Fishing: A Video Documentary

This is the first time I've tried adding video to this blog. I compiled the clip above from videos I shot with my Sony H2 while on photography expeditions. I used a Mac and iMovie for post-processing. The narrator is my friend Dr. Murray Johnston, who kindly provided his voice to give the commentary track the necessary gravitas for the documentary-type video I was attempting.

The Lunar Eclipse I Didn't See

On February 20th, a total lunar eclipse occurred which was visible on the other side of the world from Malaysia.

Since I don't live anywhere near the Americas, I couldn't see it. However, many of my friends in North America did, and took photos of it:

1. Megan and Alex in Banff, Alberta, Canada
2. Jeff in North Bellmore, New York, USA
   
3. Joel in Chicago, Illinois, USA
4. Shawn in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Lunar Photography Attempt I

My first attempt at photographing the moon, like Jeff did. The lens was at maximum zoom (432mm), shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/1000 seconds, F value at f/3.7 and spot metering. It isn't great, but it is a first attempt.

Interestingness

Flickr has a feature called "interestingness" (sounds like a word Stephen Colbert invented) which is an algorithm which sorts pictures based on how interesting it is. You can glean a bit about how it works if you can penetrate the haze of legalese that's in the patent application for the algorithm.

The picture at the top is the "most interesting" (as of Feb 15 2008 as determined by Flickr) of my friend Megan's photos, whose gallery is pretty awesome. My own top photo isn't as dramatic and is rather dorky, so I put hers instead (with her permission).

Whenever you search Flickr for pictures, you can rank them by interestingness. There's also a creative commons search which allows you to find pictures you can create derivitive works from. These combined features make Flickr a valuable resource for browsing and creating pictures.

Robosaurs

Everyone knows robots are cool. So are dinosaurs. So what's cooler than both robots and dinosaurs? Robot dinosaurs.

Robosaurs come in many shapes and sizes. Here is a robobrachiosaur, roaming around in a lush Jurassic jungle.

Technically, they run on artificial power sources, so I don't know why it's munching leaves. Perhaps it does so to fit in with organic dinosaurs. As they say, when in the late Jurassic, do as the organic brachiosaurs do (it's a popular aphorism, trust me on this one).

Contrary to outdated beliefs about robobrachiosaurs, they did not spend their time underwater but instead preferred dry land.

The roboraptor is a much smaller robosaur, but it packs a nasty set of teeth and claws. No, actually, those look pretty blunt and child-safe. However, it does makes a fearsome roar. That counts for something, right?

The fearsome roboraptor is ready to pounce from the top of a rock. There is no escape from its mighty jaws, except when you disable it via the on/off switch conveniently located on the back.

The robosaurs co-existed with other dinosaurs from those prehistoric times, such as this DEC AlphaStation.

Silicon Graphics workstations were featured in the movie "Jurassic Park". It fit right in with the other dinosaurs.

The mass-extinction that occurred 65 million years ago may have killed the organic dinosaurs, but the robot ones lingered on until the ice age when temperatures dropped to the "max" setting and they froze up. However, they may return someday.

The robobrachiosaur is a Zoid model I got for cheap during a clearance sale, and the roboraptor is a trinket that's supposed to be a smaller version of the raptor toy from Wowwee Robotics.