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» Assorted Artificial Ice Cream Cones and Scoops. Someone on Model Mayhem had asked what to use in place of ice cream (they were in Hawaii, it would melt awful quick) and someone came back with this. Also noted: Crisco (with corn starch) and mashed potatoes. #
» The Ultimate Cliche List for model photography. Using that list I see I only have one original idea left... #
» Volkmann Custom, custom-made pistols. Their stuff was for sale at the place I picked up my Sig. Gorgeous is the word I'd use to describe them (followed quickly by "expensive"). Not sure I'd ever want to actually shoot one considering the cost, but they really are fantastic looking machines. #
» Saturday night Jane and I headed out to go see Crazy Bag. It's a one-woman show written and performed by a friend I made off Flickr, Murphy Funkhouser. She had started out commenting on some of my photos and I did the same and I ended up doing a photo shoot with her at the house.
The show is good, funny and moving (Jane got teared up and started crying at one point) and is definitely worth seeing if you are near one of the towns it's traveling to. Oh, and I was listed as a photo contributor in the program, something I find very cool. #
» Had dinner last Friday night with an old high school friend who is currently living in Sitka, Alaska. I think Jane and I are going to try and take a trip up there to visit, maybe next spring... #
Tracks is a web-based application to help you implement David Allen’s Getting Things Done™ methodology. It was built using Ruby on Rails, and comes with a built-in webserver (WEBrick), so that you can run it on your own computer if you like. It can be run on any platform on which Ruby can be installed, including Mac OS X, Windows XP and Linux. Tracks is Open Source, free and licensed under the GNU GPL.
» IrfanView 4.20 released, gets a minor facelift. IrfanView is generally the first application I install on any new machine I get, it's so useful and fast that it's a requirement for me to have. #
» Pikes Peak Weather Statistics. It's chilly at 14,000 feet; the average in the hottest month is still below 50 degrees. #
» I May Have Found The Ultimate “David Hobby” Lighting Kit Bag. I just use a $10 baseball bat bag from the local sporting goods shop, works great. This might be a better idea for actual travel though, the padded case would work for airline travel... #
» Wow, I'm not usually a fan of "art-nude" photography but the set by ANDRÉ BRITO is stunning. Not safe for work just so you know, but definitely worth looking at. #
» Years ago Colorado Public Radio was available on the FM dial and life was good. Then came the horrible split where classical music was on the FM channel and the news went off to AM radio. At that time I swore they'd never see another dime in donation money from me until they went back to the FM channel (I have very few AM tuners around to listen to it and reception in my car was poor even at the best of times.) Turns out this month they've gone back to FM! You can again listen to Colorado Public Radio on FM channel 90.1. So, following through on my pledge I've just kicked in as a monthly donor to the station... #
This is the online home of Version Control with Subversion, a free book about Subversion, a new version control system designed to supplant CVS. As you may have guessed from the layout of this page, this book is published by O'Reilly Media.
» RAINBOW FALLS! The "Forgotten Waterfall" of the Pikes Peak Region. I was part of a photoshoot there yesterday, it's right off the highway but still fairly secluded, we saw very few other people there. Keep in mind his directions are for coming down the hill on Highway 24, if you are coming from Colorado Springs you don't want to follow them too close. Here's the site on Google Maps: Rainbow Falls on Google Maps. It's dead-center on that map view, unfortunately they do not have any closer zoomed images of the site. Also keep in mind there is a mind-boggling amount of graffiti there, if you go to shoot women in bathing suits like we did you'll need to keep working your angles to avoid having too much of an urban look (though sometimes that added to the effect.) #
» Last year I bought a new fridge, one with a nice built-in water filter (and door-dispenser ice and cold water). This year I needed to replace the filter and hit the local Sears where I'd bought the fridge. Naturally I should have just ordered online, Water Filters Fast has it for 30% off what I paid in the store... Next time, next time. #
» When Not to Normalize your SQL Database. There is a trend to over-normalize and have tables that have a single column in them, which isn't always the best idea. #
Future presidents can learn a lot from all this -- do exactly what the Bush Administration did! If the law holds you back, don't first go to Congress and try to work something out. Secretly violate that law, and then when you get caught, staunchly demand that Congress change the law to your liking and then immunize any company that might have illegally cooperated with you. That's the lesson. You spit in Congress's face, and they'll give you what you want.
» Don't Use FTP. I agree but I've seen straight FTP (not sFTP) support built into so many things I don't know if we'll ever get rid of it (even text editors and such.) #
» Turf War, Americans can’t live without their lawns—but how long can they live with them?#
» The Pros and Cons of LifeLock. They aren't the idiots that their own commercials (and the credit companies) make them out to be, but it's probably still not worth the money. #
this portion of moby.com, 'film music', is for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short.
» Northern Flicker, we had one coming around and eating some suet that I'd put out (no other birds touched it and the squirrels couldn't get in the cage.) Unfortunately on Sunday a friend's son found the bird dead behind the house. I had no idea what it was but Greg mentioned "looks like a Flicker" and sure enough, that was it. #
» UpLULA - Universal Pistol Magazine Loader. One of my cow-orkers in Atlanta had one of these and as soon as I saw how fast he was reloading I knew I'd be picking one up as well. Lucky for me the range we were at had them on-site, so I brought it home with me. There's also a video of how the UpLULA works. #
» I was about to close one of the windows in my home office today when I noticed this tiny spider and figured I'd give it a go with trying to get his photo. Pulled out the flash (I know at full zoom the macro lens eats light like you wouldn't believe and even though it was full daylight I'd need more) and set to work. To give you some idea of the scale of this, those huge bars you see at the bottom of the photo? That's the mesh of the window screen. Take a second and look at your window screen then think about how small the spider had to be in comparison...
Personally I find it creepy and fascinating how many eyes he has and how they appear to wrap entirely around his head... #
» Take Your Customer To Work Day. Interesting idea but it'd never fly at most of the places I work (of course the groups I'm usually in aren't the most customer-facing...) #
» 200 Nipples Limited Edition T-Shirts. Interesting idea, encouraging people to buy early by making the price go up as the lower-priced ones get sold. #
» This is how I roll.... DIY power system. It's a Model Mayhem thread showing a killer power setup for using studio lights and such in the field, home-made from a golf-cart bag. #
» Free is Killing Me! Matt Brown says too many people are giving away photographs for free or dirt-cheap.#
» All in one driver solution with DriverMax. Smart, especially for things like my WinXP Bluetooth drivers that Dell are jerks about not supporting. it was enough pain to get them installed once, I'd hate to have to do it again... #
» Green Chaud color scheme, for Aptana but can be adapted for most editors. A bit like Zenburn, looks good. #
» Truecrypt Updates to v6, Hides Your Subversive Plots Even Better! I've been using TrueCrypt on an external drive I carry around with photos and videos and such on it, keeps my personal stuff separate from my work laptop and I don't have to worry about someone swiping my stuff if I lose the drive... #
» Wasp cake: final product. Hmm, Jane has a birthday coming up... Of course she hates wasps so this would be more like a gag cake... #
» Photographic clarity versus manipulated images. Over the weekend when I was shooting Andria and Carolina I was talking about this with the other photographer, about how much Photoshop manipulation we do. I tend to use Lightroom to tweak the exposure and blacks to my liking and that's it, I do very little else (unless someone has bad skin that needs a tweaking). I'm not that keen on the heavily modified images with all the filters, I prefer to do everything I can in-camera. #
