Born again bottles

[Thanks to Kirk]

This gives a whole new meaning to "I came from the bottom of a bottle to see the Light".
The Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple is about 400 miles northeast of
Bangkok in the city of Khun Han close to the Cambodian border. Most of it is built using recycled bottles.

Rex said:
Reminds me of the boat made of plastic bottles.

Female soldiers

Somebody sent me a powerpoint file with pics of female soldiers from around the world. Many of them very cute.
For me it really emphasized the waste that is war. War is not so much "horrible" as it's just waste. All those beautiful young women as landmine fodder...

David Hockney's Pixelated Period

[Thanks to Beth]

David Hockney's Pixelated Period, article.
Hockney uses the paint app Brushes on iPhone and iPad.

"On the iPhone I tended to draw with my thumb," he says. "Whereas the moment I got to the iPad, I found myself using every finger."
And he really gets into it, reports curator Charlie Scheips.
"He says he sometimes gets so obsessed that when he's going, he rubs his finger on his clothes to, like, clean his finger — as if he was using real paint."

The exhibition, perhaps even more surprisingly, is not prints, but is all on 20 iPad screens and 20 iPhone screens. Huh. Wonder if you can buy 'em.

Frost in the UK part deux

Running away

"Contains language".

What's in a name? - My Writing Spot

What's in a name? - My Writing Nook has changed name. No reason, just that a bigger gorilla wanted that seat.

Q: Wait, isn't "nook" a common English word?
A: Yes.
Q: And wasn't your name "My Writing Nook," and not just "nook"?
A: Yes.
Q: But your product is software used for writing, and theirs is a piece of hardware used for reading. Aren't those two completely different things?
A: Yes, they are.

Anyway, the app is kewl.

Frost in the UK

In the past week, the UK has been writing under a winter spell which Norwegians would call "late summer", but which is wreaking havock with all schedule here.
Well, here in Lancashire at least, it's not too bad. Just enough snow and frost to make it xmassy.
Here's a couple of pics from today:

 

(Pentax K-5, 18-135mm. The first one was dramatified in Photoshop.)

Cali blooper-fest

Kewl wood block art

Tugboat printshop.

All together now: "I wish I had the patience to do something like that!"

 

alt.cc (and keeping an empty inbox)

My friend Joe Kissell has this domain: alt.cc.
Isn't that fantastic? Can hardly get shorter, and yet loaded with geeky significances.

You may have noticed it's often hard to get answers to emails (both to companies and individuals) in a timely manner. Or indeed at all. It's clear that many people don't wield a tight whip over their email. Joe has a good article about that.  (Notice it's in several parts.)

I've always been a bit puzzled by so many people who never have an empty inbox. I get 50-100 mails per day. The first thing I do every day when I get up is empty my inbox. I simply answer every single mail in there, and do whatever actions are required by some of them, and boom, it's empty. Sometimes this takes ten minutes, sometimes two hours. And then I keep it empty as the day rolls on, and it's empty when I go to bed. What could be simpler? Unfinished communication is a drain on your attention.

World's Smallest Political Quiz

World's Smallest Political Quiz.

It's surprisingly good, despite being very concise. I got confirmed I'm libertarian at heart. (Though I simplified my standpoints a little.)

Update:

Jan said...
People whose writings I like consistently turn out to be libertarians.
I'm against making people responsible for their own pension, privatizing welfare or blindly reducing taxes without first specifying which expenses you're going to sacrify.
Maybe the test is a bit too simple or too American?
The (longer) test at http://politicalcompass.org/test puts me in the exact center of Libertarianism. :-)

google/youboob

Does anybody know how to create a YouTube account without also signing in with a Google account? It just seems impossible.

Animated desktops

I've been asking for years why I can't have animated desktops for my Mac. Like slow-running videos going over a nice land- or city-scape, or whatever. It doesn't seem like it should be a tough problem.

And now I can, but typically it comes first to the dumb Android platform!
 On my Samsung Galaxy Tab I have a s computer-animated snow background which is lovely, and where I can change a multitude of aspects of it, colors etc. It will even follow night and day!

That's what ah'm tahlkin' about. Sure, the Mac screen are much larger, but then the machines have like eight super-processor cores sitting about, most of them doing nothing most of the time.

Tripods

With the capabilities of the new wonder-cameras, one might forget the old remedies, like the humble tripod.
By funny coincidence, Ray has been testing this for his super-zoom camera at the same time as I did (and we both used Manfrotto tripods).
Conclusion: with a long zoom or telephoto, the average sharpness of your photos will really improve markedly.

When I tested the remarkably economical 18x super-zoom camera Fujifilm S1800, I concluded that it's a fantastic camera for the price, only downside being that most pictures at longest zoom (like 500mm-e, traditionally considered un-hand-holdable) were not sharp, even with modern shake-reduction. I wondered also if it had focus issues.
But now I have tested it with a tripod, and suddenly all the image were sharp. No focus issues. So people getting a super-zoom camera should be given the caveat: don't use the longest zoom, or use a tripod.

Tablet for laptop... ?

I would be very interested in hearing experiences from people who have replaced their laptop with a tablet. (iPad or Galaxy Tab or whatever, with external keyboard or not.) I think it can be done if one is keenly aware of the precise limitations one will encounter.

The iPhone Fashion Shoot By Lee Morris

(Get article and bigger videos here.)

Lee Morris just wanted to prove again (I myself need a lot of reminding of this) that it's not the camera which does it.
But he got lots of back-flash from it. I think he shot himself in the foot by using professional lights and retoucher. If he'd shot it in daylight and photoshopped it himself (like he always does), people would run out of excuses like "Oh, the pics are only good because of the expensive [...] he uses".

Notice by the way, that it was not even the iPhone 4 with its excellent 5-megapixel camera he used, it was only an iPhone 3Gs with its 3MP camera. And some of his fellow pros told him it was "his best pictures ever", before they heard how they had been made. 

He even got flack for the Olympus thing, which clearly was a joke. (He got a letter from an Olympus representative too!)

Here is a good fun audio interview with him.
(And a later article responding to critics.)

For self-builders

7 Towns Where Land is Free, article.

Tag candy

Ordinary candy is enhanced, apparently surprisingly variably, with vibrations. Imagine where this technology could go. As it were.


(large version.)

Phoneshop: Soldier, Swinger, Shelley, Shelley

The britcom Phoneshop has been uneven, or perhaps just so off-beat that it's an acquired taste. But episode six is brilliant. I particularly loved Janine (Emma Fryer)'s dance at the start. I think it's the best word-less solo comedy I've seen since Niles' ironing scene in Frasier. (Janine has been made manager for a day, a position she clearly relishes.)

Amazingly, you can apparently watch the entire episode free. (Update: there are region restrictions, durn it. Anybody know a quick and simple workaround?)

Update:
Alex said:
So, how does this rate against imported britcoms like say Vicar of Dibley, Hyperdrive, Hamish Macbeth, or cult classics like "The Came Frome Somewhere Else", "Nightingales", "Comic Strip Presents".
Heck, I don't even know what a Chav is, so would I understand half the dialogue?

Heck if you, a native, is having issues with the dialogue, no wonder I am! I think the trick is to sort of "skate over it". And I think a lot of it is made up.

Compared to stuff like Vicar of Dibley (which I like a lot), this is much more edgy. Both in format and in content. It's not for kiddies for sure.

BlingFrame

... If I ever saw a fitting name... "Blingframe".

It's the Paris Hilton of phone cases.

"CAZE makes use of Swarovski crystals to enhance the beauty of a case by handcrafting each case with more than 500 genuine crystals; making each case truly a work of art."

Finally, a recipe for art: cover everything in crystals. That was easier than I thought.

Long goodbyes

From Smack the Pony.