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Peenie Wallie Peenie Wallie: A firefly, swarms of which can be seen flickering at night in the rainforests of Jamaica Daughters
Here's a slideshow of some stills of Jennifer and her play mates. The audio track is "Daughters" by John Mayer. The slideshow is a 7 Meg self-playing executable produced using Imagematics StillMotion PE. Click on the photo above to download the slideshow. Click here if you need help. Posted on 01/30/05. Permalink. The Lost Coast
Here's a slideshow of some stills I shot recently. These images were all taken in January of 2005. Most of them were shot last weekend on my excursion to California's "Lost Coast". The first frames are of the sunrise in Denver, and some shots from the plane. The rest were shot north of San Francisco, in the counties of Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, and Humboldt. Unfortunately, my spankin' new Canon EOS 20D died after two brief months. I took picture number IMG_0001 with it on November 20th and picture number IMG_5642 on January 20th. So, it lasted exactly two months. I shipped it out today to have it repaired under warranty. They say they can turn it around in two weeks, so I've got my fingers crossed. The slideshow is an 18 Meg self-playing executable produced using Imagematics StillMotion PE. The title of the soundtrack is "White Flag" by Dido. Click on the photo above to download the slideshow. Click here if you need help. Posted on 01/28/05. Permalink. Set up your own Web Server using Windows XP and IIS This is a document I cobbled together when I started hosting my own website about a year ago. It borrows heavily from the expertise of others. I attempt to give credit and links where appropriate. Some people have asked me about starting their own web server. I recommend paying someone else to host it remotely, instead of setting up your own web server for a variety of reasons:
However, if you're not disuaded by the above logic, I have some notes you may find useful. The reason I wanted to set up my own website was that, I already had a high speed internet service provided, and scads of disk space on my PC that wasn't being used. So, I didn't see the need to write someone else a check every month and beg for more diskspace, when I had so much that was unused. Also, IIS is delivered for free with Windows XP, so I realized that I already had all the software I needed. The following topics are covered in the document:
Click here to view the document. Posted on 01/17/05. Permalink. "Jump Start" Perl under XP and IIS I'm running Windows XP Pro (Service Pack 2) with IIS 5.1 using DreamWeaver to host my own website locally. I wanted to add a "simple" random quote generator to my web page. However, this is a little be more complicated than anything I've tried to set up using Dreamweaver to date. Up to this point, I've been basically serving up bland HTML web pages to the servile masses, but I figured nothing ventured nothing gained and I was off to the races. To read the remainder of the technical walkthrough, click here for a detailed explanation of how to jump start Perl under XP and IIS. Posted on 01/17/05. Permalink. Bud and Alice's Silver Anniversary
Bud and Alice were married on January 7th, 1980. Tonight, they stumbled into a Suprise Party for their Silver Anniversary at Bob and Vaunne's. Lynn dressed up like Father Guido Sarducci and hosted a moch wedding. Ray played the 12 string and sang. These are the kind of neighbors that you dream about having. Congratulations, Bud & Alice. Here's to another 25 years in Peaceful Hills! This slideshow above was put together from a collection of old family photos surreptiously smuggled out of the house by Kate. I think the best picture in the lot may be the one of Kate sitting in the field ambushing doves with a 20 gauge. Click on the photo above to download the slideshow. Click here if you need help.
The slideshow above has some shots taken from Bud & Alice's party tonight. Also, some stock I shot in the Rocky Mountains last summer, because I didn't get enough decent images of the party. I love my Canon EOS 20D, but the flash leaves much to be desired. If I had any cash, I'd get an externally mounted flash. Click on the photo above to download the slideshow. Click here if you need help. Posted on 01/15/05. Permalink. Updates to My Timelapse Hack
Last weekend, I shot a timelapse over a couple of hours, huddled down in the Eagle's Nest at Land's End, shuddering in the shadows like a housewife that just received a well-deserved pummeling. Somehow, the dew managed to condense on my lens a bit, so if you see a UFO in the video hovering over San Francisco Bay, it's probably just condensation on the lens. I'm not part of some government conspiracy. (I tried to get in on it, but I procrastinated too long to submit my resume to the NSA and, by the time they got my resume, the only position left was "TSA Exit Guard - GS7". Those are the guys that make sure you don't go into the secure areas of the airport through the airport exits. And how boring is that job?) Anyhoo, the SF part has some redeeming value. Cool to watch the cargo container ship come through the Golden Gate and get intercepted by the Harbor Pilot and escorted into Oakland. (The Golden Gate is the name of the narrow strait that is the entrance to the San Francisco Bay. The bridge was named for the channel over which it was built.) Click on the photo above to download and view the 9 meg file timelapse4.wmv which can be viewed with Windows Media Player. Posted on 01/14/05. Permalink. Defense Department Plans Camp 6: Franz Kafka Surrenders
In the classic Kafka book "The Trial", a man is charged with a crime, but the crime is so secret, that it cannot be revealed to him. So the man must attempt to present a defense, although he is never sure of what crime he has been charged. Even in his most compelling, paranoid, macabre novel, Kafka fell short of envisioning the machinery of Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to prepare prisons for lifetime imprisonment of people that have never been charged with any crimes. The Defense Department plans to build "Camp 6" with your tax dollars to house hundreds of people in perpetuity, that will never have a trial, never speak to an attorney, and never be charged with a crime. 'That's OK.' You figure. 'They're terrorists, and I'm not a terrorist, so it doesn't affect me.' and you go back to your reality TV show while eating Doritos on the couch. Who says you're not a terrorist? What's a terrorist? What about Eco-Terrorists? Do you own guns? Do you question the government? Do you drive an SUV? Remember, once you get tossed into these modern-day Con Son Island Tiger cages down in the Black Hole of Guantanamo Bay, you have no means to communicate with the outside world. There's no way to prove you're not a terrorist, once you're swallowed by Gitmo. And just in case you need a little geography lesson, Guantanamo Bay is in Cuba, an island nation that your government won't even allow you to visit. So you may want to hit pause on the Tivo and ask yourself - are you more afraid of a couple of muslims, or a government that's just been handed a license to erase people from the face of the earth? Related Links:Photos from Abu Ghraib - These photos seem relevant because, although no cameras are allowed inside Guantanamo Bay, these show U.S. soldiers actions against people "presumed to be guilty", without the benefit of even a show trial. Reuters: US Said to Mull Lifetime Terror-Suspect Detentions Excerpt from 'The Trial' by Franz Kafka Man Held For Four years on 'Secret Evidence' Posted on 01/02/05. Permalink. NTSB Pleas Fall on Deaf Ears at the FAA and Department of Homeland Insecurity The NTSB is responsible for, among other things, making air travel safer in the U.S. They have a list of issues that they feel should be corrected in commercial aircraft, based on previous aviation mortality. However, the FAA, which is responsible for telling the regulating the commerical airlines, has a slightly different charter. Their goal is to keep the planes flying. So, they basically look at the NTSB recommendations, say they'll cost too much to implement, and keep the birds in the air. It's a classic example of "agency capture", whereby a government bureaucracy becomes a puppet of the industry it's charged with regulating. The FAA is deep in the pockets of the commercial airlines, and they basically ignore what the NTSB recommends. NTSB Most Wanted Transportation Safety Improvements Somehow, the Fear Mongers at the Department of Homeland Insecurity have decided we need to install missile defense systems on all 6,800 commercial airlines in the U.S., at a projected cost of around $10 billion. This would be a collosal waste of money and cost untold number of lives. It is not unreasonable to assume that there is a limit to amount of money to spend to save lives in the United States. Even if we run massive deficits and tax people up to 100% of their income, there is some theoretical ceiling to the funds that can be collected and spent. Therefore, it makes sense to spend those dollars wisely, so that the greatest number of lives can be saved. The number of people in the United States is roughly 290 million people. Heart disease kills 700,00 people a year. Flu and Pneumonia kill 60,000 a year. Alzheimer's Disease kills 50,000 a year. In 2001, when more people died in aircraft related accidents in the United States than ever before in the history of aviation, 918 people died in plane crashes. More people choked to death (3,021) and more people drowned (3,281) than died in plane crashes. Nor is this likely to change. It isn't like gangs of muslims will suddenly begin assembling outside the airports with shoulder fired missiles, shooting down a third of the commercial fleet. Heart disease and Alzheimer's related deaths rarely make headlines, unless they affect someone very well-know, like Ronald Reagan. Although these deaths aren't as fascinaing or as titilating as plane crashes, the people are just as dead, and every dollar that is spent on James Bond missile defense systems of commercial airliners, in direct opposition to the government agency charged with making travel safer, means less money spent on curing the known scourge that afflicts our population, and countless premature deaths. It's my understanding that one of the findings of the Nuremberg Trials that an organ of the state didn't have to directly cause deaths to be guiltly. If they could reasonably expect that their actions would result in the deaths of innocent people, then they were guilty as well. Homeland Insecurity Decides to Equip Commercial Fleet with Missile Defense System Rational discussion on probability and outcome of missile attack on commercial jet Center for Disease Control - Custom Mortality Queries Leading Causes of Death in U.S., All races, all sexes, all ages Odds of dying in any given year Posted on 01/01/05. Permalink. Airplanes, Lasers, and Terrorists....Oh My! I’m not convinced that potential terrorists are painting planes with lasers, primarily, because I don’t see any particular value in doing so. If a “terrorist” wanted to “terrorize”, planes seem somewhat passé. Historically, terrorists have shown a propensity to diversify in their objectives and attack softer targets. Because people are not searched when they board trains, buses, subways, and elevators, these other targets are much softer. In the Middle East, terrorists routinely detonate bombs on buses, in malls, or in outdoor cafes. In Russia, they recently successfully detonated a bomb at the screening point outside a rock concert. So, all of these, in theory, would work to achieve the terrorists goals, if their goals are to “terrorize” and gain recognition for a particular cause. If, on the other hand, they really feel compelled to bring down an airplane, in no way, would that goal involve lasers. It’s not like there are shoulder fired missiles and rocket propelled grenades available for sale in the United States. That’s not reality based thinking. If someone offers to sell you a shoulder fired weapon, I can guarantee you that it is a federal agent running a reverse sting. Besides, the height and speed of the jets during approach and takeoff is well documented, and readily apparent. So, for the terrorists to go around all over the country, pointing laser lights at planes, to calibrate their speed or altitude would not make logical sense. Plus, it would obviously serve to compromise their plan. Finally, keep in mind that every Muslim in the country has been interviewed, interrogated, exported, or deemed an “illegal combatant” and incarcerated deep in the bowels of Camp X-Ray down at Gitmo. I know because I have Muslim friends. They’re all too scared to answer the phone when it rings. So, to believe that there’s suddenly this broad conspiracy all over the country where terrorists are acting in a coordinated manner and shooting laser beams at planes that somehow the CIA, FBI, TSA, State, County, and City authorities all are blissfully unaware of, seems very remote indeed. My theory is that it is either: (a) reflected sunlight (remember, the sun is blinding
if you look directly at it, or if it is deflected into your eyes),
coupled with mass hysteria or Nothing else makes any sense. Unfortunately, we’ve allowed the TSA to operate behind a wall of secrecy, so, in all likelihood, we’ll never know the true cause of these “incidents”. Certainly, the investigation(s) into this phenomenon by the alphabet soup agencies (FAA, NTSB, TSA) will not be open to public scrutiny. See Related: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2972064http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/20030813a.asp http://instapundit.com/archives/020187.php http://www.sgtstryker.com/index.php/archives/airline-laser-threat/ Posted on 01/01/05. Permalink.
Free Software That You Should Be Running On Your Computer
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