind of camera to get for Christmas, I recommend the Konica Minolta Dimage Z1, Z2, or Z3. I've purchsed approximately 10 digital cameras over the last year, including a Sony DSC-S85, Konica Minolta Dimage Z1, Konica Minolta Dimage Z3, Canon PowerShot Pro-1, and a Canon EOS 20D. However, the camera that I like the most is the Konica Minolta Dimage Z1. It's cheap, small, and takes great photos as soon as you push the button, which is unusual for a digital camera. I've shot over 20,000 pictures with this camera. It takes great photos. It's not small enough to put in your pocket, but it takes great photos - indoors and out. Captures action and still images very well. Plus, it's idiot proff. Just turn it on, and point and shoot. If you buy it, you'll love it. Posted on 12/04/04. Permalink. Latest photos from San Francisco, Kalifornia 15 Meg video takes 1-2 minutes to download over high speed DSL. (Not safe for dial-up). Click on photo below to start download. Pictures taken with Konica Minolta Dimage Z1. (Original images are compressed significantly by Flash.) Video produced using ImageMatics StillMotion Creator PE. Audio track is Green Day - Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Click on the photo above to download the slideshow. Click here if you need help. Posted on 12/04/04. Permalink.
Free Software That You Should Be Running On Your Computer
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